Chapter 53
DIA Headquarters
Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling
Washington, D.C.
“Tell him I’ll call him back!” Katie snapped, her eyes locked on the big monitor.
Moose was holding out a secure handset like it was a holy relic. Kyle had already rejected taking the call.
“But he knows something is going down in Tangier,” Moose argued.
“Of course he does. Tell him I’m busy.”
“It’s the President of the United States!”
“No, it’s our dad. He would want us to take care of business first.”
Moose sat statue-like, the phone in his outstretched hand.
Katie finally tore her attention away from the screen and snatched the handset away. She put it to her ear and said, “I’ll get right back to you!” Without waiting for a response, she dropped the phone back in its cradle.
Katie took one last look at the monitor, adjusted her headset and mic, and keyed the transmit button.
The White House
Seated at the Situation Room conference table, Jack Ryan stared at the phone.
The call had been put on speaker for the benefit of the others in the room. Most of the National Security Council were present. Everyone was staring at him.
The President set down the handset without a word, a stunned look on his face.
“She said she would get right back to us,” Arnie van Damm said. Because somebody had to say something.
“That girl does have a willful streak,” Ryan responded.
“Wonder where she got that?” mused Mary Pat.
On another day, Ryan might have smiled.
All eyes went back to the monitor. There, with a slight time lag, they saw a mirror image of the map Katie and Kyle were using to guide the fight. The scene was troubling.
Task Force 99 was surrounded.
Tangier, Morocco
The comm net crackled to life. Katie’s voice was sharp and clear. “New rally point, Foxtrot. Area clear of threats now, but One, you’ve got multiple inbounds between you and rally point. Suggest you arc south, next left turn.”
“One copies,” Clark replied as he and Ding hustled Klaus toward the next corner.
During their downtime in the safe house, Clark had identified seven alternate points for exfiltration. Foxtrot was Nations Square, roughly a third of a mile west of their position.
He transmitted orders on the fly. “Three, proceed to Foxtrot and secure the area.”
“Three copies.”
“Zero, say ETA.”
Charlie replied, “I can reach Fox in six mikes.”
Clark made the turn, but before his group were halfway to the next street Katie came online again.
“One, I’ve got a new pop-up threat. Three individuals to the left of the next cross street. Suggest you divert.”
“Divert? Divert where?”
A pause, then, “Immediately to your left is a grocery store. There’s a service alley in back, so there must be a door.”
Clark saw the store, veered left, and went inside.
Klaus looked frightened, but he was keeping pace and following instructions.
The store was small, four aisles of worn tile and peeling paint.
Shelves were stocked from floor to ceiling with prepackaged food and bins held produce and spices.
The scents of saffron and cinnamon saturated the air.
A young woman behind a distant counter tapped distractedly on her phone, oblivious to the five foreigners who’d just entered her store.
Clark led the way down a central aisle that put them out of sight of the cashier.
Thankfully there were no customers. Halfway to the back he glanced over his shoulder and saw two forms rush past on the street outside.
Katie’s instinct had been a good one. They were in the green.
But for how long?
Clark easily found a passageway leading to the back.
A tattered curtain served as a divider, and he hurried through to find a jumbled storeroom.
A worn mop sat in a bucket and boxes of inventory were stacked haphazardly against the walls.
As Katie had surmised, there was a door connecting to the back alley.
It didn’t appear to be locked—he could actually see a gap of daylight where it was cracked open.
He was just beginning to feel better about the situation when Katie delivered more bad news.
“Not working. Threats have merged and are now doubling back. They know you ditched them. Three men heading back up the street and two are turning into the alley. If they can figure out the right store, you’re trapped. I also have a new pair closing in from the north—roughly five minutes out.”
“We’ve still got good numbers, boss,” said Hyori, reinforcing what Clark was thinking. “We can break out.”
“Probably. But no telling how many more are inbound. The priority is to get Klaus safe, and for that we need to change the dynamics.”
“Dynamics?”
Clark scoped out the room. He saw a handcart and empty crates. Then, near the door, he saw something that spurred an idea: a light green windbreaker.
He surveyed the team and made the easiest decision he would have that day. “Hyori,” he said, pointing to Klaus, “put on his hoodie. Gunther, switch to that windbreaker by the door.”
“The two of us going to separate?” Hyori inquired.
“Divide and conquer.”
Clark explained his plan to the others. Hyori was roughly Klaus’s height and build, and their khaki pants matched.
The Russians had gotten a distant look at Klaus, and they knew how he was dressed.
Klaus had no objections. He removed his hoodie and handed it to Hyori, although he retained his cheap sunglasses. Then he shrugged on the windbreaker.
Clark didn’t like splitting his force, but it was their best chance. Once the enemy got eyes on them again, and they would, the numbers could quickly get out of hand. Getting Fulcrum clear was the priority.
He said, “Ding, you, Wu, and Klaus hold here. Hyori and I will go out the back and engage. After we get past the first two, we’ll move south and try to draw the attention of whoever else shows up. Once the coast is clear, head north. We’ll rally at Foxtrot.”
“How long do we wait for you?” Ding asked.
“I’ll let you know over the net.”
“And if we lose comms?”
“Then don’t wait, go straight to the airfield and launch. Hyori and I can catch up later.”
Clark read in Ding’s expression that he didn’t like this part of the plan. But he didn’t argue.
“Gamer,” Clark said over the net, “what’s the status in the alley?”
“Unknown,” Katie replied. “Two hostiles went into the alley, but we’ve got no feeds there. We also don’t have eyes on the alley’s north entrance.”
