Locked On Part 30

"The FBI did not get any wind of what Clark was working on from CIA. But within the FBI itself . . . There are faint rumors about an off-the-books organization stocked with certain a.n.a.lytical and operational capabilities. Like a private spy shop. FBI has suspicions that some in their house know about it, but getting any concrete evidence is like nailing Jell-O to the wall."

Edward Kealty literally gasped. "You are talking about a shadow government? Some sort of sub rosa American enterprise?"

"Nothing else makes a d.a.m.n bit of sense," Alden said.

Benton Thayer was slower than the other two; he had no experience with either the military or intelligence communities, and hadn't thought much about how they were organized. But he did understand one aspect. "The Emir will know if Clark captured him. We get the Emir to ID him, and then Clark is f.u.c.king toast. And if Clark goes down, then Jack Ryan goes down with him."

Kealty was still gobsmacked by this new information. But he retained the presence of mind to say, "The Emir is under lock and key, with DOJ restrictions on the intel he can provide."

Thayer just shook his head. "You are the President of the United States. Just tell Brannigan to loosen the reins on the PCI. We can get everything we need."

Kealty, the consummate political animal, thought of a new angle to his problem. "But the Emir is the most unsympathetic witness we could possibly have on our side in this. So what if he IDs Clark? Then Clark comes off looking like a hero for capturing the man. Think about it! Does it bother us that there may be some sort of off-the-books spy shop out there? f.u.c.k, yes! But is the tenth district of Ohio, or the third district of Florida, or any one of the other battleground states, going to support the trial of the guy who caught the Emir? I don't see it."

Alden shrugged. "We don't care if Clark goes to prison for this. But if we can implicate Ryan . . . If Clark is involved, maybe Ryan is involved, as well. Think about it. Who else would Clark work for on something as shady as an off-the-books intelligence house?"

Kealty said, "We will need Clark in hand to answer that question. We can offer him limited immunity, or even total immunity, to dump this on Jack Ryan."

Alden nodded. "I like it."

But Kealty then said, "But without Clark, we are dead in the water."

Alden looked to Thayer now. "May I have one minute alone with the President?"

Thayer just nodded without checking with Kealty himself. He felt incredibly out of his depth, and he had a suspicion something was about to happen that he would not want to be involved in. So he rose from the couch and headed straight out of the office, closing the door behind him.

"Chuck?" Ed Kealty leaned forward, almost whispered.

"Mr. President. Just between you and me . . . I can get John Clark."

"We need him alive."

"I understand."

Kealty started to speak, his mouth opened to utter the word how, but he stopped himself. Instead he just said, "Just between you and me, Chuck . . . do it."

Alden rose, and the two men shook hands with hard looks between them.

Nothing else was said before the deputy director of the CIA left the Oval Office.

Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency Charles Alden reached Paul Laska just after midnight. The old man was home in his bed, but he'd given Alden a number that would allow him to be contacted, no matter the hour.

"h.e.l.lo?"

"Paul. It's Charles."

"I did not expect to hear from you. You told me you wouldn't get involved past what you've already done."

"It's too late for that. Kealty has pulled me in."

"You can refuse him, you know. He won't be President for much longer."

Alden thought this over for a moment. Then he said, "It's in everyone's interest that we capture John Clark. We have to find out who he's working with. How he managed to catch the Emir. Who the other people are in his group."

"I understand Mr. Clark has left the United States, and the CIA is working on this overseas."

"Your network of intelligence a.s.sets rivals my own, Paul."

A slight chuckle from the old man in his bed. "What can I do for you?"

"I am worried that despite my wishes and intentions, my colleagues at the Central Intelligence Agency will be disinclined to put the full might of their powers into the hunt for John Clark. The rank and file reveres the man. I've got everyone hunting for him, but these are hunters who are just going through the motions. And I . . . I mean, Kealty is on one h.e.l.l of a time constraint."

After a long pause Laska said, "You would like my help in bringing in outsiders to do the work that needs to be done."

"That is it exactly."

"I know someone who can help us."

"I thought you might."

"Fabrice Bertrand-Morel."

The pause was brief now. Charles Sumner Alden said, "He owns an investigation concern in France, I believe?"

"Correct. He runs the largest international private detective firm there is, with offices all over the world. If Clark has left the U.S., then Fabrice Bertrand-Morel's men will ferret him out."

