“Like that kids’ game, telephone.”
“Not optimum, I know,” Foley said. “But Yao’s bullshit detector has proven to be solid. He’ll work to get you answers for any questions you have as they arise.”
“Great,” Hendricks said, sounding anything but. She thumbed through the folder. There wasn’t much there. Yao’s report. Recent cases of two blown CIA operations, one in Australia, the other in Indonesia, where the Chinese did end runs as if they had the local operational playbook. The worst incident was a Chinese Christian asset in Indonesia who’d been compromised by leaked intelligence. He’d last been seen being dragged into a dark van, a white hood over his head. Boots on the ground said he’d been tied to a rubber tree outside of Jakarta and shot—after a lengthy and painful interrogation. The MSS officers who’d done it had left plenty of marks on the body—a warning to anyone else who might decide to cooperate with the West. It was enough to convince Hendricks to stay as long as it took to catch SURVEYOR.
“I’m going to need a much larger team than the President and a bunch of agency heads,” Hendricks said, still reading.
“Of course.”
“I can pick whomever I want?”
“As long as they pass the vetting process.”
“And I run the vetting process?”
Foley seemed to consider this for a moment, then nodded. “It’s your show. Why do you ask? Who are you thinking?”
“I understand David Wallace is over from the Bureau, but he will always tend to think in terms of making a criminal case for eventual prosecution. I’d much rather run it like a CIA operation. Prosecution if we can, but discovering the threat so we can stanch the flow of leaked intel has to be our first priority.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Foley said.
“There’s a guy I’d like to be my deputy,” Hendricks said. “Retired from the Navy. He helped me get out of Somalia years ago on his destroyer. You and I crossed paths with many good folks over the course of our careers. Most, you simply thank them and move on. But this guy and I clicked. Became good friends.” She looked at Foley. “I’m sure there’s someone like that in your past.”
“Yeah,” Foley said. “My guy’s the President.”
“Then you know what I’m talking about. Honestly, my husband was always a little jealous of my ‘Navy friend.’”
“That’s not going to be a problem? Nothing that will—”
“Hey, I passed my polygraph,” Hendricks said. “Seriously, it wasn’t like that. And anyway, look at me. I’m pretty certain the days of my husband thinking some dude’s gonna ravish me while I’m out on assignment are long gone.”
“Those days never end, my friend,” Foley said. “Believe me.”
Hendricks laughed and waved away the thought. “Anyway, he’s just a really good person. Someone we can trust—and he’s of Chinese descent.”
“A retired admiral?”
Hendricks nodded.
Foley tapped a finger against her temple and gave Hendricks a conspiratorial wink. “We’re probably thinking about the same guy …”
Back in her car in the Liberty Crossing visitor parking lot, Monica Hendricks sent a text via Signal. The messaging app was end-to-end encrypted, but habit made her careful with her words unless she was talking on an STU or some other dedicated secure device.
Her friend was cordial, if a little terse, but that could have been the fact that they were thumb-typing. He gave her a quick rundown on his life like he was giving a bottom-line-up-front briefing to the Joint Chiefs. She did the same. Three sentences to encapsulate the status of her life.
He cut to the chase. What’s up?
Something I need to run by you.
Shoot.
Hendricks thought for a moment, then typed. It needs to be in person. She was of the generation that texted in complete sentences and checked her spelling and grammar before hitting send.
Okay. It must be important, then.
Something important enough to keep me from walking out the door. She sent that, then added, I’d come to you, but things are crazy busy. Can you come to D.C.?
Pulsing dots … but only for a moment.
I’ll break the news to Sophie.
I’m sorry it’s last-minute. Today would be best, if at all possible.
Admiral Peter Li’s answer came back almost immediately, as she knew it would.
I’ll be there.
18
“This is exactly the kind of problem you’re good at,” Cathy Ryan said, slouching across the study in an overstuffed leather chair.
Jack Ryan found himself mesmerized by this gorgeous, rock-solid oasis of sanity in an insane world. Blond hair askew over her forehead, eyes half closed, she balanced an astonishingly bright cobalt-blue Paul Green pump on the toe of her astonishingly beautiful foot.
