by Mike Maden
ALSO BY TOM CLANCY
FICTION
The Hunt for Red October
Red Storm Rising
Patriot Games
The Cardinal of the Kremlin
Clear and Present Danger
The Sum of All Fears
Without Remorse
Debt of Honor
Executive Orders
Rainbow Six
The Bear and the Dragon
Red Rabbit
The Teeth of the Tiger
Dead or Alive (with Grant Blackwood)
Against All Enemies (with Peter Telep)
Locked On (with Mark Greaney)
Threat Vector (with Mark Greaney)
Command Authority (with Mark Greaney)
Tom Clancy Support and Defend (by Mark Greaney)
Tom Clancy Full Force and Effect (by Mark Greaney)
Tom Clancy Under Fire (by Grant Blackwood)
Tom Clancy Commander in Chief (by Mark Greaney)
Tom Clancy Duty and Honor (by Grant Blackwood)
Tom Clancy True Faith and Allegiance (by Mark Greaney)
Tom Clancy Point of Contact (by Mike Maden)
Tom Clancy Power and Empire (by Marc Cameron)
Tom Clancy Line of Sight (by Mike Maden)
Tom Clancy Oath of Office (by Marc Cameron)
NONFICTION
Submarine: A Guided Tour Inside a Nuclear Warship
Armored Cav: A Guided Tour of an Armored Cavalry Regiment
Fighter Wing: A Guided Tour of an Air Force Combat Wing
Marine: A Guided Tour of a Marine Expeditionary Unit
Airborne: A Guided Tour of an Airborne Task Force
Carrier: A Guided Tour of an Aircraft Carrier
Into the Storm: A Study in Command
with General Fred Franks, Jr. (Ret.), and Tony Koltz
Every Man a Tiger: The Gulf War Air Campaign
with General Chuck Horner (Ret.) and Tony Koltz
Shadow Warriors: Inside the Special Forces
with General Carl Stiner (Ret.) and Tony Koltz
Battle Ready
with General Tony Zinni (Ret.) and Tony Koltz
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
Publishers Since 1838
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
penguinrandomhouse.com
Copyright © 2019 by The Estate of Thomas L. Clancy, Jr.; Rubicon, Inc.; Jack Ryan Enterprises, Ltd.; and Jack Ryan Limited Partnership
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Ebook ISBN 9780525541714
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Version_1
CONTENTS
Also by Tom Clancy
Title Page
Copyright
Epigraph
Principal Characters
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Epilogue
About the Authors
Aut inveniam viam aut faciam.
I shall find a way or make one.
PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS
THE WHITE HOUSE
Jack Ryan: President of the United States
Scott Adler: Secretary of state
Mary Pat Foley: Director of national intelligence
Robert Burgess: Secretary of defense
Arnold “Arnie” van Damm: President Ryan’s chief of staff
THE CAMPUS
Gerry Hendley: Director of The Campus and Hendley Associates
John Clark: Director of operations
Domingo “Ding” Chavez: Senior operations officer
Jack Ryan, Jr.: Operations officer and senior analyst for Hendley Associates
Gavin Biery: Director of information technology
Bartosz “Midas” Jankowski: Operations officer
Lisanne Robertson: Director of transportation
CLOUDSERVE, INC.
Elias Dahm: CEO
Amanda Watson: Senior design
engineer and head of security for the Intelligence Community Cloud
Lawrence Fung: Watson’s number two and supervisor of the Red Team IC Cloud hacking group
OTHER CHARACTERS
Liliana Pilecki: Agent with Poland’s Agencja Bezpieczeństwa Wewnętrznego (ABW)
Senator Deborah Dixon (R): Chair, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Aaron Gage: Husband of Deborah Dixon and CEO and founder of Gage Capital Partners
Christopher Gage: Stepson of Deborah Dixon and CEO of Gage Group International
Rick Sands: Former member 75th Ranger Regiment
1
PARTIDO DE BAHÍA BLANCA, ARGENTINA
He was a Scorpion.
First Ensign Salvio was never more proud of that fact than now. He checked his watch.
Three minutes to target.
