Locked On Part 27

"A legend at CIA."

"Really?"

Ryan nodded distractedly. "He was on the other end. Operations."

"Case officer?"

"SAD.".

Melanie nodded. She understood. "Do you think he-"

"h.e.l.l, no!" Ryan said, then controlled himself. "No. The guy has a d.a.m.n Congressional Medal of Honor."

"Sorry."

Jack turned his head away from the TV, back to Melanie. "I'm sorry. I'm reacting to what Kealty is doing. Not you."

"I get it."

"He's got a wife. Kids. He's a grandfather. Jesus . . . You don't tear down a man like that without knowing what you are talking about."

Melanie nodded. "Can your dad protect him? When he gets back in the White House?"

"I hope so. I guess Kealty is doing this to prevent my dad from getting back in the White House."

"It's too transparent. It won't work . . ." Melanie said, but her voice trailed off at the end.

"Unless?"

"Unless . . . well, you say this Clark doesn't have any skeletons in his closet that weren't put there by his work in the CIA."

And that was it, exactly. Jack couldn't say it to Melanie, of course, but he knew a detailed investigation into John Clark just might uncover The Campus. Might that be the goal of this? Might some news have come out about what Clark had been up to for the past year or more? Something about the Paris operation, or even the Emir case?

s.h.i.+t, Jack thought. This investigation, whether or not they have anything substantive on Clark, could bring about the destruction of The Campus.

The report ended, and he turned to Melanie. "I'm really sorry, but I need to call it a night."

"I understand," she said, but Ryan could see in her eyes that she did not. Where was he going to go? What could he possibly do to help John Clark?

Jack Ryan Sr. ate his hamburger before going onstage at the rally at the Tempe Mission Palms Hotel. He'd planned on just taking a few polite bites, this was a late lunch for him, and he had another event to attend in less than two hours, a Veterans of Foreign Wars dinner, also here in Tempe. But the burger was so d.a.m.ned good he devoured it while chatting with his supporters.

He took the stage at two thirty-five local time. The crowd was lively and ecstatic with the poll numbers. The polls had tightened since Kealty announced the capture of the man who had killed so many Americans a few years earlier, but Ryan was still ahead and beyond the margin of error.

When the music stopped, Jack leaned into the microphone slightly and said, "Good evening. Thank you. I appreciate it." The crowd loved him; it was taking them longer than usual to quiet down.

Finally he was able to thank his supporters for showing up this afternoon, and then warn them against letting down their guard too quickly. The election was still two weeks away, and he needed support now more than ever. He'd given this same speech for the past two or three days, and he'd give it for two or three more.

As Ryan addressed his supporters, he looked over the crowd. Off to the right he caught a glimpse of the back of Arnie van Damm as he walked out of the hall with his phone to his ear. Jack could tell Arnie was excited about something, but he couldn't tell if it was something good or something bad.

Van Damm disappeared behind a mountain of balloons just before exiting the hall.

Ryan began closing his speech; there were several applause lines that he delivered, each requiring a good thirty seconds or so before he could continue his remarks. He still had a couple more to go when van Damm appeared, directly below Ryan. He had a grave look on his face; it was hidden from view of the cameras, but he made a "Wrap it up" motion by swinging a finger in a circle.

Jack did just that, and fought for his happy face while he wondered what was going on.

Van Damm's expression left no doubt. Bad news was coming.

Normally Ryan would exit through the hall at the end of a rally, and he'd take several minutes to shake hands and pose for pictures as he moved through his supporters, but van Damm ushered him off stage right. The crowd cheered and the music blared as he headed off the stage, and he took the time to give one last big wave to everyone before heading out of view of the hall.

In the hallway, Andrea Price-O'Day shouldered up to him; van Damm led the way toward a side exit.

"What is it?" Jack shouted to him.

"Not yet, Jack," Arnie said as they walked briskly off the wings. The hallway was full of media and friends and supporters, and they moved through them quickly. Ryan's well-practiced smile was gone now; he rushed to catch up to his campaign manager.

"G.o.d d.a.m.n it, Arnie. Is it my family?"

"No! G.o.d, no, Jack! Sorry." Arnie motioned for Jack to continue following.

"Okay." Ryan relaxed a little. It was politics, that's all.

They opened a side door and hurried out into a parking lot. Ryan's SUVs were parked in a row just ahead. More Secret Service met up with them, and van Damm led the way to the waiting vehicles.

And they almost made it. Within twenty feet of Ryan's SUV, a single reporter with a videographer in tow cut them off. Her microphone had the station ID of a local CBS affiliate.

With no preamble, she pushed the microphone between two big Secret Service men and into Ryan's face. "Mr. President, what is your reaction to the attorney general's announcement of the murder investigation into your bodyguard?"

Ryan pulled up short. That the reporter had screwed up the facts only made the expression on Jack's face appear more confused. He turned to his lead Secret Service agent, Andrea Price-O'Day, who was talking into her cuff mike to the drivers of the motorcade and therefore had not been listening to the question. Andrea's been charged with murder? "What?" Ryan asked.

"John Clark, your former bodyguard. Are you aware he is a fugitive from justice? Can you tell us the last time you spoke with him and the nature of your conversation?"

Ryan turned to van Damm, who also fought off a deer-in-the-headlights look. Arnie reached out and took Jack's arm, tried to lead him on to the vehicles.

Quickly Ryan recovered just enough to turn back to the reporter. "I'll have a statement on this in a short while."

More questions came, as the eager young reporter sensed that Ryan had no idea what the h.e.l.l she was talking about. But Ryan said nothing else; he just hustled into the SUV behind his campaign manager.

Twenty seconds later, the SUV with Ryan, van Damm, and Price-O'Day pulled out as the door shut.

