Tom Clancy - Command Authority

Oxley must have known his own life was in danger, but he just laughed at Castor’s predicament.

“Help me,” said Castor. The terror was obvious.

“Give me the gun,” Ryan replied.

“No.”

“You don’t look like you know how to handle that pistol, so I guess you’ll have to talk your way out of this shit.”

Castor looked to Oxley now, hoping for any lifeline from the man.

Ox was still smiling. “What he said, ya cunt.”

Just then a window overlooking the back of the property shattered. The three men were well out of the line of fire from below, but still Castor spun toward the sound. Ryan started to go for the gun, but the old man recovered quickly and turned it back on the young American.

He said, “Look, Jack. I can tell you anything you want to know. Everything. Call your father. Have him send forces.”

“Send forces?” Jack just shook his head. “You think you can bargain for your life when killers are at the fucking door?”

Booming gunfire emanated from the kitchen below them now. Castor jumped and pointed his weapon at the door. Jack started to move toward him again, but once again the jittery weapon turned back to him.

Oxley said, “Hugh. Put down the fuckin’ gun before you hurt someone. Pass it to one of us, and we’ll get through this, the lot of us.”

Castor shook his head. “I’ll keep the gun,” he said. “If they get through, I’ll need it.”

Oxley muttered angrily, “You’d do well to put the barrel in your bloody mouth right now.”

“If I die, you die, Ox.”

Chavez, Driscoll, and Caruso had broken cover and were on the move now. Each man ran toward a different entrance of the chalet. Driscoll arrived at the side door to the driveway; it was open, and a dead Swiss security man lay on his back on the pavement with his automatic weapon by his side. Driscoll hefted the weapon and reloaded it with a fresh magazine from the dead man’s chest, and then he entered the building.

Chavez was on the opposite side of the chalet, and he’d followed a two-man Russian fire team along the trees and watched them enter through a sliding glass door to a bedroom. It was dark here outside, no security officers had engaged the Russians as they approached, but there was gunfire throughout the ground floor of the house as soon as the fire team entered.

Ding started toward the sliding glass door, but submachinegun fire from the front of the property echoed through the night, and instantly he heard the snapping sounds as bullets passed by his head. He raced through the doorway, narrowly avoiding being shot to death by one of the Swiss.

Caruso had the longest to travel before entering the house, but he finally arrived at the back door on the deck. By now the glass had been shot out of the door and the windows around it, so he stepped through the glass, and he instantly encountered two Russians who were moving through the kitchen with their weapons held high.

Dom saw them first; they swiveled to engage him, but he fired twice, shooting them both dead. Just then he heard gunfire in the next room, and then shouts in German. Return fire from a pistol boomed, and masonry dust began bursting from the wall near where Dom stood. He dove to the floor behind a sofa.

Upstairs, Castor stood by the bed. His gun swiveled back and forth between Ryan and Oxley, who were standing eight feet to his right, and the door to the landing, which was dead ahead of him some ten feet away.

Jack saw the terror in the man’s eyes and worried his shaking hand might send a round cracking out of the gun.

Castor was still trying to leverage his importance to get himself out of danger. “Your father needs me alive. I have information.”

Oxley said, “You’ve been peddling your bloody information for your whole life. At the moment it won’t do you any good. Shut the fuck up and wait for the Russians to come up the stairs.”

But Jack tried to calm him. “Look, Castor. I’ve got three guys outside who will help us, we just have to hold out till they get the situation under control. I promise you one thing, though. If they come through that doorway and see anybody but me with a pistol in their hands, then they will shoot without hesitation.”

Castor replied to this by saying, “It was Volodin. I can prove it was Volodin.”

Jack didn’t understand. “ What was Volodin?”

“I can prove that Valeri Volodin was Roman Talanov’s case officer. He ran Zenith back in the eighties. He stole the money from the KGB leadership. He had them killed when the Curtain dropped.”

Jack shook his head in disbelief. “Bullshit.”

“It’s not bullshit. Get me out of here and I will give you proof.”

Ryan looked at Oxley, and Oxley just shrugged. He did not know if the information was true or not.

Castor added, “Volodin knew that when the Soviet Union dissolved, the underworld would take over as the true ruler of the nation. And he knew the organized criminal gangs who populated the gulags, running the prisons with their own hierarchy there, would lead the underworld.

“He and Talanov came up with a plan. He had Talanov thrown into the gulag so he could establish his bona fides with the Russian mob. He was taken to the prison in the Komi Republic near Syktyvkar, and there he caught typhoid. The plan was scrapped for a few months while he recovered, but then he tried again. He was put in another gulag, and he spent four years there growing his power in the Seven Strong Men.”

Fully automatic gunfire raged throughout the ground floor of the chalet below them.

“When he was released from prison, he was set up at the top. He was made vory v zakonye , he had a small army of men who pledged loyalty to him, and he used this power to help the siloviki retake the government. He protected the siloviki as he grew his organization.

“They assassinated enemies of Volodin, destabilized politicians in power to grease the way forward for him. Talanov took over as the leader of Seven Strong Men in secret, so he could enter government himself. He became a police commissioner in Novosibirsk, and then, when Volodin came to the Kremlin as PM, he put Talanov in as a regional FSB chief.”

Ryan said, “And now Valeri Volodin has Roman Talanov as the head of all Russian intelligence.”

Oxley started shaking his head back and forth. He looked at Ryan. “Impossible. The fucker is lying to save his skin. Telling you a fairy tale.”

“How do you know he’s lying?”

“Talanov would never have been made vory v zakonye . You have to understand how the Russian mob works. You can’t be a made man in the Russian mafia if you ever worked for the Soviet government. Trust me. It’s an organization with heaps of iron-clad laws, but that is at the very top of them. You couldn’t deliver the fucking mail for the Soviets and be made into vory , much less work for the bloody security services.”

Jack said, “But if Talanov was put into the gulag as a plant, then maybe he kept knowledge of his former life from them.”

Castor nodded wildly. “That’s it, lad! That’s how it happened!”

Jack said, “Ox, what would happen if the Seven Strong Men found out Talanov used to be KGB and then lied to become leader of their organization?”

Oxley looked at him a long time. Slowly, a sly smile grew on his face. He said, “They’d fucking kill the cunt.”

The door in front of them burst in, splinters and door frame flew away from it, and Castor spun toward the commotion. He raised his pistol, but Jack took the opportunity to leap at Castor. He grabbed the pistol in Castor’s hand and wrenched it away with a vicious yank. As Jack pulled back hard, he looked into the doorway. A man in dark clothing raised an automatic weapon at him. Jack realized the attacker had a clear shot; he spun and raised the weapon into a firing grip, but he knew he would not be in time to fire first.