work this morning.”
“Yeah. We did the postmortem.”
“What’s the latest?”
“The FBI’s got him. That’s all we know. That’s all we may ever know.”
“He’ll break,” Ryan Senior predicted. “Might take a couple weeks, but he’ll go.”
“How can you be sure?”
“In his heart, he’s a coward, son. Most of them are. He’ll put on a good show, but it won’t hold up. We gotta talk about something. Kealty’s already taken the gloves off.”
“Digging for dirt?”
The former President nodded. “Arnie’s nosing around, but it sounds like Kealty’s people are talking illegal espionage. Might be a story breaking in the
“‘Illegal espionage,’” Jack repeated. “Sounds a lot like The Campus. Could they-”
“Too early to tell. Maybe. If so, they’ll use it as an opening salvo-try to blow us out of the water before the race really gets going.”
“What can we do?”
“There’s no ‘we,’ son,” Ryan said gently, then smiled. “I’ll handle it.”
“You don’t look worried. That worries me.”
“It’s politics. Nothing more. It’s going to get uglier, but Kealty’s days are numbered. The only question is how long it’ll take him to realize it. Hell, I’ll tell you what I’m really worried about.”
“What’s that?”
“Telling your mom you’ve gone into the family business.”
“Ah, shit.”
“If The Campus comes out and she reads about it in the paper or gets shanghaied by a reporter, you and I are in the doghouse.”
“So how do we do it?”
“Keep it vague. I’ll handle the part about The Campus. You tell her what you do there.”
“Not all of it, right? Not the field stuff.”
“No.”
“Better that you don’t know, either, huh?”
Ryan nodded.
“And if she asks?” Jack said.
“She won’t. She’s too smart for that.”
“I gotta tell you, Dad, I’m not looking forward to this. She isn’t gonna be happy.”
“That’s an understatement. Better now than later. Trust me.”
Jack Ryan Jr. considered this, then shrugged. “Okay.”
Ryan stood up, then clapped his son on the shoulder. “Come on, we’ll face the fire together.”
Grant Blackwood
Tom Clancy
