Tom Clancy - Command Authority

“Because of all the Russian nationals living in the Crimea.”

“Yep. You probably know those Russian nationals only got their citizenship because Moscow handed out passports to Ukrainians of Russian heritage. It was an FSB op all the way, setting the stage for the invasion. They called it ‘passportization.’ The Russians began offering passports to civilians in the Crimea with Russian heritage. They are creating a land of Russians in Ukraine, and then they will say, ‘We have to come in to protect our citizens.’ They did exactly the same thing in Georgia a few years ago. There were two autonomous regions inside Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The FSB went in and discreetly distributed passports to a percentage of the population. Then the Russians used the fact there were so many Russians in these regions to justify sending in their army to kick out the Georgian Army.”

“And you make it sound like there’s nothing that can stop it.”

Bixby shrugged. “I believe they will attack, and I believe they will take the Crimea. That is the low-hanging fruit. What I am worried about is the whole country falling. Russia sees the Ukrainian nationalists in power as a clear and present danger to Russian citizens in the country. Volodin might just march his forces all the way to Kiev.”

Clark said, “What could I do that might help you out?”

Bixby stopped in the path and looked at the older man. “You aren’t alone, are you?”

Clark did not answer at first.

“Look, man. I sure as hell don’t have the time, the energy, or the resources to check you out. The only thing I could do would be call someone in Ukrainian border control and get your visa revoked.”

“I’d rather you didn’t do that,” Clark said. “No. I’m not alone. I’m here with Domingo Chavez.”

Bixby’s eyebrows rose. Chavez was also well known in the Agency. “Are you here on some sort of a commercial contract? You working for one of the oil companies?”

“Nothing like that. Believe me, I’m not getting paid to be here. But I want to help. I’ve got a couple other hands, and a local guy who worked for me in Rainbow. We are set up to look into Gleb the Scar and his operation here, but I don’t want to get in the way of anything you are already doing. We can provide you a little skilled labor. That’s all.”

They started walking again, and Bixby shrugged while he walked. “Look. I appreciate the effort you made in putting together a crew and coming halfway around the world, but I’m not a trusting guy. This is my turf you are on, and although I don’t have the manpower I wish I had, I’m not prepared to cut you in on my operation.”

“You’re making a mistake,” Clark said. He took a card out of his pocket. On it was the number to his satellite phone. “If you change your mind, I’ll be around.”

Bixby took the card as he walked, and slipped it into his coat pocket.

As they neared the metro station, Bixby started moving away from Clark on the footpath. He was nearly ten feet to Clark’s right when he nodded to a spot in the trees on Clark’s side of the path. “We’ve got company. An FSB flunky is getting into position over there.”

Clark said, “There’s a second guy behind you. They don’t have their mikes or cams set up yet.”

Bixby did not look. Instead, he kept his eyes on the path in front of him as he said, “See ya around, Clark. Try and stay out of trouble. I’ve got enough problems.”

Clark himself looked at the ground. No one watching them from distance would know they were together. Clark went around the left-hand side of the metro building for the stairs, where he descended belowground to catch a train.

Bixby walked to the road and hailed a taxi to take him back to the embassy. He’d need to start his SDR all over again before meeting with the Italian businessman.

President Jack Ryan lay on his bed in Blair House. It was midnight; he knew this because the grandfather clock in the hall outside the master bedroom had just chimed the hour. He was to be awoken at six a.m., barring anything happening in the middle of the night that would need his attention, so he was hoping sleep would come soon.

But he didn’t think it was likely. New developments this evening were keeping him up. Jay Canfield at CIA reported that Russia had moved a mechanized battalion into Belarus. This was no invasion; on the contrary, they did it with the full backing of Minsk. Ryan knew Minsk did whatever the hell Moscow wanted. The authoritarian leader of Belarus was completely in Volodin’s back pocket.

No, the troop movements weren’t troubling because of what might happen in Belarus; rather, they were troubling because Belarus bordered Ukraine to the north.

Jack had asked Jay if the mechanized battalion in Belarus could put Kiev in jeopardy, and Canfield’s response was still running through Jack’s mind:

“Yes, but frankly, even the Russian troops on Ukraine’s eastern border can jeopardize Kiev. Defense spending in Ukraine hasn’t even been enough for the upkeep of the equipment they have. The Russians can take the Ukrainian capital from either direction.” It seemed to Jack as if each day brought a potential invasion even closer. Jack had sent Scott Adler, his secretary of state, to Europe to drum up support on the diplomatic front to try and stop a Russian invasion before it began, but so far Adler had received much in the way of private platitudes but little in the way of public diplomacy from the European nations.

Ryan had a meeting planned with Secretary of Defense Bob Burgess in the morning to discuss the military ramifications of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, and he knew he needed to start planning for what was beginning to look more and more inevitable.

With everything on his plate right now, Jack knew his focus should remain on the present. But try as he might, Mary Pat Foley’s throwaway comment earlier in the day concerning a rumor of an assassin called Zenith and a spate of killings thirty years earlier had his mind wandering back to those days.

He had not thought of Zenith in a long time. In the four years Jack was out of office, he had worked on his memoirs. This had been a slow process, made slower by the fact that many of the things Ryan had done had been classified, and he therefore could not very well put them in his book.

But the Zenith affair—they called it the “possible Zenith affair” at the time because no one ever proved there was, in fact, a Zenith—was an event that not only was classified but had been all but stricken from the record. Jack had not spoken of Zenith to anyone for thirty years.

And this made it all the more surprising when Mary Pat mentioned it in the context of a current crisis.

There were so few mysteries left from the Cold War. When the Iron Curtain dropped, virtually all the answers poured out like the Curtain had been a floodgate.

But despite the Russian government investigating the matter, the questions surrounding Zenith had never been resolved.

Jack knew Mary Pat had been right; this wasn’t like him to chase details on a single piece of intel. Ostensibly, he wanted to see if Talanov was somehow involved in the Zenith murders; if he was, this would be an important piece of the puzzle and part of developing an understanding of his background and his personality. But if Jack was honest with himself, he would have to admit that he had ordered the look into the Zenith case mostly because it had been one of the few remaining question marks of his career, and if Roman Talanov had something to do with it, however unlikely that might have been, Jack damn sure wanted to know.

He closed his eyes and willed himself to fall asleep. Tomorrow he would need to be fully involved in the dangerous present; he didn’t have the luxury of lying awake tonight to think about the dangerous past.