Tom Clancy - Command Authority

“And your man held his ground?”

“He did. They left, and now another man at the bank, Tobias Gabler, the actual manager of the two-hundred-four-million-dollar account, is lying on a slab in the morgue.”

Jack leaned forward in his chair. “If they already knew about Gabler and the two hundred million, why the hell did they go to the bank asking questions?”

“I suspect money isn’t their biggest concern. I think they want answers. They want the head of the person who stole it from them. Our man at the bank is bloody petrified by all this, and I don’t blame him. But I can’t pull him out. I do that and the Russians will close everything up, move their numbered account somewhere else, and we will lose any opportunity to exploit them.”

Penright added, “For some reason, the entity that is amassing all this money needs it to be in the West, easily accessible and transferable.”

“Why?” Jack asked.

“I don’t have a clue, Jack. I was hoping you could figure that out.”

Penright checked his watch. “Bloody hell, I’m running late for dinner. Previous engagement, as they say. I don’t get to London as much as I’d like, and there’s this girl. One in every port, two in London.” He laughed. “You understand.” He stood up. “Sorry, Ryan, but all guests must leave with the members here.”

Jack was still stuck on Penright’s last comment. He finished his brandy quickly—it would be a shame to waste it, after all—and he climbed out of the oiled leather chair.

“Wait a second. Why do you need me on this?”

Penright headed into the lobby; Jack trailed behind him. “Just mull it over. Basil says you were a Wall Street whiz kid.”

Their coats and briefcases were brought to them.

“I wasn’t on Wall Street. I traded through the Baltimore Stock Exchange.”

Penright slipped into his coat. “Whatever. I know you were with Merrill Lynch, I know you made some moves in the markets on your own, and I know that even though my tie costs more than that suit you’re wearing, you earned enough money in commodity trading to buy this club and throw every old geezer out onto the street on their arse. You have the mind for this sort of thing. Plus, I think our cousins at Langley can be of great help to us on this operation.” Penright winked at Jack as he headed out to the street to call himself a cab. “Just think about it.”

Jack put his own coat on and followed the English spy to the pavement, arriving just as David Penright climbed into a taxi.

Penright looked up at Ryan before closing the door. “And call me in Switzerland as soon as you hear anything.”

Jack stood on the pavement while the black cab rolled off into the traffic moving around Saint James’s Square.

John Clark and Ding Chavez each drove a Toyota Highlander through the night, following the Dnieper River for a while before heading southeast toward the Crimean peninsula. Dom Caruso rode along as well, giving them a third driver so that the men could arrive at least somewhat rested.

They knew little about what lay ahead, other than the fact a CIA SIGINT operation had been compromised and they needed a couple of clean vehicles on the fly to help them get some material back up to Kiev and out of the country.

By the time the three Campus men arrived at the front gate of the Lighthouse the next morning, a crowd had formed in the street. Ding estimated there were two hundred people milling about; some had signs saying “CIA Get Out” in English, but most just chanted or yelled or stood in the road.

They parked up the street, within sight of the gate, and Clark called Bixby, who told him to head straight to the entrance.

A moment later, the two Highlanders did just that, honking their horns and approaching at speed. Protesters dove out of the way, and some threw water bottles and cardboard signs at the SUVs as they raced past, but the two vehicles were able to rush through the gates, which opened just before they arrived and were then immediately closed again by armed U.S. security contractors on the inside.

The two Toyotas pulled into a parking circle alongside four other vehicles: two Yukons and two Land Rovers.

As soon as they parked, several armed men—Americans, by their greetings and appearance—approached pushing rolling carts and carrying hardened-plastic cases. The men began loading the Highlanders within seconds.

Clark, Chavez, and Caruso met Bixby in the lobby of the building. Clark could see the worry on the younger man’s face.

Bixby shook everyone’s hands. “Gentlemen, I can’t thank you enough, but when we get out of here, I sure as shit am going to try.”

“Not a problem,” said Chavez. “What’s the situation?”

“We have six vehicles now, which will be just enough to get our guys and gear out.”

Dom said, “The question is, is that crowd going to let us out?”

Now Midas, the bearded leader of the Delta Advance Force Operations unit here at the Lighthouse, stepped into the lobby. He said, “We’re going to fire tear gas, and then we’re going to just try and bust through. We don’t expect armed roadblocks or anything like that. Once we get out of this neighborhood, we should be able to make it out of town undetected. Of course, the longer it takes us to get out of here, the harder this shit is going to be.”

Bixby offered quick introductions, and Midas shook hands with the three new arrivals, but he seemed a little uncertain. “I thought I knew all the Langley guys here in theater.”

Bixby said, “Actually, these men are ex–federal employees. They are good to go.”

Midas looked them over again. “No offense, and I appreciate you guys bringing the vehicles, but I don’t know you, and I am responsible for keeping this little dump secure. I don’t want to see any of you touching a weapon. We clear about that?”

Bixby turned to the Delta man. “Midas, I am COS, and I said I vouched for them.”

Midas held his ground. “If you didn’t vouch for them, they wouldn’t have gotten through the front gate.” He pointed at the men. “No guns. Got it?”

Immediately, Clark said, “Not a problem.” He turned to Ding and Dom. “Let’s see about helping the men load up the vehicles.”

Just as he said this, the faint chanting from the crowd at the front gate suddenly grew louder. Over and over, they repeated the same phrase.

Clark listened to it for a moment. “Can you make out what they are saying?”

Midas said, “Been listening to that one for two hours already. ‘Yankees go home.’”

“An oldie but a goodie,” said Clark, and he, Dom, and Ding headed up the hall to see what they could carry out to the trucks.

Forty minutes after Chavez, Caruso, and Clark arrived at the Lighthouse, the rest of the classified equipment was loaded into the Toyota Highlanders, and Midas broadcast on the walkie-talkies to all personnel, giving everyone a heads-up that they would be leaving in five minutes.

But in the short time since the arrival of the two SUVs from Kiev, the size of the crowd in front of the CIA Special Mission Compound had more than doubled. Local radio stations had announced the location of the CIA safe house—where they and the local police got the information was still unknown—and this had brought protesters and curious bystanders out in droves.

There were union workers in the crowd; Bixby had ID’d them by the slogans on their signs and the men walking around with megaphones telling them where to stand while leading them in chants. He’d also recognized the blue T-shirts of a longstanding pro-Russian youth group, an organized gang of teenagers, mostly, who through the secret backing of the FSB had been turned into roving bands of useful idiots. All over Russia and eastern Ukraine they conducted marches, sit-ins, and any other mass-movement tool as requested by their leadership, who were, in turn, run directly by FSB agents.