Debt of Honor - Tom Clancy [463]
"Mr. President, under the terms of your offer, and just to the end of your term, yes, I will do it."
Roger Durling motioned to a Secret Service agent, letting her know that Tish Brown could make the press release in time for the morning papers.
Oreza allowed himself to board his boat for the first time since Burroughs had landed his albacore. They left the pier at dawn, and by nightfall the engineer was able to conclude his fishing vacation with another sizable game fish before catching a Continental flight to Honolulu. His return to work would include more than a fish story, but he wouldn't mention the gear that the boat's skipper had dumped over the side as soon as they were out of sight of land. It was a shame to dump the cameras and the expensive lights, but he supposed there was some reason for it.
Clark and Chavez, still covered as Russians, managed to bully their way onto it JAL flight to Narita. On the way aboard they saw a well-dressed man in handcuffs with a military escort, and from twenty feet away, as they moved the man into the first-class cabin, Ding Chavez looked into the eyes of the man who had ordered the death of Kimberly Norton. He briefly wished for his light or a gun, or maybe even a knife, but that was not in the cards. The flight to Japan took just over two boring hours, and both men walked their carry-ons across the international terminal. They had first-class reservations on another JAL flight to Vancouver, and from there they would fly to Washington on an American carrier.
"Good evening," the Captain said first in Japanese, then in English.
"This is Captain Sato. We expect this to be a smooth flight, and the winds
are good for us. With luck we should be in Vancouver at about seven in the morning, local time." The voice sounded even more mechanical than the cheap ceiling speakers, but pilots liked talking like robots.
"Thank God," Chavez observed quietly in English. He did the mental arithmetic and decided that they'd be in Virginia around nine or ten in the evening.
"About right," Clark thought.
"I want to marry your daughter, Mr. C. I'm going to pop the question when I get back." There, he'd finally said it. The look his offhand remark generated made him cringe.
"Someday you'll know what words like that do to a man, Ding." My little baby? he thought, as vulnerable to the moment as any man, perhaps more so.
"Don't want a greaser in the family?"
"No, not that at all. It's more—oh, what the hell, Ding. Easier to spell Chavez than Wojohowitz. If it's okay with her, then I suppose it's okay with me."
That easy? "I expected you to bite my head off."
Clark allowed himself a chuckle. "No, I prefer guns for that sort of thing. I thought you knew that."
"The President could not have made a better selection," Sam Fellows said on "Good Morning, America." "I've known Jack Ryan for nearly eight years. He's one of the brightest people in government service. I can tell you now that he is one of the men most responsible for the rapid conclusion of hostilities with Japan, and was also instrumental in the recovery of the financial markets."
"There have been reports that his work at CIA—"
"You know that I am not free to reveal classified information." Those leaks would be handled by others, and the proper senators on both sides of the aisle were being briefed in this morning as well. "I can say that Dr. Ryan has served our country with the utmost personal honor. I cannot think of another intelligence official who has earned the trust and respect that Jack Ryan has."
"But ten years ago—the incident with the terrorists. Have we ever had a Vice President who actually—"
"Killed people?" Fellows shook his head at the reporter. "A lot of Presidents and Vice Presidents have been soldiers. Jack defended his family against a vicious and direct attack, like any American would. I can tell you that out where I live in Arizona, nobody would fault the man for that."
"Thanks, Sam," Ryan said, watching