"No, sir. I don't use that argument. It sounds and smells like bullshit. Either you believe me or you do not. All I can do is persuade, not convince. Maybe I am wrong sometimes," Jack allowed as he cooled off. "All I can do is give you the best I have. May I pass along a lesson, too, sir?"
"Go on."
"The world is not always what we wish it to be, but wishes don't change it."
Fowler was amused. "So I should listen to you even when you're wrong? What if I know you're wrong?"
A marvelous philosophical discussion might have followed, but Ryan knew when he was beaten. He'd just wasted ninety minutes. Perhaps one final try.
"Governor, there are tigers in the world. Once I saw my daughter lying near death in a hospital because somebody who hated me tried to kill her. I didn't like it, and I tried to wish it away, but it didn't work. Maybe I just learned a harder lesson. I hope you never have to."
"Thank you. Good morning, Dr. Ryan."
Ryan collected his papers and left. It was like something dimly remembered from the Bible. He'd been measured and found wanting by the man who might be his country's next President. He was even more disturbed by his reaction to it: Fuck him . He'd fulfilled Fowler's own observation. It was a very dumb thing to think.
"Kick it loose, big brother!" Tim Jackson said. Robby cracked open one eye to see Timmy clad in his multicolored uniform and boots. "It's time for our morning run."
"I remember changing your diapers."
"You gotta catch me first. Come on, you got five minutes to get ready."
Captain Jackson grinned up at his little brother. He was in pretty good shape, and a kendo master. "I'm gonna run your ass right into the ground."
Pride goeth before the fall , Captain Jackson told himself fifteen minutes later. He would have settled for a fall. If he fell down, he might rest for a few seconds. When he started staggering, Tim backed the pace off.
"You win," Robby gasped. "I ain't gonna change your diapers again."
"Hey, we've barely done two miles."
"A carrier's only a thousand feet long!"
"Yeah, and I bet the steel deck's bad on the knees, too. Go on, head back and get breakfast ready, sir. I got two more miles to do."
"Aye aye, sir." Where are my kendo sticks? Robby thought, I can still whip his ass at that!
It took Robby five minutes to find his way back to the right BOQ building. He passed a number of officers heading to or from their runs, and for the first time in his life, Robby Jackson felt old. It was hardly fair. He was one of the youngest captains in the Navy, and still one hell of a fighter pilot. He also knew how to fix breakfast. It was all on the table when Timmy got back.
"Don't feel too bad, Rob. This is what I do for a living. I can't fly airplanes."
"Shut up and drink your juice."
"Where the hell did you say you were?"
"Aboard Ranger - that's a carrier, boy. Observing ops off Panama. My boss gets into Monterey this afternoon and I'm s'posed to meet him there."
"Down where the bombs are going off," Tim observed as he buttered his toast.
"Another one last night?" Robby asked. Well, that made sense, didn't it?
"Looks like we bagged us another druggie. Nice to see the CIA, or somebody, grew hisself a pair of balls for a change. Love to know how the guys are getting the bombs in."
"What do you mean?" Robby asked. Something wasn't right.
"Rob, I know what's going down. It's some of our people down there doin' it."
"Tim, you've lost me."
Second Lieutenant Timothy Jackson, Infantry, leaned across the breakfast table in the conspiratorial way of junior officers. "Look, I know it's a secret and all, but, hell, how smart do you have to be? One of my people is down there right now. Figure it out, man. One of my best people disappears, don't show up where he's supposed to be - where the Army thinks he is, for Christ's sake. He's a Spanish speaker. So are some others who checked out funny, Mu oz out of recon, Le n, two others I heard about. All Spanish speakers, okay? Then all of a sudden there's some serious ass-kickin' going on down in banana land. Hey, how smart you gotta be?"
"Have you told anyone about this?"
"Why tell anybody? I'm a little worried about Chavez - he's one of my people, and I worry a little about him, but he's one good fucking soldier. Far as I'm concerned, he can kill all the druggies he wants. I just want to know how they did the bombs. That might come in handy someday. I'm thinking about going special-ops."
The Navy did the bombs, Timmy , Robby thought very loudly indeed.
"How much talk is there about this?"
"About the first bombing, everybody thought that was pretty good, but talk about our people bein' involved? Uh-uh. Maybe some folks're thinking the same way I am, but you don't talk about shit like that. Security, right?"
"That's right, Tim."
"You know a senior Agency guy, right?"
"Sort of. Godfather for Jack Junior."
"Tell him for us, kill all you want."
"I'll do that," Robby said quietly. It had to be an Agency operation. A very "black" Agency operation, but it wasn't nearly as black as they wanted it to be. If some nugget a year out of the academy could figure it out... The ordies on Ranger , personnel officers and NCOs all over the Army - lots of people must have put it together by now. Not all of those who heard the talk would be on the good side.
"Let me give you a tip. You hear talk about this, you tell people to clam up. You get talk started about an operation like this, people start disappearing."
"Hey, Rob, anybody wants to mess with Chavez and Mu oz and -"
"Listen to me, boy! I've been there. I've been shot at by machine guns, and my Tomcat ate a missile once, damned near killed the best RIO I ever had. It's dangerous out there, and talk gets people dead. You remember that. This isn't college anymore, Tim."
Tim considered that for a moment. His brother was right. His brother was also wondering what, if anything, he should do about it. Rob considered just sitting on it, but he was a Tomcat driver, a man of action, not the sort to do nothing at all. If nothing else, he decided, he'd have to warn Jack that the security on the operation wasn't as secure as it ought to be.
22. Disclosures
UNLIKE AIR FORCE and Army generals, most Navy admirals do not have personal aircraft to chauffeur them around, and for the most part they fly commercial. A coterie of aides and drivers waiting at the gates helps ease the pain, of course, and Robby Jackson was not above making points with his boss by appearing at San Jos Airport just as the 727 pulled up to the jetway that evening. He had to wait for the first-class passengers to deplane, of course, since even flag officers fly coach.
Vice Admiral Joshua Painter was the current Assistant Chief of Naval Operations for Air Warfare, known to insiders by his "designator," OP-05, or just "oh-five." His three-star rank was a miracle. Painter was first of all an honest man; second, an outspoken one; third, someone who thought the real Navy was at sea, not alongside the Potomac River; finally and most damagingly, he was that rarest of naval officers, the author of a book. The Navy does not encourage its officers to commit their thoughts to paper, except for the odd piece on thermodynamics or the behavior of neutrons within a reactor vessel. An intellectual, a maverick, and a warrior in a service that was increasingly anti-intellectual, conformist, and bureaucratized, he thought of himself as the token exception in what was turning into The Corporate Navy. Painter was a crusty, acerbic Vermont native, short and slight of build, with pale, almost colorless blue eyes and a tongue sharp enough to chip stone. He was also the living god of the aviation community. He'd flown more than four hundred missions over North Vietnam in several different models of the F-4 Phantom, and had two MiGs to his credit - the side panel from his jet, with two red stars painted on it, hung in his Pentagon office, along with the caption, SIDEWINDER MEANS NOT HAVING TO SAY YOU'RE SORRY. Though a perfectionist and a very demanding boss, he deemed nothing too good for his pilots or his enlisted crews, especially the latter.