65
Fu Bohai heard the chirp of the keycard outside his hotel room door when Talia arrived. She tried to open it, but it caught on the metal privacy bar.
“Dorogoy!” she called, breathless. “Why do you make me wait?”
He rolled off the bed to let her in, more excited to see her than he thought he would be. His head still hurt from the boat wreck, but not as badly as the humiliation of letting Medina Tohti escape. Unfortunately, the idiot police officers who responded to Lake Kanas had killed the Han traitor, Ma, before Fu could speak to him.
Admiral Zheng had been furious at first, but for reasons unknown to Fu, he’d been mollified of late. Even allowing Fu to take some leave and visit Moscow.
He opened the door a hair, peering through the crack before shutting it again to unlock the privacy bar.
The barbed Taser darts struck Fu in the groin and chest as soon as he opened the door. Paralyzed from the electric current running between them, he stiffened and fell backward, striking his head on the nightstand and knocking his hat to the floor.
Talia rushed past, kneeling by his side.
“I am sorry, my love,” she said. “He has a gun. He is Chinese, too, perhaps you owe him money.”
Fu did not recognize the man. He was young, very fit, and he’d traded the Taser for a small black pistol with a suppressor on the end. There was something about him that was different. The way he stood was …
The man motioned to Talia with the pistol. “Move away,” he said in English.
That was it, Fu thought. “You are American?”
“I am,” the man spat. “The young woman you drugged, tortured, and murdered in Albania was my friend.”
Talia recoiled at that.
The pistol never wavered. Fu found himself wondering if he would have been so steady under such circumstances.
“I see,” he said. “You are CIA … I suppose you want to know wh—”
“No, I’ve got all I need,” the man said, and then shot Fu Bohai twice in the face.
The sun and sand and beach in Fiji were everything Tim Meyer thought they would be.
The tide was out, giving him enough beach for an evening run. He usually had it to himself this time of the evening, but there was an old dude behind him now, running, not jogging. Way to go, old dude. His wife was probably getting a pedicure or something. That’s what the old ladies did when they came here. Got their nails done.
For a time, Meyer thought the Chinese would have him killed, and in truth, they might have, had he not given them the plans to their submarine drive. Even so, he continued to look over his shoulder.
Man, that guy behind him could run. He’d peter out soon. He had to. Meyer was getting tired and he was in shape …
The Chinese had kept their part of the bargain and got him the hell out of the country and set him up with a bank account containing just shy of two million bucks—something to do with the exchange rate, but it was close enough—and a small villa outside Savusavu.
It was rockier than he thought it would be, but he had the beach to run on at low tide, and a surprising number of the middle-aged women who came here on holiday from Australia and New Zealand were in the market for a fling with the mysterious American tech mogul who lived here year-round. He’d been on the island only two months, but they didn’t need to know that.
He could hear the old dude now, chuffing up behind him like a freight train, like he was trying to win a race or something. The guy was barefoot and his feet made swooshing noises in the sand in time with his breathing. His stride was amazingly light.
“Hey,” the guy called out. “On your left!”
Meyer chuckled to himself. This guy was going to pass him. He considered racing, but then thought it would be more fun to watch the old man stroke out farther up the beach. He moved a half step right into the moist sand.
He felt the sting in his hip at the same moment the guy ran past.
A wasp, maybe.
He stopped to check, suddenly feeling light-headed. He looked out at the ocean, then at the old man who’d gone by, trying to get his bearings.
The man slowed and turned around to trot back, looking winded, but not nearly as winded as he’d sounded earlier.
“You okay?” he said. “You don’t look so good.”
Meyer found it difficult to open his mouth, like his jaw was locked. He fell sideways, smashing into the sand, paralyzed.
The old fellow squatted down beside him.
Meyer wanted to asked him if they’d met, but no words would come out.
The old man gave a slow shake of his head. “Relax, Tim,” he said. “That was a shot of succinylcholine I gave you. Quite a bit, actually, because there was no way I was going to hit a vein on the run like that. It works a little slower in the muscle. Metabolizes quickly. Won’t be any trace of it by the time they get you on a slab. I’d explain it all to you, but there’s no need. I’m sure you already know why I’m here.”
Meyer managed a small groan. Other than that, he couldn’t even close his eyes. It was painless, but absolutely terrifying.
“Anyway,” the old man said, giving him a friendly little pat on the shoulder before he stood up and walked away.
Jack Ryan, Jr., wanted to take the elevator, but Lisanne insisted on the stairs. She’d lost an arm, she reminded him, not her leg—and even then she’d have wanted to take the stairs as well, thank you very much.
Ryan could hear the chatter up above. The smell of lamb in the shepherd’s pie made his mouth water.
He smiled at Lisanne as they turned at the landing to start up again, taking it slow. It had been only a couple months. She was pale, sweating a little on that beautiful upper lip of hers. By all rights, she should have been dead. And she would have been, had she not had her spleen removed after a horseback-riding accident as a teenager. With no spleen to catch them, the bullets had proceeded through her body without clipping any major arteries but for the one in her arm. Adara had saved her life there, no question about it.
“You nervous?” Ryan said.
Lisanne looked at him with a mock scoff. “Why would I be nervous? Because this is our first date?”
“Not that,” Ryan said as they topped the stairs and made the corner into the West Sitting Hall.
Cathy Ryan met them at the door to the private dining room, across from the master residence. She was dressed in jeans and a USMC sweatshirt, a dish towel thrown cavalierly over her shoulder. Ryan’s old man came out behind her, carrying a copy of The Wall Street Journal.
“Mom, Dad,” Ryan said. “I want to introduce you to Lisanne Robertson. A good friend from work.”
THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING
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Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.
First published in the United States of America by G. P. Putnam’s Sons 2020
Published in Great Britain by Michael Joseph 2020
Copyright © The Estate of Thomas L. Clancy, Jr.; Rubicon, Inc.;
Jack Ryan Enterprises, Ltd.; Jack Ryan Limited Partnership, 2020
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Maps by Jeffrey L. Ward
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-1-405-94757-2
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Tom Clancy's Shadow of the Dragon Page 41