Maden Mike - Tom Clancy Firing Point

It frustrated Ryan that one in five meritorious citations were privately awarded these days. Valor should be celebrated, not hidden. But he understood the rationale. There were so many classified missions around the globe that even some members of the congressional oversight committees were surprised to find out where and when they occurred, let alone how frequently. Such was the price of eternal vigilance. The enemy never slept and never stopped moving until young war-fighters like Shaffer dropped them in the dirt. Ryan worried that there were too many bad guys out there, and not enough Shaffers willing to hunt them down.

“I understand you threw ball in high school,” Ryan said, trying to change the subject. “You follow the Nats this year?”

Shaffer smiled beneath his facial bandages. “Nah, sir. I’m a Georgia boy. Braves all the way.” He held up the amputated stump of his right arm. “Doc says they’re going to wire me up with some new bionic LUKE arm. Guess they’re gonna make me a cyborg. After I muster out, I’m gonna try out for Atlanta, ’cuz I’ll be throwing two-hundred-mile-per-hour pitches with that bad boy.”

“The Braves would be lucky to have you. But trust me, the Nats are the way to go,” Ryan joked.

Shaffer grinned. He was missing a few teeth. “I’ll talk to my agent.”

“Anything else I can do for you?” Ryan asked.

“You done more than enough, sir. I’ll make out fine. With all the pretty lady doctors and nurses around here, I got no complaints.”

Ryan laid a hand on the boy’s good shoulder. “You need anything, I’ve left a card on the nightstand with my secretary’s private number. Okay?”

“Yes, sir.”

Ryan leaned closer. “I’m serious.”

The boy nodded. “Thanks.”

Ryan stiffened, fighting back the tears welling in his eyes. He snapped his hand to the corner of his eye, the crisp salute he’d learned as a young Marine lieutenant decades ago. The CNO was caught off guard—senior ranks didn’t salute junior ranks—and Ryan was the C-in-C. But he sure as hell appreciated him doing it and he joined in.

Shaffer was stunned. But he returned the salute smartly with the remains of his left hand.

“See you at the ballpark, kid,” Ryan said with a wink before turning and leaving.

—

Ryan was lost in thought as he and Admiral Talbot made their way across the ward toward the elevators, two Secret Service agents in step behind them.

Ryan knew that every time a soldier went into the field on his orders—or under the authority of his office, even if he wasn’t aware of the specific mission—he bore the responsibility for the outcome, and he took that responsibility seriously. Sending fragile young bodies into hostile, high-kinetic environments entailed enormous risk and these magnificent kids willingly accepted that risk, even if they didn’t fully understand the real cost until they actually had to pay it.

It was his job to make sure they didn’t have to pay that cost or to be damned sure it was worth it when men like Shaffer paid it in full. The longer he was on the job, the more certain Ryan was that it should be the old men that went to war. The young had too much to lose.

Ryan didn’t notice the admiring stares of the doctors and nurses as he passed by. It was hardly the first time he’d been to the critical-care unit but his obvious compassion for the wounded warriors always made an impact on the staff, who were even more dedicated to their recovery than he was.

“A private word with you, if I may, Mr. President?” the CNO asked as they stepped into the elevator.

“Of course.” Ryan looked toward the senior agent in charge of today’s presidential detail, Ruby Knox, herself a former Marine. “Meet you in the basement.”

“Yes, sir.” Knox spoke into her cuff mic, informing the rest of the detail of the change of plans. She was warned the first day she was assigned to SWORDSMAN by Gary Montgomery, the special agent in charge of the Presidential Protective Division (PPD), otherwise known as “The Shift,” that she needed to be flexible. This President wasn’t about ceremonies and calendars but instead focused on the task at hand, including today’s unscheduled visit to Walter Reed. Normally, Gary would have been the point man on an off-campus visit like this one but he was on a fly-fishing trip with his daughter in Montana and the honor fell to her.

God, she loved this job.

Knox keyed the panel on the security elevator so that it would proceed directly to the basement garage, bypassing the intervening floors.

As the stainless-steel doors shut behind them, Ryan turned to the admiral. “So, John. What’s up?”

“Our people over at MDA”—the Maritime Domain Awareness element of the Office of Naval Intelligence—“bumped up a report to my office this morning that needs your attention.”

“You got it.”

“To make a long story short, the Royal Australian Navy received a report of a possible ship sinking in the South Pacific. The Jade Star was a Panamanian-flagged commercial vessel, sunk with all hands on board. The vessel’s AIS signal disappeared immediately, which was how they got the call.”

Talbot didn’t have to tell the President, a former CIA analyst and national security adviser, that international maritime law required every vessel over three hundred tons to broadcast Class A automatic identification system signals. AIS provided a host of self-reported data, including GPS coordinates, speed, port of destination, and the like, all supported by dozens of AIS-enabled orbiting satellites.

“I’m sorry to hear it,” Ryan said. “The cause? Did Sibbers pick up anything?” Ryan was referring to SBIRS, the Space Based Infrared System.

“No, sir.” He explained why SBIRS failed. Ryan understood but wasn’t pleased. But that was a conversation for later.

“Shit.” Ryan rubbed his hand through his hair, thinking through the implications. “What do your people suspect happened?”

“The only data we have to go on at the moment is the flotsam the Australians were able to recover from the wreck. A few floating containers, even fewer corpses. Three, to be exact.”

“Cause of death?”

“Drowning, trauma. Two victims had burns. Could be from the cause of the sinking or from the vessel itself if it caught fire and exploded.”

“No eyewitnesses?”

“No, and no survivors.”

Talbot continued. “The cause remains unknown. Ship sinkings aren’t all that unusual. Over the last decade, an average of a hundred ships over one hundred gross tons are lost every year, mostly through weather, onboard accidents, or human error. The last two options were MDA’s first assumption as to cause. Then they started digging around.”

“And?”

“By their count, six ships in total have gone down in the last eight weeks in the area, averaging over seventy thousand deadweight tons each; that isn’t easily explained. It’s obviously a big concern.”

Ryan frowned. It sure as hell was. Ninety percent of the world’s international commerce was transported by nearly sixty thousand merchant ships crewed by over a million sailors. A threat to global shipping was a threat to the global economy.

“Any pattern to the sinkings?”

“Right now, it looks like it’s limited to the South Pacific and only commercial cargo vessels. Six different flags, all different cargoes, none hazardous or environmentally sensitive, at least that we know of. I’ll circle back to you with more details when I get them.”

Ryan’s eyes narrowed. “Why are we just hearing about this now?”

The elevator dinged and the doors slid open to the basement garage.

The armored Cadillac limo, affectionately known as “Stagecoach,” stood idling in the distance, flanked by two PPD agents still out of earshot. Weighing in at nearly ten tons, the vehicle featured five-inch-thick windows, eight-inch doors with electrified handles, and a supply of blood matching Ryan’s type, among many other survival features.