Locked On Part 21

"I do."

"But I think Clark has done other things. Things that, if brought out into the light of day, will implicate Ryan directly."

"What things?"

"You need to get your service's file on Clark and put it with my file on Clark."

"If we had such a doc.u.ment already, that is to say, a file on this John Clark that had incriminating evidence, do you not think we would have exploited it by now? During the first Ryan presidency, perhaps?"

Laska waved away the comment. "Very quickly and quietly your service should reinterview anyone, anywhere, with knowledge of the man or his operations. Make one large dossier, with every truth, half-truth, and innuendo."

"And then?"

"And then I want you to give it to the Kealty campaign."

"Why?"

"Because I cannot let it be known who my source of this information is. The file must come from someone else. Someone out of the USA. I want your people to dress it up with what you have to disguise the source."

"Innuendoes do not convict men in your adopted country, Mr. Laska."

"They can destroy a political career. And more than that, it is what Clark is doing right now that must be revealed. I have reason to believe that he is operating for some extrajudicial organization. Committing crimes around the world. And he would not be out committing these crimes if not for the full pardon given him by John Patrick Ryan. We get enough on Clark to Kealty, Kealty will force the Justice Department to investigate Clark. Kealty will do it for his own selfish reasons, no question. But it doesn't matter. What matters is that the investigation will find a house of horrors."

Valentin Kovalenko looked into the fire. Paul Laska watched him. Watched the firelight flicker off of the lenses of his Moss Lipow gla.s.ses.

"This sounds like an easy operation for my side. A quick thumbing through of a dusty old file, a quick investigation using men from some third-party group as a cutout, not SVR or FSB. More cutouts to pa.s.s the results on to someone in Kealty's campaign. We will not be overexposed. But I do not know that there is much chance for success of the operation."

"I can't believe your country has any interest in a strong Ryan administration."

Kovalenko had done little to tip his hand at any point in this conversation, but to Laska's last comment he shook his head slowly, staring the older man in the eye. "None whatsoever, Mr. Laska. But . . . will there be enough to bring him down through Clark?"

"In time to save Ed Kealty? No. Perhaps not even in time to prevent his inauguration. But Richard Nixon's Watergate took many months to germinate into something so big and bountiful that it resulted in his resignation."

"Very true."

"And what I know about the actions of John Clark makes the events of Watergate look like some sort of fraternity prank."

Kovalenko nodded. A thin smile crossed his lips. "Perhaps, Mr. Laska, I will take one small snifter of brandy as we chat further."

On a frigid October night in Makhachkala, Dagestan, fifty-five fighters of Jamaat Shariat met in a low-ceilinged bas.e.m.e.nt with Suleiman Murshidov, the elderly spiritual leader of their organization. The men were aged between seventeen and forty-seven, and together they possessed hundreds of years of experience in urban warfare.

These men had been handpicked by operational commanders, and five of their number were cell leaders themselves. It had been explained to them that they would be sent to a foreign base for training, and then they would embark on an operation that would change the course of history.

To a man they thought their operation would involve a hostage situation, likely in Moscow, with their ultimate goal being the repatriation of their commander, Israpil Nabiyev.

They were only half right.

None of these grizzled fighters knew the clean-shaven man with Murshidov and his sons. To them he looked like a politician, not a rebel, so when Abu Dagestani explained that he would be their leader for their operation, they were stunned.

Georgi Safronov spoke pa.s.sionately to the fifty-five men in the bas.e.m.e.nt; he explained that their ultimate goal would be revealed to them in due time, but for now they would all be flying in a cargo plane to Quetta, Pakistan, from where they would venture northward to a camp. There, he explained, they would undergo three weeks of intense training by the best Muslim fighters in the world, men with more operational experience in the past decade than even their brothers in nearby Chechnya.

All fifty-five men were pleased to learn this, but it was hard for them to look at Safronov as their leader.

