Whatwouldhe do without her?
“Good morning, Jack,” she said, not even looking up as she flicked through a jacketed copy of the PDB with reading glasses perched on her nose.
“Good morning, Mary Pat,” he said reflexively. He tried to gauge her expression, wondering if “good” was back in the ballpark.
They had both remained in the whizzer until early evening, long enough to ensure that the C-41 carrying Task Force 99 had arrived safely back at Incirlik Air Base. Soon after, a SITREP from Clark arrived on the secure network. The most critical portions of the mission had been a success: Lieutenant Conza had been recovered, battered but with no long-term injuries, and a large electronic device had been recovered from the GAZ. More problematic was Clark’s rundown of his team’s engagements. There was a significant body count on both sides of the border, which by now would have been discovered by Turkish and Georgian authorities. The bullet-riddled wreckage at either of the two scenes could introduce complications. That said, it wasn’t the first time he and Mary Pat had, in a diplomatic sense, swept up a china shop after a visit from John Clark. In truth, Ryan viewed it as his part of the bargain. America had been attacked, and Task Force 99 had responded. Any fallout Mary Pat would handle with his full backing.
“What’s the latest on John Conza?” he asked, settling into a chair next to her.
“The crew that abducted him worked him over pretty hard. Combined with getting shot down in a helicopter and surviving a rollover in the back of a box truck—the man took a beating. Twocracked ribs, injured shoulder, head laceration, lots of scrapes and bruises. But nothing that shouldn’t heal in time.”
“Thank God for that. Any backlash about Clark’s excursion into Georgia?”
“Nothing our ambassador in Tbilisi can’t handle,” Mary Pat replied. “The Turks are going to be more of a problem. They lost a helicopter, and two crewmen are dead with a third in the hospital. I think they’re a bit mystified by all of this. They don’t know if it’s a terrorist campaign or something state sponsored. They asked our ambassador if we knew why Conza had been abducted from the crash site.”
“And his answer?”
“He said we have no idea, which is pretty close to the truth. Conza was in uniform, recognizable as a U.S. naval officer. Clark says his abductors were a mix—a Russian, a Kazakh, a Serb, and one unknown. They clearly put Conza through a vicious interrogation.”
“Do the Turks realize we went across the border to retrieve him?”
“Yes, Clark mentioned that in his SITREP. He figured they were going to find out sooner or later, so he put it right out front. I think he was angling for some goodwill. Conza needed medical care, as did one of his team members, who’d suffered a leg wound. They were both treated at the base hospital at Incirlik. The team member with the leg wound was released. Conza was admitted.”
“What about this device we recovered? Do the Turks know about it?”
“That’s a bit trickier. It’s still at Incirlik sitting inside the C-41. According to Clark, the Turks got a look at it and must suspect what it is.”
“What’s the plan? Transfer it to a C-17 and bring it stateside?”
“Logistically speaking, that’s an option. But I’m not sure if it’sthe best play. The Turksarea party to this accident investigation. The key to finding out who’s responsible for the crash is to figure out whose basement this system came from. The quickest way to do that is to send our technicians to the scene. I’d recommend the engineers from Wright-Patt.” Wright-Patterson Air Force Base was the main engineering hub of the Air Force, and its electronic warfare technicians were the best in the business.
“Okay, I’m convinced. Send a team from Wright-Patt.”
“Will do.”
“Let’s move on to the rest of what Clark gave us.”
“What he learned from his interrogation of the lone survivor?”
Ryan nodded. “He confessed they were targeting a Swiss national on the flight, and that they were hired by Andrei Malenkov.”
“We’ve got a thick file on Malenkov.” Mary Pat flipped through a folder and read from her written notes. “Longtime star in the GRU, first head of the SSD. Then, about a year ago, he was abruptly fired. Since then, he appears to have gone private. We have it on good authority that he’s been running arms and mercenaries, although not on a large scale.”
“A part-time retirement gig?” the President said derisively.
“That’s how it appears…at least, until this week. We’ve been tracking him loosely since he left the SSD. Spends a lot of time at his villa in Portugal.”
“And now he’s taking down jets carrying American trade delegations?” As ever, Ryan couldn’t escape his analyst’s mindset. “None of this adds up. A guy spends a year heading up the most secretive division of Russian military intelligence, directing sabotage across Europe. Then he gets fired and jets off to his villa? In my experience, when somebody gets canned from a job like that in Russia, they don’t end up on the Iberian seaside. More often than not, they get a bullet and a trip to a Lubyanka furnace.”
“I agree, we’re not seeing the whole picture. As soon as Clark gave us Malenkov’s name, I put both Langley and the DIA on it. They’ve been up all night trying to learn where he’s traveled lately and what he’s been up to. We should get an update soon.”
“All right. Which leaves us with this ‘Swiss national.’ It’s got to be Gunther Klaus.”
“I can’t see it any other way.”
“Do we know if he was the passenger who didn’t board in Tangier?”
“The DIA is convinced.”
