“I can handle a real Coke if you have one down there,” Jack observed with a grin. Van Damm’s left hand dropped below sight, and a red aluminum can appeared on a ballistic path that would have terminated in Ryan’s lap had he not caught it. Opening the can under the circumstances was a tricky exercise, but Jack ostentatiously aimed the can at van Damm when he popped the top. Like the man or not, Ryan told himself, he had style. He was unaffected by his job except when he had to be. This was not such a time. Arnold van Damm acted important only for outsiders. Insiders didn’t need an act.
“The Boss wants to know what the hell is going on over there,” the Chief of Staff opened.
“So do I.” Charles Alden, the President’s National Security Advisor, entered the room. “Sorry I’m late, Arnie.”
“So do we, gentlemen,” Jack replied. “That hasn’t changed in a couple of years. You want the best stuff we’ve got?”
“Sure,” Alden said.
“Next time you fly to Moscow, look out for a large white rabbit with waistcoat and pocket watch. If he offers you a trip down a rabbit hole, take it and let me know what you find down there,” Ryan said with mock gravity. “Look, I’m not one of those right-wing idiots who moans for a return to the Cold War, but then, at least, the Russians were predictable. The poor bastards are starting to act like we do now. They’re unpredictable as hell. The funny part is, now I can understand what a pain in the ass we always were to the KGB. The political dynamic over there is changing on a daily basis. Narmonov is the sharpest political infighter in the world, but every time he goes to work, it’s another crisis.”
“What sort of cat is he?” van Damm asked. “You’ve met the man.” Alden had met Narmonov, but van Damm had not.
“Only once,” Ryan cautioned.
Alden settled down in an armchair. “Look, Jack, we’ve seen your file. So has the Boss. Hell, I’ve almost got him to respect you. Two Intelligence Stars, the submarine business, and, Jesus, the thing with Gerasimov. I’ve heard of still waters running deep, fella, but never this deep. No wonder Al Trent thinks you’re so damned smart.” The Intelligence Star was CIA’s highest decoration for performance in the field. Jack actually had three. But the citation for the third was locked away in a very safe place, and was something so secret that even the new President didn’t and would never know. “So prove it. Talk to us.”
“He’s one of those rare ones. He thrives on chaos. I’ve met docs like that. There are some, a rare few, who keep working in emergency rooms, doing trauma and like that, after everybody else burns out. Some people just groove to pressure and stress, Arnie. He’s one of them. I don’t think he really likes it, but he’s good at it. He must have the physical constitution of a horse—”
“Most politicians do,” van Damm observed.
“Lucky them. Anyway, does Narmonov really know where’s he’s going? I think the answer is both yes and no. He has some sort of idea where he’s moving his country to, but how he gets there, and exactly where he’s going to be when he arrives, that he doesn’t know. That’s the kind of balls the man has.”
“So, you like the guy.” It was not a question.
“He could have snuffed my life out as easy as popping open this can of Coke, and he didn’t. Yeah,” Ryan admitted with a smile, “that does compel me to like him a little. You’d have to be a fool not to admire the man. Even if we were still enemies, he’d still command respect.”
“So we’re not enemies?” Alden asked with a wry grin.
“How can we be?” Jack asked in feigned surprise. “The President says that’s a thing of the past.”
The Chief of Staff grunted. “Politicians talk a lot. That’s what they’re paid for. Will Narmonov make it?”
Ryan looked out the window in disgust, mainly at his own inability to answer the question. “Look at it this way: Andrey Il‘ych has got to be the most adroit political operator they’ve ever had. But he’s doing a high-wire act. Sure, he’s the best around, but remember when Karl Wallenda was the best high-wire guy around? He ended up as a red smear on the sidewalk because he had one bad day in a business where you only get one goof. Andrey Il’ych is in the same kind of racket. Will he make it? People have been asking that for eight years! We think so—I think so—but... but, hell, this is virgin ground, Arnie. We’ve never been here before. Neither has he. Even a goddamned weather forecaster has a data base to help him out. The two best Russian historians we have are Jake Kantrowitz at Princeton and Derek Andrews at Berkeley, and they’re a hundred-eighty degrees apart at the moment. We just had them both into Langley two weeks ago. Personally I lean towards Jake’s assessment, but our senior Russian analyst thinks Andrews is right. You pays your money and you takes your choice. That’s the best we got. You want pontification, check the newspapers.”
