Point of Contact

by Tom Clancy

  And if I don’t? Jack wanted to ask. But there was no reason to. He clearly wasn’t going to make his way in today, even if he had a weapon. More important, Rhodes had given explicit instructions to keep a low profile. That was probably a good idea anyway for all parties concerned, especially him.

  “I must be mistaken. Sorry for the trouble.” On a hunch, Jack beckoned the tall man with his index finger to come closer. The man leaned over and Jack snapped a photo of him with his iPhone, then gunned the engine and threw the car into reverse. The two guards behind his car bolted out of the way, afraid he was going to run them over. Instead, Jack eased his way out of the drive lane and onto the street that would lead him back to Dalfan headquarters, but not before snapping two more photos of the irate and embarrassed guards cursing him in Mandarin.

  Jack did a slow 180-degree turn, stopping just long enough to glance in his rearview mirror. The guards stood clustered in a loose formation, watching him leave and making sure he didn’t change his mind and turn around. He didn’t. He punched the gas and sped away.

  Pulling back onto Pioneer, he wondered for just a moment if maybe Paul had gotten the address wrong or if there was some other kind of mistake. But his gut—the one that Clark told him to always pay attention to—told him there wasn’t any mistake, at least not on his part.

  After turning back onto the AYE, he texted the photos of the guards to Gavin and spoke a text requesting an ID of them ASAP.

  “How ASAP?” Gavin replied.

  “Yesterday.”

  “Sure. I’ve got nothing better to do.” Gavin didn’t dare tell Jack that he was working his tail off for Paul.

  “Thanks,” Jack said. “It’s important.”

  —

  Jack stormed into Lian’s office. She was on the phone. “You had no right to block my entrance to that facility.”

  Lian spoke into the phone: “I’ll call you back.” She slammed the receiver down and stood. “How dare you come into my office with that attitude. You’re the one that took evasive action today and lost my security escort.”

  Jack saw that several people in the area were staring at them, including Paul and Bai across the suite. Jack stepped farther into her office and closed the door.

  “I never asked for a security escort. In fact, I said I didn’t want one.”

  “I suspended my people for failing to keep track of you. I’m tempted to fire them.”

  “It’s not their fault. I take responsibility for what happened today.”

  “Why would you take responsibility? Oh, yes, because somehow you managed to throw off two highly trained security personnel. How did you manage that?”

  “What are you implying?”

  “It takes training to defeat training.” She stepped closer, examining his face. “Yes, Jack Ryan, I think you have training.”

  Jack thought of a quick lie. “Of course I have training. My father taught me how to shake a tail when he taught me how to drive when I was a teenager. It was a game we used to play.” He flashed a boyish smile.

  “You’re a lot of trouble, that’s what you are.” She crossed back over behind her desk and fell into her chair. “Tell me why you were so eager to go it alone today.”

  “It’s a violation of international auditing protocols to allow a client to observe an investigation.” Even Jack was surprised how good he was getting at lying on the fly.

  “I have never heard of such a rule. But then again, we’ve never allowed any outsiders like you to come so far inside our organization.”

  “My job is to make sure that Marin Aerospace and Dalfan Technologies reach a fair and equitable agreement on stock valuation, and part of that valuation is dependent upon your profitability as a company and the accuracy of its financial records.”

  “Have you found a problem?”

  “That’s what I was trying to determine.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “You know where I was.”

  Lian frowned. “No, I don’t. You lost my tail, remember?”

  “You had me blocked from entering.”

  “I did no such thing.”

  “You didn’t tell the guards to not let me in?”

  “Again, if I didn’t know where you were, how would I do that?”

  “They called you.”

  “No one called me about you.” She frowned. “What were you looking for?”

  “Just checking up on a loose end. I’m sure it’s nothing.”

  “Nothing—and yet you had to ditch my security team to look for it. I want to know where you were.”

  Jack wasn’t sure what to tell her. If she was the one behind the hidden warehouse, he didn’t want to tip his hand. But then again, he wanted to get inside, and if she was on the level, she could arrange that. The trick was to give her just enough information to suss her out but not enough to allow her to interfere with his investigation.

  “I was at your warehouse facility on the west end.”

  Lian frowned. “We don’t have a warehouse on the west end, or anywhere else. Why don’t you take me there and we’ll check it out together?”

  Jack cursed himself. She gave him the worst possible answer. If she was innocent, that’s exactly what she would say. But if she was trying to interfere, she’d want to find out what it was he had discovered.

  “No need. It’s my mistake, I’m sure. Sorry for the trouble.”

  Jack turned to leave, but Lian stopped him. “One second, please.” She punched the speed dial and engaged the speakerphone.

  “Yes?” Yong answered.

  “It’s me. Question for you: Do we have a warehouse facility on the west end I don’t know about?”

  “No. Why do you ask?”

  “Just tying off a loose end. Thanks.” Lian hung up. “I hope that clears things up for you.”

  Jack smiled, lied. “It does. Thanks.”

  “And if you change your mind about riding out there together, I’m happy to oblige.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  Lian watched Jack leave, more curious than ever about what he was up to.

