Tom Clancy: Command Authority

The pause was long. Finally the voice under the hood asked, “What do you want?”

“The news I just told you is about to go public. Talanov might deny it, but you know how this works. People who knew him will come forward now. Everyone will know the head of the FSB is also head of the Seven Strong Men. This will be troublesome at home. Troublesome for everyone, except perhaps the man directly under him in the hierarchy of the organization.”

“What are you saying?”

“When the word gets out that Seven Strong Men was nothing but another shill, another proxy force doing the work of the Kremlin, then your organization will have no alternative but to make some changes.

“You can survive this, Dmitri.” Clark leaned forward again, almost into Nesterov’s ear. “But Talanov won’t.” He paused. “Will he?”

President of the United States Jack Ryan sat at his desk in the Oval Office. On the blotter in front of him was a legal pad with several bullet points written in his own hand. He looked at the clock quickly, then down at his telephone, and he did his best to control his racing thoughts.

This was one of those crucial moments of statecraft where he knew that everything he did in the next few minutes could determine life and death for thousands, tens of thousands, or perhaps even hundreds of thousands.

He’d spent hours in meetings the night before, with Scott Adler, with Mary Pat Foley and Jay Canfield, with Bob Burgess and Mark Jorgensen and Dan Murray.

They had all talked him through this conversation, but more important than the input of any of these learned professionals was a ninety-minute phone call he’d had with his own son that set the ball rolling.

Jack Junior had started the conversation with the news that Bedrock had been killed by the Russians. His father’s first question was about the safety of his own son. Jack Junior convinced his father he was safe only by putting Domingo Chavez on the line.

Once that was done, and with President Ryan still reeling with the news that the man who’d once saved his life had died saving the life of his son, Jack Junior then bombarded his father with facts and figures and details. Stories about Roman Talanov and Valeri Volodin and the man who poisoned Golovko and his relationship to a mafia boss in Ukraine.

Jack Senior had jotted notes down, asked for clarifications, and then made notes under his notes about things he would be able to double-check on his own.

The news that the account at Ritzmann Privatbankiers had been liquidated into diamonds owned by another account holder had been especially interesting to him. Ryan vaguely remembered that at the time there had been a question about diamonds, though he could not recall any specifics after thirty years.

When he got off the phone with Jack Junior he called everyone into the Situation Room and he explained everything. Foley and Canfield and Murray hustled out to check what items they could. Adler had advised the President on what he needed to do about all this.

Ryan made the decision to order the immediate arrest of Dmitri Nesterov. Burgess suggested operators in the field in Kiev could handle it, and Ryan signed off on the plan.

Now that Nesterov was in pocket, even though he hadn’t said a word yet, the consensus was that President Ryan needed to get on the phone with Volodin and lay everything out. It was little more than a Hail Mary attempt to marginalize the man by threatening to reveal everything they had, or everything they could convince Volodin they had, which was a lot less than what they could actually prove.

The light on the phone blinked, letting Jack know the call had been put through to Moscow. He took one deep breath, situated his paperwork in front of him, and lifted the receiver off the cradle.

Volodin’s voice came over the line. He spoke Russian, of course, but Ryan recognized the fast tempo, the self-assuredness. The voice of the translator in the Communication Room was louder than Volodin’s, so Ryan could hear the translations easily.

“Mr. President,” Volodin said. “We speak at last.”

Ryan spoke English, which was handled quickly by Volodin’s translator in the Kremlin. Ryan said, “President Volodin, I need to start this conversation by making a suggestion that I hope you will seriously consider.”

“A suggestion? Maybe you will suggest that I resign. Is that the idea?” He laughed at his own joke.

Ryan did not laugh. He said, “My suggestion is that you ask your translator to leave the conversation. What I have to say to you is for you alone, and my translator can convey this. If you choose, when I finish, you can bring your man back into the conversation.”

“What is this?” Volodin asked. “You do not set the terms for our conversations. This is just some ploy so you can control the dialogue. I will not be bullied by you, President Ryan. That was the last president of Russia, not me.”

Jack listened to another few seconds of bluster conveyed through his translator, and then he said, “This is about Zenith.”

This made its way through Volodin’s translator, and then all was quiet on the line for a moment.

“I don’t know what that is,” said Valeri Volodin.

“Well, then,” replied Jack Ryan, “I will tell you. I will tell you every last detail. Account numbers, names, dates, victims, consequences. Would you like your translator to step away, or shall I go ahead?”

Jack didn’t expect to hear anything on the other end, but Volodin said, “I will indulge you briefly.” His voice already sounded on guard.

When there was no one else at the Kremlin on the line, Ryan went in a different direction: “Mr. President, I have direct evidence that connects you to the polonium poisoning of Sergey Golovko.”

“I expected to hear this even sooner. I told the world you would have all manner of lies to implicate Russia.”

“Pavel Lechkov, an operative of the Seven Strong Men criminal organization, passed the polonium off to the Venezuelans, who in turned poisoned the victim. We have photographs of Lechkov in the United States.”

Volodin said, “No one believes photographs. Plus, if this man was a criminal, what does that have to do with me? Your own nation has trouble with crime, does it not? Shall I blame you for the activities of your gangs?”

“Lechkov was also photographed meeting with Dmitri Nesterov, a member of the Seven Strong Men.”

“I am putting my translator back on the call. You have nothing that cannot be heard by every citizen of Russia, although it will only show them the foolishness of an old Cold War spy.”

Ryan said, “Roman Talanov’s relationship to the Seven Strong Men was established by you as an intelligence operation, and he rose to the top of that organization, just as you have risen to the top of the Russian government. But Roman Talanov is now damaged. We have already informed key members of Seven Strong Men that Talanov was KGB before he became a made man, and that is very much a sign of disrespect to their organization.”

Ryan added, “I should think this will make life very difficult for him indeed.”

Volodin spoke up now, and Jack noted that he had not called for his own translator to return to the line. He said, “These are all lies.”

“Mr. President, Hugh Castor has given us evidence. Evidence you know exists. We captured Dmitri Nesterov alive last night. We have shown him the evidence, and he is angry enough to where he is talking quite a bit already. Once we put him on television explaining how he was paid one-point-two billion by the FSB to destabilize Ukraine, to poison Sergey Golovko, and to facilitate illegal business transactions so that the siloviki can continue to rape the public holdings of the people of Russia, then your situation will become dire.