Locked On jrj-3

by Tom Clancy

  Clark picked up his pace, found himself passing a beer museum and a covered courtyard full of singing Germans, and he turned again to the right, moving now along the bank of the river. He thought about stopping, turning, and confronting the man who had closed to within thirty feet, there was no way this guy was going to take Clark in on his own, but any altercation in front of a crowd would just about ensure that someone would notice him, recognize him, and call for the police. The man behind him was threatening suddenly with his overt proximity, his unknown intentions, and his power to draw unwanted attention to the American fugitive.

  John turned right again at Fischmarkt, away from the crowds and into a dimly lit alley.

  There was a quick left in front of it. Also dark and quiet. The sign said “Auf dem Rothenberg” and John picked up the pace as he made the turn.

  The second man, the one who had dropped off surveillance, stood in front of him in the dark. A pistol was low in his right hand. “Monsieur Clark, please come quietly so that you do not get hurt.”

  John stopped, twenty feet from the man with the gun. He heard the man behind him stop in the alley, as well.

  The American nodded, took one step forward, then spun on his shoes and ran through the back door of a pizza parlor, leaving his pursuers in the alleyway.

  John was not fast. Speed, he knew, was a young man’s game. But he leveraged his years in the field with each and eve

  In the street in front of the pizza shop he did not turn either left or right. Instead he crossed the street in a sprint and ran into the open door of a post — World War Two apartment building. He was not sure if the chasers had seen him enter, but he ran up the stairs in the entryway, taking the steps three at a time, wheezing and grunting with the effort.

  The building was four stories tall, and it was connected to other buildings on either side. Clark thought about going all the way to the roof and trying to put space between himself and those chasing him by moving along the tops of the other buildings, just like he and his mates had done in Paris. But when he got to the third floor, he heard noise above, a large group in the stairwell on the fourth floor, heading his way. They sounded like they may have been just a group of young people on their way to a night on the town or a party; by their high voices and laughter they did not sound like a snatch team from the FBI. But Clark was alone now, and he did not want to rush into a group of people who could ID him or tell the men on his tail which way he was heading.

  Clark left the stairwell, ran up a hallway, and saw a window at the far end. Outside, under dim electric lights, he could see a fire escape. He charged to the window, half exhausted and nearly out of breath, and pulled it open.

  In seconds he was back out in the rain. The fire escape rattled and creaked with his movements, but it seemed like it would hold for his descent of the flights to the alleyway. He had just turned away from the window, grabbed the railing to head to the first set of rickety stairs down, when a man appeared coming up. Clark hadn’t heard him climbing with all the noise Clark himself had made coming out of the window onto the fire escape.

  “No!” John exclaimed as the man, the same man he had seen watching him in the train station at the ticket kiosk, drew a silver automatic pistol and tried to level it at his prey. But the men were too close to each other on the steep and wet iron steps, and Clark kicked the gun out of the lower man’s hand. The weapon flew over the side of the fire escape and the man slipped back, down two steps to the landing just a few feet below Clark.

  The two men stared at each other silently for a second. John had his gun on his hip, but he did not go for it. He was not going to shoot an FBI agent or a French detective or a CIA officer or a German cop. Whoever this man was, Clark had no plans to kill him.

  But when the man reached inside his raincoat, Clark launched down toward him. He had to close the distance before another weapon came out.

  Luc Patin spooked when Clark knocked his weapon away. He reached for a knife he kept in a scabbard on a neck chain under his shirt. He tore the blade free and slashed through the air at the American.

  John saw the motion, brought his arm up and knocked away the blow, but took a slashing cut to the back of his hand. He cried out in pain, then he fired out his right hand, palm up and out, and he connected under the chin of the French private detective.

  Luc Patin’s head snapped back with the punch to the jaw, and he reelee cd backward and then slipped, his hips hitting the low railing behind him hard, and he tumbled backward off the fire escape. His feet flew into the air as he fell. Clark leapt forward to catch his attacker by his coat, but the rain shower and the slick blood on his left hand caused him to lose hold as soon as he grabbed it, and the Frenchman fell three stories down to the cobblestones.

  His head hit with a sound like a baseball bat striking a melon.

  Fuck, thought Clark, he had not meant to kill him, but he would have to worry about that later. Now he stumbled off the fire escape at the second floor by forcing open a thick wooden door to a kitchen apartment. He found a roll of paper towels, wrapped his hand in them as he stepped back into the hallway, and then raced downstairs and back out onto the street.

  Three minutes later, he walked past the entrance to a subway, and then he hurried back to it. As he headed down the stairs he chanced a glance behind. He saw two pursuers, men in raincoats running together through the rain across an intersection twenty-five meters behind. A Peugeot swerved and honked in their wake. It did not appear to Clark that the men had spotted him, but it did appear that they’d gotten word that their colleague was dead.

  John bought a ticket and rushed to the platform of the next train. He held his breath to keep from hyperventilating. Play cool, stay calm. He stood near the edge by the track, waiting with a dozen others for the next train.

