Tom Clancy Firing Point

by Mike Maden

  The subtext to all of this, Jack noted, was the tendency of politicians on both sides of the Catalonian argument to exploit the passions of their people in exchange for their own political power. Separatist politicians weren’t willing to accept Madrid’s previous offers of even broader rights of Catalonian autonomy, even as Spanish nationalists stoked the fears of their followers in Madrid and elsewhere.

  Politicians’ tendency to serve themselves at the expense of their communities wasn’t unique to Spain. The United States suffered too many such fools, playing to identity politics at the expense of the national interest. Jack knew his father was the rarest breed of politician—the reluctant servant.

  In truth, most people just wanted to live their lives in peace and prosperity. This was particularly true in Barcelona, where life was very good for locals and visitors alike.

  Brigada Catalan rose up out of this confusion and frustration. They proclaimed that if democratic elections were no longer respected by Madrid and the will of the majority of Catalonians ignored, then violence was the “only viable alternative to Madrid’s totalitarian, Francoist, and Fascist rule.” Their online manifesto claimed solidarity with other independence movements throughout history, including the American Revolution, but leaned heavily on Latin American revolutionary sloganeering—in part, Jack believed, because so many Latin American immigrants lived and worked in Barcelona and throughout Spain.

  Jack entered the small but pristine Kitchen Barcelona on Carrer de la Maquinista, and queued up behind a couple of locals. The air smelled of fresh-baked crusts, gooey cheeses, and ripe, spicy olives. He felt like he was cheating by eating Italian food, but it was owned and operated by local catalanes, which technically made it Spanish food. Besides, it was freaking good.

  The place was barely shoulder wide between the glass case and the stand-up bar on the wall. The handsome, flour-dusted pizza chef stood just beyond another doorway, shoveling pies one at a time into the only oven in a kitchen not much bigger than a broom closet. Jack had been here once before—it was fresh, fantastic food, and the cute girl behind the counter had both an awesome sleeve tattoo and an excellent English vocabulary.

  Jack didn’t worry about Brigada Catalan attacking this place—it was too small and too out of the way. But the killers who murdered Renée were out there in the city somewhere and he knew they would strike again until Catalonia won its independence or until they died fighting for it.

  If Jack had anything to say about it, it would be the latter.

  7

  MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIFORNIA

  They were both lean and narrow-shouldered, with medium brown hair, brown eyes, and fair complexions, which was why people who first met them assumed they were siblings. But Chris and Cari Fast were married, first meeting, then dating, and eventually falling in love all at the Google AI quantum labs in Mountain View. They even recited their wedding vows standing beneath Stan, the iconic full-size T. rex skeleton on the Googleplex campus, surrounded by friends, family, and pink flamingos.

  The childless, forty-two-year-olds loved not owning a car. It wasn’t that the two senior Google scientists couldn’t afford any luxury vehicle they wanted, or the insane insurance rates, or even a full-time driver to avoid the hassles of Bay Area driving.

  Riding bikes, ridesharing, and not owning a car was really about keeping a low carbon footprint, and equally important, demonstrating their public commitment to combating climate change. For trips to the city, they always used Uber, including tonight’s benefit gala for their favorite local no-kill animal shelter.

  Uber’s convenient phone app was on the front page of both their iPhones (only Nooglers—new Google employees—thought that Android phones were required at the Plex). Despite the fact that they didn’t own a luxury vehicle, they certainly enjoyed the experience of riding in one, which was why they always opted for Uber Lux. Tonight was no different, and in truth, they needed the extra space, since they were bringing their companion dogs, a miniature Maltese named Cookie and a papillon—often mistaken for a long-haired Chihuahua—named Louis (with a silent s in the French manner) after the Dustin Hoffman character in the movie of the same name.

  All four stood expectantly on the wide, tree-lined suburban street outside their one-story mid-century rancher as the roomy Cadillac Escalade glided to a halt at the curb. Cari double-checked her Uber app, confirming the make, model, and license plate of the vehicle. The smiling, well-built young Nigerian who opened their doors was the driver listed on the app as well.

