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Tom Clancy Firing Point

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by Maden, Mike




  ALSO BY TOM CLANCY

  FICTION

  The Hunt for Red October

  Red Storm Rising

  Patriot Games

  The Cardinal of the Kremlin

  Clear and Present Danger

  The Sum of All Fears

  Without Remorse

  Debt of Honor

  Executive Orders

  Rainbow Six

  The Bear and the Dragon

  Red Rabbit

  The Teeth of the Tiger

  Dead or Alive (with Grant Blackwood)

  Against All Enemies (with Peter Telep)

  Locked On (with Mark Greaney)

  Threat Vector (with Mark Greaney)

  Command Authority (with Mark Greaney)

  Tom Clancy Support and Defend (by Mark Greaney)

  Tom Clancy Full Force and Effect (by Mark Greaney)

  Tom Clancy Under Fire (by Grant Blackwood)

  Tom Clancy Commander in Chief (by Mark Greaney)

  Tom Clancy Duty and Honor (by Grant Blackwood)

  Tom Clancy True Faith and Allegiance (by Mark Greaney)

  Tom Clancy Point of Contact (by Mike Maden)

  Tom Clancy Power and Empire (by Marc Cameron)

  Tom Clancy Line of Sight (by Mike Maden)

  Tom Clancy Oath of Office (by Marc Cameron)

  Tom Clancy Enemy Contact (by Mike Maden)

  Tom Clancy Code of Honor (by Marc Cameron)

  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

  Into the Storm: A Study in Command

  with General Fred Franks, Jr. (Ret.), and Tony Koltz

  Every Man a Tiger: The Gulf War Air Campaign

  with General Chuck Horner (Ret.) and Tony Koltz

  Shadow Warriors: Inside the Special Forces

  with General Carl Stiner (Ret.) and Tony Koltz

  Battle Ready with General Tony Zinni (Ret.) and Tony Koltz

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

  Publishers Since 1838

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  penguinrandomhouse.com

  Copyright © 2020 by The Estate of Thomas L. Clancy, Jr.; Rubicon, Inc.; Jack Ryan Enterprises, Ltd.; and Jack Ryan Limited Partnership

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Maden, Mike, author.

  Title: Tom Clancy firing point / Mike Maden.

  Other titles: Firing point

  Description: New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2020. | Series: Jack Ryan Jr.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2020013908 (print) | LCCN 2020013909 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593188064 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780593188088 (ebook)

  Subjects: GSAFD: Spy stories. | Suspense fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3613.A284327 T62 2020 (print) | LCC PS3613.A284327

  (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020013908.

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020013909.

  Title page art: Topographic map by Andis Rea/Shutterstock.com

  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, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  pid_prh_5.5.0_c0_r0

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Also by Tom Clancy

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  Principal Characters

  Prologue

  October 18Chapter 1

  October 24Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  October 25Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  October 26Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  October 27Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  October 28Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  October 29Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  October 30Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Days LaterChapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Epilogue

  About the Authors

  In valor, there is hope.

  —TACITUS

  PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS

  UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT

  JACK RYAN: President of the United States

  MARY PAT FOLEY: Director of national intelligence

  ARNOLD “ARNIE” VAN DAMM: President Ryan’s chief of staff

  SCOTT ADLER: Secretary of state

  ADMIRAL JOHN TALBOT: Chief of naval operations

  DICK DELLING
ER: U.S. Consulate (Barcelona, Spain), Public Diplomacy Section

  THE CAMPUS

  JACK RYAN, JR.: Operations officer/senior analyst

  GAVIN BIERY: Director of information technology

  GERRY HENDLEY: Director of The Campus and Hendley Associates

  JOHN CLARK: Director of operations

  DOMINGO “DING” CHAVEZ: Assistant director of operations

  DOMINIC “DOM” CARUSO: Operations officer

  ADARA SHERMAN: Operations officer

  BARTOSZ “MIDAS” JANKOWSKI: Operations officer

  OTHER CHARACTERS

  UNITED STATES

  BUCK LOGAN: President, White Mountain Logistics + Security

  KATE PARSONS: Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientist

  SPAIN

  LAIA BROSSA: Centro Nacional de Inteligencia (CNI) agent

  GASPAR PEÑA: CNI supervisor

  PROLOGUE

  POHANG, SOUTH KOREA

  “Alive, not dead.”

