Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan Books 7-12

by Tom Clancy

  The party moved inside, past the memorial on the right-side wall to the dead officers, many of whose names were still secret, then left to the executive elevator. The Rabbit family went its own way. There were hotel-like accommodations for VIP visitors and back-from-overseas field officers on the sixth floor, and evidently the CIA was bedding them down there. Jack followed the senior executives to the Judge’s office.

  “How good is our new Rabbit?” Moore asked.

  “Well, sure as hell he gave us good information on the Pope, Judge,” Ryan answered in considerable surprise. “And the Brits sound pretty happy with what he’s told them about that Agent MINISTER. I’m kinda curious who this CASSIUS guy is.”

  “And NEPTUNE,” Greer added. The Navy needed secure communications to survive in the modern world, and James Greer still had blue suits in his closet.

  “Any other thoughts?” This was Moore again.

  “Has anyone thought about how desperate the Russians are? I mean, sure, the Pope was—I guess he still is—a political threat of some sort to them, but, damn it, this was not a rational operation, was it?” Jack asked. “Looks to me as though they’re a lot more desperate than we usually think. We ought to be able to exploit that.” The mixture of alcohol and fatigue made it easier than usual for Ryan to speak his mind, and he’d been chewing on this idea for about twelve hours.

  “How?” Ritter asked, reminding himself that Ryan was something of a whiz at economics.

  “I’ll tell you one thing for sure: The Catholic Church is not going to be very happy. Lots of Catholics in Eastern Europe, guys. That is a capability we need to think about using. If we approach the Church intelligently, they might just cooperate with us. The Church is big on forgiveness, sure, but you’re supposed to go to confession first.”

  Moore raised an eyebrow.

  “The other thing is, I’ve been studying their economy. It’s very shaky, a lot more than our people think it is, Admiral,” Jack said, turning to his immediate boss.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Sir, the stuff our guys are looking at, it’s the official economics reports that come into Moscow, right?”

  “We work pretty hard to get it, too,” Moore confirmed.

  “Director, why do we think it’s true?” Ryan asked. “Just because the Politburo gets it? We know they lie to us, and they lie to their own people. What if they lie to themselves? If I were an examiner for the SEC, I think I could put a whole lot of guys in Allenwood Federal Prison. What they say they have doesn’t jibe with what we can identify them as actually having. Their economy is teetering, and if that goes bad, even a little bit, the whole shebang comes down.”

  “How could we exploit that?” Ritter asked. His own blue-team analysis had said something very similar four days earlier, but even Judge Moore didn’t know that.

  “Where do they get their hard currency—I mean, what do they get it from?”

  “Oil.” Greer answered the question. The Russians exported as much oil as the Saudis.

  “And who controls the world price of oil?”

  “OPEC?”

  “And who,” Ryan went on, “controls OPEC?”

  “The Saudis.”

  “Aren’t they our friends?” Jack concluded. “Look at the USSR as a takeover target, like we did at Merrill Lynch. The assets are worth a lot more than the parent corporation, because it’s so badly run. This isn’t hard stuff to figure out.” Even by a guy exhausted by a long day, five thousand miles of air travel, and a little too much booze, he didn’t add. There were a lot of smart people at CIA, but they thought too much like government workers, and not enough like Americans. “Don’t we have anybody who thinks outside the box?”

  “Bob?” Moore asked.

  Ritter was warming to the young analyst by the minute. “Ryan, you ever read Edgar Allan Poe?”

  “In high school,” Ryan replied in some small confusion.

  “How about a story called ‘The Masque of the Red Death’?”

  “Something about a plague coming in to ruin the party, wasn’t it?”

  “Get some rest. Before you fly back to London tomorrow, you’re going to get briefed in on something.”

  “Sleep sounds like a plan, gentlemen. Where do I crash for the night?” he asked, letting them know, if they hadn’t already guessed, that he was ready to collapse.

  “We have a place for you at the Marriott up the road. You’re all checked in. There’s a car waiting at the entrance for you. Go on, now,” Moore told him.