  Good to go, she thought, as the four of them climbed into the backseat. They were greeted with bottled Fiji waters and organic treats for the dogs. There were bright smiles and wagging tails all around as the big SUV pulled away from the curb.

  They had no idea it was going to be the night of their lives.

  OCTOBER 25

  8

  WALTER REED NATIONAL MILITARY MEDICAL CENTER

  BETHESDA, MARYLAND

  Where do we find such men? he asked himself.

  President Ryan stood over the bed of Lieutenant Corporal Brad Shaffer, 3rd Battalion, Marine Raider Regiment.

  Men? Kid doesn’t look old enough to shave.

  It never ceased to amaze him. The fate of the Republic had always been held in the strong, skilled hands of young war-fighters like Shaffer.

  They all seemed to be young these days. Or maybe he was just getting to be that old.

  “You shouldn’t have gone to all the trouble, sir,” Shaffer said.

  “It’s my honor, son. You did a helluva good thing out there.” Ryan nodded at the Navy Cross he’d just pinned to the boy’s hospital gown. “Your folks will get word about that today.”

  The chief of naval operations (CNO), Admiral Talbot, stood next to POTUS. “Unfortunately, the citation won’t include any details of your mission, nor will it be released to the press because the mission is still classified.”

  “Understood, sir.”

  Ryan added, “But I hope you know how grateful the nation is for your sacrifice.”

  “My boys woulda done the same for me, sir.”

  President Ryan had read Shaffer’s service jacket. “For conspicuous gallantry and unyielding courage in the face of overwhelming enemy forces in defense of his team,” the secretary of the navy had written in Shaffer’s citation.

  It had cost the boy dearly.

  The after-action report read like a Don Bentley novel. It was an operation in Niger. Two of Shaffer’s team were wounded, and one killed in an ambush by Boko Haram forces, tipped off by a local police captain on their payroll. Shaffer had single-handedly saved his brothers-in-arms by advancing into enemy fire, taking out a KPV 14.5 heavy machine gun and an RPG, then laying down covering fire until the Black Hawks arrived.

  As far as Ryan was concerned, the boy deserved the Congressional Medal of Honor, but that wasn’t his call. And in his experience, men like Shaffer didn’t do what they did for medals. They did it because that was the job they were trained to do, and they were determined to do it, no matter the cost.

  It frustrated Ryan that one in five meritorious citations were privately awarded these days. Valor should be celebrated, not hidden. But he understood the rationale. There were so many classified missions around the globe that even some members of the congressional oversight committees were surprised to find out where and when they occurred, let alone how frequently. Such was the price of eternal vigilance. The enemy never slept and never stopped moving until young war-fighters like Shaffer dropped them in the dirt. Ryan worried that there were too many bad guys out there, and not enough Shaffers willing to hunt them down.

  “I understand you threw ball in high school,” Ryan said, trying to change the subject. “You follow the Nats this year?”

  Shaffer smiled beneath his facial bandages. “Nah, sir. I’m a Georgia boy. Braves all the way.” He held up the amputated stump of hi
s right arm. “Doc says they’re going to wire me up with some new bionic LUKE arm. Guess they’re gonna make me a cyborg. After I muster out, I’m gonna try out for Atlanta, ’cuz I’ll be throwing two-hundred-mile-per-hour pitches with that bad boy.”

  “The Braves would be lucky to have you. But trust me, the Nats are the way to go,” Ryan joked.

  Shaffer grinned. He was missing a few teeth. “I’ll talk to my agent.”

  “Anything else I can do for you?” Ryan asked.

  “You done more than enough, sir. I’ll make out fine. With all the pretty lady doctors and nurses around here, I got no complaints.”

