Oath of Office

“My fellow Americans, you… we, are smarter than that. I believe we deserve better.”

As Ryan spoke, the screen split in half. Both images showed him sitting behind his desk, giving the same speech, but in one he wore a charcoal suit, in the other his suit was black. The screen split again into four and then six images. Ryan gave the same speech but in different suits and from different venues. One of them depicted expertly manipulated footage from the commencement address he’d given at the United States Military Academy at West Point the year before.

“Unfortunately,” all the Jack Ryan images said in unison, “technology makes deception far too easy.”

“Son of a bitch,” Chadwick whispered.

Corey put a hand on her knee. “What do you think he’s—”

“Shut up,” Chadwick said, pushing his hand away. “Just shut up.”

* * *

In the Oval Office, the real President Ryan stepped in front of the green screen to sit on the edge of the Resolute desk. Behind him, the images of him in various venues wearing different suits froze, and Ryan continued his address uninterrupted. The demonstration of manipulated videos was far better than any explanation he could have given.

“It is not always up to those in government to decide everything that is true and what is a lie. That responsibility falls to us as individuals. In this age of digital manipulation and artificial intelligence, voices can be mimicked so well that those closest to us believe it is the real thing. There are far too many who would use technology against us — too many foreign powers, and too many here at home, whose primary goal is not to joke or prank but to destroy and degrade. We cannot allow ourselves to be deceived. We must study, read, make informed decisions by weighing things for ourselves before we rush to judgment. And I’m not just talking to you, I’m talking to myself as well. Together, we must be vigilant…”

In the hallway outside the Oval, adjacent to the Roosevelt Room, Special Agent Marsh leaned in close to Gary Montgomery as Ryan wound up his address.

“POTUS never mentioned the actual doctored videos of him talking about hoarding vaccine or backing a coup in Cameroon. He never said a word about Russian bots.”

Montgomery grinned. “Like he said, Americans are smarter than that.” He paused, eyebrows furrowed, lips pursed. “Most of them, anyway…”

* * *

Two old men, fishing along the Sofiyskaya Embankment, were the first to see the body. One of the men was a former apparatchik and kept a bent and bony finger on the pulse of the present administration. Hungry fish had already begun their work, but he recognized the lipless corpse at once as Maksim Dudko, aide to President Yermilov. “What have you done, comrade,” he whispered to himself, “to end up fish food in the Moscow River?” Better not to know, he thought, and used his walking stick to push the bloated thing back into the swirling current.

* * *

Jack, Dovzhenko, and Ysabel crossed into Afghanistan with Atash Yazdani and his son, following the same smugglers’ route they’d used to enter Iran. The Wind of 120 Days, still blowing hot and strong, gave them cover from border security force surveillance.

Considering what happened on their last trip through Herat and the likelihood that they’d made some lifelong enemies, Ryan opted to fly on to Dubai. There were still plenty of Russian and Iranian operatives in the UAE, but the U.S. intelligence community was also strong there and provided more places to lie low than western Afghanistan.

Two case officers from CIA, who were also registered nurses, took custody of the Yazdanis. Public Law 110 would ensure that both father and son got new names and a new place to live. Medical treatments for Ibrahim’s cystic fibrosis would begin as soon as he’d seen a pulmonary specialist. Atash Yazdani would eventually be given help finding a new career, but as an engineer in Iran’s rocket and missile forces, he had enough information to keep debriefers from several U.S. intelligence agencies busy for months.