stopped. “Ryan, I missed you last night.”
“My wife got a headache, sir. Had to leave. Sorry.”
“Feeling all right now?”
“Yes, sir, thank you.”
“Turn your people loose.”
Ryan stood. “Will do, Mr. President.”
Van Damm followed him out and walked him to the West Entrance. “Nice job, Jack.”
“Gee, they going to start liking me?” Jack asked wryly. The meeting had gone much too well.
“I don't know what happened last night, but Liz is really pissed at your wife.”
“They talked about something, but I don't know what.”
“Jack, you want it straight?” van Damm asked.
Ryan knew that the friendly walk to the door was just too convenient, and the symbolism was explicit enough, wasn't it? “When, Arnie?”
“I'd like to say it's just business and not personal, but it is personal. I'm sorry, Jack, but it happens. The President will give you a glowing sendoff.”
“Nice of him,” Jack replied matter-of-factly.
“I tried, Jack. You know I like you. These things happen.”
“I'll go quietly. But—”
“I know. No back-shots on the way out or after you're gone. You'll be asked in periodically, maybe draw some special missions, liaison stuff. You get an honorable discharge. On that, Jack, you have my word of honor, and the President's. He's not a bad guy, Jack, really he isn't. He's a tough-minded son-of-a-bitch and a good politician, but he's as honest as any man I know. It's just that your way of thinking and his way of thinking are different — and he's the President.”
Jack could have said that the mark of intellectual honesty is the solicitation of opposing points of view. Instead, he said, “Like I said, I'll go quietly. I've been doing this long enough. It's time to relax a little, smell the roses and play with the kids.”
“Good man.” Van Damm patted his arm. “You bring this job off and your going-away statement from the Boss will sparkle. We'll have Callie Weston write it, even.”
“You stroke like a pro, Arnie.” Ryan shook his hand and walked off to his car. Van Damm would have been surprised to see the smile on his face.
“Do you have to do it that way?”
“ Elizabeth, ideological differences notwithstanding, he has served his country well. I disagree with him on a lot of things, but he's never lied to me, and he's always tried to give me good advice,” Fowler replied, looking at the plastic-stick microphone. He suddenly wondered if it was working.
“I told you what happened last night.”
“You got your wish. He's on the way out. At this level, you do not throw people out the door. You do it in a civilized and honorable way. Anything else is small-minded and decidedly stupid, politically. I agree with you that he's a dinosaur, but even dinosaurs get a nice spot in the museums.”
“But—”
“That's all. Okay, you had words with his wife last night. I'm sorry about that, but what kind of person penalizes someone for what their wife did?”
“Bob, I have a right to expect your support!”
Fowler didn't like that, but responded reasonably. “And you have it, Elizabeth. Now, this is neither the time nor the place for this sort of discussion.”
Marcus Cabot arrived at Andrews Air Force Base just after lunch for his flight to Korea. The arrangements were more luxurious than they looked. The aircraft was a U.S. Air Force C-141B Starlifter, an aircraft with four engines and an oddly serpentlike fuselage. Loaded into the cargo area, he saw, was essentially a house trailer complete with kitchen, living and bed rooms. It was also heavily insulated — the C-141 is a noisy aircraft, especially aft. He went out the front door to meet the flight crew. The pilot, he saw, was a blond captain of thirty years. There were, in fact, two complete flight crews. The flight would be long, with a fueling stop at Travis Air Force Base in California, followed by three midair “tankings” over the Pacific. It would also be singularly boring, and he would sleep through it as much as possible. He wondered if government service were really worth it, and the knowledge that Ryan would soon be gone — Arnold van Damm had gotten the word to him — didn't improve his outlook. The Director of Central Intelligence strapped himself in and started to read through his briefing documents. An Air Force non-com offered him a glass of wine, which he started on as the aircraft taxied off the ramp.
John Clark and Domingo Chavez boarded their own flight later that afternoon for Mexico City. It was better, the senior man thought, to get settled in and acclimated. Mexico City was yet another high-altitude metropolis whose thin air was made all the worse by air pollution. Their mission gear was carefully packed away, and they expected no trouble with customs clearance. Neither carried a weapon, of course, as this sort of mission did not require it.
The truck pulled off the Interstate exactly thirty-eight hours and forty minutes after leaving the cargo terminal at Norfolk. That was the easy part. It took fifteen minutes and all the driver's skill to back his rig up to the concrete loading dock outside the barn. A warm sun had thawed the ground into a six-inch-deep layer of gooey mud that almost prevented him from completing the maneuver, but on the third try he made it. The driver jumped down and walked back towards the dock.
“How do you open this thing?” Russell asked.
“I'll show you.” The driver paused to scrape the mud off his boots, then worked the latch on the container. “Need help unloading?”
“No, I'll do it myself. There's coffee over in the house.”
“Thank you, sir. I could use a cup.”
“Well, that was easy enough,” Russell said to Qati, as they watched the man go away. Marvin opened the doors and saw a single large box with Sony printed on all four sides, along with arrows to show which side was up, and the image of a champagne glass to tell the illiterate it was delicate. It was also sitting on a wooden pallet. Marvin removed the fasteners that held it in place, then fired up the fork-lift. The task of removing the bomb and putting it inside the barn was completed in another minute. Russell shut the fork-lift down, then draped a tarp over the box. By the time the trucker came back, the cargo box was again closed.
“Well, you got your bonus,” Marvin told him, handing over the cash.
The driver riffled through the bills. Now he got to drive the box back to Norfolk, but first he'd hit the nearest truck-stop for eight hours of sleep. “A pleasure doing business with you, sir. You said you might have another job for me in a month or so?”
“That's right.”
“Here's how you reach me.” The trucker handed over his card.
“Heading right back?”
“After I get some sack time. I just heard on the radio there's snow coming tomorrow night. A big one, they say.”
“That time of year, isn't it?”
“Sure is. You have a good one, sir.”
“Be careful, man,” Russell said, shaking his hand one more time.
“It's a mistake to let him go,” Ghosn observed to the Commander in Arabic.
“I think not. The only face he has really seen is Marvin's, after all.”
“True.”
“Have you checked it?” Qati asked.
There is no damage to the packing box. I will do a more detailed check tomorrow. I would say that we are almost ready.'
“Yes.”
