Tom Clancy - Command Authority

Dozens of media groups were represented in the crowd, pressed together in a gaggle directly in front of the riser. Ding and Dom took their video camera, checked to make sure their press credentials were hanging around their necks, and headed toward the pack.

They had their Bluetooth earpieces in so they could stay in constant communication with Gavin Biery back in the safe house. Gavin spoke softly when he spoke at all; usually, he did his best to obfuscate his comments in case anyone was able to hear him through the FSB listening devices that were certainly in the safe house.

As they walked toward the riser across the square, Gavin directed the two men to the parking lot where the target vehicle was parked. When they arrived, however, they found the lot was behind a locked gate inside the Verkhovna Rada building itself.

This was interesting, in that even though they couldn’t get close enough to the SUV to learn anything about its owners, it showed them that the guys who had met with Gleb the Scar the other day somehow had the juice to park their ride on Ukrainian government property.

They headed over to the riser and barged through the crowd toward the front as if they were members of an actual media outlet.

There were several politicians present at the made-for-TV rally; some had already spoken, but the headline act was just about to get under way.

The lone female on the riser was Oksana Zueva, and every reporter in attendance was here because of her. Zueva was the leader of the Ukrainian Regional Unity Party, the leading pro-Russian party in the country, and she had not been shy about her interest in running for prime minister in the next election.

Today’s speech was expected to be little more than a list of grievances against the pro-nationalist One Ukraine Party. This declaration against the party in power would bring Oksana even closer to pro-Russians in the east, it would endear her to Moscow, and it would put her well on the way to earning the complete backing of Moscow in the next election, a crucial component to victory.

Although Zueva and her husband had been accused of all sorts of corruption in her time as a powerful parliamentarian, the One Ukraine Party had failed in its attempts to marginalize her or pin any sort of corruption directly on her, and her intelligence as well as her ease in front of the cameras had gone a long way to softening her image, even though the votes she had cast in the building behind her were among the most hard-line in the Ukrainian parliament.

Regardless of one’s politics, though, one had to admit Oksana was a beautiful and striking woman. A fifty-year-old blonde, she usually kept her hair braided in a traditional Ukrainian style, and she wore chic designer clothes that had subtle but unmistakable influences of Ukrainian traditional dress.

While Ding and Dom watched and recorded the event, they had their eyes open for the two men they photographed at the Fairmont getting into the vehicle designated Target One. They scanned the crowd here in the square, but there were a lot of faces in poor light, so they knew that chances were slim they would get lucky and make a positive ID.

While they looked around, Zueva was introduced by one of her party leaders. She rose from her chair and, with a practiced wave and a smile that even managed to charm the two Americans firmly on the side of the opposition to her pro-Russian cause, she began walking to the microphone.

She never made it.

There was a loud crack; many press outlets in attendance would later report it sounded like a car’s backfire, but Dom and Ding knew instantly it was the sound of a high-powered rifle.

Oksana Zueva rocked back on her feet onto the heels of her stilettos, her smile disappeared and a look of confusion was caught in all the cameras, and then she crumpled softly to the carpeted riser, ending up on her back.

Blood appeared on her breasts.

The bouncing echoes of the gunshot across the neoclassical façade of the Verkhovna Rada building made determining the location of the gunshot all but impossible. Security men spun around with their weapons in the air while the dozens of journalists ducked to the ground. The crowd began screaming and shouting and running in all directions.

Ding and Dom dove down on the ground like all the journalists and spectators around them, but their eyes scanned the area, and they tried to determine the direction from which the gunshot had come by the location of the wound on the woman’s chest.

They focused on the park to the west on the other side of Grushevsky Street.

They leapt to their feet and ran toward their car across the square, but by the time they began driving in the direction of the park, traffic had ground to a halt as police began setting up roadblocks.

Chavez slammed his hand onto the steering wheel in frustration.

Caruso spoke into his headset: “Gavin. Target One. Is the vehicle moving?”

There was a pause. “Yes. It’s heading west through the park.”

Chavez looked at the roadblock ahead. The SUV with the slap-on was already on the other side, and it would be long gone by the time they got through.

“Shit. They are gone.”

Dom said, “I don’t get it. Gleb the Scar is here working on behalf of the Russians, right?”

“It sure as hell seems that way. He’s working as a proxy for the FSB.”

“But that woman who just got assassinated was Russia’s favorite politician in Ukraine. Why the hell would Russia be involved with her death?”

Ding would have answered the question, had Dom not answered it himself.

Dom said, “Of course, if the head of the pro-Russian party gets whacked, all the blame is going to go on the pro-nationalists.”

“Yep,” Chavez said. “It’s going to increase the fighting between the two sides. And who the fuck do you think is going to come in and restore order?”

Caruso whistled softly. “Shit, Ding. If the Kremlin killed their own politician in Kiev, that’s pretty cold-blooded.”

They peeled out of the line of cars and turned in the opposite direction. There was no point in trying to track the tagged vehicle now; they could pick up surveillance on it at any time.

CIA analyst Jack Ryan found himself once again in the plush office of the director general of MI6, Sir Basil Charleston. It was late afternoon, the day after Jack called David Penright in Zug to let him know the CIA was unable to find any alternative motive for the murder of Tobias Gabler. Ryan assumed Basil would have spoken directly to CIA director Judge Arthur Moore today, because Greer had mentioned CIA was going to formally ask SIS to make the source in the Swiss bank bilateral.

Now Jack was up here in Basil’s office, and since Jack was the CIA liaison, he assumed he was about to find out just how involved the United States was going to be with the asset in Ritzmann Privatbankiers.

“Well, now,” Charleston said. “I have spoken to your directors in Langley, and they are quite insistent that they be more involved in the situation developing in Switzerland. I have agreed to this.”

Before Ryan could respond, Basil said, “Our agent in Ritzmann Privatbankiers is code-named Morningstar. He is an executive with the bank, and, therefore, he has access to a wide range of information about both the accounts and the clients.”

Well, Ryan thought. This day was gearing up to be an interesting one.

Basil went on to tell Ryan much of the same information that Ryan had heard from Penright a few evenings earlier: that it looked much like the KGB was somewhat recklessly hunting for a large amount of stolen money stashed in a numbered account at RPB.

After listening to Basil outline the situation, Jack said, “I assume CIA offered something in return for this prize.”