Power and Empire

44

Ding Chavez stood with Jack Ryan, Jr., on the sidewalk in front of the Freddo ice cream shop, across the street from Recoleta Cemetery. Ten feet away, Midas and Adara flanked the seething Japanese woman.

“Impossible to prove,” Ding said. “It’s not like Kōanchōsa-chō carry around ID cards.”

The Kōanchōsa-chō, or Public Security Intelligence Agency, was akin to the CIA, FBI counterintelligence, and MI6, responsible for gathering intelligence and conducting counterespionage activities against both internal and external threats to the people of Japan.

“She has support and training,” Ryan said. “It’s no easy task to get a suppressed rifle into the country and then set up a sniper hide across the street from an international event. And I did see her following the brunette.”

“Tell me her name again,” Ding said.

Ryan looked at the palm of his hand where he’d written it down. “Yukiko,” he said. “At least that’s the name she gave.”

“Well, shit,” Chavez said. He’d worked with a couple Kōanchōsa-chō guys a few years before. They’d been good intelligence officers, if a bit humorless for Ding’s taste. But the IC world was not one where you could name-drop. For one thing, cover identities came and went. A real name might get nothing but a blank stare — even if you were both talking about the same person.

Chavez walked over to look the woman in the eye. “You’ve put us in a bit of a pickle,” he said.

Yukiko glared. “I could scream rape.”

“Go for it,” Chavez said. “I doubt you want to talk to the cops any worse than we do — even if you are Kōanchōsa-chō. Hell, especially if you are.”

Her eyes flashed toward the cemetery wall. “We waste time standing here.”

“How’s that?” Chavez said.

“You are CIA?”

Chavez shook his head. “Nice try.”

The Japanese woman stared hard at him, obviously thinking through her options. If she were truly Japanese intelligence, she’d realize she didn’t have many. At length, her shoulders dropped and she heaved a long sigh. She nodded toward Jack.

“Your young friend says they went into the cemetery.”

“They did.” Chavez played along. That tidbit of information wasn’t exactly a state secret. “Probably went straight over the far side before we could get around.”

Yukiko shook her head. “I do not believe that is true.”

Adara moved a half-step closer. “What, then?”

“The Basilica del Pilar is at the northeast corner of the grounds. Many of the churches in Buenos Aires have underground cloisters where nuns or Jesuit priests—”

“No, no, no.” Jack cut her off. “No more tunnels!” He said it loud enough that a passing couple turned to look at the crazy turista.

“As I was saying.” The Japanese woman gave a half-smile, then turned back to Chavez. “Jesuit priests constructed tunnels under many portions of the city. Some believe they planned to build a network so vast as to connect most of the churches in Buenos Aires.”

“Okay…” Chavez said. “Let’s say Chen took one of these tunnels. Can you take us to the entrance?”

“Trust me,” Jack said. “You don’t want to go down there.”

Yukiko shook her head. “There are almost five thousand burial vaults in an area covering fifty thousand square meters. There may be many entrances… or the way down could be beneath the church itself.”

“If there is one,” Chavez said.

The Japanese woman conceded the point. “This is true,” she said, nodding at Jack again. “But as your young friend will tell you, at least one of the tunnels leads to the slums on the other side of the tracks. Vincent Chen has a contact there who offers him protection, a man named Santiago Salazar. He is the father of Amanda Salazar, the Paraguayan woman you followed from the bombing. He is what you would call a neighborhood criminal boss in this villa miseria. I placed a listening device against the window of his home earlier today.”

“Let me guess,” Jack said. “Right before a guy with a machete chased you back into the sewer tunnel?”

“Correct,” Yukiko said.

Adara sighed. “Then he knows the device is there.”

“Maybe not,” Jack said. “The guy with the machete never made it back to tell him.”

“Ah,” Adara said. “Right.”

Ryan turned back to Yukiko. “I watched Amanda Salazar cut through the train yard,” he said. “Why didn’t she use the tunnel if it comes up near her father’s house?”

“Would you?” Yukiko said. “If you did not have to? I believe she suffers from… heijokyōfushō… fear of small places.”

“Claustrophobia,” Chavez said.

“Yes,” Yukiko said. “That is the word. In any case, we should hurry. My phone was damaged when you knocked me down. My room is behind the Hyatt on Montevideo. I have another phone there, but they will reach Salazar’s very soon. We must hurry if we hope to learn anything of value from the device I planted.”

Chavez raised an eyebrow. “Sure you don’t have a partner there as well?”

“Believe me,” Yukiko said, “if I had a partner, you would be aware of that by now.”

Chavez looked at the rest of his team.

Both Midas and Adara shrugged.

“We have to do something,” Jack said.

“All right, then.” Chavez motioned up the street with his open hand, nodding to Midas and Adara. “Feel free to shoot her if she tries anything.”

“Aye, sir,” Adara said.

Chavez turned to Ryan as the other two led the way with the Japanese woman in tow. “Notice how she kept calling you my ‘young friend’ like you were some kind of kid?”

Jack chuckled. “Ding, Ding, Ding,” he whispered so Yukiko couldn’t hear the name. “She’s not calling me that because I look like a kid. She’s calling me that because you’re old.”

“Get your ass moving, Ryan.”

President Jack Ryan rummaged through the bottom drawer of the desk in his study while Arnie van Damm took care of arranging the phone call. Ryan found the golf ball he was looking for and dropped it on the floor. Van Damm looked up at the clunk as the ball hit the carpet, and saw Ryan had kicked off his shoe.

“What?” Ryan said, rolling the ball around under his foot.

Van Damm held up both hands. “Hey,” he said. “This is your office. Who am I to judge?”

