It was after ten-thirty in the evening when Kealty climbed out of Marine One on the White House’s back lawn. On the short chopper flight over from Andrews Air Force Base he’d been informed by his chief of staff, Wesley McMullen, that Benton Thayer needed to meet with him in the Oval Office. Thayer had also asked that Mike Brannigan be there. This was odd, the campaign manager requesting the attorney general be present at a meeting, but Wes had everyone assembled and waiting on the President.
Kealty shot straight into the office without going to the residence first. He still wore his tuxedo, having not changed out of it during the twenty-minute flight from Richmond.
“Can we make this quick, guys? It’s been a long day.”
Thayer sat on one of the two sofas, Wes McMullen sat next to him, and Brannigan sat across, next to Kealty.
The campaign manager got right down to it. “Mr. President. Something came into my possession today. A computer drive. It was left on my car at my club, I have no idea who gave it to me, or why I was chosen.”
“What is on it?”
“It is a dossier on a retired Navy SEAL and CIA paramilitary operations officer named John Clark. He is a recipient of the Medal of Honor.”
“I’m bored already, Benton.”
“You won’t be bored for long, Mr. President. Clark is a close personal friend of Jack Ryan’s; they worked together on certain operations. Certain black-ops — type missions.”
Kealty leaned forward. “Go on.”
“Someone has plopped a computer drive into our laps that contains evidence of criminal wrongdoing by this Mr. Clark. Assassinations for the CIA.”
Kealty nodded. “Assassinations?”
“As well as wiretaps, breaking and entering, et cetera, et cetera.”
“This file comes from someone at CIA?”
“It doesn’t look like it. The drive does have information from CIA sources, that’s for damn sure. There must be a leak over there. But this information looks like it might be coming from China, or Russia, or even a friendly government that doesn’t want Ryan back in the saddle over here.”
Kealty nodded. Looked at Brannigan. The AG was hearing about this for the first time. He had a look on his face like he knew he had a long night ahead of him checking all this out.
Thayer continued, “But all this stuff Ryan’s buddy Clark did — every murder, every breaking and entering, every illegal wiretap, it is all inadmissible in court.”
“And why is that?”
“Because several years ago President Ryan gave him a full pardon for each and every act he did while working for the CIA.”
Kealty smiled as he stood up slowly. “He didn’t.”
“He did. Some in the Justice Department know about it, but not many.”
Kealty turned to Mike Brannigan. “Mike. Tell me you didn’t know.”
“I had no idea, sir. It must have been sealed. Whoever has given us this information, if it is true, must have gotten the information illegally through—”
“Can he do it?” Kealty asked. “Was that legal, just waving a wand over a CIA black operator to say, ‘no harm, no foul’?”
Brannigan did speak up with some authority now. “A presidential pardon can clean your slate for most any federal crime. Civil, state, and local charges aren’t affected, although I assume with a CIA operator, that wouldn’t be a factor.”
Kealty’s chest heaved with excitement, but then he deflated. “Okay. So… if Ryan gave this meathead a pardon, sure, we could leak it, if we did it carefully. That will be embarrassing for Ryan, but we won’t be able to get to Clark. And without Clark in hand, up on charges, it won’t be anything other than one-day news. You know how Ryan is. He’ll wrap himself up in the flag and salute the camera and say, ‘I did what I had to do to keep your kids safe,’ or some bullshit like that.”
Thayer shook his head. “Ryan pardoned him for his actions with the CIA. But there is one murder in the file that, apparently, did not happen as part of his CIA duties.” Thayer looked down to the pages in his lap. “He supposedly killed an East German named Schuman, 1981, in Berlin. The file I have doesn’t have a word on it. I checked other avenues, as well. As far as the CIA is concerned, even internally, this never happened.”
Kealty connected the dots. “So if he is off the hook for killings while working his CIA job, and this murder was not a CIA job…”
Thayer said, “Then the full pardon is irrelevant.”
Ket size='alty looked to Brannigan. “Is that enough to pick him up on?”
Mike Brannigan looked stunned. “Mr. President. I am only just hearing about this. I really need to get together with my staff, some key people at FBI, and look over any information you have on Clark. I can tell you DOJ is going to need to know that this information would be admissible in court before they will go any further. I mean, who the hell is this source?”
Kealty looked at the attorney general. “If you can corroborate information in Benton’s file through CIA or other sources, then you won’t need Benton’s file anymore. The source becomes a nonissue. It’s just a nudge in the right direction.”
“Mr. President, I—”
“And Mike, I
Wes McMullen, the chief of staff, had been silent throughout the conversation, but now he leaned in. “Isn’t there a law that says we can’t out a CIA agent?”
There were shrugs around the room, then all heads turned to Brannigan again. “I believe that is for active employees. If we know, and I mean one hundred percent
Kealty looked relieved by this, but McMullen still had reservations.
“I’m worried this is going to look like sort of a lame Hail Mary. Like us digging up some thirty-year-old murder to try and pin tangentially on Jack Ryan here with just a few days until the election. I mean, really?”
Kealty said, “It’s not a Hail Mary. The information was dumped in our laps. I will stress this, and I will ask the question: If this was handed to us and we did nothing, how would that look? We came into this term promising to right the wrongs of the Ryan years, and boys and girls, I am still the President of the United States.”
Wes McMullen tried another approach to put this toothpaste back in the tube. “Clark has a Congressional Medal of Honor. They don’t just hand those out in a box of Cracker Jack, sir.”
“So? Big fucking deal! We throw in a line about how while we honor his military service we cannot condone acts of murder, blah, blah, blah! I’ll mention that I am the goddamn commander in chief, for Christ sakes! Stop fighting me on this, Wes! I’m going forward. Mike, I need cover to do so.”
Brannigan gave an unsure nod. “If we can get some bit of corroboration from CIA, anything, really, then I’ll be able to, at least, bring the man in for questioning.”
Kealty nodded. “I’ll talk to Kilborn at CIA and tell him Justice Department investigators want to talk to everyone who worked with this John Clark.”
Thayer said, “If we can get this to stick to Clark, it will affect Ryan, as it pushes the narrative that he acts above the law.”
Kealty was standing and pacing now over by his desk. “Fuck, yes, this will affect Ryan! This needs to come out in the next twenty-four hours so that I can use it on my last swing through the Rust Belt. I can ask the crowd if a President Ryan would just whack the president of Mexico the next time he doesn’t get his way on a trade issue. It speaks to his past, it speaks to his present insofar as he is supposedly so strong on foreign affairs, but are you really strong on foreign affairs if you have to resort to sending out your goon squad to kill others, and then cover it up with a secret pardon?” Kealty was nearly breathless, but he thoughtut he th of something else and spun in his patent-leather shoes to the three men on the sofas. “And it speaks to the future of this country if we allow a man who works with and cavorts with a bloodthirsty killer like this John Clark to take over the Oval Office.”
Kealty looked to his chief of staff. “Wes, I’m going to need that line. Write that down and hang on to it.”
“Of course.”
“Okay, gentlemen. Anything else?”