"He sounds like he will be a suitable choice," Alden said.

Laska replied, "It's six a.m. in France. If I call him now, I will reach him on his morning walk. I will arrange a late dinner for us this evening over there."

"Excellent."

"Good night, Charles."

"Paul . . . We need him alive. We understand that, right?"

"Good Lord. Why would you even entertain the thought that I might-"

"Because I know Bertrand-Morel has hunted men down and killed them in the past."

"I have heard the allegations, but nothing has ever gone past the inquiry stage."

"Well, that is because he has been helpful to the nations where his crimes have been committed."

Laska did not speak to this, so Alden rendered an explanation for his knowledge of this man and his company.

"I'm with the CIA. We know all about the work of Fabrice Bertrand-Morel. He has a reputation as capable but unscrupulous. And his men have a reputation around the CIA as cutthroats. Now . . . please understand. I need absolute clarity between you and me that neither President Kealty nor anyone working with or for him is advocating that Mr. Clark be murdered."

"We have an accord. Good night, Charles," Laska said.

Sam Driscoll found himself surprised and quite confused to see the sunrise. His guards did not communicate with him at all, so he never knew why Haqqani's people did not follow General Rehan's order to interrogate him and then stand him up against the wall and shoot him.

Luck is real and, once in a while, it is even good. Driscoll would never know, but the day before his capture in the FATA, twenty-five miles north of his location in Miran Shah, three senior Haqqani network chiefs were picked up at a roadblock in Gorbaz, a small Afghani town just south of the Haqqani stronghold of Khost. For a few weeks Haqqani and his men thought NATO forces were holding the men, and Siraj Haqqani himself, after learning of the fortuitous capture by his men of a Western spy, sent orders countermanding Rehan's wishes. The American would be held in trade for his men, and he was not to be harmed.

It was not for another two months that the bodies of the three Haqqani network chiefs were found wrapped in burlap floor coverings and dumped in a garbage heap north of Khost. They were victims of a rival Taliban affiliate group. NATO had nothing to do with their capture or murder.

But this bought Driscoll a little time.

In the early morning after Rehan's visit, Driscoll's chains were freed from the eyebolt in the floor and he was pulled to his feet. He wobbled on his injured legs. His head was covered in a traditional patu shawl, presumably to make him invisible to UAVs, and he was shuffled out of his cold cell, pushed into the dawn's light, and helped up into the back of a Toyota Hilux truck.

He was driven north, out of the compound by the Bannu Road bridge, up Bannu, and deeper into the city of Miran Shah. He heard truck engines and horns honking, at intersections he could hear men on foot as they walked the narrow streets, even so early in the morning.

They cleared the town minutes later. Sam knew this by the increase in speed, and the lack of noises from other vehicles.

They drove for almost two hours; as far as Driscoll could tell he was not in a convoy at all, just sitting in the back of a single pickup truck that cruised through open territory, seemingly without a care in the world. The men in the back with him-he had identified three distinct voices but felt sure there were more-laughed and joked with one another.

They didn't seem to worry about American drones or Pakistani Defense Force ground troops.

No, this was Haqqani territory; the men around Sam in the truck were in charge here.

Finally they rolled up the North Waziristan road into the town of Aziz Khel, and pulled into a large gated compound. Sam was hauled from the truck as it stopped and then frog-walked into a building. Here his head covering was removed and he found himself in a dark hallway. He was led down the hall; he pa.s.sed rooms full of women in burkas who did their best to stay in the shadows, and he pa.s.sed long-bearded armed Haqqani network gunmen at the top of a stone staircase that led down into a bas.e.m.e.nt level.

He stumbled more than once. The shrapnel wounds in his thighs and calves had caused muscle injuries that made walking uncoordinated as well as painful, and with the metal chains on his wrists he could not reach out to balance himself.

As he pa.s.sed the locals here, he was somewhat surprised to see there was little interest in him from those around the compound. Either this place got a lot of prisoners or they were just disciplined enough to not make a show of someone new in their midst.

Down in the bas.e.m.e.nt he had his answer. He entered a room at the end of a stone hall, then pa.s.sed a long row of small iron-bar-fronted cells on his left. Looking into the dim cages, he counted seven prisoners. One was Western, a young man who did not speak as Driscoll pa.s.sed. Two more were Asian; they lay on rope cots and stared blankly back at him.

