Clear and Present Danger (1989) is the fourth novel in the Jack Ryan series by Tom Clancy. The novel follows Clancy’s popular heroes Jack Ryan and John Clark as they attempt to rescue an American special operations unit abandoned in the Colombian mountains as a part of the war on drugs. Major themes in the novel include The Moral Ambiguity of Covert Operations, The Abuse of Power in the American Government, and The Destructive Power of Drugs and the Drug Trade.

This guide is based on the 1989 G.P. Putnam’s Sons print edition.

Content Warning: The source material and this guide feature depictions of graphic violence, death, attempted death by suicide, death by suicide, and rape.

Plot Summary

Desperate for public approval in the lead-up to an election, the US President demands that his National Security Advisor, James Cutter, make progress in the war on drugs. Along with CIA Deputy Director (Operations) Robert Ritter and a CIA operative named John Clark, Cutter organizes a covert operation codenamed SHOWBOAT, in which an all-Latino crew will covertly surveil cartel operations to identify drug transports to the United States. These troops will be supported by operation EAGLE EYE, in which fighter pilots will take out transports identified by SHOWBOAT and by operation CAPER, which intercepts cartel communications.

Meanwhile, Coast Guard captain Red Wegener and the crew of the Panache intercept a stolen yacht called the Empire Builder in the Caribbean. The crew determines that the owner and his family were murdered by operatives of the drug cartel. Infuriated by the violence, Wegener stages a mock trial and pretends to execute one of the two thieves so that the other confesses their crimes. FBI agents investigating the Empire Builder decide to ignore Wegener’s behavior to maintain the integrity of the confessions taken from the so-called “pirates.” A team led by FBI agent Mark Bright discovers that the yacht’s owner led a money-laundering scheme for the drug cartel, and that his death was likely ordered by Ernesto Escobedo, an important cartel leader.

In Washington, Jack Ryan is made Deputy Director (Intelligence) after his boss James Greer develops cancer. Despite Ryan’s promotion, Ritter decides to exclude Ryan from operation SHOWBOAT. FBI Director Emil Jacobs asks the President to cancel SHOWBOAT and focus on a legal operation to seize laundered money from the cartel. The President decides to move forward with both operations to improve his approval ratings.

Meanwhile, Staff Sergeant Domingo Chavez is one of 44 Latino men recruited from the Army for a secret special mission, eventually revealed to be SHOWBOAT. Chavez notes that many of the men in his squadron have had their lives negatively impacted by drugs, and when the men learn the details of operation SHOWBOAT, they eagerly agree to participate. The troops are transported to Panama, where they are joined by helicopter retrieval expert Paul Johns and Buck Zimmer, and then to Colombia. Chavez and his battalion run reconnaissance on an active airfield while fighter pilots intercept planes with drug transports headed for America, killing or interrogating the pilots.

FBI Director Jacobs visits Colombia with the Director of the Drug Enforcement Agency to discuss the financial seizures with the Colombian government. Escobedo learns of the trip from his intelligence chief Felix Cortez, a Cuban defector who has been having an affair with Jacobs’s secretary, Moira Wolfe, under the name “Juan Diaz.” On Escobedo’s orders, the American motorcade is fatally targeted, killing Jacobs, the DEA Director, and the American ambassador. The president vows revenge under operation RECIPROCITY, which will target the cartel leaders directly. Moira Wolfe admits telling “Juan Diaz” about Jacobs’s trip to Colombia, and the FBI realizes that he is Cortez. Devastated by her role in Jacobs’s death, Moira attempts death by suicide. She recovers and helps the CIA to identify “Juan Diaz” as Felix Cortez.

The troops of operation SHOWBOAT are pulled out of their position watching airfields and deployed to the mountains of Colombia to stakeout and sabotage cocaine production sites. Chavez’s battalion stage several successful raids but lose one member. When operation CAPER picks up a plan for the cartel leaders to meet to discuss the sabotage of their airfields and production sites, Ritter orders Clark to target the meeting with a stealth bomb. Four cartel leaders are killed, but Escobedo (who didn’t attend the meeting) and Cortez (who arrived as the bomb went off) survive. The SHOWBOAT troops continue to target cartel production sites.

Meanwhile Edward Stuart, the lawyer for the Empire Builder “pirates,” secretly records the crew of the Panache admitting to the mock trial and execution. As a result, the US Attorney offers the men a plea deal that would result in fewer than 10 years in prison. Stuart faces pressure from the cartel to reject the deal and take the case to court to embarrass the US Coast Guard. Meanwhile, police arrest twin brothers Henry and Harvey Patterson for an unrelated crime, then offer them lenient sentencing in exchange for killing the “pirates” in prison. The “pirates” are murdered, and the Pattersons walk free.

When six members of a SHOWBOAT battalion are killed by cartel soldiers, Clark and the President separately urge Ritter and Cutter to pull the surviving troops out. Elsewhere, Cortez and Escobedo are ambushed on the way to a meeting with a rival within the cartel called Fuentes. Fuentes’s house is bombed minutes later, and Cortez and Escobedo narrowly escape. Cortez realizes that the Americans are involved and decides to take advantage of the chaos caused by the operations to take over the cartel himself. He arranges a meeting with James Cutter and blackmails him, claiming to have evidence of American involvement in the cartel war. Cutter agrees to cancelling the planned extraction of SHOWBOAT troops.

Jack Ryan begins to suspect American involvement and believes that he was deliberately kept out of the loop. When his old friend Robert Jackson brings evidence of American involvement to his attention, Ryan steps into action. He discovers evidence of the conspiracies behind the Colombian operations in Ritter’s office. Along with FBI agent Daniel Murray and Director Bill Shaw, he begins to collect proof of Ritter and Cutter’s involvement. Ryan meets John Clark at the death bed of James Greer, who mentored them both, and the men quickly bond. Clark reveals his involvement in the Colombian operations.

Cortez convinces Cutter to reveal the location of the remaining SHOWBOAT troops and sends cartel fighters after them. Chavez’s battalion is decimated, leaving only two survivors. When Clark realizes that Cutter plans to abandon the SHOWBOAT soldiers, he begs Ryan for help. Ryan, Clark, and Daniel Murray organize a rescue operation in which helicopter rescue expert Paul Johns and his co-pilot Buck Zimmer systematically extract the SHOWBOAT teams directly from the Colombian countryside. Zimmer is fatally killed in the operation, and Ryan vows to support his family. The helicopter full of rescued soldiers lands on the Panache with the assistance of Red Wegener.

Clark and Chavez team up to capture Escobedo and Cortez. They return Escobedo to the other cartel leaders, who are implied to kill him. Clark recruits Chavez to the CIA. Ryan confronts the President with evidence of his knowledge of the Colombian operations, and the President intentionally backs down from his campaign to avoid scandal.