Commander-In-Chief (62 page)

He’d been so focused on the man with the gun in front of him, and his security men in the street, that he’d not seen the other figure in the dark, hidden on the other side of the alcove. This man stepped forward to Volodin as if he would give him a hug, and the Russian president flinched when he felt the presence.

The second man in the alcove drove a knife into Valeri Volodin’s gut.

The Russian president’s eyes shot open and then softened, his knees gave out and he dropped onto them, and then he pitched forward, the blade still protruding from his body.

The two men left standing in the alcove looked at each other for an instant; then the gunman shrieked,
“Allah’u akbar!”
and he shot his compatriot, the assassin of Valeri Volodin, in the forehead. Then the gunman turned his weapon on himself and began the pledge again, but before he could finish it he was cut down by a hail of bullets from Volodin’s protection detail.

•   •   •

A
rkady Diburov and Mikhail Grankin left Café F via a back door moments later. They climbed into separate Mercedes sedans and rolled off into the night in opposite directions.

•   •   •

O
ne hour later, Channel Seven news anchor Tatiana Molchanova appeared in the homes of most Russians watching television at eleven-thirty p.m. Her eyes were rimmed with red as if she had been crying.

“Ladies and gentlemen. Late-breaking news from Moscow. President Valeri Volodin has been assassinated at the hands of Chechen terrorists this evening, just blocks from the Lubyanka, the building where he worked as a young man to build a greater Russia.
Apparently the president became separated briefly from his security detail, and he was attacked in the street. He received a knife wound to his stomach, and even though his bodyguards immediately killed the savage terrorists and took their president to the hospital, he could not be saved.”

Tatiana Molchanova wept openly on camera.

T
he President of the United States sat at his desk with the complete dossier on Arkady Diburov lying open in front of him. The new Russian president had been in office only four hours, and already he was going to conduct his first red-phone call with the President.

Ryan thought it a little awkward that this man was under economic sanction by the U.S. Justice Department, but the dossier spoke for itself. As the director of Gazprom, he had been the beneficiary of hundreds of millions of dollars that had been rerouted from oil receipts into shell companies around the world.

The guy was a crook, just like the man he replaced, Ryan knew. But Ryan did not yet know if the guy was a crook who would be willing to make a deal.

He’s
siloviki
, a billionaire, shadowy, but perhaps less so than Valeri Volodin.

I can work with that,
Ryan said to himself.

And Ryan also didn’t know if he would be able to fool the man
into thinking the Russian ballistic missile sub off the American coastline was currently being targeted by the Navy. The truth was he had no idea where it was, so Ryan felt his best option was to feign a position of authority with the new president, to negotiate America’s way from the brink of nuclear war.

He heard a sound through the phone in his ear and then a man speaking Russian. The translator conveyed a few words of introduction, and then Diburov said he hoped the two nations of Russia and the U.S. could have better relations.

Ryan said he felt the same way, but things would only improve when Russia obeyed international agreements and norms.

After a pause, Diburov said, “President Ryan, I am disappointed you think you can bully me in our first conversation.”

Ryan replied, “My intention is to state facts, because if we both understand the facts, our nations will be better off. Fact one . . . we know where the
Knyaz Oleg
is. We can destroy it right now if we want.”

Diburov said, “You said it is time for facts, but that is
not
a fact. That is a threat, Mr. President.”

Ryan replied, “If you aren’t interested in threats, President Diburov, what is that submarine doing off our coast? Why hasn’t it turned around and returned to Russia?”

There was no response from the Russian president.

Ryan said, “It would be an extremely helpful first step in reconciliation.”

“My feeling is we have nothing to reconcile. My administration is not the administration of Valeri Volodin.”

“No, it’s not. But
your
administration is the one with the ballistic missile submarine parked off the U.S., so you have to accept responsibility for any actions we might take. Things went bad for Volodin when the
Kazan
was destroyed. You won’t be able to wrap
yourself in the excuse that it’s your predecessor’s fault when your
other
most advanced warship sinks.”

After a long pause Diburov said, “I will need significant concessions from you if that is to happen. Very significant, indeed.”

Ryan thought to himself that this clown wasn’t ready for prime time, but he was now in charge of the nuke codes in Russia, so by that factor alone he deserved some respect. “President Diburov, stop your attacks on all fronts, and then we’ll talk about a deal.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. President, but I refuse to be ordered around by America.”

The phone went dead.

•   •   •

T
wenty-four hours after the acrimonious phone conversation, the Russian ambassador requested a meeting with the President of the United States.

That it took an entire day for this to happen worried President Ryan and his secretary of state. Diburov was shrewder than they’d given him credit for. He hadn’t folded like a cheap suitcase during the phone call with the President, nor had he waffled under the pressure of an impending American invasion for twenty-four hours. Ryan and Adler were beginning to think they had totally misjudged the man’s mettle, so they were hard at work on the next phase of prosecuting the diplomatic situation, planning ways they could crank up the statecraft nearly to the level of war.

