zealots and criminals since he was a fourteen-year-old boy, and he was very, very good at it.
After the emotional embrace, Rehan returned to the business at hand. “Mr. Safronov. You may, in the coming days, hear faint rumors of strangers asking questions of you, your history, your background, your education, your faith.”
“Why is this?”
“First and foremost, I will have to look into you very carefully.”
“General Ijaz. I understand completely. You and your security service may look into me all you wish, but please do not take too long, sir. There is a scheduled launch at the end of the year. Three Dnepr-1 rockets carrying three satellites for United States, British, and Japanese companies will be launched on three consecutive days.”
“I see,” said Rehan. “And you will be there?”
“I had already planned on it.” Safronov smiled. “But you give me additional incentive.”
The two men went over details for the rest of the afternoon, and then into the evening. They prayed together. By the time he returned to the Volgograd airport, Rehan was ready to hand the bombs over to the energetic Dagestani partisan.
But first he had to acquire the bombs, and for this he had a plan, yes. But he also had much work still to do. Operation Saker, a plan that he had been working on for years and thinking about for well over a decade, needed to begin as soon as he returned to Pakistan.
30
Jack Ryan Jr. breathed out a long, slow breath, and with it a small measure of his anxiety.
He dialed the number. With each ring, half of him hoped there would be no answer on the other end. His blood pressure was up, and his palms perspired slightly.
He’d gotten the phone number from Mary Pat Foley. He’d written several e-mails to her over the last few days, but each one he’d deleted before hitting that irrevocable send key. Finally, on perhaps his fourth or fifth try, he’d written Mary Pat a succinct but friendly message thanking her for the tour around the office the other day, and, oh, by the way, he was wondering if she would pass on Melanie Kraft’s phone number.
He groaned when he read his message, he felt more than a little foolish, but he sucked it up and hit send.
Twenty minutes later a friendly message came back from Mary Pat. Mary Pat said she had enjoyed running out for frsushi, and she had found their conversation exceedingly interesting. She hoped to be able to add to the conversation soon. And at the end, following a simple “Here you go,” Jack saw the area code 703, Alexandria, Virginia, preceding a seven-digit number.
“Yes!” he shouted at his desk.
Behind him, Tony Wills spun around, waited for an explanation.
“Sorry,” said Jack.
But this was all yesterday. Jack’s initial excitement had turned to butterflies, and he was doing his best to fight them as Melanie’s phone continued ringing.
A click indicated that someone had answered.
“Melanie Kraft.”
“Hi, Melanie. This is Jack Ryan.” A brief pause. “It is an honor, Mr. President.” “No… Not… It’s Jack Junior. We met the other day.” “I’m just kidding. Hi, Jack.”
“Oh. Hey, you got me. How are you?” “I’m great. Yourself?”
The pace of the conversation slowed. “I’m fine.” “Good.”
Jack did not speak.
“Can I help you with something?”
“Uh.”
“Thought so.”
Jack could hear a smile in Melanie’s voice, and he could immediately tell everything was going to be okay.
“Anyway, that got me thinking… There’s a restaurant down there on King Street. Vermillion. It has the best strip loin I’ve ever tasted. I was wondering if I could take you to dinner there on Saturday.” “That sounds great. Will it be just you, or will your Secret Service detail be coming with us?” “I don’t have protection.”
“Okay, just checking.”
She was teasing him, and he liked it. He said, “That doesn’t mean I won’t have my dad’s detail check you out thoroughly before our date.” She laughed. “Bring it on. It can’t be any worse than going through the TS-SCI process.” She was referring to the CIA vetting process that took months and involved interviews with everyone from neighbors to elementary school teachers.
“I’ll pick you up at seven?”
“Seven’s fine. We can actually walk from my place.” “Great. See you then.”
“Looking forward to it,” Melanie said.
Jack hung up the phone, stood, and smiled at Wills. Tony stood and high-fived his young coworker.
Paul Laska stood on the long balcony of the Royal Suite of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in London, and he looked out over Hyde Park below.
It was a cool morning in October, but certainly no cooler than it would be back in Newport. Paul had come alone, with only his personal assistant Stuart, his secretary Carmela, his dietitian Luc, and a pair of Czech-born security officers who traveled with him wherever he went.
That’s what passed for “alone” in the life of a high-profile billionaire.
The other man on the balcony really had come alone. Yes, there was a time, years before, when Oleg Kovalenko would have been flanked by guards everywhere he went. He had been KGB, after all. A case officer in several Soviet satellites in the sixties and seventies. Not a particularly high-riser in the KGB, but he’d retired as
After retirement, Oleg Kovalenko returned home to Russia to live a quiet life in Moscow. He’d rarely traveled out of the country since, but an insistent phone call the day before put him on a jet to London, and now here he sat, feet up on a chaise longue, his thick, soft body tired from the travel, but enjoying the first of what he hoped would be many excellent mimosas.
Laska watched the morning Knightsbridge commuters file below him and waited for the old Russian to break the ice.
It did not take long. Kovalenko had always hated uncomfortable silence.
“It is good to see you again, Pavel Ivanovich,” Kovalenko said.
Laska’s only reply was a quiet sardonic smile that was delivered toward the park in front of him, and not to the big man on his right.
The heavy Russian continued, “I was surprised that you wanted to meet like this. It is not so public here, really, but others could be watching.” Now Laska turned to the man on the chaise longue. “Others are watching
