Clear and present danger - Tom Clancy [76]
"But we're not. Essentially we have two separate operations, don't we?" Cutter asked. "The air part can operate independently of the in-country part. I admit it'll be less effective, but it can still operate. Doesn't this give us a chance to check out the less tricky side of the plan before we commit to the dangerous part? Doesn't it give us something to take to the Colombians to show that we're really serious?"
Too soon, the voice in Ritter's head said urgently, but his face showed indecision.
"Look, do you want me to take it to the President?" Cutter asked.
"Where is he today - California?"
"Political trip. I would prefer not to bother him with this sort of thing, but -"
It was a curious situation, the DDO thought. He had underestimated Cutter, while the National Security Adviser seemed quite able to overestimate himself. "Okay, you win. EAGLE EYE starts day after tomorrow. It'll take that long to get everyone up and running."
"And SHOWBOAT?"
"One more week to prep the teams. Four days to get them to Panama and meet up with the air assets, check communications systems and all that."
Cutter grinned as he reached for his coffee. It was time to smooth some ruffled feathers, he thought. "God, it's nice to work with a real pro. Look on the bright side, Bob. We'll have two full weeks to interrogate whatever turns up in the air net, and the insertion teams will have a much better idea of where they're needed."
You've already won, you son of a bitch. Do you have to rub it in? Ritter wanted to ask. He wondered what would have happened if he'd called Cutter's cards. What would the President have said? Ritter's position was a vulnerable one. He'd grumbled long and loud within the intelligence community that CIA hadn't run a serious field operation in… fifteen years? It depended on what you meant by "serious," didn't it? Now he was being given the chance, and what had been a nice line to be spoken at the coffee sessions during high-level government conferences was now a gray chicken come home to roost. Field operations like this were dangerous. Dangerous to the participants. Dangerous to those who gave the orders. Dangerous to the governments that sponsored them. He'd told Cutter that often enough, but like many, the National Security Adviser was mesmerized by the glamour of field ops. It was known in the trade as the Mission: Impossible Syndrome. Even professionals could confuse a TV drama with reality, and, throughout government, people tended to hear only that which they wished to hear, and to ignore the unpleasant parts. But it was somewhat late for Ritter to give out his warnings. After all, he'd complained for years that such a mission was possible, and occasionally a desirable adjunct to international policy. And he'd said often enough that his directorate still knew how to do it. The fact that he'd had to recruit field operatives from the Army and Air Force had escaped notice. Time had been when the Agency had been able to use its own private air force and its own private army… and if this worked out, perhaps those times would come again. It was a capability the Agency and the country needed, Ritter thought. Here, perhaps, was his chance to make it all happen. If putting up with amateur power-vendors like Cutter was the price of getting it, then that was the price he'd have to pay.
"Okay, I'll get things moving."
"I'll tell the boss. How soon do you expect we'll have results… ?"
"Impossible to say."
"But before November," Cutter suggested lightly.
"Yeah, probably by then." Politics, too, of course. Well, that was what kept traffic circling around the beltway.
The 1st Special Operations Wing was based at Hurlburt Field, at the west end of the Eglin Air Force Base complex in Florida. It was a unique unit, but any military unit with "Special" in its name was unique by its very nature. The adjective was used for any number of meanings. "Special weapons" most often meant nuclear weapons, and here the word was used to avoid offending the sensibilities of those for whom