Chapter 52
La Corniche
Tangier, Morocco
“You take picture, please,” Hyori said in torturously accented English. He was holding out his iPhone to the oncoming Russians, an amiable smile on his face. There was no threat whatsoever in his posture or expression, even as he subtly eye-frisked the men for weapons.
Wu played along instinctively. He said something in rapid-fire Chinese.
Hyori, who didn’t understand a word of Mandarin, spouted off a reply in Korean—as it turned out, a less-than-complimentary comment about the hygiene of the two men before them.
Wu, who didn’t speak Korean, had no idea what his partner had said.
But the meaningless exchange confirmed one important point—they were on the same extemporaneous page.
Hopefully it would buy the crucial seconds they needed.
Wu shot a glance at Klaus. The Swiss was ten steps away, frozen in place behind the big glass sculpture.
The commotion had triggered a response. This was the second feature of their ploy.
Not only were they distracting the Russians, but they had gotten Klaus’s attention.
If he had the slightest trace of tradecraft in his bones, he would realize the two Asian men were friendlies creating a diversion.
“No, no!” replied the bigger of the two brutes. “Nyet! No pictures.”
Hyori all but had his camera in the man’s face. The Russian swept out a big hand and pushed it aside. The two smiling Asians looked predictably crestfallen.
The poster boys were about to move on, with Klaus only steps away to their left, when Hyori did something else that threw everyone off. He pointed his phone at the Russians as if to take their picture.
In retrospect, Clark would judge it as one of the most instinctively brilliant street moves he’d ever seen. The last thing any Russian field operative would want was to have his picture snapped by a damned tourist.
The bigger man reached out and seized Hyori’s wrist in an iron grip.
Precisely as Hyori knew he would. Having already subtly set his stance low and wide, he moved with lightning speed to put the Russian in an arm bar and force him to his knees.
The look of surprise on his face terminated when Hyori’s knee crashed into his skull.
Wu attacked the second man simultaneously, a vicious kick that collapsed one knee. He then sent his teetering opponent to the ground with a hip throw and followed up with an immobilizing elbow to the temple. Wu quickly searched both men and recovered a holstered weapon from each.
Clark and Ding arrived on a dead run. The situation hadn’t gone loud yet, but their cover was blown. Passersby all around were gawking and a woman was placing a call—almost certainly to the police.
Clark focused on Klaus. He approached the Swiss with calm assuredness. Klaus’s Teutonic features were framed clearly in the hoodie—he had removed his sunglasses, as if what he’d just witnessed would make more sense without them.
“Glad we reached you in time, Mr. Klaus,” said Clark. “You need to come with us right away.”
Klaus’s expression misted over with indecision.
There was no time for it. Clark said, “Twenty-four hours from now you will be in one of two places—a safe house in America or a prison in Russia. You have five seconds to make your choice.”
Clark reckoned his words were immaterial. His American accent, compared to the accents of the men now immobilized on the concrete, would be enough to tip the scale.
“Let’s go!” Klaus said.
—
“One, Gamer. You have two hostiles dead ahead. Turn right next street!”
“One copies,” Clark responded.
Clark and Ding walked quickly, shielding Klaus between them.
Their heads were on swivels, scanning and evaluating every face, watching hands for threatening movements.
Wu and Hyori were twenty paces back, a blocking force at the rear.
The original egress route had proved a nonstarter; four Russians had converged on the marina, and wanting to keep in cover, Bauer and Toussaint hadn’t engaged.
Charlie was on the move in the Sprinter, but bogged down in traffic.
Katie served as their eye in the sky, and Clark envisioned Kyle interfacing with MAADN to keep the intel coming.
Task Force 99 had disappeared into the warren of streets just off the waterfront, but it was only a temporary reprieve.
They had Klaus in hand, yet Bauer and Toussaint remained separated, and their transportation was struggling to reach them.
Hostiles were converging all around, and there were surely others they’d not yet identified.
Clark could only rely on Katie for what was going to be a challenging egress.
As Clark made the turn, he gave a hold signal to his trailing element.
Wu and Hyori paused at the intersection.
Katie picked up right away that they’d gone stationary. “Two, you’ve got threats forty yards south and closing.”
“Two copies,” Hyori replied.
The streets here were busy, but Hyori had no trouble discerning two quickly moving shapes on the distant cobbled sidewalk.
Wu crossed to the far side of the intersection, and as he moved, Hyori saw the lead hostile press a finger momentarily to his ear.
His eyes began searching and his gaze fell squarely on Wu. Both men drew handguns.
“They’ve got comm,” Hyori announced on the net as he drew his own weapon. Wu accelerated toward the corner of a building, his gun already in hand. Before he could reach it, the lead Russian raised his weapon and opened fire.
Wu dove behind a parked BMW motorcycle and bullets pinged off its frame. He thanked God for German engineering.
Hyori emerged from cover and tried to sight on the shooter, but panicked civilians ruled out a shot. The second Russian began firing toward Wu, and Hyori got a clear line of sight. From thirty yards he put two rounds in the man’s head.
Taking a prone position behind the motorcycle, Wu began returning fire. He got a clean shot, and in a ninety-degree cross fire the second Russian was cut down.
Both searched for other threats. Seeing none, they pocketed their weapons and ran down the street Clark had taken. Hyori transmitted, “Two has engaged. Two hostiles down, moving to rejoin!”
“One copies,” Clark replied. He had heard the unsilenced weapons, and the positive report was welcome. “Re-form on us. Three say posit.”
“Three is roughly five blocks east,” Bauer replied.
“Zero is breaking out of traffic,” Charlie interjected. “Need a rally point now!”
“Gamer copies, stand by…”
A pause on the Tangier end as everyone waited for Katie to make the call.
As much as Clark liked and respected Jack Ryan’s daughter, he knew she was in a suboptimal position. Urban combat was not her specialty. He hoped that during her time at the Naval Academy she’d done some joint training with the Army along those lines.
He also hoped she’d paid attention. The tenets of urban combat reflected a unique environment.
Paramount was distinguishing enemy combatants from civilians in densely populated areas, a complication that demanded proportional use of force.
The abundance of cover and concealment favored defenders over attackers.
John Clark didn’t simply know these principles.
He had lived by them until they were seared into his marrow.
But Katie? Could she adapt?
Clark shot a glance behind him. Wu and Hyori were again in position.
He sensed a new mood amid the crowds on the sidewalk.
A dangerous mix of caution and curiosity.
Everyone had heard the gunshots, which wouldn’t be completely foreign here.
A few shopkeepers had retreated into their stores, but others edged outside tentatively to see what the commotion was about.
The intersection behind them had gone still and people would begin gathering.
Nothing drew a crowd like a crowd. The police had to be getting calls, probably dozens of them, and soon sirens would begin wailing.
Clark was reasonably sure he had his unit moving in the general direction of Bauer and Toussaint, but the streets were a labyrinth of diagonal alleys and curving boulevards. Once they had a rally point, he would have to stop to reference a map and coordinate on the radio.
Come on, Katie. Give us a vector!
The radio remained silent.