The Bear and the Dragon - Tom Clancy [320]
Ed Foley was having a meeting with the Deputy Director (Science and Technology) and two of his senior people when MP walked in. He looked up in surprise, then saw the blue folder in her hand. "Yeah, honey?"
"Excuse me, but this can't wait even one minute." Her tone of voice told as much as her words did.
"Frank, can we get together after lunch?"
"Sure, Ed." DDS&T gathered his documents and his people and headed out.
When they were gone and the door closed, the DCI asked,
"SORGE?"
Mary Pat just nodded and handed the folder across, taking a seat on the couch. Sears remained standing. It was only then that he realized his hands were a little moist. That hadn't happened to him before. Sears, as head of the DI's Office of China Assessments, worked mainly on political evaluations: who was who in the PRC's political hierarchy, what economic policies were being pursued—the Society Page for the People's Republic, as he and his people thought of it, and joked about it over lunch in the cafeteria. He'd never seen anything like this, nothing hotter than handling internal dissent, and while their methods for handling such things tended to be a little on the rough side, as he often put it—mainly it meant summary execution, which was more than a little on the rough side for those affected—the distances involved helped him to take a more detached perspective. But not on this.
"Is this for real?" the DC asked.
"Dr. Sears thinks so. He also thinks we need to get Weaver down from Brown University."
Ed Foley looked over at Sears. "Call him. Right now."
"Yes, sir." Sears left the room to make the call.
"Jack has to see this. What's he doing now?"
"He's leaving for Warsaw in eight hours, remember? The NATO meeting, the photo opportunity at Auschwirz., stopping off at London on the way home for dinner at Buckingham Palace. Shopping on Bond Street," Ed added. There were already a dozen Secret Service people in London working with the Metropolitan Police and MI-5, properly known as the Security Service. Twenty more were in Warsaw, where security concerns were not all that much of an issue. The Poles were very happy with America right now, and the leftover police agencies from the communist era still kept files on everyone who might be a problem. Each would have a personal baby-sitter for the entire time Ryan was in country. The NATO meeting was supposed to be almost entirely ceremonial, a basic feel-good exercise to make a lot of European politicians look pretty for their polyglot constituents.
"Jesus, they're talking about making a move on Grushavoy!" Ed Foley gasped, getting to page three. "Are they totally off their fuckin' rockers?"
"Looks like they found themselves in a corner unexpectedly," his wife observed. "We may have overestimated their political stability."
Foley nodded and looked up at his wife. "Right now?"
"Right now," she agreed.
Her husband lifted his phone and punched speed-dial #1.
"Yeah, Ed, what is it?" Jack Ryan asked.
"Mary and I are coming over."
"When?"
"Now."
"That important?" the President asked.
"This is CRITIC stuff, Jack. You'll want Scott, Ben, and Arnie there, too. Maybe George Winston. The foundation of the issue is his area of expertise."
"China?"
"Yep."
"Okay, come on over." Ryan switched phones. "Ellen, I need SecState, SecTreas, Ben, and Arnie in my office, thirty minutes from right now."
"Yes, Mr. President," his secretary acknowledged. This sounded hot, but Robby Jackson was on his way out of town again, to give a speech in Seattle, at the Boeing plant of all places, where the workers and the management wanted to know about the 777 order to China. Robby didn't have much to say on that point, and so he'd talk about the importance of human rights and America's core beliefs and principles, and all that wave-the-flag stuff. The Boeing people would be polite about it, and it was hard to be impolite to a black man, especially one with Navy Wings of Gold on his lapel, and