by Tom Clancy
“A call for you on line one, sir.”
“Who is it?” Clark asked.
“He didn’t say, sir.”
“Okay,” John grumbled. He switched buttons and said, “This is John Clark.”
“Good morning, Mr. Clark,” the anonymous voice said in greeting.
“Who is this?” John asked.
“We have a mutual acquaintance. His name is Sean Grady.”
“Yes?” Clark’s hand tightened on the instrument, and he punched the RECORD button for the attached taping system.
“You may know my name, therefore, as Iosef Andreyevich Serov. We should meet, Mr. Clark.”
“Yes,” John replied evenly, “I’d like that. How do we do it?”
“Today, I think, in New York. Take the British Airways Concorde Flight 1 into JFK, and I will meet you at one in the afternoon at the entrance to the Central Park Zoo. The redbrick building that looks like a castle. I shall be there at eleven o’clock exactly. Any questions?”
“I suppose not. Okay, eleven A.M. in New York.”
“Thank you. Good-bye.” The line went dead, and Clark switched buttons again.
“Alice, could you have Bill and Alistair join me, please?”
They came in less than three minutes later. “Listen to this one, guys,” John said, hitting the PLAY button on the tape machine.
“Bloody hell,” Bill Tawney observed, a second before Al Stanley could do the same. “He wants to meet you? I wonder why.”
“Only one way to find out. I have to catch the Concorde for New York. Al, could you get Malloy awake so he can chopper me to Heathrow?”
“You’re going?” Stanley asked. The answer was obvious.
“Why not? Hell”—John grinned—“it gets me out of the fucking budget meeting.”
“Quite so. There could be dangers involved.”
“I’ll have the FBI send some people to look after me, and I’ll have a friend with me,” Clark pointed out, meaning his .45 Beretta. “We’re dealing with a professional spook here. There’s more danger to him than there is to me, unless he’s got a very elaborate operation set up at the other end, and we should be able to spot that. He wants to meet with me. He’s a pro, and that means he wants to tell me something—or maybe ask me something, but I’d lean the other way, right?”
“I’d have to agree with that,” Tawney said.
“Objections?” Clark asked his principal subordinates. There were none. They were just as curious as he was, though they’d want good security in New York for the meeting. But that would not be a problem.
Clark checked his watch. “It’s short of four in the morning there—and he wants the meet to be today. Pretty fast for this sort of thing. Why the hurry? Any ideas?”
“He could want to tell you that he had no connection with the hospital incident. Aside from that? . . .” Tawney just shook his head.
“Timing’s a problem. That’s a ten-thirty flight, John,” Stanley pointed out. “It’s now three-thirty on your East Coast. No one important will be at work yet.”
“We’ll just have to wake them up.” Clark looked at his phone and hit the speed-dial button for FBI headquarters.
“FBI,” another anonymous voice said.
“I need to talk to Assistant Director Chuck Baker.”
“I don’t think Mr. Baker will be in now.”
“I know. Call him at home. Tell him that John Clark is calling.” He could almost hear the oh, shit at the other end of the call, but an order had been given by a voice that sounded serious, and it would have to be followed.
“Hello,” another voice said somewhat groggily a minute later.
“Chuck, this is John Clark. Something’s turned on the Serov case.”
“What’s that?” And why the hell can’t it wait four hours? the voice didn’t go on.
John explained. He could hear the man waking up at the other end.
“Okay,” Baker said. “I’ll have some guys from New York meet you at the terminal, John.”
“Thanks, Chuck. Sorry to shake you loose at this hour.”
“Yeah, John. Bye.”
