Full Force and Effect

66

The operators of The Campus had been on Riley’s trail for an entire twenty-four hours. They landed in Mexico City at six-fifteen in the morning, and the Gulfstream purposefully taxied to the same fixed-base operator that Riley’s Embraer jet had used a few hours before. Ding Chavez spoke with the manager on duty and asked about the earlier aircraft. The man wasn’t terribly forthcoming at first, but after a pair of hundred-dollar bills changed hands, he seemed to remember some details about the Embraer. From this Ding ascertained the name of the limousine company that had picked up the one passenger on board. A call to this service brought out the same driver — precious few limousines ran between three and seven a.m., after all — and a ride into the city led to a friendly chat that was made more friendly with two more Ben Franklins, and just like that, Chavez was taken to the same Polanco hotel where the Englishman had been dropped earlier in the morning.

By ten a.m. the entire Campus team was in position around the hotel. Caruso and Ryan were on rented motorcycles, Clark and Driscoll drove in a nondescript 2010 Dodge Durango, and Chavez had access to a rented C–Class Mercedes that he’d parked with the valet. The men were spread out, but wired together via earpieces. Chavez remained in the lobby; he wore a business suit and he sipped coffee while reading El Día, the local newspaper.

There were a lot of Asians in the building — the hotel was popular with foreign businessmen — so a call from Clark for everyone to keep their eyes open for possible North Korean Riley accomplices turned up nothing conclusive.

Finally, Riley himself came out of the elevator at noon with a fit-looking Asian whom Chavez immediately pegged as RGB. The RGB man picked up a Lexus SUV from the valet stand, and both men climbed in and headed off.

For the next hour the five Americans leapfrogged in a four-vehicle mobile surveillance, tracking Riley and his colleague all the way to Toluca, an hour west of the city. They watched the men circle a theater very slowly, and then drive to a café, where they spent an hour talking on their phones. Soon after this Riley did some shopping at a department store and then a bookstore, where he purchased a curiously large number of paperbacks.

In the early evening the Lexus pulled into the parking lot of a shopping center, and soon a pair of black Jeep Cherokees stopped next to it. By now the Campus men had dispersed themselves hundreds of yards away to stay out of sight. Dom and Jack were parked on an overpass, Chavez was in his Mercedes in an adjacent parking lot, and Driscoll and Clark stood in the atrium of an office building across the street. They were far from their targets, but they all had binos or other optics and could see the team of ten Hispanic-looking males meeting with the Englishman and the North Korean.

As Riley and the Asian conferred around the vehicles with the new arrivals, Chavez called Clark on the net. “John, you’ve been around the longest. Any guesses at all as to what’s going on?”

“Nothing good. That’s a dozen men in total. I see sidearms printing under their jackets. The new arrivals all seem to be taking orders from Riley. Meeting in a parking lot like this… looks like a pre-operation briefing. I’d say something’s about to go down.”

Caruso added, “Something that Riley and his buddy from Pyongyang couldn’t pull off without more muscle.”

Clark agreed. “Yep. All we can do is keep tracking. And stay the hell out of the way if those guns come out of their waistbands.”

Soon the entourage led by Riley drove in a three-vehicle convoy toward the center of the city, and within ten minutes Clark called their destination. “They’re heading back to that theater they reconned earlier.”

And they did just that. Riley climbed out of the Lexus a few blocks from the entrance and then the Lexus rolled on, and the Jeeps peeled off and headed up side streets. Dom tracked one of them to a lot two blocks to the south, and Ryan found the other idling on a side street two blocks to the north.

While the rest of the Campus team took positions on all compass points and waited, Chavez went into the theater and bought a ticket.

Soon Riley came inside and stood at the concession stand without buying anything. Chavez saw the two backpacks, and at first he thought they might have held explosives, but almost immediately he remembered the big purchase at the bookstore.

It came together quickly for him. He transmitted into his earpiece mike. “Unless Riley is the newest member of the Toluca walking bookmobile, he’s here for an exchange. He’s got a couple of packs that I think are supposed to look like money bags.”

Clark said, “Loaded with the paperbacks?”

“Yep.”

Sam Driscoll asked, “Why do you need a dozen guys for a handoff?”

Clark answered that. “Because either you think it’s going to go bad or you know it’s going to go bad.”

“Meaning they are planning on whacking somebody?”

Ding said, “Or maybe just grabbing them. Don’t know. This should be interesting. Maybe I should buy some popcorn.”

Twenty minutes later The Campus tailed the Lexus and the two Jeeps out of town to the south, and every one of the American operators wondered about the identity of the guy Riley and his goons had just kidnapped off the street.

President of the United States Jack Ryan had spent a miserable day pretending he wasn’t miserable. Everything he had done since waking up this morning had been an act. An act for his doctors, telling them he didn’t need any painkillers heavier than anti-inflammatories, because he didn’t want to be doped up; an act for the reporters from Fox and The Washington Post who shared a staged and controlled five-minute visit with the President, to show just how well he was doing twenty-four hours after the attack.

