Tom Clancy - Locked On

“We are both professionals. You do not want to do this.”

“ You do not want to make me.”

Clark began taking short, rapid breaths of air. It was inevitable, what was about to happen. He needed to control his heart’s reaction to it.

Valentin saw Clark resigned to his fate. A vein throbbed in the center of the Russian’s forehead. Kovalenko turned away.

The cleaver rose off Clark’s wrist. Hung in the air a foot above it.

“This is disgusting,” Kovalenko said. “Please, Mr. Clark. Do not make me watch this.”

Clark had no humorous retort to this. Every nerve in his body was on edge, every muscle tightened for the impending swing of the cleaver against his wrist.

Kovalenko looked back toward the American. “Really? You really will allow your body to be disfigured, your fucking hand to be severed, just to keep the information you have secret? Are you that fucking committed to some foolish cause? Are you that beholden to your masters? What sort of automaton are you? What kind of robot allows himself to be chopped to bits for some foolish sense of valor?”

Clark squinted his eyes shut. He’d readied himself as much as possible for the inevitable.

After thirty seconds, Clark opened his eyes back up. Valentin stared at him in disbelief. “They do not make men like you anymore, Mr. Clark.”

Still, Clark said nothing.

Kovalenko sighed. “No. I cannot do it. I don’t have the stomach to see his hand chopped off and lying on the floor.”

Clark was surprised; he began to relax, just a little. But Valentin turned back to him, looking up to the man with the big sharp tool. “Put that down.”

The man next to Clark heaved his chest. A little disappointed, maybe? He put down the cleaver.

Kovalenko now said, “Pick up the hammer. Break every bone in his hand. One at a time.”

The Spetsnaz man quickly grabbed a stainless-steel surgical hammer that rested on the table next to the cutting instruments. With no warning whatsoever he slammed the hammer onto John’s outstretched hand, shattering his index finger. He pounded a second and then a third time, while Clark shouted in agony.

Kovalenko turned away, jabbed his fingers into his ears, and walked to the far wall of the warehouse.

The fourth finger cracked just above the knuckle, and the pinky shattered in three places.

A final, vicious pounding of the back of Clark’s hand threatened to send him into shock.

Clark gritted his teeth; his eyes were shut and tears dripped out from the sides. His face was a dark shade of crimson. He took short bursts of air, fast replenishments of oxygen, to keep from going into shock.

John Clark continued to cry out, slamming his head back hard against the stomach of the man behind him. He yelled, “You motherfucker!”

A minute later, Kovalenko was back over him. Clark could barely see the young man through the tears and sweat in his eyes and the poor focus of his dilated pupils.

Valentin winced as he glanced at the shattered hand. It was already swelling, black and blue, and two of the fingers were twisted perversely.

“Cover that!” he shouted at one of his men. A towel was tossed over the damaged appendage.

Kovalenko shielded his ears from the worst of the cries of agony, but he shouted, as if angry at the man in the chair for forcing him to do this, “You are a fool, old man! Your sense of honor will bring you nothing but pain here! I have all the time I need for you!”

Even through his agony, John Clark could tell Valentin Kovalenko was on the verge of nausea.

“Talk, old fool! Talk!”

Clark did not talk. Not then, not in the next hour. Kovalenko was growing more and more frustrated by the miӀnute. He’d ordered Clark’s head held under a bucket of water, and he’d had his men pound the American’s rib cage, breaking a bone and bruising him so badly he could barely breathe.

John did his best to disassociate himself from what was going on with his body. He thought of his family, his parents, long since dead. He thought of friends and colleagues. He thought of his new farm in Maryland, and he hoped that, even though he would never see it again, his grandkids would grow up loving the place.

Clark passed out two hours after the torture began.

The light indicating an incoming call from the crisis center had been blinking now for more than ten minutes.

Safronov watched the news from Moscow on one of the main monitors, the other men at launch control, unwilling participants, sat in rapt attention.

Georgi had hoped for a bigger spectacle. He knew launch site 109 contained the Dnepr loaded with the satellite and not one of the nukes, but he had targeted the central fuel storage containers at the Moscow Oil Refinery, which should have created a much larger explosion and fire. The payload had missed its target only by a quarter-kilometer, however, and Safronov felt he had gotten his point across.

After watching the news a few seconds more he finally lifted the headset off the control panel, put it on, and accepted the call. “Da.”

“You are speaking with President Rychcov.”

Safronov responded in a cheery voice. “Good morning. You may not remember me, but we met at the Bolshoi last year. How is the weather in Moscow?”

There was a long pause before the president’s reply, delivered curtly but with a slight tone of anxiety. “Your attack was unnecessary. We understand you have the technical capabilities to do that which you threaten. We know you have the nuclear weapons.”

“That was punishment for your attack on this facility. If you attack again… well, President, I have no more kinetic missiles. The other two Dneprs at my disposal are nuclear-tipped.”

“There is nothing for you to prove. We only need to negotiate, you in a position of power, me… in a position of weakness.”

Safronov shouted into his headset, “This is not a negotiation! I have demanded something! I have not entered into negotiations! When will I be allowed to speak with Commander Nabiyev?”

The president of Russia replied wearily. “I have allowed this. We will call you back a little later this morning and you will be able to speak with the prisoner. In the meantime, I have ordered all security forces back.”

“Very good. We are prepared for another fight with your men, and I do not believe you are prepared to lose five million Muscovites.”

This was not how Ed Kealty planned on spending the time left in his term, but at nine p.m. Washington, D.C., time, he and members of his cabinet met in the Oval Office.

CIA Director Scott Kilborn was there, along with Alden, the deputy director. Wes McMullen, Kealty’s young chief of staff, was in attendance, as were the secretary of defense, the secretary of state, the director of national intelligence, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the national security adviser.

Kilborn gave a detailed briefing on the situation in Kazakhstan, including what the CIA knew about the attempted retaking of the Dnepr launch facilities by Russian Special Forces. Then the NSA briefed the President on the Baikonur launch and the fire at the oil refinery in Moscow.

While they were all together President Rychcov called, Kealty spoke with him through a translator for about ten minutes, while Wes McMullen listened in, taking notes. The call was amicable but Kealty explained he would need to talk some things over with his advisers before committing to Rychcov’s requests.

When he hung up the phone, his polite demeanor evaporated. “Fucking Rychcov is asking us to send SEAL Team 6 or Delta Force! Who the hell does he think he is, requesting specific military units?”