by Marc Cameron
The shamisen music stopped abruptly when Yukiko led them into the cramped six-by-fifteen-foot bar, shouting like the place was on fire and pointing back at the storage room. Ryan didn’t know exactly what she was saying, but he was pretty sure it was something about dead bodies and men with guns. They were out the door before anyone recovered from the shock.
Keeping east, they fell in with a fleeing crowd and were shunted through the red torii gates of the Hanazono Shinto shrine by a line of police officers staffing a barricade.
“You were right,” Ryan said as they slogged through the rain, over the gravel courtyard of the shrine. “A female brought down Vincent Chen.”
He looked at Yuki, rain pressing a pale shirt to her shoulders, dripping from her bangs. Long tresses clung to her cheeks. A woman would probably be his downfall as well.
59
Protocol dictated that the paramount leader of China should arrive last, just prior to departure. Support staff and Colonel Huang had timed the ride to the airport so they could lift off moments after President Zhao was seated. The plane was a Boeing 747 used by Air China as a passenger jet when it was not pressed into service to fly the Chinese president on international trips. Prior to becoming China’s version of Air Force One, the 747, usually one of two, was fitted with more luxurious furnishings, including beds, sofas, and plush seating. Madame Zhao enjoyed flying in such comfort. She had wanted to accompany him to Japan, but present circumstances made that an imprudent idea.
Zhao was not surprised to see Foreign Minister Li’s motorcade already on the tarmac as his armored Hongqi L5 limousine came to a stop behind the uniformed military escort. He was, however, surprised to find Minister Li speaking with that detestable General Xu of the Central Security Bureau. The sun was up, a dull orange disk through the greasy pall of haze to the east, but lights illuminated the base of the plane and the length of red carpet rolled out from the air stairs.
The gaggle of men around Li and Xu snapped to attention when they saw the president approaching. Li gave a slight bow. Xu, a bow that was even slighter.
“Good morning, Zhao Zhuxi,” Li said. He gave Colonel Huang a look of uncharacteristic sympathy. “I was sorry to hear about your men. The criminals responsible will be captured and punished to the fullest extent, I am sure.”
Colonel Huang thanked him for his courtesy, but looked nervously up and down the tarmac.
“Zhao Zhuxi,” General Xu said, “the attack on your protective staff is what finds me here to greet you this morning. I have seen personally to providing three replacements from among our very finest at the Central Security Bureau.”
Zhao nodded thoughtfully. “I was under the impression that the very finest would be assigned to the paramount leader in the first place.”
“Just so,” Xu blustered. “But CSB has many talented and skilled officers. Is that not correct, Colonel Huang?”
“It is, General,” Huang said.
Zhao turned to him. “Do we need more personnel?”
“General Xu is correct,” he said. “We should not travel without a full complement.”
“Do you know these replacements, Colonel?” Zhao asked.
“I do, sir,” Huang said. “By name and reputation. I have not had the pleasure of working with them.”
“You know best, of course, General,” Zhao said.
“Is something wrong, Zhao Zhuxi?” Li asked.
“No.” Zhao shook his head. “The timing is unfortunate. That is all.”
“Please,” Li said. “Allow me to offer three of my security detail. They are accustomed to working directly with Colonel Huang and his men. The three new officers may assume responsibilities for my protection.”
General Xu started to object, which made Zhao more prone to accept the offer.
He raised an eyebrow. “This seems quite outside the norm.”
Li bowed again. “The timing, as you say, is unfortunate. It would be my great honor to second Colonel Long Yun and two others. The best of my best.”
“I could not,” Zhao said.
“Your safety is paramount,” Li said. “Please do me this honor.”
Colonel Huang’s jaw muscles flexed. He was obviously surprised at the news.
“Very well,” Zhao said. He put a foot on the bottom step and then turned to the other two men. “Have either of you been in contact with Admiral Qian? I wish to speak to him, but his staff said he is incommunicado.”
