Mark Greaney - Full Force and Effect

Martel made no reaction. She didn’t know the name, but she could guess who Hazelton was. Still, she gave nothing away.

“They got a good picture of you that night, and they have the ability to put faces with names, but nothing came up on you. My guess is either DGSE or Sharps had all files with your image erased.”

“Not all, obviously—otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”

“You used your real name to rent this place. My friends searched for Veronika Martel, and they found some references to you. No image, but they didn’t need the image once they had the name.”

“What do you want? I didn’t kill this man in Ho Chi Minh City. I don’t even know what you are talking about.”

“North Korean assassins were in Vietnam, in the Czech Republic, in Vegas, and right here in New York. People are dying to keep your mission up and running.”

“It’s not my mission.”

“No. It’s Edward Riley’s mission. But you are his foot soldier, and now you are going to help my friends tie him directly to North Korea.”

She laughed now. “Ridiculous. He isn’t working with North Korea.”

“DPRK goons seem to turn up conveniently wherever he needs them. That’s good enough for me.”

“If that was true, they would be here now, wouldn’t they?”

“Believe me, there were concerns they would be. But I have friends all over your block, ready for them, and they swept your place for bugs. The North Koreans seem to have forgotten about you for the time being. My guess is you are sidelined, out of the operation after what happened in Las Vegas.”

“I hope that is true. If I am done, then I will return to Brussels and this will all be behind me.”

“You don’t understand the stakes, Veronika. You are in danger as long as you are working with Sharps. If the North Koreans think for a second you failed them, they will do to you what they did to Colin Hazelton.”

Ryan crossed over to her side of the sitting area and knelt in front of her. He moved so close she thought he was going to kiss her.

“Help us, and we will protect you.”

“I need no protection. I do need you to leave.” Ryan didn’t move back. “You tricked me once, in Las Vegas. You won’t trick me again.”

“This is no trick. I—”

“Are you going to arrest me? No? That is not the job of the CIA.” She smiled now. She had been off kilter for a while, but she felt like she had regained her ground. And now the man in front of her, so smug and sure of himself, did not know what to say. “Get out.”

“Please, Veronika.”

“Out!”

Jack Ryan sighed, then he pulled out a pen and wrote his phone number on a magazine. “My friends will keep someone in town. If you change your mind, or if you are in any trouble and need us, call me, and someone will be here in minutes.”

Veronika stood and pointed to the door. “Get out.”

Ryan left the apartment, certain that the woman behind him had no idea how far the North Koreans were willing to go to see this to the end.

54

Presidential Directive or no, there was neither legal nor justifiable reason—as far as international law was concerned—for the boarding and inspection of the San Fernando Chieftain , an Indonesian-flagged container ship making fifteen knots in a roiling Yellow Sea.

True, it was on its way to the North Korean port of Nampo, southwest of Pyongyang. But the ship’s stated destination was North Korea, so it had already been inspected by international proliferation experts, just before setting sail at Manila Terminal six days earlier. The cargo was confirmed to match the manifests; it was food aid and car parts and machinery for the nation’s large coal-mining industry. The ship also broadcast its automatic identification system for its entire voyage, and there were absolutely no irregularities with its movements.

In short, the San Fernando Chieftain played by the rules, so the captain was furious now, standing in his wheelhouse, his binoculars to his eyes and fixed on a point three miles off his bow. Though it was late morning, a heavy squall darkened the skies and obscured his view slightly, but there was no mistaking the image in his optics. It was the massive American warship USS Freedom , and it had positioned itself in the path of the San Fernando Chieftain , blocking the way ahead.

The radio call left the captain even more confused and angry. The Americans demanded to board, the captain asked them on what grounds they thought they had the right to do so, and the Americans cited UN Resolution 1874.

The Indonesian captain responded with outrage. The paperwork was on file and his transit had been documented. But the Americans were not listening to his reason. They informed him an armed boarding party was on the way, and for the safety of the captain, his crew, and his cargo, he needed to come full stop and comply with all demands.

The captain immediately called his home office. At this point there was nothing he could do but complain, because even though he was in the right, he wasn’t about to fight the United States Navy.

—

At ten fifty-six Chief Daryl Ricks of Echo Platoon, SEAL Team 5, stood up in the Zodiac boat, spun his HK416 rifle over his back, and climbed up the pilot ladder that had been lowered by the crew of the San Fernando Chieftain .

Just like the interdiction his platoon had made that uncovered the rocket parts from France, his boarding today would be “bottom up,” meaning from the water. Also as in that raid, this time his counterpart, Bones Hackworth of Bravo team, would be hitting “top down,” from a helo already on station an eighth of a mile off the bow and closing.

This was not a typical sanctions enforcement. Normally he and his mates spot-checked cargo containers or cargo holds, with no specific intelligence on where to look or what, exactly, they were looking for. But for today’s interdiction he had received specific intelligence about what he was looking for and where he could find it. From his understanding, the intel came from the Defense Intelligence Agency, although it had been filtered through channels and was delivered to him via sat phone contact with the intelligence officer of Team 5 in Seoul.

The IO had directed him to open and inspect four forty-five-foot high-cube shipping containers; he even had the hold number and location on the boat for where to find them.

There had been no information, oddly, on just what it was they were supposed to find inside the containers, but Ricks figured it didn’t take much imagination to conclude he and his mates had hit this ship to grab another load of missile parts.

The last time there had been resistance, and Ricks knew he couldn’t count on things going any easier for this interdiction, but so far, they’d seen no evidence that the crew was trying to hide anything or slow the SEALs down from taking a look for themselves.

Weird. This seems too damn easy, he thought, as he climbed onto the deck. But he kept his rifle up high, scanning for threats.

But there was no resistance from the crew. Ricks and his men took the wheelhouse while Hackworth and his team went for the engine room. In ten minutes the entire fourteen-member crew was covered on the deck by four men, and the rest of the SEALs headed for cargo hold two.

The containers were there, just as the IO had said; the numbers on the doors matched the report.

Greaser and Hendriks stepped forward and broke the seal on the first container. They opened the doors, and Ricks looked in with the flashlight on the end of his rifle. He scanned the beam up and down, and then left and right.

Hendriks stood behind him, and the Dutch special warfare operator said exactly what Ricks was thinking. “Bad intel, Chief.”