The Sum of All Fears jr-7 Read online

  It was easy to be cynical about it. The First Crusade, 1096, Ryan thought it was, had mainly been about extras. Knights and nobles were passionate people, and produced more offspring than their castles and associated cathedrals could support. The son of a noble could hardly take up farming, and those not eliminated by childhood disease had to go somewhere. And when Pope Urban II had sent out his message that the infidels had overrun the land of Christ, it became possible for men to launch a war of aggression to reclaim land of religious importance and to find themselves fiefdoms to rule, peasants to oppress, and trade routes to the Orient on which to sit and charge their tolls. Whichever objective might have been the more important probably differed from one heart to another, but they all had known of both. Jack wondered how many different kinds of feet had trodden on these streets, and how they had reconciled their personal-political-commercial objectives with their putatively holy cause. Doubtless the same had been true of Muslims, of course, since three hundred years after Mohammed the venal had doubtless added their ranks to those of the devout, just as it had happened in Christianity. Stuck in the middle were the Jews, those not scattered by the Romans, or those who had found their way back. The Jews had probably been treated more brutally by the Christians back in the early second millennium, something else which had since changed, probably more than once.

  Like a bone, an immortal bone fought over by endless packs of hungry dogs.

  But the reason the bone was not ever destroyed, the reason the dogs kept coming back over the span of centuries was what the land represented. So much history. Scores of historical figures had been here, including the Son of God, as the Catholic part of Ryan believed. Beyond the significance of the very location, this narrow land bridge between continents and cultures, were thoughts and ideals and hopes that lived in the minds of men, somehow embodied in the sand and stones of a singularly unattractive place that only a scorpion could really love. Jack supposed that there were five great religions in the world, only three of which had really spread beyond their own point of origin. Those three had their home within a few miles of where he stood.

  So, of course, this is where they fight wars.

  The blasphemy was stunning. Monotheism had been born here, hadn't it? Starting with the Jews, and built upon by Christians and Muslims, here was the place where the idea had caught on. The Jewish people — Israelites seemed too strange a term — had defended their faith with stubborn ferocity for thousands of years, surviving everything the animists and pagans could throw at them, and then facing their sternest tests at the hands of religions grown on the ideas that they had defended. It hardly seemed fair — it wasn't fair at all, of course — but religious wars were the most barbaric of all. If one were fighting for God Himself, then one could do nearly anything. One's enemies in such a war were also fighting against God, a hateful and damnable thing. To dispute the authority of Authority itself — well, each soldier could see himself as God's own avenging sword. There could be no restraint. One's actions to chastise the enemy/sinner were sanctioned as thoroughly as anything could be. Rapine, plunder, slaughter, all the basest crimes of man would become something more than right — made into a duty, a Holy Cause, not sins at all. Not just being paid to do terrible things, not just sinning because sin felt good, but being told that you could literally get away with anything, because God really was on your side. They even took it to the grave. In England, knights who had served in the Crusades were buried under stone effigies whose legs were crossed instead of lying side by side — the mark of a holy crusader — so that all eternity could know that they'd served their time in God's name, wetting their swords in children's blood, raping anything that might have caught their lonely eyes, and stealing whatever wasn't set firmly in the ground. All sides. The Jews mainly as victims, but taking their part on the hilt end of the sword when they got the chance, because all men were alike in their virtues and vices.

  The bastards must have loved it, Jack thought bleakly, watching a traffic cop settling a dispute at a busy corner. There must have been some genuinely good men back then. What did they do? What did they think? I wonder what God thought?

  But Ryan wasn't a priest or a rabbi or an imam. Ryan was a senior intelligence officer, an instrument of his country, an observer and reporter of information. He continued looking around, and forgot about history for the moment.