The phone gave an audible tone and the White House operator said, “Both parties are on the line, Mr. President.”

The director of national intelligence and the secretary of defense acknowledged that they were, indeed, there.

Ryan said, “Are you guys watching the news?”

“Just now,” Mary Pat said. “My deputy called me about thirty seconds before you did.”

“Same here,” Burgess said. “They’re saying Foreign Minister Li was injured but not badly. He’d be a likely target if Zhao’s behind this.”

“Could be,” the DNI said. “One thing’s certain, Li will leverage the hell out of this. Surviving an assassination attempt is a great way to boost political approval ratings.”

“Don’t remind me,” Ryan said. “My numbers went up fourteen points after the bombing in Mexico City. For some reason, not dying is seen as heroic. In any case, we shouldn’t discount the possibility that this bombing is related to everything else.”

“I agree,” the SecDef said. “If you put together the Orion explosion, the attack on the oil rig in Chad, the USS Rogue incident, and these events in Argentina — all lines converge on Zhao.”

“Maybe,” Mary Pat said. “But the woman who survived the attack in which the Rogue was involved described the pirates as being Indonesian or Malaysian.”

“That is true,” Burgess said. “But I’d put money on finding Zhao’s fingerprints on the payment to any of a half-dozen terrorist groups around Indonesia — as we did with Boko Haram in Chad. He’s pissed because our Freedom of Navigation ops are making him look bad, so he makes a play for one of our ships. Rogue wasn’t broadcasting on AIS and her schedule wasn’t advertised, but the fact that they were helping out as part of Malaysian antipiracy efforts was in all the papers down there. It was no secret that she was to berth in Australia prior to returning to her task force group. The average speed of a Cyclone-class PC is open-source. Anyone who wanted to target her would have had to wait for her to leave and start a countdown. Enough yachties sail through that area this time of year heading for Bali or Singapore that it would be easy to grab one when Rogue was presumably close enough to render aid.”

“A lot of moving parts,” Mary Pat said. “But it very nearly got the job done.”

“Not really,” Burgess said. “We have security measures to keep bad actors from getting too close to one of our ships, but at some point the VBSS teams have to close the distance with the RHIB to do their jobs.”

“I’m glad you brought up the terrorist groups, Bob,” Ryan said. “I’ve asked Dr. Miller to come in tomorrow and do some focused digging. Mary Pat, I’d appreciate it if you could get with her bosses and make sure she’s read into anything we have on Laskar Jihad, Jemaah Islamiyah… and that old East Timor independence group we looked into… What were they called?”

“Revolutionary Front,” the DNI said, demonstrating why she held the position she did.

“That’s the one,” Ryan continued. “We’ll cast a broad net. Hell, let’s get Dr. Miller access to cases on the He-Man Woman Haters Club if they have a chapter in that part of the world.”

Mary Pat chuckled. “As soon as we’re done here, Mr. President,” she said. “I’ll look into this Argentina thing as well.”

Ryan knew by “looking into it” Mary Pat would bring to bear the investigative and analytical brainpower of the sixteen U.S. intelligence agencies under her purview. For all the information silos, turf wars, and territorial fights between the various agencies, when a personal directive went out from the DNI, one could almost hear the collective mental gears turning in Washington.

“You’re excused, then, Mary Pat,” Ryan said. “And thanks for your work.”

“Thank you, Mr. President,” the DNI said, and then disconnected.

“Now,” Ryan continued, “Bob, bring me up to speed on our ships in the WestPac.”

“We’ve moved everyone out of the storm path,” Burgess said. “Or at least we did. This typhoon is all over the damned place. Its westerly course has now veered sharply north, putting it on a collision course for Central Japan. The Bōsō Peninsula gives some protection to Tokyo Bay if a storm comes in from the east, but Typhoon Catelyn is heading straight up the pipe.”

“Leaving Yokosuka vulnerable,” Ryan said, picturing the geography around the American Naval facility.

“Correct,” the SecDef said. “The storm may well yet turn west again, but Admiral Blackley ordered all vessels out to sea. They’ll head north and wait out the storm in colder waters. Even if it continues that way, it’ll lose steam.”

“Very well,” Ryan said. He knew Vice Admiral Blackley well and trusted the man’s judgment. “Let me know if anything develops.”

Ryan leaned back on the couch and gave a nod to van Damm, who ended the call.

The CoS drummed his fingers on the desk, eyes narrow. Arnie van Damm’s mind was always moving near light speed, one or two steps ahead of most people in the room — when it came to politics, at least.

Ryan raised an eyebrow. “What’s on your mind?”

“Jack,” van Damm said. Calling him by his given name was a sure sign the CoS was about to dispense some serious advice. “I know you, and I know you’re counting on this upcoming summit to meet face-to-face with President Zhao.”

Ryan had the golf ball in his hand now, rolling it back and forth with his fingers. “I’ve met him before,” he said.

“True, but that meeting was absent the present facts.” Van Damm glanced at a scratch pad on the desk. “RSMC Tokyo clocks Typhoon Catelyn with sustained winds of a hundred five miles an hour. And she’s showing rapid intensification.”

“I don’t think we’re supposed to call them ‘she’ anymore.”

Van Damm rolled his eyes. “If this genderless storm with a female name makes landfall anywhere near the Kantō Plain, Japan might be a little busy with recovery efforts to host the G20.”

“True,” Ryan said.

“The evidence against Zhao is mounting,” van Damm said. “And what we do have is pretty damned… well, damning. I know you want to meet him, shake his hand, get what you believe is a true measure of the man, but that might not be possible. Jack, you may well have to make a decision on Zhao without looking him in the eye.”