Suleiman Murshidov saw this, and he'd expected it, so he spoke again to the group, promised them all that Georgi was Dagestani, and his plan and his sacrifice would do more for the North Caucasus in the next two months than Jamaat Shariat could do without him in the next fifty years.

After a final prayer, the fifty-five men loaded into minibuses and headed toward the airport.

Georgi Safronov wanted to travel with them, but this was deemed too dangerous by General Ijaz, his Pakistani partner in this endeavor. No, Safronov would fly commercial to Peshawar, under doc.u.ments made by Pakistani intelligence, and there he would be picked up by Ijaz and his men and flown directly to the camp near Miran Shah.

At the camp, Georgi was expected to train with the other men. He would not be as skilled with a weapon, as physically fit, or as battle-hardened in his heart. But he would learn, he would strengthen, and he would toughen.

He hoped he would earn the respect of the men who'd lived their adult lives resisting the Russians in and around Makhachkala. No, they would never look at him like they did Israpil Nabiyev. But they would obey Abu Dagestani and follow Safronov's orders. And if he could learn the martial skills in Pakistan that would be necessary during their struggles ahead, Safronov thought that perhaps they would see him as a true commander, not just a sympathizer of their cause with a plan.

Jack Ryan Jr. parked his yellow Hummer in front of Melanie Kraft's address a few minutes after seven. She lived on Princess Street in Alexandria, right up the road from the boyhood home of Robert E. Lee, near the former home of George and Martha Washington, on a portion of the street that was still paved with preRevolutionary War cobblestones. Ryan looked around at the beautiful old homes, surprised that a government employee in her mid-twenties could afford to live here.

He found her door and understood. Melanie lived at the address of a beautiful brick Georgian home, yes, but she lived in a carriage house in the back through the garden. They were still pretty nice digs, but he saw from the outside that her place was just larger than a one-car garage.

She invited him in, and he confirmed that the apartment was, indeed, tiny, but she kept it neat.

"I love your place."

Melanie smiled. "Thank you. I love it, too. I'd never be able to afford it without help."

"Help?"

"An old professor of mine from AU is married to a real estate guy; they own the home. It was built in 1794. She rents the carriage house to me for about what I'd pay for a regular apartment around here. It's tiny, but it's all I need."

Jack glanced over at a card table in the corner. On top of it sat a MacBook Pro and a ma.s.sive stack of books, notebooks, and loose printed pages. Some of the books, Ryan noticed, were printed in Arabic script.

"Is that NCTC south?" he asked with a smile.

She chuckled, but quickly grabbed her coat and her purse and headed for the door. "Shall we?"

Jack figured that was it for the grand tour, but other than the bathroom, he could see it all from where he stood, anyway. He followed her out the door and into the cool evening.

It was a ten-minute stroll to King Street, and they chatted about the old buildings as they walked. There were a lot of other people out, walking to and from dinner at this hour on a Sat.u.r.day night.

They stepped into the restaurant and were led to a romantic table for two overlooking the street. As they settled in with their menus, Jack asked, "Have you been here before?"

"Honestly, no. I hate to admit it, but I don't eat out much. Twenty-five-cent wing night at Murphy's is a big time splurge for me."

"Nothing wrong with wings."

Jack ordered a bottle of pinot noir, and they perused the menu while they chatted.

"So you were at Georgetown." Melanie said it as a statement.

Ryan smiled. "Do you know that because Mary Pat told you, because you Googled me, or because you are in the CIA and you know everything?"

She blushed slightly. "I was at AU. I saw you a few times at things around town. You were a year ahead of me, I think. You were hard to miss with that big Secret Service guy around you all the time."

"Mike Brennan. He was a second dad to me. Great guy, but he scared off a lot of people. He's my excuse for having a boring social life in college."

"Good excuse. I'm sure being a celebrity has its drawbacks."

"I'm not a celebrity. n.o.body recognizes me. My parents had money, but I sure as h.e.l.l wasn't raised with a silver spoon in my mouth. I had a summer job through high school and college, I even worked construction for a while."