  The people were dressed for the oppressive heat, and the bustle of the streets made him think of Manhattan. So many of them had portable radios. He passed a sidewalk restaurant and saw no less than ten people listening to an hourly news broadcast. Jack had to smile at that. His kind of people. When driving his car, the radio was always tuned to an all-news D.C. station. The eyes he saw flickered about. The level of alertness was so pervasive that it took him a few moments to grasp it. Like the eyes of his own security guard. Looking for trouble. Well, that made sense. The incident on Temple Mount had not sparked a wave of violence, but such a wave was expected — it did not surprise Ryan that the people in his sight failed to recognize the greater threat to them that came from the absence of violence. Israel had a myopia of outlook that was not hard to comprehend. The Israelis, surrounded by countries that had every reason to see the Jewish state immolated, had elevated paranoia to an art form, and national security to an obsession. One thousand nine hundred years after Masada and the diaspora, they'd returned to a land they'd consecrated, fleeing oppression and genocide… only to invite more of the same. The difference was that they now held the sword, and had well and truly learned its use. But that, too, was a dead end. Wars were supposed to end in peace, but none of their wars had really ended. They'd stopped, been interrupted, no more than that. For Israel, peace had been nothing more than an intermission, time to bury the dead and train the next class of fighters. The Jews had fled from near-extermination at Christian hands, betting their existence on their ability to defeat Muslim nations that had at once voiced their desire to finish what Hitler had started. And God probably thought exactly what He had thought during the Crusades. Unfortunately, parting seas and fixing the sun in the sky seemed to be things of the Old Testament. Men were supposed to settle things now. But men didn't always do what they were supposed to do. When Thomas More had written Utopia, the state in which men acted morally in all cases, he had given both the place and the book the same title. The meaning of “Utopia” is “Noplace.” Jack shook his head and turned a corner down another street of white-painted stucco buildings.

  “Hello, Dr. Ryan.”

  The man was in his middle fifties, shorter than Jack, and more heavyset. He had a full beard, neatly trimmed, but speckled with gray, and looked less like a Jew than a unit commander in Sennacherib's Assyrian army. A broadsword or mace would not have been out of place in his hand. Had he not been smiling, Ryan would have wanted John Clark at his side.

  “Hello, Avi. Fancy meeting you here.”

  General Abraham Ben Jakob was Ryan's counterpart in the Mossad, assistant director of the Israeli foreign-intelligence agency. A serious player in the intelligence trade, Avi had been a professional army officer until 1968, a paratrooper with extensive special-operations experience who'd been talent-scouted by Rafi Eitan and brought into the fold. His path had crossed Ryan's half a dozen times in the past few years, but always in Washington. Ryan had the utmost respect for Ben Jakob as a professional. He wasn't sure what Avi thought of him. General Ben Jakob was very effective at concealing his thoughts and feelings.

  “What is the news from Washington, Jack?”

  “All I know is what I saw on CNN at the embassy. Nothing official yet, and even if there were, you know the rules better than I do, Avi. Is there a good place to eat around here?”

  That had already been planned, of course. Two minutes and a hundred yards later, they were in the back room of a quiet mom-and-pop place where both men's security guards could keep an eye on things. Ben Jakob ordered two Heinekens.

  “Where you're going, they do not serve beer.”


  “Tacky, Avi. Very tacky,” Ryan replied after his first sip.

  “You are taking Alden's place in Riyadh, I understand.”

  “How could the likes of me ever take Dr. Alden's place anywhere?”

  “You will be making your presentation about the same time Adler makes his. We are interested to hear it.”

  “In that case you will not mind waiting, I guess.”

  “No preview, not even one professional to another?”

  “Especially not one professional to another.” Jack drank his beer right out of the bottle. The menu, he saw, was in Hebrew. “Guess I'll have to let you order… That damned fool!” I've been left holding the bag before, but never one this big.

  “Alden.” It was not a question. “He's my age. Good God, he should know that experienced women are both more reliable and more knowledgeable.” Even in affairs of the heart, his terminology was professional.

  “He might even pay more attention to his wife.”

  Ben Jakob grinned. “I keep forgetting how Catholic you are.”

  “That's not it, Avi. What lunatic wants more than one woman in his life?” Ryan asked deadpan.

