Executive orders - Tom Clancy [359]
It was either an elegant roll or a truthful statement, Holtzman thought, and Arnie was too skillful a player for him to tell the difference right off. But the smart thing to do was finish the drink, which he did. A pity that his host preferred cheap booze to go along with his L. L. Bean shirts. Arnie didn't know how to dress, either. Or maybe that was a considered part of his mystique. The political game was so intricate as to be a cross between classical metaphysics and experimental science. You could never know it all, and finding out one part as often as not denied you the ability to find out another, equally important part. But that was why it was the best game in town.
Okay, Arnie, I'll accept that.
Good of you. Van Damm smiled, and refilled the glass. So why did you call me?
It's almost embarrassing. Another pause. I will not participate in the public hanging of an innocent man.
You've done that before, Arnie objected.
Maybe so, but they were all politicians, and they all had it coming in one way or another. I don't know what-okay, how about I'm not into child abuse? Ryan deserves a fair chance.
And you're pissed about losing your story and the Pulitzer that-
I have two of them already, Holtzman reminded him. Otherwise, he would have been taken off the story by his managing editor, but internal politics at the Washington Post were as vicious as those elsewhere in the city.
So?
So, I need to know about Colombia. I need to know about Jimmy Cutter and how he died.
Jesus, Bob, you don't know what our ambassador went through down there today.
Great language for invective, Spanish. A reporter's smile.
The story can't be told, Bob. It just can't.
The story will be told. It's just a question of who tells it, and that will determine how it's told. Arnie, I know enough now to write something, okay?
As so often happened in Washington at times like this, everyone was trapped by circumstance. Holtzman had a story to write. Doing it the right way would, perhaps, resurrect his original story, put him in the running for another Pulitzer-it was still important to him, previous denials notwithstanding, and Arnie knew it-and tell whoever had leaked his story to Ed Kealty that he or she had better leave the Post before Holtzman nailed that name down and wrecked his or her career with a few well-placed whispers and more than a few dead-end assignments. Arnie was trapped by his duty to protect his President, and the only way to do it was to violate the law and his President's trust. There had to be an easier way, the chief of staff thought, to earn a living. He could have made Holtzman wait for his decision, but that would have been mere theatrics, and both men were past that.
No notes, no tape recorder.
Off the record. 'Senior official,' not even 'senior administration official,' Bob agreed.
And I can tell you who to confirm it with.
They know it all?
Even more than I do, van Damm told him. Hell, I just found out about the important part.
A raised eyebrow. That's nice, and the same rules will apply to them. Who really knows about this?
Even the President doesn't know it all. I'm not sure if anybody knows it all.
Holtzman took another sip. It would be his last. Like a doctor in an operating room, he didn't believe in mixing alcohol and work.
FLIGHT 534 TOUCHED down at Istanbul at 2:55 A.M. local time, after a flight of 1,270 miles and three hours, fifteen minutes. The passengers were groggily awake, having been roused by the cabin staff thirty minutes earlier and told to put their seat-backs to the upright position in a series of languages. The landing was smooth, and a few of them raised the plastic shades on the windows to see that they were indeed on the ground at one more anonymous piece of real estate with white runway lights and blue taxiway lights, just like those all over the world. Those getting out stood at the proper time to