Clear And Present Danger.pdf

Clear and Present Danger

Tom Clancy

Tom Clancy, the all-time master of the techno-thriller, is back with his newest, most

controversial bestseller. Its theme: America's war on drugs. Its subject: The

assassination of three American officials in Colombia … and the covert - and

shocking - US response.

"CLANCY'S BEST WORK SINCE THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER!' -

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

"ROUSING ADVENTURE… A CRACKLING GOOD YARN!" - WASHINGTON

POST

"THE ISSUES RAISED ARE REAL ONES, AND A JUMP AHEAD OF THE

HEADLINES." - NEW YORK TIMES

"ABSORBING READING…YOU WON'T STOP UNTIL YOU HIT THE LAST

PAGES!" - WALL STREET JOURNAL

"TOM CLANCY HAS DONE IT AGAIN… HEAVY CALIBER EXCITEMENT!" -

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

ISBN: 0-425-12212-3

To the memory of John Ball,

Friend and teacher,

The professional who took the last plane out

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

As always, there are many people to thank. To "The Great Geraldo" for his

friendship; to Russ for his second installment of wise counsel and amazing breadth of

knowledge; to Carl and Colin, who never knew what they were starting, but then,

neither did I; to Bill for his wisdom; to Rich for his contemplation of what matters; to

Tim, Ninja-Six, for more than a few tips on fieldcraft; to Ed, commander of warriors,

and Patricia, who named the Cabbage Patch Hat, for their gracious hospitality; to

Pete, former headmaster of the world's most exciting school (the passing grade is life);

to Pat, who teaches the same course at yet another school; to Harry, mentee, for his

most serious irreverence; to W.H., who does his best in a hopeless, thankless job; and

of course to a dozen or so warrant officers who could teach astronauts a thing or two;

and so many others - would that America served you as faithfully as you serve her.

Law, without force, is impotent. - PASCAL

It is the function of police to exercise force, or to threaten it, in execution of the state's

purpose, internally and under normal conditions. It is the function of armed forces to

exercise force, or the threat of it, externally in normal times and internally only in

times that are abnormal…

[T]he degree of force which the state is prepared to apply in the execution of its

purpose… is as much as the government of the day considers it necessary or

expedient to use to avoid a breakdown in its function and a surrender of its

responsibilities.

- GENERAL SIR JOHN HACKETT

Prologue: Situation

THE ROOM WAS still empty. The Oval Office is in the southeast corner of the

White House West Wing. Three doors lead into it, one from the office of the

President's personal secretary, another from a small kitchen which leads in turn to the

President's study, and a third into a corridor, directly opposite the entrance to the

Roosevelt Room. The room itself is of only medium size for a senior executive, and

visitors always remark afterward that it seemed smaller than they expected. The

President's desk, set just in front of thick windows of bullet-resistant polycarbonate

that distort the view of the White House lawn, is made from the wood of HMS

Resolute , a British ship that sank in American waters during the 1850s. Americans

salvaged and returned it to the United Kingdom, and a grateful Queen Victoria

ordered a desk made from its oaken timbers by way of official thanks. Made in an

age when men were shorter than today, the desk was increased somewhat in height

during the Reagan presidency. The President's desk was laden with folders and

position papers capped with a print-out of his appointment schedule, plus an intercom

box, a conventional push-button multiline telephone, and another ordinary-looking but

highly sophisticated secure instrument for sensitive conversations.

The President's chair was custom-made to fit its user, and its high back included

sheets of DuPont Kevlar - lighter and tougher than steel - as additional protection

against bullets that some madman might fire through the heavy windows. There were,

of course, about a dozen Secret Service agents on duty in this part of the Presidential

Mansion during business hours. To get here most people had to pass through a metal

detector - in fact all did, since the obvious ones were a little too obvious - and

everyone had to pass the quite serious scrutiny of the Secret Service detail, whose

identity was plain from the flesh-toned ear pieces that coiled out from under their suit

jackets, and whose politeness was secondary to their real mission of keeping the

President alive. Beneath the jacket of each was a powerful hand gun, and each of

these agents was trained to view everyone and everything as a potential threat to

WRANGLER, which was the President's current code-name. It had no meaning

beyond being easy to say and easily recognizable on a radio circuit.

Vice Admiral James Cutter, USN, was in an office on the opposite, northwest corner

of the West Wing and had been since 6:15 that morning. The job of Special Assistant

to the President for National Security Affairs requires a man to be an early riser. At a

quarter to eight he finished off his second cup of morning coffee-it was good here-and

tucked his briefing papers into a leather folder. He walked through the empty office

of his vacationing deputy, turned right down the corridor past the similarly vacant

office of the Vice President, who was in Seoul at the moment, and turned left past the

office of the President's Chief of Staff. Cutter was one of the handful of real

Washington insiders - the Vice President was not among them - who didn't need the

permission of the Chief of Staff to walk into the Oval Office whenever he felt the

need, though he'd generally call ahead first to give the secretaries a heads-up. The

Chief of Staff didn't like anyone to have that privilege, but that made his unlimited

access all the more pleasant for Cutter to exercise. Along the way four security

personnel nodded good morning to the Admiral, who returned the gestures as he

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