“If you think that is a good idea … if you think giving the Emir this opportunity is the right call … well, then I’m sorry to say this, but you’d better go ahead and vote for my opponent.
“But if you think that is a bad idea, if you think the Emir should get his day in court, but in a military court, where he will have more rights than any prisoner he or those like him ever had in their custody, but still not the same set of rights of every law-abiding, tax-paying American citizen, then I hope you will vote for me.”
Ryan shrugged slightly, looked right at Josh Ramirez.
“Josh, I don’t make many campaign promises. I get kicked around in a lot of newspapers and the news shows, including yours, for the fact I campaign on my record and on my character, but not on what I promise to do at some later date.” Ryan smiled. “I just think most Americans are pretty smart, and they’ve seen enough campaign promises never come to fruition. It has always been my thinking that if I just show America who I am, what I stand for and believe in, and if I can show myself to be a guy that you can trust, then I’ll get some folks to vote for me. If it is enough to win, great. But if it’s not, well … America will pick who it thinks is best, and I’m okay with that.
“But I am going to make a campaign promise right here and now.” He turned to the camera. “If you see fit to put me in the White House, the first thing I’ll do, literally the first thing I do when I get back to 1600 Pennsylvania from the Capitol steps, is sit down at my desk and sign papers remanding Saif Yasin into military custody.” He sighed. “You will never see his face on television or hear his voice on the radio, nor the voice of his attorney. His trial will be fair, he will have a robust defense, but it will be behind a wall. Some people may not agree with that, but I have six weeks before election day, and I hope you will extend me the courtesy of trying to convince you that this is the right move for the United States of America.”
Many in the crowd applauded. Many did not.
The debate ended soon after, Kealty and Ryan shook hands for the cameras, then they kissed their wives at the front of the stage.
Jack leaned into Cathy’s ear. “How did I do?”
Dr. Cathy Ryan kept a wide smile on her face as she whispered back, “I’m proud of you. You kept your happy face through all that.” She kissed him again and then said with a grin, “I do love it when you listen to me.”
20
Newport, Rhode Island, sits on the southern tip of Aquidneck Island, some thirty miles south of Providence. As well as being the home of Naval Station Newport and more surviving colonial buildings than any other city in the United States, it also retains a number of gargantuan nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century mansions built by many of America’s wealthiest industrial and financial tycoons of that time period. John Jacob Astor IV, William and Cornelius Vanderbilt, Oliver Belmont, and Peter Widener of U.S. Steel and American Tobacco, as well as others, all constructed palatial summer retreats on the tony island during the Gilded Age of the post-Reconstruction period.
Most of the billionaires are gone; their homes now owned by trusts or by family estates or by museums or foundations, but a few uber-affluent individuals still called Newport home.
This homeowner’s name was Paul Laska, he was seventy years old, he was currently number four on the Forbes list of wealthiest Americans, and he was of the opinion that a second presidential term of John Patrick Ryan would probably mean, within a couple of years, the end of the world.
Sitting alone in the library of his opulent mansion, Paul Laska watched Jack Ryan kiss his wife at the end of the debate. Then Laska stood, turned off the television, and walked alone to his bedroom. His pale, aged face flushed red with anger and his slumped shoulders reflected his sour mood.
He had hoped tonight’s debate would be the moment when Ed Kealty’s fortunes turned. Laska had hoped this, had all but expected this, because he knew something almost no one else in the world knew until thirty minutes ago.
The aging billionaire already knew that the Emir was in U.S. custody. This nugget of information had kept his spirits up while Ryan’s lead in the polls remained through the summer and into the early fall. He’d told himself that when Ed made the “big reveal” in the second presidential debate he would put to bed that tired adage about Jack Ryan that said he was the “tough on terror” candidate. Then, with a few weeks of heavy campaigning in key battleground states, Kealty would shoot ahead for the home stretch.
Now, as Laska took off his slippers and climbed into bed, he realized that his hopes had been fanciful.
Somehow Jack Ryan had still won the damned debate, even with the rabbit Kealty had pulled out of his hat.
“Hovno!” he shouted at the cold, dark house. It meant “shit” in Czech, and Paul Laska always fell back on his native tongue when cursing.
Paul Laska was born Pavel Laska in Brno, in the present-day Czech Republic. He grew up behind the iron curtain, but he’d not suffered particularly for this misfortune. His father had been a party member in good standing, which allowed young Pavel to go to good schools in Brno and then Prague, and then to university in Budapest and then Moscow.
After obtaining advanced degrees in mathematics, he returned to Czechoslovakia to follow his father into banking. A good communist, Laska had done well for himself in the Soviet satellite nation, but in 1968 he came out in support of the liberal reforms of First Party Secretary Alexander Dubček.
For a few short months in 1968, Laska and other Dubček supporters felt the reforms of the Czechoslovakian decentralization from Moscow. They were still communists but nationalized communists; their plan was to break away from the Soviets and apply Czech solutions to Czech problems. The Soviets didn’t like that plan, needless to say, and KGB operatives flooded into Prague to break up the party.
Pavel Laska and a radical girlfriend were picked up with a dozen others at a protest and held for questioning by the KGB. Both were beaten; the girlfriend was sent to prison, but somehow Laska returned to work with the leadership of the uprising, and he stayed with them until one night in August when Warsaw Pact tanks rolled into Prague, and the fledgling rebellion was crushed on orders from Moscow.
Unlike most of the leadership, Laska was not killed or imprisoned. He returned to his bank, but soon emigrated to the United States, taking with him, as he’d told the story thousands of times, only the clothes on his back and a dream.
And by most anyone’s standards his dream had been realized.
He moved to New York in 1969 to attend NYU. Upon graduation, he went into banking and finance. First he had a few good years, then he had a few great years, and by the early eighties he was one of the wealthiest men on Wall Street.
Though he bought properties including his homes in Rhode Island, Los Angeles, Aspen, and Manhattan, in the 1980s he and his wife used much of their money on their philanthropy, throwing their huge financial resources behind reformers in Eastern Europe in an attempt to enact the changes that had failed to materialize during the Prague Spring. After the fall of world communism, Paul started the Progressive Nations Institute to assist grassroots change in oppressed countries around the world, and he funded development projects across the globe from clean-water initiatives in Central America to land mine eradication efforts in Laos.