Commander-In-Chief

by Mark Greaney

  “The threats will only turn into action when the Russian Sixth Army crosses into an independent state. If Russia remains in Russia, or even in its client state Belarus, no one in the West will act militarily against you. And that’s a promise.”

  Ryan knew what she was thinking from the look on her face when the camera was on him. She hadn’t penetrated Ryan’s argument or his calm demeanor, and she was regrouping for another line of attack. He told himself to keep his cool.

  “You say Russia is safe from the West if there is no war in Lithuania, but—”

  “Well, you also have fifty thousand troops on the border of Poland, so we’d much prefer you didn’t invade Poland, either.”

  She ignored him. “But all across Europe and even in your country you are calling for reprisals for the aircraft accident earlier in the week over the Baltic Sea. I don’t see anyone threatening Sweden, the other country involved in the accident. Only Russia. Why is that, Mr. President?”

  “Because the Russian military aircraft was flying without its transponder signal, meaning it was invisible to the other plane and air traffic control.”

  “International flying standards are very clear, Mr. President. Military aircraft do not need to fly with their transponder signals active. Often American planes fly in the dark just like the Russian aircraft. Surely you know this, so why the double standard?”

  “Because no American plane has collided with a commercial aircraft. It is the pilot’s responsibility to keep watch for planes in the sky who are playing by the rules. Russia has been conducting dangerous flights like this at an unprecedented rate. This was inevitable, and avoidable, and ultimately, President Volodin should be held responsible.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You think President Volodin asked his pilot to ram a Swedish commercial plane?”

  “Of course not. But I believe, I know, he ordered his air force to increase incursions, his Baltic Fleet to harass commercial shipping in international waters near Kaliningrad. And he has turned the state of Kaliningrad into nothing less than a military base, with missile batteries ringing the entire nation.”

  “I’ve been to Kaliningrad, Mr. President. It is not a military base. It is a beautiful place full of wonderful people. Have you seen it for yourself?”

  “No, Miss Molchanova, I confess you have had many experiences I have not had.”

  She raised her chin slightly in triumph.

  “For example, I have never lived under a totalitarian regime. It’s for this reason that myself and others like me, all over the world, see President Volodin’s unilateral actions as dangerous to the world order.”

  To the Russian woman’s credit, she did not get angry at the put-down. She simply said, “President Valeri Volodin is not running a totalitarian regime. His supporters would say he simply wants prosperity for every Russian. Some in the West seem to have great difficulty with that.”

  Ryan said, “One hundred eleven Russians are billionaires, while ninety percent of the nation lives below the Western standard of living. Apparently, in contrast to some of the reporting I’ve seen out of Russia, Valeri Volodin wanting something doesn’t necessarily make it so. Another example would be Estonia. He wanted it, and he didn’t get it. Now we know he wants Lithuania. This is why I’m in Copenhagen at the emergency meeting.”

  She said, “What the president said on my broadcast, and he was clear about this, was that since the Lithuanians have not been successful protecting Russian movement to our Kaliningrad Oblast, it was his duty to ensure his citizens were protected.”

  Ryan replied, “The event at the train station in Vilnius is under investigation, Miss Molchanova. I would avoid jumping to conclusions about who was behind that attack.”

  “I think the conclusions can be easily drawn. The culprits were Polish rebels working in collusion with the Lithuanian government to attack a Russian military transport.”

  Ryan said, “There have been a lot of attacks of late that are not what they seem.”

  “I don’t know where you are getting your facts,” Molchanova said, and she prepared to move on to the next topic.

  But Ryan said, “I do know where you are getting yours. Straight from the Kremlin. Disinformation is a key part of Volodin’s campaign of hybrid warfare.”

  Molchanova said, “You think what I am doing is warfare?”

  With a smile he said, “That’s exactly what it is. Information warfare.”

  She smiled herself and looked at the camera. “I have to say this is the first time I have been accused of looking like a soldier.” She turned back to the President. “You recently declared today’s Russia is more dangerous to the world than the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Would you like to explain that to the Russian people?”

  Ryan said, “The Soviet Union had the potential to be more dangerous, but by the 1980s the Soviets were essentially satisfied with the world order. They had their part, we had ours. There would be struggles by proxy on the margins, but no major upsetting of the apple cart. Russia today is more brash, more dissatisfied with its standing, and therefore more unpredictable. Volodin is the manifestation of this unease, just as surely as Hitler was the manifestation of Germany’s discontent after the First World War.”

  “So now we are more dangerous than the Nazis.”

  “No, I said—”

  “Unfortunately, our time is up, Mr. President. Thank you so much for the interview.”

  Ryan nodded and smiled, unrattled to the end. The truth was, he knew she would end this with some sort of “gotcha” line, and she hadn’t let him down.

  The bright lights turned off, signaling the end of the interview. Tatiana Molchanova waited for her microphone to be removed, then stood and shook Ryan’s hand.

  Jack gave a perfunctory “Thank you” and started to turn away, but the Russian reporter surprised him.