  John could not believe his luck. Somehow he had managed to make it down the steps without being seen by his pursuers, and as he struggled to fill his aching lungs with oxygen, he checked again to make sure he had not been followed. No. He could get on a train to anywhere and then make his way to safety.

  Well, relative safety.

  He felt the cool breeze from the tunnel on his left indicating the impending arrival of the train. He stepped to the edge of the platform so he could be the first one through the doors. A final check to the stairs on his left. Clear. He absentmindedly looked over his right shoulder as the train came out of the tunnel on his left.

  They were there. Two men. New guys, but definitely from the same crew. They approached him with hard faces.

  He knew he had made it easy for them. On the edge of the track, they needed only a little shove and he would be gone. If they weren’t planning on killing him before, he had little doubt that the death of their colleague would change their mission, no matter their original orders.

  He turned away from them and faced the tracks. The train was fifty feet away and closing fast, from his left to his right. John leapt off the edge of the platform, down the four feet to the tracks.

  The others on the platform screamed in shock.

  John crossed the rails right in front of the speeding U-Bahn. A black chain-link fence separated the eastbound line from the westbound, and he had to get over this before the train passed. He leapt onto the fence, pulled himself up with a bloody hand and an arm still aching from a month-old gunshot wound, then he kicked his legs over the fence as the train behind him screeched and wailed. The first car struck his right foot and his heel felt like it had been smacked with a ball bat, and Clark spun off the top of the fence, falling to his hands and knees next to the other track. Like a deer in the headlights, he lookfelt liked up to face another train, farther away but barreling down on him from the west. He could hear screams from the platform next to him. He rose and leapt forward, posting on his injured ankle to do so, and made it to the edge of the platform without touching any of the track’s rails. He tried to heave himself up on the concrete before the train came, but the muscles in his arms faltered. H
e dropped back down, his body spent.

  Clark turned and looked at the train that would kill him.

  Achtung!”

  Two young men in soccer jerseys came to his rescue. They knelt at the edge of the platform and scrambled to grab his collar and yank him up and over the edge. They were big and young and a hell of a lot stronger than Clark; his worn-out arms tried to help, but they just hung by his sides.

  Three seconds later, the train filled the space his body had just vacated.

  John lay on his back on the cold concrete, both hands holding his aching ankle.

  The men shouted and slapped him roughly on his shoulder. John picked up the word for “old man.” One of them laughed, and he helped Clark up, patted him again on the shoulder.

  An old woman pointed her umbrella angrily at his face as she chastised him.

  Someone else called him an Arschloch. Asshole.

  John struggled to put weight on his injured foot, then nodded with a smile at the men who had saved him, and he tottered into the train that had almost crushed him. Inside, he collapsed on a bench. No one else on the platform followed. The train moved, and he looked through the window toward the eastbound platform. His two pursuers were still there.

  Watching him escape from their grasp.

  53

  The White House press corps assembled in the briefing room quickly. An announcement was made that the President would be making a short statement.

  Within five minutes, a blink of an eye for those accustomed to waiting on Kealty, the President stepped into the briefing room and up to the microphone. “I have just spoken with officials of both the State Department and the Justice Department. I am told that, well, with a reasonable degree of certainty, that the fugitive John Clark has been implicated in the murder last night at around ten p.m. local time in Cologne, Germany, of a French businessman. I don’t have all the details on this just yet; I am sure Attorney General Brannigan’s office will have more on this as it develops. This event underscores how important it is that we get this individual into custody. I took a bit of heat from many of my political opponents, many in the Ryan camp, who accused me of only going after Mr. Clark because of the Ryan pardons and his relationship with Jack Ryan.

  “Well… now you see that this is not politics at all. This is life and death. I am sorry that my vindication for the decision I made concerning John Clark has come at such a high cost.

  “Mr. Clark has fled the United States, but I want to assure everyone, including our friends in Germany and all over the world, that we will not rest until Mr. Clark is back in U.S. custody. We will continue to work with our able partners in Germany, in Europe, wherever he goes, and we will find him, no matter what rock he chooses to hide under.”

  A reporter from MSNBC shouted oeye fover his colleagues, “Mr. President, are you at all worried that there is a time limit on this manhunt? In other words, that if you do not win next week and you fail to catch Clark before your term ends, President Ryan will end the manhunt?”

  Kealty had begun stepping away from the microphone, but he returned to it now. “Megan, I am going to win the election on Tuesday. That said, whatever support Jack Ryan has, he has not been entrusted by the American people to determine the guilt or innocence of individuals. He tried that before when he gave this murderer a pardon, and… well… look where we are now. That is a job for our Department of Justice, our courts. Mr. Clark is a killer, a murderer. I can only imagine what there is still to learn about Clark’s history. His crimes.” Kealty’s face reddened slightly. “So to you all in the media, I would like to say that if Jack Ryan tries to sweep this man’s past and present crimes under the rug… well, you are the fourth estate. You have a responsibility to keep that from happening.”

  Kealty turned away from the press and left the briefing room without taking another question.

