Tom Clancy Red Winter, page 7
A Pave Hawk helicopter gunship prowled the rocky fringe between Whitney Pocket and the trails leading to the downed aircraft. A man in uniform had spread what looked to be a large paper map on the hood of Richter’s sedan. He and a man in a dark blue windbreaker hunched over it with flashlights, making plans.
Richter turned the three-wheeler around, heading toward the highway and Mesquite. Fortunately, no one had zeroed in on him—yet. He racked his brain, trying to recall anything incriminating he might have left in his car. He’d had enough sense to bring the duffel with his communication gear and night-vision device. The pistol he’d hidden beneath the spare tire in his trunk would have been nice, but kitchen knives were easy to come by and did not arouse suspicion. He had six hundred dollars cash in his wallet—not enough for a car, but he could always steal one.
The authorities would eventually get around to figuring out that poor sweet Heather and the unlucky Firefighter Steve had been murdered, but the crash site was the immediate priority. The military would go to great lengths to secure their secret aircraft and, likely as not, withhold precious information about the dead from the plodding locals who would be tasked with solving the murders. With luck, Richter would be hundreds of miles away by the time any semblance of a manhunt began.
But if anyone suspected he’d ended up with a piece of that aircraft, they would stop at nothing in their pursuit. He needed to move fast—and to do that he needed something besides a motorized tricycle.
His father, who’d fought with the Nazi Wehrmacht’s 9th Infantry Division at the Ardennes Offensive, had described American GIs as not particularly smart or skilled. According to the elder Richter, the Allies had won the war only because they were rich. Richter suspected the words were salve to help heal the wounds of defeat. From what he’d seen, the Americans were smart, and, worse yet, they were relentless.
Garit Richter leaned forward, rolling on the throttle.
So was he.
11
FBI Special Agent Daniel Murray never slept well the first few nights away from his wife. Now two days into his trip, jet lag was sure to crash down around him anytime, but for the time being his circadian clock was still on London time—12:30 p.m.—and he didn’t mind the 7:30 a.m. report time to the outdoor ranges at Quantico. The Bureau loved its in-service agent training, even if they had to pull agents away from important work and fly them halfway around the world to complete it. Some agents used the periodic rehash of policy and defensive tactics as an opportunity to get away from mundane assignments or to take a vacation from an unhappy marriage. Murray habitually put it off for as long as the brass would let him. He was glad to be reunited with a few old friends, but he had important shit to do at home.
His law degree had given his career a little extra push and he’d been promoted through the ranks to become the FBI legal attaché three years earlier, working with UK law enforcement and intelligence services. The job of legat normally entailed a great deal of hobnobbing with ambassadors and chief superintendents, but terror was back on the front pages in Europe. Murray found himself in the middle of massive, multiyear investigations into transnational criminal enterprises, “the Lord’s Work,” his counterpart at MI6 called it. Even so, the bean counters and policy wonks at the Bureau thought it wise to pull him away from said work and drag him across the pond to tick a little box in his training file.
His favorite part of the curriculum was weapons qualification—Remington 870 pump shotgun, Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun, and sidearm. In Murray’s case, this was a Smith & Wesson Model 13 .357 Magnum revolver. Sixteen others, from brick agents to supervisors, were on the line this frosty morning. Four firearms instructors peered over the shooters’ shoulders, ensuring safety and adding a measure of stress. Hailing from Baltimore to Billings, between them they’d racked up more than a century and a half of experience with the Bureau. A couple, like Murray, came from assignments overseas.
The outdoor range allowed for quals on both long guns and pistols. They’d just finished with the MP5, a firearm that Murray found particularly satisfying to shoot. He’d never considered himself a “barrel sucker” like some of the gun aficionados he worked with, but he had to admit the little black H&K was damned sexy. The Bureau had adopted it not long after it was introduced in the sixties, supplanting old tommy guns as the shoulder weapon of choice. The still nascent FBI Hostage Rescue Team made the little black SMG their primary weapon. (Operators knew pistols were always secondary, used to fight your way back to the primary weapon, or if that primary failed.) It was easy to see why. Firearms instructors liked to say that the MP5 made poor shooters look good, good shooters look great, and great shooters look fantastic. Murray had shot clean, a tight group, small enough to cover with a closed fist. More important, he’d shot it fast.
