18
PROGRESS
Wellington had three men working for him. Each was an experienced investigator, accustomed to politically sensitive cases which demanded the utmost discretion. His job was to identify likely areas of field investigation, then to examine and correlate the information they returned to his office in the Justice Department. The tricky part was to gather the information without notice going back to the target of the probe, and Wellington correctly thought that that part of the task would be particularly difficult with a target like Ryan. The DDCI was nothing if not perceptive. His previous job had qualified him as a man who could hear the grass grow and read tea-leaves with the best of them. That meant going slow… but not too slow. It also seemed likely to the young attorney that the purpose of his investigation was not to produce data suitable for a grand jury, which gave him quite a bit more leeway than he might otherwise have had. He doubted that Ryan could have been so foolish as to have actually broken any law. The SEC rules had been grazed, perhaps bent, but on inspection of the SEC investigation documents, it was clear that Ryan's action had, arguably, been made in good faith and full expectation that he had not violated any statute. That judgment might have been technical on Ryan's part, but the law was technical. The Securities and Exchange Commission could have pushed, and might even have gotten an indictment, but they would never have gotten a conviction… maybe they could have muscled him into a settlement and/or a consent decree, but Wellington doubted that also. They'd suggested it as a sign of good faith, and he had answered with a flat no. Ryan was not a man to tolerate being pushed around. This man had killed people. That didn't frighten Wellington in any way. It was merely an indicator of the man's strength of character. Ryan was a tough, formidable son-of-a-bitch who met things head-on when he had to.
That's his weakness, Wellington told himself.
He prefers to meet things head-on. He lacks subtlety. It was a common failing of the honest, and a grievous weakness in a political environment.
Ryan had political protectors, however. Trent and Fellows were nothing if not canny political craftsmen.
What an interesting tactical problem…
Wellington saw his task as two-fold: to get something that could be used against Ryan, and something that would also neutralize his political allies.
Carol Zimmer. Wellington closed one file and opened another.
There was a photograph from the Immigration and Naturalization Service. That one was years old — she'd been a child-bride in the most literal sense of the word when she'd first come to America, a tiny little thing with a doll's face. A more recent photo taken by his field investigator showed a mature woman still short of forty, her face now showing some lines where once there had been the smoothness of china. If anything she was more beautiful than before. The timid, almost hunted look in the first photo — understandable, since it had been taken after her escape from Laos — had been replaced by that of a woman secure in her life. She had a cute smile, Wellington told himself.
The lawyer remembered a classmate in law school, Cynthia Yu. Damn, hadn't she been quite a lay… same sort of eyes, almost, the Oriental coquette…
Might that be it!
Something that simple?
Ryan was married: Wife, Caroline Muller Ryan, M.D., eye surgeon. Photo: a quintessential Wasp, except that she was Catholic, slender and attractive, mother of two.
Well, just because a man has a pretty wife…
Ryan had established an educational trust fund… Wellington opened another file. It was a Xerox copy of the document.
Ryan, he saw, had done it alone, through a lawyer — not his regular lawyer! A D.C. guy. And Caroline Ryan had not signed the papers… did she even know about it? The information on his desk suggested that she did not.
Wellington next checked the birth records on the newest Zimmer child. Her husband had been killed in a “routine training accident”—the timing was equivocal. She might have gotten pregnant the very week her husband had been killed. Then again, she might not have. It was her seventh child — eighth? You couldn't tell with those, could you? Gestation could be nine months, or less. First kids were usually late. Later kids, as often as not, were early. Birth weight of the child… five pounds seven ounces… less than average, but she was an Asian, and they were small… did they have smaller-than-normal babies? Wellington made his notes, recognizing that he had a series of maybes, and not a single fact.
But, hell, was he really looking for facts?
The two punks. Ryan's bodyguards, Clark and Chavez, had mangled one of them. His investigator had checked that out with the Anne Arundel County Police Department. The local cops had signed off on Clark's story. The punks in question had long but minor records, a few summary probations, a few sessions with youth- counselors. The cops were delighted at the way things had turned out. “Okay with me if he'd shot that worthless little fucker,” a police sergeant had said, with a laugh recorded on the investigator's tape cassette. “That Clark guy looked like one very serious dude. His sidekick ain't much different. If those punks were dumb enough to hassle them, hey, it's a tough world, y'know? Two other gang members confirmed the story the way the good guys told it, and that's a closed case, man.”
But why had Ryan set his two bodyguards on them?
He's killed to protect his family, hasn't he…? This is not a guy who tolerates danger to his… friends… family… lovers?
It is possible.
“Hmm…” Wellington observed to himself. The DDCI is getting a little on the side. Nothing illegal, just unsavory. Also out of character for the saintly Dr. John Patrick Ryan. When his lover is annoyed by some local gang members, he simply sics his bodyguards on them, like a mafia capo might do, as a lordly public service that no cop would ever bother fooling with.
Might that be enough?
No.
He needed something more. Evidence, some sort of evidence. Not good enough for a grand jury… but good enough for — what? To launch an official investigation. Of course. Such investigations were never really secret, were they? A few whispers, a few rumors. Easily done. But first Wellington needed something to hang his hat on.
“There are those who say this could be a preview of the Superbowl: Three weeks into the NFL season, the Metrodome. Both teams are two and oh. Both teams look like the class of their respective conferences. The San Diego Chargers take on the Minnesota Vikings.”
“You know, Tony Wills's rookie season has started even more spectacularly than his college career. Only two games, and he has three hundred six yards rushing in forty-six carries — that's six-point-seven yards every time he touches the ball, and he did that against the Bears and the Falcons, two fine rushing defenses,” the color man observed. “Can anybody stop Tony Wills?”
“And a hundred twenty-five yards in his nine pass receptions. It's no wonder that they call this kid the Franchise.”
“Plus his doctorate from Oxford University.” The color man laughed. “Academic All-American, Rhodes Scholar, the man who singlehandedly put Northwestern University back on the map with two trips to the Rose Bowl. You suppose he's faster than a speeding bullet?”
“We'll find out. That rookie middle linebacker for the Chargers, Maxim Bradley, is the best thing I've seen since Dick Butkus came out of Illinois, the best middle linebacker Alabama ever turned out — and that's the school of Leroy Jordan, Cornelius Bennett, and quite a few other all-pros. They don't call him the Secretary of Defense for nothing.” It was already the biggest joke in the NFL, referring to the team owner, Dennis Bunker, the real SecDef.
“Tim, I think we got us a ball game!”
“I should be there,” Brent Talbot observed. “Dennis is.”
“If I tried to keep him away from his games, he'd resign,” President Fowler said. “Besides, he used his own