The rest was easy. Malloy came into his office after his own morning workout, and called to get his helicopter readied for a hop. It didn’t take long. The only headache was having to filter through the in- and outbound airliner traffic, but the chopper landed at the general-aviation terminal, and an airport security car took John to the proper terminal, where Clark was able to walk into the Speedway Lounge twenty minutes before the flight to collect his ticket. This way, he also bypassed security, and was thus spared the embarrassment of having to explain that he carried a pistol, which in the United Kingdom was the equivalent of announcing that he had a case of highly infectious leprosy. The service was British-lavish, and he had to decline the offer of champagne before boarding the aircraft. Then the flight was called, and Clark walked down the jetway and into the world’s fastest airliner for Flight 1 to New York’s JFK International. The pilot gave the usual preflight brief, and a tractor pushed the oversized fighter aircraft away from its gate. In less than four hours, John thought, he’d be back in the States. Wasn’t air travel wonderful? But better yet, he had in his lap the package that had just been couriered in. It was the personnel package for one Popov, Dmitriy Arkadeyevich. It had been heavily edited, he was sure, but even so it made for interesting reading, as the Concorde leaped into the air and turned west for America. Thank you, Sergey Nikolayevich, John thought, flipping through the pages. It had to be the real KGB file, John saw. Some of the photocopied pages showed pinholes in the upper-left corners, which meant that they dated back to when KGB had used pins to keep pages together instead of staples, that having been copied from the British MI-6 back in the 1920s. It was a piece of trivia that only insiders really knew.
Clark was about halfway across the North Atlantic when Popov awoke on his own again at seven-fifteen. He ordered breakfast sent up and got himself clean in preparation for a busy day. By eight-fifteen, he was walking out the front door, and looked first of all for a men’s store that was open for business. That proved to be frustrating, until finally he found one whose doors opened promptly at nine. Thirty minutes later, he had an expensive but somewhat ill-fitting gray suit, plus shirts and ties that he took back to his hotel room and into which he changed at once. Then it was time for him to walk to Central Park.
The building that guarded the Central Park Zoo was strange to behold. It was made of brick, and had battlements on the roof as though to defend the area against armed attack, but the same walls were dotted with windows, and the entire building sat in a depression rather than atop a hill, as a proper castle did. Well, American architects had their own ideas, Popov decided. He circulated about the area, looking for the FBI agents (or perhaps CIA field officers? he wondered) who were certain to be there to cover this meeting—and possibly to arrest him? Well, there was nothing to be done about that. He would now learn if this John Clark were truly an intelligence officer. That business had rules, and Clark should follow them as a matter of professional courtesy. The gamble was a huge one on his part, and Clark had to respect it for that very reason, but he couldn’t be sure. Well, one couldn’t be sure of much in this world.
Dr. Killgore came to the cafeteria at his accustomed hour, but surprisingly didn’t find his Russian friend, or Foster Hunnicutt, there. Well, maybe they’d both slept late. He lingered over breakfast twenty minutes more than usual before deciding, the hell with it, and drove to the horse barn. There he found another surprise. Both Buttermilk and Jeremiah were in the corral, neither of them saddled or bridled. There was no way for him to know that both horses had walked back to their home on their own last night. Curious, he walked both back to their stalls before saddling up his own usual mount. He waited outside in the corral for another fifteen minutes, wondering if his friends would show up, but they didn’t, and he and Kirk Maclean rode off west for their morning tour of the countryside.
The covert side o
f the business could be fun, Sullivan thought. Here he was driving what appeared to be a Consolidated Edison van, and wearing the blue coveralls that announced the same employment. The clothing was baggy enough to allow him to carry a dozen weapons inside the ugly garment, but better yet it made him effectively invisible. There were enough of these uniforms on the streets of New York that no one ever noticed them. This discreet surveillance mission had been laid on in one big hurry, with no fewer than eight agents already at the rendezvous site, all carrying the passport photo of this Serov subject, for what good it was. They lacked height and weight estimates, and that meant they were looking for an OWG, an ordinary white guy, of which New York City had at least three million.
Inside the terminal, his partner, Frank Chatham, was waiting at the exit ramp off British Airways Flight 1, in a suit and tie. His coverall outfit was inside the Con Ed van that Sullivan had parked outside the terminal. They didn’t even know who this Clark guy was whom they were meeting, just that Assistant Director Baker thought he was pretty fucking important.