General Xu shrugged. “Perhaps inspecting one of our submarines, Mr. President.”
“Perhaps,” Zhao said, and bounded up the stairs.
• • •
I must go,” Li said as soon as the paramount leader was out of earshot.
“What is this business with Admiral Qian?” Xu asked. “I have not been able to contact him, either. That man has disappeared.”
“I’m sure it is nothing,” Li said, turning to climb the stairs. The steward at the top waved him forward with a white glove, telling him, the foreign minister, to hurry. Li purposely slowed, taking his time up the last few steps, then noted the steward’s name as he turned to find his seat.
Li took his spot in premium seating directly aft of the paramount leader’s office and quarters. He took his mobile phone from the pocket of his suit jacket before handing it to a steward—not the idiot who had rushed him—and pressed the number for his wife. Oddly, there was no answer, even at this early hour. She’d been awake when he left. He tried his son, still reaching nothing but voice mail. He smiled a tight smile, fending off the inevitable worry of a man with many enemies who was leaving town.
The flight was just over three hours. He would try again when they landed.
60
If there was one fortunate thing about being tired all the time, President Ryan knew, it was that he could usually nap at any given moment. It hadn’t always been that way. The Threat Board being what it was—urgent and stacked—it had a tendency to keep thinking people up at night. But as he spent more and more time with the sword of Damocles suspended over his head, Ryan’s brain and body formed an uneasy truce, allowing thoughts on topics such as nuclear destruction or a fragile economy to simmer in the background instead of boiling over the moment his head hit the pillow. Cathy said he dreamed more now, tossing and turning and mumbling nonsensical things in his sleep. Ryan rarely remembered his dreams, which made him believe there was a God, and that He was merciful, because the dreams of a powerful man with any conscience at all were, by necessity, bad dreams.
He woke to the change in pressure in his ears as Air Force One began a gradual descent over Japan. Hopefully, the four-hour nap would get his body clock somewhere in line with Japan time. They would be wheels-down at Yokota Air Base at nine-twenty a.m. local—giving him a full day of meetings when his brain told him it was eight-twenty p.m. in D.C. It was going to be a long one, so he shaved and put on a clean shirt and a midnight-blue tie. Cathy said the color made him look serious, which, he thought, was appropriate considering his upcoming meeting with President Zhao.
Though surely terrifying for the crew, the business with RV Meriwether had proven a litmus test for the power struggle that appeared to be going on inside China. Either Zhao was a liar or he didn’t have control of his military. The former, Ryan had come to hope. The latter would be a nightmare.
• • •
Special Agent Gary Montgomery sat on the sofa outside the President’s office and gazed out the windows at the ocean below. He didn’t much care for water. It could kill you, but you couldn’t kill it back. POTUS would be up soon, so Montgomery buttoned the top button on his white shirt and straightened his tie. He always brought two ties to work, a red one and a blue one—so he’d not be wearing the same color as his protectee. It was weird, Montgomery admitted that, but it was something he did for luck—well, that and countless hours at the range and in the gym. The President had been we
aring a red power tie when they left Andrews, and Montgomery was happy he’d chosen a blue Brooks Brothers for today. This was his first flight with President Ryan, and he wanted everything to be perfect. His years in the Secret Service had taught him that if something could go wrong, it would. Montgomery didn’t relish the idea of having a man he respected as much as Jack Ryan standing over his shoulder when things inevitably turned to shit.
The Japanese took a dim view of firearms and strictly enforced who could and could not carry for all but the agents immediately surrounding the President. Even these were warned of Japanese gun laws, but no one stopped the President of the United States or the dozen close-protection agents who arrived in the motorcade with him. Montgomery had been told it was a wink-and-a-nod sort of agreement, with the Japanese not doing very much winking—or nodding.
Yeah, Tokyo was touted as the safest city in the world, but the President of the United States had enemies, and it took only one devoted son of a bitch to ruin your whole day—especially if half your team was standing around holding nothing but air when they should be holding SIG Sauer pistols.