  That was the order. Jack got it. Rijk van Delden—if that was his real name—was the only link between the Iron Syndicate and the nameless merc outfit the syndicate hired for their dirtiest hits. The merc outfit was their real target. Find van Delden, find the outfit.

  Simple as that.

  But van Delden had been hard as hell to find. Impossible, actually. Until a lead, finally, that led them here tonight. Their one and maybe only chance to grab him.

  “Alive, not dead” meant keeping the big Dutchman alive so they could find and eliminate his murderous organization.

  The only problem with that was van Delden was one of his outfit’s heavy hitters. The six-foot-six killer possessed serious combative and tactical skills. The giant Dutchman had put more men in the ground than a gravedigger’s shovel.

  “Don’t even think about taking this monkey on by yourself. Get eyes on him, call for backup, sit tight till the rest of us show up. Savvy?” Clark said in their brief before The Campus team split up. All hands were on deck for this op: John Clark, Ding Chavez, Dom Caruso, Adara Sherman, Midas Jankowski, and Jack Junior.

  They all headed in different directions across the steel mill’s huge complex of buildings. Too much ground to cover for them to buddy up. They had to go it alone to find the guy. And fast.

  Van Delden was in one of a dozen possible places on two hundred acres of property, and scheduled to leave within the hour, according to their source. They couldn’t risk missing him here tonight. If he shook loose, he’d be back in the wind the minute he left and they’d lose the only shot they’d ever had at rolling up his crew.

  Alive, not dead, was tonight’s mission but it seemed like a pretty good idea for him and the rest of the team, too, Jack thought, as he made his way through the cavernous shell of the integrated steel mill. The cold night fog looming over the port outside stopped at the doorway, the air inside tinged with the acrid smells of rust, ozone, and burnt coal.

  Jack Ryan, Jr., was a big, blue-eyed white guy striding confidently through the dark, hangar-size structure. He didn’t look that out of place beneath his stolen white safety helmet, clipboard, and paper mask. He moved fast like he had something to do, which he did. The steelworkers were too busy flying several hundred tons of molten slag in giant ladles lumbering overhead to pay attention to him.

  Jack sweated beneath his shirt. It was an industrial volcano inside the sweltering building. At least the team had Sonitus Molar Mics. Without bone conduction for reception, he wouldn’t be able to hear the others calling out their sitreps on his comms. The infernal din of pounding hydraulic hammers, roaring diesel motors, grinding steel, and blaring alarms was a near sensory overload.

  “I’m thirty seconds from target,” Dom whispered on his way to the plant manager’s office.

  “Copy that,” Clark said.

  Jack took two steps at a time up the yellow steel staircase to the “pulpit”—the automated control room for the hot-steel processing facility, high off the floor. The grated treads led to the landing just outside the control-room door. With his back against the corrugated steel wall, he did a quick check around him. Helmeted workers below were focused on the job, not him.

  From the landing, a steel-grating walkway ran parallel along the windowless steel wall of the pulpit where Jack stood. On either end of the east–west walkway was a catwalk. Both catwalks ran north, parallel with the tracks of the huge ladles moving slowly along beneath them. Each ladle brimmed with nearly two hundred tons of molten steel heading toward the vacuum degassers on the far side of the building.

  In the middle of the steel control-room door stood a small, face-size observation window.

  “I’m in position,” Jack whispered.

  “Copy,” Clark said as a siren wailed overhead.

  Jack stepped over to the door’s observation window.

  He scanned the room. In front of the big picture windows overlooking the mill floor, five young South Korean technicians sat at their monitors chatting excitedly, pointing at virtual gauges on their screens.

  Scanning right, Jack saw Park, the oldest Korean in the room, standing in the corner, round and silver-haired beneath his safety helmet. Jack recognized Park from his file photo. He was the steel firm’s CEO and biggest shareholder, and a man in serious trouble with Japan’s largest yakuza syndicate, the Yamaguchi-gumi. Their source inside the syndicate said Park was reaching out to van Delden for protection tonight.

  Jack leaned over to see who Park was talking with.