Melanie said, "I was just talking about the trappings a.s.sociated with being famous. I wasn't suggesting you don't deserve to be successful."

"Sorry," said Jack. "I've had to defend myself more than once on that front."

"I understand. You want to be accepted for your own talents, not for who your parents are."

"You are very perceptive," Jack said.

"I'm an a.n.a.lyst." She smiled. "I a.n.a.lyze."

"Maybe we should both a.n.a.lyze the menus before the waiter comes back."

Melanie's smile widened. "Uh-oh. Somebody is trying to change the subject."

"d.a.m.n right." They both laughed now.

The wine came, Jack tasted it, and the waiter poured for them both.

"To Mary Pat."

"To Mary Pat." They clinked their winegla.s.ses and smiled at each other.

"So," Jack asked, "tell me about CIA?"

"What do you want to know?"

"More than you can tell me." He thought for a moment.

"Have you spent any time overseas?"

"You mean with the Agency?"

"Yes."

"I have."

"Where?" He caught himself. "Sorry. You can't tell me where, can you?"

"Sorry," she said with a shrug. Jack saw that although she'd lived the life of an intelligence a.n.a.lyst for only a couple of years, she was comfortable with secrets.

"Do you speak a foreign language?"

"Yes."

Jack started to ask her if that was cla.s.sified, too, but she filled him in.

"Level-three Masri-Egyptian Arabic-level-two French, level-one Spanish. Nothing to write home about."

"How many levels are there?"

"Sorry, Jack. I don't get out much." She laughed at herself. "I don't have many conversations with people outside government service. It's called the ILR scale. Interagency Language Roundtable. There are five levels of proficiency. Level three means, basically, that I have normal rate of speech function in the language, but I make small mistakes that don't affect the comprehension of a listener native in the language I am speaking."

"And level one?"

"It means I'm sloppy." She laughed again. "What can I say? I learned Arabic living in Cairo, and I learned Spanish in college. Nothing quite like needing to speak a language to get fed to promote the learning of it."

"Cairo?"

"Yes. Dad was an Air Force attache; we spent five years in Egypt when I was in high school, and two more in Pakistan."

"How was that?"

"I loved it. It was tough moving around as a kid, but I wouldn't trade it for the world. Plus I learned Arabic, which has proven very helpful."

Jack nodded. "I guess in your line of work it is." He liked this girl. She did not put on airs at all, she neither tried to be overly s.e.xy or a know-it-all. She was obviously highly intelligent, but she was self-deprecating about it at the same time.

And she was very s.e.xy, and it was all natural.

He did notice, more than once, that she seemed to direct the focus of the conversation back on him.

"So," she said with a playful smile. "I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you don't live in a four-hundred-square-foot carriage house subsidized by your ex-professor."

"I've got an apartment in Columbia. It's near work. And near my parents in Baltimore. What about your family?"

The waiter brought their salads, and Melanie began talking about the restaurant. Jack wondered if she just possessed one of those minds that had a tendency to branch off into different subjects during conversations, or if she was trying to avoid the subject of her family. He couldn't tell which it was, but he let it go.

They meandered back to the subject of Jack's work. He explained his work at Hendley a.s.sociates in the most boring general terms imaginable, not entirely lies, but his explanation was rife with holes and secrets.

"So," she asked. "When your dad becomes President again, you will have a Secret Service detail following you around wherever you go. Is that going to cause problems around your office?"

You have no idea, Jack thought to himself. He smiled. "Nothing I'm not used to. I became great friends with guys on my detail."

"Still. Didn't it get stifling?"

Jack wanted to put on a cool face, but he stopped himself. She was asking him an honest question. She deserved a straight answer. "Actually, yes. It was tough. I'm not looking forward to that. If my dad becomes President, I'll talk to him and my mom. I live a pretty low-profile life. I am going to refuse protection."