“That makes sense,” Xu observed, speaking his own opinion for once. “No, I will not accept the call from Washington, and no, Fang, I will not allow America to call us liars.”
“One other development,” Luo said. “The Russians have begun high-altitude reconnaissance flights on their side of the border. I propose to shoot down the next one and say that their aircraft intruded on our airspace. Along with other plans, we will use that as a provocation on their part.”
“Excellent,” Zhang observed.
“So?” John asked. “So, he is in this building,” General Kirillin clarified. “The takedown team is ready to go up and make the arrest. Care to observe?”
“Sure,” Clark agreed with a nod. He and Chavez were both dressed in their RAINBOW ninja suits, black everything, plus body armor, which struck them both as theatrical, but the Russians were being overly solicitous to their hosts, and that included official concern for their safety. “How is it set up?”
“We have four men in the apartment next door. We anticipate no difficulties,” Kirillin sold his guests. “So, if you will follow me.”
“Waste of time, John,” Chavez observed in Spanish.
“Yeah, but they want to do a show-and-tell.” The two of them followed Kirillin and a junior officer to the elevator, which whisked them up to the proper floor. A quick, furtive look showed that the corridor was clear, and they moved like cats to the occupied apartment.
“We are ready, Comrade General,” the senior Spetsnaz officer, a major, told his commander. “Our friend is sitting in his kitchen discussing matters with his guest. They’re looking at how to kill President Grushavoy tomorrow on his way to parliament. Sniper rifle,” he concluded, “from eight hundred meters.”
“You guys make good ones here,” Clark observed. Eight hundred was close enough for a good rifleman, especially on a slow-moving target like a walking man.
“Proceed, Major,” Kirillin ordered.
With that, the four-man team walked back out into the corridor. They were dressed in their own RAINBOW suits, black Nomex, and carrying the equipment Clark and his people had brought over, German MP-10 submachine guns, and .45 Beretta sidearms, plus the portable radios from E-Systems. Clark and Chavez were wearing identical gear, but not carrying weapons. Probably the real reason Kirillin had brought them over, John thought, was to show them how much his people had learned, and that was fair enough. The Russian troopers looked ready. Alert and pumped up, but not nervous, just the right amount of tenseness.
The officer in command moved down the corridor to the door. His explosives man ran a thin line of det-cord explosive along the door’s edges and stepped aside, looking at his team leader for the word.
“Shoot,” the major told him—
—and before Clark’s brain could register the single-word command, the corridor was sundered with the crash of the explosion that sent the solid-core door into the apartment at about three hundred feet per second. Then the Russian major and a lieutenant tossed in flash-bangs sure to disorient anyone who might have been there with a gun of his own. It was hard enough for Clark and Chavez, and they’d known what was coming and had their hands over their ears. The Russians darted into the apartment in pairs, just as they’d been trained to do, and there was no other sound, except for a scream down the hall from a resident who hadn’t been warned about the day’s activities. That left John Clark and Domingo Chavez just standing there, until an arm appeared and waved them inside.
The inside was a predictable mess. The entry door was now fit only for kindling and toothpicks, and the pictures that decorated the wall did so without any glass in the frames. The blue sofa had a ruinous scorch mark on the right side, and the carpet was cratered by the other flash-bang.
Suvorov and Suslov had been sitting in the kitchen, always the heart of any Russian home. That had placed them far enough away from the explosion to be unhurt, though both looked stunned by the experience, and well they might be. There were no weapons in evidence, which was surprising to the Russians but not to Clark, and the two supposed miscreants were now facedown on the tile floor, their hands manacled behind them and guns not far behind their heads.
“Greetings, Klementi Ivan’ch,” General Kirillin said. “We need to talk.”
The older of the two men on the floor didn’t react much. First, he was not really able to, and second, he knew that talking would not improve his situation. Of all the spectators, Clark felt the most sympathy for him. To run a covert operation was tense enough. To have one blown—it had never happened to John, but he’d thought about the possibility often enough—was not a reality that one wished to contemplate. Especially in this place, though since it was no longer the Soviet Union, Suvorov could take comfort in the fact that things might have been a little worse. But not that much worse, John was sure. It was time for him to say something.
“Well executed, Major. A little heavy on the explosives, but we all do that. I say that to my own people almost every time.”
