Clear and Present Danger

'Two hours after we get back.'

'Okay.' The police were looking at the passing cars, but not searching them. One shined his flashlight into the back of the Subaru. There were some curious things there, but not the right size and shape to be machine guns. He waved them on. Clark took that in and did some supposing. Had the gang war he'd hoped to start already begun?

Robby Jackson had a two-hour layover before boarding the Air Force C-141B, which with its refueling housing looked rather like a green, swept-wing snake. Also aboard were sixty or so soldiers with full gear. The fighter pilot looked at them with some amusement. This was what his little brother did for a living. A major sat down next to him after asking permission - Robby was two grades higher.

'What outfit?'

'Seventh Light.' The major leaned back, trying to get as much comfort as he could. His helmet rested on his lap. Robby lifted it. Shaped much like the German helmet of World War II, it was made of Kevlar, with a cloth camouflage cover around it, and around that, held in place by a green elasticized cloth band, was a medusa-like collection of knotted cloth strips.

'You know, my brother wears one of these things. Heavy enough. What the hell good is it?'

'The Cabbage Patch Hat?' The major smiled, his eyes closed. 'Well, the Kevlar's supposed to stop stuff from tearing your skull apart, and the mop we wrap around it breaks up your outline - makes you harder to see in the bush, sir. Your brother's with us, you said?'

'He's a new nugget - second lieutenant I guess you call him - in the, uh, they call it Ninja-something...'

'Three- Seventeen. First Brigade. I'm brigade intel, Second Brigade. What do you do?'

'Serving two-to-three in the Pentagon at the moment. I fly fighter planes when I'm not driving a desk.'

'Must be nice to do all your work sitting down,' the major observed.

'No.' Robby chuckled. 'The best part is I can get the hell outa Dodge right quick if I got to.'

'Roger that, Captain. What brings you to Panama?'

'We got a carrier group operating offshore. I was down to watch. You?'

'Regular training rotation for one of our battalions. Jungle and tight country is where we work. We hide a lot,' the major explained.

'Guerrilla stuff?'

'Roughly similar tactics. This was mainly a reconnaissance exercise, trying to get inside to gather information, conduct a few raids, that sort of thing.'

'How'd it go?'

The major grunted. 'Not as well as we hoped. We lost some good people out of some important slots - same with you, right? People rotate in, rotate out, and it takes awhile to get the new ones up to speed. Anyway, the reconnaissance units in particular lost some good ones, and it cost us some. That's why we train,' the major concluded. 'Never stops.'

'It's different with us. We deploy as a unit and usually don't lose anybody that way until we come back home.'

'Always figured the Navy was smart, sir.'

'Is it that bad? My brother told me he lost a really good - squad leader? Anyway, is it that big a deal?'

'Can be. I had a guy named Mu oz, really good man for going in the bushes and finding stuff out. Just disappeared one day, off doing some special-ops shit, they told me. The guy who's in his slot now just isn't that good. It happens. You live with it.'

Jackson remembered the name Mu oz, but couldn't remember where from. 'How do I arrange transport down to Monterey?'

'Hell, it's right next door. You want to catch a ride with us, Captain? We don't have all the amenities of the Navy, of course.'

'We do occasionally rough it, Major. Hell, once I didn't even get my bedsheets changed for three whole days. Same week, they made us eat hot dogs for dinner - never forget that cruise. Real bitch that one was. I presume your jeeps have air conditioning?' The two men looked at each other and laughed.

Ryan was given a suite of rooms one floor up from the Governor's entourage, actually paid for by the campaign, which was quite a surprise. That made security easier. Fowler now had a full Secret Service detail, and would keep it until November, and if he were successful, for four years after that. It was a very nice, modern hotel with thick concrete floors, but the sound of the parties down below made its way through.

There came a knock on Jack's door just as he got out of the shower. The hotel had a monogrammed robe hanging there. Ryan put it on to answer the door. It was a fortyish woman dressed to kill - in red, again the current 'power' color. No expert on women's fashions, he wondered how the color of one's clothing imparted anything other than visibility.

'Are you Dr. Ryan?' she asked. It was the way she asked that Jack immediately disliked, rather as though he were a disease carrier.

'Yes. Who might you be?'

'I'm Elizabeth Elliot,' she replied.

'Ms. Elliot,' Jack said. She looked like a Mizz . 'You have me at a disadvantage. I don't know who you are.'

'I'm the assistant adviser for foreign policy.'

'Oh. Okay. Come on in, then.' Ryan pulled the door all the way open and waved her in. He should have remembered. This was 'E.E.,' professor of political science at Bennington, whose geopolitical views, Ryan thought, made Lenin look like Theodore Roosevelt. He'd walked several feet before he realized that she hadn't followed. 'You coming in or aren't you?'

'Like this ?' She just stood there for another ten seconds before speaking again. Jack continued to towel off his hair without saying anything, more curious than anything else.

'I know who you are,' she said defiantly. What the hell she was defying, Jack didn't know. In any case, Ryan had had a long day and was still suffering jetlag from his European trip, added to which was one more hour of Central Time Zone. That partly explained his reply.

'Look, doc, you're the one who caught me coming out of the shower. I have two children, and a wife, who also graduated Bennington, by the way. I'm not James Bond and I don't fool around. If you want to say something to me, just be nice enough to say it. I've been on the go for the past week, and I'm tired, and I need my sleep.'

'Are you always this impolite?'

Jesus! 'Dr. Elliot, if you want to play with the big kids in D.C., Lesson Number One is, Business is Business. You want to tell me something, tell. You want to ask me something, ask.'

'What the hell are you doing in Colombia?' she snapped at him.

'What are you talking about?' Jack asked in a more moderate tone.

'You know what I'm talking about. I know that you know.'

'In that case would you please refresh my memory?'

'Another drug lord just got blown up,' she said, casting a nervous glance up and down the corridor as though a passerby might wonder if she was negotiating price with someone. There is a lot of that at political conventions, and E.E. was not physically unattractive.

'I have no knowledge of any such operation being conducted by the American government or any other. That is to say, I have zero information on the subject of your inquiry. I am not omniscient. Believe it or not, even when you are sanctified by employment in the Central Intelligence Agency, you do not automatically know everything that happens on every rock, puddle, and hilltop in the world. What does the news say?'

'But you're supposed to know,' Elizabeth Elliot protested. Now she was puzzled.

'Dr. Elliot, two years ago you wrote a book about how pervasive we are. It reminded me of an old Jewish story. Some old guy on the shtetl in Czarist Russia who owned two chickens and a broken- down horse was reading the hate rag of the antisemites - you know, the Jews are doing this , the Jews are doing that . So a neighbor asked him why he got it, and the old guy answered that it was nice to see how powerful he was. That's what your book was, if you'll pardon me: about one percent fact and ninety-nine percent invective. If you really want to know what we can and cannot do, I can tell you a few things, within the limits of classification. I promise that you'll be as disappointed as I regularly am. I wish we were half as powerful as you think.'