“Hey, I passed my polygraph,” Hendricks said. “Seriously, it wasn’t like that. And anyway, look at me. I’m pretty certain the days of my husband thinking some dude’s gonna ravish me while I’m out on assignment are long gone.”
“Those days never end, my friend,” Foley said. “Believe me.”
Hendricks laughed and waved away the thought. “Anyway, he’s just a really good person. Someone we can trust — and he’s of Chinese descent.”
“A retired admiral?”
Hendricks nodded.
Foley tapped a finger against her temple and gave Hendricks a conspiratorial wink. “We’re probably thinking about the same guy…”
Back in her car in the Liberty Crossing visitor parking lot, Monica Hendricks sent a text via Signal. The messaging app was end-to-end encrypted, but habit made her careful with her words unless she was talking on an STU or some other dedicated secure device.
Her friend was cordial, if a little terse, but that could have been the fact that they were thumb-typing. He gave her a quick rundown on his life like he was giving a bottom-line-up-front briefing to the Joint Chiefs. She did the same. Three sentences to encapsulate the status of her life.
He cut to the chase. What’s up?
Something I need to run by you.
Shoot.
Hendricks thought for a moment, then typed. It needs to be in person. She was of the generation that texted in complete sentences and checked her spelling and grammar before hitting send.
Okay. It must be important, then.
Something important enough to keep me from walking out the door. She sent that, then added, I’d come to you, but things are crazy busy. Can you come to D.C.?
Pulsing dots… but only for a moment.
I’ll break the news to Sophie.
I’m sorry it’s last-minute. Today would be best, if at all possible.
Admiral Peter Li’s answer came back almost immediately, as she knew it would.
I’ll be there.
18
“This is exactly the kind of problem you’re good at,” Cathy Ryan said, slouching across the study in an overstuffed leather chair.
Jack Ryan found himself mesmerized by this gorgeous, rock-solid oasis of sanity in an insane world. Blond hair askew over her forehead, eyes half closed, she balanced an astonishingly bright cobalt-blue Paul Green pump on the toe of her astonishingly beautiful foot.
A world-renowned ophthalmic surgeon, Dr. Cathy Ryan had performed three retinal surgeries that morning. Dealing with vessels and nerves smaller than a human hair, there was zero room for error. Not particularly physical, but heavy lifting nonetheless.
Ryan stretched out on the well-worn cushions of the leather sofa of his private study off the Oval Office, tie loose, shoes off. Hands folded across his chest, his head turned sideways so he could lie down and still look at his wife.
“Not sure if I’m good at it,” he said. “But a Chinese mole inside CIA is definitely a problem.”
“But that’s not the problem you were talking about.”
Ryan rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “We have some incredibly brave and devoted patriots of Asian heritage in our intelligence organizations, and we’re about to put the screws to the vast majority of them, basically tell them we’ve stopped trusting them because of who their grandparents are. But the fact remains, the PRC likes to utilize people who have ties to China, to appeal to their sense of what it means to be Chinese. It’s a hard reality.”
“Are you sure this mole is of Chinese descent?”
“Not at all,” Ryan said. “But we have to consider the possibility. It troubles me that we actively recruit intelligence officers who speak native Mandarin, and then turn on them like this for the same reason we hired them. If we move too far in one direction, I ruin dozens of careers. Don’t move far enough, and a mole continues to bleed us dry of critical intelligence, endangering lives. It would be all too easy to have a purge.”
“My dear,” Cathy said, sounding almost asleep. “The fact that you struggle with this at all puts you a hundred and eighty degrees off a purge.”
“Mary Pat and I have hashed this out ad nauseam,” Ryan said. “She and her team will do a thoughtful job, but the buck stops with me. Every piece of guidance and advice I give is scrutinized — and heeded.”
“I get it,” Cathy said. “You can’t unlaunch a missile once you say ‘fire.’”
“You can,” Ryan said, “but the analogy makes the point. The direction I give affects people’s lives.”
The corner of Cathy’s lip perked in a half-smile. “It might be good for the guy on the street to hear Jack Ryan struggle with all sides of an issue once in a great while.”
“That’s sausage nobody wants to see made,” Ryan said. “Sometimes I worry that my team is banking everything on me making the exact right move at exactly the right time.”
Cathy’s eye flicked open. “You mean like when I alone am utilizing a powerful laser to work around microscopic vessels and blast someone’s tissue to reattach the retina to the back of their eye? Yeah, I think I get what you’re talking about.”
“Sorry for whining.” Ryan groaned. “Of course you get it.”
“Maybe we should just sneak away,” she said. “Because I have to tell you, sometimes, I feel like sneaking away.”
Ryan gave a little shrug, chin to chest. The couch in his private study was his second-favorite thinking spot. “I thought this was sneaking away.”
Cathy looked up at him with a mock pout. “I guess so. At least we’re away from that little peephole in the Oval Office door. I trust Betty, but… it still weirds me out sometimes to think about you living under a glass bubble.”
“Weirds you out?” Ryan swung his legs to the floor, patting the cushion beside him.
“I’m too tired to move, Jack.”
“Presidential order?”
“Nice try.”
She hauled herself out of the chair anyway and plopped down beside Ryan. “Just so you know, I’m moving because I want to, not because you made me.”
“Of that, my dear,” Ryan said, “I have no doubt.”
They leaned back together, staring at the ceiling.
Cathy yawned. “This is a comfortable couch.” She closed her eyes. “You have good hands,” she said, out of the blue.
Ryan gave her a quizzical look. “I appreciate that…”
“Good hands are a gift, Jack.”
“Thanks?”
“By the time a would-be surgeon gets to me, they’ve been through four years of medical school, rotations, practical testing, and an internship… at least. Most of the residents who come my way are pretty good at what they do. They’ll make good surgeons who can do ninety-five percent of the procedures out there. Every couple of years, though, I get a would-be surgeon who can rattle off the textbook answer to any question I throw out or look at a patient and diagnose the problem with ease. But when it comes to surgery, they are clumsy and inept. We say they have wooden hands.”
“Okay…”
“I’m telling you, you don’t have wooden hands, Jack. You’re not one of the other ninety-five percent, either.” She rested her palms flat on her knees and heaved a long sigh. “I’m not sure what it’s like to be President, but I know what it’s like to be a surgeon. It takes a monumental amount of swagger. You have to know you’re good enough to step up when everyone is looking over your shoulder with a literal microscope. You are skilled and sure and self-aware enough that you will make the right decision about this. You have good hands…” She glanced up at him. “Very. Good. Hands.”