Tom Clancy - Command Authority

Oxley looked at Ryan. “Talanov? Right. That’s the name. So? Again, that was ages ago. What the hell does it matter now?”

Jack was surprised. “Wait. You know Talanov is Zenith?”

“I suspect I am the one who put that old dusty note in that file. Back in ninety-two, I think it was. After I got out of the gulag. But you haven’t explained why anyone cares about the name of a rogue KGB assassin from a quarter-century ago.”

Jack thought for a moment. “I didn’t see a television in your flat.”

“No use for them. No radio, either. Occasionally, there will be a football match on at the pub, but I have no interest in the news.”

“That explains it, then.”

Ox was confused. “What are you on about, Ryan?”

“This isn’t about what happened a quarter-century ago. It’s about what’s happening now. You have no idea that Roman Talanov is the head of the FSB, do you?”

Oxley stared ahead, watching the traffic race by on Wellesley Road. After a long time he said, “No. I didn’t know that.” He took a thoughtful pull on his drink and stared off over the city. “Bloody fuckin’ hell.”

CIA analyst Jack Ryan spent the first few hours after the raid on the RAF Sprengelstrasse flat in a musty vacant office at the British consulate in West Berlin.

As soon as he was given the chance to use a secure phone, Ryan called the CIA director of intelligence, Admiral James Greer. He reached Greer at home—it was nine p.m. on the East Coast—and he filled him in on the events of the past few hours. The admiral was astonished by the news of the shootout, especially his own man’s part in it.

Ryan stressed to Greer he was skeptical that the RAF had operated alone, and he was certain there were other shadowy forces involved in this entire operation.

Greer doubted Ryan’s theory of Russian involvement. “But Jack. What about Rabbit? You know as well as I do we have an asset who was well informed on KGB operations. We’ve spent months debriefing Rabbit. I find it hard to believe he’s going to just scratch his chin and then say, ‘Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention there is an assassin operating in Europe.’”

Jack said, “We need to check with him on this. Maybe he’ll remember something relevant.”

Greer said, “Look, Jack, we’ll talk to him again, but you and I both know he wasn’t holding out on us. If there were any active measures that in any way fit the description of what you are describing, he would have told us.”

“Zaitsev has been out of the KGB communication room for months. This could be something that started after he left.”

“Possible, but unlikely, and you know why. These operations take time to field. Assassinating Western European bankers. Co-opting and—I guess you are saying—framing West German terrorists. That doesn’t sound like an op that was just thrown together in the past few months, does it?”

“No,” Ryan conceded. He paused. “I know what this sounds like.”

“It sounds like you are grasping at straws. If it were anyone else, I’d dismiss this out of hand. But you aren’t anyone else. You are one hell of an analyst, and I owe it to you to tell you to follow your instincts.”

“Thanks.”

“But whatever you do, I want you to remember this. The Brits are pretty good at this sort of thing. If they say they are done with the investigation, you’ll be on your own over there. You can tap into whatever local agency facility you need to help you, of course, but be careful. You’ve come too close to danger already. I don’t want you taking any unnecessary risks.”

“That makes two of us.”

Twenty minutes later, Ryan met with Eastling and his men in a second-floor office, and here they all went over the material found in the RAF safe house again. The German BfV retained custody of the briefcase and the contents inside, so two BfV investigators loomed over Eastling’s and Ryan’s shoulders while the Englishman and the American conducted their own review of the items.

Eastling and his men went first. This had begun as an SIS operation, after all. One of Eastling’s men had a fingerprint kit, and he dusted the case and the items inside, then Eastling himself took each piece of evidence and read it over, examining watermarks on paper, the techniques used to print the photographs of the bankers, the typewriter characteristics of the letters on the bomb-making guide and the communiqué.

The case itself was examined for a false bottom or any other hidden compartments, but none were found.

Jack was fascinated by Eastling’s handling of the evidence for the simple fact that Jack himself had no training in these types of investigative techniques. He wasn’t a cop or a detective. His dad had been a detective on the Baltimore PD, and he’d always been interested in police work, but he’d never seen it as his calling.

He was an analyst, however, so when he finally got his chance to look over the material, he went for the documents first. He wore rubber gloves, of course, and had one of the BfV officers standing with him to translate.

Jack tried to get the BfV men to admit they didn’t think it was possible the RAF members at the apartment could have possibly put up such a professional fight against GSG 9, but the Germans weren’t as certain as Ryan. There were nine dead civilians in the flat on Sprengelstrasse, and so far only five of the bodies had been identified. The BfV officers said they couldn’t pass judgment on the skill of the RAF fighters until they figured out the identity of all those lying on slabs in the morgue.

Ryan learned very little from his examination of the documents. He wasn’t a specialist on the RAF by any means, but the communiqué looked like a standard pronouncement from a left-wing terrorist group, and all the material involving the attacks on Gabler and Wetzel—the photos, the maps, and the bomb-making instructions—seemed legitimate.

The only thing doubtful about the entire scene was that in order to take the briefcase and its contents at face value, one had to believe Marta Scheuring possessed some of the absolute worst operational tradecraft in the history of left-wing terror. Even though the RAF routinely took credit for their operations, like most terror groups, the fact the young German woman had brought her ID along with her on her op strained credulity.

Ryan didn’t know what to make of it. Scheuring had a couple of arrests under her belt, but she’d certainly never been implicated in a murder. That said, two of the inhabitants of the flat had been wanted for a rocket attack on a NATO installation several years earlier, and while no one had been killed or even seriously injured in the attack, certainly the intention had been to cause loss of life.

Eastling, as usual, was leaning toward wrapping up this investigation. Ryan, on the other hand, thought the spoon-fed nature of this evidence created more suspicions than the evidence itself cleared up.

As the Germans were anxious to leave with their evidence, Ryan and the Brits finished their review of the material in under an hour.

Jack had been up for more than twenty-four hours, so around nine a.m. he was offered a couch in an unused office to catch a couple hours’ sleep.

At eleven-thirty a.m. Eastling leaned into the room. Ryan sat up, rubbing his eyes and pushing a wool blanket off his legs.

Eastling sat down in the chair in front of him. His eyes were bloodshot, and his clothes were wrinkled. Jack wondered if he looked as tired and worn-out as the Englishman did.

“What’s going on?” Jack asked.

“We’ve been through everything multiple times. The documents we found in Marta Scheuring’s room at the RAF safe house look legitimate. The Germans have finally identified the other bodies in the flat. They were three girlfriends and one boyfriend of the occupants. None of them are known RAF members, but of course this will be looked into further.