Tom Clancy - The Bear and the Dragon

“What of our answer to their note?” Fang asked.

“We have not given them a formal answer,” Shen told him.

“It concerns me that they should not be able to call us liars,” Fang said. “That would be unfortunate, I think.”

“You worry too much, Fang,” Zhang commented, with a cruel smile.

“No, in that he is correct,” Shen said, rising to his colleague’s defense. “Nations must be able to trust the words of one another, else no intercourse at all is possible. Comrades, we must remember that there will be an ‘after the war,’ in which we must be able to reestablish normal relations with the nations of the world. If they regard us as outlaw, that will be difficult.”

“That makes sense,” Xu observed, speaking his own opinion for once. “No, I will not accept the call from Washington, and no, Fang, I will not allow America to call us liars.”

“One other development,” Luo said. “The Russians have begun high-altitude reconnaissance flights on their side of the border. I propose to shoot down the next one and say that their aircraft intruded on our airspace. Along with other plans, we will use that as a provocation on their part.”

“Excellent,” Zhang observed.

So?” John asked.

“So, he is in this building,” General Kirillin clarified. “The takedown team is ready to go up and make the arrest. Care to observe?”

“Sure,” Clark agreed with a nod. He and Chavez were both dressed in their RAINBOW ninja suits, black everything, plus body armor, which struck them both as theatrical, but the Russians were being overly solicitous to their hosts, and that included official concern for their safety. “How is it set up?”

“We have four men in the apartment next door. We anticipate no difficulties,” Kirillin sold his guests. “So, if you will follow me.”

“Waste of time, John,” Chavez observed in Spanish.

“Yeah, but they want to do a show-and-tell.” The two of them followed Kirillin and a junior officer to the elevator, which whisked them up to the proper floor. A quick, furtive look showed that the corridor was clear, and they moved like cats to the occupied apartment.

“We are ready, Comrade General,” the senior Spetsnaz officer, a major, told his commander. “Our friend is sitting in his kitchen discussing matters with his guest. They’re looking at how to kill President Grushavoy tomorrow on his way to parliament. Sniper rifle,” he concluded, “from eight hundred meters.”

“You guys make good ones here,” Clark observed. Eight hundred was close enough for a good rifleman, especially on a slow-moving target like a walking man.

“Proceed, Major,” Kirillin ordered.

With that, the four-man team walked back out into the corridor. They were dressed in their own RAINBOW suits, black Nomex, and carrying the equipment Clark and his people had brought over, German MP-10 submachine guns, and.45 Beretta sidearms, plus the portable radios from E-Systems. Clark and Chavez were wearing identical gear, but not carrying weapons. Probably the real reason Kirillin had brought them over, John thought, was to show them how much his people had learned, and that was fair enough. The Russian troopers looked ready. Alert and pumped up, but not nervous, just the right amount of tenseness.

The officer in command moved down the corridor to the door. His explosives man ran a thin line of det-cord explosive along the door’s edges and stepped aside, looking at his team leader for the word.

“Shoot,” the major told him-

— and before Clark’s brain could register the single-word command, the corridor was sundered with the crash of the explosion that sent the solid-core door into the apartment at about three hundred feet per second. Then the Russian major and a lieutenant tossed in flash-bangs sure to disorient anyone who might have been there with a gun of his own. It was hard enough for Clark and Chavez, and they’d known what was coming and had their hands over their ears. The Russians darted into the apartment in pairs, just as they’d been trained to do, and there was no other sound, except for a scream down the hall from a resident who hadn’t been warned about the day’s activities. That left John Clark and Domingo Chavez just standing there, until an arm appeared and waved them inside.

The inside was a predictable mess. The entry door was now fit only for kindling and toothpicks, and the pictures that decorated the wall did so without any glass in the frames. The blue sofa had a ruinous scorch mark on the right side, and the carpet was cratered by the other flash-bang.

Suvorov and Suslov had been sitting in the kitchen, always the heart of any Russian home. That had placed them far enough away from the explosion to be unhurt, though both looked stunned by the experience, and well they might be. There were no weapons in evidence, which was surprising to the Russians but not to Clark, and the two supposed miscreants were now facedown on the tile floor, their hands manacled behind them and guns not far behind their heads.

“Greetings, Klementi Ivan’ch,” General Kirillin said. “We need to talk.”

The older of the two men on the floor didn’t react much. First, he was not really able to, and second, he knew that talking would not improve his situation. Of all the spectators, Clark felt the most sympathy for him. To run a covert operation was tense enough. To have one blown-it had never happened to John, but he’d thought about the possibility often enough-was not a reality that one wished to contemplate. Especially in this place, though since it was no longer the Soviet Union, Suvorov could take comfort in the fact that things might have been a little worse. But not that much worse, John was sure. It was time for him to say something.

“Well executed, Major. A little heavy on the explosives, but we all do that. I say that to my own people almost every time.”

“Thank you, General Clark.” The senior officer of the strike team beamed, but not too much, trying to look cool for his subordinates. They’d just done their first real-life mission, and pleased as they all were, the attitude they had to adopt was of course we did it right. It was a matter of professional pride.

“So, Yuriy Andreyevich, what will happen with them now?” John asked in his best Leningrad Russian.

“They will be interrogated for murder and conspiracy to commit murder, plus state treason. We picked up Kong half an hour ago, and he’s talking,” Kirillin added, lying. Suvorov might not believe it, but the statement would get his mind wandering in an uncomfortable direction. “Take them out!” the general ordered. No sooner had that happened than an FSS officer came in to light up the desktop computer to begin a detailed check of its contents. The protection program Suvorov had installed was bypassed because they knew the key to it, from the keyboard bug they’d installed earlier. Computers, they all agreed, must have been designed with espionage in mind-but they worked both ways.

“Who are you?” a stranger in civilian clothes asked.

“John Clark” was the surprising answer in Russian. “And you?”

“Provalov. I am a lieutenant-investigator with the militia.”

“Oh, the RPG case?”

“Correct.”

“I guess that’s your man.”

“Yes, a murderer.”

“Worse than that,” Chavez said, joining the conversation.

“There is nothing worse than murder,” Provalov responded, always the cop.

Chavez was more practical in his outlook. “Maybe, depends on if you need an accountant to keep track of all the bodies.”

“So, Clark, what do you think of the operation?” Kirillin asked, hungry for the American’s approval.

“It was perfect. It was a simple operation, but flawlessly done. They’re good kids, Yuriy. They learn fast and they work hard. They’re ready to be trainers for your special-operations people.”