Most of the heavy-weapon portion of the vehicle package would be staffed by Japanese police, yet the Secret Service still had two armored limos and a number of their own follow-ups and staff vehicles. When they did move on the ground, the motorcade would be a staggering forty-three vehicles long—not including the motorcycle escorts that would provide rolling roadblocks prior to every intersection. The helos from HMX-1 were already on the ground as well, with backup air support in the form of two CV-22 Ospreys that had recently been stationed at Yokota.
The fifteen-minute trip on Marine One from Yokota Air Base to downtown Tokyo would be a hell of a lot better than a forty-minute drive. Mitzi Snelson, lead advance for the detail, advised that the Palace Hotel—the location of POTUS’s bi-lat with the Chinese president—was buttoned up tight. She would meet them on the roof.
Montgomery looked at his watch and then knocked on the office door.
“Mr. President,” he said. “Wheels down in five minutes.”
Ryan’s voice came back through the door. “Very well. Everything good to go on the ground?”
“We’re all set, sir,” Montgomery said, though he couldn’t help but feel like he was forgetting something. Decades on the job and this trip had him feeling like a damn rookie.
“Good,” Ryan said, opening the door. He was wearing a midnight-blue tie instead of the red one he’d had on when they left.
Montgomery bit his tongue and forced a smile.
Ryan saw his change in mood. “Is something wrong?”
“Not a thing, Mr. President.”
• • •
The Akasaka Guesthouse is very secure,” Yuki said. She was sitting beside Jack Ryan, Jr., on the Marunouchi subway line, heading back toward Tokyo Station and the Palace Hotel. Ryan’s chest needed stitches, but Adara had fixed him up with some superglue and a sticky bandage that stopped him from bleeding through his shirt.
The team had almost nothing to go on, aside from some cryptic phrases about a gang—and possibly the word “kill,” which was chilling in and of itself, if that’s what Chen had actually been saying. The fact that Chen was in town at all was bad news, and Jack tried to console himself that the man’s cadre was dead or in jail. Yuki’s superiors had told her the second gunman had survived and was in intensive care. Amanda Salazar and the man Ryan had knocked out were in police custody, refusing to talk. Their respective embassies had been notified and both would probably be released after all the visiting dignitaries left town—unless Yuki’s organization could find a reason to hold them.
“Thanks,” Ryan said. “I know you have plenty of work without me here having you run down a bunch of dead ends.”
Yuki smiled. “We have a saying here in Japan: Nokorimono ni wa fuku ga aru. Luck is in the leftovers.”
“I’m not sure what that means—”
“It means,” Yuki said, “that we must keep going. We find our luck by working through to the last.”
“I hope my friends have some luck with Chen’s computer.”
“I would be severely reprimanded for letting you tamper with that,” she said. “If my superiors were to find out.”
“I know,” Ryan said. “And like I said, I’m sorry to put you in this spot.”
The train rumbled to a stop at Kasumigaseki. They were two stops from Tokyo Station and the cars were getting crowded.
Three middle-aged women boarded and held the suspended rings in front of Ryan as the train began to move. His dad would not approve of his lack of chivalry.
“Japan has a load of cool proverbs,” he said. “But I don’t care for the custom of men sitting while women stand. I think I’ll offer one of these ladies my seat.”
Yuki put her hand on his arm and left it there. “Please,” she said. “It is more polite for you to sit.”
“Seriously?” Ryan said. “Because I might offend some other dude that didn’t think of it first?”
“No.” She smiled, leaning in close to share a secret. “You take up too much space.”
Ryan looked at her. She still hadn’t moved her hand off his arm, and he was fine with that. “Too much space?”
She squeezed his arm now, flirting a little, maybe. “You are quite bulky compared to most Japanese. I am embarrassed to say that some might think you kebukai yabanjin—a hairy barbarian.” She raised her eyebrows. “I do not think so, of course.”