Van Damm grunted and went on. “Next hot spot?”
“The nationalities question is the big killer,” Jack said. “You don’t need me to tell you that. How will the Soviet Union break up—what republics will leave—when and how, peacefully or violently? Narmonov is dealing with that on a daily basis. That problem is here to stay.”
“That’s what I’ve been saying for about a year. How long to let things shake out?” Alden wanted to know.
“Hey, I’m the guy who said East Germany would take at least a year to change over—I was the most optimistic guy in town at the time, and I was wrong by eleven months. Anything I or anyone else tells you is a wild-ass guess.”
“Other trouble spots?” van Damm asked next.
“There’s always the Middle East—” Ryan saw the man’s eyes light up.
“We want to move on that soon.”
“Then I wish you luck. We’ve been working on that since Nixon and Kissinger back during the ‘73 semifinals. It’s chilled out quite a bit, but the fundamental problems are still there, and sooner or later it’s going to be thawed. I suppose the good news is that Narmonov doesn’t want any part of it. He may have to support his old friends, and selling them weapons is a big money-maker for him, but if things blow up, he won’t push like they did in the old days. We learned that with Iraq. He might continue to pump weapons in—I think he won’t, but it’s a close call—but he will do nothing more than that to support an Arab attack on Israel. He won’t move his ships, and he won’t alert troops. I doubt he’s willing even to back them if they rattle their sabers a little. Andrey Il’ych says those weapons are for defense, and I think he means it, despite the word we’re getting from the Israelis.”
“That’s solid?” Alden asked. “State says different.”
“State’s wrong,” Ryan replied flatly.
“So does your boss,” van Damm pointed out.
“In that case, sir, I must respectfully disagree with the DCI’s assessment.”
Alden nodded. “Now I know why Trent likes you. You don’t talk like a bureaucrat. How have you lasted so long, saying what you really think?”
“Maybe I’m the token.” Ryan laughed, then turned serious. “Think about it. With all the ethnic crap he’s dealing with, taking an active role bears as many dangers as advantages. No, he sells weapons for hard currency and only when the coast is clear. That’s business, and that’s as far as it goes.”
“So if we can find a way to settle things down... ?” Alden mused.
“He might even help. At worst, he’ll stand by the sidelines and bitch that he’s not in the game. But tell me, how do you plan to settle things down?”
“Put a little pressure on Israel,” van Damm replied simply.
“That’s dumb for two reasons. It’s wrong to pressure Israel until their security concerns are alleviated, and their security concerns will not be alleviated until some of the fundamental issues are settled first.”
“Like ... ?”
“Like what is this conflict all about.” The one thing that everyone overlooks.
“It’s religious, but the damned fools believe in the same things!” van Damm growled. “Hell, I read t
he Koran last month, and it’s the same as what I learned in Sunday school.”
“That’s true,” Ryan agreed, “but so what? Catholics and Protestants both believe that Christ is the son of God, but that hasn’t stopped Northern Ireland from blowing up. Safest place in the world to be Jewish. The friggin’ Christians are so busy killing one another off that they don’t have time to be anti-Semitic. Look, Arnie, however slight the religious differences in either place may appear to us, to them they appear big enough to kill over. That’s as big as they need to be, pal.”
“True, I guess,” the Chief of Staff agreed reluctantly. He thought for a moment. “Jerusalem, you mean?”
“Bingo.” Ryan finished off his Coke and crushed the can before flipping it into van Damm’s trash can for two. “The city is sacred to three religions—think of them as three tribes—but it physically belongs to only one of them. That one is at war with one of the others. The volatile nature of the region militates toward putting some armed troops in the place, but whose? Remember, some Islamic crazies shot up Mecca not that long ago. Now, if you put an Arab security force in Jerusalem, you create a security threat to Israel. If things stay as they are, with only an Israeli force, you offend the Arabs. Oh, and forget the UN. Israel won’t like it because the Jews haven’t made out all that well in the place. The Arabs won’t like it because there’s too many Christians. And we won’t like it because the UN doesn’t like us all that much. The only available international body is distrusted by everyone. Impasse.”
