"Is this for real?" the DC asked.
"Dr. Sears thinks so. He also thinks we need to get Weaver down from Brown University."
Ed Foley looked over at Sears. "Call him. Right now."
"Yes, sir." Sears left the room to make the call.
"Jack has to see this. What's he doing now?"
"He's leaving for Warsaw in eight hours, remember? The NATO meeting, the photo opportunity at Auschwirz., stopping off at London on the way home for dinner at Buckingham Palace. Shopping on Bond Street," Ed added. There were already a dozen Secret Service people in London working with the Metropolitan Police and MI-5, properly known as the Security Service. Twenty more were in Warsaw, where security concerns were not all that much of an issue. The Poles were very happy with America right now, and the leftover police agencies from the communist era still kept files on everyone who might be a problem. Each would have a personal baby-sitter for the entire time Ryan was in country. The NATO meeting was supposed to be almost entirely ceremonial, a basic feel-good exercise to make a lot of European politicians look pretty for their polyglot constituents.
"Jesus, they're talking about making a move on Grushavoy!" Ed Foley gasped, getting to page three. "Are they totally off their fuckin' rockers?"
"Looks like they found themselves in a corner unexpectedly," his wife observed. "We may have overestimated their political stability."
Foley nodded and looked up at his wife. "Right now?"
"Right now," she agreed.
Her husband lifted his phone and punched speed-dial #1.
"Yeah, Ed, what is it?" Jack Ryan asked.
"Mary and I are coming over."
"When?"
"Now."
"That important?" the President asked.
"This is CRITIC stuff, Jack. You'll want Scott, Ben, and Arnie there, too. Maybe George Winston. The foundation of the issue is his area of expertise."
"China?"
"Yep."
"Okay, come on over." Ryan switched phones. "Ellen, I need Sec-State, SecTreas, Ben, and Arnie in my office, thirty minutes from right now."
"Yes, Mr. President," his secretary acknowledged. This sounded hot, but Robby Jackson was on his way out of town again, to give a speech in Seattle, at the Boeing plant of all places, where the workers and the management wanted to know about the 777 order to China. Robby didn't have much to say on that point, and so he'd talk about the importance of human rights and America's core beliefs and principles, and all that wave-the-flag stuff. The Boeing people would be polite about it, and it was hard to be impolite to a black man, especially one with Navy Wings of Gold on his lapel, and learning to handle this political bullshit was Robby's main task. Besides, it took pressure off Ryan, and that was Jackson's primary mission in life, and oddly enough, one which he accepted with relative equanimity. So, his VC-20B would be over Ohio right about now, Jack thought. Maybe Indiana. Just then Andrea came in.
"Company coming?" Special Agent Price-O'Day asked. She looked a little pale, Jack thought.
"The usual suspects. You feeling okay?" the President asked.
"Stomach is a little upset. Too much coffee with breakfast."
Morning sickness? Ryan wondered. If so, too bad. Andrea tried so hard to be one of the boys. Admitting this female failing would scar her soul as though from a flamethrower. He couldn't say anything about it. Maybe Cathy could. It was a girl thing.
"Well, the DCI's coming over with something he says is important. Maybe they've changed the toilet paper in the Kremlin, as we used to say at Langley back when I worked there."
"Yes, sir." She smiled. Like most Secret Service agents, she'd seen the people and the secrets come and go, and if there were important things for her to know, she'd find out in due course.
General-Lieutenant Kirillin liked to drink as much as most Russians, and that was quite a lot by American standards. The difference between Russians and Brits, Chavez had learned, was that the Brits drank just as much, but they did it with beer, while the Russians made do with vodka. Ding was neither a Mormon nor a Baptist, but he was over his capacity here. After two nights of keeping up with the local Joneses, he'd nearly died on the morning run with his team, and only avoided falling out for fear of losing face before the Russian Spetsnaz people they were teaching to come up to RAINBOW standards. Somehow he'd managed not to puke, though he had allowed Eddie Price to take charge of the first two classes that day while he'd wandered off to drink a gallon of water to chase down three aspirins. Tonight, he'd decided, he'd cut off the vodkas at two… maybe three.
"How are our men doing?" the general asked.
"Just fine, sir," Chavez answered. "They like their new weapons, and they're picking up on the doctrine. They're smart. They know how to think before they act."
"Does this surprise you?"
"Yes, General, it does. It was the same for me once, back when I was a squad sergeant in the Ninjas. Young soldiers tend to think with their dicks rather than their brains. I learned better, but I had to learn it the hard way in the field. It's sometimes a lot easier to get yourself into trouble than it is to think yourself out of it. Your Spetsnaz boys started off that way, but if you show them the right way, they listen pretty good. Today's exercise, for example. We set it up with a trap, but your captain stopped short on the way in and thought it through before he committed, and he passed the test. He's a good team leader, by the way. I'd say bump him to major." Chavez hoped he hadn't just put the curse of hell on the kid, realizing that praise from a CIA officer wasn't calculated to be career-enhancing for a Russian officer.
"He's my nephew. His father married my sister. He's an academician, a professor at Moscow State University."
"His English is superb. I'd take him for a native of Chicago." And so Captain Leskov had probably been talent-scouted by KGB or its successor agency. Language skills of that magnitude didn't just happen.
"He was a parachutist before they sent him to Spetsnaz," Kirillin went on, "a good light-infantryman."
"That's what Ding was, once upon a time," Clark told the Russian.
"Seventh Light Infantry. They de-established the division after I left. Seems like a long time now."
"How did you go from the American army into CIA?"
"His fault," Chavez answered. "John spotted me and foolishly thought I had potential."
"We had to clean him up and send him to school, but he's worked out pretty well-even married my daughter."
"He's still getting used to having a Latino in the family, but I made him a grandfather. Our wives are back in Wales."
"So, how did you emerge from CIA into RAINBOW?"
"My fault, again," Clark admitted. "I did a memo, and it perked to the top, and the President liked it, and he knows me, and so when they set the outfit up, they put me in charge of it. I wanted Domingo here to be part of it, too. He's got young legs, and he shoots okay."
"Your operations in Europe were impressive, especially at the park in Spain."
"Not our favorite. We lost a kid there."