Tom Clancy Oath of Office

by Marc Cameron

  “What a waste,” he said, forcing himself to approach the bed so he could look for his lost lighter. If it was on the floor, he could find a way past this. If it was tangled in the sheets, he was doomed.

  A cursory search revealed nothing, and he leaned over the bed, swallowing the fury that threatened to overpower him.

  Most of Maryam’s wounds were to her chest, but there were two to her neck. Blood soaked the sheets and mattress underneath. But when he squinted and blocked out the worst of it, he could almost imagine she was just asleep.

  Sassani’s eyes burned holes in the back of his neck. He closed his eyes, controlling his breathing before turning to face the IRGC thug.

  “The whore was with someone,” Sassani said. “Just before we arrived.”

  Dovzhenko stared at the man, playing out the scene in his mind. The Makarov pistol held eight rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. The little 9x18 was stout enough to do the job, but few pistol calibers were optimum as offensive weapons. They often took time to neutralize a threat. Sassani and three of his men were in the bedroom. Two shots for each of them gave him one to spare. He would shoot Sassani first, once in the face, following up with two shots apiece to the other three. Then Dovzhenko would put a second into Sassani’s groin even if he didn’t need it, because he’d called Maryam a whore. Rather than reload, he’d grab one of the SIG Sauer .45s and shoot the other three IRGC thugs as they came in to investigate. He might even make it as far as the Russian embassy—where his own people would take him into custody.

  “Sir,” one of Sassani’s men said from the side of the bed, “look at this.” He held up the gold lighter.

  “Thank you,” Dovzhenko said, snatching it away. Only bluster and bravado would do now. If he acted guilty, they would smell it. “It must have fallen out of my pocket when I looked at the body.”

  Sassani regarded him with a narrow eye. He said nothing but gave the other officer a small nod, as if to say “Carry on. We will talk later.”

  “An autopsy will be performed, as a matter of policy,” Sassani said, lips pulled back in a tight smile. “As I said, she was with someone. DNA tests will tell us the ethnicity of her lover.”

  “A wise course of action,” Dovzhenko said.

  He looked at Maryam’s lifeless body. It was a mercy that she’d been spared the torment Sassani and his men would have meted out. Rape, bastinado, burning—nothing was too base for these men.

  “You know,” Sassani said. “She is not even the name on the lease for this apartment.” He turned to the man that stood nearest the bedroom door. “What is her name?”

  “Maryam Farhad, sir.”

  “Ah, yes, Maryam,” Sassani said. “A pious name for a whore.”

  Dovzhenko suddenly found himself extremely tired. “How did you find her, then?”

  “As I said, a tip, just like you. We were lucky. I think we should talk to the actual owner next, don’t you?”

  “A wise move.” Dovzhenko groaned inside. He had never met Maryam’s friend, but he knew now that he had to find her and warn her. “I need to piss,” he said. “I won’t touch anything.”

  “By all means,” Sassani said. “Piss. I don’t care.”

  Dovzhenko started to turn for the bathroom but paused at the bedroom door as if he did not know exactly where it was.

  Maryam’s jacket lay on the floor where she’d dropped it earlier that evening. He flushed the toilet, using the noise of swirling water to cover the jingle of her keys as he lifted the jacket to his nose, breathing in the smell of her, blinking back tears. He pulled himself together, then found what he was looking for in the pocket, before gently returning the jacket to the floor.

  “What is wrong?” Sassani asked when Dovzhenko came out of the bathroom. He was still grinning. “You look as though the weight of the world is on your shoulders, my friend.”

  “We are not friends,” Dovzhenko said.

  “That,” Sassani said, “is becoming more obvious to me by the minute. But for argument’s sake, why is that not so? Because I killed a whore?”

  “Her?” Dovzhenko remembered he was a spy in time to scoff. “She is nothing. This is a nasty business we are in, and sometimes we must both do nasty things. The difference is you enjoy it too much.”