Like his men, he was kitted out in body armor, a leg-holstered Glock 17 pistol, an M4A1 carbine, and a ballistic ATE Kevlar helmet with night-vision goggles.
The noise of the whining twin turboshafts of the EC145 Eurocopter filled the dimly lit cabin. His platoon of special operators of Grupo Alacrán—Scorpion Group—was the best unit in the Gendarmería Nacional Argentina. Maybe the whole country.
Grupo Alacrán was Argentina’s primary antiterror weapon. Like Israel’s Yamam—the elite police unit with whom Salvio’s team had trained in the Ayalon Valley—his men were the bleeding tip of the spear.
Salvio flashed three fingers to his trusted number two, Sergeant-Adjutant Acuña, who acknowledged with a nod and a feral grin. The two of them cut their teeth fighting armed Mafia gangs and Islamic radicals in La Triple Frontera, the border region where Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina collided. Long a bastion of drugs, guns, and human trafficking by international and indigenous gangs, the region’s violence and crime grew worse each year. The Lebanon civil war drove tens of thousands of Lebanese to the region, and with them, Hezbollah.
And with Hezbollah came Iran.
Hell, even Osama bin Laden and Khalid Sheik Mohammed had visited La Triple Frontera years ago.
His government couldn’t root them out. Couldn’t even stem the tide. But after OBL appeared on scene, American money and technology flooded in and brought the war on terror to La Triple Frontera. Kept the cancer contained for a few years. But then the Americans turned their attention elsewhere and now Hezbollah was on the move again. South.
Tonight’s mission was proof of that.
GNA intelligence had spotted a Lebanese Hezbollah commander two days ago, and CIA confirmed. But the CIA confirmation yesterday of an actual Iranian Quds Force commander on the ground near the coastal city of Bahía Blanca put blood in their mouths.
Against his government’s protests, a gathering of Hasidic youth in Bahía Blanca was scheduled for next week. Hundreds of young Jewish people from all over the country would attend. A perfect target.
And an Iranian Quds Force commander to lead the attack.
Hezbollah had killed in his country before. More than a hundred Jews in two separate bombing attacks in the nineties.
And they’d promised to do it again.
The two terrorists were holed up at a small abandoned horse ranch just twenty-six kilometers north of the city. “Capture them—alive” was his only order, straight from the mouth of the comandante mayor. A chance to finally break the Hezbollah network, he said. And to knock the bastard Iranians back on their heels.
So they saddled up at their base in Ciudad Evita, loading out three helicopters with twenty-three of his best troopers. The three Eurocopters took three different flight vectors, avoiding direct routes from the base to the target. He was pushing the EC145 range limit to the maximum but there was no point in making it easy for any shoulder-fired MANPADS the tangos might have with them. His aircraft would need a refuel for the flight back for sure.
“Two minutes out,” the pilot said in Salvio’s headset. He glanced around the cabin. Tarabini, Gallardo, Zanetti, Crispo, Birkner, Hermann. His boys were young but well trained, good shooters and duros. They met his eyes with confident smiles. They were like hungry wolves in a pack.
His pack.
“Kill the lights,” he told the pilot. The dim red bulbs extinguished.
Salvio switched his comms channel. “Bravo One, this is Alpha One. Sitrep.”
His sniper team—a shooter and spotter posted a kilometer away in the flat, open field surrounding the ranch—replied. “Eyes on. No movement. Lights out. Good to go, sir.”
“ETA ninety seconds,” Salvio said, adding in English, “Stay frosty!” He logged off. Like every other Argentinian man his age, he grew up on American movies, but it was his Black Hat jump instructor at Fort Benning who’d first barked that order at him.
Time to rock ’n’ roll.
* * *
—
Based on drone surveillance photos shot the day before, Salvio ordered the pilots to put down in a NATO “Y” formation at twelve, four, and eight o’clock relative to the broken-down main house. The only trees in the area were a few dense mesquites surrounding the house, partially blocking the view of the windows. Fence rails were down in several places, and a few ramshackle outbuildings were scattered around the now horseless ranch that had seen better days.