“Thank you, General Clark.” The senior officer of the strike team beamed, but not too much, trying to look cool for his subordinates. They’d just done their first real-life mission, and pleased as they all were, the attitude they had to adopt was of course we did it right. It was a matter of professional pride.
“So, Yuriy Andreyevich, what will happen with them now?” John asked in his best Leningrad Russian.
“They will be interrogated for murder and conspiracy to commit murder, plus state treason. We picked up Kong half an hour ago, and he’s talking,” Kirillin added, lying. Suvorov might not believe it, but the statement would get his mind wandering in an uncomfortable direction. “Take them out!” the general ordered. No sooner had that happened than an FSS officer came in to light up the desktop computer to begin a detailed check of its contents. The protection program Suvorov had installed was bypassed because they knew the key to it, from the keyboard bug they’d installed earlier. Computers, they all agreed, must have been designed with espionage in mind—but they worked both ways.
“Who are you?” a stranger in civilian clothes asked.
“John Clark” was the surprising answer in Russian. “And you?”
“Provalov. I am a lieutenant-investigator with the militia.”
“Oh, the RPG case?”
“Correct.”
“I guess that’s your man.”
“Yes, a murderer.”
“Worse than that,” Chavez said, joining the conversation.
“There is nothing worse than murder,” Provalov responded, always the cop.
Chavez was more practical in his outlook. “Maybe, depends on if you need an accountant to keep track of all the bodies.”
“So, Clark, what do you think of the operation?” Kirillin asked, hungry for the American’s approval.
“It was perfect. It was a simple operation, but flawlessly done. They’re good kids, Yuriy. They learn fast and they work hard. They’re ready to be trainers for your special-operations people.”
“Yeah, I’d take any of them out on a job,” Ding agreed. Kirillin beamed at the news, unsurprising as it was.
C H A P T E R – 50
THUNDER and Lightning
“They got him,” Murray told Ryan. “Our friend Clark was there to watch. Damned ecumenical of the Russkies.”
“Just want to be an ally back to us, I suppose, and RAINBOW is a NATO asset. You suppose he’ll sing?”
“Like a canary, probably,” the FBI Director predicted. “The Miranda Rule never made it to Russia, Jack, and their interrogation techniques are a little more—uh, enthusiastic than ours are. Anyway, it’s something to put on TV, something to get their public seriously riled up. So, boss, this war going to stop or go?” “We’re trying to stop it, Dan, but—”
“Yeah, I understand,” Murray said. “Sometimes big shots act just like street hoods. Just with bigger guns.”
This bunch has H-bombs, Jack didn’t say. It wasn’t something you wanted to talk about right after breakfast. Murray hung up and Ryan checked his watch. It was time. He punched the intercom button on his phone.
“Ellen, could you come in, please?”
It took the usual five seconds. “Yes, Mr. President.”
“I need one, and it’s time to call Beijing.”
“Yes, sir.” She handed Ryan a Virginia Slim and went back to the anteroom.
Ryan saw one of the phone lights go on and waited, lighting his smoke. He had his speech to Premier Xu pretty well canned, knowing that the Chinese leader would have a good interpreter nearby. He also knew that Xu would still be in the office. He’d been working pretty late over the past few days—it wasn’t hard to figure out why. Starting a potential world war had to be a time-consuming business. So, it would be less than thirty seconds to make the guy’s phone ring, then Ellen Sumter would talk to the operator on the far end—the Chinese had full-time switchboard operators rather than secretary-receptionists as in the White House—and the call would be put through. So, figure another thirty seconds, and then Jack would get to make his case to Xu: Let’s reconsider this one, buddy, or something bad will happen. Bad for our country. Bad for yours. Probably worse for yours. Mickey Moore had promised something called Hyperwar, and that would be seriously bad news for someone unprepared for it. The phone light stayed on, but Ellen wasn’t beeping him to get on the line . . . why? Xu was still in his office. The embassy in Beijing was supposed to be keeping an eye on the guy. Ryan didn’t know how, but he was pretty sure they knew their job. It might have been as easy as having an embassy employee—probably an Agency guy—stand on the street with a cell phone and watch a lit-up office window, then report to the embassy, which would have an open line to Foggy Bottom, which had many open lines to the White House. But then the light on the phone blinked out, and the intercom started: