Threat Vector

“Perhaps the Hendley Associates people discovered the RAT and did not install the device?”

The woman blinked hard. “It is possible, sir.”

With the tip of his pen, Tong flipped to a different photograph. It was Adam Yao, Domingo Chavez, and a tall man with dark hair wearing a paper mask. “Is this Jack Ryan, son of the President of the United States? He works at Hendley, you know.”

The woman looked at the image. “I… I do not know, Center. I cannot see his face.”

“If we had access into their network, we would know exactly who that was, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Yes, Center.”

Tong thought for a few moments. Finally he said, “You will be reassigned. You are dismissed.” The woman bowed and left the room. Tong initiated another videoconference before she was out the door, this time with the director of the Ghost Ship’s controller department.

“Replace desk forty-one with your best English-speaking controller, and instruct them to immediately take control of your best English-speaking field operative, whoever that is and wherever in the world they are working, and send him or her to Washington, D.C. Come to my office in thirty minutes with this done, and I will give you further instructions.”

Without waiting for a response he disconnected the videoconference and then swiveled in his chair to the director of his security staff. “Where has the U.S. military taken Zha?”

The man looked down at a notebook in his hand. “We are working on getting this information. Surely to the United States, likely to Andrews Air Force Base. From there he will probably be turned over to the CIA for debriefing. They will use a safe house, since they will want to debrief him before placing him in official U.S. custody.”

Tong nodded. “I want an address.”

“I will get it for you.”

* * *

Valentin Kovalenko had been working full days and many nights for Center in the past few weeks. He’d planted bugs in corporate offices, pilfered wireless communications from tech companies, stolen RFID credit card information, and performed a number of other tasks.

Tonight, however, he was not working for Center. He had spent the day here in Barcelona getting pictures of a British politician who was on vacation in sunny Spain with a girlfriend while his wife was back in gray London with four kids.

But that was today. Tonight he was on a mission of his own. He’d purchased a prepaid cell phone from a convenience store several kilometers away from his Boulevard Rosa flat, then he went to an Internet cafe to look up a phone number he did not know from memory. After he wrote it down on a sheet of paper, he stopped in a bar and drank two quick glasses of Rioja to settle his nerves, then returned to his flat, locked the door, and sat down to make his call.

He looked at his laptop on his desk. Cryptogram was open and flashing.

Shit.

He headed to the little desk. He would check in with Center first, then he would be free to call his father, Oleg Kovalenko, in Moscow.

His father did not own a computer; he did not own a cell phone. He was, effectively, off the grid and out of the reach of the Center organization.

Valentin planned on telling his father as little as possible about his predicament, then sending the old man to the SVR in Moscow to talk to his old friends and explain the situation. His arrest for the John Clark episode. His escape from prison and his coerced recruitment into the Center organization.

His dad and his old friends would help him out of this.

He decided on this course of action after going to the Russian embassy in Barcelona, passing by a couple of times on foot, and then deciding it was not safe for him to make contact with anyone directly there. His father could do it for him, in Moscow, where Valentin knew many people and could direct his father to any one of a dozen friends who could help him.

But first he clicked on Cryptogram. Typed, “I’m here.” He pulled the card out of his camera and slid it into the side of the laptop. Typed, “Uploading images now.”

He initiated the upload on Cryptogram, and Center accepted the file.

But Center’s reply, when it came, was incongruous to Kovalenko’s message. The words “Everyone makes a mistake” appeared on the screen.

Kovalenko cocked his head. He typed, “What does that mean?”

“You made a mistake by deciding to contact your father.”

Instantly sweat formed on the back of Kovalenko’s neck. His fingers began to type some sort of denial, but he stopped himself.

How the fuck did Center know?

After a delay he typed instead, “He is my father.”

“That is irrelevant to us, and he is irrelevant to your assignment. You will not have any contact with anyone from your past life.”

“He is no longer with the government. He will tell no one.”

“Irrelevant. You need to follow instructions.”

Kovalenko looked over at the new mobile phone. No, there is no way that Center could have some sort of tracking or listening device planted on every new phone in every blister pack in the world.

The Internet cafe? Could they really be looking at every machine in every Internet cafe in Barcelona? In Europe? On earth? That was unfathomable.

Impossible.

Wait. Kovalenko pulled his own mobile phone out of his jacket. He had been working for Center long enough to put together some of the technological pieces of any operation they might be running against him. Maybe his phone was bugged with a GPS beacon of some sort. His movements could be tracked; if Center was really on the ball he could have seen him go to the Internet cafe. Then he could have — Kovalenko supposed — looked at the traffic coming out of those computers. The Internet search of the Moscow phone book. They could have recognized the name or done some other follow-up search to determine that he was trying to contact his father.

They could have monitored him at the market where he purchased the phone.

Is that how they did it?

Not a simple thing, but somewhat less than omnipotent.

Shit. He’d been stupid. He should have tried harder, come up with some more remote way to get his father’s number.

He typed, “I have been working for you for three months. I want to return to my life.”

The response he received from Center was not what he expected: “You will continue doing as you are instructed. If you had managed to contact your father successfully, he would be dead by now.”

Kovalenko did not respond.

A new paragraph of text appeared on Cryptogram an instant later. “Documents will be dead-dropped to you in Barcelona today. You will use them to go to the United States. You will leave tomorrow. There you will rent suitable habitation in Washington, D.C., and you will operate from there. You have two days to get into position and to report in prepared to receive operational instructions.”

D.C.? Kovalenko was surprised and more than a little concerned.

“I do not have a good relationship with the current administration.” This flat declaration by Valentin Kovalenko could not have been more of an understatement. One year prior, Kovalenko had conspired with billionaire Paul Laska, a U.S. citizen, to destroy the election chances of Jack Ryan. Laska and Kovalenko had failed, and while Laska seemed to have gotten off scot-free, Valentin became an embarrassing inconvenience for the Kremlin, so he’d been thrown in a rat hole.

Kovalenko had no trouble believing that the Ryan administration knew all about him. Flying into Washington, D.C., to work for a shadowy criminal organization seemed like a terrible idea.

Center responded, “We know about your relationship with the John Clark episode and, by association, with President Ryan. The documents, credit cards, and cover for status we will give you will ensure your ability to get into the country and situated. Your own OPSEC and tradecraft will ensure your continued safety once there.”