  “Maybe he’s not so dumb after all,” Ritter speculated.

  “Robert, it’s nice to see that you’re strong enough to change,” Greer smilingly observed as he reached for Moore’s own office bottle of expensive bourbon whiskey. It was time to celebrate.

  THE FOLLOWING DAY in Il Tempo, a morning newspaper in Rome, was a story about a man found dead in a car of an apparent heart attack. It would be a little time before the body was identified and it was finally determined that he was a Bulgarian tourist who’d evidently come to the end of his life quite unexpectedly. How clear his conscience had been was not apparent from physical examination.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Epigraph

  CHAPTER 1 - THE CAMPUS

  CHAPTER 2 - JOINING UP

  CHAPTER 3 - GRAY FILES

  CHAPTER 4 - BOOT CAMP

  CHAPTER 5 - ALLIANCES

  CHAPTER 6 - ADVERSARIES

  CHAPTER 7 - TRANSIT

  CHAPTER 8 - CONVICTION

  CHAPTER 9 - GOING WITH GOD

  CHAPTER 10 - DESTINATIONS

  CHAPTER 11 - CROSSING THE RIVER

  CHAPTER 12 - ARRIVING

  CHAPTER 13 - MEETING PLACE

  CHAPTER 14 - PARADISE

  CHAPTER 15 - RED COATS AND BLACK HATS

  CHAPTER 16 - AND THE PURSUING HORSES

  CHAPTER 17 - AND THE LITTLE REDFOX, AND THE FIRST FENCE

  CHAPTER 18 - AND THE DEPARTING FOXHOUNDS

  CHAPTER 19 - BEER AND HOMICIDE

  CHAPTER 20 - THE SOUND OF HUNTING

  CHAPTER 21 - STREETCAR NAME DESIRED

  CHAPTER 22 - SPANISH STEPS

  “TOM CLANCY HAS PASSED THE TORCH TO A NEW GENERATION.”

  —St. Louis Post-Dispatch

  A man named Mohammed sits in a café in Vienna, about to propose a deal to a Colombian. What if they combined his network of Middle East agents and sympathizers with the Colombian’s drug network in America? The potential for profits would be enormous—and the potential for destruction unimaginable.

  A young man in suburban Maryland, who has grown up around intrigue, is about to put his skills to the test. Taught the ways of the world firsthand by agents, statesmen, analysts, Secret Servicemen, and black-ops specialists, he crosses the radar of “The Campus”—a secret organization set up to identify local terrorist threats and deal with them by any means necessary.

  His name:

  JACK RYAN, JR.

  “INCREDIBLY ADDICTIVE . . . 400-odd tightly-woven, adrenaline-fueled pages of intelligence interception, 6 A.M. fitness training, shootings, and hard men. Such fun!”

  —Daily Mail (London)

  “THE AUTHOR KNOWS THIS STUFF LIKE NO ONE ELSE and delivers it all in his inimitable clipped manner.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “CLANCY TAKES A NEW PATH WITH TIGER . . . [He] is still the top draw in a field filled with contemporaries.”

  —San Antonio Express-News

  “SATISFYING . . . CHILLINGLY PLAUSIBLE.”

  —Orlando Sentinel

  “ENTERTAINING . . . SUSPENSEFUL.”

  —The Seattle Times

  Novels by Tom Clancy

  THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER

  RED STORM RISING

  PATRIOT GAMES

  THE CARDINAL OF THE KREMLIN

  CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER

  THE SUM OF ALL F
EARS

  WITHOUT REMORSE

  DEBT OF HONOR

  EXECUTIVE ORDERS

  RAINBOW SIX

  THE BEAR AND THE DRAGON

  RED RABBIT

  THE TEETH OF THE TIGER

  SSN: STRATEGIES OF SUBMARINE WARFARE

  Nonfiction

  SUBMARINE: A GUIDED TOUR INSIDE A NUCLEAR WARSHIP

  ARMORED CAV: A GUIDED TOUR OF AN ARMORED CAVALRY REGIMENT

  FIGHTER WING: A GUIDED TOUR OF AN AIR FORCE COMBAT WING

  MARINE: A GUIDED TOUR OF A MARINE EXPEDITIONARY UNIT

  AIRBORNE: A GUIDED TOUR OF AN AIRBORNE TASK FORCE

  CARRIER: A GUIDED TOUR OF AN AIRCRAFT CARRIER

  SPECIAL FORCES: A GUIDED TOUR OF U.S. ARMY SPECIAL FORCES

  INTO THE STORM: A STUDY IN COMMAND

  (written with General Fred Franks, Jr., Ret.)