Each Eurocopter flared in near perfect sync to just a meter above the hard-packed dirt one hundred meters from the house. Salvio jumped first. His men followed, boots hitting the ground on a dead run. The choppers roared away and took up overwatch, circling high and wide as the Scorpion operators raced toward the main house. Beneath the moonless blue-black sky, the ancient farmhouse was a gray shadow.
Salvio landed at the four o’clock. He whispered orders into his comms for the advance of the rest of his team, knowing full well his men could do it without him.
“Bravo One, we’re on the ground,” Salvio said. “Watch your fire.”
“We have your back, sir.” The sniper team was positioned at six o’clock, the big Barrett M95 directly opposite the front door, ready to put a .50 BMG slug through any cabrón that stepped into its night-vision glass.
Salvio’s squad advanced at a slow, crouching trot, as did the others. Out in the open on the flat, grassy plains there was little chance of finding cover, so dropping in close was the only choice. He’d chosen the night, hoping the fighters inside didn’t have night-vision capabilities.
The twenty-four troopers closed in rapidly from three directions, weapons high, rounds chambered, safeties off. Heavy boots thudded onto the rickety wraparound porch, where the squads split up, stacking on either side of windows and both doors, front and back. Flash-bangs were pulled.
Salvio took the front door. Arab music blared from a tinny radio inside. He whispered another order into his comms. Flash-bangs crashed through window glass in six places simultaneously. The men closed their eyes and opened their mouths just as the grenades detonated.
Doors crashed open under their boots and Scorpions poured through into darkened rooms. The tactical light on Salvio’s Glock 17 illumined the living room, as did the swiftly panning lights on the carbines around him.
“Clear!” one of his sargentos shouted from the back of the house. Other shouts of “Clear!” soon followed. Soon, Acuña appeared, disappointment in his flash-lit eyes.
“All clear, sir. Nobody’s home.”
Salvio swore as he holstered his pistol. Where the hell were these bastards?
“Aquí!” a man shouted from the kitchen. Salvio and Acuña dashed in. Private Gallardo’s lighted weapon pointed at the floor inside a small pantry closet. A trap door. Salvio tore it open and pulled out his pistol, activated the tac light on the barrel.
“Gallardo, Hermann, with me,” Salvio ordered as he dropped into the darkened tunnel.
* * *
—
Salvio and the others returned to the kitchen ent
rance empty-handed. The tunnel ran seventy or so meters to an empty outbuilding. The terrorists must have fled from there, out of sight of his sniper team.
Salvio checked in with the chopper pilots on his comms, all deploying night vision and thermal imaging. “See anything?”
“No, sir. Not even a rabbit.”
Damn it!
He was supposed to report the capture of the two terrorists to the comandante mayor as soon as it happened. The old man would be pissed. All he had in his hands at the moment was his own swinging dick. Not exactly what HQ was hoping for.
Salvio barked orders. He’d tear the place apart for intelligence. Maybe come away with something to show for their efforts.
* * *
—
They ripped through the house front to back, flipping mattresses, tossing drawers, pulling rugs, tearing up floorboards. The place looked like a debris field after a tornado.
Somebody had been here—trash and butts on the floor, a filthy, unflushed toilet.
But not one shred of intel to bring back for a trophy.
While his men stood around gulping water from their hydration packs and scarfing down protein bars, Salvio called his pilots, ordering them to land for exfil. Might as well get back to barracks at Ciudad Evita and call it a night.
Ten minutes later, his unit’s three Eurocopters touched down, their turbines slowed. His men ducked low to avoid the carbon-fiber rotors raking the air just above their heads and piled into the choppers. They made room for the sniper and his spotter, who’d had to hump in six klicks by foot the day before to avoid detection. The sniper grabbed a spot on the floor at Salvio’s feet.
At least the men were in good spirits, Salvio told himself. They laughed and joked among themselves as young men do for release after the adrenaline rush of a combat operation.
Even one where no shots were fired.
“Ready, Ensign?” the pilot asked.
“Let’s get back to the barn,” Salvio said, in English. Just like his instructor at Fort Benning used to say. “Rápido.” Salvio’s son, a striker, was finally starting on his fútbol team. With any luck, the refuel would go fast and he’d make it home in time to catch his game.
