The phone on her desk rang. “Melanie Kraft?”
Ninety seconds later, Melanie leaned into Mary Pat’s office. “I need to run out for just a second. Maybe a half-hour. Can I pick up anything for you?”
Foley just shook her head. She started to say something, but her phone chirped.
Kraft walked out to the bus stop in front of her building and took the next bus toward Tysons Corner, but she got out at the Old Meadow stop. She walked alone into Scott’s Run Community Park, made her way to some park benches overlooking a snow-and-ice-covered vista. Bare trees blew in a frigid wind, and she pulled her coat tighter around her.
She sat down.
The first man approached a minute later. He was big and black; he wore a long gray raincoat over his dark suit, but it was open as if he were impervious to the chill.
He was a security man, and he looked her over and then spoke into a cuff mike.
Behind her in the parking lot she heard a car pull up, but she did not turn around. She just kept looking at the swaying trees.
The security man turned away, walked up the path, and then stood there, watching the road.
Deputy Director of the CIA Charles Sumner Alden appeared from behind and he sat down next to her. He did not make eye contact. Instead he looked out over a snow-covered baseball diamond. “I am racking my brain here, Miss Kraft, trying to think how I may have possibly been more clear in my instructions to you. And I just can’t think of a way. I was certain we had an understanding. But today you tell Junior that you don’t have time to meet him tonight? Trust me, young lady. You
Melanie gritted her teeth. “Really, sir? You are bugging the phone of an analyst at NCTC? Are you that desperate?”
“Yes. Frankly, we are.”
“About what?”
“About Jack Junior.”
Melanie sighed cold vapor.
Alden changed his voice a bit, less smarmy and more fatherly. “I thought I was clear about what I needed.”
“I’ve done what you’ve asked.”
“I’ve asked you to produce results. Have dinner with him tonight. Find out what he knows about Clark, about his dad’s relationship with Clark.”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
Now Alden was even more fatherly than before. “You wanted to help us. Has something changed?”
“Of course not. You told me you had heard Clark worked with Ryan. You wanted me to find evidence of Jack’s work at Hendley Associates.”
“And?” he asked.
“And you are the DD/CIA. Of course it is my job to follow orders.”
“Jack Junior is tighter with Clark than he is letting on. We know this. We have guys at the Agency who can tie Clark and Chavez to Hendley Associates, your boyfriend’s employer. And if Clark and Chavez work at Hendley, you can be goddamned sure more goes on there than arbitrage and trading. I want to know what Jack knows, and I want to know it now.”
“Yes, sir,” Melanie said again.
“Look. You have a bright future. I may be leaving my post soon, but CIA is not about the political appointees. It’s about the rank and file. The career men and women in the Agency know what you are doing, and they appreciate your hard work. We can’t allow criminal actions in the name of national security. You know that. So dig deeper.” He paused. “Don’t do it for me. Do it for them.” Then he sighed. “Do it for your country.”
Melanie nodded distantly.
Alden stood, turned, and looked down at the twenty-five-year-old analyst. “Jack wants to see you tonight. Make it happen.” He walked off through the snow, and his security man moved with him back toward the parking lot.
Melanie walked back to the bus stop, and she pulled her phone from her purse. She dialed Jack’s number.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Jack.”
“Hey.”
“Look, I’m sorry about before. Just stressed from work.”
“Believe me, I get it.”
“To tell you the truth, I do need to get out of here for a bit. How ’bout you come over tonight? I’ll make dinner, we can hang out and watch a movie.”
The pause was long, and only broken when Ryan cleared his throat.
“Something wrong?”
“No. I wish I could, Melanie, but something came up.”
“In the past thirty minutes?”
“Yeah. I’ve got to go out of town. I’m on the way to the airport right now, in fact.”
“To the airport,” she repeated, incredulously.
“Yeah, just a quick flight back over to Switzerland. My boss wants me to meet some bankers, take them to dinner, get them to spill secrets, I guess. Should just take a couple of days.”
Melanie did not respond.
“I’m sorry. Dinner and a movie sounds great. Can we do it when I get back?”
“Sure, Jack,” she said.
Melanie climbed off the bus ten minutes later and headed back to the operations center. As soon as she got out of the elevator she saw Mary Pat at her desk, leaving her a note. Mary Pat saw her approaching and motioned for her to head into her office.
Melanie was nervous. Did she know about the meeting with Alden? Did she know the deputy director of the CIA was using her to spy on Mary Pat’s friend, Jack Ryan Jr., to see what his professional association with John Clark was?
“What’s up?” she asked Mrs. Foley.
“Big happening while you were gone.”
“Really?” Melanie swallowed nervously.
“A CIA asset in Lahore has positively identified Riaz Rehan. He arrived at the airport with his security detail and his second in command.”
Melanie thought of Ryan’s rapid travel plans. “Really. When did this happen?”
Foley said, “Within the past hour.”
In an instant, Melanie knew. She did not know how he found out, because she was certain he was not CIA. But somehow Ryan had been tipped off and, for some reason, Jack Ryan Jr. was on his way to Lahore.
75
The on-site temporary command center for all Russian security forces for the Baikonur situation had been set up in the Sputnik Hotel in the town of Baikonur, well to the south of the Cosmodrome. Here Russian military and intelligence personnel, Federal Space Agency officials, Baikonur management, and other parties had set up camps both outside in heated tents and trailers and inside in the rooms, the restaurant, and the
