Jack Ryan 9 - Executive Orders (66 page)

“You know, politically this is going to—”

“What you're going to say to the Senate, George, is it good for the country as a whole?”

“Yes, sir!” An emphatic nod of the head.

“Then don't wimp out on me.”

SecTreas wiped his mouth with the monogrammed napkin, and looked down again. “You know, after this is all over and we go back to normal life, we really have to find a way to work together. There aren't many people like us, Ryan.”

“Actually there are,” the President said, after a moment's reflection. “The problem is that they never come here to work. You know who I learned that from? Cathy,” Jack told him. “She fucks up, somebody goes blind, but she can't run away from making the call, can she? Imagine, you fuck up, and somebody loses his sight forever— or dies. The guys who work the emergency room are really on the ragged edge, like when Cathy and Sally went into Shock-Trauma. You blow the call, and somebody is gone forever. Big deal, George, bigger than trading equities like we used to do. Same thing with cops. Same thing with soldiers. You have to make the call, right now, or something really bad happens. But those kinds of people don't come here to
Washington
, do they? And mainly that sort of guy goes to the place he—or she—has to be, where the real action is,” Ryan said, almost wistfully. “The really good ones go where they're needed, and they always seem to know where that is.”

“But the really good ones don't like the bullshit. So they don't come here?” Winston asked, getting his own course in Government 101, and finding Ryan a teacher of note.

“Some do. Adler at State. Another guy over there I've discovered, name of Vasco. But those are the ones who buck the system. The system works against them. Those are the ones we have to identify and protect. Mostly little ones, but what they do isn't little. They keep the system running, and mainly they go unnoticed because they don't care much about being noticed. They care about getting it done, serving the people out there. You know what I'd really like to do?” Ryan asked, for the first time revealing something from the depths of his soul. He hadn't even had the guts to say this to Arnie.

“Yeah, set up a system that really works, a system that recognizes the good ones and gives them what they deserve. You know how hard that is in any organization? Hell, it was a struggle at my shop, and Treasury has more janitors than I had trading executives. I'm not even sure where to start a job like that,” Winston said. He would be one to grasp the scope of the dream, his President thought.

“Harder than you think, even. The guys who really do the work don't -want to be bosses. They want to work. Cathy could be an administrator. They offered her the chair at the University of Virginia Medical School—and that would have been a big deal. But it would have cut her patient time in half, and she likes doing what she does. Someday Bernie Katz at
Hopkins
is going to retire, and they'll offer his chair to her, and she'll turn that down. Probably,” Jack thought. “Unless I can talk her out of it.”

“Can't be done, Jack.” T
RADER
shook his head. “Hell of an idea, though.”

“Grover
Cleveland
reformed the Civil Service over a hundred years ago,” POTUS reminded his breakfast guest. “I know we can't make it perfect, but we can make it better. You're already trying—you just told me that. Think about it some.”

“I'll do that,” SecTreas promised, standing. “But for now, I have another revolution to foment. How many enemies can we afford to make?”

“There's always enemies, George. Jesus had enemies.”

H
E LIKED THE
sobriquet “Movie Star,” and having learned of it fifteen years before, he had also learned to make it work for him. The mission was reconnaissance, and the weapon was charm. He had a choice of accents in his repertoire. Since he had German travel documents, he affected the speech of a person from
Frankfurt
to go along with German clothing, complete to shoes and wallet, all purchased with money that came from whatever sponsor Ali Badrayn had recently found. The rental-car company had provided him with excellent maps, all spread on the bucket seat next to his. That saved him from memorizing all his routes, which was tiresome, and wasteful of both his time and his photographic memory.