The rest of the prisoners were Afghans or Pakistanis. One of these men, a burly older man with a long gray beard, lay on the floor of his cell on his back. His eyes were half open and gla.s.sy. It was apparent even in the low light that his life would be leaving his body soon unless he received medical care.

Driscoll's new home was the last cell on the left. It was dark and cold, but there was a rope cot that would keep him off the concrete floor, and the guards removed his chains. As the iron bars clanged shut behind him, he stepped over the waste bucket and eased his sore body onto the cot.

For a former Army Ranger accustomed to living an austere life, these digs weren't the worst he'd ever seen. They were a d.a.m.n sight better than where he'd just come from, and the fact that it looked like he might be here for a while, while it was certainly not his first choice, caused his spirits to improve markedly from where they had been a day before.

But more than anything involving his own predicament, Sam Driscoll thought about his mission. He just had to find some way to get the word back to The Campus that General Rehan was working with Haqqani network agents on something that he very much wanted to keep shrouded in secrecy.

Paul Laska would have very much liked to visit this beautiful nineteenth-century French estate in the summer. The swimming pool was exquisite, the beach below was private and pristine, and there was outdoor seating all over the back of the huge walled property, ideal natural nooks in the gardens and grounds set for relaxing or dining or enjoying a c.o.c.ktail as the sun set.

But it was late October now, and though it was still quite lovely here, out in the back garden, with afternoon temperatures hovering in the lower sixties and evenings dipping down into the upper forties, there was not much in the way of outdoor recreation to be had for a seventy-year-old man. The pool and the Mediterranean were both frigid.

And in any case, Laska did not have time for frivolity. He was on a mission.

Saint Aygulf was a developed seaside town, without all the clutter and crowds of Saint Tropez, just to the south on the southern tip of the Bay of Saint Tropez. But it was as beautiful as its more famous neighbor; in fact, the exquisite villa, the hills behind it, and the water in front of it were, to put it mildly, paradise.

The property was not his own; it belonged instead to an A-list Hollywood actor who split his time between the West Coast of the United States and the southern coast of France. A call from a Laska aide to the actor's people had secured the villa for the week, though Paul expected to be here less than a day.

It was well after nine p.m. when a burly Frenchman in his mid-fifties entered the back patio through the sliding gla.s.s doors from the library. He wore a blue blazer with a collar open to reveal his thick neck. He'd come up from Cannes, and he moved like a man who had someplace to be.

Laska stood from his chair by the infinity pool when the man approached.

"How wonderful to see you again, Paul."

"Likewise, Fabrice. You are looking healthy and tan."

"And you are looking like you are working too hard over there in America. I always tell you, 'Come to the south of France, you will live forever.'"

"May I fix you a Cognac before dinner?"

"Merci."

Laska stepped over to a rolling cart near his table by the pool. As the two men discussed the beautiful villa and the beautiful girlfriend of the actor who owned it, the Czech billionaire poured Cognac into a pair of brandy snifters and pa.s.sed one to his guest. Fabrice Bertrand-Morel took the snifter, sipped, and nodded in appreciation.

Laska motioned for the Frenchman to take a seat at the table.

"You are always the gentleman, my dear Paul."

Laska nodded with a smile as he warmed the cup of the snifter with his hand.

Then Bertrand-Morel finished the thought: "Which makes me wonder why you allow your bodyguards to search me for a wire. It was a little too intimate."

The older man shrugged. "Israelis," he said, as if that somehow explained the frisking that had just taken place inside the house.

Bertrand-Morel let it go. He held his snifter over the open flame of a tea-light candle on the table to warm it. "So, Paul. I enjoy seeing you in person, even if it comes with demands to lift my s.h.i.+rt and to loosen my belt. It has been so very long. But I am wondering, what could possibly be so tres important that we would need to meet like this?"

"Perhaps the matter can wait until after dinner?"

"Let me hear it now. If it is important enough, then dinner can wait."

Laska smiled. "Fabrice, I know you as a man who can a.s.sist in the most delicate of affairs."

"I am at your service, as always."

"I imagine you know of the John Clark matter that is on the news in the United States?" Laska inflected the statement as a question, but he had little doubt that the French investigator knew all about the matter.

"Oui, l'affaire Clark. Jack Ryan's personal a.s.sa.s.sin, or so say the French papers."

"It is every bit as grave a scandal as that. I need you, and your operatives, to find Mr. Clark."