Commander-In-Chief

by Mark Greaney

  Jack had also looked into the current status of dozens of other European-based paparazzi, using social media to determine their locations. Of the fifty or so he’d been able to pin down, not one of them had gone to Brussels, and this gave him the strong suspicion there was nothing going on there at the moment that would interest the paparazzi.

  The Italian seemed to be on the world’s most boring vacation, mostly just sitting around in the lobby bar at night and venturing out during the day, but not in some specific pattern like he was here for a nine-to-five job. No, he’d leave for an hour or two in the afternoon, then return to his hotel.

  Jack had no idea what was going on, but he felt strongly that Salvatore wouldn’t be here at all if he wasn’t working in some capacity for the Russians, as he’d obviously been doing in Rome.

  He had taken this information back to Gerry, framing it just as an FYI, an update on his progress about the Salvatore case. When Gerry didn’t react to Jack’s hints that perhaps it would be worthwhile for Jack to go over to Belgium after all, Jack went for broke, and point-blank requested approval again.

  And as before, Gerry denied the request.

  Jack went back to his desk and spent the rest of the day watching camera feeds at Salvatore’s hotel, and that’s where he finally found him, in the lobby, at ten p.m. Brussels time. The Italian was alone, he drank vodka on ice, and he played with his phone, either waiting for a message or just goofing off—Jack couldn’t tell which through the security camera.

  Jack couldn’t tell much of anything through the security camera.

  He realized then and there that he had to know what the man was up to, and there was just one way to find out. He couldn’t wait for Ding and Dom to finish their work in Lithuania, or for Clark to finish his work in the BVIs. Whatever Salvatore was doing in Brussels was time-sensitive.

  Jack decided he would defy Gerry Hendley’s direct order to stand down, to wait for support from his fellow operators.

  He would lose his job for his decision; he had no doubt in his mind. Gerry had allowed some indiscretions from Jack in the past. The younger Ryan had called audibles on missions that weren’t exactly in the spirit of Gerry’s orders, but he’d always done them in the heat of the moment, for the undeniable greater good of the mission.

  But this was very different. He’d been expressly ordered out of the European theater and back to Campus HQ, he’d then requested to travel back to Europe to run a solo surveillance package on Salvatore, and Gerry Hendley, director of The Campus, had unequivocally denied this request.

  There’d be no getting around it: When Jack climbed aboard a plane to Belgium, he would be AWOL from The Campus and insubordinate.

  He’d be gone.

  But Jack knew he was going to do it anyway.

  60

  John Clark sat in the saloon of a small sailboat, smiling at the middle-aged German couple who’d collected him from the shore of West Seal Dog Island an hour before. The husband was dressed only in a Speedo; he was as pink as a rose and as round as a beach ball, and although she was much more modestly dressed, his wife was no more svelte.

  They smiled back at Clark, which told him they didn’t get the hint that he wanted some privacy.

  They’d rescued him from the rocky deserted island after he had sat there six hours in the sun, feeling the muscle spasms and the bruising and the swelling, and brooding over how nice it was going to feel to get the Walkers’ kidnappers at gunpoint.

  And then when the German couple brought him on board their thirty-five-foot Catalina, the Frau tended to his wounds with the boat’s med kit and the Herr brought him a cold bottle of pilsner in an actual stein.

  For a minute Clark thought his head injury was so bad his brain was playing bizarre and cruel tricks on him.

  Almost immediately the couple asked to get a picture with the American, their catch of the day; they were so proud of their rescue Clark thought this would make the papers in whatever tiny hamlet they lived in back in Bavaria. He obliged reluctantly and then asked if he could use their phone to call his wife.

  And here they were, Clark with the phone in his hand and Gerry Hendley’s number already keyed into it, and the Germans smiling and grinning and beaming with pride, staring at him like they wanted to take him to a taxidermist and mount him and put him over their mantel.

  Clark smiled even broader. “I’m sorry. I wonder if I could have a little privacy. I might get emotional talking to my wife, since I almost died last night. It would be embarrassing to me for you to see me cry.”

  “Ach so!” said the husband, and the wife quickly checked the icepack and the bandage on the side of his head, and then the husband shooed her up the tiny companionway and then followed her, even closing the companionway door.

  Clark blew out a long sigh while he dialed the phone, then deleted his picture while it rang.

  Gerry answered his mobile after a few rings. “Hendley.”

  “Hey, Gerry, John here.”

  “Jesus, John, I’ve been calling you all morning.”

  “Yeah, well my phone is probably getting humped by a lobster right now.”

  “I’m sorry . . . what do you mean by that?”

  “It’s at the bottom of the ocean.” John told Gerry everything condensed into a minute of time, because he didn’t know when the German couple was going to peek down on him and he really didn’t feel like pretending to cry.

  When he finished Gerry said, “Christ, John. We’ve got to get you out of there.”

  “I’m fine. I just need to be reequipped, and I need a new lead on the Spinnaker II.”

  “I’ll pull the boys out of Lithuania to come help you.”

