by Tom Clancy
Herbers had called out his location to the rest of the detail, and by now mobile Secret Service agents were racing to catch up with him from behind, fortifying the protective bubble around Air Force One, or else in vehicles heading out of the airport to meet the Suburban along the way.
Over a dozen Mexican Federal Police motorcycles had managed to keep up with the black Suburban as it left the blast zone, and two more Suburbans full of special agents were a few hundred yards back and blasting through lights and stop signs to stay with the evac.
In the backseat Linklater had finished his initial assessment of his protectee, and he called it in to the aircraft so Ryan’s personal doctor, Maura Handwerker, would be ready for him when he arrived.
When Linklater finished with his transmission, Ryan reached out and grabbed the lapel of his suit coat. “How many dead, Davis?”
“I don’t know, sir.” He shook his head. “A lot.”
“Tell me what you saw.”
“I was in the chase car two back from you. It was an IED. The SUV in front of me was down. I didn’t see anyone bail. I saw Ambassador Styles. He appeared deceased. The driver of your vehicle . . . he was deceased.”
Jack shut his eyes. “Delaney.” Mitch Delaney had been on his detail for two years. He’d been alive when Ryan saw him, but that was before the RPG struck the Beast.
“Yes, sir.”
“What else did you see?”
“CAT came up and wasted a bunch of fuckers. Sorry, sir. Just a little adrenaline.”
“It’s okay, Davis,” Ryan said as he patted the man’s lapel back in place. “Whoever they were, they were most definitely fuckers.”
60
Jill Crosby had spent the past minute and a half lying flat on the ground next to the Mobile Command and Control Vehicle that everyone called the Roadrunner. A fierce gun battle raged all around her. She’d been on the other side of the vehicle when the Suburban raced backward along the sidewalk to the upturned limousine and then continued backward behind her, so she’d seen none of that.
But even if she had not been shielded from the SUV, she still might have missed it, because her eyes were fixed firmly on the wreckage just seventy-five feet away. It was the Beast, it was split in half and burning, and smoldering, charred bodies sat in the backseat.
This was Crosby’s first time in the presidential motorcade, and she had no idea there were actually two identical limousines. She was certain the vehicle in front of her was the one the President had been traveling in.
The gunfire and explosions abated after two minutes, and almost immediately after that she saw Secret Service men in dark suits and sunglasses race to the burning limo in the middle of the road and begin spraying it with fire extinguishers. Other CAT men appeared and covered them, unsure if there were any more threats in the buildings.
The fact there was such an effort to put out the fire convinced her of what was going on. She had no doubt in her mind she was looking at the bodies of U.S. Ambassador Horatio Styles and President of the United States Jack Ryan.
She filmed it all with her camera phone, but when she heard a voice on the phone’s speaker, she quickly brought it back to her mouth, ending the shot.
She’d wanted to send a live video feed from her phone to be broadcast, but the producer told her to just record for playback so they could control what made it on the air.
The anchor in Atlanta set up the phone call quickly on live TV. “CNN’s Jill Crosby is on the phone with us from the scene in Mexico City, where the presidential motorcade has just come under attack. Jill, are you there?”
“I’m here, Don. I am in the center of a continuing, protracted ambush of the presidential motorcade. There was a bomb or a missile, some sort of massive explosion, and that was followed quickly by more shooting and smaller explosions. The motorcade stopped moving, so I left the press-pool van to try and get through the smoke to see the President. I saw wreckage and bodies, and then I had to take cover where I am right now.”
“Are you able to see the President?”
She filmed again for a moment, then brought the phone back to her mouth. The sounds of sirens, shouting and screaming, and the low-flying helicopters meant she had to yell. “The limousine is on fire. There are two bodies in the back of the limousine that I can see. At least one in the front.”
“Let’s be very careful. Are you certain the President was in that limousine?”
Jill didn’t understand the question. Where else would the President be but in the limo?
She answered authoritatively. “I saw Ryan and Ambassador Styles get into this vehicle. I believe I am filming their bodies right now, Don.”
The anchor in Atlanta cautioned the audience that there had been no confirmation, and reports from the scene were apt to change quickly.
But it didn’t matter. Within three minutes and twelve seconds of the IED’s detonation on the corner of Vidal Alcocer and José J. Herrera, a reporter on live national television proclaimed that the President had been assassinated.
—
General Ri Tae-jin wanted CNN to show video, but instead he saw an American man with black skin sitting at a desk and talking. He then heard the breathless voice of a woman shouting English above the sounds of sirens, and he listened to his translator’s rendition of the woman’s words. He nodded, over and over, as the unconfirmed report came that the attack had been successful.
Within seconds the video came, but it was from a helicopter. The translator said that it was from Mexican television and was being fed into CNN. There was a huge cloud of smoke over a sunny street. In the distant haze the massive sprawling city lay out across the bottom of a valley. The camera zoomed to show the burning wreckage of several vehicles, some more cars and SUVs tossed about haphazardly, and rushing first responders moving in every direction.