“The President really wants to move on this,” the Chief of Staff pointed out. We have to do something to make it look like we’re DOING SOMETHING.
“Well, next time he sees the Pope, maybe he can ask for high-level intercession.” Jack’s irreverent grin froze momentarily. Van Damm thought he was cautioning himself against speaking badly of the President, whom he disliked. But then Ryan’s face went blank. Arnie didn’t know Jack well enough to recognize the look. “Wait a minute ...”
The Chief of Staff chuckled. It wouldn’t hurt for the President to see the Pope. It always looked good with the voters, and after that the President would have a well-covered dinner with B‘nai B’rith to show that he liked all religions. In fact, as van Damm knew, the President went to church only for show now that his children were grown. That was one amusing aspect of life. The Soviet Union was turning back to religion in its search for societal values, but the American political left had turned away long ago and had no inclination to turn back, lest it should find the same values that the Russians were searching for. Van Damm had started off as a left-wing believer, but twenty-five years of hands-on experience in government had cured him of that. Now he distrusted ideologues of both wings with equal fervor. He was the sort to look for solutions whose only attraction was that they might actually work. His reverie on politics took him away from the discussion of the moment.
“You thinking about something, Jack?” Alden asked.
“You know, we’re all ‘people of the book,’ aren’t we?” Ryan asked, seeing the outline of a new thought in the fog.
“So?”
“And the Vatican is a real country, with real diplomatic status, but no armed forces ... they’re Swiss ... and Switzerland is neutral, not even a member of the UN. The Arabs do their banking and carousing there ... gee, I wonder if he’d go for it ... ?” Ryan’s face went blank again, and van Damm saw Jack’s eyes center as the light bulb flashed on. It was always exciting to watch an idea being born, but less so when you didn’t know what it was.
“Go for what? Who go for what?” the Chief of Staff asked with some annoyance. Alden just waited.
Ryan told them.
“I mean, a large part of this whole mess is over the Holy Places, isn’t it? I could talk to some of my people at Langley. We have a really good—”
Van Damm leaned back in his chair. “What sort of contacts do you have? You mean talking to the Nuncio?”
Ryan shook his head. “The Nuncio is a good old guy, Cardinal Giancatti, but he’s just here for show. You’ve been here long enough to know that, Arnie. You want to talk to folks who know stuff, you go to Father Riley at Georgetown. He taught me when I got my doctorate at G-Town. We’re pretty tight. He’s got a pipeline into the General.”
“Who’s that?”
“The Father General of the Society of Jesus. The head Jesuit, Spanish guy, his name is Francisco Alcalde. He and Father Tim taught together at St. Robert Bellarmine University in Rome. They’re both historians, and Father Tim’s his unofficial rep over here. You’ve never met Father Tim?”
“No. Is he worth it?”
“Oh, yeah. One of the best teachers I ever had. Knows D.C. inside and out. Good contacts back at the home office.” Ryan grinned, but the joke was lost on van Damm.
“Can you set up a quiet lunch?” Alden asked. “Not here, someplace else.”
“The Cosmos Club up in Georgetown. Father Tim belongs. The University Club is closer, but—”
“Right. Can he keep a secret?”
“A Jesuit keep a secret?” Ryan laughed. “You’re not Catholic, are you?”
“How soon could you set it up?”
“Tomorrow or day after all right?”
“What about his loyalty?” van Damm asked out of a clear sky.
“Father Tim is an American citizen, and he’s not a security risk. But he’s also a priest, and he has taken vows to what he naturally considers an authority higher than the Constitution. You can trust the man to honor all his obligations, but don’t forget what all those obligations are,” Ryan cautioned. “You can’t order him around, either.”
“Set up the lunch. Sounds like I ought to meet the guy in any case. Tell him it’s a get-acquainted thing,” Alden said. “Make it soon. I’m free for lunch tomorrow and the next day.”