  “Mr. President, thank you very much for your time, but I would like to ask you for something else.”

  He was more than a little suspicious of this obviously brainwashed tool of the Russian state. “What’s that?”

  “I was wondering if we could go somewhere private to talk.”

  Ryan almost laughed. “No. That’s not going to happen.”

  She leaned a little closer to him, and he knew Joe O’Hearn was about two steps away, just to the left of the set, ready to take the beautiful woman down to the floor like a safety dropping a wide receiver in an open field. But Joe contained himself and Molchanova whispered, “I bring a personal and private message to you from President Volodin.”

  Ryan just stared at her in disbelief for a moment, then said, “You know, there are avenues for that kind of thing. Statecraft isn’t normally conducted through on-air personalities.”

  Molchanova smiled, her perfect white teeth shining bright. “I know, and I agree this is a unique situation. But the message is very real. I have been told you can contact the Russian ambassador to vouch for me. He only knows I have been tasked with conveying a message. He does not know what the message is.”

  Ryan sighed. He didn’t particularly want a message from Volodin. It would have been welcome if there was any chance in hell it offered an off road to the impending catastrophe in the Baltic, but Ryan presumed whatever it was the woman had to tell him would only be another one of the Kremlin’s patented stalling tactics, obfuscations, or misdirections.

  He said, “Can you give me one moment?”

  “Certainly, sir.”

  Ryan walked over to Arnie Van Damm. People were standing around, waiting to move with the President on to his next meeting, a coffee with the Canadian prime minister, but to Arnie’s obvious surprise, Ryan spoke softly to Van Damm. “I need Canfield on the phone. Now.”

  The President was telling the chief of staff that he needed to talk to the CIA director on a cell phone in the middle of a hotel in Denmark.

  Arnie d
id as directed. It took a minute to make the secure connection, and since it was just five a.m. in Virginia, Canfield hadn’t been expecting the call. Ryan didn’t apologize for the early hour, he was too rushed.

  “Jay, I need you to secure for me a hotel room in this building. I want it covered from top to bottom, left to right, with cameras and audio eavesdropping devices. I need it now.”

  Canfield did not hesitate in his response. “Room 1473. I’ll let them know you’re coming.”

  Ryan didn’t understand. “What? How did you—”

  “We’ve completely wired a couple of rooms there. Seriously, don’t even think impure thoughts inside, because half the techs at NSA are going to know about it.”

  “What’s it for? I mean, what is it for when the President isn’t calling you asking for it?”

  “You were CIA, Mr. President. Shit happens, remember?”

  Jack smiled into the phone. “Room 1473. Thanks, Jay.”

  He hung up the phone and leaned over to Van Damm. “Hold my next engagement for a few minutes. The Russian reporter and I will be going to room 1473.”

  Van Damm’s eyes went just as wide as Ryan thought they might. Van Damm leaned in himself and whispered back, “And I thought the interview was a bad idea.”

  “Don’t worry. It will be fine.”

  “Nixon said that once, didn’t he?”

  Jack gave another little smile. “I guess he said it a lot.”

  57

  John Clark had decided to bunk in the cockpit of his sailboat to keep more in tune with the sounds on and around the cove. There were certainly more comfortable digs down in the master stateroom, but down there he’d be completely unaware of anyone entering the area, or any threats that might arise. It was a little warm up in the cockpit, but Clark decided to give up a little comfort for a little security, so he slept on the cushioned sofa alongside the helm.

  He knew his op down here would be a lot tighter with more personnel, but even before Sam’s death it had been tough to work multiple operations at the same time. Since Sam had died, however, the concept of having The Campus’s operational staff involved in three different areas of operation simultaneously was ludicrous. Still . . . Clark recognized, the enemy gets a vote, so here he was, while Jack was in Virginia on one task and Ding and Dom were in Lithuania on another.

  Clark figured he had it the easiest, but that would be only until he boarded the gray catamaran and confirmed the presence of the Walkers on board. Then things down here would get interesting.

  But not tonight. Tonight he just had to go back to sleep so he could be ready to hit the Spinnaker II.

  He was somewhere between sleep and consciousness when he heard a noise and opened his eyes.

  Clark lay there unmoving for several seconds, trying to determine what had stirred him. But he heard nothing other than the natural sounds of a healthy boat in a peaceful little cove.

  He started to go back to sleep, but then he sat up, deciding that he needed to go to the head.

  He stood on tired legs, took a pair of steps through the cockpit; his next footstep would have brought him to the top of the companionway down to the saloon. But he sensed something again, close. Not like before, this time he was certain enough to swing around, pulling his pistol out of his linen pants as he did so.

  He didn’t make it.

  He never even knew it was a fourteen-inch steel-and-chrome marine wrench that dropped him. He heard the crack, felt the impact just behind his right ear, and sensed the loss of balance—the feeling of falling. He didn’t realize he’d dropped the pistol. His hands were no longer under his control and he was unable to hold his body erect.