  “He's gone. That's the evaluation of our embassy.” But what does that mean?

  “Maybe so. Nobody asked me for an opinion. I really respect the guy. He gives the President good advice. He listens to us, and when he disagrees with the Agency, he generally has a good reason for doing so. He caught me short on something six months back. The man is brilliant. But playing around like that… well, I guess we all have our faults. What a damn-fool reason to lose a job like that. Can't keep his pants zipped.” And what timing, Jack raged at himself.

  “Such people cannot be in government service. They are too easy to compromise.”

  “The Russians are getting away from honey traps… and the girl was Jewish, wasn't she? One of yours, Avi?”

  “Doctor Ryan! Would I do such a thing?” If a bear could laugh, it would have sounded like Avi Ben Jakob's outburst.

  “Can't be your operation. There was evidently no attempt at blackmail.” Jack nearly crossed the line with that one. The general's eyes narrowed.

  “It was not our operation. You think us mad? Dr. Elliot will replace Alden.”

  Ryan looked up from his beer. He hadn't thought about that. Oh, shit…

  “Both your friend and ours,” Avi pointed out.

  “How many government ministers have you disagreed with in the last twenty years, Avi?”

  “None, of course.”

  Ryan snorted and finished off the bottle. “What was that you said earlier, the part about one professional to another, remember?”

  “We both do the same thing. Sometimes, when we are very lucky, they listen to us.”

  “And some of the times they listen to us, we're the ones who're wrong… ”

  General Ben Jakob didn't alter his steady, relaxed gaze into Ryan's face when he heard that. It was yet another sign of Ryan's growing maturity. He genuinely liked Ryan as a man and as a professional, but personal likes and dislikes had little place in the intelligence trade. Something fundamental was happening. Scott Adler had been to Moscow. Both he and Ryan had visited Cardinal D'Antonio in the Vatican. As originally planned, Ryan was supposed to backstop Adler here with the Israeli Foreign Ministry, but Alden's astounding faux pas had changed that.

  Even for an intelligence professional, Avi Ben Jakob was a singularly well-informed man. Ryan waffled on the question of whether or not Israel was America 's most dependable ally in the Middle East. That was to be expected from an historian, Avi judged. Whatever Ryan thought, most Americans did regard Israel that way, and as a result, Israelis heard more from inside the American government than any other country — more even than the British, who had a formal relationship with the American intelligence community.

  Those sources had informed Ben Jakob's intelligence officers that Ryan was behind what was going on. That seemed incredibly unlikely. Jack was very bright, almost as smart as Alden, for example, but Ryan had also defined his own role as a servant, not a master, an implementer of policy, not a maker of it. Besides, the American President did not like Ryan, and had not hidden the fact from his inner circle. Elizabeth Elliot was reported to hate him, Avi knew. Something that had happened before the election, an imagined slight, a harsh word. Well, government ministers were notoriously touchy. Not like Ryan and me, General Ben Jakob thought. Both he and Ryan had faced death more than once, and perhaps that was their bond. They didn't have to agree on everything. There was respect between them.

  Moscow, Rome, Tel Aviv, Riyadh. What could he deduce from that?

  Scott Adler was Secretary of State Talbot's picked man, a highly skilled professional diplomat. Talbot was also bright. President Fowler might not have been terribly impressive, but he had selected superior cabinet officers and personal advisers. Except for Elliot, Avi corrected himself. Talbot used Deputy Secretary Adler to do his important advance work. And when Talbot himself entered formal negotiations, Adler was always at his side.

  The most amazing thing, of course, was that not one of the Mossad's informants had a clue what was going on. Something important in the Middle East, they said. Not sure what… I heard that Jack Ryan at the Agency had something to do with it… End of report.

  It should have been infuriating, but Avi was used to that. Intelligence was a game where you never saw all the cards. Ben Jakob's brother was a pediatrician with similar problems. A sick child rarely told him what was wrong. Of course, his brother could always ask, or point, or probe…

  “Jack, I must tell my superiors something,” General Ben Jakob said plaintively.

