Tom Clancy - Command Authority

When it was clear Dreadlocks was unconscious, Jack looked around. The man in the black jersey was running off into the night, clutching his arm. A third man rolled around, holding his knee and cursing incomprehensible profanities, and the fourth man was facedown and out cold.

Jack looked in the other direction. Sandy Lamont stood there, just twenty-five feet away, staring at the carnage and the man on his knees in the center of it.

Jack stood and began moving up the alley. “Let’s get out of here.”

They were back in their hotel twenty minutes later. Sandy had pulled a few airplane bottles of rum out of the minibar with a shaking hand, and he poured them into a glass. Jack sat with him in his room. He had a beer in his hand, but he hadn’t even taken a sip yet.

Sandy Lamont just stared at Ryan. “Who the hell are you?”

Jack touched his fingers to the bridge of his nose. It was just scraped a little; no blood flowed. His knuckles were scraped and bruised as well.

He’d come up with an answer to Sandy’s question on the quiet and uncomfortable walk back to the hotel. He said, “The Secret Service put me through a hell of a lot of training. Been doing it for years, but when I refused their protection, they really stepped it up…” Jack shrugged and smiled. “Hell, I guess I’m half a ninja by now.”

Sandy said, “That’s bloody marvelous. Those bastards were going to kill us.”

“No. They were going to knock our heads together, but don’t make this bigger than it was. They are used to intimidating people down here. They probably work for any drug dealer, shady money launderer, or pimp who pays them. They aren’t assassins. Just assholes.”

Sandy downed the rum. His hands still shook.

Jack was worried about the next part. “Any chance we can keep this between you and me?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I’d rather Hugh Castor didn’t know about this.”

Sandy just looked out the window at the ocean for a moment. “Yeah. That’s probably a good idea. He’d blame me for the entire thing.”

“Why?”

Sandy shrugged. “He’s pressuring me about you already.”

“Pressuring you? What do you mean?”

“Oh. Bloody Gazprom. He makes a right ruckus every time he hears you are digging into them.”

Jack thought back to Sandy warning him away from the giant Russian corporation. “So that was Castor talking, not you.”

“Sorry, mate. Orders from the boss. I do see his point. We can do good business without going toe-to-toe against the real seat of Russian power.”

“Aren’t you overstating it a bit? I would think the Kremlin would be the seat of Russian power.”

Now that the subject had turned to business, Sandy was back on level ground. He recovered quickly. “Think about it, Jack. Gazprom not only is owned by the Kremlin, but it also is directly tied to the bank accounts of the siloviki in the Kremlin. Castor has always been against us doing anything to provoke the Kremlin, and I’d say fucking with their meal ticket applies.”

Ryan looked out over the sea. “I think Castor should let these investigations go where the facts lead.”

“If you want to know the truth, Jack, I do, too. Old man Castor has his eyes on the bottom line, so he’ll go to bat for any Russian oligarch who’s trying to sue some other Russian oligarch, as long as Volodin and his siloviki aren’t involved.”

“But the siloviki is involved in a lot of underhanded stuff.”

“I think he’s just scared of Volodin and his thugs. He’d never admit it, but all of his tenacity just seems to drift away when the facts lead toward the Kremlin.”

Jack was frustrated by this, but it was nice to see that Sandy was frustrated as well.

Sandy said, “I won’t mention the fisticuffs down here. On one condition.”

“Name it.”

“I want you to teach me how to do some of that.”

“It’s a deal,” Ryan said.

With all the badges, business cards, equipment, and swagger of a group of independent journalists, Clark, Chavez, Driscoll, Caruso, and Biery landed at Kiev’s Boryspil International Airport just after nine in the morning. They were met by a man Clark had hired to use as a fixer for the duration of their operation.

Igor Kryvov was a former member of Ukraine’s Security Service’s Alpha group, a paramilitary Spetsnaz force used for hostage and counterterror scenarios, and he’d also served as an assaulter on Domingo Chavez’s team in Rainbow. He was now retired from that life, having picked up a disability during a training accident when his main parachute failed to open and his reserve chute caught high winds that sent him slamming awkwardly into the ground. He’d broken both legs and shattered his pelvis, and he’d nearly bled to death from the compound fractures.

When he learned his injuries would prevent him from returning to active duty with Rainbow, he took a job as a beat cop with the Kiev municipal police, and while doing so, he earned a master’s degree in criminal intelligence. For a short time he was an investigator for the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but he had no interest in the corruption rife within the organization. His insistence on playing by the book soured his relationship with his employers, so now he was in the private sector, freelancing in security work and taking jobs as a fixer—essentially, a glorified tour guide for foreigners doing business in the city of 2.8 million.

As a result of his injuries, Kryvov walked with a slight stoop and a pronounced limp, but despite his surgeries and his long history of professional violence, he always wore a smile on his face.

“Colonel Clark!” he said as he shook John’s hand on the tarmac. “Good to see you again.”

“Hi, Igor. I really appreciate you agreeing to work with us.”

“Are you kidding? I’ve been so bored driving CNN reporters around from one protest march to the next. Getting to be with you guys for a few days sounds like fun.”

When Chavez came down the steps of the Hendley Associates Gulfstream, Kryvov grabbed the smaller Mexican American and yanked him into a bear hug.

“Good to see you, Igor.”

“You as well.”

The forty-five-year-old was introduced to the others, and within minutes he had all their equipment packed up in the van. Igor knew the men weren’t journalists, but Clark had told him only that he was coming over to do some “poking around.” The Ukrainian quite reasonably assumed the men were CIA, but operating under nonofficial cover.

Kryvov was known around the city as a man who worked with foreign press, so Clark knew the ex–Rainbow man could help them establish their journalistic covers. This, along with his knowledge of the local criminal element, made him a perfect fit for the Campus team, since they needed to be dialed in to some of the darker sides of the city in order to learn what was going on over here with the Seven Strong Men.

The entourage left the airport and drove to a rented third-floor flat in an old building on the right bank of the Dnieper River. Though the Americans were tired from the flight, they wasted no time before beginning the lengthy process of preparing their safe house. They swept for bugs using tiny devices hidden in their camera equipment, and they chose routes in the building and in the neighborhood so they could escape quickly if necessary.

Gavin Biery set up his operation in the living room. From the very beginning, Clark had stressed to the team the importance of maintaining their cover. Biery set up his workstation with that in mind. Not only were the computers encrypted and password-protected, but the Campus-related applications were hidden on the machines, while digital editing software and several news-related websites ran openly. This way, even if someone got past the security, they would still think they were looking at the work of an editor or cameraman for a traveling news team.