Fantastic.
Handguns were next. The vast majority of agents and all the instructors on the line had made the switch to the new Smith & Wesson 459 semiauto in nine-millimeter parabellum. They were having trouble prying Murray’s fingers off his venerable Model 13, a three-inch bull-barreled wheel gun he’d been issued along with his first set of creds at Quantico. Firearms instructors especially liked to make fun of the speed loaders he had to snatch from his coat pocket in order to reload. As they were fond of pointing out, his revolver went click, click, click after six shots, while the shiny black semiautos still had nine more bangs left to throw downrange.
“Mark my words,” the lead firearms instructor said. “Revolvers are going the way of the dodo.” His name was Tanner, but a bristle-brush mustache and his other paunchy attributes made him the spitting image of Mr. Potato Head. Instructors at the FBI Academy were supervisory special agents, or SSAs. In Murray’s experience, Potato Head didn’t know dick about being a leader in the field, but he was a hell of a shot. The Academy was just the place for him. The guy had nothing less than a superpower when it came to passing on that skill to others, rain or shine . . . or bone-numbingly cold.
Frost covered the grass that lined the range sidewalks, and most agents put their gloves back on while they topped off magazines, and, in Murray’s case, HKS Speedloaders and a rubber Bianchi Speed Strip he kept in his shirt pocket for six extra rounds. A little Beretta .25 in his coat pocket served as his last-ditch get-off-me gun, but he kept that to himself. One, it was outside Bureau policy, and two, he didn’t want to admit that he’d gone over to the dark side of semiautos.
“Leave it to a Southie boy to hang on to a dinosaur,” Tanner said. A die-hard Yankees fan, he never missed an opportunity to dig at Murray’s Boston roots.
Murray chuckled. The heady odor of gunfire and Hoppes #9 made him happy and immune to a little teasing. “I suppose I’m just old-school—”
The pager on his belt began to buzz. He unclipped it. It was a 202 number. D.C. Not exactly out of the ordinary as far as pages went.
Tanner glared at the offending piece of electronics and gave a shake of his head. “That’s a big nope, Special Agent.”
Murray chuckled at that. FBI agents almost universally addressed colleagues and subordinates by their last names—unless they happened to be pissed about something. Then they added the “Special Agent” title in the way angry mothers used a child’s middle name to show they meant serious business.
“It’s your range. You’re the boss.” Murray turned the digital LCD readout on his pager so Tanner could see it. “Unless this happens to be the boss. Recognize the number?”
Tanner shook his head. “I do not.”
“It looks familiar. I’m thinking it’s the Hoover Building.”
Tanner rolled his eyes. “Make it quick. We have paper to punch.”
Murray turned toward the classroom hut at the back of the range, where he knew there was a telephone.
Tanner called after him. “Where the hell are you going?”
Murray held up the pager. Wasn’t it obvious?
“To make the call.”
Tanner pushed a heavy Motorola DynaTAC brick phone across the ammo table. “You need to hop on the future bus, Big Iron. Go ahead and make your call on this and then get your ass back on the firing line.”
It was the Hoover Building, all right. Potato Head looked on quizzically while Murray responded with “Yes, sir” a half-dozen times in less than a minute, and then pushed the bulky cell phone toward him.
“It’s the deputy director,” Murray said, grimacing for effect. “He wants to talk to you.”
Tanner stood tall, saying “Yes, sir” almost as many times as Murray before he ended the call and held out the phone.
“I’m supposed to give you this.”
“The brick?”