The aircraft got in exactly on time. Clark, in seat 1-C, stood and was the first off the aircraft. The FBI escort at the jetway exit was easy to spot.
“Looking for me?”
“Your name, sir?”
“John Clark. Chuck Baker should have—”
“He did. Follow me, sir.” Chatham led him out the fast way, bypassing immigration and customs, and it was just one more time that John’s passport wouldn’t be stamped to celebrate his entry into a sovereign country. The Con Ed van was easily spotted. Clark went for it without being told to and hopped in.
“Hi, I’m John Clark,” he told the driver.
“Tom Sullivan. You’ve met Frank.”
“Let’s move, Mr. Sullivan,” John told him.
“Yes, sir.” The van took off at once. In the back, Chatham sat and struggled into his blue coveralls.
“Okay, sir, what exactly is happening here?”
“I’m meeting a guy.”
“Serov?” Sullivan asked, as he negotiated his way onto the highway.
“Yeah, but his real name is Popov. Dmitriy Arkadeyevich Popov. He used to be a colonel in the old KGB. I have his personnel package, read it coming across. He’s a specialist in dealing with terrorists, probably has more connections than the phone company.”
“This guy set up the operation that—”
“Yeah.” John nodded in the front-right passenger seat. “The operation that went after my wife and my daughter. They were the primary targets.”
“Shit!” Chatham observed, as he zipped his outfit up. They hadn’t known that. “And you want to meet with this mutt?”
“Business is business, guys,” John pointed out, wondering if he really believed that or not.
“So, who are you?”
“Agency, used to be, anyway.”
“How do you know Mr. Baker?”
“I have a slightly different job now, and we have to interface with the Bureau. Mainly with Gus Werner, but lately I’ve been talking with Baker, too.”
“You part of the team that took down the bad guys at the hospital over in England?”
“I’m the boss of it,” Clark told them. “But don’t go spreading that around, okay?”
“No problem,” Sullivan replied.
“You’re working the case on Mr. Serov?”
“That’s one of them we’ve got on the desk, yes.”
“What do you got on it?” John asked.
“Passport photo—I guess you have that.”
“Better, I have his official KGB photo. Better than the passport one, it’s like a mug shot full face and profile, but it’s ten years old. What else you have?”
“Bank accounts, credit-card records, post-office box, but no address yet. We’re still working on that.”
“What’s he wanted for?” John asked next.
“Conspiracy mainly,” Sullivan answered. “Conspiracy to incite terrorism, conspiracy to traffic in illegal drugs. Those statutes are pretty broad, so that’s what we use in cases where we don’t have much of a clue as to what’s really happening.”
“Can you arrest him?”
“You bet. On sight,” Chatham said in the back. “Do you want us to do that?”
“I’m not sure.” Clark settled into the uncomfortable seat, and watched the approach of the New York skyline, still wondering what the hell this was all about. He’d find out soon enough, John told himself, thinking that it couldn’t be soon enough to meet the fucker who’d sent armed men out after his wife and daughter. He managed a scowl at the approaching city that the FBI agents didn’t notice.
Popov thought that he had two FBI types spotted, not to mention a pair of uniformed police officers who might or might not be part of the surveillance that had to be assembling here. There was nothing for it, however. He had to meet with this Clark fellow, and that meant that the meet had to be in a public place, else he’d have to walk right into the lion’s den, something he could not bring himself to do. Here he’d have some chance, just a matter, really, of walking south toward the subway station and racing down to catch a train. That would shake a lot of them off, and give him options. Dump his suit coat and change his appearance, put on the hat he had tucked into a pants pocket. He figured he had about an even chance of evading contact if he had to, and there was little danger that anyone would shoot him, not in the heart of America’s largest city. But his best chance was to communicate with Clark. If he were the professional Popov believed him to be, then they could do business. They had to. There was no choice for either of them, Dmitriy Arkadeyevich told himself.
