Power and Empire

“That’s special,” Callahan said. “So you agree to being arrested. That’s big of you, considering the pile of dead bodies left in your wake.” As she spoke, she helped pull Clark out of the pool and rolled up his pant leg to check the wound in his calf. There were other scars there. A lot of them, as well as a bunch on his neck. This dude had been around the block.

“I’m not admitting to anything,” Clark said, coughing again. “But there may or may not be another one under the dock.”

“Marvelous,” Callahan said. She nodded to the bullet hole. “Looks like a through-and-through, but it might have nicked the bone. You may have to walk with a cane.”

“That’s probably not going to happen,” Clark groused. He glanced up at Caruso, eyes narrow. “How’d you find me?”

“Not entirely sure,” Dom said, looking sideways at Callahan. “I think somebody might have screwed with my phone.”

Clark groaned. “I’m lucky she’s better at investigating than you are at operational security. Anyway, Lily Chen will have a cell phone somewhere. And on that phone will be a number for her brother, Vincent. Our people need that number yesterday. Understand?”

Dom nodded. “Copy that.”

“Oh, no you don’t,” Callahan said. “No one messes with that phone before my tech guys get a look at it.”

Caruso gave her a passive look. “Afraid I’m going to have to pull rank on you there,” he said. “I’ll give it right back, though.”

Callahan waved him away. “Whatever.” She glared down at Clark. “Who are you?”

“John,” he said.

“John…?”

“John,” he said again, as he winced at the pain in his leg. “…better go with Doe.”

54

The phone beside President Jack Ryan’s bed rang once, dragging him out of some dream that he could not remember. He rolled over, coughed to clear his throat, and squinted at the blurry numbers on the clock as he picked up the handset. He’d gone to bed early in anticipation of an early ride to Andrews and a seven a.m. wheels-up for Tokyo. Surely it couldn’t be that time already. Nowhere near it.

One forty-five a.m.

It was an accepted — and probably true — notion among White House staff that one could not get fired for waking the President. One could only get fired for not waking the President. Most would have erred on the side of caution, but Arnie van Damm had a pretty good handle on when events were important enough to rouse Ryan from his “much-needed beauty sleep.” Van Damm had witnessed so many national crises that he remained absolutely unflappable while so many others ran around with their hair on fire. Van Damm joked that he had no hair, so…

“Mr. President,” the voice on the other end of the line said.

“Good morning, Arnie.” Ryan stretched, fought the urge to say something flippant. No one called to joke at this ungodly hour.

“Sorry to wake you,” the chief of staff said. It was van Damm’s custom to engage in a few seconds of small talk before he got to the meat of the matter, to make certain his boss was thinking with some relative coherence.

“That’s fine,” Ryan said, coughing again and rolling onto his back. Out of habit, he reached out to the other side of the bed to see if the call had woken Cathy, but she was still in Nepal. “What’s up?”

“Typhoon Catelyn,” van Damm said. “There are some developments you’ll want to know about.”

“Who else is here?”

“Commander Forrestal and I,” van Damm said. “We have an Air Force weather guesser on his way over from the Pentagon.”

“Okay,” Ryan said. He was fully awake now. “Notify the Secret Service that I’ll be heading to the Oval in”—he put on his glasses and checked the clock again—“ten minutes.”

“Already done,” van Damm said. “I’m standing outside your door, speaking with the agent now.”

“That’s just creepy, Arnie,” Ryan said.

“I do my best, Mr. President.”

• • •

Posted outside the President’s bedroom door in the central hallway, Special Agent Tina Jordan lifted the small beige microphone on her surveillance kit to her lips. She hit the push-to-talk button to call the command post — and other Secret Service personnel on the White House campus.

“CROWN, CROWN, from Jordan,” she whispered. “SWORDSMAN is on the move in ten, en route to the Oval Office.”

• • •

Ryan was surprised to find the secretary of defense waiting for him in the Oval Office with van Damm and Commander Robby Forrestal. All three men stood when he stepped inside.

Apart from Forrestal, who was in his Navy uniform, the men were dressed as if they’d met for a poker game instead of to discuss world events. Ryan wore faded jeans and a light bomber jacket with the Presidential seal over the USMC T-shirt he’d been sleeping in. Van Damm was dressed similarly to Ryan, sans the Presidential seal. Bob Burgess was normally well coiffed enough to appear on the cover of Washington Life magazine, but his thick salt-and-pepper hair now stuck out in a dozen directions.

Ryan sat in his customary spot in front of the fireplace and motioned for the others to take the couches.

“Let’s have it,” he said.

Arnie glanced at Robby Forrestal and gave him a nod.