by Marc Cameron
“I appreciate your work, Mo . . .” Ryan leaned back in his chair, coffee in hand. “It sounds as though you have every conceivable scenario covered.”
“Mr. President,” Gary Montgomery said. “I lived in Ann Arbor for four years while I was in college. I’m familiar with the layout of the city and the campus. Perhaps . . .”
He stopped.
Special Agent Richardson bristled.
“Perhaps what?” Ryan set his cup on the desk.
“Nothing, Mr. President,” Montgomery said. “The First Lady is in excellent hands.”
“Very well, then,” Ryan said. He stood, shaking each agent’s hand in turn.
“I won’t let you down, Mr. President,” Richardson said.
Ryan swallowed hard, feeling more than a little emotional. “Cathy trusts you, Maureen, and so do I. You and Gary both have our full trust and confidence.”
With one problem mitigated, if not solved, the President picked up his phone to call Arnie and let him know he was ready to move on to Chadwick. That would be interesting, to say the least . . .
* * *
—
Maureen Richardson paused outside the Oval, digging her heels into the thick carpet.
“What the hell was that all about, Gary?” She kept her voice low, in keeping with the decorum of the White House, but there was plenty of force behind it. “You were on the verge of, what? Taking over the trip to Ann Arbor. If you can’t trust me, then you may as well relieve me.”
“I trust you,” Gary said. “You know that.”
“Do you?” Richardson said. “Because it sounded like you were going to play the ‘I went to Michigan so I can do a better job’ card.”
“Well,” Montgomery said. “I checked myself.” He leaned in closer, lowering his voice even more. “Look, Mo, I don’t apologize very often, because I’m hardly ever wrong . . .” He grinned, but she was having none of it. “Seriously. I’m sorry. I trust you, and, more important, so does the boss.”
“Thank you,” Richardson said. “Apology accepted. I got this, Boss. Really. No one will know we’re there.”
“Okay.”
“And, just to show my ego isn’t so large I don’t know when to ask for assistance, didn’t you say you used to live near Kellogg Eye Center?”
Montgomery looked up to find Senator Chadwick loitering in the doorway just a few feet away, waiting on Arnie van Damm. She gave them a nonchalant smile, like a cat ignoring its prey. Claws out, but seemingly disinterested. She couldn’t have heard much, but it didn’t take much. The good senator had a habit of making up the details when she wasn’t sure about something.
“Let’s move this down to W16,” Montgomery said, turning away from the woman he knew to be his boss’s bitter political enemy.
* * *
—
Fifteen feet away, Michelle Chadwick made a mental note to check and see where the Kellogg Eye Center was and what it had to do with the White House. She recognized the big guy, Mathews, or Montgomery, or something like that. He was Ryan’s chief Ray-Ban-wearing head-smasher. The woman looked familiar, and since the Secret Service was tribal and stuck with their own, she was surely a head-smasher as well. Chadwick had seen her with the First Lady, which raised some very interesting questions. David Huang had been right about one thing. She could learn a hell of a lot as Jack Ryan’s new best friend. All she had to do was connect the dots—and then figure out what she wanted to do with the information.
“Ready?” Arnie van Damm said, giving her a start as he came out of his office at a half-gallop, heading for the Oval.
“I am,” she said.
“You look like someone just stomped your big toe. You okay?”
“Not really,” Chadwick said. “I’m kind of in the belly of the beast here.”
Van Damm gave her a wary side-eye. “And from my point of view, you’re giving the beast a bad case of heartburn. If it were up to me . . .” He stopped, took a deep breath. “But it’s not up to me. Come on. We don’t want to keep the President waiting.”