"What the f.u.c.k was that?" Jack asked.

Van Damm had his phone out already. "Just got a heads-up from D.C. Brannigan called a surprise press conference right before the six-o'clock news and said Clark was being picked up on a murder rap. I found out from FBI he managed to escape the SWAT team that went to arrest him."

"What murder?" Jack almost shouted.

"Something about his actions in the CIA. I am working on getting a copy of the arrest order from DOJ. I should have it in an hour."

"This is politics! I gave the man a full pardon for his work at CIA, just to prevent something like this from happening." Ryan was yelling inside the car, the veins in his neck exposed.

"It is politics. Kealty's going after him to get to you. We need to treat this with kid gloves, Jack. We'll go back to the hotel, kibitz for a while, and make a statement that is careful-"

"I'm going to get in front of the cameras right now and tell America what kind of a man Ed Kealty is picking on. This is bulls.h.i.+t!"

"Jack, we don't know the details. If Clark has done something other than what you pardoned him for, it is going to look extremely bad."

"I know what Clark has done. h.e.l.l, I ordered him to do some of it." Ryan thought for a moment. "What about Chavez?"

"He wasn't mentioned at Brannigan's press conference."

"I need to check on John's wife."

"Clark needs to turn himself in."

Jack shook his head. "No, Arnie. Trust me, he does not."

"Why not?"

"Because John is involved in something that needs to stay quiet. Let's just leave it at that. I will not go out on record with a call for Clark to come forward."

Arnie started to protest, but Ryan raised his hand.

"You don't have to like it, but you do have to drop it right now. Trust me, Clark needs to stay low until this blows over."

"If it blows over," Arnie said.

General Riaz Rehan entered the baked-brick hut with two of Haqqani's men. They stood on either side of him holding flashlights, and they s.h.i.+ned their beams on a figure slumped on the floor in the corner of the room. It was a man, both of his legs were crudely bandaged, and he lay on the floor on his left shoulder, facing the wall.

The Haqqani operatives wore black turbans and long beards, but Rehan was in a simple salwar kameez and a short prayer cap. His beard was short and trim, contrasting dramatically with the two long-haired Pashtuns.

Rehan looked over the prisoner. The man's matted and soiled hair was more than half gray, but this was not an old man. He was healthy, or he had been so before he'd been blown ten feet by a rocket-propelled grenade.

Rehan stood over the man for several seconds, but the man did not look toward the light. Finally one of the Pashtun gunmen walked over and kicked the man on a bandaged leg. He stirred, turned to the light, tried to s.h.i.+eld his eyes from it with his hands, then just sat up with his eyes closed.

The wrists of the infidel were shackled to an eyebolt on the poured-concrete floor, and his feet were bare.

"Open your eyes." General Rehan said it in English. The Pakistani general motioned for the two guards to lower their flashlight beams a little, and when they did so, the bearded Westerner's eyes slowly opened. Rehan saw the man's left eye was blood red, perhaps from some blow to his nose or eye but likely due to a concussion from the RPG blast that, Rehan had been told, caused the prisoner's other injuries.

"So . . . you speak English, yes?" Rehan asked.

The man did not answer at first, but after a moment he shrugged, then nodded.

The general squatted down, close to his prisoner. "Who are you?"

No response from the prisoner.

"What is your name?"

Still nothing.

"It hardly matters. My sources tell me you are a guest in Pakistan of Major Mohammed al Darkur of the Joint Intelligence Bureau. You came here in order to spy on what Major al Darkur erroneously thinks is a joint ISIHaqqani network facility."

The wounded man did not respond. It was difficult to tell in the low light, but his pupils were still somewhat dilated from his concussion.

"I would very much like to understand why you are here, in Miran Shah, right now. Is there something special you are hoping to find, or was it just fate that has your journey into the Federally Administered Tribal Areas coincide with my visit here? Major al Darkur has been meddlesome to my efforts of late."

The gray-haired man just stared at him.

"You, friend, are a very boring conversationalist."

"Been called worse."

"Ah. Now you talk. Shall we have a polite discussion, man-to-man, or shall I have my a.s.sociates pry the next words past your tongue?"

"Do what you have to do, I'm going to catch a nap." And with that the American lay back on his side, his chains jangling on the concrete floor as he positioned himself.

Rehan shook his head in frustration. "Your country should have stayed out of Pakistan, just like the British should have stayed away. But you inject yourselves, your culture, your military, your sin, into all cracks on the globe. You are an infection that spreads insidiously."

Rehan started to say something else, but he stopped himself. Instead he just waved an angry hand at the prostrate wounded man and turned to one of the Haqqani operatives.

The American did not speak any Urdu, the native tongue of General Rehan. Nor did he speak much Pashto, the native tongue of the Haqqani network officer standing next to General Rehan. But Sam spoke English, so Rehan clearly intended for the prisoner to understand his command when he relayed it in English.

"See what he knows. If he tells you willingly, execute him humanely. If he wastes your time, make him regret doing so."

"Yes, General," replied the black-turbaned man.

Rehan turned and ducked his head as he exited the baked-brick cell.

From his position on the floor, Driscoll watched him leave. When he was alone in the room, Sam said, "You may not remember me, but I remember you, a.s.shole."

John Clark stepped off the bus in Arlington, Virginia, at five-fifty a.m. He kept the hood of his jacket over his head as he walked up North Pers.h.i.+ng into a neighborhood that was still asleep. His target was in the 600 block of North Fillmore, but he would not go there directly; instead he continued on Pers.h.i.+ng, ducked up the drive of a darkened two-story clapboard home, and followed the property line to the back fence. There he climbed over, dropped down into the dark, and followed this fence line until he made his way to the carport across the street from his target.