  One hour later, Jack Ryan Sr. made his own statement in the driveway of his home in Baltimore. His wife, Cathy, stood by his side. “I don’t have any of the details of the specifics of the charges against John Clark. I don’t know what happened in Cologne, and I certainly do not know if Mr. Clark was involved, but I have known John Clark long enough to know that if he did, in fact, kill Mr. Patin, then Mr. Patin posed a real threat to John Clark.”

  A reporter for CNN asked, “Are you saying Luc Patin deserved to die?”

  “I am saying John Clark does not make mistakes. Now, if President Kealty wants to go after a Medal of Honor winner, put him on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list, well, I can’t stop him from doing that. But I can promise everyone that John deserves more than this country could ever give him as repayment for his services. And he certainly does not deserve the treatment he’s getting from this president.”

  The CNN reporter interjected, “It sounds like you are saying your friend is above the law.”

  “No, I’m not saying that. He is not above the law. But he is above this political theater disguised as law. This is disgusting. My wife has quite correctly admonished me in the past for getting a look on my face like I’ve just bitten a lemon when Ed Kealty is mentioned. I’ve tried to hide it as best I can. But right now, I want everyone to see how repulsed I am by what is going on relative to John Clark.”

  As soon as Ryan reentered the house through the kitchen, Arnie van Damm turned to face him. “Jesus, Jack!”

  “What I said was true, Arnie.”

  “I believe you. I do. But how is that going to play?”

  “I don’t give a shit how it plays. I’m not going to mince words on this. We’ve got an American hero out there being hunted down like a dog. I am not going to pretend like there is anything else going on.”

  “But—”

  Ryan snapped back, “But nothing! Now, next topic. What’s next on the day’s agenda?”

  Arnie van Damm looked at his boss for a long time. Finally he nodded. “Why don’t we take the afternoon off, Jack? Me and my people will let you and Cathy and the kids have the house to yourself. Rent a movie. Eat a pizza. You deserve it. You’ve been working your ass offze="3">A.”

  Jack calmed himself down. He shook his head. “You’ve been working harder than me. Sorry I jumped on you.”

  “Lots of stress in a normal campaign. This is not a normal campaign.”

  “No, it’s not. I’m fine. Let’s get back to work.”

  “Whatever you say, Jack.”

  54

  Gerry Hendley lived alone. Since the death of his wife and children in a car accident, he had wrapped himself in his work, continuing on as a senator before leaving public service, and then taking over as the head of the most private spook shop in the world.

  His work at Hendley Associates, on the white side as well as the black side, kept him occupied a good sixty hours a week, and even at home he watched the overseas markets on FBN and Bloomberg to keep his edge for the white side of his work, and he read Global Security and Foreign Affairs and Jane’s and The Economist to keep up with happenings that might affect his job overseeing black ops.

  Gerry had trouble sleeping, understandable due to the intense pressures of his occupation as well as the loss he had experienced in his life: most important, the loss of his family, though the death of Brian Caruso the year before and the current situation with John Clark also took a personal toll on Hendley.

  Hendley coveted sleep, it was a scarce and precious commodity, so when his phone rang in the middle of the night, it filled him with anger even before his wondering about the news to come filled him with dread.

  It was three-twenty a.m. when his phone rang, rousing him from his rest.

  “Yeah?” He answered in a gruff and annoyed tone.

  “Good morning, sir. Nigel Embling calling from Pakistan.”

  “Good morning.”

  “I’m afraid there is a problem.”

  “I’m listening.” Hendley sat up in bed. Now the anger disappeared and the woe appeared.

  “I have just learned that your man Sam is missing near Miran
Shah.”

  Now Gerry was up and walking toward his office, heading for his desk and his computer. “What do you mean missing?”

  “The unit of soldiers he was with was attacked by Haqqani network fighters several days ago. There were heavy losses on both sides, I am told. Sam and others were making their escape in a vehicle; my contact, Major al Darkur, was in the front. Your man was in the back. It is possible he fell out of the vehicle on the way to safety.”

  On the surface that sounded, to Gerry Hendley, like utter bullshit. His first inclination was to think the ISI officer Embling had put up as reliable had double-crossed his man in the field. But he did not have enough data to make that charge just yet, and he certainly needed Embling’s help more than ever now, so he was careful to avoid lashing out with any accusations.

  He’d been a senator just long enough to know how to talk out of both sides of his mouth.

  “I understand. So there is no word on whether he is dead or alive?”

  “My man went back to the location of the skirmish with three helicopters full of troops. The Haqqani folks had left thei

  Hendley gritted his teeth. He felt that death in battle might well have been an end preferable to Driscoll than whatever the Taliban had in store for him. “What do you suggest I do on my end?”

  Embling hesitated, then said, “I know very well how this looks. It looks like the major has not been truthful to us. But I’ve been at this long enough to know when I’m being played. I trust this young man. He has promised me that he is working to find the location of your man, and he has promised to keep me apprised of the situation several times a day. I ask you to allow me to relay this information to you as I receive it. Perhaps between the three of us we can come up with something.”