  He turned his back on the IRGC men and walked toward the door. There was only one way forward for him now—a way that, if he were honest with himself, he’d been considering for some time. But first he had to find a woman named Ysabel Kashani.

  24

  Mandy Cruz considered “going blue” and activating the flashing light in the doll-sized outhouse to let the forty-four other watch-standers know she was leaving her desk to use the restroom and they needed to remain on station. Colloquially referred to as Ops, the State Department Operations Center was located just down the hall from the secretary’s office, beyond a set of frosted doors and two armed guards. In the shadowy world where diplomacy and intelligence merged, secrets were compartmentalized behind countless locks, and Ops held one of the biggest keyrings in government. Those on watch were call takers, dispatchers, facilitators, problem solvers—and intrepid detectives who were trained to birddog a task until it was accomplished. If the secretary needed to speak with a specific ambassador who could not be located, someone from Ops found out where he played racquetball, where she golfed, or if he or she enjoyed a long lunch at the hotel with a significant other. More than once there had been heavy breathing on the line when she finally got through. But Cruz didn’t care. People had to live their lives. Her business was to answer when they called, find them when they were needed, and connect them with the boss.

  Just fifteen minutes earlier, Cruz had taken the S icon representing the secretary of state on her computer screen and dropped it into a box with the icon for the foreign minister of South Korea, connecting the call. Someone else took notes on the conversation, but, generally speaking, Cruz could figure out the gist of what was going on by the information that passed across her desk. Five minutes after the call with Korea, Secretary Adler’s box had dropped in with an icon representing Foreign Minister Tinubu of Nigeria. Two minutes after that, the group supervisor had set up a special Cameroon Task Force and briefed everyone in Ops. Cruz was pulled from her regular duties to focus on the embassy takeover.

  Nine minutes after Task Force Cameroon was up and running, Cruz’s headset chirped. She clicked her computer mouse to answer the call.

  “Hello, Ops!” the voice on the other end of the line said, relieved, as if coming up for air. “Special Agent Adin Carr in Yaounde, Cameroon. The ambassador is safe. I’m talking on a stolen cell phone, so we are not, I repeat, not, secure.”

  Cruz hit another icon on her screen, notifying her group supervisor that she had a priority caller on the line having to do with Task Force Cameroon.

  “Special Agent Carr,” Cruz said, “I’m connecting you with the secretary right now.” She dropped the icons but stayed on the line. The call would be recorded, and in this situation, all involved stayed on to ensure the call wasn’t fumbled or dropped completely.

  The secretary came on the line an instant later, asking the question the agent surely wanted to hear. “Adin, this is Scott Adler. What do you need first?”

  * * *

  —

  The chief of staff, secretaries of defense and state, and the director of national security stood in the middle of the Oval in the closest thing to parade rest they could muster while holding their leather folios.

  “They’re moving her,” Adler said. “Carr will get back with us as soon as he can.”

  Ryan’s desk line buzzed and Betty’s voice came over the speaker.

  “Mr. President, I have President Njaya of Cameroon on the line.”

  Ryan put the phone on speaker. “François, thank you for taking my call.”

  “Of course, Mr. President. The
se are most concerning reports I am hearing.”

  “That’s putting it mildly, François.” Ryan cut to the chase. “I need Mrs. Porter released without delay. We can discuss the embassy after she’s safe.”

  “I understand, Jack,” Njaya said. “I, too, am concerned for the safety of Mrs. Porter. These military officers who have taken her have so far shown restraint, but I am not sure how long that will continue.”

  “What could they hope to gain, François?” Ryan asked, playing along with the farcical game. “Your military has mounted an attack on United States soil.”

  Njaya huffed. “Jack, I would not go so far as to say it was an attack—”

  “Put the shoe on the other foot.”

  “I see,” Njaya said. “I do not dispute the fact that your embassy is American soil. The men who surround it are merely angry at the aggression against the sovereignty of Cameroon. I am sure this can all be sorted out.”