30
Chavez spent the last two hours of their flight leading a gear check—sometimes referred to by the rest of the team as a “pocket dump” or a “show me yours I’ll show you mine.” The nature of their work and the places they did it made their loadout extremely fluid. Talking about everyday carry, or EDC, was all the rage these days. Everyone from accountants to war-fighters who were integrating back into civilian life took to various EDC forums on social media, posting neatly knolled professional-quality photos of their assorted blades, flashlights, firearms, and other pocket litter. Chavez talked smack about it sometimes, but he’d been known to spend more time than he should have scrolling on his phone to check out what other operators thought was important. Patsy called it “gun porn.” It was a mystery to her why anyone would need to carry two knives. An odd sentiment, considering who her father was.
Chavez had tried to explain once, years before, over Thanksgiving dinner with his in-laws and other close family. He’d pointed out that just as surgeon Patsy required assorted scalpels and other medical instruments, he needed different kinds of blades for different types of work. JP, maybe six or seven years old at the time, sitting on the piano bench by his cousin, asked his daddy what kind of work the big Benchmade automatic folder in his pocket was for. Patsy and the other women at the table had glared, but without missing a beat, Clark, the boy’s grandfather, had drawn his own Benchmade auto-folder, sliced a ginormous drumstick off the turkey carcass in front of him, and passed it to the delighted boy. It was enough explanation for JP, and Clark expertly steered the conversation to baseball.
Good times.
Everyone on the team carried at least one blade. Most of them had moved away from the more tactical-looking black knives to knives with wooden or Micarta scales. Ryan carried a wood-handled Benchmade called a Crooked River. It looked like a folding hunting knife, arguably not as sexy as a black knife, but the razor-sharp blade performed the same function. Knife fighting was a misunderstood tactic, anyway. Knives that were small enough to put in a pocket made for barely adequate defensive weapons—if they could even be accessed in time. Violent attacks were most often like car wrecks, out-of-nowhere surprises, ambushes, that left the victim stunned and staggering—or dead—before he or she knew what hit them. Sure, there were times when a push dagger would come in handy if some thug had you up against a wall or down on the ground, or a karambit if you were going kinetic and quiet. But mano-a-mano knife fights where opponents squared off with blades were practically nonexistent.
Knives as offensive weapons—now, that was a different story. That was the reason to carry one—not to mention the fact that there was always a bunch of shit that needed to be cut. So everyone had a blade.
Flashlights, butane lighters, and SWAT-T tourniquets rounded out the pocket litter everyone had in common. Each of them carried enough stash-cash to bug out on their own if the need arose, along with an open credit card that was akin to a fire extinguisher behind a glass door—used only in case of emergency. Gone were the days when an operator could trade a high-end watch for a ticket out of a hot spot—though Chavez had a sneaking suspicion that a good many of those stories were just rationalizations Special Ops guys used to get their wives to let them buy a Rolex Submariner or Breitling Emergency.
Caruso carried his FBI badge. Midas and Jack Junior each toted their favorite set of lock picks. Ding was partial to a small Leica monocular. Clark, who was old-school, always had a handkerchief, grousing all the time that they’d gone out of style. The small square of white cloth could be used for first aid, as a makeshift head cover in the sun, or, among other things, a hand towel—anything but a surrender flag.
Some years back, a Russian thug had given John Clark’s gun hand a severe beating with the business end of a hammer. Talented surgeons, months of painful physical therapy
, and a gut full of grit had allowed him to start shooting again, but the nerves and tendons would never be what they once were. He’d carried a double-action SIG Sauer P220 for a number of years, but the crisp single action of the 1911 Wilson Combat .45 was much less painful for him to keep up the practice he needed to shoot well.
Caruso customarily carried his FBI-issue .40-caliber Glock. When they did carry, the rest of them were armed with Smith & Wesson M&P Shields and one extra seven-round magazine. An infantry soldier turned special operator, it went against Chavez’s grain not to have a vest full of magazines. Ammunition left at home was no good at all. But intelligence work was a different mission. If you had to resort to gunfire, you’d screwed up bad and were probably hauling ass. There were heavy weapons in the form of Heckler & Koch MP5s and MP7s behind the bulkheads of the Gulfstream, along with a Winchester Model 70 in .308, should the mission require them to take a more offensive posture.