A world-renowned ophthalmic surgeon, Dr. Cathy Ryan had performed three retinal surgeries that morning. Dealing with vessels and nerves smaller than a human hair, there was zero room for error. Not particularly physical, but heavy lifting nonetheless.
Ryan stretched out on the well-worn cushions of the leather sofa of his private study off the Oval Office, tie loose, shoes off. Hands folded across his chest, his head turned sideways so he could lie down and still look at his wife.
“Not sure if I’m good at it,” he said. “But a Chinese mole inside CIA is definitely a problem.”
“But that’s not the problem you were talking about.”
Ryan rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “We have some incredibly brave and devoted patriots of Asian heritage in our intelligence organizations, and we’re about to put the screws to the vast majority of them, basically tell them we’ve stopped trusting them because of who their grandparents are. But the fact remains, the PRC likes to utilize people who have ties to China, to appeal to their sense of what it means to be Chinese. It’s a hard reality.”
“Are you sure this mole is of Chinese descent?”
“Not at all,” Ryan said. “But we have to consider the possibility. It troubles me that we actively recruit intelligence officers who speak native Mandarin, and then turn on them like this for the same reason we hired them. If we move too far in one direction, I ruin dozens of careers. Don’t move far enough, and a mole continues to bleed us dry of critical intelligence, endangering lives. It would be all too easy to have a purge.”
“My dear,” Cathy said, sounding almost asleep. “The fact that you struggle with this at all puts you a hundred and eighty degrees off a purge.”
“Mary Pat and I have hashed this out ad nauseam,” Ryan said. “She and her team will do a thoughtful job, but the buck stops with me. Every piece of guidance and advice I give is scrutinized—and heeded.”
“I get it,” Cathy said. “You can’t unlaunch a missile once you say ‘fire.’”
“You can,” Ryan said, “but the analogy makes the point. The direction I give affects people’s lives.”
The corner of Cathy’s lip perked in a half-smile. “It might be good for the guy on the street to hear Jack Ryan struggle with all sides of an issue once in a great while.”
“That’s sausage nobody wants to see made,” Ryan said. “Sometimes I worry that my team is banking everything on me making the exact right move at exactly the right time.”
Cathy’s eye flicked open. “You mean like when I alone am utilizing a powerful laser to work around microscopic vessels and blast someone’s tissue to reattach the retina to the back of their eye? Yeah, I think I get what you’re talking about.”
“Sorry for whining.” Ryan groaned. “Of course you get it.”
“Maybe we should just sneak away,” she said. “Because I have to tell you, sometimes, I feel like sneaking away.”
Ryan gave a little shrug, chin to chest. The couch in his private study was his second-favorite thinking spot. “I thought this was sneaking away.”
Cathy looked up at him with a mock pout. “I guess so. At least we’re aw
ay from that little peephole in the Oval Office door. I trust Betty, but … it still weirds me out sometimes to think about you living under a glass bubble.”
“Weirds you out?” Ryan swung his legs to the floor, patting the cushion beside him.
“I’m too tired to move, Jack.”
“Presidential order?”
“Nice try.”
She hauled herself out of the chair anyway and plopped down beside Ryan. “Just so you know, I’m moving because I want to, not because you made me.”
“Of that, my dear,” Ryan said, “I have no doubt.”
They leaned back together, staring at the ceiling.
Cathy yawned. “This is a comfortable couch.” She closed her eyes. “You have good hands,” she said, out of the blue.
Ryan gave her a quizzical look. “I appreciate that …”
“Good hands are a gift, Jack.”
“Thanks?”
“By the time a would-be surgeon gets to me, they’ve been through four years of medical school, rotations, practical testing, and an internship … at least. Most of the residents who come my way are pretty good at what they do. They’ll make good surgeons who can do ninety-five percent of the procedures out there. Every couple of years, though, I get a would-be surgeon who can rattle off the textbook answer to any question I throw out or look at a patient and diagnose the problem with ease. But when it comes to surgery, they are clumsy and inept. We say they have wooden hands.”