The first stop was St. Mary's School, located a few miles outside
Annapolis
. It was a religious school, Roman Catholic, that ran from pre-kindergarten to twelfth grade, and had just under six hundred students. That made it a borderline case in terms of economics. The Star would get two or perhaps three passes, made somewhat easier by the fact that the school was on a point of land that had once been a sizable farm which the Catholic Church had talked out of some wealthy family or other. There was only one access road. The school's land ended at the water, and there was a river on the far side, past the athletic fields. The road had houses on one side, a residential development perhaps thirty years old. The school had eleven buildings, some closely bunched, others more spread out. Movie Star knew the ages of the targets, and from that it was easy enough to guess the buildings where they would spend much, if not all, of their time. The tactical environment was not a favorable one, and became less so when he spotted the protection. The school had plenty of land—at least two hundred hectares—and that made for a sizable defense perimeter, penetrating which had instant risks. He spotted a total of three large, dark vehicles, Chevy Suburbans, which could not have been more obviously the transport for the targets and their protectors. How many? He saw two people standing in the open, but the vehicles would have at least four guards each. The vehicles would be armored, and equipped with heavy weapons. One way in, and one way out. Almost a kilometer out to the main road. What about the water? Movie Star thought, driving to the end. Ah. There was a Coast Guard cutter there, a small one, but it would have a radio, and that made it large enough.

He stopped the car at the cul-de-sac, getting out to look at a house with a for-sale sign in the yard. He retrieved the morning paper from the car, ostentatiously checking the folded page against the number, then looking around some more. He had to be quick about it. The guards would be wary, and though they couldn't check everything— even the American Secret Service had limits on its time and resources—he couldn't afford to dawdle. His initial impressions were not at all favorable. Access was limited. So many students—picking out the right two would be difficult. The guards were many and dispersed. That was the bad part. Numbers mattered less than physical space. The most difficult defense to breach was a defense in depth, because depth meant both space and time. You could neutralize any number of people in a matter of seconds if you had the proper weapons and they were bunched up. But give them anything more than five seconds, and their training would kick in. The guards would be well-drilled. They'd have plans, some predictable, some not. That Coast Guard boat, for example, could dart into shore and take the targets clear. Or the guards could retreat with their charges to an isolated point and fight it out, and Movie Star had no illusions about their training and dedication. Give them as much as five minutes, and they'd win. They'd call in help from the local police force—which even had helicopters; he'd checked—and the attacking force would be cut off. No, this was not a favored site. He tossed the newspaper back into the car and drove off. On the way out, he looked on the street for a covert vehicle. There were a few vans parked in driveways, none of them with darkened plastic on the windows which might conceal a man with a camera. His peripheral vision confirmed his assessment. This was not a good location. To take these targets, it would be far better to do it on the fly. On the road, more correctly. But not much better. The protection for that would probably be excellent. Kevlar panels. Lexan windows. Special tires. And doubtless overhead protection in the form of helicopters. That didn't even count the unmarked cars and ready access to supplementary police reinforcement.

Okay, Movie Star thought, using in his mind an Americanism that had universal application.
Giant
Steps
Day
Care
Center
and Nursery School,
Ritchie Highway
above
Joyce Lane
. Only one target there, but a better one, and probably, Movie Star hoped, a more favorable tactical environment.

W
INSTON HAD BEEN
in the business of selling himself and his ideas for more than twenty years. Along with it had come a certain theatrical sense. Better yet, the stage fright went in both directions. Only one of the senators on the committee had previous experience, and he was in the minority party—the polarity of the Senate had changed with the 747 crash, and done so in his ideological favor. As a result, the men and women taking their seats behind the massive oak bench were every bit as nervous as he was. While he took his seat and set out his papers, a total of six people were piling up huge bound volumes on the next table over. Winston ignored them. The C-SPAN cameras did not.

It soon got better. While the Secretary-designate chatted with Mark Gant, the latter's portable computer open and operating in front of him, the table to their left groaned and crashed, spilling the pile of books to the floor, to the collective gasp of everyone in the room. Winston turned, startled and pleased. His gofers had done exactly what he'd told them, piling the collected volumes of the United States Tax Code right in the middle of the table instead of distributing the load evenly.

“Oh, shit, George,” Gant whispered, struggling not to laugh.

“Maybe God really is on our side.” He jumped up to see that nobody had been hurt. Nobody had. The first oaken cry of protest had made the people stand back. Now security guards darted in, only to see that nothing, really, had happened. Winston leaned into the microphone.