Holsters and carry method were a personal preference and ran the gamut. Everyone had a favorite, and there was little use in trying to convince another that your choice was better than theirs. Chavez wore an inside-the-pants single clip called the Incog by G-Code. It was specifically designed for appendix carry—in front of the body, just off the centerline of his belt. Chavez preferred to wear his at four o’clock, unwilling to leave the muzzle pointing at little Ding and the boys on such a regular basis. Some of his friends, all talented operators, were fine with appendix carry, their differences in opinion about firearms, holsters, and methods of carry resulting in countless good-natured arguments over pizza and beer around the fire ring. Clark said little during these discussions, but carried the 1911 at four o’clock in a leather Milt Sparks inside-the-pants holster, contending God had made that little hollow below a man’s kidney specifically so it would fit a .45-caliber pistol.
The smallest member of the team, Adara often carried the biggest loadout, stuffing cargo pockets and day packs with Israeli bandages, clotting agent, and three-inch chest-decompression needles. She cajoled everyone constantly to carry their SWAT-T tourniquets wherever they went and whatever they were doing, noting that they had all been in hairy situations that required some level of self- or buddy care.
Deciding what to take was always a balancing game. Newbies always tried to bring the kitchen sink. Old hands got by on a lot less, improvising in the field. They might not admit it, but nearly everyone wanted to carry more shit than was possible or even practical. Absent a sixty-pound ruck, a lot of things had to be left behind. They had to stay nimble, and yet still have the necessary tools when the time came.
Thankfully, smartphones had consolidated about five pounds of bulky tech gear into one multifunction device.
This mission would entail covert entry into a business, the kinder and gentler term for burglary. They would have to get past several layers of security—guards, outer doors, inner doors, and, in all likelihood, a safe. Everyone on the team knew how to pick tumbler locks, though Jack Junior and Midas had that little extra touch that made it appear easy.
Two of the duffels on the seat in front of Ding contained small backpacks with assorted breaching devices—crowbars, Halligan fire tools, hammers, and bolt cutters. Advancements in technology had rendered conventional locks the exception, so most of their kit leaned heavily toward devices used to defeat electronic security measures. Multitools, rolls of insulated wire to bypass circuits, gaffer’s tape, a lineman’s test set, and extra headlamps all saw frequent use. Gavin Biery had put together a kit with Midas—arguably the most tech-literate of the team. The hard Pelican case contained assorted computer dongles, cables, cameras, slap-mics, and a couple of Arduino microcontrollers for attacks on hotel room locks. In a case all their own were a half-dozen Raspberry Pis. These simple, single-board computers cost a whopping twenty-five bucks apiece and could be used as the basis for any number of technical applications Gavin Biery could dream up and walk them through over the phone.
When Chavez thought about it, having Gavin on the phone was like bringing two hundred and fifty pounds of tech gear and encyclopedic knowledge along on the job.
Commo was key to any mission, and often the first thing to fail. Each team member was responsible for their own earbuds, extra batteries, near-field neck-loop mic, radio, and charger. The batteries that powered each radio were small, flat packs that fit in the liners of their belts, removable for the times they had to go through airport security. There were two spare sets of everything on the Gulfstream. Ding stuffed these in his bag. A good leader kept a load of spares in his case—just in case.
He ticked off the rest of the gear from the list he kept in a battered Moleskine notebook, checked his G-shock (sadly, no Rolex for him . . .), and gave a thumbs-up to Clark.
Satisfied that they were ready, Chavez leaned back in his seat, closed his eyes, and thought of his kid eating that giant turkey leg all those years ago . . .
31
Manado looked north from the island of Sulawesi, across the Celebes Sea toward the Philippines, less than three hundred miles away. The Manadonese—more correctly called Minahasan—people seemed stockier than other Indonesians Chavez had met. Handsome, he thought, primarily because they looked an awful lot like him, with almost Hispanic features and sometimes a little wave to their dark hair. Chavez found that most people didn’t give him a second glance—as long as he didn’t try to speak.
