Debt of Honor - Tom Clancy [150]
"I haven't read the text of his speech yet. I have it here somewhere." Durling gestured at his desk.
"Might be a good idea to do so. I just did."
The President nodded. "And what else? I know there's more."
"And I told Mary Pat to activate THISTLE." He explained briefly what that was.
"You really should get my permission first."
"That's what I'm here for, sir. You know a little about Clark. He doesn't scare easily. THISTLE includes a couple of people in their Foreign Ministry and MITI. I think we want to know what they're thinking."
"They're not enemies," Durling observed.
"Probably not," Jack conceded, for the first time allowing for the fact that the proper response wasn't certainly not, a fact the President noted with a raised eyebrow. "We still need to know, sir. That's my recommendation."
"Okay. Approved. What else?"
"I also told her to get Kimberly Norton out, soonest. It ought to happen in the next twenty-four hours."
"Sending Goto a message, are we?"
"That's part of it. Simpler version is, we know she's there, and she's an American citizen and—"
"And I have kids, too. Also approved. Save the piety for church, Jack,"
Durling ordered with a smile. "How will it go?"
"If she agrees to come out, they drive her to the airport and fly her to Seoul. They have clothes for her, and a fresh passport, and first-class tickets for her and an escort she'll meet at the terminal. She changes planes to a KAL flight to New York. We check her into a hotel, settle her down, and debrief. We fly her parents in from Seattle, and explain to them that it's to be kept quiet. The girl will probably need psychological counseling—I mean, really need it. That will help with the low profile. The FBI will assist on that one. Her father's a cop. He should play along." And that was neat and tidy enough for anyone, wasn't it?
The President gave Ryan a nod. "So then, what do we tell Goto about it?"
"That's your decision, Mr. President. I would recommend nothing at the moment. Let's debrief the girl first. Say a week or so, and then the Ambassador will check in for the usual courtesy visit to present your greetings to a new head of government—"
"And ask him politely how his countrymen will react if Mr. Nationalist turned out to be dipping his wick in a round-eye. Then we extend a small olive branch, right?" Durling caught on quickly enough, Jack thought.
"That's my recommendation, sir."
"A very small one," the President noted dryly.
"Just one olive on it for the moment," Ryan conceded.
"Approved," Durling said again, adding more sharply, "Next are you going to suggest what olive branch to offer?"
"No, sir. Have I pushed too much?" Jack asked, realizing just how far he had gone.
Durling almost apologized for speaking crossly to his National Security Advisor. "You know, Bob was right about you."
"Excuse me?"
"Bob Fowler," Durling said, waving Ryan into a chair. "You ticked me off pretty bad when I brought you in the first time."
"Sir, I was a burn-out then, remember?" Jack did. The nightmares hadn't stopped yet. He saw himself, sitting there in the National Military Command Center, telling people what they had to do, but in the nightmare they couldn't see or hear him, as the Hot Line message kept coming in, taking his country closer and closer to the war he had in fact probably stopped. The full story on that had never been written in the open media. Just as well, everyone who had been there knew.
"I didn't understand that then. Anyway"—Durling raised his arms to stretch—"when we dropped the ball last summer. Bob and I talked some things over up at Camp David. He recommended you for the job. Surprised?" the President asked with a twisty grin.
"Very," Jack admitted quietly. Arnie van Damm had never told him that story. Ryan wondered why.
"He said you're one levelheaded son of a bitch when the crap hits the fan. He also said you were an opinionated, pushy son of a bitch the rest of the time. Good judge of character, Bob