  EVERY MAN A TIGER

  (written with General Charles Horner, Ret.)

  SHADOW WARRIORS: INSIDE THE SPECIAL FORCES

  (written with General Carl Stiner, Ret., and Tony Koltz)

  Created by Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik

  TOM CLANCY’S OP-CENTER

  TOM CLANCY’S OP-CENTER: MIRROR IMAGE

  TOM CLANCY’S OP-CENTER: GAMES OF STATE

  TOM CLANCY’S OP-CENTER: ACTS OF WAR

  TOM CLANCY’S OP-CENTER: BALANCE OF POWER

  TOM CLANCY’S OP-CENTER: STATE OF SIEGE

  TOM CLANCY’S OP-CENTER: DIVIDE AND CONQUER

  TOM CLANCY’S OP-CENTER: LINE OF CONTROL

  TOM CLANCY’S OP-CENTER: MISSION OF HONOR

  TOM CLANCY’S OP-CENTER: SEA OF FIRE

  TOM CLANCY’S OP-CENTER: CALL TO TREASON

  TOM CLANCY’S NET FORCE

  TOM CLANCY’S NET FORCE: HIDDEN AGENDAS

  TOM CLANCY’S NET FORCE: NIGHT MOVES

  TOM CLANCY’S NET FORCE: BREAKING POINT

  TOM CLANCY’S NET FORCE: POINT OF IMPACT

  TOM CLANCY’S NET FORCE: CYBERNATION

  TOM CLANCY’S NET FORCE: STATE OF WAR

  TOM CLANCY’S NET FORCE: CHANGING OF THE GUARD

  Created by Tom Clancy and Martin Greenberg

  TOM CLANCY’S POWER PLAYS: POLITIKA

  TOM CLANCY’S POWER PLAYS: RUTHLESS.COM

  TOM CLANCY’S POWER PLAYS: SHADOW WATCH

  TOM CLANCY’S POWER PLAYS: BIO-STRIKE

  TOM CLANCY’S POWER PLAYS: COLD WAR

  TOM CLANCY’S POWER PLAYS: CUTTING EDGE

  TOM CLANCY’S POWER PLAYS: ZERO HOUR

  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, business

  establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  THE TEETH OF THE TIGER

  A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with

  Rubicon, Inc.

  Copyright © 2003 by Rubicon, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form

  without permission. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of

  this book via the Internet or via any other means without the

  permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please

  purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate

  in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.

  Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-00230-8

  BERKLEY®

  Berkley Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  BERKLEY and the “B” design

  are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  To Chris and Charlie.

  Welcome aboard

  . . . and, of course, Lady Alex, whose light burns

  as brightly as ever

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Marco, in Italy, for navigation instructions

  Ric and Mort for the medical education

  Mary and Ed for the maps

  Madam Jacque for the records

  UVA for the look at TJ’s place

  Roland, again, for Colorado

  Mike for the inspiration

  And a raft of others for small but important tidbits of

  knowledge

  “People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”

  —GEORGE ORWELL

  “This is a war of the unknown warriors; but let all strive without failing in faith or in duty . . .”

  —WINSTON CHURCHILL

  Whether the State can loose and bind

  In Heaven as well as on Earth:

  If it be wiser to kill mankind

  Before or after the birth—

  These are matters of high concern

  Where State-kept schoolmen are;

  But Holy State (we have lived to learn)

  Endeth in Holy War.

