Tom Clancy - Locked On

Kealty was still gobsmacked by this new information. But he retained the presence of mind to say, “The Emir is under lock and key, with DOJ restrictions on the intel he can provide.”

Thayer just shook his head. “You are the President of the United States. Just tell Brannigan to loosen the reins on the PCI. We can get everything we need.”

Kealty, the consummate political animal, thought of a new angle to his problem. “But the Emir is the most unsympathetic witness we could possibly have on our side in this. So what if he IDs Clark? Then Clark comes off looking like a hero for capturing the man. Think about it! Doesbout it! it bother us that there may be some sort of off-the-books spy shop out there? Fuck, yes! But is the tenth district of Ohio, or the third district of Florida, or any one of the other battleground states, going to support the trial of the guy who caught the Emir? I don’t see it.”

Alden shrugged. “We don’t care if Clark goes to prison for this. But if we can implicate Ryan… If Clark is involved, maybe Ryan is involved, as well. Think about it. Who else would Clark work for on something as shady as an off-the-books intelligence house?”

Kealty said, “We will need Clark in hand to answer that question. We can offer him limited immunity, or even total immunity, to dump this on Jack Ryan.”

Alden nodded. “I like it.”

But Kealty then said, “But without Clark, we are dead in the water.”

Alden looked to Thayer now. “May I have one minute alone with the President?”

Thayer just nodded without checking with Kealty himself. He felt incredibly out of his depth, and he had a suspicion something was about to happen that he would not want to be involved in. So he rose from the couch and headed straight out of the office, closing the door behind him.

“Chuck?” Ed Kealty leaned forward, almost whispered.

“Mr. President. Just between you and me… I can get John Clark.”

“We need him alive.”

“I understand.”

Kealty started to speak, his mouth opened to utter the word how , but he stopped himself. Instead he just said, “Just between you and me, Chuck… do it.”

Alden rose, and the two men shook hands with hard looks between them.

Nothing else was said before the deputy director of the CIA left the Oval Office.

Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency Charles Alden reached Paul Laska just after midnight. The old man was home in his bed, but he’d given Alden a number that would allow him to be contacted, no matter the hour.

“Hello?”

“Paul. It’s Charles.”

“I did not expect to hear from you. You told me you wouldn’t get involved past what you’ve already done.”

“It’s too late for that. Kealty has pulled me in.”

“You can refuse him, you know. He won’t be President for much longer.”

Alden thought this over for a moment. Then he said, “It’s in everyone’s interest that we capture John Clark. We have to find out who he’s working with. How he managed to catch the Emir. Who the other people are in his group.”

“I understand Mr. Clark has left the United States, and the CIA is working on this overseas.”

“Your network of intelligence assets rivals my own, Paul.”

A slight chuckle from the old man in his bed. “What can I do for you?”

“I am worried that despite my wishes and intentions, my colleagues at the Central Intelligence Agency will be disinclined to put the full might of their powers into the hunt for John Clark. The rank and file reveresu the man. I’ve got everyone hunting for him, but these are hunters who are just going through the motions. And I… I mean, Kealty is on one hell of a time constraint.”

After a long pause Laska said, “You would like my help in bringing in outsiders to do the work that needs to be done.”

“That is it exactly.”

“I know someone who can help us.”

“I thought you might.”

“Fabrice Bertrand-Morel.”

The pause was brief now. Charles Sumner Alden said, “He owns an investigation concern in France, I believe?”

“Correct. He runs the largest international private detective firm there is, with offices all over the world. If Clark has left the U.S., then Fabrice Bertrand-Morel’s men will ferret him out.”

“He sounds like he will be a suitable choice,” Alden said.

Laska replied, “It’s six a.m. in France. If I call him now, I will reach him on his morning walk. I will arrange a late dinner for us this evening over there.”

“Excellent.”

“Good night, Charles.”

“Paul… We need him alive. We understand that, right?”

“Good Lord. Why would you even entertain the thought that I might—”

“Because I know Bertrand-Morel has hunted men down and killed them in the past.”

“I have heard the allegations, but nothing has ever gone past the inquiry stage.”

“Well, that is because he has been helpful to the nations where his crimes have been committed.”

Laska did not speak to this, so Alden rendered an explanation for his knowledge of this man and his company.

“I’m with the CIA. We know all about the work of Fabrice Bertrand-Morel. He has a reputation as capable but unscrupulous. And his men have a reputation around the CIA as cutthroats. Now… please understand. I need absolute clarity between you and me that neither President Kealty nor anyone working with or for him is advocating that Mr. Clark be murdered.”

“We have an accord. Good night, Charles,” Laska said.

Sam Driscoll found himself surprised and quite confused to see the sunrise. His guards did not communicate with him at all, so he never knew why Haqqani’s people did not follow General Rehan’s order to interrogate him and then stand him up against the wall and shoot him.

Luck is real and, once in a while, it is even good. Driscoll would never know, but the day before his capture in the FATA, twenty-five miles north of his location in Miran Shah, three senior Haqqani network chiefs were picked up at a roadblock in Gorbaz, a small Afghani town just south of the Haqqani stronghold of Khost. For a few weeks Haqqani and his men thought NATO forces were holding the men, and Siraj Haqqani himself, after learning of the fortuitous capture by his men of a Western spy, sent orders countermanding Rehan’s wishes. The American would be held in trade for his men, and he was not to be harmed.

It was not for another two months that the bodies of the three Haqqani network chiefs were found wrapped in burlap floor coverings and dumped in a garbage heap north of Khost. They were victims of a rival Taliths that ban affiliate group. NATO had nothing to do with their capture or murder.

But this bought Driscoll a little time.

In the early morning after Rehan’s visit, Driscoll’s chains were freed from the eyebolt in the floor and he was pulled to his feet. He wobbled on his injured legs. His head was covered in a traditional patu shawl, presumably to make him invisible to UAVs, and he was shuffled out of his cold cell, pushed into the dawn’s light, and helped up into the back of a Toyota Hilux truck.

He was driven north, out of the compound by the Bannu Road bridge, up Bannu, and deeper into the city of Miran Shah. He heard truck engines and horns honking, at intersections he could hear men on foot as they walked the narrow streets, even so early in the morning.

They cleared the town minutes later. Sam knew this by the increase in speed, and the lack of noises from other vehicles.

They drove for almost two hours; as far as Driscoll could tell he was not in a convoy at all, just sitting in the back of a single pickup truck that cruised through open territory, seemingly without a care in the world. The men in the back with him — he had identified three distinct voices but felt sure there were more — laughed and joked with one another.