Command Authority

48

CIA analyst Jack Ryan found himself once again in the plush office of the director general of MI6, Sir Basil Charleston. It was late afternoon, the day after Jack called David Penright in Zug to let him know the CIA was unable to find any alternative motive for the murder of Tobias Gabler. Ryan assumed Basil would have spoken directly to CIA director Judge Arthur Moore today, because Greer had mentioned CIA was going to formally ask SIS to make the source in the Swiss bank bilateral.

Now Jack was up here in Basil’s office, and since Jack was the CIA liaison, he assumed he was about to find out just how involved the United States was going to be with the asset in Ritzmann Privatbankiers.

“Well, now,” Charleston said. “I have spoken to your directors in Langley, and they are quite insistent that they be more involved in the situation developing in Switzerland. I have agreed to this.”

Before Ryan could respond, Basil said, “Our agent in Ritzmann Privatbankiers is code-named Morningstar. He is an executive with the bank, and, therefore, he has access to a wide range of information about both the accounts and the clients.”

Well, Ryan thought. This day was gearing up to be an interesting one.

Basil went on to tell Ryan much of the same information that Ryan had heard from Penright a few evenings earlier: that it looked much like the KGB was somewhat recklessly hunting for a large amount of stolen money stashed in a numbered account at RPB.

After listening to Basil outline the situation, Jack said, “I assume CIA offered something in return for this prize.”

Charleston raised an eyebrow. “They did not tell you?”

Jack cocked his head. “Tell me what?”

“They offered you.”

“Me?”

“Yes. We will be sending you to Switzerland straightaway.”

Ryan sat up straighter. “To do what, exactly?”

“We’d like you to go to Zug and to support Penright in the field. He will be getting more account information out of our source in the bank: account numbers, wire-transfer information, information about the trusts and public foundations used to set up the shell corporation involved with the large account. Obviously, this intelligence will need to be quite carefully researched, but I’ve agreed to have a representative of the CIA there, and on-site, in order to send anything of interest back to Langley as soon as we get it. CIA will, in return, provide support to exploit the intelligence.”

Jack said, “This is happening very fast.”

“Indeed. This is a very fluid situation.”

“Fluid in the sense that your source might not last long in his position?”

“Sadly, yes, although David’s job is to keep the man safe.”

“How long have you been running Morningstar?”

“He came to us the day after those KGB men sat down in his office and threatened him.”

“He was a walk-in?”

“Yes. He doesn’t like his bank working with the Russians, and the personal threats were enough to send him over to the other side, as it were.”

“So he’s so new, you really haven’t exploited him as an asset yet.”

“We have received nothing from him other than the client and employee list we’ve already shared with you. As I said, he will be delivering more records of the account. It is our hope that we can somehow shield him from whatever is going on, so we can exploit his intel in the future. But for now, he needs our help.”

Basil put his hand on Jack’s knee. “Will you go?”

Jack did not answer immediately. Instead, he looked out the window at the Thames for a moment.

Charleston noted the hesitation. “I know you aren’t a banker.”

“It’s not that I’m not a banker, it’s that I’m not a field operative.”

“Jack, you were brilliant in Rome, and you were beyond brilliant last year dealing with the Northern Irish terrorists. You may be an analyst, but you are more than capable. Besides, you will be based in our safe house there. I haven’t seen it myself, but I am certain it is quite secure and quite comfortable.”

Jack knew he was going to say yes. He always said yes when asked.

“When do I leave?”

Charleston said, “I’d like to have a driver run you home and pack a bag right now.”

“But… Cathy. I need to talk to Cathy.”

Sir Basil winced. “Yes, of course. My apologies. I am accustomed to directing field men like Penright. They can go anywhere with a snap of the fingers.”

“That’s not me, Basil. I’m a team player, but I’ve got a team at home, too.”

Charleston nodded. “Of course you do. Let’s send you off tomorrow. Talk to Lady Caroline this evening and come in with a bag in the morning.”

Jack realized that if he was being instructed to show up with bags packed tomorrow, he would not be asking Cathy anything tonight.

Mr. and Mrs. Ryan met in Victoria Station and took the 6:10 train back to Chatham. Jack did not mention his impending trip to Switzerland, even when Cathy asked him about his day, and he wondered if he would catch hell for that when he got home. But he knew a public train was no place to tell his wife MI6 and CIA were jointly sending him on a secret mission.

On the way home from the train station, Jack suggested they stop at a Chinese restaurant for carryout. Cathy loved the idea; she had spent several hours in surgery today, and the thought of going home and sitting down to an already prepared meal put her in a great mood.

This, of course, was Jack’s plan.

They ate dinner and played with the kids, and then, only when Sally and Jack Junior were sound asleep, did Jack ask Cathy to sit down on the sofa in the living room.

Cathy saw the two glasses of red wine on the coffee table in front of the couch, and she tensed up instantly.

“Where are you going, and for how long?”

“Well…”

“You can’t tell me where. I get it. But for how long?”

“Honey, I don’t know. A few days, at least.”

Cathy sat down, and Jack saw a change come over her. She could be playful, she could be loving, she could be matronly. But when things got serious, Cathy had a tendency to flip a switch and go very businesslike, almost dispassionate. Jack was certain it came from her work as a surgeon. She was able to distance herself from a problem in order to, if not solve it, at least deal with it.

“When are you leaving?” she asked.

“It’s sort of an emergency. I wish I could tell you more details, but—”

“You are leaving tomorrow? Just like that?”

Sometimes Jack wondered if he only needed to think something for Cathy to know it. She was intuitive like no one he’d ever met.

“Yes. I’m being sent by Greer and Charleston.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Both the CIA and SIS. Is it going to be dangerous?”

“No. Not at all.”

Cathy said, “Last time you went away for a couple of days, you told me the same thing. When you came back you admitted you got more than you bargained for. Have you forgotten, have Greer and Charleston forgotten, that your job description describes you as an analyst?”

“I am an analyst. I will be going to a house in a friendly Western nation, and there I will be looking over reports.”

“But you can’t do that from Century House?”

Jack shrugged, not sure what he could say. After a moment, he said, “There is an urgency to this. We need someone on the ground there to look over the information, to evaluate it, and to send it on to Langley and London.”

“Why the rush?”

Jack could see it in Cathy’s eyes. She’d already gotten more information out of him than he’d wanted to provide, and now she was hunting for more.

His wife would have been one hell of a spy.

He said, “Everything will be okay. I have to go, but I promise you I won’t be away one minute longer than I have to be.”

He kissed her, and soon she kissed him back.

Jack apologized profusely, but he had to go upstairs to the den and make a call to Switzerland on the STU. He kissed her again, and left her sitting there on the couch.

Cathy sat with her wine. She wasn’t happy. Although her husband had proven that he was able to handle himself in dangerous situations, he had never gone through the Farm, the CIA training facility for operations personnel.

She knew he would do his best, and he would do all he could to come home to his family, but there were dangers out there that he could not seem to turn away from.

And more than anything else, Cathy Ryan simply did not understand why Jack — a husband, a father, a historian, and a desk analyst — had somehow turned into a spy.