Tom Clancy - Command Authority

The men climbed up slowly from the floor in the hallway. There was some nervous laughter between some of them, but not from Clark. He moved to the door and took out a penlight. He knelt down, had Chavez move his hand a little so he could see the latch and the key in the lock.

“It could be wired on the other side. No way to know.”

While Chavez stood motionless, unsure if moving the door might trigger an explosion, Caruso headed into the stairwell, climbed out a window there, and shimmied along a narrow ledge to the balcony. In moments the men in the hallway could hear him inside the flat, and in seconds more, he was on the far side of the door.

“It’s clear,” he said.

Chavez breathed a long sigh and let go.

Caruso opened the door from the inside.

The rest of the men entered the flat and, if the evidence of a picked lock did not already tell them, they now knew for certain they had had visitors while they were out.

The room had been oddly rearranged. A sofa was now in the middle of the room, a chair had been stacked on another chair, and the kitchen table was now upside down. The centerpiece that had been on it now sat at the center of the inverted table.

All of Gavin’s laptops were encrypted and password-protected, so no one had been able to search them. But that did not stop the FSB—Clark was certain they were the culprits of this—from unplugging them from their power strips and tying the cords together. The laptops were closed and stacked on one another.

At the same moment, both Clark and Chavez each brought a finger to his lips, telling the rest to keep quiet, as they might now be under audio surveillance. They could still talk, but only in character.

Gavin Biery was shaken. “Somebody has been screwing with my computers.”

Chavez patted him on the back as he passed, heading down the hallway to check the three bedrooms.

The bedrooms looked much the same as the front room: random items had been moved around, suitcases stood stacked one upon the other, and clothes lay in piles on the floor.

He shook his head in confusion, then shook it again when he saw a small stuffed teddy bear had been left on one of the beds. It had not been in the flat before. Ding checked it for bugs, and saw that it was clean. Instead, it was just some sort of perverse message.

As he checked the last of the three bedrooms, finding the same random signs of activity, Chavez noticed the bathroom light was on. He leaned in to shut it off but stopped when he noticed a foul odor.

He checked. There were feces in the toilet.

“Classy,” Ding said to himself.

Dom came rushing into the room. “Some jackass dumped out all my clothes.”

He looked over Chavez’s shoulder. “That’s just nasty. What is it they are trying to prove? I mean, did a bunch of fucking kids break in here?”

The two men returned to the living room, and here Clark turned on the television and a radio full blast; then he opened all the faucets in the attached kitchen so that the sound of water flowing through the pipes added to the noise.

He brought his men into the middle of the large room. Under all the background noise, he said, “Guys, this is just a little psychological intimidation. They want us to leave, but they are using soft measures at this point. They are showing us we can expect really close and really annoying company at all times.”

Clark looked around the room and realized the FSB’s tactic was having the desired effect. Gavin and Dom looked at once confused and defeated, as if their operation here had been undermined even before it began. Driscoll just looked angry, as if his personal space had been violated.

Clark said, “These assholes are making it known they can and will do what they want, but we’re not going to let it get to us. We can still operate here, we just have to be on our toes. We’ll find ways to slip around them while staying in cover.”

Gavin shook his head, doing his best to put the worry out of his mind. After a moment, he said, “Whatever. I call first in the bathroom.”

Chavez and Caruso looked at each other. Dom said, “It’s all yours, Gav.”

The conference room of the White House Situation Room was chosen as the venue for today’s presidential briefing on the situation in Ukraine for one key reason. There were more multimedia options in the Situation Room than there were in the Oval Office, and the President’s briefers in the FBI, CIA, DIA, DNI, and the Department of State planned on using a number of different means to paint the picture for the President.

As the meeting was getting under way, Mary Pat Foley asked if she could make a quick announcement. “We have learned some distressing news this morning. It was discovered today in Ukraine that the number-two man in the SBU, Ukrainian’s security service, has been spying for the Russians. He has fled Kiev, and there is a manhunt across Ukraine for him, although we assume he will turn up in Russia.”

“Christ,” Ryan said.

Jay Canfield already knew this. He said, “We are in the process of conducting a security review to see just how exposed our local operations are, but it doesn’t look good. Our local people will be ratcheting back their operations accordingly.”

President Ryan said, “There go another set of eyes and ears in the region.”

“I agree,” said Mary Pat. “This one hurts.”

“Who do we have as COS Kiev?”

Jay Canfield said, “Keith Bixby. He’s a good man. A field spook, not a desk guy.”

“Watch it, Jay. I was a desk guy,” Ryan quipped.

Canfield said, “No, Mr. President. I was a desk guy. You were a desk guy that didn’t stay at his desk.” Jay said it with a smile. “You know what I mean.”

“I hear you.”

Mary Pat said, “I know Bixby quite well, and we couldn’t have a better COS in place.”

“Will we need to pull him out?”

“Bixby himself will be best positioned to determine what CIA’s exposure will be on this. He will make the call on what operations to shutter, what people to send home, what foreign agents we need to either break ties with or pull out of the country for their own safety. Needless to say, this is a disastrous time for this to happen. We’ll rotate in some new blood, but the Russians will see who is suddenly moving into our embassy in Kiev, and that will tell them who the new spooks are.”

Ryan groaned, thinking about how much harder this would make things.

He said, “Okay. Let’s move to the next topic. Volodin’s statement announcing expanding ties with China. Leaving out the economics of it for a moment, what does the China–Russia agreement mean in practical terms, geopolitically?”

Foley said, “The two nations have been taking a lot of similar stances recently. On Syria, on North Korea, on Iran. China and Russia are burying the hatchet on international issues, so this agreement will only strengthen that.

“Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran have become what some have called an iron triangle.”

“And economically? What’s the end result of this?”

Ryan turned to an economic briefer for the State Department. Her name was Helen Glass; she was a Wharton grad and well known at the White House as an expert on Russia.

“It’s a win-win. China lacks Russia’s scientific know-how and raw materials. Russia lacks China’s market and manufacturing prowess. If they can implement the agreement, both nations will benefit.”

“How bad is Russia’s economy now?” Ryan asked.

Glass said, “Several years ago, Russia thought it had it made. A huge find of both gold ore and oil, both in Siberia, seemed to portend great things for Russia. But the gold find was not as large as early estimates, and the oil has been difficult to extract, especially when Volodin and his predecessor squeezed out Western companies in an attempt to give Gazprom full control of the fields.