Chavez and Clark had split from the rest of the team as soon as they’d bought their entry visas and cleared Immigration. They now sat at a plastic table outside a Starbucks in the Megamall, a seafront shopping center downtown.
The rest of the team had taken two of the rental cars and were checking out the Suparman Games store in the center of Manado, leaving Ding and Clark to organize rooms at the Whiz Prime Hotel that was adjacent to the mall. With that done, Ding had invited Clark out for coffee, promising not to get bubble tea.
The mall had a cinema and plenty of high-end stores, if you cared about that kind of thing, which Chavez did not. More important, though, there was coffee. Sleep on the plane was always fitful, and jumping into work after endless hours on the Gulfstream had made coffee a necessity. The shop next to Starbucks sold snacks. Chavez bought fried banana fritters drizzled with palm sugar so he’d have something besides caffeine acid in his gut.
It was crowded for the midafternoon, mostly women, but like anywhere Chavez had ever been, there were a few roving packs of teenage boys, looking for something to do. Security kept them in line, and cleaners with brooms and long-handled dustpans scoured the floors for trash or spills. The place was sparkling clean but still worn and lived-in. It reminded Ding of his grandmother’s house in East L.A., whenever she thought someone important like the priest was coming to visit. It was as clean as a shabby thing could be.
Every other person in Manado seemed to have a cigarette in hand. Ding read somewhere that offering a cigarette was a polite way of greeting. The population’s affection for smoking coupled with the ceilings painted in blue-and-white cloud scenes gave the mall the feel of a Vegas casino.
Manado was a large city for the island, but its population of only half a million made it barely a glimmer compared to Jakarta’s blinding glare. The local dive shops and tourist operators liked to compare themselves to Bali. Chavez could see it. If he didn’t have to fly in and steal some piece of shit’s computer virus, he would have liked to bring Patsy here. Maybe. Sometimes traveling so much just made him want to sit at home on his own couch and drink a beer—a sore spot with his highly intelligent and adventurous wife. But then, of course she would crave adventure. She was John Clark’s daughter.
The people of Manado had a decidedly European bent, and, unlike much of the rest of Indonesia, they were predominately Christian, exemplifying their faith with a gleaming white statue called Yesus Kase Berkat that overlooked the city fifty meters above the ground on the southern hills. This “Blessing Jesus” leaned forward, arm
s open wide, robes flowing, appearing to march down from the mountains. Over those same mountains, behind the statue, and across the Gulf of Tomini, Islamist militants and Christians clashed in frequent violence. The look on Clark’s face said he’d rather be there.
Chavez took a bite of fried banana and looked directly at Clark, trying to make conversation. “Here’s sort of a funny thing. Did Patsy tell you that the neighbor kid is trying to talk JP into doing e-sports when they go to college?”
If there was one thing that could make Clark smile, it was his grandson. “Kid’s got his mother’s brain, getting into Stanford.”
“Can’t argue there,” Chavez said.
“And what the hell are e-sports, anyway?”
“Video games, I think,” Chavez groused. “I’m not a hundred percent clear. I guess it’s a big deal now. There are teams all over the country.”
“Is he doing it?”
“Don’t worry, your grandson’s not quitting baseball,” Chavez said. “I’ll tell you that right now.”
“That’s the trouble with kids,” Clark said, gazing pensively into his coffee as though he was speaking from personal experience. “They grow up and do what they want to do instead of what we want them to do.”
“E-sports,” Chavez scoffed, curling his lip like the word tasted bad. “Maybe the kids can grow some e-muscles and e-coordination to go along with it. Call it e-games, but come on . . . e-sports?”
Clark took a drink of coffee. “Who am I to judge? I never expected video games to make the jump from pizza joints to home computers.”
“Don’t forget phones.”
“Yeah,” Clark said, his interest in the subject exhausted. “Stanford,” he whispered to himself. “What a kid.”