  “Please don’t! What they are doing is important. This is important down here, but rescuing the Walkers isn’t in the same ballpark as far as significance. I can handle this myself.”

  Clark realized he was beginning to sound like Jack Junior. He had something to prove that, one could argue, transcended logic and sense. Jack had to live up to the legend of his father. Clark had to live up to the legend of himself. Both he and Jack, Clark realized, were dealing with self-inflicted forces.

  But that didn’t make them any less real.

  It simultaneously annoyed him and allowed him to lighten his criticisms of his younger operator.

  Gerry said, “Look, when you didn’t check in first thing this morning I got worried. I sent Adara down, she’ll be landing around one-thirty.”

  “Gerry, I don’t need—”

  “Wait, just listen. It’s done. Adara will support you. No arguments. You know what she’s done in other ops. She is more than capable of providing operational support.”

  Gerry asked for no arguments, and Clark gave him none.

  • • •

  Clark’s morning with the German couple ended when Adara Sherman picked him up in a rented helicopter in Spanish Town, Virgin Gorda. Clark had explained the attractive young woman in the red Robinson helicopter was an employee of the company he worked for, but he didn’t explain how she happened to be down here.

  As they flew back toward Tortola, Adara explained she had rented a small two-room house near the airport and she was taking Clark there now so she could check out his injuries.

  Clark protested out of habit, but his entire body hurt like hell, and he was exhausted nearly to the point of nausea.

  When they got into the house, a businesslike Adara Sherman opened her rolling backpack med kit in the kitchen and ordered John Clark to take off his shirt.

  Adara looked at his bruises and scrapes. “Good Lord! Did you fall down the stairs?”

  “As a matter of fact, I did.” He winced when she rubbed an alcohol compress on his back. “Is this where you and the other kids start talking about putting me in assisted living?”

  It was a joke, and Adara had an easy laugh, even i
n tough situations, but she wasn’t laughing now. She saw the knot behind his ear. “Oh . . . I get it. It looks like someone encouraged you to fall.”

  “That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.”

  “Was this a leather sap?”

  “It felt like a hammer, but I’m not sure. I guess everything to the skull feels like a hammer.”

  Adara put ice behind his ear after tending to his other wounds. When she was finished Clark said, “We need to find that boat. I feel like they are still in the area, but it could take days to find it.”

  “John . . . we have an aircraft. We can fly across this entire chain in minutes.”

  “The Gulfstream can’t make low passes over the BVIs looking for a boat. It will draw too much attention.”

  “Then I’ll rent that Robinson we were just on. On the way to pick you up, the pilot said he moves people all over the BVIs all day long.”

  “What’s he going to say to flying a recon mission?”

  Adara just smiled. “Trust me, Mr. Clark. I’ll make up a good story. He told me he only had two short charters tomorrow, so I’ll call him now, and first thing in the morning he and I will go out hunting for that catamaran.”

  Clark winced again as she cinched an ACE bandage holding an icepack around his head. “What about me?”

  Adara said, “The only way this happens is if you take a couple days to recuperate. I see the pain you are in. You are lucky you aren’t in traction in the hospital, or worse.”

  “But—”

  “I can do the recon on my own. I know what I’m looking for. I can see better than you. No offense, but it’s true. I’ll find the boat if it’s out there, and I’ll report back to you. You lie around here for forty-eight hours, keep your ice on, and you will thank me when you get back in action.”

  “Ms. Sherman, I am really fine.”

  “Everybody says that the day after an injury. It’s two days after, when the bruising circulates through the soft tissue, that the pain gets the worst.”

  John had learned this very fact from a lifetime of hard living. In retrospect, he wished he’d learned it from a book instead.

  Adara added, “Let’s let them think you are dead. If you go back out to the marinas and ports asking more questions, it won’t take them any time to realize you are still alive and still hunting for them.”

  Clark realized Sherman was right. Still, he said, “What am I going to do for two days?”

  “First, you’re going to call your wife and daughter and tell them you love them.”

  Clark looked down at the floor, a little embarrassed. “Of course.”

  “Good. And you don’t need me to tell you to do the other thing you have to do.”

  “What other thing?”

  Adara Sherman gave John Clark a hard look. “You are going to plan your next meeting with the men who did this to you.”

  Clark nodded. No, he didn’t need anyone to tell him this.

  61

  Valeri Volodin watched the helicopter carrying Tatiana Molchanova leave his front lawn, take off into a night sky filled with swirling snow, and disappear on its way back toward Moscow.

  She’d delivered her message from Jack Ryan. She did it slowly, her voice cracking from nerves.

  Fucking bitch, he said to himself. Ryan had bested her in the interview; she looked positively shell-shocked by the end despite a “gotcha” line or two. And now she brings me this shit from the American President? Ryan clearly felt bold enough to make such a tactless comment only because the woman he was talking to had turned to mush in front of his eyes.

  Volodin would see that Molchanova was replaced on Channel Seven. She’d be live reporting street crimes in Grozny with her cell phone before the end of the month.

