Debt of Honor

for putting up with me when I—'

'Jack, people like you, well, where would our country be?' Durling turned. 'Cathy, do you know everything Jack has done over the years?'

'Jack? Tell me secrets?' She had a good laugh at that.

'Al?'

'Well, Cathy, it's time you learned,' Trent observed, much to Jack's discomfort.

'There is one thing I've always wondered about,' she said at once. 'I mean, you two are so friendly, but the first time you two met several years ago, I—'

'The dinner, the one before Jack flew off to Moscow?' Trent took a sip of the California chardonnay. 'That was when he set up the defection of the head of the old KGB.'

'What?''

'Tell the story, Al, we have lots of nine,' Durling urged. His wife, Anne, leaned in to hear this one, too. Trent ended up speaking for twenty minutes, telling more than one old tale in the process despite the look on Jack's face.

'That's the sort of husband you have, Dr. Ryan,' the President said when the stories were ended.

Jack looked over at Trent now, a rather intense stare. What was at the end of this?

'Jack, your country needs you for one last thing, and then we'll let you go,' the Congressman said.

'What's that?' Please, not an ambassadorship, he thought, the usual kiss-off for a senior official.

Durling set his glass down. 'Jack, my main job for the next nine months is to get reelected. It might be a tough campaign, and it's going to absorb a lot of my time under the best of circumstances. I need you on the team.'

'Sir, I already am—'

'I want you to be my Vice President,' Durling said calmly. The room got very quiet then. 'The post is vacant as of today, as you know. I'm not sure yet who I want for my second term, and I am not suggesting that you fill the post for more than—what? Not even eleven months. Like Rockefeller did for Gerry Ford. I want somebody whom the public respects, somebody who can run the shop for me when I'm away. I need somebody heavy in foreign affairs. I need somebody who can help me put my foreign-policy team together. And,' he added, 'I know you want out. You've done enough. And so, after this, you can't be called back for a permanent post.'

'Wait a minute. I'm not even in your party,' Jack managed to say.

'As the Constitution was originally drafted, the Vice President was supposed to be the loser in the general election. James Madison and the others assumed that patriotism would triumph over partisanship. Well, they were wrong,' Durling allowed. 'But in this case—Jack, I know you. I will not use you in a political sense. No speeches and baby-kissing.'

'Never pick up a baby to kiss it,' Trent said. 'They always puke on you, and somebody always gets a picture. Always kiss the baby in the mom's arms.' The good political advice was sufficient to lighten the atmosphere a little.

'Your job will be to get the White House organized, to manage national-security affairs, really to help me strengthen my foreign-policy team. And then I'll let you go and nobody will ever call you back. You'll be a free man, Jack,' Durling promised. 'Once and for all.'

'My God,' Cathy said.

'It's what you wanted, too, isn't it?'

Caroline nodded. 'Yes, it is. But—but, I don't know anything about politics. I—'

'Lucky you,' Anne Durling observed. 'You won't have to get stuck with it.'

'I have my work and—'

'And you'll still do it. A nice house comes along with the job,' the President went on. 'And it's temporary.' He turned his head. 'Well, Jack?'

'What makes you think that I can be confirmed—'

'Leave that to us,' Trent said in a way that announced quite clearly that it had already been settled.

'You won't ask me to—'

'My word on it,' the President promised. 'Your obligation ends next January.'

'What about—I mean, that makes me President of the Senate, and in the event of a close vote—'

'I suppose I ought to say that I'll tell you how I want you to vote, and I will, and I hope you'll listen, but I know you'll vote your conscience. I can live with that. As a matter of fact, if you were any other way, I wouldn't be making this offer.'

'Besides, nothing on the schedule will be that close,' Trent assured him. They'd talked that one over, too, the night before.

'I think we should pay more attention to the military,' Jack said.

'If you make your recommendations, I'll incorporate them in the budget. You've taught me a lesson on that, and I may need you to help me hammer it through Congress. Maybe that will be your valedictory.'

'They'll listen to you. Jack,' Trent assured him.

Jesus, Ryan thought, wishing that he'd gone easier on the wine. Predictably he looked over to his wife. Their eyes met, and she nodded. You sure? his eyes asked. She nodded again.

'Mr. President, under the terms of your offer, and just to the end of your term, yes, I will do it.'

Roger Durling motioned to a Secret Service agent, letting her know that Tish Brown could make the press release in time for the morning papers.

Oreza allowed himself to board his boat for the first time since Burroughs had landed his albacore. They left the pier at dawn, and by nightfall the engineer was able to conclude his fishing vacation with another sizable game fish before catching a Continental flight to Honolulu. His return to work would include more than a fish story, but he wouldn't mention the gear that the boat's skipper had dumped over the side as soon as they were out of sight of land. It was a shame to dump the cameras and the expensive lights, but he supposed there was some reason for it.

Clark and Chavez, still covered as Russians, managed to bully their way onto it JAL flight to Narita. On the way aboard they saw a well-dressed man in handcuffs with a military escort, and from twenty feet away, as they moved the man into the first-class cabin, Ding Chavez looked into the eyes of the man who had ordered the death of Kimberly Norton. He briefly wished for his light or a gun, or maybe even a knife, but that was not in the cards. The flight to Japan took just over two boring hours, and both men walked their carry-ons across the international terminal. They had first-class reservations on another JAL flight to Vancouver, and from there they would fly to Washington on an American carrier.

'Good evening,' the Captain said first in Japanese, then in English.

'This is Captain Sato. We expect this to be a smooth flight, and the winds

are good for us. With luck we should be in Vancouver at about seven in the morning, local time.' The voice sounded even more mechanical than the cheap ceiling speakers, but pilots liked talking like robots.

'Thank God,' Chavez observed quietly in English. He did the mental arithmetic and decided that they'd be in Virginia around nine or ten in the evening.

'About right,' Clark thought.

'I want to marry your daughter, Mr. C. I'm going to pop the question when I get back.' There, he'd finally said it. The look his offhand remark generated made him cringe.

'Someday you'll know what words like that do to a man, Ding.' My little baby? he thought, as vulnerable to the moment as any man, perhaps more so.

'Don't want a greaser in the family?'

'No, not that at all. It's more—oh, what the hell, Ding. Easier to spell Chavez than Wojohowitz. If it's okay with her, then I suppose it's okay with me.'

That easy? 'I expected you to bite my head off.'

Clark allowed himself a chuckle. 'No, I prefer guns for that sort of thing. I thought you knew that.'

'The President could not have made a better selection,' Sam Fellows said on 'Good Morning, America.' 'I've known Jack Ryan for nearly eight years. He's one of the brightest people in government service. I can tell you now