  And there he was.

  The giant Dutchman towered over the diminutive Korean, his long, granite face focused on Park in earnest discussion.

  The Dutchman’s gaze shifted briefly toward the window. His eyes locked with Jack’s.

  Shit.

  In the blink of an eye, van Delden’s big Glock 17 was in his hand. Jack ducked as the barrel sparked. The door glass shattered just above his head.

  “Found him,” Jack barked in his comms as he crouched low and pressed hard against the heavy steel door. He felt more rounds thud against the metal, like someone was pounding the door with their fists.

  “Sit tight,” Clark said. “We’re on our way. Five mikes, max.”

  “Copy that.” More bullets crashed into the door near Jack’s ear.

  “Don’t hurt him, Jack.”

  “Copy that—”

  WHUMP!

  The big man slammed into the door. The steel cracked against Jack’s skull and knocked him back a little. But Jack was wedged hard against it. The door only budged open an inch. He slammed it back shut with his shoulder.

  Jack heard the last shards of the shattered window glass breaking above him. He glanced up just in time to see the black steel slide of the big Glock wedge through it, then angle down, thick fingers wrapped around the hilt. The Glock fired three earsplitting shots that chinged the grated steel floor near Jack’s feet before Jack could react. Jack turned and grabbed the hot slide with his left hand and twisted it upward just as van Delden fired another shot into the steel rafters overhead.

  The hot barrel burned Jack’s hand as he squeezed but he caused the last shot to fail because the slide couldn’t fully eject the brass.

  With his left hand still gripped around the Glock, Jack pulled his SIG P229 Legion Compact SAO with his right hand and smashed the steel butt against the Dutchman’s thick wrist, breaking it with a sickening crack.

  The massive paw dropped the Glock and yanked back through the shattered glass. Jack kicked the Dutchman’s gun over the edge.

  “Status?” Clark asked. “Still got eyes on?”

  “He ain’t going nowhere—”

  WHUMP!

  Van Delden crashed against the door again before Jack could brace himself. The steel door blew open, tossing Jack backward, dropping him to the grated landing.
/>   Jack raised his weapon to put a bullet in the Dutchman’s knee but the man’s giant steel-toed boot kicked the gun out of Jack’s hand, and sent the SIG sailing over the edge, clattering onto the cement floor far below.

  Jack’s hand exploded in pain, as if it had been smashed with a sledgehammer. His momentary focus on his aching hand cost him dearly as the same big boot raised high and smashed down into Jack’s gut, knocking the wind out of him. Jack gasped for air and clutched at his belly as the boot raised up a third time, aimed squarely at his skull. Jack rolled away at the last second, the sole of the massive boot clanging against the steel near his ear.

  Jack rolled again just as the Dutchman launched a kick at his skull and missed. Van Delden lunged forward for a final, fatal steel-toed shot to Jack’s temple, not seeing Jack’s three-inch Kershaw spring-assisted blade until it plunged into his inner thigh.

  Van Delden screamed and grabbed his leg to stanch the blood. He stumbled away past Jack before The Campus operative could strike him again, limping west along the walkway as Jack struggled to stand.

  “Jack, we’re close. Stay put,” Clark ordered. Jack shook the pain out of his hand as he grabbed a couple of deep breaths, his stomach aching like he’d been gut shot.

  “Jack? You copy?”

  Jack glanced up just in time to see van Delden turn the corner north, heading away from the pulpit.

  “Copy,” was all Jack said.

  He sure as hell wasn’t staying put.

  He had his orders. “Alive, not dead.”

  But Jack knew there was a long, nasty road of hurt between the two, and he was happy to take the big man along for the ride.

  Jack thundered along the steel grate, racing after the giant operator. Even wounded, the big man was fast as a feral cat.

  Jack turned the corner, running past the giant ladle of molten steel crawling along on its track ten feet below him. Even from here, the searing heat made his skin tingle, like standing too close to a campfire on a cold night.

  “Van Delden! Halt!” Jack shouted over the noise of the giant ladle motors grinding overhead.

  Van Delden limped farther along, leaning heavily on the rail, one bloody, massive hand gripping his thigh. He finally stopped as Jack charged up behind him.

 

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