Tom Clancy - Locked On

He answered with a joke. “Hey, Dad, are you the Prez yet?” But Jack Ryan Sr. made it clear instantly that he was not in a playful mood. “I had Arnie contact Gerry Hendley. He says you are overseas in Pakistan. I just need to know that you are safe.” “I’m fine.”

“Where are you?”

“I can’t talk about—”

“Damn it, Jack, what’s going on? Are you in danger?” Junior sighed. “We are working with some friends over here.” “You have to choose your friends carefully in Pakistan.” “I know that. These guys are risking everything to help us.” Ryan Sr. did not respond.

“Dad, when you get in office, are you going to help Clark?” “When I get back to Washington, I’ll move mountains to get his indictment overturned. But for now he is on the lam, and there is not a damn thing I can do about it.” “Okay.”

“Do I hear helicopters in the background?” “Yes.”

“Is something going on?”

He knew he could have lied right now, but he did not. It was his father, after all. “Yes, something is going on, something much bigger than a couple weeks ago, and I’m in the middle of it. I don’t know how it’s going to play out.”

A long pained pause on the other end of the line. Finally Ryan Sr. said, “Can I help?” “Right this minute, no. But you definitely can help.” “Just say the word, son. Anything I can do.” “When you get into office, do whatever you can to help the CIA. If you can get them as strong as they were when you were President last time, then I’ll be a lot better off. We all will.” “Trust me, son. Nothing is more important. Once I get—” Chavez and Caruso stepped out of the hooch with greasepaint on their faces and their bodies laden with gear. “Dad… I need to go.” “Jack? Please be safe.”

“Sorry, but I can’t be safe and be here. And my job is here. You’ve done things… you know how it is.” “I do.”

“Look. If something happens to me. Tell Mom… just… just try to make her understand.” Jack Junior heard nothing on the other end, but he sensed his father, stoic though he was, was in agony with the knowledge that his son was in imminent danger, and there was not a damn thing he could do to help him. The younger Ryan hated himself for putting his father in this position, but he knew he did not have time to undo the damage he had just caused by making him worry.

“Got to run. I’m sorry. I’ll call when I can.” If I can, he thought, but he did not say it.

And with that, Jack disconnected the phone and handed it back to Chavez, then stepped back into the little hut to grab his weapon.

The four Puma helicopters crossed into North Waziristan just after three a.m. The fat choppers flew low and close together to mask their approach, using roads through the mountains and deep river valleys to direct them toward their target of the town of Aziz Khel.

Ryan fought nausea as he sat on the floor of the helo, looking out at the dark landscape outside. He actually got to the point where he wanted to vomit all over himself to rid himself of any food or water in his stomach so that he might recover before go time. But he did not throw up, he just sat there, pinned tightly between Mohammed al Darkur on his right and Dom on his left. Chavez faced them, and five more Zarrar commandos sat with them in the chopper, along with a door-gunner manning a 7.62-millimeter machine gun and a loadmaster who rode up front near the two pilots.

The other choppers would be loaded up much the same.

Chavez shouted over the engines’ roar, “Dom and Jack. I want you two guys on my back the whole time we’re inside the walls. Keep your weapons at the high and ready. We move as a unit.”

Ryan had never experienced terror like this in his entire life. Everyone for fifty miles in every direction, save for the men in the four choppers, would kill him if they saw him.

Al Darkur had been wearing a headset to communicate with the flight crew, but he pulled it off and replaced it with his helmet. He then leaned over to Chavez and yelled, “It is almost time. They will circle for ten minutes! No more! Then they leave us.”

“Got it,” Ding answered back.

Ryan leaned forward into Chavez’s black-greased face. “Is ten minutes enough time?”

The diminutive Mexican-American shrugged. “If we get bogged down in the building, we’re dead. The whole place, inside and out, is crawling with Haqqani’s forces. Every second we are in there is a second some gomer has to draw a bead on us. If we aren’t out in ten minutes, we ain’t coming out, ’ mano.”

Ryan nodded, leaned away, and looked back out the window toward the undulating black hills below.

The chopper lurched up dramatically, and Jack spewed vomit against the glass.

Sam Driscoll had no idea if it was day or night. Usually he could make a guess as to the time of day going by the guard rotation or whether or not his meal was just bread (morning), or bread with a small tin of watery broth (night). After weeks in captivity he and the two men still held with him had begun to think that the guards had switched the meals up to confuse them.

A Reuters reporter from Australia was in the cell next to him. His name was Allen Lyle, and he was young, not over thirty, but he was sick with some sort of stomach virus. He had not been able to keep anything down for the past few days. In the furthest cell, the one closest to the door to the hallway, an Afghani politician was held. He’d been here only a few days, and he was getting occasional beatings from the guards, but he was in otherwise good health.

Sam’s legs had healed for the most part in the past month, but he had a significant limp and he could tell he had not avoided infection altogether. He felt weak and sick and he perspired through the night, and he’d lost a great deal of weight and muscle tone lying on his rope cot.

He made himself stand and hobble over to the bars so that he could check on the young guy from Reuters. For the first week or so the man badgered him relentlessly, asking him who he worked for and what he was doing when he was captured by the Taliban. But Driscoll never answered the guy’s questions, and Reuters man finally gave up. Now it looked like Reuters man might give up on his life within a few days.

“Hey!” Sam shouted. “Lyle! Wake up!”

The reporter stirred. His eyes opened to half-mast. “Is that a helicopter?”

Fucking delirious, Sam thought. Poor bastard.

Wait. Sam heard it now, too. It was faint, but it was a chopper. The Afghan by the door stood and looked back to Sam for some confirmation as to what he was hearing.

The three jailers outside the cell heard it, too. They looked at one another, then stood and peered down the dark hallway, shouting to a guard somewhere out of Driscoll’s sight.

One of the men made a joke, and the three laughed.

The Afghani politician looked to Driscoll and said, “They say it is President Kealty coming to look for you and the reporter.”

Sam sighed. It wasn’t the first time they’d heard Pakistani Army choppers overhead. They always faded after a couple of seconds. Driscoll turned to go sit back down.

And then… Boom!

A low crack erupted somewhere above him. Sam turned back to the hall.

Machine-gun fire came soon after. And then another explosion.

“Everybody get down on the floor!” Driscoll shouted to the other prisoners. If this was a rescue attempt by the PDF, and if there was any shooting down here, even out in the hall, then there would be ricocheted rounds banging all around this stone-walled basement, and friendly fire would hurt just as bad as enemy fire.