Chapter 34
Oval Office
The White House
Washington, D.C.
Jack Ryan was happy to get back to his morning routine. Yesterday had been long and eventful, mentally draining. But now he was back on schedule. He had set his alarm for an early wake-up, giving time for a solid workout in the gym. By his reasoning, that was worthy of a reward.
On the weekends when he managed to get home, Cathy unfailingly put together a doctors-orders breakfast. Granola, fruit, yogurt, orange juice.
He knew his wife had his best interests in mind.
The White House kitchen, however, was restricted by neither his borderline cholesterol numbers nor marital oversight.
Quite the opposite, it was a culinary playground, any presidential whim on the menu.
This morning: bacon, eggs, and toast. Purely to assuage his guilt, Ryan had requested whole wheat toast.
He’d taken the meal in the President’s Bedroom and then dressed comfortably in casual clothes and a light wool jacket.
He’d cleared his calendar of ceremonial duties for the day, but he stuffed a tie in his jacket pocket just in case.
By the time he reached the Oval Office his presidential mug was nearly empty and his thoughts fully caffeinated. Mary Pat, of course, was waiting.
What would he do without her?
“Good morning, Jack,” she said, not even looking up as she flicked through a jacketed copy of the PDB with reading glasses perched on her nose.
“Good morning, Mary Pat,” he said reflexively. He tried to gauge her expression, wondering if “good” was back in the ballpark.
They had both remained in the whizzer until early evening, long enough to ensure that the C-41 carrying Task Force 99 had arrived safely back at Incirlik Air Base.
Soon after, a SITREP from Clark arrived on the secure network.
The most critical portions of the mission had been a success: Lieutenant Conza had been recovered, battered but with no long-term injuries, and a large electronic device had been recovered from the GAZ.
More problematic was Clark’s rundown of his team’s engagements.
There was a significant body count on both sides of the border, which by now would have been discovered by Turkish and Georgian authorities.
The bullet-riddled wreckage at either of the two scenes could introduce complications.
That said, it wasn’t the first time he and Mary Pat had, in a diplomatic sense, swept up a china shop after a visit from John Clark.
In truth, Ryan viewed it as his part of the bargain.
America had been attacked, and Task Force 99 had responded.
Any fallout Mary Pat would handle with his full backing.
“What’s the latest on John Conza?” he asked, settling into a chair next to her.
“The crew that abducted him worked him over pretty hard. Combined with getting shot down in a helicopter and surviving a rollover in the back of a box truck—the man took a beating. Two cracked ribs, injured shoulder, head laceration, lots of scrapes and bruises. But nothing that shouldn’t heal in time. ”
“Thank God for that. Any backlash about Clark’s excursion into Georgia?”
“Nothing our ambassador in Tbilisi can’t handle,” Mary Pat replied.
“The Turks are going to be more of a problem. They lost a helicopter, and two crewmen are dead with a third in the hospital. I think they’re a bit mystified by all of this.
They don’t know if it’s a terrorist campaign or something state sponsored.
They asked our ambassador if we knew why Conza had been abducted from the crash site. ”
“And his answer?”
“He said we have no idea, which is pretty close to the truth. Conza was in uniform, recognizable as a U.S. naval officer. Clark says his abductors were a mix—a Russian, a Kazakh, a Serb, and one unknown. They clearly put Conza through a vicious interrogation.”
“Do the Turks realize we went across the border to retrieve him?”
“Yes, Clark mentioned that in his SITREP. He figured they were going to find out sooner or later, so he put it right out front. I think he was angling for some goodwill. Conza needed medical care, as did one of his team members, who’d suffered a leg wound.
They were both treated at the base hospital at Incirlik.
The team member with the leg wound was released. Conza was admitted.”
“What about this device we recovered? Do the Turks know about it?”
“That’s a bit trickier. It’s still at Incirlik sitting inside the C-41. According to Clark, the Turks got a look at it and must suspect what it is.”
“What’s the plan? Transfer it to a C-17 and bring it stateside?”
“Logistically speaking, that’s an option.
But I’m not sure if it’s the best play. The Turks are a party to this accident investigation.
The key to finding out who’s responsible for the crash is to figure out whose basement this system came from.
The quickest way to do that is to send our technicians to the scene.
I’d recommend the engineers from Wright-Patt.
” Wright-Patterson Air Force Base was the main engineering hub of the Air Force, and its electronic warfare technicians were the best in the business.