  —

  Back at the warehouse across town, the tall guard that had turned Jack away stood in the wood-paneled office near his boss’s desk with his arms crossed behind his broad back. He was trying not to listen to the woman’s conversation, but he kept stealing glances at the heart-shaped mole above her upper lip. His blood surged at the thought of her mouth and what he would do to her if she were willing, and the pleasure it would bring both of them.

  His boss stood just a few feet away from her, tugging on his collar and patting away the beads of sweat on his forehead with a handkerchief. The guard didn’t know the woman’s name, only that she was from Beijing. The guard, however, knew his boss—a ruthless bastard, and a Party man to the core. If his boss was scared of her, the guard knew he needed to watch himself, no matter how desirable she was.

  He had reported the incident with the man who identified himself as Jack Ryan to his boss, who in turn reported it to this woman. When she arrived she demanded to speak to the guard and to see the security footage herself before confirming Jack Ryan’s identity.

  Whoever this Jack Ryan guy is, the guard thought, he better watch his ass.

  —

  How did he find out?” Yong demanded. He was on the other end of the line.

  Meili glanced at the tall guard, studiously ignoring her, judging by the blank expression on his broad, cunning face. She turned around, her back to him.

  “No idea. But I don’t have to tell you he can’t come back.”

  “Obviously.”

  “How can we stop him?”

  Yong laughed. “You mean besides running over him with a car?”

  Meili didn’t laugh.

  “I’m joking.”

  �
�Don’t. This is not good. For either of us.”

  “I have an idea.”

  —

  Yong ended the call, but his hand still gripped the receiver. Jack Ryan was becoming a problem, quickly, and he needed to be dealt with.

  He told Meili that killing him wasn’t an option, but he wasn’t sure if she agreed with him. If Jack Ryan couldn’t be discouraged from further investigation, he needed to be driven away for his own sake or else she would deal with him, one way or another.

  37

  Jack and Paul put in a full day’s work at Dalfan, continuing to sift through the mountains of data and reports they were required to examine before signing off on the Dalfan–Marin merger. Jack decided to hold off on further physical investigation of the warehouse facility until he heard back from Gavin.

  Given Lian’s harsh reaction to his accusations, Jack was suddenly less confident that what he’d stumbled across today was a Dalfan location after all. But there was something definitely there, and whatever it was, it was kept under lock and key. And if it turned out it was a Dalfan facility, it was better to know who he would be going up against when he broke into it.

  —

  Jack and Paul picked up some Indian takeout food from a nearby restaurant Bai recommended and headed back to their guesthouse.

  They unloaded several cardboard containers and filled their plates with spicy chicken biryani on beds of basmati rice and ladled up bowls of rich vegetable curry. Jack poured two glasses of iced mango tea he fetched from the refrigerator as Paul laid out the silverware.

  They began eating in silence, both lost in their own thoughts about the events of the day, neither feeling as if they could talk to the other about them. Ironically, they were both waiting for a phone call from Gavin, and neither knew about that, either. The food was quickly disappearing.

  “This is great,” Jack said.

  Paul forked another mouthful of chicken. “Bai said we wouldn’t be disappointed.”

  “Do you still think he’s reporting everything he sees to Yong?”

  “No question. But that’s his job and I don’t blame him for doing it.”

  “Nothing much for him to report, I imagine.”

  “I play dumb, he plays video games. It keeps him out of my hair.” Paul swallowed. “What little of it is left.” He heaped more chicken and rice onto his plate. “You didn’t mention how your trip to the warehouse went.”

  “It didn’t exactly go the way I’d planned. I couldn’t get in.”

  “You showed them your credentials?”

  “Yeah. Didn’t matter. What’s weird is that Lian said she had nothing to do with it.”

  “But somebody’s hiding something.”

  “No doubt.”

  “How do you plan on getting in?”

  Jack grinned. “My winning personality.”

  Paul picked up the nearly empty box of curry. “You want any more?”

  “Knock yourself out.”

  The back door burst open.

  —

  Jack leaped to his feet as men in tactical gear charged in, guns drawn. But two powerful hands shoved him back down by the shoulders from behind as the cold steel of a rifle barrel pressed against his face.

  Paul sat in his chair, mouth open and full of curry, gasping like a carp in the bottom of a boat.

  The men in black tactical gear all had POLICE blazoned across their bulletproof vests. Jack heard boots thundering up the stairs and shouts in English and Mandarin.

  A short, powerfully built man with lieutenant’s bars sewn onto his collar stepped forward, holstering his pistol.

  “You are under arrest!”

  “On what charge?” Jack demanded.

  “Possession of drugs.”

  “What are you talking about?” Jack ignored the crashing, banging, and thudding on the ceiling. It just meant their rooms were being torn apart upstairs.

  Another policeman lifted Paul to his feet, his jowly face white with panic.

  “Arms behind your back!”

  Paul nodded, complying. Plastic cuffs zipped behind him, pinching his wrists. He winced with pain.

  The lieutenant pointed at Jack. “You. Stand up. Hands behind your back.”