The last thing Ryan wanted to do was to lose the Baltic. But the second-to-last thing he wanted to do was to invade the sovereign territory of the Russian Federation. He’d send troops over the border if he felt it was his only option, but he was acutely aware of the consequences.

•   •   •

V
ery quickly into their conversation, the Russian ambassador said, “I firmly believe there are agreements we can come to, Mr. President.”

Ryan knew where this was going, but he played dumb. “I’m very happy to hear you say that, Mr. Ambassador. I wonder if you have something in mind, something that would be to Russia’s benefit, but not jeopardize the security of other nations.”

The ambassador spoke as if this were just coming to him spontaneously, although Ryan knew the man’s script was well memorized. “I won’t go into detail about Russia’s economic fortunes of late.”

Here it comes,
Ryan said to himself.

“The economic sanctions against prominent Russian businessmen are stifling the growth of our nation. We see it as illegal and against the norms of diplomacy. The president feels the West’s removing the holds on the finances of the nation’s top businessmen would go a long way to showing fraternity between East and West.” A slight smile from the portly man. “We don’t need to be fighting one another.”

Yep,
Ryan thought. Diburov takes the reins of power in the Kremlin, and his first action is to send his ambassador to tell America he will stop a war if America gives him all his money back.

Humans, despite all the artifice around them, could be such simple creatures at their core.

Ryan played his part in the little game now. As the ambassador had pretended to just think of this, Ryan pretended to just mull over the consequences of the request. He took thirty seconds before he responded.

“Mr. Ambassador, do I understand you to say a loosening of international sanctions would result in Russia moving its forces in Lithuania back to their barracks in Kaliningrad and their forces in Belarus back to sovereign Russian Federation territory?”

The ambassador nodded. “Simply put, Mr. President, we need to get our economy flowing again. This is more important now than the crimes perpetrated by the West against Russia.”

No,
Ryan thought.
Diburov
needs to get his personal assets flowing again. Diburov and the other men under sanction kept all their money in offshore accounts. Releasing every cent of this would help the economies of Luxembourg, Cyprus, Monaco, and Singapore more than it would Russia.

But Jack Ryan’s objective at the moment wasn’t about Russia’s domestic prospects, it was about Russia’s international expansion. And it looked like there might be a way out of this.

No,
Ryan thought, he and Adler had not misjudged Diburov’s character. He was exactly what they took him for. The twenty-four-hour delay had nothing to do with the man’s resolve to continue the fight with the West. It was probably just the time it took for the new leader to figure out how to ask for what he really wanted, access to his piggy bank, without looking like what he really was.

Another kleptocrat.

J
ack Ryan, Jr., sat in Gerry Hendley’s office, his hands folded in his lap. Gerry was behind his desk, elbows propped on the edge. They’d been talking for twenty minutes, mostly about Brussels, but now that the conversation had slowed and an intensity had grown on Gerry’s face, Jack got the idea there was something he wanted to say.

Something Jack wasn’t going to like.

He’d rather not be here now, at all. Ysabel had arrived in the United States the evening before, but Jack had not been by to see her at the hospital yet. He’d been working most of the night, and this morning’s one-on-one meeting with Gerry was something he knew he couldn’t beg out of.

So here he was, suddenly aware that this was the moment of truth.

Gerry said, “We’ve spent the last twenty minutes talking about what happened in Brussels. You did great work, again, and I appreciate that very much.”

“But?”

“But I’m not sure you understand the danger you put The Campus in over the past few weeks. From the contact with the Italian paparazzo that went unreported, to the exceeding of your analytical work in Luxembourg, to your unilateral decision to betray your stand-down order and return to Europe on your own.”

“I did what I thought was right, Gerry.”

“Exactly, Jack. But you are not a one-man band. You are an operator and analyst, but you are not an executive. You don’t make the rules, you have to be able to follow orders, and I have to be able to depend on you. Your personal security in the field affects everyone at The Campus, and the well-being of our organization affects the security of the United States of America.”

Jack just nodded. He understood, in theory, but he felt like he’d made the only reasonable calls, considering. “I know, Gerry. And I shouldn’t have gone against directives, but I don’t want to be treated like the President’s son around here.”

“Well, you are. And neither of us can change that.” Gerry drummed his fingers on his desk, then said, “I’m suspending you, Jack. Six months. Take some time, figure out what you want to do, whether or not you want to be a part of this team.”

“Six months?” Jack had been hoping for two weeks.

“Yes. I hope you come back at the end of that time with a new attitude. An appreciation that the risks you take have to be for the good of the unit as a whole. I hope the man who sits before me in half a year’s time will understand his role on the team.”

Jack said, “Does Clark know?”

Gerry said, “I am in charge of The Campus, not John Clark. But to answer your question . . . yes, he knows. Clark and Chavez are ex-military, they understand that orders and chain of command
serve the whole. And they understand your violations should be taken seriously.”

Jack nodded. He was angry, he felt Gerry was going too hard on him, but he understood Gerry had to put his foot down somewhere.

Jack stood, reached across the desk to shake Gerry’s hand. “I’m sorry I put you in this situation. I’m not sure I’ll be back here in six months, but I appreciate the opportunity you gave me here.”

Gerry stood and shook Jack’s hand. “The world in six months is going to need a man like you working in a place like this. Keep that in mind.”

“I will.” Jack headed back to his cubicle to start packing.

•   •   •

Y
sabel Kashani sat in the chair next to her hospital bed, looked down at the soup in the styrofoam bowl, and frowned.

Christine von Langer saw the expression from her chair across the room. “I thought you ordered the alphabet soup.”

The Iranian said, “I did. We don’t have this where I am from. I assumed from the name it would have something from every letter of the alphabet in it. You know, asparagus, beans, cilantro . . . like that.” She just stared at the soup. “But . . . it just has watery tomato sauce and little letters made out of dough.”

Christine laughed. “Yeah, that’s it.”

Ysabel took a bite. “It’s hot, anyway. The food in Luxembourg was better.”

“You’re in Baltimore now, Ysabel. I can get you some crab cakes, but not from the cafeteria here.”

Ysabel didn’t want to put Christine out. The woman was helping her in so many ways, tending to her dressings better than the nurses, walking with her to the bathroom to keep her steady,
keeping her company through the long days and nights cooped up in a hospital room.

But she’d never even heard of a crab cake, and looking down at her alphabet soup, something else she’d never heard of, she thought it sounded amazing right about now.

Jack Ryan, Jr., opened her door, his face hidden by a bouquet of two dozen roses. He saw Christine first and gave her a wink, then lowered the roses and looked at Ysabel.

“Well, look who it is,” she said. Her tone made clear he’d taken his time in coming to see her.

He crossed the room and kissed her passionately but carefully. She still had a bandage on her neck, and the doctors were monitoring her concussion even now.

“Sorry, had to go by the office. I knew you were in capable hands.”

Ysabel said, “Christine has watched me every step of the way. I think I have a friend for life now.”

Christine stood and headed for the door. “And this friend for life knows when it’s time to step out for a few minutes. I’m going to go hunting for crab cakes.”

Jack knelt down next to the Iranian, stroked a hand through her hair while she smiled at him. He asked her how she was feeling and tears formed in her eyes.

She did not reply.

Jack held her close. “This was my fault. I am so sorry I pulled you down into something I didn’t understand.”

She shook her head. “I went down willingly, Jack. You can’t blame yourself. You and I both felt indestructible after what happened to us in Dagestan.” She shrugged. “Luxembourg was a wake-up call, I guess.” With a sad smile she said, “We’re not indestructible. Not at all.”

Jack nodded, then kissed her again.

She said, “Thank you for getting me over here. I was surprised when you suggested it.”

“Johns Hopkins has the best doctors in the world. I should know, my mom is one of them.”

“Yes, she dropped in on me this morning.”

Jack’s eyes went wide. “What? How did she—”

“How did she know about me? Something about you asking your dad about helping with my visa so I could come over and get care. He said something to her, she came looking for me. It was cute. They are very conspiratorial about meeting your very exotic but slightly defective girlfriend.”

Jack had gone to his dad for help getting Ysabel into the country for care, but he hadn’t mentioned they were in a relationship. He guessed his mom just happened to pop in on her to check her out, and now that his mom and Ysabel had had some alone time, there was no doubt both his mom and dad knew everything.

Ryan groaned inwardly, but he hid it.

“You aren’t defective. You are just in the shop for a few repairs.”

He kissed her and she laughed.

Jack wasn’t sure what would happen with him and Ysabel, but he knew he would do everything in his power to make sure she recovered quickly and completely. After that . . . well, he could always ask Clark and Gerry if they were interested in a multilingual asset who knew tradecraft and had proven herself in the field.

As if on cue, John Clark opened the door, giving a half-knock as he did so. Jack just looked at him for a moment. “Is there
anyone
who doesn’t know about this?”

Clark laughed. “I was in for a checkup on my back. Ran into Cathy, she mentioned Ysabel. Hi, Ysabel. I’m John.”

The two shook hands. Jack just smiled a little and looked at the
door, expecting at any moment to see a bunch of men in dark suits and sunglasses come in as the advance team for a visit from his dad.

Ysabel said, “Oh, Jack, by the way. Your mom invited us over for dinner. Just as soon as I get out of here. Christine is coming, too. Hope that’s okay.”

Jack just laughed. “Sure. That sounds
great.”