  Volodin had given no outward reaction to the insult when she delivered the demand from the American President that he should begin acting like a leader. Instead he thanked her and sent her on her way, masking his fury.

  Now Volodin would show Ryan how a leader acted.

  The door to his office opened, and he felt the presence of his secretary. She stood there silently, waiting to be noticed, knowing full well her president looked out the window when he wanted to brood in peace.

  Volodin said, “What is it?”

  “I’m sorry, sir. Director Grankin is here for his meeting.”

  Volodin did not turn from the window. He just gave a curt nod and said, “Bring him.”

  Grankin was in the office and seated in the chair across from the desk by the time the Russian president finally did turn around to acknowledge him. Volodin sat back down, reached for his tea, and took a sip, all the while looking at the director of his Security Council.

  Mikhail Grankin’s nerves were showing, Volodin could see it plainly.

  “What news?” Volodin asked.

  “NATO will not deploy troops in Lithuania barring an Article Five declaration.”

  Volodin nodded. “They know Lithuania is defenseless, which means they know full well that the moment there is an Article Five violation it will be too late for them to respond. It is as I have said all along. Our pressure has convinced them they want no part in war with Russia. Lithuania is ours for the taking.”

  Mikhail Grankin’s face remained inexpressive, but he nodded slowly. He then said, “Did the American President agree to the summit?”

  Volodin shook his head. “Some incoherent babble about needing it to be processed through proper channels.” Volodin waved his hand in the air like this key aspect of their plan was nothing but a trifle, as if it suddenly didn’t matter. “Forget the summit. We will take Lithuania with only a few shots fired. It will be easier than Georgia.”

  Grankin said, “So we will begin the next phase?”

  “The final phase of operation Baltic Winter Sixteen will begin immediately.”

  Grankin nodded, then said, “The aircraft collision was an unnecessary complication. We didn’t need that.”

  Volodin nodded himself with a rare authentic expression of frustration on his face. “I only wish that fucking Ilyushin pilot was still alive so I could have him killed. In the larger picture this was a non-event. A complication, to be sure, but all the military air operations we have been conducting the last year have served their purpose. Russia is feared, and therefore Russia is respected. A single negative incident was a small price to pay for the power this has given us.” He waved his hand. “Anyway, by this time next week, no one will be talking about an Airbus accident over the Baltic, I assure you of that.”

  Grankin cleared his throat, hesitating. Volodin saw he wanted to say something, but was not sure of the moment.

  “What is it, Misha?”

  “One of my best men. Vladimir Kozlov. He has been on special assignment to your office for the past month.”

  “Has he? Yes . . . I might have heard something about that.”

  Grankin cleared his throat again. “Well . . . with the operation in Brussels coming to a head, with Baltic Winter kicking off . . . I expect an increase in intelligence requirements very soon. I really need Kozlov back.”

  Volodin said, “You have other operatives in the Security Council.”

  “True, sir. But we have been careful to compartmentalize the larger aspects of our plan, keeping information away from FSB, away from GRU. Morozov is in Brussels. My man Kozlov is crucial now for other aspects of the operation.”

  Volodin shook his head. “Kozlov is your man when I give him back to you. For now he is my man. You will have to make do without him.”

  Grankin said nothing more on the matter. He put his hands on the arms of his chair. “If you will excuse me then, I will make the calls to the necessary individuals to begin operations.”

  Volodin nodded, Grankin left, and then Volodin returned to his view out the window. The snow had picked up a little
.

  His mind left the operation in the Baltic, and he considered the operation in the Caribbean. He’d received a short text from Kozlov this morning, indicating all was going according to plan. He didn’t go into any more detail, but Volodin didn’t want or need it. All he needed to know was that in two to three weeks, his money would be out of the reach of all internal threats, and invisible to all external threats.

  Volodin hoped he wouldn’t have to touch it for a long time, but he knew what he was doing would make him either a hero of the Russian Federation or its most wanted criminal.

  And he knew he had to prepare himself to play either role.

  • • •

  Peter Branyon’s gunshot wound to his shoulder and his broken ribs had been stabilized in a hospital in downtown Vilnius, and then he’d been flown from Lithuania to Ramstein Air Base in Germany on an Agency Learjet thirty-six hours after the attempted kidnapping.

  Ding assumed the CIA CoS had been out of it for the entire time since the incident, but as he and Dom snapped the last of the 460 photos they’d been tasked to take by Mary Pat Foley, Ding found out Branyon had been busy, still working the phones, up until the moment he was given anesthesia to go into surgery to deal with his broken shoulder.

  Ding’s mobile rang at seven p.m., just as they were on the highway back to Vilnius. He looked at it and saw it was a Lithuanian number he did not recognize.

  “Hello?”

  A man with a Lithuanian accent spoke in English. “Mr. Chavez. My name is Linus Sabonis. I am director of the State Security Department.”

  Chavez realized he was getting a call from the Lithuanian equivalent of the director of the CIA. “How can I help you, sir?”

  After a short pause, he said, “I think we should meet.”