Clark wasn’t surprised. Even the best intel had its limits. “Okay,” he said, “let’s hit it.”
He eased out the back door, Hyori right behind him. Both had their weapons poised. Hyori stayed particularly low, and Clark knew what he was thinking. By donning the gray hoodie, he was making himself target number one.
The alley was closer to a junkyard than a delivery route.
Crates, trash bins, a wrecked motor scooter.
The stench of rotting food was heavy. Clark kept close to the right-hand wall, going for concealment behind a small dumpster.
He spotted the two men approaching, guns leveled in front of them.
They were checking back doors one by one, and at the moment were three entrances away.
Using hand signals, he directed Hyori to take up a supporting position on his left.
As soon as he was in place, Clark gave another signal and stood.
Everyone was mortal, but sometimes the difference on the battlefield came down to those who’d accepted that fact and those who hadn’t. John Clark had committed to his fate long ago.
The man on the right had not. He sensed Clark’s presence and took the time to think.
Instead of simply raising his weapon and firing, he glanced at a discarded refrigerator, probably wondering whether it would suffice for cover.
Without hesitation, Clark sighted on the man and fired two rounds.
His target spun from a hit, but didn’t go down.
Staggering against the refrigerator, the man unleashed two wild shots.
Clark didn’t miss with his next round, the man’s head jerking back in a hail of red vapor.
The second man made a similar mistake, lunging toward a parked car. Two rounds from Hyori dropped him before he reached it.
Clark and Hyori rushed toward them, confirmed both were dead, then continued toward the mouth of the alley. There they paused. Clark heard footsteps shuffling behind them. Ding and the others were exiting the grocery store and moving in the opposite direction.
“Gamer, this is One. We’re about to exit the alley south. I need a picture.”
“We’ve got two inbounds one hundred yards to your left, closing. A second group dead ahead, twice that range.”
Clark looked at Hyori. “We need to give them one look at you. After that, let’s turn right and lead them on a chase. Five minutes in the wrong direction, then we double back toward Foxtrot.”
“Copy that, boss.”
They bolted into the street like they were on fire—the best way to draw the attention of the nearest Russians. Clark glanced left and saw them. One was pointing toward them, the other talking—no doubt giving a SITREP on their own comm net.
Clark and Hyori sprinted up a busy sidewalk, stealth no longer a concern.
It forced the Russians to run to keep up.
Which, in turn, would make it easier for CC6 to track them.
Katie chimed in with threat updates, but soon they hit another blind spot in her coverage.
Clark bolted up a curving road, then turned right into a maze of low apartment buildings.
Orientation became impossible, the tangle of streets and alleys having been conceived a thousand years ago.
After five minutes he saw no sign of the hostiles behind them.
He also had no idea where they were. Clark stopped to reference the map on his phone when a barrage of gunfire crackled from the right.
He threw himself behind a cobblestone wall, stone chips stinging his face.
His shoulder smacked the ground, and when he looked back, he saw Hyori down.
His face was masked in blood and he was struggling to move.
Clark popped up from behind the wall and spotted a single gunman.
He engaged, firing three rounds that dropped the man.
He then saw a second man who had backed against a wall to swap out a magazine.
Clark fired twice as he was racking a round into the chamber, both hitting center of mass.
The man crumpled to the ground. Clark saw no other clear threats, but couldn’t be sure.
He dropped back in cover, performed his own mag change, and crawled toward Hyori.
“What have we got, Lee?”
Hyori was trying to gather himself. His face was a crimson mess.
“I took a couple of hits.”
Hyori was wearing light body armor. Clark pulled the hoodie away and saw two shredded holes in the fabric of his shirt and plate carrier. One hit was high, and shrapnel of some kind—either from the round or the vest—had ricocheted into his cheek and temple.
“Doesn’t look like there was penetration.”
Hyori wiped blood from his eyes. Head wounds were notoriously bloody.
Clark gingerly removed the hoodie, which no longer served a purpose, and used it to wipe away blood. “Two gashes, but neither looks deep. A couple of new scars to add to your operator mystique.”
Hyori forced a grin. “You come through okay?”
“Had no choice. I’m too old to die young.”
“Hope I can say that one day.”
“You good to go?” Clark asked.
“Let’s find out.”
Clark cleared the area around them. He saw no new threats. A few civilians who’d been wandering the lane had disappeared. He helped Hyori to his feet as the wail of sirens began rising in the distance.
“Time to get outta here.” He pulled his phone from his hip pocket and saw the screen shattered. “Shit!”
Hyori looked down at his vest and saw the remains of his own phone in a pocket in his plate carrier. It had taken a direct hit, and was probably the source of the shrapnel that had flown into his face. “What are the chances?” he said rhetorically. “Not only kills our comm, but also our nav.”
“We’ll figure it out. I remember where Nations Square is…I just need to figure out where we are.”
“Big to small,” Hyori said.
This was a cardinal rule of tactical navigation. To establish a present position, find a prominent reference point for orientation, and fine-tune from there.
Clark spotted the minaret of a mosque—as he recalled from his site study, the Syrian Mosque. They moved fast until the mosque was in front of them.
“Nations Square is north of here,” Clark said.
“Okay, but which way is north?”
Clark smiled. “The compass is right on front of us. All mosques are oriented to face Mecca. In Tangier, that means they face nearly due east.”
Hyori nodded, the gyro in his head having caged upright. They set out walking at a steady pace.
Eyes scanning.
Weapons concealed, but ready.