“Okay …”
“I’m telling you, you don’t have wooden hands, Jack. You’re not one of the other ninety-five percent, either.” She rested her palms flat on her knees and heaved a long sigh. “I’m not sure what it’s like to be President, but I know what it’s like to be a surgeon. It takes a monumental amount of swagger. You have to know you’re good enough to step up when everyone is looking over your shoulder with a literal microscope. You are skilled and sure and self-aware enough that you will make the right decision about this. You have good hands …” She glanced up at him. “Very. Good. Hands.”
“Are we still talking about my dilemma?”
“That depends on—”
Ryan groaned inside when a knock at the door cut her off.
Ryan took a seat behind the Resolute desk, his back to the windows overlooking the Rose Garden. The lingering smell of Cathy’s shampoo filled him with suffused giddiness—even after all these decades—and it took every ounce of his energy to give his full attention to Dustin Fullmer, from Defense Mapping.
Arnie van Damm pulled one of the Chippendale side chairs around to the end of the desk.
Fullmer, a twentysomething analyst, stood rooted in place, as if there were yellow footprints painted on the carpet in front of the Resolute. Like virtually everyone who briefed at the White House, he had a fresh haircut and a new suit.
He’d been involved in a handful of briefings, but never as lead. Folio clutched at his waist with both hands, he stood and nodded, meeting Ryan’s eye but not saying a word.
“Let’s have it, Dustin,” Ryan said.
“Have what, Mr. President?”
Van Damm closed his eyes and shook his head. “You told me you needed to brief the President.”
“No, sir, Mr. van Damm,” Fullmer said. “I said the President needed to be briefed. Commander Forestall is on his way over. Perhaps we should wait for—”
Ryan raised an open hand. “Your bosses trust you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“It wasn’t a question, Dustin,” Ryan said. “I know they trust you, or they wouldn’t have sent you over to brief me. I’ve been in your shoes, shoved out in front, so to speak. Believe me, I understand what it’s like to stand where you’re standing. So take a deep breath and give me what you’ve got. We can go over it again when Commander Forestall arrives.”
“Of course, Mr. President,” Fullmer said. “I was …” He caught van Damm’s gaze and opened the leather folio. “As you’re aware, China and Russia recently engaged in a military exercise they called Snow Dragon. Satellite imagery shows three Chinese submarines departed pens in Wuhan and Hainan approximately five months ago. Two Shang Type 093 nuclear fast-attacks, then later a Kilo diesel-electric. The Kilo surfaced to top off batteries every twenty-four hours. They made no attempt to hide. A week later, a Jin-class nuclear ballistic missile sub departed Huludao. We picked it up again when it transited the Bering Strait and monitored it during the war game. The Kilo peeled off from the pack near Anadyr, Russia, at which point a fifth Chinese submarine, a Yuan, we believe, hull number 771, appeared. Both these subs stayed in the littoral waters around Anadyr, participating with Chinese and Russian surface ships in what we assume was a different round of the same exercise.”
Ryan nodded, showing that he was listening. None of this was exactly new information.
Van Damm made an ever so slight get-on-with-it motion with his hand.
Fullmer swallowed, taking the hint. “Satellite imaging, undersea hydrophonic arrays, and P-3cs stationed at Eielson Air Force Base near Fairbanks, Alaska, show the Shang fast-attacks transited the Bering Strait nine days ago, moving southward. The Kilo departed Anadyr at around the same time, but the Yuan remained for an extra week before departing to the south.”
“Okay …” Ryan said.
“Right,” Fullmer said. “The point is, the Yuan-class sub has turned around and has transited the Bering Strait heading north. We’ve picked up a coded signal we believe is coming from an area known as the Mendeleev Ridge in the Arctic Ocean.”
“A submarine in distress?” Ryan asked.