Ri was satisfied. There was a massive zone of destruction. He’d been military intelligence, not infantry, but he had done his share of battle damage assessments, and he noted the zone was much larger than that from the impact of a round of field artillery.
No one in the middle of that would survive.
Ri felt certain the assassination had been carried out, but there was one more critical component to Operation Fire Axe that he would need confirmation of, so even though it was well after three in the morning, he knew neither he nor his translator would be leaving his office for some time to come.
—
The American Secret Service liaison at the airport had told the Mexican Federal Police official in charge that the vehicle carrying the President would come through the north VIP gate in five minutes, and if anyone at the gate tried to stop it, the men in the vehicle would open fire.
The Mexican authorities at the airport had the good sense to stay out of the way, but as it happened, Lead Special Agent Dale Herbers drove in the middle of a motorcade of fourteen vehicles, some containing other members of the Secret Service but most driven by Mexican police, who were fully involved in the evacuation of the American President. Together they all raced through the gate with sirens and lights blaring, and they all screeched to a halt at the aircraft. Though most of the U.S. security force was still on its way back from the ambush site, there were still more than twenty-five armed Secret Service men around the plane, and every last one of them had a hand-gun or a long gun in their hand and their heads on swivels as they checked the area for threats.
Linklater, Herbers, and the two CAT agents helped the President out of the back of the vehicle. Two Air Force chief master sergeants who served as stewards on the aircraft were waiting with a stretcher, but the President walked on his own power to the stairs. He moved hunched over slightly, his right arm hanging and the expression on his face pained, but he was strong enough to make it all the way up to the cabin door of the 747 with only minimal help from the stewards at his side. Ryan was trailed up the stairs by a p
halanx of men with assault rifles on their shoulders, all of whom walked backward and trained their holographic weapon sights on the distant terminal or the fields around the airport.
Once inside the plane, Ryan reached out to the wall to hold himself up, and his knees gave way.
Dr. Maura Handwerker was waiting at the entrance and she caught him. She had already moved many items out of the small but well-equipped medical office right next to the hatch and into the President’s suite in the nose of the aircraft just a dozen feet away. Here there was more room for SWORDSMAN to lie down, and more room for Handwerker to do everything she needed to do short of X-rays, which, if necessary, could be done in the medical office.
Ryan was carried gingerly into his suite, and then laid on his back on the bed. His face was ashen from the pain and the mild shock, and blood was smeared from scratches on his forehead. Immediately Handwerker and her nurse for the trip, an Air Force critical-care nurse, began cutting off his suit with fabric shears.
Arnie Van Damm wasn’t along for the trip. Instead, his assistant chief of staff, a fresh-faced thirty-three-year-old named David Detmer, stood far back out of the way of the medical professionals. Still, he was in earshot, so when Ryan started shouting out his name, Detmer leaned his head into the suite.
“I’m here, sir!”
“Secure phone!”
“The Vice President has been told. He’s on his way back to Washington from California.”
Ryan shook his head, causing him a fresh jolt of pain. “I need Arnie. Then Cathy.”
Dr. Handwerker glared at Detmer, because she couldn’t glare at the President. She did say, “Mr. President, I need you to lie right here for now and relax. You have a broken collarbone, and likely a broken wrist. We’ll want to give you an MRI to see if you have a concussion, but that can wait till we’re back in D.C. For now we will go under the assumption that you do have a concussion, so we’ll want you to stay flat on your back.
“We’ll immobilize your arm, and this will help with the shoulder pain.”
“Okay, but I need to make some calls.”
“Sir, first I need to debride your wounds and clean them up. I need to better immobilize—”
Arguing with the doctor had the effect of clearing Ryan’s head a little. “Doctor, I won’t stop you from doing your job, but you have to let me do mine. Right now President Volodin in Russia, as well as a few other crazies, need to know I am still on the damn job!”
Handwerker took cold compresses from a chest she’d rolled into the room before the President arrived. She wrapped them around his left wrist. Without looking up she said, “Someone hold the phone for him, he can’t use either of his hands right now.”
A headset was attached to the secure cabin phone, and Detmer connected with Arnie Van Damm. He struggled to make his way around the Air Force nurse and put the headset on Ryan’s head.
Jack coughed, then said, “Arnie?”
“Jesus, Jack, how are you?”
Ryan winced with the ice-cold compresses on his injured left wrist. “Andrea’s hurt. Mitch Delaney’s dead. Ambassador Styles, too. That kid that just joined the detail . . . Philip something.”
“I’m sorry. How are—”
“Philip Weingarten. Couldn’t have been thirty years old. I saw him facedown in the street.”
“How are you?”
Jack answered distractedly. “I’ll be fine. What have you done?”
“Your National Security Council is convening in the PEOC. The Vice President is on his way back from California.”
The PEOC was the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, a nuclear strike–proof bomb-shelter version of the Situation Room.
Arnie continued, “A CNN reporter on the scene said you were dead. It went live on air and it’s all over social media, but no one else has taken the bait. As soon as I heard you were alive, I contacted the head of their news division on his cell phone and said he needed to walk that back right now. He thought I was spinning him, the son of a bitch. I told him he either retracted that bullshit story or I’d see he was blamed for the attack if the Russians decide to spin up a full-on invasion of central Ukraine.”