“Yeah. I guess you’re going to need it where you’re going. They’re sending a—”
The thump of an approaching helicopter drowned him out, and a moment later, a green Bell UH-1N Iroquois, better known as the Twin Huey, settled onto a grassy field adjacent to the handgun range. Marine Corps helicopter squadron HMX-1, home of the birds that became Marine One when the President of the United States was on board, was within spitting distance of the FBI Academy. Those were all Sikorsky White Hawks and VH-3D Sea Kings utilized for frequent presidential lifts between the South Lawn of the White House and Andrews, where Air Force One was hangared. Murray had seen a couple visiting Hueys behind the fence when he’d driven over to visit an old Marine buddy the evening before. But he was surprised as hell to see one coming for him.
The chopper had barely touched down when the door slid open and a uniformed crew chief leaned out, waving him over.
The other agents on the range secured empty boxes and paper targets to keep them from blowing away in the frigid downwash.
“I want to be you when I grow up, Murray,” Tanner muttered. “Shit like this only ever happens to you and Arnold Schwarzenegger.”
The deputy director hadn’t provided any details beyond an order to get on the helicopter when it arrived. Murray made certain his revolver was loaded—all too easy to overlook when a helicopter came to pick you up on the firing line—and then stuffed what scant gear he had into his range bag. Tanner, who was notorious for guarding ammunition like it was coming out of his own paycheck, pushed two boxes of Winchester 145-grain Silvertip duty ammo across the wooden table.
“I don’t know where you’re headed,” he said. “But an exit of this nature means you’re liable to need more bullets.”
“I could just be going to headquarters,” Murray said.
“In that case, I should give you another box.”
The pilot kept the rotors going, ready to turn and burn. Though he didn’t need to, Murray ducked instinctively, hand on top of his head as he trotted across the field. The crew chief leaned farther out and lifted one of his earphones, yelling over the Huey’s engine whine.
“Are you our FBI guy, sir?”
“Special Agent Daniel Murray!” he shouted.
“You’re the one we’re looking for!” The Marine handed him a headset that was wired to the intercom and waved his gloved hand at the otherwise empty interior, offering a choice of seats.
Murray sat on the left side of the aircraft, securing himself to a forward-facing seat next to the window. It was hard as a board, reminding Murray just how spartan military aircraft could be. He kept the range bag in his lap and pulled on the headset, ready to find out what was going on.
The crew chief gave the pilots the go signal, and the bird lifted off immediately. He turned back around and, realizing Murray was trying to talk to him, shook his head and tapped his earphone, pantomiming putting the little boom mic right up next to his mouth. Murray tried, nearly eating the damned thing, but nothing worked.
The Marine checked the connection, then took the headset to look it over. The interior of the chopper was incredibly loud, and apparently unwilling to sacrifice his hearing to explain what was going on to a suit, he grabbed Murray’s hand and used a ballpoint pen from his flight suit to scribble a terse explanation on his palm.
PLANE CRASH NEVADA
Murray studied the meager words, chewing on their meaning. The NTSB handled plane crashes . . . unless there was a nexus to terrorism. Still, he was an FBI legal attaché who just happened to be stateside. He wasn’t a pilot and didn’t particularly care for planes. Why would anyone send him—
The corporal tapped him on the shoulder and handed him the headset again.
This time it worked and Murray gave him a thumbs-up.
“Outstanding,” the Marine said.
“I’m going to a plane crash in Nevada?”
“That’s the information I have, sir.”
“A long way to fly in a Huey.”
“Oh, you’re not going with us, sir,” the Marine said. “There’s a C-21 on the flight line, fueled and ready to take off as soon as we deliver you to them.”
“What kind of plane?” Murray asked.
“A C-21,” the Marine said again, sounding earnest as the day was long. “It’s the military version of a Learjet, sir.”
Murray shook his head. “I mean what kind of plane crashed.”