  Ryan laid a hand on the boy’s good shoulder. “You need anything, I’ve left a card on the nightstand with my secretary’s private number. Okay?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Ryan leaned closer. “I’m serious.”

  The boy nodded. “Thanks.”

  Ryan stiffened, fighting back the tears welling in his eyes. He snapped his hand to the corner of his eye, the crisp salute he’d learned as a young Marine lieutenant decades ago. The CNO was caught off guard—senior ranks didn’t salute junior ranks—and Ryan was the C-in-C. But he sure as hell appreciated him doing it and he joined in.

  Shaffer was stunned. But he returned the salute smartly with the remains of his left hand.

  “See you at the ballpark, kid,” Ryan said with a wink before turning and leaving.

  * * *

  —

  Ryan was lost in thought as he and Admiral Talbot made their way across the ward toward the elevators, two Secret Service agents in step behind them.

  Ryan knew that every time a soldier went into the field on his orders—or under the authority of his office, even if he wasn’t aware of the specific mission—he bore the responsibility for the outcome, and he took that responsibility seriously. Sending fragile young bodies into hostile, high-kinetic environments entailed enormous risk and these magnificent kids willingly accepted that risk, even if they didn’t fully understand the real cost until they actually had to pay it.

  It was his job to make sure they didn’t have to pay that cost or to be damned sure it was worth it when men like Shaffer paid it in full. The longer he was on the job, the more certain Ryan was that it should be the old men that went to war. The young had too much to lose.

  Ryan didn’t notice the admiring stares of the doctors and nurses as he passed by. It was hardly the first time he’d been to the critical-care unit but his obvious compassion for the wounded warriors always made an impact on the staff, who were even more dedicated to their recovery than he was.

  “A private word with you, if I may, Mr. President?” the CNO asked as they stepped into the elevator.

  “Of course.” Ryan looked toward the senior agent in charge of today’s presidential detail, Ruby Knox, herself a former Marine. “Meet you in the basement.”

  “Yes, sir.” Knox spoke into her cuff mic, informing the rest of the detail of the change of plans. She was warned the first day she was assigned to SWORDSMAN by Gary Montgomery, the special agent in charge of the Presidential Protective Division (PPD), otherwise known as “The Shift,” that she needed to be flexible. This President wasn’t about ceremonies and calendars but instead focused on the task at hand, including today’s unscheduled visit to Walter Reed. Normally, Gary would have been the point man on an off-campus visit like this one but he was on a fly-fishing trip with his daughter in Montana and the honor fell to her.

  God, she loved this job.

  Knox keyed the panel on the security elevator so that it would proceed directly to the basement garage, bypassing the intervening floors.

  As the stainless-steel doors shut behind them, Ryan turned to the admiral. “So, John. What’s up?”

  “Our people over at MDA”—the Maritime Domain Awareness element of the Office of Naval Intelligence—“bumped up a report to my office this morning that needs your attention.”

  “You got it.”

  “To make a long story short, the Royal Australian Navy received a report of a possible ship sinking in the South Pacific. The Jade Star was a Panamanian-flagged commercial vessel, sunk with all hands on board. The vessel’s AIS signal disappeared immediately, which was how they got the call.”

  Talbot didn’t have to tell the President, a former CIA analyst and national security adviser, that international maritime law required every vessel over three hundred tons to broadcast Class A automatic identification system signals. AIS provided a host of self-reported data, including GPS coordinates, speed, port of destination, and the like, all supported by dozens of AIS-enabled orbiting satellites.

  “I’m sorry to hear it,” Ryan said. “The cause? Did Sibbers pick up anything?” Ryan was referring to SBIRS, the Space Based Infrared System.

  “No, sir.” He explained why SBIRS failed. Ryan understood but wasn’t pleased. But that was a conversation for later.

  “Shit.” Ryan rubbed his hand through his hair, thinking through the implications. “What do your people suspect happened?”

  “The only data we have to go on at the moment is the flotsam the Australians were able to recover from the wreck. A few floating containers, even fewer corpses. Three, to be exact.”

