"Why is it, Scott, that we always have to respect their cultural context? Why is it that they never seem to respect ours?" POTUS wanted to know.
"It's always been that way at State."
"That doesn't answer the question," Jack pointed out.
"If we lean too hard on that, Mr. President, it's like being a hostage. Then the other side always knows that they can hang a couple of lives over us and use it to pressure us. It gives them an advantage."
"Only if we allow it. The Chinese need us as much as we need them—more, with the trade surplus. Taking lives is playing rough. We can play rough, too. I've always wondered why we don't."
SecState adjusted his glasses. "Sir, I do not disagree with that, but it has to be thought through very carefully, and we do not have the time to do that now. You're talking a doctrinal change in American policy. You don't shoot from the hip on something that big."
"When you get back, let's get together over a weekend with a few others and see if there are any options. I don't like what we've been doing on this issue in a moral sense, and I don't like it because it makes us a little too predictable."
"How so?"
"Playing by a given set of rules is all well and good, as long as everybody plays by the same rules, but playing by a known set of rules when the other guy doesn't just makes us an easy mark," Ryan speculated. "On the other hand, if somebody else breaks the rules and then we break them, too, maybe in a different way, but break them even so, it gives him something to think about. You want to be predictable to your friends, yes, but what your enemy needs to predict is that messing with you gets him hurt. How hurt he gets, that part we make unpredictable."
"Not without merit, Mr. President. Sounds like a nice subject for a weekend up at Camp David." Both men stopped talking when the helicopter came down on the pad. "There's my driver. Got your statement?"
"Yeah, and about as dramatic as a weather report on a sunny day."
"That's how the game is played, Jack," Adler pointed out. He reflected that Ryan was hearing a lot of that song. No wonder he was bridling at it.
"I've never run across a game where they never change the rules. Baseball went to a designated hitter to liven things up," POTUS remarked casually.
Designated hitter, SecState wondered on his way out the door. Great choice of words…
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, Ryan watched the helicopter lift off. He'd done the handshake for the cameras, made his brief statement for the cameras, looked serious but upbeat for the cameras. Maybe C-SPAN had covered it live, but nobody else would. Were it to be a slow news day—Friday in Washington often was— it might get a minute and a half on one or two of the evening news shows. More likely not. Friday was their day to summarize the week's events, recognize some person or other for doing something or other, and toss in a fluff story.
"Mr. President!" Jack turned to see TRADER, his Secretary of the Treasury, walking over a few minutes early.
"Hi, George."
"That tunnel between here and my building?"
"What about it?"
"I took a look at it this morning. It's a real mess. You have any beefs about cleaning it up?" Winston asked.
"George, that's a Secret Service function, and you own them, remember?"
"Yeah, I know, but it does come to your house, and so I thought I ought to ask. Okay, I'll get it taken care of. Might be nice for when it rains."
"How's the tax plan coming?" Ryan asked, on his way to the door. An agent yanked it open and held it for him. Such things still made Jack uncomfortable. A man had to do some things for himself.
"We'll have the computer models done next week. I really want the case tight on this one, revenue- neutral, easier on the little guy, fair on the big guy, and I have my people jumping through hoops on the administrative savings. Jesus, Jack, was I wrong about that!"
"What do you mean?" They turned the corner for the Oval Office.
"I thought I was the only guy pissing money away to work the tax code. Everybody does. It's a huge industry. It'll put a lot of people out of work—"
"I'm supposed to be happy about that?"
"They'll all find honest work, except for the lawyers, maybe. And we'll save the taxpayers a few billion dollars by giving them a tax form they can figure out from fourth-grade math. Mr. President, the government doesn't insist that people buy buggy whips, does it?" Ryan told his secretary to call Arnie in. He'd want a little political guidance on the ramifications of George's plan.
"YES, ADMIRAL?"
"You asked for a report on the Elsenhower group," Jackson said, walking to the large wall map and consulting a slip of paper. "They're right here, making good speed." Then Robby's pager started vibrating in his pocket. He pulled it out and checked the number. His eyebrows went up. "Sir, do you mind…?"
"Go ahead," Secretary Bretano said.
Jackson took the phone on the other side of the room, dialing five digits. "J-3 here… oh? Where are they? Then let's find out, shall we, Commander? Correct." He put the phone back. "That was the NMCC. The NRO reports that the Indian navy's missing—their two carriers, that is."
"What does that mean, Admiral?"
Robby walked back to the map and walked his hand across the blue part west of the Indian subcontinent. "Thirty-six hours since the last time we checked. Figure three hours to clear the port and form up… twenty knots times thirty-three is six hundred sixty nautical miles, that's seven hundred sixty statute miles… about halfway between their home port and the Horn of Africa." He turned. "Mr. Secretary, they have two carriers, nine escorts, and an UNREP group missing from their piers. The fleet oilers mean they might be planning to stay out for a while. We had no intelligence information to warn us about this." As usual, he didn't add.
"So where exactly are they?"
"That's the point. We don't know. We have some P-3 Orion aircraft based at Diego Garcia. They're going to launch a couple to go looking. We can task some satellite assets to the job also. We need to tell State about this. Maybe the embassy can find out something."
"Fair enough. I'll tell the President in a few minutes. Anything to worry about?"
"Could be they're just putting out after completing repairs—we rattled their cage pretty hard a while back, as you know."
"But now the only two aircraft carriers in the Indian Ocean are somebody else's?"
"Yes, sir." And our nearest one is heading the wrong way. But at least SecDef was catching on some.
ADLER WAS IN a former Air Force One, an old but solid version of the venerable 707-320B. His official party comprised eight people, with five Air Force stewards to look after them. For the moment, he looked at his watch, computed the travel time—they had to stop for fuel at El-mendorf Air Force Base in Alaska—and decided he'd catch up on his sleep during the last leg. What a shame, he thought, that the government didn't award frequent-flyer miles. He'd be traveling free for the rest of his life. For now, he took out his Tehran notes and started examining them again. He closed his eyes, trying to recall additional details as he relived the experience from his arrival at Mehrabad to the departure, visualizing every single episode. Every few minutes, he opened his eyes, flipped to the page in his notes, and made a few marginal comments. With luck, he'd be able to have them typed up and sent by secure fax to Washington for the SNIE team.
"DING, MAYBE YOU have another career ahead of you," Mary Pat observed, as she examined the photo through a magnifying glass. Her voice went on in some disappointment. "He looks healthy."
"You suppose being a son of a bitch is good for longevity?" Clark asked.
"Worked for you, Mr. C.," Chavez joked.