Cameron, Marc - Tom Clancy's Shadow of the Dragon

The younger Chavez moved mechanically, looking warily back and forth from his father to his grandfather and the captain as he sidled in on a chair at the long table.

Clark took a seat beside him, resting a hand on his grandson’s shoulder. “What do you want to know?”

“I thought you and Dad were forensic investigators. I mean, I’m smart enough to figure out there was some security work involved, considering your backgrounds. I know you guys travel … but last I heard, Mom told me Dad was supposed to be on some business trip to Singapore. Now I run into him on his way out to an oil rig that gets bombed, and you’re able to commandeer a helicopter on a moment’s notice to my ship from Ho Chi Minh City … That’s just …”

Clark laid his hands flat on the table and studied them for a moment, deciding whether or not to speak, then said, “The family business. That’s what it is.”

JP looked at his father. “Seriously? Are you guys mercs?”

“Hell, no,” Ding said. “Far from it.”

“We’re more what you’d call contractors,” Clark said.

Captain Jackson turned to leave. “I’ll see myself out so you can read him in to whatever this is.”

Clark gave a dry chuckle. “You’re involved, Skipper. At least your family is.”

Jackson nodded. “I thought as much. Jack Ryan was my uncle Robby’s dearest friend. Ryan tapped him to be his vice president.”

“That’s true,” Clark said. “But I was thinking of your other uncle. Tim.”

Jackson cocked his head. “How’s that?”

“Years ago—I hate to admit how many—I recruited our young Marine’s daddy for a special mission. It remains classified, but what we were doing isn’t important. Your uncle Tim was a platoon leader at Fort Ord and I sort of snatched Staff Sergeant Chavez out from under his nose. He got a pretty good ass-chewing for trying to find out what was going on, if I remember correctly.”

Jackson laughed. “I remember hearing him talk about spooks invading his turf.”

“Spooks …” JP Chavez stared into space, then turned to look directly at his father. “Does Mom know?”

“She does,” Ding said.

JP’s gaze shifted to Clark, who answered before he could ask. “Your grandma has known what I do since before I even really started doing it.”

“I guess there’s a lot you can’t tell me.”

Ding chuckled. “Quite a bit. But we’re the good guys. That’s the main thing you need to know.”

“CIA?”

“For a while,” Clark said. “Since we’re getting it all out in the open.”

JP looked down at his hands, folded on the wardroom table, and for just a moment Clark saw a bit of himself. “This is a lot to take in.” He locked eyes with his dad. “You’ve been doing whatever this is since you were in the Army?”

“In one way or another,” Ding said.

“Since you were about my age? Grandpa came to your unit and recruited you? So that could happen to me if it’s the family business. Right?”

“First of all,” Ding said, “I was a staff sergeant, not an E3.” He looked imploringly at Clark. “Help me out here, Grandpa.”

Clark put a hand on JP’s shoulder again. “Let’s just see where your career takes you. This kind of work has a way of finding the right person for the job. Let things happen in time.”

“I thought you were going to help,” Ding said. “That’s not helping.”

Clark gave his grandson a wink. “Like I said, it is the family business.” He put both hands on the table, and gave Ding a warning side-eye. “As much as it kills me to cut this reunion short, we need to talk more about that call from the boss’s boss.”

JP got to his feet. Both Ding and Clark drew him in for back-slapping hugs.

“I always thought you guys were pretty cool,” JP said. “But this is—”

“Between us,” Clark said. “That’s what it is. Secrecy is a burden, but it’s a big part of that family business we talked about.”

“Understood, sir,” JP said. “I should get back to my platoon.”

Clark gave him one more hug for the road, and then tousled what little hair there was on top of his regulation cut.

“Care to tell me how you got that broken nose?”

“Long story, sir,” JP said. “For another time.”

“But I should see the other guy. Right?”

JP laughed out loud. “You probably already have. He’s my best friend in the platoon.”

“Hmmm,” Ding said. “I guess that is a long story …”

Captain Jackson followed him out the wardroom door. “Lance Corporal Chavez and I will leave you two to discuss your secret phone call. Can you stay for dinner?”

“Wish we could,” Clark said. “But we’ll have to take a rain check.”

JP was shaking his head as he went out the door. “This is the most kickass thing I’ve ever even heard of …”

The Mi-17 pilot and Dom Caruso, who’d been sitting directly behind him, suffered burns from spilled fuel during the crash. The pilot went directly from the Makin Island to a hospital in Ho Chi Minh City. Caruso got some Silvadene ointment for his burns—and a splint for the severely damaged cartilage in his knee. The ship’s doc agreed with Adara’s assessment that he was going to need surgery—which would sideline him for the next several weeks at the very least. They gave him enough pain meds to get him back to the States and sent him on his way with Clark, Chavez, and Adara in one of the Seahawks. Everyone in the city knew the U.S. Navy had assisted in the rescue after the oil rig explosion, so one of the matte-gray choppers dropping off some Americans didn’t raise any eyebrows.

“Patsy’s going to have my ass,” Chavez said.

“The boy looks sharp, though,” Clark said.

“I wonder about that fight,” Ding said. “He took some kind of beating … and the dude and he are friends now …”

“And he’s still standing,” Clark said.

“Still …” Ding said, his mouth set in a tight line.

Clark patted him on the back. “We all got our secrets, son.”

Clark got Foley back on the line as soon as he had the team convened in his hotel room.

Dom sat in a padded chair, his bad leg propped up on an ottoman under a bag of ice. Jack Junior barely contained his displeasure at having missed the action—even if that action was a helicopter crash. Frankly, Clark knew how he felt, but had seen enough action in his life that he didn’t feel cheated.

Vietnam had good relations with the United States at the moment, but Clark had still taken time to sweep the room for listening devices. They’d drawn the curtains and set up white-noise “chirpers” by the door and each window to defeat laser mics anyone might be bouncing off the glass. Even so, they spoke in vague terms and coded names.

“Thanks, Chief,” Clark said, when the DNI had finished her thumbnail brief. An enlisted sailor at heart, Clark used the title as a term of endearment, having generally reserved his top level of trust for the crusty old senior chiefs over most officers.

“So,” Ding said, once Clark disconnected the call. “Two targets. Mother and daughter. We’ll have to split up.”

Midas lay on his back on top of Clark’s bedspread, drawing imaginary circles in the air with the gimme hotel pen from the nightstand. “The kid should be a simple find. We’re going to need something else to go on to find her mama besides ‘hiding out with some terrorists somewhere in China.’”

“Yep,” Clark said. “We’ll get more from CROSSTIE anytime now.” Everyone in the room knew CROSSTIE was CIA operations officer Adam Yao. They’d worked with him before, built that kind of rare trust that comes from spilling a lot of sweat and a substantial amount of blood together in the field.