  “Cause of death?”

  “Drowning, trauma. Two victims had burns. Could be from the cause of the sinking or from the vessel itself if it caught fire and exploded.”

  “No eyewitnesses?”

  “No, and no survivors.”

  Talbot continued. “The cause remains unknown. Ship sinkings aren’t all that unusual. Over the last decade, an average of a hundred ships over one hundred gross tons are lost every year, mostly through weather, onboard accidents, or human error. The last two options were MDA’s first assumption as to cause. Then they started digging around.”

  “And?”

  “By their count, six ships in total have gone down in the last eight weeks in the area, averaging over seventy thousand deadweight tons each; that isn’t easily explained. It’s obviously a big concern.”

  Ryan frowned. It sure as hell was. Ninety percent of the world’s international commerce was transported by nearly sixty thousand merchant ships crewed by over a million sailors. A threat to global shipping was a threat to the global economy.

  “Any pattern to the sinkings?”

  “Right now, it looks like it’s limited to the South Pacific and only commercial cargo vessels. Six different flags, all different cargoes, none hazardous or environmentally sensitive, at least that we know of. I’ll circle back to you with more details when I get them.”

  Ryan’s eyes narrowed. “Why are we just hearing about this now?”

  The elevator dinged and the doors slid open to the basement garage.

  The armored Cadillac limo, affectionately known as “Stagecoach,” stood idling in the distance, flanked by two PPD agents still out of earshot. Weighing in at nearly ten tons, the vehicle featured five-inch-thick windows, eight-inch doors with electrified handles, and a supply of blood matching Ryan’s type, among many other survival features.

  “The owners of the vessel reportedly called in to the destination port and said the Jade Star wouldn’t be docking there. No explanation given. The weird thing was, they made that call after the explosion. Of course, the port didn’t know that at the time.”

  “A cover-up.”

  “Apparently. One of the MDA techs got curious. She decided to find out what other AIS signals had vanished over the last several weeks, and had also canceled their port arrivals after the fact. More cross-checking showed that five other vessels had disappeared in that manner.”

  “What do the other shipping owners say happened?”

  “That’s the weird part. When we contacted them, they refused to respond. A couple of them even denied losing their vessels altogether.”

  “That doesn’t make
any sense.”

  “No, sir. It doesn’t.”

  “So what do you need from me?”

  “Turns out, one of the ships that went down was leased by White Mountain Logistics and Security.”

  “That’s Buck Logan’s outfit. He’s one of the good guys. Took over from his father several years ago.” Ryan chuckled. “You ever meet Buck’s dad, Scooter?”

  “No, sir. But I’ve heard stories.”

  “Trust me, they’re all true. He was a six-five, two-hundred-forty-pound lineman for the UT Longhorns, back when they wore leather helmets. Ran an infantry platoon with the Fifth Marines in Korea. He came home and built a trucking company that Buck expanded into a worldwide operation. They don’t make ’em like that anymore. So, what’s the story with Buck?”

  “He hasn’t been any more cooperative than the other ship owners. In fact, he hasn’t responded to any of our inquiries. Given his special status, I was hoping you might have a word with him.”

  “If you’re asking me to get involved, you must think Buck is hiding something.”

  “That’s the suspicion. More to the point, we need to know why he’s hiding it.”

  “And you think he’ll tell me.”

  “That’s a pretty good bet from where I’m standing, sir.”

  Logan had a big GOP fundraiser scheduled next month in Houston, where his company was based. More important, White Mountain Logistics + Security was one of the country’s largest civilian defense contractors, providing nearly a billion dollars’ worth of transportation and operational support to the DoD every year. In effect, Ryan wrote his paycheck.

  But if Ryan called Logan and Logan lied, that would put Ryan on the horns of a dilemma. Unless Buck had broken the law, he wasn’t compelled to discuss the situation with anybody, including the President of the United States.