An act during his quick phone call with Patrick O’Day, husband of Andrea Price O’Day. She was still in Mexico City receiving care, and her husband was by her side. Her condition had been downgraded from critical to serious, but she was in a medically induced coma, and American doctors were consulting with the Mexican neuros on how to proceed. Jack knew the last thing Pat needed was to listen to him complain about his own aches and pains, so he lied and told Andrea’s husband he was fine and then they prayed together for her recovery.

An act for the world leaders he spoke with on the phone and the dozens more he communicated with via videotaped message, all meant to convince America’s allies that all was right with the good ship Ryan.

And an act for his wife, Cathy, so that she wouldn’t worry any more than she naturally would, and a greater act for his kids so they wouldn’t be terrified about the monsters out there in the world who would want to hurt their dad.

But there was one person and one person only to whom Ryan spoke the pure, unvarnished truth. Arnie Van Damm got that duty, and a difficult duty it was. When the doctors and nurses were out of earshot, when the family had returned to the White House to finally get some sleep, when there were no more reporters or well-wishers or lookie-loos, Ryan bitched and moaned at Arnie.

“Nurse Ratched over there has got this goddamned dressing too tight! She and Maura are trying to shove these fucking elephant tranquilizers down my damn throat. Do they think I can be a chief executive and a zombie at the same time? I’m going to get AG Murray to investigate them to see if they are Russian spies. And those Secret Service guys yesterday… let me tell you. I know they had a job to do, but those young wild asses slung me around into that car like a rag doll when I was trying to help Andrea.”

Arnie listened to every last complaint and concern, and there were a dozen more; he took notes where needed, and nodded sympathetically throughout. When the tirades were finally over, he nodded more and said, “Jack. If you aren’t hurting and bitching, then you aren’t living.” He smiled. “Clearly, you are living, and considering the alternative and how close you came to that alternative yesterday, I’d say that’s a pretty good deal.”

“Did you listen to a thing I just said?”

“Yes, and I think you are just pissed because the Russkies didn’t attack. You thought your presence was the one thing holding back the red tide against America, but now you see that even when they thought you were out of the picture, they still have to consider it a bit before kicking off an invasion.”

“Funny, Arnie.”

“On a serious note, Mary Pat is outside.”

Jack nodded. “Bring her in. She knows me well enough to know my happy face is a put-on. I don’t have to fake anything for her.”

Mary Pat Foley entered a moment later, and Arnie stayed in the room. She asked about Jack’s condition, about how he felt and how the doctors were treating him, and Jack grumbled a little, but all the venting he’d done to Arnie had let enough steam out of the kettle so that he no longer needed to blow his top.

Finally, she said, “I thought you’d want to know where we are with finding the culprit for the attack. We’re only a day into the investigation, but we’ve turned up a little.”

“What did you find?”

“Dead Maldonado operatives at the scene. A dozen guys. Only four known cartel goons, but the others all had Maldonado tattoos and IDs linking them back to Guerrero state, where that clan rules the roads.”

“What about the explosive? I don’t remember a damn thing about a bomb. I woke up thinking we’d been in a traffic accident. Everybody says it was a hell of a blast.”

“Hundred-five-millimeter howitzer shells. Three of them. Looks like they came from the Mexican military.”

“Holy hell,” Ryan muttered. He’d seen what a 105 could do in the Marine Corps, and it wasn’t pretty.

“One of the high-explosive rounds impacted directly with the front limousine. Killed the four Secret Service men riding in it. A second shell hit right in front of your vehicle. If you were fifteen feet ahead it would be all over, Jack.”

That sank in for a moment.

“That knocked you upside down. Ambassador Styles broke his neck in the flip. He died instantly, mercifully. The last shell hit behind your limo. It took out a counterassault team vehicle and the vehicle next to it.”

Jack looked down at the wires, tubes, and bandages that seemed to be holding him together. “Arnie?”

Van Damm had been looking down at his phone. “Sir?”

“Come here and shake my hand.”

Arnie stepped over and lightly squeezed the fingertips on Ryan’s immobilized left hand, because his right hand was wrapped to his chest and completely covered in cotton bandages.

“Forget everything I just said. I’m the luckiest guy in the world.”

“Forgotten, Mr. President.”

“You know I yell at you because I can’t yell at anybody else.”

“Of course I do.”

Ryan said, “When we leave the White House you have my permission to write a kiss-and-tell book about what an ass I can be. You’ll make a mint. Hell, I’ll write the foreword.”

Van Damm and Mary Pat both smiled. Arnie said, “When I get out of here all I want to do is go to some tiny quiet college in New England, teach a class in conflict resolution or something, and decompress.”

Ryan cracked a smile himself. It was his first authentic smile in the past day. “That sounds pretty good. I might take that class.”

“That would make me uncomfortable, Mr. President, because you will be a recurring case study.”