Clear and Present Danger by Tom Clancy

CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER is structured much like most of Clancy’s books. We’re told a large number of stories from different places and points of view. At first they seem unconnected, but the threads will come together by the end.

It may seem somewhat “risky” in that, although this is a Jack Ryan book, Ryan himself is off-stage until the final two hundred or so pages. He doesn’t even know what’s going on. But part of the plotting is to dramatize what he does when he finally does figure out the truth. But the “real” heroes of the book are Clark and Chavez.

Clark is a CIA op who’s appeared in previous Clancy novels. Chavez is a young, talented light infantry fighter.

The most obvious focus of the book is drugs and the Medellin Cartel of Columbia that imported so much cocaine into the United States.

The U.S. sends several small squads of light infantry fighters into the jungles of Columbia — of course without the permission or knowledge of the Colombian government. At first, their job is simply to spy on known airfields, radioing in the location of planes taking off. Eventually they attack processing centers.

In the meantime, a Coast Guard ship happens upon a small yacht just after two men have murdered its family of passengers. Using illegal, unorthodox and unlikely methods, they learn from the killers that the man was a laundering money for the Medellin Cartel, but had been caught skimming and was killed for that.

I’m not so sure such low-level killers would know that much info. I think they’d just be told, “Kill and get away.” Their legal odyssey dramatizes how drugs are impacting out court system. Their lawyer is as slimy as defense lawyers for drug cartel murderers can be — but from good-heartened, good-liberal motives. Their final fate shows how drugs and drug money are whittling away at both the bad and good guys in law enforcement.

Yet it’s with the upper most levels of the U.S. government that this novel is most concerned. And the possibility of people at that level sending soldiers such as Chavez into danger, and then pulling the plug on them to save their own political careers or just to keep themselves out of jail.

And of course, there’s the whole issue of whether or not drugs do constitute a “clear and present danger” to the United States. Some people even refuse to believe that terrorists pose such a danger. Senator John Kerry said he wanted to return to treating it as a law enforcement issue, and many of President Obama’s actions lean in that direction.

The Medellin cartel is gone, but Columbia and other countries still manage to smuggle a lot of cocaine into the U.S., and will continue to do so because there’s a huge market for it. That’s the real problem, and it’s one that can’t be fought by special ops forces.

All in all, this is a novel that could surprise people who hate Clancy and even some of his fans may assume he’d take a more direct stance on these issues, but there’s also plenty of action for those who simply want the military suspense.

Clear and Present Danger by Tom Clancy