  “Come on, General.” Jack turned and waved for another beer. “Tell me, what the hell happened on the Mount?”

  “The man was — is deranged. In the hospital they have a suicide watch on him. His wife had just left him, he came under the influence of a religious fanatic, and…” Ben Jakob shrugged. “It was terrible to see.”

  That's true, Avi. Do you have any idea the political fix you're in now?"

  “Jack, we've been dealing with this problem for—”

  “I thought so. Avi, you are one very bright spook, but you do not know what's happening this time. You really don't.”

  “So tell me.”

  “I didn't mean that, and you know it. What happened a couple days ago has changed things forever, General. You must know that.”

  “Changed to what?”

  “You're going to have to wait. I have my orders, too.”

  “Does your country threaten us?”

  “Threaten? That will never happen, Avi. How could it?” Ryan warned himself that he was talking too much. This guy is good, Jack reminded himself.

  “But you cannot dictate policy to us.”

  Jack bit off his reply. “You're very clever, General, but I still have my orders. You have to wait. I'm sorry that your people in D.C. can't help you, but neither can I.”

  Ben Jakob changed tack yet again. “I'm even buying you a meal, and my country is not so rich as yours.”

  Jack laughed at his tone. “Good beer, too, and as you say, I can't do this where you say I'm going. If that's where I'm going… ”

  “Your air crew has already filed the flight plan. I checked.”

  “So much for secrecy.” Jack accepted the new bottle with a smile for the waiter. “Avi, let it rest for a while. Do you really think that we'd do anything to compromise your country's security?”

  Yes! the General thought, but he couldn't say that, of course. Instead he said nothing. But Ryan wasn't buying, and used the silence to change the course of the discussion himself.

  “I hear you're a grandfather now.”

  “Yes, my daughter added to the gray in my beard. A daughter of her own, Leah.”

  “You have my word: Leah will have a secure country to grow up in, Avi.”

  “And who will see to that?” Ben Jakob asked.

  “The same people who always h
ave.” Ryan congratulated himself for the answer. The poor guy really was desperate for information, and he was sad that Avi had made it so obvious. Well, even the best of us can be pushed into corners…

  Ben Jakob made a mental note to have the file on Ryan updated. The next time they met, he wanted to have better information. The General wasn't a man who enjoyed losing at anything.

  Dr. Charles Alden contemplated his office. He wasn't leaving quite yet, of course. It would harm the Fowler Administration. His resignation, signed and sitting on the green desk blotter, was for the end of the month. But that was just for show. As of today, his duties were at an end. He'd show up, read the briefing papers, scribble his notes, but Elizabeth Elliot would do the briefs now. The President had been regretful, but his usual cool self. Sorry to lose you, Charlie, really sorry, especially now, but I'm afraid there's just no other way… He'd managed to retain his dignity in the Oval Office despite the rage he'd felt. Even Arnie van Damm had been human enough to observe “Oh, shit, Charlie!” Though enraged at the political damage to his boss, van Damm had at least mixed a little humanity and locker-room sympathy with his anger. But not Bob Fowler, champion of the poor and the helpless.

  It was worse with Liz. That arrogant bitch, with her silence and her eloquent eyes. She'd get the credit for what he had done. She knew it, and was already basking in it.

  The announcement would be made in the morning. It had already been leaked to the press. By whom was anyone's guess. Elliot, displaying her satisfaction? Arnie van Damm, in a rapid effort at damage control? One of a dozen others?

  The transition from power to obscurity comes fast in Washington. The embarrassed look on the face of his secretary. The forced smiles of the other bureaucrats in the West Wing. But obscurity comes only after a blaze of publicity to announce the fact: like the flare of light from an exploding star, public death is preceded by dazzling fanfare. That was the media's job. The phone was ringing off the hook. There had been twenty of them waiting outside his house in the morning, cameras at the ready, sun-like lights blazing in his face. And knowing what it had to be even before the first question.