“Okay, I’m convinced. Send a team from Wright-Patt.”
“Will do.”
“Let’s move on to the rest of what Clark gave us.”
“What he learned from his interrogation of the lone survivor?”
Ryan nodded. “He confessed they were targeting a Swiss national on the flight, and that they were hired by Andrei Malenkov.”
“We’ve got a thick file on Malenkov.” Mary Pat flipped through a folder and read from her written notes.
“Longtime star in the GRU, first head of the SSD. Then, about a year ago, he was abruptly fired. Since then, he appears to have gone private. We have it on good authority that he’s been running arms and mercenaries, although not on a large scale. ”
“A part-time retirement gig?” the President said derisively.
“That’s how it appears…at least, until this week. We’ve been tracking him loosely since he left the SSD. Spends a lot of time at his villa in Portugal.”
“And now he’s taking down jets carrying American trade delegations?
” As ever, Ryan couldn’t escape his analyst’s mindset.
“None of this adds up. A guy spends a year heading up the most secretive division of Russian military intelligence, directing sabotage across Europe. Then he gets fired and jets off to his villa? In my experience, when somebody gets canned from a job like that in Russia, they don’t end up on the Iberian seaside.
More often than not, they get a bullet and a trip to a Lubyanka furnace. ”
“I agree, we’re not seeing the whole picture. As soon as Clark gave us Malenkov’s name, I put both Langley and the DIA on it. They’ve been up all night trying to learn where he’s traveled lately and what he’s been up to. We should get an update soon.”
“All right. Which leaves us with this ‘Swiss national.’ It’s got to be Gunther Klaus.”
“I can’t see it any other way.”
“Do we know if he was the passenger who didn’t board in Tangier?”
“The DIA is convinced.”
Ryan paused. Mary Pat had always been able to read his moods like a book. But she, too, had her tells. And in this building, no one was more attuned to them than Ryan. He’d sensed something in her tone.
“The DIA?” he repeated.
She heaved out a weary sigh. “Last night a call came in from your son.” Before he could ask, she added, “Kyle.”
“Okay. Was he trying to reach me?”
“Not exactly. He said he wanted my help with something. His team had cranked up its search for this missing passenger and found evidence that it was Hauptman.”
“What kind of evidence?”
“Passport information—they hacked into the Moroccan immigration system. The documents of fifteen passengers and crew were scanned during the boarding of SAM 719. They also uncovered surveillance footage to verify faces.”
“No Hauptman,” Ryan surmised.
“He was the only no-show. But strangely, he was in the area. They got a single-frame capture from an exterior surveillance camera—he was on the curb in front of the terminal that night. Why he never boarded remains a mystery. CC6 is trying to figure out what went wrong. To that end, Kyle asked for help. He hit a wall when he tried to get Klaus’s real name from the agency. ”
“And that’s why he reached out to you? A bit of pressure from the top?”
“He didn’t say it in so many words, but that would be my guess.”
Ryan grinned.
“What?”
“Subtle manipulation of human behavior? That’s not generally in Kyle’s skill set.”
“I’d hardly call it subtle.”
Ryan got back on track. “Did you see the photo?”
“I did. A bit grainy, but it was Klaus. For what it’s worth, Kyle seemed confident that MAADN can pick up his trail.”
“He never did lack confidence, that one. Did you give him Klaus’s name?”
“No, that’s your decision.” She paused before adding, “It seems like Katie and Kyle are coordinating closely on this investigation.”
“My children conspiring?”
“Yes, but not against you. They’re just doing their jobs.”
“That they are. Send Kyle the name. And then call Ben Stephens—I want the agency to give DIA whatever they need, full access.”
“Understood.”
Ryan got up and meandered to the window behind the Resolute desk. He looked out contemplatively at the Rose Garden. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this one, Mary Pat.”
“So do I. It seems almost certain that the downing of SAM 719 was an attempt to eliminate Klaus.”
“But why do it that way? Why not just gun him down on a street in North Africa? Taking down a diplomatic airplane seems so…risky.”
“Is it? Our investigators will probably find proof of a spoofing attack. But if Clark hadn’t tracked down these saboteurs and recovered the hardware, we might never have gotten close to attribution.”
“True. But still, I get the sense there’s something bigger in play.”
“Somebody took a massive risk to silence Klaus.”
Ryan turned back to face her. “And you know what that tells me? Whatever he’s selling…it’s got to be dynamite.”