  Whether The People be led by The Lord,

  Or lured by the loudest throat:

  If it be quicker to die by the sword

  Or cheaper to die by vote—

  These are things we have dealt with once,

  (And they will not rise from their grave)

  For Holy People, however it runs,

  Endeth in wholly Slave.

  Whatsoever for any cause,

  Seeketh to take or give

  Power above or beyond the Laws,

  Suffer it not to live!

  Holy State or Holy King—

  Or Holy People’s Will—

  Have no truck with the senseless thing.

  Order the guns and kill!

  Saying—after—me:—

  Once there was The People—Terror gave it birth;

  Once there was The People and it made a Hell of Earth

  Earth arose and crushed it. Listen, O ye slain!

  Once there was The People—it shall never be again!

  —RUDYARD KIPLING, “Macdonough’s Song”

  PROLOGUE

  THE OTHER SIDE OF THE RIVER

  DAVID GREENGOLD had been born in that most American of communities, Brooklyn, but at his Bar Mitzvah, something important had changed in his life. After proclaiming “Today I am a man,” he’d gone to the celebration party and met some family members who’d flown in from Israel. His uncle Moses was a very prosperous dealer in diamonds there. David’s own father had seven retail jewelry stores, the flagship of which was on Fortieth Street in Manhattan.

  While his father and his uncle talked business over California wine, David had ended up with his first cousin, Daniel. His elder by ten years, Daniel had just begun work for the Mossad, Israel’s main foreign-intelligence agency, and, a quintessential newbie, he had regaled his cousin with stories. Daniel’s obligatory military service had been with the Israeli paratroopers, and he’d made eleven jumps, and had seen some action in the 1967 Six Day War. For him, it had been a happy war, with no serious casualties in his company, and just enough kills to make it seem to have been a sporting adventure—a hunting trip against game that was dangerous, but not overly so, with a conclusion that had fitted very well indeed with his prewar outlook and expectations.

  The stories had provided a vivid contrast to the gloomy TV coverage of Vietnam that led off every evening news broadcast then, and with the enthusiasm of his newly reaffirmed religious identity, David had decided on the spot to emigrate to his Jewish homeland as soon as he graduated from high school. His father, who’d served in the U.S. Second Armored Division in the S
econd World War, and on the whole found the adventure less than pleasing, had been even less happy by the possibility of his son’s going to an Asian jungle to fight a war for which neither he nor any of his acquaintances had much enthusiasm—and so, when graduation came, young David flew El Al to Israel and really never looked back. He brushed up on his Hebrew, served his uniformed time, and then, like his cousin, he was recruited by the Mossad.

  In this line of work, he’d done well—so well that today he was the Station Chief in Rome, an assignment of no small importance. His cousin Daniel, meanwhile, had left and gone back to the family business, which paid far better than a civil servant’s wage. Running the Mossad Station in Rome kept him busy. He had three full-time intelligence officers under his command, and they took in a goodly quantity of information. Some of this information came from an agent they called Hassan. He was Palestinian by ancestry, and had good connections in the PFLP, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and the things he learned there he shared with his enemies, for money—enough money, in fact, enough to finance a comfortable flat a kilometer from the Italian parliament building. David was making a pickup today.

  The location was one he’d used before, the men’s room of the Ristorante Giovanni near the foot of the Spanish Steps. First taking the time to enjoy a lunch of Veal Francese—it was superb here—he finished his white wine and then rose to collect his package. The dead drop was on the underside of the leftmost urinal, a theatrical choice but it had the advantage of never being inspected or cleaned. A steel plate had been glued there, and even had it been noticed, it would have looked innocent enough, since the plate bore the embossed name of the manufacturer, and a number that meant nothing at all. Approaching it, he decided to take advantage of the opportunity by doing what men usually do with a urinal, and, while engaged, he heard the door creak open. Whoever it was took no interest in him, however, but, just to make sure, he dropped his cigarette pack, and as he bent down to retrieve it with his right hand, his left snatched the magnetic package off its hiding place. It was good fieldcraft, just like a professional magician’s, attracting attention with the one hand and getting the work done with the other.