  “Have you been able to figure out why?” Ryan asked. Njaya knew exactly why. It may have taken on a life of its own now—matters with rogue militaries usually did—but Njaya had certainly ordered it. Ryan didn’t want to play his hand. Yet.

  “This I believe I can answer,” Njaya said. “A teacher at a secondary school here in Yaounde discovered your very disturbing video on the Internet.

  “You are a smart man, Jack,” Njaya said pithily, animosity creeping into his voice for the first time. “Perhaps we should stop playing games. In this video you pledge your support to General Mbida and the Anglophones. How could you do such a thing, Mr. President? I would have contacted you directly to work it out, but once my supporters became aware of this video, they began to act of their own accord. It will take some time for me to restore calm.”

  “That video is obviously doctored,” Ryan said. “You cannot believe everything you see online. Surely you know that, François.”

  “Come, now, Mr. President,” Njaya said. “It is your face and your voice.”

  “Have your people take a look at the metadata. They will prove me out.”

  “I will do just that,” Njaya said.

  “And your military?” Ryan asked. “What are they going to do? Before you answer, I will remind you that the United States has been your partner against Boko Haram for many years.”

  “As I say, Mr. President,” Njaya said, “I am sure we . . . they will get this sorted out very soon. In the meantime, it would go a long way to bringing this matter to a close if your embassy personnel would send out Mbida.”

  “There’s a big difference in someone asking for asylum and someone being held against their will. Before we talk about anything else, Mrs. Porter must be released.”

  “But I do not know where she is,” Njaya said, barely concealing his duplicity. “Do you, Mr. President?”

  “François,” Ryan said through clenched teeth. “I would think these rogue members of your military would not want the United States as an enemy.”

  “It would seem to me,” Njaya said, “that it is you who cannot afford another enemy. What with everything else you are facing, the influenza, loss of public trust, I should think you would want to clear up this unfortunate incident quickly, before lives are lost.”

  “François,” Ryan said, seething now. “They do not want to test me.”

  “Oh, Mr. President.” The gloating smile was evident in Njaya’s tone. “One of your own senators has already accused you of bullying those who do not agree with you.”

  Ryan’s face twitched. Mary Pat Foley, the only one in the room brave enough to approach him at the moment, stepped up to pat a hand on his arm for support. He waved her off, nodding that he was all right.

  Njaya, uncomfortable with the silence, spoke again. “I am telling you, Jack, this is not my doing.”

  “I understand,” Ryan said. “And I assure you, François, help is on the way. You will not have to take care of this alone.”

  “Jack,” Njaya said. “You must not act unilaterally.”

  “Oh, I’m not,” Ryan said. “Not at all. Our countries have had a mutual aid agreement to fight Boko Haram for many years. You have already invited us.”

  “Come, now, Jack—”

  “We’re losing the connection, François.”

  Ryan ended the call. He took a deep breath and then put both hands flat on the desk in front of him.

  “We’re attack plus five hours and so far we have, what, two UAVs and one DSS agent on station? I want all of you thinking about options. Everything’s on the table. DevGru, Delta, the 82nd Airborne . . . hell, an entire Marine Expeditionary Force. Let’s get Task Force Darby headed south. Whatever it takes to get this woman out safely and protect our embassy. Am I clear?”

  Van Damm said, “The Hostage Response Group fusion cell is—”

  Ryan pushed away from his desk. “Arnie,” he said, after a deep, deliberative breath. “I fully understand the need for the HRG. But I want action. Coordinated, yes, but not just coordinated planning.”

  “Understood,” van Damm said.

  “Very well.” Ryan stood and shrugged on his suit jacket. “I’ll be right behind you.”

  “Mr. President,” Foley said, hanging back as the others filed out toward the Situation Room. “Would it be possible to have a momentary word?”

  Ryan smiled. “We’ve been friends long enough for me to recognize an intervention when I see one. You don’t want me to go in there and bomb the hell out of Cameroon because Njaya’s a smarmy piece of shit.”

