But they could not know that. Jack had given his word. Given his word to what? For what?
The worst part of all, it was now affecting him in a way that was both new and totally unexpected. He'd disappointed his wife again this night. It was incomprehensible to him. Like throwing a light switch and getting no light, like turning the key to start the car and—
Like not being a man. That was the simple description.
I am a man. I've done all the things a man can do.
Try explaining that to your wife, chump!
I've fought for my family, for my country, killed for my family and my country. I've won respect among the best of men. I've done things that can never be known and kept the secrets that had to be kept. I've served as well as any man can.
So why are you looking out at the water at two in the morning, ace?
I've made a difference! Jack's mind raged.
Who knows! Who cares!
But what of my friends!
A whole lot of good they do you — besides, what friends! When's the last time you saw Skip Tyler or Robby Jackson! Your friends at Langley — why not confide your problems to them?
Dawn came as a surprise, but not so much a surprise as that he'd actually slept, sitting alone in the living room. Jack rose, feeling the aches in his muscles unhelped by whatever number of hours he'd not been awake. It hadn't been sleep, he told himself on the way to the bathroom. It was just that he hadn't been awake. Sleep was rest, and he felt singularly unrested, with a pounding headache from the cheap wine of the previous night. The only good news — if that's what it was — was that Cathy didn't get up. Jack fixed his own coffee and was waiting at the door when Clark drove up.
“Another great weekend, I see,” the man said, as Ryan got into the car.
“Et tu, John?”
“Look, Deputy Director, you want to take a swing at me, go right ahead. You looked like shit a couple of months back and you're getting worse instead of better. When's the last time you took a vacation, got away for more than a day or two, you know, maybe pretended you were a real person instead of some fuckin' government ticket-puncher who's afraid that if he leaves nobody'll notice?”
“Clark, you do have a way of brightening my mornings.”
“Hey, man, I'm just a SPO, but don't bitch if I take the 'protective' part seriously, 'kay?” John pulled the car over and parked it. “Doc, I've seen this before. People burn out. You're burning out. You're burning the candle both ends and the middle That's hard to do when you're in your twenties, and you ain't in your twenties anymore, in case nobody bothered telling you.”
“I'm quite aware of the infirmities that come with age.” Ryan tried a wry smile to show that it wasn't that big a deal, that Clark was overdoing it.
It didn't work. Suddenly it occurred to John that his wife hadn't been at the door. Trouble at home? Well, he couldn't ask about that, could he? What he saw in Ryan's face was bad enough. It wasn't just fatigue. He was tiring from within, all the shit he was taking from up the chain of command, the strain of backstoppmg Director Cabot on damned near everything that went out the front door. Cabot — not a bad guy, he meant well, but the truth of the matter was that he just didn't know what the hell he was doing. So Congress depended on Ryan, and the Operations and Intelligence Directorates depended on Ryan for leadership and coordination. He couldn't escape his responsibilities, and didn't have the good sense to realize that some were really things he could leave to others. The directorate chiefs could have taken up more of the slack, but they were letting Ryan do it all. A strong bark from the Deputy Director's office could have set that right, but would Cabot back him up — or would those White House pukes take it as a sign that Jack was trying a takeover?
Fuckin' politics! Clark thought as he pulled back onto the road Office politics Political politics And some thing was wrong at home, too Clark didn't know what, but he knew it was something.
Doc, you're too damned good a man for this!
“Can I lay a piece of advice on you?”
“Go ahead,” Jack replied, looking through dispatches.
“Take two weeks, go to Disney World, Club Med, find a beach and walk it. Get the hell out of town for a while.”
“The kids are in school.”
“So take them out of school, for Christ's sake! Better yet, maybe, leave them and get away, you and your wife. No, you're not that kind. Take them to see Mickey.”
“I can't. They're in school—”
“They're in grammar school not graduate school, Doc. Missing two weeks of long-division and learning to spell 'squirrel' won't stunt their intellectual growth. You need to get away, recharge the batteries, smell the fucking roses!”
“Too much work, John.”
“You listen to me! You know how many friends I've buried? You know how many people I went out with who never got the chance to have a wife and kids and a nice house on the water? A lot, pal, a whole lot, never came close to having what you have. You got all that, and you're trying very damned hard to end up dead — and that's what's gonna happen, Doc. One way or another, give it maybe ten years.”
“I have a job to do!”
“It ain't important enough to wreck your fucking life for, you dumb ass! Can't you see that?”
“And then who runs the shop?”
“Sir, you might be hard to replace when you're at your best, but the shape you're in now, that Goodley kid can do your job at least as well as you can.” And that, Clark saw, scored for points. “Just how effective do you think you are right now?”
“Will you do me a favor and just drive the car.” There was another SPINNAKER report waiting for him, according to coded phrases in the morning's dispatches, along with one from NIITAKA. This would be a busy day.
Just what he needed, Jack thought to himself, closing his eyes for a moment's rest.
It got worse. Ryan was surprised to find himself at work, more surprised that fatigue had defeated morning coffee and allowed him to sleep for forty minutes or so on the way in. He accepted Clark's told-you-so look and made his way up to the 7th floor. A messenger brought in the two important files, along with a note that Director Cabot was going to be late. The guy was keeping banker's hours. Spies were supposed to work harder, Jack thought. I sure as hell do.
NIITAKA came first. The Japanese, the report said, were planning to renege on a rare trade concession made only six months earlier. It would be explained away as “unfortunate and unforeseen” circumstances, part of which might be true, Ryan thought as he read down the page — the Japanese had as many domestic political problems as everyone else — but there was something else: they were going to coordinate something in Mexico… something to do with the state visit of their Prime Minister to Washington the coming February. Instead of buying American farm goods, they were opting to buy them cheaper from Mexico, playing that off against reduced tariff barriers into that country. That was the plan, in any case. They weren't sure they could get the concession from Mexico, and they were planning…
… a bribe?
“Jesus,” Ryan breathed. The Mexican Institutional Revolutional Party — PRI — didn't exactly have an exemplary record for integrity, but this…? It would be handled in face-to-face talks in Mexico City. If they got the concession, trading access to Mexican markets for opening Japan to Mexican foodstuffs, then the amount of American foodstuffs they had committed to buy the previous February would be reduced. It made good business sense. Japan would get food a little cheaper than they could in America while at the same time opening up a new market. Their excuse to American farmers would have to do with agricultural chemicals that their food-and-drug agency would decide, much to everyone's surprise, not to like for reasons of public health.
The bribe was fully in proportion to the magnitude of the target. Twenty-five million dollars, to be paid in a roundabout, quasi-legal fashion. When the Mexican president left office the following year, he would head a new corporation that… no, they would buy out a corporation he already owned for fair market value, and the new ownership would keep him on, while inflating the value of the business and paying his impressive salary in return for
