"Really?" Ryan asked with the utmost innocence. "Woman's intuition?"
"Don't be sexist," Hunter warned, too seriously for the mood of the moment.
Ryan's voice turned earnest. "I'm not. My wife has better instincts for judging people than I do. I guess it helps that she's a doc. Fair enough?"
"Dr. Ryan, I know you know. I know the FBI has been looking very discreetly at a few things out in the Seattle area."
"Is that so?"
Kris Hunter wasn't buying. "You don't keep secrets about this sort of thing, not if you have friends in the Bureau like I do, and not if one of the missing girls is the daughter of a police captain whose next-door neighbor is S-A-C of the FBI's Seattle Field Division. Do I need to go on?"
"Then why are you sitting on it?"
Kris Hunter's green eyes blazed at the National Security Advisor. "I'll tell you why, Dr. Ryan. I was raped in college. I thought the bastard was going to kill me. I looked at death. You don't forget that. If this story comes out the wrong way, that girl and maybe others like her could end up dead. You can recover from rape: I did. You can't recover from death."
"Thanks," Ryan said quietly. His eyes and his nod said even more. Yes, I understand. And you know that I understand.
"And he's the next head of that country's government." Kris Hunter's eyes were even more intense now. "He hates us, Dr. Ryan. I've interviewed him. He didn't want me because he found me attractive. He wanted me because he saw me as a blond-and-blue symbol. He's a rapist. He enjoys hurting people. You don't forget the look in the eyes once you've seen it. He's got that look. We need to watch out for this guy. You tell the President that."
"I will," Ryan said as he headed out the door.
The White House car was waiting just outside. Jack had something to think about as it headed for the Beltway.
"Softball," the Secret Service agent commented. "Except for after."
"How long you been doing this, Paul?"
"Fourteen fascinating years," Paul Robberton said, keeping an eye on things from the front seat. The driver was just a guy from the General Services Administration, but Jack rated a Secret Service bodyguard now.
"Fieldwork?"
"Counterfeiters. Never drew my weapon," Robberton added. "Had a few fair-sized cases."
"You can read people?"
Robberton laughed. "In this job, you'd better hope so, Dr. Ryan."
"Tell me about Kris Hunter."
"Smart and tough as nails. She's right: she was sexually assaulted in college, a serial rapist. She testified against the mutt. It was back when lawyers were a little…free with how they treated rape victims. You know—did you encourage the rat, stuff like that. It got ugly, but she rode it out and they convicted the bum. He bit the big one in prison, evidently said the wrong thing to an armed robber. Pity," Robberton concluded dryly.
"Pay attention to what she thinks, you're telling me."
"Yes, sir. She would have been a good cop. I know she's a pretty fair reporter."
"She's gathered in a lot of information," Ryan murmured. Not all of it good, not yet pulled together properly, and colored by her own life experiences, but sure as hell, she had sources. Jack looked at the passing scenery and tried to assemble the incomplete puzzle.
"Where to?" the driver asked.
"The house," Ryan said, drawing a surprised look from Robberton. In this case, "the house" didn't mean "home." "No, wait a minute." Ryan lifted his earphone. Fortunately he knew the number from memory.
"Hello?"
"Ed? Jack Ryan. You guys busy?"
"We are allowed Sunday off, Jack. The Caps play the Bruins this afternoon."
"Ten minutes."
"Fair enough." Ed Foley set the phone back in its place on the wall.
"Ryan's coming over," he told his wife. Damn it.
Sunday was the one day they allowed themselves to sleep. Mary Pat was still in her housecoat, looking unusually frowzy. Without a word she left the morning paper and walked off toward the bathroom to fix her hair. There was a knock at the door fifteen minutes later.
"Overtime?" Ed asked at the door. Robberton came in with his guest.
"I had to do one of the morning shows." Jack checked his watch. I'll be on in another twenty minutes or so."
"What gives?" Mary Pat entered the room, looking about normal for an American female on a Sunday morning.
"Business, honey," Ed answered. He led everyone to the basement recreation room.
"SANDALWOOD," Jack said when they got there. He could speak freely here. The house was swept for bugs every week. "Do Clark and Chavez have orders to get the girl out yet?"
"Nobody gave us the execute order," Ed Foley reminded him. "It's just about setup, but—"
"The order is given. Get the girl out now."
"Anything we need to know?" Mary Pat asked.
"I haven't been comfortable with this from the beginning. I think maybe we deliver a little message to her sugar daddy—and we do it early enough to get his attention."
"Yeah," Mr. Foley said. "I read the paper this morning, too. He isn't saying friendly stuff, but we are laying it on them pretty hard, y'know?"
"Sit down, Jack," Mary Pat said. "Can I get you coffee or anything?'
"No, thanks, MP." He looked up after taking a place on a worn couch.
"A light just went off. Our friend Goto seems to be an odd duck."
"He does have his quirks," Ed agreed. "Not terribly bright, a lot of bombast once you get through the local brand of rhetoric, but not all that many ideas. I'm surprised he's getting the chance."
"Why?" Jack asked. The State Department material on Goto had been typically respectful of the foreign statesman.
"Like I said, he's no threat to win the Nobel in physics, okay? He's an apparatchik. Worked his way up the way politicos do. I'm sure he's kissed his share of asses along the way—"
"And to make up for that, he has some bad habits with women," MP added. "There's a lot of that over there. Our boy Nomuri sent in a lengthy dispatch on what he's seen." It was the youth and inexperience, the DDO knew. So many field officers on their first major assignment reported everything, as though writing a book or something. It was mainly the product of boredom.
"Over here he couldn't get elected dogcatcher," Ed noted with a chuckle.
Think so? Ryan thought, remembering Edward Kealty. On the other hand, it might just turn out to be something America could use in the right forum and under the right circumstances. Maybe the first time they met, if things went badly, President Durling could make a quiet reference to his former girlfriend, and the implications of his bad habits on Japanese-American relations…
"How's THISTLE doing?"
Mary Pat smiled as she rearranged the Sega games on the basement TV. This was where the kids told Mario and all the others what to do. "Two of the old members are gone, one retired and one on overseas assignment, in Malaysia, as I recall. The rest of them are contacted. If we ever want to—"
"Okay, let's think about what we want them to do for us."
"Why?" MP asked. "I don't mind, but why?"
"We're pushing them too hard. I've told the President that, but he's got political reasons for pushing, and he isn't going to stop. What we're doing is going to hurt their economy pretty bad, and now it turns out that their new PM has a real antipathy to us. If they decide to push back, I want to know before it happens."
"What can they do?" Ed Foley sat on his son's favorite Nintendo chair.
"I don't know that, either, but I want to find out. Give me a few days to figure out what our priorities are. Damn, I don't have a few days," Jack said next. "I have to prep for the Moscow trip."