Clear and Present Danger



""You see this? That's your new target, unless it's not big enough.""

- John Clark

Jack Ryan must investigate the murder of a life-long friend of the POTUS in relation to what appears to be a drug cartel in Columbia, only to be pulled into a war illegally started by the US government.

Written by Tom Clancy with film adaptation starring Harrison Ford.

"Commando: "The chicken is in the pot." Clark: "Cook it." BOOM"
 * Action Duo
 * Action Survivor
 * Armchair Military: When the operation starts to unravel and people not cleared start to figure it out, one person states rather bluntly that if the CIA had actually bothered to include the organizations they were suborning, the operation would have run smoother, would not have been discovered, and would've been a hell of a lot more deniable, basically a screed against the Armchair Military that set up the operation in the first place.
 * Badass: John Clark
 * Black and Grey Morality; A recurring theme. While all involved (save the drug lords) agree Drugs Are Bad, the reactions to them rarely are lily white and morally justified from anyone on the "good guy" team. Not even Ryan is exempt from this, though he certainly tries to avert greying his morality as much as possible.
 * Cortez is very dark grey element on the black side, realizing very sensibly the drug lords are conniving at their own destruction limiting themselves to the drugs trade and that relying on cold blooded murder and other forms of brutality to maintain their power is not only counterproductive in the long run, it's also utterly barbaric,
 * Calling the Old Man Out: "How dare you, sir!"
 * Coast Guard: USCGC Panache, a definite Cool Boat, plays a very prominent role in the book. In the film it's an unnamed Coast Guard cutter.
 * Deceased Fall Guy Gambit: In the movie, the President threatens to do this to Admiral Greer. In the book, John Clark does this successfully to Admiral Cutter.
 * Don't Sneak Up On Me Like That: This exact line is said by Clark when the pilot Larson walks up behind him without warning first. Actually incredibly stupid of Larson, since Clark just killed four heavily armed mercenaries.
 * Drugs Are Bad
 * Exact Words: In the novel, when Cortez is finally taken by the Americans he cooperates freely in return for a promise that he will not be prosecuted or extradited to face trial elsewhere. At the end of the novel the US returns him to Cuba... where, as a traitor and defector from the Cuban intelligence service, he will be immediately killed without a trial.
 * Even Evil Has Standards - Cortez has the mindset of a professional intelligence officer, so while he mostly has a lot of Pragmatic Villainy moments, he does show genuine disgust with the methods used by the Cartel to intimidate their rivals (even paraphrasing Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil at one point in the book).
 * Every Helicopter Is a Huey: Justified in the film by Rule of Symbolism.
 * Everything Is Online: Mocked. After Cortez and Ryan both start to suspect that a car bombing was actually caused by a missile, they research the issue. Ryan, the Deputy Director of the largest intelligence organization in the world, has to pull an all-nighter alone looking through Jane's Armaments. Cortez just searches a slick, high-tech database.
 * Inverted in the original novel, where Cortez finds out that the 'car bombing' was actually a smart bomb by simply reading the police forensics report and realizing that the type of explosive involved is only used in high-end military ordinance, and the thick cardboard cover of his copy of Jane's is how Cortez figures out how the bomb didn't leave any traces of the bomb casing.
 * False-Flag Operation
 * Friendly Sniper: "Ding" Chavez, who becomes a major recurring character.
 * Only in the movie. In the book, he's a recon specialist who majors in CQB.
 * "Get Out of Jail Free" Card: Which is interpreted differently in each version. In the movie, it exists to protect Ritter from the consequences of his actions. In the book, it's to protect the CIA as a whole.
 * The card itself (actually a permission slip of sorts) becomes a major plot point later on in the book, when Ritter doesn't make sure he gets it renewed and later takes actions NOT covered by it.
 * Gilligan Cut: Jack Ryan knocking on the cartel boss's door.
 * Hauled Before a Senate Subcommittee
 * Hollywood Hacking: Averted.
 * Incurable Cough of Death: Admiral Greer, we hardly knew ye.
 * Ironic Echo Cut: "What the hell is this..."
 * Leave Behind a Pistol
 * Literary Allusion Title: the "Clear and present danger" clause in law. Title Dropped in the book. Interestingly, it is related to the First Amendment freedom of speech provision and has little, if any, relevance to the plot.
 * Neck Snap:, in the film.
 * Odd Friendship: Alan Trent, a gay Democrat from Massachusetts and Sam Fellows, a Mormon Republican from Arizona.
 * Puppet Gun
 * Rescued From Purgatory: ...sort of
 * Revised Ending: Or, in the movie's case, reversed ending.
 * Actually, the book has Ryan take the secret to the heads of the House and Senate committees on Intelligence... and its they who agree with the President to keep the whole thing buried, in return for the President's deliberately failing for re-election. Ryan's contribution is to keep quiet about this afterwards, but as he points out in a later novel he can truthfully testify under oath that to his knowledge no deals were cut and nobody was left off the hook; he fulfilled his own legal requirements by reporting events to the relevant oversight committee and they're under no requirement to tell him the exact reasoning processes by which they reached their verdict, only what it was.
 * Running Gag: "Plus change."
 * Right Man in the Wrong Place
 * Ruthless Modern Pirates
 * Shoot Out the Lock: Played straight for once, when Larson Though it is slightly Justified in that he uses five rounds to do so and specifically aims to separate the lock mechanism from the door.
 * Smug Snake
 * Spy Speak
 * Spy Speak


 * The Cartel
 * The Cavalry: after everything goes to hell, The book goes into much further detail, with the Pave Low, their MC-130 support, Larson's King Beech, and the Panache all playing big roles.
 * The Starscream:
 * Title Drop
 * Western Terrorists
 * You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: The drug cartel intelligence officer Felix Cortez snaps Moira Wolfe's neck after getting from her the information his employer desired.
 * This is in contrast to the book, where she's left alive, but made unavailable due to Escobedo using the information that Cortez had collected for an attack on a US delegation visiting Colombia. After the US discovers the source of the leak and gets her cooperation in capturing him, his returning to the US would have resulted in being arrested.
 * She does attempt suicide in the book (but is saved by medical intervention) after realizing that she had inadvertently betrayed and helped kill her boss, but Cortez did not plan on this event and is in fact slightly appalled when he finally hears about it.