  “You’ve made a mistake,” Jack said, standing. Another cop zip-cuffed him.

  Something crashed on the floor above them. Paul startled, staring at the ceiling. The lieutenant noticed.

  “Mistake? Then why is your friend so scared? Afraid my men will find something?”

  “You won’t find any drugs,” Jack said. “Not even a stick of Juicy Fruit.”

  The lieutenant got in Jack’s face. “Don’t you realize the penalty for drug smuggling in Singapore is death?”

  “Yeah, I read about that—”

  “What’s going on here?” Lian barked as she marched into the kitchen, Park right behind her, his face a brutal mask.

  “Who are you?” the lieutenant demanded.

  “Lian Fairchild. I own this place. What’s the meaning of all this?”

  The cocky lieutenant softened. “Fairchild? I know that name. Weren’t you with STAR?”

  “Yes. What of it?”

  “And your father—”

  “Answer my question, Lieutenant!”

  “My unit received an anonymous tip that there were illegal narcotics stashed in this place.”

  Lian pointed at Jack. “You think this man is an international drug smuggler?”

  The lieutenant scowled. “The tip was legitimate—”

  “Do you know who he is?”

  “Do you think I care? If he’s breaking the law, he’s a criminal.”

  “You’re a fool, and you’ve been played like one.” Lian spat out a string of syllables in Mandarin in a low, violent growl. Jack didn’t speak the language, but he could tell by the look on the lieutenant’s panicking face that it wasn’t good for him.

  “Release them!” The lieutenant shouted orders into his shoulder mic and the racket overhead stopped instantly. By the time Jack’s cuffs were cut off, the other tactical officers were down the stairs and racing out the doors.

  The lieutenant told Lian, “You take full responsibility for these men?”

  “I do. And I’ll be sure to call your captain and tell him.”

  The lieutenant gave Jack and Paul one last suspicious look, turned on his heel, and marched out of the back door, slamming it behind him on its busted frame.

  Jack turned to Lian. “I guess we should say thank you.”

  Paul rubbed his aching wrists. “Yes, thank you, Ms. Fairchild.”

  Lian crossed over the door-frame splinters on the floor. “What a mess.” She turned to Park. “Call somebody to come over here and fix this door.”

  Park pulled out his cell phone and headed for the front room.

  “If you’ll excuse me—” Paul pushed past Jack and headed upstairs.

  “You want to tell me what just happened?” Jack asked.

  Lian shook her head, seemingly perplexed. “Somebody made a mistake—or was sending you a message.”

  “A message like ‘Get the hell out of Dodge’?”

  “Dodge?”

  “An expression. Someone doesn’t want us here and tried to scare us away.”

  “Who would do that?”

  Jack fought the urge to laugh. “Gee, I wonder.”

  Lian frowned. “You think I did this?”

  “I don’t know what to think. But it was awfully convenient of you to show up at just the right moment. Otherwise, I might have called the American embassy, kicked up a ruckus.”

  Lian shook her head. “You are one arrogant prick, you know that?”

  Jack wasn’t expecting that kind of pushback. “I’ve been called worse.”

  “I came here tonight to apo
logize to you for my boorish behavior this afternoon. I was very angry.”

  “I could tell.”

  “And now you accuse me of this?”

  “If you were me, wouldn’t you think the timing was awfully convenient?”

  Lian blew air out of her clenched teeth. “I don’t know what to think, either, so maybe it’s best if I leave.” She turned to go.

  Once again, Jack was at a loss with this woman.

  He was usually pretty good about reading people, but this one kept throwing him off balance. Up until this moment he was sure she was jerking his chain, but her emotional turn made him question himself. He couldn’t shake the feeling he was being played.

  Who was Lian Fairchild, really?

  She was a loyal sister, and clearly her brother opposed the merger. But she was also a loyal daughter, and her father wanted it. And she was a trained security professional. Was she merely bouncing between conflicting loyalties, or was she playing some kind of game with him? And if she was playing a game, what game?

  She was ethnic Chinese, at least in part. Could she possibly be working for them? What better way to infiltrate Dalfan security than by recruiting her?

  But if she was a Chinese spy, she wasn’t very good at her job. A real spy would try to put him at ease, not express constant hostility.

  Unless that was her game.

  Jack swore to himself. He didn’t have a clue. And if he was being completely honest with himself, he sounded a little paranoid.

  Jack touched her arm and tugged on it—gently. She turned around.

  “Look, I’m sorry. I’m not sure what the hell is going on. If you really weren’t part of this, well, I guess I’m an idiot.”

  She didn’t soften. “No guessing is required.”

  Park came back in. “A man will be here first thing in the morning to make the repairs.”

  Lian looked at the door. “What about that?”

  Jack picked up a chair and shoved it against the creaking door. “We’ll be fine tonight. Don’t worry about it.”

  “I suspect those policemen made quite a mess upstairs. Do you need Park’s help cleaning up?”

  “No, we’ll manage.” Jack softened. “And thanks for stopping by. Otherwise, we’d be in jail right now.”