The van crossed the East River and proceeded west through crowded streets. John checked his watch.
“No problem, sir. We’ll be about ten minutes early,” Sullivan told him.
“Good,” John replied tensely. It was coming soon now, and he had to get his emotions totally under control. A passionate man, John Terence Clark had more than once let them loose on a job, but he couldn’t allow this now. Whoever this Russian was, he had invited him to the meeting, and that meant something—what, he could not yet know, but it had to mean that something unusual was afoot. And so he had to set aside all thoughts of past dangers to his immediate family. He had to be stone cold at this meeting, and so, sitting there in the front seat of the Con Ed truck, Clark told himself to breathe deeply and relax, and slowly he managed to accomplish that. Then his curiosity took over. This Russian had to know that Clark knew what he’d done, and still he’d asked for this meeting, and insisted on having it done speedily. That had to mean something, John told himself, as they broke through traffic and turned left onto Fifth Avenue. He checked his watch again. They were fourteen minutes early. The van eased over to the right and stopped. Clark stepped out and headed south on the crowded sidewalk, past people selling used books and other gimcracks from what appeared to be portable wooden closets. Behind him the FBI agents moved the van forward, stopped it close to the meet-building and got out, carrying papers and looking around rather too obviously like Con Ed employees, John thought. Then he turned right and walked down the stairs and looked up at the redbrick building that had been someone’s idea of a castle a hundred years or so before. It didn’t take long.
“Good morning, John Clark,” a man’s voice said behind him.
“Good morning, Dmitriy Arkadeyevich,” John replied, without turning at first.
“Very good,” the voice said approvingly. “I congratulate you on learning one of my names.”
“We have good intelligence support,” John went on, without turning.
“You had a pleasant flight?”
“A fast one. I’ve never done the Concorde before. It was not unpleasant. So, Dmitriy, what can I do for you?”
“I must first of all apologize to you for my contacts with Grady and his people.”
“What about the other operations?” Clark asked as a dangle, something of a gamble, but he was in a gambling mood.
“But that one was a sick little girl,” John observed too quickly.
“No, I had nothing to do with Worldpark. The bank in Bern, and the stock-trader outside Vienna, yes, those were my missions, but not the amusement park.”
“So, you have implicated yourself in three terrorist operations. That is against the law, you know.”
“Yes, I am aware of that,” the Russian replied dryly.
“So, what can I do for you?” John asked again.
“It is more what I can do for you, Mr. Clark.”
“And that is?” Still he didn’t turn. But there had to be half a dozen FBI agents watching, maybe one with a shotgun microphone to record the exchange. In his haste to come over, Clark hadn’t been able to get a proper recording system for his suit.
“Clark, I can give you the reason for the missions, and the name of the man who instigated it all—it is quite monstrous. I only discovered yesterday, not even twenty-four hours ago, what the purpose for all of this is.”
“So, what is the objective?” John asked.
“To kill almost every human being on the planet,” Popov replied.
That made Clark stop walking and turn to look at the man. The KGB file mug shot was pretty good, he saw. “Is this some sort of movie script?” he asked coldly.
“Clark, yesterday I was in Kansas. There I learned the plan for this ‘project.’ I shot and killed the person who told me so that I could escape. The man I killed was Foster Hunnicutt, a hunter-guide from Montana. I shot him in the chest with his own Colt forty-four pistol. From there I went to the nearest highway and managed to beg a ride to the nearest regional airport, from there to Kansas City, and from there to New York. I called you from my hotel room less than eight hours ago. Yes, Clark, I know you have the power to arrest me. You must have security watching us right now, presumably from your FBI,” he said as they walked into the area with the animal cages. “And so you need only wave your hand and I will be arrested, and I have just told you the name of the man I shot, and the location where it was done. Plus you have me for inciting terrorist incidents, and I presume for drug-trafficking as well. I know this, yet I have asked for this meeting. Do you suppose that I am joking with you, John Clark?”