While Arnie was talking, Ryan could feel the aircraft accelerate on its takeoff roll. He didn’t think they could have closed the hatch three minutes prior, and already they were hurtling down the runway. No one in the room around him bothered to strap themselves in, they were all too busy working. He had the sense that his legs were cold, and he thought that meant his pants had been removed, but lifting his head to look down would have been too painful, so he just lay there, staring at the ceiling.
Arnie said, “MSNBC is reporting that the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic State, and the Taliban have all taken credit for the attack.”
Ryan replied, “You need to make a statement. Let everyone know I’m alive.”
Arnie said, “Getting the press in the briefing room. I’ll go on as soon as I get off with you.”
Just then, a mobile phone was passed into the President’s suite from the hallway. One of Ryan’s young aides called out, “It’s the First Lady, Mr. President!”
Jack told Arnie to hold and he waited for someone to remove the headset and hold the mobile phone to his ear. He turned his head to get situated better, and he hissed with the new onset of agony in his shoulder. Covering quickly, he said, “Hi, honey. I’m fine. I was just about to call you, I’m sorry.”
“I needed to hear you, Jack. I love you.” Ryan could hear the pain and terror in Cathy’s voice. “Now put me on with Dr. Handwerker.”
He wasn’t surprised his wife wasn’t going to rely on him to relay his condition. She knew Jack wasn’t a physician, and she also knew he would sugarcoat any serious issue. Before he sent the phone on he said, “Do the kids know?”
He was talking about Kyle and Katie, but Cathy would know this. “They don’t. They were on a field trip when it hit the news up here. The Secret Service has them on their way to the White House. I’ll need to tell them something when I get there.”
“Tell them I’m coming home.”
“Who did it, Jack? Was it Maldonado?”
“Not a clue. I don’t even know what happened. We were riding along, and then I woke up in a heap. I’ve got to run. Passing you to Maura.”
He turned his attention back to Arnie now. Though he’d been on the verge of shock just minutes earlier, the familiar aspects of doing his job, managing crises, delegating responsibility, all cleared his head. His pain had not dissipated, but his brain had something else to focus on. “What are the Russians doing?”
“Full alert.”
“That’s it?”
“They have bombers skirting Alaskan airspace, but that happens on a good day.”
“Yeah. I want a briefing from SecState and SecDef within the hour.”
“It’s all taken care of here.”
“No, Arnie. They need to be on the phone with their counterparts in the UK, Russia, China—”
“Jack! They’ve already started that. We’re taking care of the immediate fires here. The world is going to hang on while you get patched up.”
Jack all but ignored him. “I want you to make a list. I will work the phones all day and talk until I lose my voice. I need to let everyone know I am strong and in charge.”
Dr. Maura Handwerker said, “I’m sorry, Mr. President. But you are going to need to rest.”
“I need to make a statement, too. Live. On camera. We can’t wait to land, we need to do that from the plane.”
Ryan saw his doctor above him glance over at the nurse. They didn’t say anything, they focused on placing compresses on his shoulder, but he understood the look.
Ryan forced himself to look down. His shoes were on the floor and his black slacks had been sheared off, bloody gauze covered his lower right leg. His suit coat and dress
shirt were gone as well, and his right arm was being held close to his body by the nurse, who was prepping Ace bandages to wrap it. His left arm was by his side, covered in compresses. He could feel the scratches on his face that had gone unattended because they were down at the bottom of the priority list.
He looked to the nurse. “That bad?”
She said, “If you order us to clean you up, we will do it, but you really need to rest, and your collarbone needs to stay right where it is, which means we can’t put a shirt on you.”
Jack addressed Arnie Van Damm again. “You go live now, and I’ll do an audio statement. We’ll get one of the press people up here to record it.”
Detmer had been standing back, but he said, “Sorry, Mr. President. Secret Service didn’t let any press on the plane before we took off.”
“Shit,” said Ryan.
“I can record you,” Detmer offered.
“Yeah,” said Jack. “Coming from the White House, some will say it’s faked, but that and a picture of my face will have to do till we land.”
Maura said, “I’ll put a bandage on your forehead. We’ll make you presentable.”
61
Emilio, the two Maldonado cowboys, and Adel Zarif arrived at the safe-house apartment thirty-five minutes after the attack. As they climbed the stairs all four men looked to the south and saw the thick hanging cloud of smoke. It was diffusing now, but it, and the half-dozen helicopters circling around, would remain in the air over the city for some time.
Zarif was looking forward to watching the news broadcasts while he waited for nightfall. The plan was for the Maldonado men to take him all the way into Guerrero, where they would then fly him from Acapulco to Cuba. There, North Korean agents would be waiting to take him to Pyongyang.
And Zarif couldn’t wait to get out of here.
One of the rough-looking men unlocked the door and stepped into the apartment, followed close on his heels by his partner. Emilio entered, and then Zarif followed him in.