Mark Greaney - Full Force and Effect

—

But he fought through. To Detmer he said, “Needless to say, I don’t have a prepared statement for this. It’s going to be off-the-cuff a little, so I hope the historical record will cut me some slack.”

“Be yourself, Mr. President. That will be fine.”

Ryan cleared his throat and said, “This is President Jack Ryan. Right now I am speaking to you from Air Force One. We are flying with fighter escort and are minutes from U.S. airspace.”

In truth, they were a lot of minutes from U.S. airspace, actually over an hour, but he assumed by the time this was disseminated to the media it would be accurate, and the entire focus of his speech now was to quell the fervor of America’s more opportunistic enemies.

“I was banged up a little bit in the attack, but much more important, some colleagues and dear friends of mine have been killed, and many others have been injured. I do not know the full scope of the loss of life yet, but if you pray, I hope you will join me in praying for those who died needlessly today, and for those who were hurt.”

He felt tired suddenly. He took a moment to force strength into his voice.

“I want to stress to the American people that although I don’t yet know who is responsible for this, I personally witnessed many Mexican citizens, members of their Federal Police and other law enforcement agencies, risk their lives to protect the presidential motorcade. I am sure the loss of life among the innocent Mexicans will be as great or greater than ours. Whoever perpetrated the attack today, and I remind everyone that that has not yet been determined, remember that good Mexican men and women fought and died to protect the . . . the continuity of the United States government. As soon as I can I will call President Lopez personally and thank him and his fellow countrymen. His nation has been going through some difficult times, and I want him to know I’m going to go home to get patched up, and then I’m going to come back to Mexico City and see him as planned.

“And now, to the people responsible for today’s action. Your objective was the decapitation of the U.S. government. Hearing my voice, you now realize that you have failed. I suspect you will do what your kind always does. You will run, and you will hide.” Ryan took a calming breath. “Just as you failed today, you will fail in that endeavor, because we will find you. And whatever quarrel you thought you had with America will seem like nothing, because you have made a true enemy today, and America will not rest until you have been dealt what you deserve.

“I look forward to a video press conference as soon as I get back to Washington. In the meantime . . . God bless the United States of America.”

Ryan nodded to Detmer, who ended the recording.

A digital camera was brought into the room, Ryan’s face was framed in the lens in front of the presidential seal on the wall of the suite, and a picture was taken. There would be no record of the fact he’d just made one of the most important speeches of his career in his underwear.

As soon as he was prostrate on the bed again, Ryan called for Detmer. When he appeared over him, Ryan said, “David, as soon as you get that recording to Arnie, you have one job, and one job only. I want you to find out the condition of Andrea Price O’Day. If she’s at a hospital in Mexico I want those doctors to know they can have anything they want or need from us. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

Jack closed his eyes and tried to think of anything but the pain in his right shoulder.

—

Arnie got the recording to the news media within a half-hour of its being made. The Dow had dropped 1,000 points in the first hour after the attack, stopping trading for an hour. After Ryan’s “proof of life” went out, trading was restarted, and the Dow rebounded 619 points. It would still be rocked for the day, but not nearly as bad as Wall Street had feared initially.

—

Adel Zarif found a bus station within an hour of the attack by the North Koreans at the safe house, and with little understanding of where he was going, he boarded a coach for Toluca. It was about forty miles away, west of the capital, so he arrived in the afternoon, just as the daily shower began.

He walked through the crowded downtown district in the warm rain until he found a cheap hostel, and here he booked a private room for the night. There was no request for an ID or passport or credit card, and the old man behind the counter took no notice of the fact the man’s English was spoken with an accent.

Zarif’s room was flea-infested and smelled of mold, but he felt safe enough here, so he sat at the little card table in the corner, put his head down, and tried to come up with a plan.

It took him an hour, but it would have taken him longer if he had other options. As it was, he had very little money, no Spanish-language skills, and not a single friend in the entire country of Mexico.

There were two things, and two things only, that he did have. He had contact information in the form of a phone number and an e-mail address to a North Korean intelligence agent in Cuba, and he had information that, if revealed to the world, would likely get North Korea burned to the ground by the USA.

So Zarif’s one option was blackmail.

He started a video recording on his phone, placed the phone on the desk, and scooted his chair back to put himself in the picture. He spoke in English.

“My name is Adel Zarif. I was living in Damascus when I was contacted by the Reconnaissance General Bureau of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. I was hired to assassinate Jack Ryan in Mexico City. I was offered asylum in the coastal city of Hamhung once the job was complete . . .”

His entire recording lasted only four minutes, but it laid out the entire operation. He sent the video file to the e-mail address of his North Korean contact in Cuba. And then he sent a text message right after this.

I will e-mail this recording to every newspaper and television station in America. You have one hour to call me to hear my demands.

—

The call came in less than twenty minutes. Zarif demanded from the North Koreans $2 million and a face-to-face exchange in Mexico. The RGB agent said he would call the Iranian back as soon as arrangements had been made, but Zarif just laughed in his face, telling him he would destroy his phone before it could be traced and then call the RGB man back from another phone in eighteen hours.

Zarif had not made it through a half-dozen Middle Eastern wars by being a fool. He did what he said he would do, shattering his phone with a brick behind his hostel, before heading out to find another phone and another place to stay the night.

He didn’t know what he would do with $2 million, he still had no documents and no friends. But he determined he could get a lot further with the money than without it, and he suspected he could make it out of Mexico eventually, and find someplace to hide.

It wasn’t a perfect plan, but those were problems for another day, because he knew the North Koreans would try to kill him if they got the chance.

63

Adam Yao woke this morning, as he had every morning he’d been in Chongju, to the sounds of roosters crowing. He looked to the clock on the wall of the temporary housing trailer and saw it was only five-thirty, but he was wide awake so he rolled out of bed and headed to the toilet.

A few minutes later he stepped outside the unit he shared with eight other men and women, and he stretched on the asphalt parking lot. It was a misty, cool morning, still dark outside, but the moon glowed through the vapor. The cooks wouldn’t have the breakfast of tea and noodles ready until seven, and the Chinese technicians wouldn’t climb in the buses for the twenty-minute bus ride to the refinery until eight, so Adam decided he would take this opportunity to glean some intel the only way available to him right now. He would go for a morning run inside the perimeter of the fence surrounding the compound, and he would see what he could see.