by Tom Clancy
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 NONFICTION
Submarine: A Guided Tour Inside a Nuclear Warship
Armored Cav: A Guided Tour Inside 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
375 Hudson Street
New York, New York 10014
Copyright © 2015 by The Estate of Thomas L. Clancy, Jr.; Rubicon, Inc.; Jack Ryan Enterprises, Ltd.; and Jack Ryan Limited Partnership
Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.
ISBN 978-0-698-41061-9
MAPS BY JEFFREY L. WARD
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
Other Tom Clancy Titles
Title Page
Copyright
Principal Characters
Prologue
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
Epilogue
PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS
United States Government
Jack Ryan: President of the United States
Scott Adler: secretary of state
Mary Pat Foley: director of national intelligence
Robert “Bob” Burgess: secretary of defense
Jay Canfield: director of the Central Intelligence Agency
Dan Murray: attorney general
Arnold Van Damm: President Ryan’s chief of staff
Peter Branyon: CIA chief of station, Vilnius, Lithuania
Greg Donlin: CIA security officer
United States Military
Roland Hazelton: admiral, chief of naval operations, United States Navy
Scott Hagen: commander, captain of USS James Greer (DDG-102), United States Navy
Phil Kincaid: lieutenant commander, executive officer of USS James Greer (DDG-102), United States Navy
Damon Hart: lieutenant, weapons officer on USS James Greer (DDG-102), United States Navy
Richard “Rich” Belanger: lieutenant colonel, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, United States Marine Corps; battalion commander of the Black Sea Rotational Force
The Campus
Gerry Hendley: director, The Campus/Hendley Associates
John Clark: director of operations
Domingo “Ding” Chavez: senior operations officer
Dominic “Dom” Caruso: operations officer
Jack Ryan, Jr.: operations officer/analyst
Gavin Biery: director of information technology
Adara Sherman: director of transportation
The Russians
Valeri Volodin: president of the Russian Federation
Mikhail “Misha” Grankin: director of the Kremlin Security Council (Russian intelligence)
Arkady Diburov: chairman of the board of directors of Gazprom, Russian natural gas company
Andrei Limonov (Mr. Ivanov): Russian private equity manager
Vlad Kozlov (Mr. Popov): intelligence operative in the Kremlin Security Council
Yegor Mo
rozov: intelligence operative in the Kremlin Security Council
Tatiana Molchanova: television newscaster, Novorossiya (Channel Seven)
Other Characters
Martina Jaeger: Dutch contract killer
Braam Jaeger: Dutch contract killer
Terry Walker: president and CEO of BlackHole Bitcoin Exchange, cryptocurrency trader
Kate Walker: wife of Terry Walker
Noah Walker: son of Terry and Kate Walker
Eglė Banytė: president of Lithuania
Marion Schöngarth: president of the Federal Republic of Germany
Salvatore: Italian paparazzo
Christine von Langer: former CIA case officer
Herkus Zarkus: Lithuanian fiber-optic network technician; Land Force soldier
Linus Sabonis: director, Lithuanian State Security Department
Common Acronyms and Abbreviations
ARAS: Lithuanian police antiterrorist operations unit
ASROC: Antisubmarine rocket
ASW: Antisubmarine warfare
CIA: Central Intelligence Agency
CNO: Chief of Naval Operations
CIWS: Phalanx close-in weapons system
DIA: Defense Intelligence Agency
FSB: Federal’naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti, Russian State Security
JSOC: Joint Special Operations Command
NATO: North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NGA: National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
NSA: National Security Agency
ODNI: Office of the Director of National Intelligence
ONI: Office of Naval Intelligence
RAT: Remote Administration Tool
SAU: Search and Attack Unit
SIPRNet: Secret Internet Protocol Router Network—Classified network for U.S. Intelligence community
SOF: Special Operations Forces
TAC: Tactical Air Controller
TAO: Tactical Action Officer
USWE: Undersea Warfare Evaluator
VHRJTF: Very High Readiness Joint Task Force—NATO
PROLOGUE
The Norwegians sold their secret submarine base to the Russians, and they did it on eBay.
Really.
In truth, the transaction was conducted on Finn.no, the regional equivalent of the online trading site, and the purchaser was not the Kremlin but a private buyer who immediately rented out the facility to a Russian state-owned concern. Still, the base was the only non-Russian permanent military installation on the strategically important Barents Sea, and the very fact that NATO condoned the sale in the first place spoke volumes about the organization’s readiness for war.
And it also said something about Russia’s intentions. When the purchaser clicked buy, Norway gave up Olavsvern Royal Norwegian Navy Base for five million U.S. dollars, a third of what Norway was asking and a pitiful one percent of what NATO spent building it in the first place.
With this purchase Russia won two important victories: It gave them the strategically located installation to use as they saw fit, and took it out of the hands of the West.
Olavsvern is an impressive facility, something out of a Bond film. Carved into the side of a mountain near the city of Tromsø north of the Arctic Circle, it has direct access to the sea and contains underground tunnels, massive submarine bays with blast-proof doors, a dry dock capable of receiving large warships, a 3,000-square-meter deep-water quay, infantry barracks with emergency power, and more than 160,000 square feet of space that is virtually impervious to a direct nuclear attack because it is hewn deep into the rock.
At the time of the sale, those in favor—including the Norwegian prime minister—rolled their eyes at anyone who said such a deal was ill-advised; the buyer promised that the Russians would use the facility to service their oil rigs—the Russians drilled all over the Barents Sea, after all, so there was nothing nefarious about that. But once the ink was dry, the oil-industry ruse was quickly forgotten, and the massive mountainside submarine lair was promptly employed to house a fleet of Russian scientific research vessels for a state-owned concern run by Kremlin insiders.
