Finally, the kids went off to bed, and they were alone.
“I'm sorry I snapped at you,” Cathy said.
“It's okay, I guess I deserved it.” Ryan was willing to say almost anything to calm things down.
“No, I was wrong, Jack. I was feeling bitchy, and I had cramps, and my back hurt. What's wrong with you is that you're working too hard and drinking too much.” She came over to kiss him. “Smoking, Jack?”
He was amazed. He hadn't expected to be kissed. More than that, he expected an explosion if she discovered that he'd smoked. “Sorry, babe. Bad day at the office. I wimped.”
Cathy held his hands. “Jack, I want you to cut back on the drinking, and get your rest. That's your problem, that and the stress. We'll worry about the smoking later, just so you don't smoke around the kids. I haven't been very sympathetic, and I've been a little wrong myself, but you have to clean up your act. What you've been doing is bad for you, and bad for us.”
“I know.”
“Go to bed. You need sleep more than anything else.”
Being married to a physician had its drawbacks. Chief among those was that you couldn't argue with one. Jack kissed her on the cheek and did as he was told.
30
EAST ROOM
Clark arrived at the house at the proper time and had to do something unusual. He waited. After a couple of minutes, he was ready to knock on the door, but then it opened. Dr. Ryan (male) came out partway, then stopped and turned to kiss Dr. Ryan (female), who watched him walk off, and, after his back was fully turned, fired off a beaming smile at the car.
All right! Clark thought. Maybe he did have a new career set up. Jack also looked fairly decent, and Clark told him so as soon as he got in the car.
“Yeah, well, I got sent to bed early,” Jack chuckled, tossing his paper on the front seat. “Forgot to have a drink, too.”
“Couple more days like that and you just might be human again.”
“Maybe you're right.” But he still lit up a cigarette, somewhat to Clark 's annoyance. Then he realized just how smart Caroline Ryan was. One thing at a time. Damn, Clark told himself, that is some broad.
“I'm set up for the test flight. Ten o'clock.”
“Good. It is nice to put you to some real work, John. Playing SPO must be boring as hell,” Ryan said, opening the dispatch box.
“It has its moments, sir,” Clark replied, pulling onto Falcon's Nest Road. It was another quiet day on the dispatches, and soon Ryan had his head buried in the morning Post.
Three hours later, Clark and Chavez arrived at Andrews Air Force Base. A pair of VC-2oBs had already been scheduled for routine training flights. The pilots and crews of the 89th Military Airlift—“The President's”—Wing had a strict regimen for maintaining proficiency. The two aircraft took off a few minutes apart and headed east to perform various familiarization maneuvers to acquaint two new co-pilots with air-traffic control procedures — which the drivers already knew backwards and forwards, of course, but that was beside the point.
In the back, an Air Force technical sergeant was doing his own training, playing with the sophisticated communications equipment that the plane carried. He occasionally looked aft to see that civilian, whoever the hell he was, talking into a flower pot, or just into a little green stick. There are some things, the sergeant thought, that a guy just isn't supposed to understand. He was entirely correct.
Two hours later, the two Gulfstreams landed back at Andrews and rolled to a halt at the VIP terminal. Clark gathered up his gear and walked out to meet another civilian who'd been aboard the other aircraft. The pair walked off to their car, already talking.
“I could understand part of what you were saying — clear, I mean,” Chavez reported. “Say about a third of it, maybe a little less.”
“Okay, we'll see what the techies can do with it.” The drive back to Langley took thirty-five minutes, and from there Clark and Chavez drove back into Washington for a late lunch.
Bob Holtzman had gotten the call the previous evening. It had come on his unlisted home line. A curt, short message, it had also perked his interest. At two in the afternoon, he walked into a small Mexican place in Georgetown called Esteban's. Most of the business crowd had gone, leaving the place about a third full, mainly with kids from Georgetown University. A wave from the back told him where to go.
“Hello,” Holtzman said, sitting down.
“You Holtzman?”
“That's right,” the reporter said. “And you are?”
“Two friendly guys,” the older one said. “Join us for lunch?”
“Okay.” The younger one got up and started feeding quarters into a jukebox that played Mexican music. In a moment, it was certain that his tape recorder wouldn't have a chance of working.
“What do you want to see me about?”
“You've been writing some pieces on the Agency,” the older one started off. “The target of your articles is the Deputy Director, Dr. John Ryan.”
“I never said that,” Holtzman replied.
“Whoever leaked all that shit to you lied. It's a set-up.”
“Says who?”
“Just how honest a reporter are you?”
“What do you mean?” Holtzman asked.
“If I tell you something totally off the record, will you print it?”
“That depends on the nature of the information. What exactly is your intention?”
“What I mean, Mr. Holtzman, is that I can prove to you that you've been lied to, but the proof of that can never be revealed. It would endanger some people. It would also prove that somebody's been using you to grind an axe or two. I want to know who that person is.”
“You know that I can never reveal a source. That violates our code of ethics.”
“Ethics in a reporter,” the man said, just loudly enough to be heard over the music. “I like that. Do you also protect sources who lie to you?”
“No, we don't do that.”
“Okay, then I'm going to tell you a little story, but the condition is that you may never, ever reveal what I am going to tell you. Will you honor such a condition?”
“What if I find out you are misleading me?”
“Then you will be free to print it. Fair enough?” Clark got a nod. “Just remember, I will be very unhappy if you ever print it, 'cuz I ain't lying. One more thing, you can't ever use what I am going to tell you as a lead to do your own digging.”
“That's asking a lot.”
“You make the call, Mr. Holtzman. You have the reputation of an honest reporter, and a pretty smart one. There are some things that can't be reported — well, that's going too far. Let's say that there are things that have to remain secret for a very long time. Like years. What I'm getting at is this: you've been used. You have been conned into printing lies in order to hurt someone. Now, I'm not a reporter, but if I were, that would bother me. It would bother me because it's wrong, and it would bother me because someone took me for a sucker.”
“You have it figured out. Okay, I agree to your conditions.”
“Fair enough.” Clark told his story. It took ten minutes.
“What about the mission? Where exactly did the man die?”
“Sorry, pal. And you can forget about finding that one out. Less than ten people can answer that.” Clark 's lie was a clever one. “If you even manage to figure out who they are, they won't talk — they can't. Not too many people voluntarily leak information about breaking laws.”
“And the Zimmer woman?”