“Sorry,” the Marine said. “I do not know the answer to that, sir. They’re not saying type. Sounds like the crash occurred somewhere over the Virgin Mountains . . .” His eyes narrowed behind his goggles, and he gave a conspiratorial nod, prodding Murray to make the leap in logic. “A little over a hundred and sixty miles southeast of Tonopah Test Range . . .”
“Ah,” Murray said. “That kind of plane.”
12
I’m surprised this isn’t being handled in the field,” Judge Arthur Moore said as soon as the oak door to the seventh-floor conference room clicked shut. He ran the CIA but still preferred Judge to Director. Like many who’d been appointed to the bench, Moore hung on to the title. He spoke with just a hint of a drawl, enough to demonstrate he was from West Texas but with a law degree from Harvard.
“Difficult to argue with that,” Robert Ritter, CIA deputy director of operations and fellow Texan, said from Moore’s right.
“Well, gentlemen,” Deputy Director of Intelligence James Greer said. “Arguing is not the point of this meeting, so we should be good.”
The DDI waved Jack Ryan to his seat at the table. Greer was a mustang, having served as an enlisted sailor before graduating from the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis and eventually being promoted to vice admiral. A submariner and intelligence specialist, the CIA had been a natural progression in his public service.
The only other person in the room, a muscular man Ryan didn’t recognize, sat in the chair next to Ritter. He spun a black lacquer Montblanc fountain pen on top of the red-striped folder in front of him.
The conference room was what Ryan thought of as government chic, boasting polished oak paneling, a mahogany table, and high-backed leather chairs—real leather, not Naugahyde or the dusty, foam-padded cloth crap the minions downstairs got. Evidently, seventh-floor asses were much more discerning about where they parked themselves. It was a corollary Ryan had seen not only in government but on Wall Street as well: Those doing the most work got the worst places to sit while they did it.
Many people at Langley, including Ritter, thought John Patrick “Jack” Ryan was still little more than a boy, someone barely out of grad school. And for all practical purposes he was—chronologically. But he’d packed a lifetime of experience into his thirty-four years. He held an honorary knighthood from Her Majesty the Queen, a doctorate in history, and was the author of several books. He was a father of two impetuous but brilliant kiddos, husband of the most amazing woman on the planet, and a millionaire several times over. His books had garnered the attention of the CIA and he’d worked for the admiral off and on for more than four years. He didn’t need the job, at least not financially. Though, if he were honest with himself, something inside him needed to be engaged in exactly this kind of work. He hated flying, but loved the sea, and, even more than that, had an insatiable appetite for social puzzles, sussing out what made people tick. Which, he supposed, was why he was in this particular conference room with these particular men.
Something had happened during his flight from Heathrow that added an air of immediacy to his visit with Admiral Greer.
The hours in the air left him dry-mouthed and in need of a shave. His pager had blown up with repeated messages as soon as he landed. Greer had a car waiting for him at Dulles, so he came straight in without stopping off at his hotel. Few people at Langley had ever seen him in a suit that he hadn’t slept in. Ryan draped his overcoat across an empty chair and rubbed a hand over his face.
Framed photographs of past CIA directors and American intelligence community heroes flanked larger, color portraits of the President and Judge Moore. Ryan took a seat under a black-and-white photograph of William J. “Wild Bill” Donovan, head of the famed OSS during World War II and founding father of the Central Intelligence Agency.
“Dr. Jack Ryan,” Greer said, smiling with what appeared to Ryan to be the only honest eyes in the room. “Meet Lane Buckley, assistant deputy director of operations, formerly the chief of station in Bonn.”
Ryan stood at the introduction and reached across the table to shake hands—like his father had taught him. Buckley extended his hand without getting up. He gave a smug grunt, the kind of grunt Ryan sometimes got from folks on the operations side of the CIA house. Not quite condescending . . . but . . . hell, it was all kinds of condescending. Ryan didn’t care. He didn’t exactly need Lane Buckley’s approval. They’d been the ones to call him.