  “The thought had occurred to me, Jack,” Foley said. “And honestly, none of us would blame you. Though that wouldn’t make it the right thing to do.”

  Ryan stifled a chuckle. “My old man always said that handling anger was like climbing stairs. Everyone gets winded, no matter how good a shape you’re in. It’s how fast you recuperate that matters. I might get hot, but I won’t boil over.” His eyes narrowed. “I promise you, if I use force against François Njaya and his military, it will be overwhelmingly violent . . . but completely dispassionate.” He waved her toward the door. “Now go keep the Hostage Response Group in line until I get there. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  * * *

  —

  Alone, Ryan turned to look past his own reflection in the center window behind his desk and onto the South Lawn. He shied away from the spot when anyone else was in the Oval, particularly the White House photographer. The whole look was too derivative of JFK, but it was a good thinking spot, damn it.

  Apart from the comparison of climbing stairs to getting angry, Ryan’s father had always encouraged him to take a hard look at what he was angry at and admit to himself that it was most usually himself. The plain truth was that Njaya, for all his gloating, was right. Ryan was in a bad spot. The influenza, the flooding with attendant public health issues in the southeast, this business with Michelle Chadwick, and now an embassy under siege, all added to an already full threat board. The United States had many enemies that would love nothing more than to sit and watch her torn apart—and then swoop in to pick up the pieces . . .

  “One thing at a time, Jack,” Ryan said to his reflection. He had capable hands working on the influenza epidemic and the flooding. Secretary Dehart was on his way to Louisiana to provide a firsthand report. That left Cameroon—with a diplomatic security agent literally hiding in the weeds, and two MQ-9 Reaper drones hovering over station.

  “Unmanned aerial vehicles,” Ryan said. Low and slow, but they did the job.

  Some argued that UAVs sanitized war . . . made it too easy for politicians. If they saved American lives, then Ryan had no problem with them. Ordering Americans into harm’s way could never be sanitized. Every bomb dropped, every trigger pulled, did damage, on both ends of the weapon. Ordering multiple deaths, or even one, should never be an easy thing. Some people needed to die, but Ryan was not a man to drag it out. Jack Ryan was no
shrinking violet; he’d rather be done with it—whatever it was.

  * * *

  —

  Adin Carr crouched behind the rusted box of an old semitrailer beside the man he should have been protecting. Together, they watched a squad of four soldiers, armed with French FAMAS rifles, escort Mrs. Porter into a dilapidated warehouse on the western edge of the city. They’d put a cloth bag over her head and tied her hands behind her back for the move. The apparent leader of the group, a man with a bald spot that looked like an appealing target, gave her a shove that sent her to her knees. Carr had to grab Ambassador Burlingame to keep him from rushing into the open.

  “Patience, sir,” the DS agent whispered.

  “I thought you said you wanted to act,” Burlingame said. “So let’s act.”

  “We will, sir,” Carr said. “But we have to be smart about it. These guys outgun and outnumber us. Good chance we get Mrs. Porter killed if we go in without a plan and some backup. As much as I’d like to go in with guns blazing, we need to call in and let Ops know where she is so they can send the cavalry.”

  “Who do you think?” Burlingame asked, eyes locked on the warehouse. “FBI Hostage Rescue, Navy SEALs?”

  “You know that old story about FBI HRT being formed?”

  Burlingame shook his head.

  “The FBI director watched a demonstration of Delta, saw all their gear, and noticed they didn’t carry any handcuffs. When he asked why, one of the Delta guys said, ‘We put two rounds in their forehead. We don’t need handcuffs.’ The FBI went on to create the Hostage Rescue Team, but they carry handcuffs.”

  “In that case,” Burlingame said, watching the guy with the bald spot yank Mrs. Porter to her feet, “I’d just as soon they send Delta.”

  25

  Erik Dovzhenko’s windshield wipers had no intermittent setting. They simply worked when they felt like it, wiping away enough rain now and then that he could mostly see to drive.