“Of course.” Ryan gave her a slow nod, but he kept his seat until the train stopped at Tokyo Station.
Yuki led the way out of the Marunouchi tunnel. They opened their umbrellas against a steady rain and walked almost due west, past a water garden on the right, toward the Imperial Palace moat. Lots of water. Ryan had a lot of personal experience with the Secret Service. He was sure they’d already had scuba divers check the water features and run a couple dozen waterborne Attack on the Principal drills back on some lake near Beltsville.
They passed a small shrine, and a white castle across the water, the colors and edges of everything muted by the rain and mist.
“This country looks amazing when it’s wet,” he said.
“I think so as well,” Yuki said. “You must be careful, Jack. When you try to leave Japan, ushirogami wo hikareru—it will always tug at the hair on the back of your neck.”
“I can believe that—”
Chavez’s voice came over the net. He was still at the hotel babysitting Chen’s computer while Gavin Biery worked to break the passwords and encryption so he could conduct a remote assessment of its contents. Midas and Adara had been going from place to place, looking for any needles in the haystack of G20 venues. They all planned to link up around the hotel, across the street from the Imperial Palace and grounds.
“I’ve been trying to call you, ’mano,” Chavez said. “Gavin got in.” His voice was far from happy.
“Okay,” Ryan said. “An assassination plot?”
“Gav’s still going over files,” Chavez said. “But not so far. Just as Eddie Feng suspected, Chen is connected to the Beijing subway bombing. He was paid a nice sum for that one. But get this. Did you read about the soldier getting killed in Chad and an attack on a Navy vessel somewhere over near Bali?”
“Yeah,” Jack said.
“Chen received payments around the time of those attacks—and, of course, the bombing in Argentina.”
Ryan pondered the ramifications. “Taiwan?”
“Not even close,” Chavez said. “Foreign Minister Li. Gav got some weird hits checking some back channels. First he thought the connection was just because Li was a victim in the Argentina thing, but Li and a PRC general named Xu own shares in a diamond mine in West Africa. Get this, Vincent Chen’s sister, Lily, is a minority partner in the same mine.”
Ryan stopped in his tracks. “So Chen
and Foreign Minister Li are connected? Maybe the sister hired Chen to kill her business partner.”
Yuki turned around to listen to Jack’s half of the conversation.
“We have to pass this up the chain,” Jack said.
“Gerry’s getting it to our friends at the Crossing now.”
He meant Liberty Crossing, home of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence—Mary Pat Foley. She would know if there was anything in the works regarding Li.
“I’ll get back to you,” Chavez said. “Gerry’s calling.”
Ryan filled Yuki in as they crossed Uchibori Street, which was blocked off to vehicular traffic for the entire block in front of the hotel. They were able to walk north, along the Imperial Garden moat.
Yuki stopped with the gathered crowd directly across the street from the hotel. A dozen uniformed police officers and security guards in white hardhats formed a polite but unyielding skirmish line along the sidewalk, allowing people to look as long as they were empty-handed. Photography, or even holding a phone, was strictly prohibited.
Three helicopters thumped in the gray sky overhead, two peeling off while the third hovered over the hotel roof, settling in for a landing. Marine One. Jack felt his gut twist, knowing that his father was stepping into some serious unknowns.
“You needn’t worry about the President,” Yukiko said. “The Wadakura fountains and ponds form a natural barrier to the south of this venue and the police have closed the roads around the entire block.” She nodded toward a large white tent at the end of the street. “Any delivery or staff support vehicle—even those of the police—must be screened with mirrors and explosive-detection canines. Pedestrians, including security, must show their credentials at that point, and then again inside the building, passing through metal detectors at both locations. It is like the layers of an onion. Concentric rings, countermeasures to thwart bombings, armed assailants, missiles, biological and chemical attacks, and crazy people with samurai swords. You see, it appears that every conceivable attacker has been covered.”