  Weightless now, he didn’t understand how he could possibly fall so far to the cockpit deck that had been right there, under his feet, just a second earlier.

  The blow to the head, perfectly and savagely delivered, rendered him unconscious in just over one second, so he was out before he made his first impact with the companionway stairs, halfway down into the saloon. His body took blows in the arms, hip, and all across his middle back as he tumbled down, finally ending up in a still heap on the deeply lacquered floor of the saloon.

  • • •

  For several seconds Clark lay alone, still knocked out completely, but then he was joined by two men, who descended the companionway stairs into the saloon. They wore wetsuits but no other scuba gear; they were barefoot, their faces covered with neoprene head coverings that revealed only mouths, eyes, and noses. Only the glow from a few green lights on the radios and other electronics at the navigation console showed them their way around the saloon.

  They stood over the body, looking down.

  After a few seconds, the American drew his diving knife from the sheath on his ankle, knelt down over the shirtless man in the white linen pants, and lifted the head by a tuft of silver hair. He reached the knife around in front of the man’s neck, placing the four-inch blade against the man’s carotid artery.

  “Wait,” the South African said, looking around at the scene while he spoke.

  The American responded, “But you told me to—”

  “Forget what I told you. This is even better. When they find him they will think the old fuck bashed his head in rushing down the stairs in a panic. It will look like natural causes, so there will be fewer cops running around the islands asking questions.”

  “Why would he panic?”

  “Because he realized he was sinking.”

  The American looked around himself now. He knew he was a subordinate on this op, the mercenary from Joburg called the shots, but the man from Cincinnati was bright enough to recognize this boat wasn’t sinking.

  Before he could bring up this rather obvious point, the South African said, “Disable the bilge alarm.”

  “Where’s that?” The American didn’t know boats, but the South African did.

  “Never mind. I’ll do it.”

  “You want me to snap his neck?”

  “Is he out?”

  “He’s out, but he might still be alive.”

  “I don’t want any more unnatural marks on his body. Leave him just like that.”

  “I think we should kill him.”

  “I think you should do what I tell you to do, man. I cracked his skull like an egg, and a bloke this old will have broken every bone in his body falling down here. Even if he comes to, he won’t be swimming to shore.”

  Together they lifted the access panel in the floor to the bilge pump and shut it off, then found the bilge pump alarm and disabled it. The South African found a second alarm, this under the table in the middle of the saloon, and he unplugged it, then tossed it on the floor.

  While he did this the American found a large toolbox in the closet of the master stateroom, and he began to go through it.

  • • •

  Back topside the two mercs looked around the cockpit for a moment, checking the scene for any evidence they had been there. The American found the SIG Sauer .45-caliber pistol on the floor of the cockpit and he took it as a prize, and in another minute the South African had pulled two curtain rods off the curtains in the master stateroom. He joined his partner on the deck, then they both climbed back down the anchor chain and descended back into the water. Their scuba gear was lashed where they had left it, and they climbed back into their buoyancy-control devices and pulled on their fins.

  The men descended under the boat and used the metal curtain rods to reach up through the intake hoses, then jam them in violently, breaking the seacocks and knocking the hose clamps off the seacock nipples.

  They broke through the sea strainer as well, sending water gushing out near the bilge pump inside the boat, adding to the leaks.

  All the damage was done below the floor of the saloon, the staterooms, and the hallway to the master stateroom; anyone diving on this wreck tomor
row would find no obvious evidence of any holes or breaches.

  It took the two men much longer than they would have liked; they spent ten minutes jamming rods through the ports, but eventually they had created a dozen major leaks in the hull of the boat.

  It was already listing to port by the time the men swam out of the area and back toward their dinghy, hidden in an inlet a quarter-mile away.

  58

  Tatiana Molchanova stood when President Ryan entered. There was real deference there, something she’d displayed little of during the interview. Ryan didn’t know if she knew she’d been outplayed or if her behavior on TV was just an act to stay in the good graces of the Kremlin. He told himself he didn’t have time to think about it. He wasn’t going to change the thinking or the actions of those on state-run media, and it would be ridiculous to waste time trying.

  Ryan crossed the room but stayed ten feet from the woman, as if she might be carrying a disease. He found himself more uncomfortable than he expected to be, and he knew he couldn’t show it. He just said, “All right. I’m here and I’m listening, Miss Molchanova.”

  Molchanova seemed exceptionally proud and excited to be sent as an emissary between two leaders. With her chin high she said, “President Volodin is proposing a summit. A meeting, in secret. Between himself, yourself, and the leaders of Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. Only the five of you. President Volodin will be pleased to meet with you in Zurich as soon as you all can arrange travel there. If you prefer another location, he will entertain any ideas you have.”

  Ryan said, “I don’t understand. Why is it secret?”

  “He says the meeting will concern matters of state involving the future of the region. He assures you he will come prepared to make concessions for the mutual good of all Europe.”

  “Matters that involve all of Europe can’t be discussed in front of all of Europe?”