Tom Clancy - Locked On

Ryan got al Darkur’s attention. “Listen. There are about to be fifty cops pulling up in a minute. Can you and your man go out and talk to them, ask them to give us a minute?”

“Of course.” Mohammed and his captain left the warehouse.

Jack shouldered up to Dom. “What’s the word?” As he said this, he saw the red countdown clock on the detonator switch from 7:50 to 7:49.

“I took a picture of the device and sent it to Clark. He’s got experts with him that will take a look and then let me know if we’re about to glow in the dark.”

“Not funny.”

“Who’s joking?”

“Are you okay?” Ryan saw blood on the back of Caruso’s pants.

“I think I got shot in the ass. What about Rehan?”

“Dead.”

Both men nodded. Just then the Canadian Rainbow munitions expert came on the satellite phone and told Caruso how to reset the altimeter trigger, which would stop the manual countdown.

Dom finished with two minutes and four seconds remaining. The clock stopped, and the two men sighed in relief and shook hands.

Ryan helped Caruso down to the floor, Dom lay on his hip to keep his wound from getting any filthier than it already was, and Ryan sat down next to him.

Within another twenty minutes al Darkur’s unit of SSG had arrived along with PAEC engineers to render the weapon safe.

By then Ryan and Caruso were gone.

It was five p.m. in Baltimore and President-elect Jack Ryan flipped off the TV in his study. He had been watching the news reports from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, and he’d had two conference calls with his aides, members of his cabinet-to-be, during which the matter was discussed at length.

Also discussed in the meeting was the worsening situation between Pakistan and India. Skirmishes had been reported along the border, but some reports suggested the shelling in Lahore and the areas around there were not by Indian forces, but rather PDF units allied with rogue ISI officers.

Ryan would take office in less than a month. Officially this was Ed Kealty’s problem, but Ryan was hearing grumblings from Kealty’s people — most of whom were reaching out to the Ryan camp in hopes of grabbing some sort of employment in the D.C. area — that the lame-duck President had already flipped the lights off in the Oval Office. Figuratively speaking, of course.

His phone rang, and he grabbed it without thinking. “Hello?”

“Hey, Dad.”

“Where are you?”

“In a plane, heading home.”

“Home from where?”

“That’s what I called to talk to you about. I’ve got a story to tell you. I need your help with the crisis in Pakistan.”

Ryan Sr. cocked his head. “How’s that?”

Junior spent the next twenty minutes telling his father about Rehan and the ISI and the theft of the nukes, about the Haqqani network and the Dagestani militants. It was a hell of a story, and the father interrupted the son only to ask him what kind of encryption his phone was using.

Jack Junior explained that he was on The Campus’s own aircraft, and Hendley had seen to it that the equipment was state of the art.

When he was finished, Ryan Sr. asked his son again: “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Dad. Cuts and bruises. Dom took a bullet in the ass, but he’ll be fine.”

“Oh my God.”

“Really, he was joking about it twenty minutes later.”

Jack Sr. rubbed his temples under the arms of his eyeglasses. “Okay.”

“Look, Dad. I know we have to keep The Campus away from you, but I thought you could talk to the players over there in India, persuade them to back off a bit. We do think the man in charge of this entire operation is dead, so it will fizzle out fast if no one does anything stupid.”

“I’m glad you called. I’m going to get on it right now.”

The call ended a few minutes later, but the phone immediately rang again. Ryan Sr. thought it was his son calling back. “Yeah, Jack?”

“Uh, I’m sorry, Mr. President. Bob Holtzman from the Post. ”

Ryan fumed. “How the hell did you get this number, Holtzman? This is a private line.”

“John Clark gave it to me, sir. I just spoke with him after having an interesting meeting with a Russian intelligence officer.”

Ryan calmed down but remained on guard. “A meeting about what?”

“Mr. Clark did not want to speak with you directly. He thought that might put you in a compromised situation. Therefore, I am in the odd position, Mr. President, of having to explain some things to you. Mr. Clark told me you had no knowledge whatsoever about the Russian intelligence — Paul Laska plot against you.”

If Jack Ryan Sr. had learned one thing in his many years working with Arnie van Damm, it was this: When dealing with a journalist, never ever admit that you don’t know what he is talking about.

But Arnie was not here right now, and Jack dropped his veil of self-assuredness.

“What the fuck are you talking about, Holtzman?”

“If you have a minute, I think I can enlighten you, sir.” Jack Ryan Sr. grabbed a notepad and a pen, and he leaned back in his chair. “I always have time for a respected member of the press, Bob.”

One week later, Charles Alden slammed the phone down in the office of his Georgetown row house just after eight a.m. This would be his first of several calls to Rhode Island, he had resigned himself to that fact. He’d been trying to get in touch with Laska for the past three fucking days, and the old bastard would not answer or return his calls.

Alden decided to pester the man. As far as he was concerned, Laska owed him for the risks he had taken in the past few months.

The DD/CIA fumed as he left his office and headed downstairs to his kitchen for another cup of coffee. He had not bothered to put on a suit this morning, a rarity for a Tuesday. Instead he would sit in his warm-ups and drink coffee and call Paul goddamned Laska until the son of a bitch answered his phone.

A knock at the front door diverted Alden from his route to the kitchen.

He looked through the peephole. A couple of suits in trench coats stood on his stoop. Behind them, a government Chrysler was double-parked on the snowy street.

He pegged the men for CIA security officers. He could not imagine what these guys wanted.

Charles opened the door.

The men entered quickly without waiting for an invitation. “Mr. Alden, I am Special Agent Caruthers, and this is Special Agent Delacort with the FBI. I’m going to have to ask you to turn around and face the wall, please.”

“Wha… What the hell is going on?”

“I’ll explain everything shortly. For your and my safety, please face the wall, sir.”

Alden turned slowly on legs that suddenly felt weak and slack. Handcuffs were placed on his wrists and then the pockets of his warm-up pants were professionally gone through by Delacort. Caruthers stood back in the doorway, watching the street.

“What the hell do you think you are doing?”

Alden was turned toward his front door and walked back out into the cold. “You are under arrest, Mr. Alden,” said Caruthers as they headed down the icy steps to the street.

“What the fuck? What is the charge?”

“Four counts of unauthorized disclosure of national defense information and four counts of unauthorized retention of national defense information.”

Alden added it up in his head quickly. He was facing more than thirty years behind bars.

“Bullshit! This is bullshit!”

“Yes, sir,” said Caruthers as he put his hand on Alden’s head and guided him into the back of the Chrysler. Delacort had already slid behind the wheel.

Charles Alden said, “Ryan! This is Ryan’s doing! I get it. The witch hunt has begun, right?”