“A DISSUB would make sense, sir,” Fullmer said. “Both Shang fast-attacks have apparently turned around and passed through the Bering two hours ago. The Chinese Kilo appears to be following.”
“Any Russian vessels heading toward the coded signal?”
“There are some standing well off,” Fullmer said. “But none approaching. The newest Chinese icebreaker Xue Long 2 took part in the exercises and remained in Russian waters. It is moving toward the signal from the Laptev Sea.” Fullmer swallowed. “Incidentally, Xue Long means snow dragon … Same as the name of the exercise …”
“Interesting,” Ryan said, looking at van Damm, amused but for the gravity of the situation. Forestall was on his way. That was a good thing.
Fullmer continued. “It’s spring and the Arctic ice is thinning, but it still keeps most surface vessels away.”
“So a coded signal,” Ryan asked. “And returning submarines …”
Fullmer waited a beat. When van Damm didn’t offer anything, he said, “The subs that—”
A knock at the door from the secretaries’ suite preceded Commander Robbie Forestall’s arrival. He apologized for D.C. traffic. Breathing easier now, Fullmer brought the commander quickly up to speed.
Forestall took a stack of 8x10 color photographs from his folder and passed them across the desk to give commentary—and clarity—to Fullmer’s earlier brief.
Ryan tapped the humpbacked submarine in the photo. “Tell me what I’m looking at.”
“That’s the Yuan-class,” Forestall said. “The 771.”
“And a Yuan isn’t a nuke,” Ryan mused.
“It is not,” Forestall said.
“Dustin mentioned the Chinese boomer,” Ryan said. “The Jin-class. When’s the last time we saw her?”
“Our last contact with her was a week ago, north of the Bering Strait.”
“So are we thinking this boomer is in distress and calling for help?”
“High probability,” Forestall said.
“I can see them sending the Shangs into an overhead environment like an ice floe, but the Yuan’s a diesel. Seems like a good way to lose another sub.”
“Right,” Forestall said. “But the Yuan’s not an ordinary diesel-electric. Folks at the Naval Institute describe it as like a Song that resembles the Russian Kilo or a Kilo that has some characteristics of a Song. The Yuan has horizontal control surfaces on his sail and a d
orsal rudder—like the Song-class boats. The Kilos have neither of these features, but they do share the same two-over-four torpedo tube configuration with the Yuan. Shipbuilders in Wuhan are turning out this newer class of sub with a rubberized hull coating, seven-blade screw, antivibration rack. State-of-the-art weaponry and sonar come either from Russia and or France. This is a very quiet sub, Mr. President. China has had great success with air-independent power.”
“Meaning they don’t need to surface and run their diesel to charge their batteries,” Ryan said.
“Exactly,” Forestall said. “We’re not sure how long they can stay under, but at least two weeks. We’ve inserted a test section with AIP in one of our Virginia-class boats for testing, but honestly, sir, we’ve put most of our eggs in the nuke basket. France sold AIP hardware to Pakistan. Germany is using the technology as well.”
“So,” Ryan said, “all but one of the Chinese submarines returning to Arctic waters are capable of staying submerged and maneuvering while doing so for sustained periods.”
“That’s correct, Mr. President,” Forestall said.
“To go under the ice …” Ryan said. “Even the Communist Chinese wouldn’t want to risk their nascent submarine forces by sailing them into an overhead environment where they could not surface if they had an issue. So a DISSUB sounds on the nose.”
“True enough, Mr. President,” Forestall said. “We wanted to give you the military picture to give background for what I have next.”
19
“I would not normally have brought something of this nature to your attention,” Commander Forestall said. “But considering the coded signal coming from somewhere around the Mendeleev Ridge …”
“I’m all ears, Robby,” Ryan said.
“Captain Russ Holland, skipper of the John Paul Jones, operating off the coast of Hawaii, kicked something up the chain regarding Arctic waters,” Forestall said. “His chief sonar technician is in possession of an audio file purported to contain noises that some believe to be the sound of metal on metal … and possibly … words … Chinese words.”
Tom Clancy's Shadow of the Dragon Page 14