“Mr. Chairman, sorry about that, but it doesn't really hurt anything. Can we proceed without further delay?”

The chairman gaveled the room to order, without taking his eyes off the disaster. A minute later, George Winston was sworn.

“Do you have an opening statement, Mr. Winston?”

“Sir, I did.” SecTreas shook his head and stifled a laugh, though not quite all the way. “I guess I have to apologize to the members of the committee for our little accident. I'd meant that to be an illustration of one of my points, but . . . well . . .” He rearranged his papers and sat more erect in his chair.

“Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, my name is George Winston, and President Ryan has asked me to step away from my business to serve my country in the capacity of Secretary of the Treasury. Let me tell you a little bit about myself . . .”

“W
HAT DO WE
know about him?” Kealty asked.

“Plenty. He's smart. He's tough. He's pretty honest. And he's richer 'n God.” Even richer than you, the aide didn't say.

“Ever investigated?”

“Never.” His chief of staff shook his head. “Maybe he's skated on thin ice, but—no, Ed, I can't even say that. The book on Winston is that he plays by the rules. His investment group is highly rated for performance and integrity. He had a bad trader working for him eight years ago, and George personally testified against him in court. He also made good the guy's shenanigans out of his own pocket. His own personal pocket, that is. Forty million dollars' worth. The crook served five years. He's a good choice for Ryan. He's no politician, but he's well respected on the Street.”

“Shit,” Kealty observed.

“M
R.
C
HAIRMAN, THERE
are a lot of things that need to be done.” Winston set his opening statement aside and continued off the cuff. Or so it seemed. He jerked his left hand to the pile of books. "That broken table over there. That's the
U.S.
Tax Code. It's a principle of common law that ignorance of the law is not a defense before the bar of justice. But that doesn't make sense anymore. The Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service both promulgate and enforce the tax law of our country. Excuse me, those laws are passed by the Congress, as we all know, but mainly they happen because my department submits the proposed set of rules, and the Congress modifies and approves them, and then we enforce them. In many cases, the interpretation of the code you pass is left to people who work for me, and as we all know, the interpretation can be as important as the laws themselves. We have special tax courts to make further rulings—but what we end up with is that pile of printed paper over there, and I would submit to this committee that nobody, not even an experienced member of the bar, can possibly understand it all.

"We even have the absurd situation that when a citizen brings his tax records and return forms into an IRS office for assistance from the people who enforce the law, and those IRS employees make a mistake, then the citizen who comes to his government for help is responsible for the mistakes the government makes. Now, when I was in the trading business, if I gave my client a bad piece of advice, I had to take the responsibility for it.

“The purpose of taxes is to provide revenue for the country's government so that the government can serve the people. But along the way we've created an entire industry that takes billions of dollars from the public. Why? To explain a tax code that gets more complex every year, a code that the enforcement people themselves do not understand with a sufficient degree of confidence to undertake responsibility for getting it right. You already know, or you should”— they didn't—"the amount of money we spend on enforcing that tax code, and that's not especially productive, either. We're supposed to be working for the people, not confusing them.

“And so, Mr. Chairman, there are some things I hope to be able to accomplish during my term at Treasury, if the committee sees fit to confirm my nomination. First, I want the tax code completely rewritten into something a normal person can understand. I want that tax code to make sense. I want a code with no special breaks. I want the same rules to apply equally to everybody. I am prepared to present a proposal to do exactly that. I want to work with the committee to make that into law. I want to work with you ladies and gentlemen. I will not let any corporate or any other form of lobbyist into my office to discuss this matter, and here and now, I beseech you to do the same. Mr. Chairman, when we start talking to every Tom, Dick, and Harry who has a little suggestion to take care of a special group with special needs, we end up with that!” Winston pointed to the broken table again. "We're all Americans. We're supposed to work together, and in the long run, tweaking the tax laws of our country for every lobbyist with an office and a clientele ultimately takes more money from everybody. The laws of our country are not supposed to be a jobs program for accountants and lawyers in the private sector, and bureaucrats in the public sector. The laws which you pass and which people like me enforce are supposed to serve the needs of the citizens, not the needs of the government.