an analyst for the CIA, but had recently moved from the National Counterterrorism Center, across the parking lot at Liberty Crossing, to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, following her boss Mary Pat Foley’s move from deputy director of NCTC to her new cabinet-level position as director of national intelligence.
Jack was only half dressed, but he did not have to worry about a long commute. He worked much closer, just down the road in West Odenton, so he finished putting on his suit and tie, then lingered over another cup of coffee while he watched CNN on the sixty-inch plasma TV in the living room. A little after eight he headed downstairs to the parking lot of his building and successfully fought the urge to look for his huge canary-yellow truck. Instead he climbed into the black BMW 3 Series that he’d been driving for the past six months, and he headed out of the parking lot.
The Hummer had been fun, his own way to show his individuality and spirit, but from a personal-security perspective, he might as well have been driving a three-ton homing beacon. Anyone attempting to follow him through beltway traffic could do so with ease from triple the distance normally needed for a vehicle follow.
This allowance for his own security should have been made by Jack himself, as his profession necessitated watching his back 24/7, but in truth, losing the canary-yellow bull’s-eye was not his idea.
It came in the form of a polite but strongly worded suggestion from the U.S. Secret Service.
Although Jack had refused the Secret Service protection that came standard for an adult child of a current inhabitant of the Oval Office, Jack had been nearly compelled by his father’s protection detail to go to a series of private meetings with agents who gave him pointers on staying safe.
Even though his mother and father did not like him going without protection, they both understood why he had to refuse. It would have been, to say the least,
During the meetings they peppered him with tips and suggestions on how to maintain a low profile, and on the subject of maintaining a low profile, the first topic had been the Hummer.
And the Hummer was the first to go.
Jack understood the logic, of course. There were tens of thousands of black Beamers on the road, and his new car’s tinted windows made him even more invisible. Plus, Jack recognized, he could switch out his ride a lot easier than he could change his face. He still looked remarkably like the son of the President of the United States; there wasn’t much he could do about that, short of cosmetic surgery.
He was known, there was no getting around that, but he was hardly a celebrity.
His mom and dad had done their best to keep him and his brothers and sisters away from cameras since his father went into politics, and Jack himself had refrained from doing anything that would put him in the limelight other than the semi-official duties required of a child of a presidential candidate and president. Unlike seemingly tens of thousands of B-list celebrities and wannabe reality stars in America, even before Jack went into covert work at The Campus, he saw fame as nothing more than a pain in the ass.
He had his friends, he had his family; why did he give a damn if a bunch of people he didn’t know knew who he was?
Other than the night of his father’s win and his inauguration day some two months later, Jack had not been on television in years. And although the average American knew Jack Ryan had a son everybody called “Junior,” they would not necessarily be able to pick him out of a lineup of tall, dark-haired, good-looking American men in their middle to late twenties.
Jack wanted to keep it that way, because it was convenient to do so, and it just might help him stay alive.
EIGHT
The sign outside the nine-story office building where Jack worked read
The one-in-a-million passerby who might do any further research into the company would see that it was an international finance concern, one of many around the greater D.C. metro area, and the one novel feature of the company was that it was owned and directed by a former U.S. senator.
Of course, there were more unique features to the organization inside the brick-and-glass structure along the road. Though there was little physical security outside other than a low fence and a few closed-circuit cameras, inside, hidden behind the “white side” financial trading firm, was a “black side” intelligence operation unknown to all but an incredibly small minority in the U.S. intelligence community. The Campus, the unofficial name given to the off-the-books spy shop, had been envisioned years earlier by President Jack Ryan during his first administration. He’d set up the operation with a few close allies in the intelligence community, and helmed it with former senator Gerry Hendley.
The Campus possessed some of the brightest analysts in the community, some of the best technological minds, and, thanks to the satellites on the roof and the code breakers in the IT department, a direct line of access into the computer networks of the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency.
The entire operation was also completely self-funded, as the cover firm, Hendley Associates, was a successful but low-profile financial management firm. The company’s success in picking stocks, bonds, and currencies was helped greatly by the gigabytes of raw intelligence data that streamed into the building each day.
Ryan rolled past the sign, parked in the lot, and then entered the lobby with his leather messenger bag over his shoulder. Behind the security desk, a guard with a nameplate on his jacket that read
“Morning, Jack. How’s the wife?”
“Morning, Ernie. I’m not married.”
“I’ll check back tomorrow.”
“Right.”
It was a daily joke between the two, although Ryan didn’t really get it.
Jack headed to the elevator.
Jack Ryan, Jr., the eldest child of the President of the United States, had worked here at Hendley Associates for nearly four years. Though he was officially an associate financial manager, the vast majority of his work involved intelligence analysis. He had also expanded his responsibilities to become one of The Campus’s five operations officers.
In his operational role he’d seen action — a lot of action— over the past three years, although since returning from Istanbul the only action he’d seen had been a few training evolutions with Domingo Chavez, Sam Driscoll, and Dominic Caruso.
They’d spent time in dojos working on hand-to-hand skills, at indoor and outdoor firing ranges around Maryland and Virginia keeping their perishable gunfighting skills as sharp as possible, and they’d practiced surveillance and countersurveillance measures by driving up to Baltimore or down to D.C., immersing themselves in the bustle of the crowded cities and then either tailing Campus trainers or attempting to shake trainers who’d been tasked with sticking on their tails.
It was fascinating work, and extremely practical for men who, from time to time, had to put their life on the line in offensive operations around the globe. But it wasn’t real fieldwork, and Jack Junior did not join Hendley Associates’ black side in order to train at a shooting range or in a dojo or to chase or run from some guy who he’d be having a beer with later that afternoon.