And those who knew about Russia’s Navy and intelligence infrastructure in the Arctic knew research vessels often worked hand in hand with both parties, conducting surveillance and even moving combat mini-submarines around in international waters.
The Norwegian prime minister who sanctioned the deal with the Russians soon left office, only to become the new secretary general of NATO. Shortly thereafter, Russia moved its Northern Fleet to full combat readiness, and it increased activity out of the Barents Sea fivefold as compared to the last of the days when Olavsvern maintained a watchful eye over them.
• • •
Russian president Valeri Volodin stood in the Arctic cold with a pleased expression on his face, because he was thinking of Olavsvern now, even though he was some 250 miles to the east.
This was an auspicious morning here at Yagelnaya Bay, Sayda Inlet, the home of the 31st Submarine Division, and Volodin had the massive base in Norway on his mind because he knew without a shadow of a doubt that if NATO still operated Olavsvern there was no way today’s operation would have had a chance for success.
The Russian president stood on the bow of the Pyotr Velikiy, a Kirov-class nuclear-powered heavy missile cruiser and the flagship of the Northern Fleet, his Burberry coat buttoned tightly across his chest and his wool hat keeping most of his body heat where it belonged—in his body. The commander of the 31st Submarine Division hovered just behind him on the deck, and he motioned to the fog ahead. Volodin saw nothing at first, but as he peered deeper into the mist, a huge shadow appeared on the cold water, pushing out through the veil of morning vapor.
Something big, slow, and silent was coming this way.
Volodin remembered a moment from the time of the Olavsvern sale. Members of the Norwegian media had pressed the ministers responsible for approving the deal about the danger posed by their neighbor Russia. One of the more frank of these ministers replied with a shrug. “We are a NATO member state, but we are also a small and peaceful nation. America, on the other hand, is large and warlike. Jack Ryan will see to Norway’s security if the day comes. Why shouldn’t we use our money for the important causes and let America do the fighting for us, because they love it so much?”
Volodin smiled now as he looked into the fog hanging over the gray water. Jack Ryan would have no time for Norway. True, the American President loved war, and the excuse of a Scandinavia in peril would be a good one for him, but Valeri Volodin knew something that few on earth knew, least of all Jack Ryan.
America was about to have much to deal with. Not here in the Arctic, but damn near everywhere else.
The silent shadow began to take shape, and soon it was visible to all on the deck of the Pyotr Velikiy. It was the pride of the new Russian Navy. A massive new Borei-class nuclear ballistic submarine.
Volodin knew if NATO was still operating a base here in the Arctic, the vessel before him could have been detected and it would have been tracked by Western craft, both surface and submersible, well before it made it into the safety of deeper waters. And that would have been a shame, as far as the Russian president was concerned, so it was a damn fine thing that the Norwegians sold their strategic base off for pocket change.
Volodin glowed with satisfaction. Five million U.S. was a small price to pay for Russian naval supremacy of the Arctic.
The vessel before him had a name, of course; it was called the Knyaz Oleg. But Volodin still liked to think of this one, as well as the four others already in his fleet, by their original code number. “Project 955A” had a nice ring to it; it felt like a fitting title for Russia’s most powerful and most secret weapon.
The Borei was the fourth generation of what the Americans called SSBN (Ship, Submersible, Ballistic, Nuclear). At 170 meters
long and 13 meters wide, it was huge, although it wasn’t the biggest sub Volodin had ever seen. That would be the Typhoon class, one of the Borei’s predecessors. But while the Borei might not have been as big as the Typhoon, it was far more advanced. It could dive to 1,500 feet and make 30 knots while submersed, and its pump jet propulsion gave it something submariners called “silent speed,” meaning it could travel quickly with very little noise, and it was damn difficult to detect.
There were ninety crew members on board, and most all of them, including Captain Anatoli Kudinov, stood on the deck and saluted their president as they passed the Pyotr Velikiy.
Project 955A was no secret to the Americans, but they did not understand the full scope and operational capabilities of these vessels, nor did they realize the Knyaz Oleg was already in service. Soon enough, likely just north of here in the icy waters of Kola Bay, Volodin was certain an American satellite would take note of a Borei leaving Sayda Inlet, sailing away from the protection of its hangar and out into the Barents Sea.
It was no matter. It might take the Americans a few hours to be sure they were looking at the Knyaz Oleg, but then they would lose interest, as they had no idea it had already been assigned to fleet ops. For a few days the Americans would think the newest Borei was undergoing more sea trials, but that would not last for long, because Valeri Volodin had no plans to make this mission a secret one.
No . . . Volodin was sending this submarine out on a mission of terror, and the mission hinged on everyone in the world knowing both what it was and, in a general sense, where it was.
Also standing on the deck of the heavy missile cruiser behind Volodin, ringed by his deputies, was the admiral in command of the 12th Main Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. He was the overall commander of all naval nuclear ordnance, and he’d come along today to wish bon voyage not to the Knyaz Oleg, but to the twelve devices of his that had been loaded into the sub’s weapons stores.
On board the floating titan passing now just one hundred meters in front of President Volodin were a dozen Bulava ballistic missiles, each one carrying ten warheads. This gave the Knyaz Oleg the ability to prosecute 120 nuclear detonations, meaning this one vessel could, with only slight exaggeration, replace the United States of America with a smoking hole the size of a continent.
But only if it was close enough to the East Coast of the American shoreline to render America’s missile defense systems irrelevant.