“Yes, sir.” Ryan stood.
The Cosmos Club in Washington is located at the corner of Massachusetts and Florida avenues. The former manor house of Sumner Welles, Ryan thought it looked naked without about four hundred acres of rolling ground, a stable of thoroughbred horses, and perhaps a resident fox that the owner would hunt, but not too hard. These were surroundings the place had never possessed, and Ryan wondered why it had been built in this place in this style, so obviously at odds with the realities of Washington, but built by a man who had understood the workings of the city so consummately well. Chartered as a club of the intelligentsia—membership was based on “achievement” rather than money—it was known in Washington as a place of erudite conversation and the worst food in a town of undistinguished restaurants. Ryan led Alden into a small private room upstairs.
Father Timothy Riley, S.J., was waiting for them, a briar pipe clamped in his teeth as he paged through the morning’s Post. A glass sat at his right hand, a skim of sherry at the bottom of it. Father Tim was wearing a rumpled shirt and a jacket that needed pressing, not the formal priest’s uniform that he saved for important meetings and had been hand-tailored by one of the nicer shops on Wisconsin Avenue. But the white Roman collar was stiff and bright, and Jack had the sudden thought that despite all his years of Catholic education he didn’t know what the things were made of. Starched cotton? Celluloid like the detachable collars of his grandfather’s age? In either case, its evident rigidity must have been a reminder to its wearer of his place in this world, and the next.
“Hello, Jack!”
“Hi, Father. This is Charles Alden, Father Tim Riley.” Handshakes were exchanged and places at the table selected. A waiter came in and took drink orders, closing the door as he left.
“How’s the new job, Jack?” Riley asked.
“The horizons keep broadening,” Ryan admitted. He left it at that. The priest would already know the problems Jack was having at Langley.
“We’ve had this idea about the Middle East, and Jack suggested that you’d be a good man to discuss it with,” Alden said, getting everyone back to business. He had to stop when the waiter returned with drinks a
nd menus. His discourse on the idea took several minutes.
“That’s interesting,” Riley said when it was all on the table.
“What’s your read on the concept?” the National Security Advisor wanted to know.
“Interesting ...” The priest was quiet for a moment. “Will the Pope ... ?” Ryan stopped Alden with a wave of the hand. Riley was not a man to be hurried when he was thinking. He was, after all, an historian, and they didn’t have the urgency of medical doctors.
“It certainly is elegant,” Riley observed after thirty seconds. “The Greeks will be a major problem, though.”
“The Greeks? How so?” Ryan asked in surprise.
“The really contentious people right now are the Greek Orthodox. We and they are at each other’s throats half the time over the most trivial administrative issues. You know, the rabbis and the imams are actually more cordial at the moment than the Christian priests are. That’s the funny thing about religious people, it’s hard to predict how they will react. Anyway, the problems between the Greeks and Romans are mainly administrative—who gets custody over which site, that sort of thing. There was a big go-round over Bethlehem last year, who got to do the midnight mass in the Church of the Nativity. It is awfully disappointing, isn’t it?”
“You’re saying it won’t work because two Catholic churches can’t—”
“I said there could be a problem, Dr. Alden. I did not say that it wouldn’t work.” Riley lapsed back into silence for a moment. “You’ll have to adjust the troika ... but given the nature of the operation, I think we can get the right kind of cooperation. Co-opting the Greek Orthodox is something you’ll have to do in any case. They and the Muslims get along very well, you know.”
“How so?” Alden asked.
“Back when Mohammed was chased out of Mecca by the pre-Muslim pagans, he was granted asylum at the Monastery of St. Catherine in the Sinai—it’s a Greek Orthodox shrine. They took care of him when he needed a friend. Mohammed was an honorable man; that monastery has enjoyed the protection of the Muslims ever since. Over a thousand years, and that place has never been troubled despite all the nasty things that have happened in the area. There is much to admire about Islam, you know. We in the West often overlook that because of the crazies who call themselves Muslims—as though we don’t have the same problem in Christianity. There is much nobility there, and they have a tradition of scholarship that commands respect. Except that nobody over here knows much about it,” Riley concluded.