Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan Books 7-12 (372 page)

“Great.” It sure looked like a long way to climb, even though there were regular steps heading up. They walked under the canopied entrance, past the crowd-control bars, and Johnston sat in the lead seat on the right side, his gun case on the seat next to his. “Go,” he told the operator. The ride up the first hill was slow—deliberately so, designed that way to scare the bejeebers out of the riders, and that gave Johnston another insight into the mind of a terrorist, he thought with a wry smile. The gang of ten three-seat cars stopped just at the crest. Johnston wriggled out, taking his gun case with him. This he set in an equipment bay, opening it to extract a rubber mat, and a ghillie blanket to drape over himself. Last came his rifle and binoculars. He took his time, setting the mat down—the decking here was perforated steel, and lying there would soon become uncomfortable. He deployed the blanket atop his prone frame. It was essentially a light fishing net covered with green plastic leaves, whose purpose was to break up his outline. Then he set up his rifle on its bipod, and took out his green-plastic-coated binoculars. His personal radio microphone dangled in front of his lips.

“Rifle Two-One to command.”

“This is Six,” Clark responded.

“Rifle Two-One in place, Six. I have a good perch here. I can see the whole roof of the castle and the doors to the elevator and stairwell. Good line of sight to the back, too. Not a bad spot, sir.”

“Good. Keep us posted.”

“Roger that, boss. Out.” Sergeant Johnston propped himself up on his elbows and watched the area through his 7×50 binoculars. The sun was warm. He’d have to get used to that. Johnston thought for a moment and reached for his canteen. Just then the car he’d ridden up wheeled forward and then dropped from sight. He heard the steel overhead wheels roll along the metal tubing and wondered what it was like to ride the damned thing. Probably right up there with skydiving, something he knew how to do, but didn’t much care for, airborne-ranger training or not. There was something nice about having your fucking feet on the fucking ground, and you couldn’t shoot a rifle while falling through the air at a hundred-thirty knots, could you? He directed his binoculars at a window . . . they were flat on the bottom but curved into a point at the top, like in a real castle, and made of clear glass segments held together with leaded strips. Maybe hard to shoot through, he thought, though getting a shot at this angle would not be easy . . . no, if he got a shot, he’d have to take it on someone outside. That would be easy. He got behind the rifle scope and punched the laser-rangefinder button, selecting the middle of the courtyard as his point of aim. Then he punched a few numbers into his calculator to allow for the vertical drop, came up with an adjusted range setting, and turned the elevation knob on the scope the right number of clicks. The direct line of sight was three hundred eighty-nine meters. Nice and close if he had to take a shot.

“Yes, Minister,” Dr. Bellow said. He was sitting in a comfortable chair—Mike Dennis’s—and staring at the wall. There was now a pair of photographs for him to stare at—they were unknowns, because Tim Noonan didn’t have them in his computer, and neither the French nor the Spanish police had turned either into a name with a history attached. Both had apartments a few miles away, and both were being thoroughly tossed now, and phone records checked as well, to see where they’d called.

“They want this Jackal fellow out, do they?” the French Minister of Justice asked.

“Along with some others, but he would seem to be their primary objective, yes.”

“My government will
not
negotiate with these creatures!” the Minister insisted.

“Yes, sir, I understand that. Giving over the prisoners is generally not an option, but every situation is different, and I need to know what leeway, if any, you will give me as a negotiating position. That could include taking this Sanchez guy out of prison and bringing him here as . . . well, as bait for the criminals we have surrounded here.”

“Do you recommend that?” the Minister asked.

“I am not sure yet. I haven’t spoken with them, and until I do I cannot get a feel for what they’re all about. For the moment, I must assume that we are dealing with serious, dedicated people who are willing to kill hostages.”

“Children?”

“Yes, Minister, we must consider that a real threat,” the doctor told him. That generated a silence that lasted for a full ten seconds by the wall clock Bellow was staring at.

“I must consider this. I will call you later.”

“Thank you, sir.” Bellow hung up the phone and looked up at Clark.

“So?”

“So, they don’t know what to do. Neither do I yet. Look, John, we’re up against a number of unknowns here. We do not know much about the terrorists. No religious motivation, they’re not Islamic fundamentalists. So I can’t use religion or God or ethics against them. If they’re ideological Marxists, they’re going to be ruthless bastards. So far they haven’t been really communicative. If I can’t talk to them, I got bupkis.”

“Okay, so, what’s our play?”

“Put ’em in the dark for starters.”

Clark turned: “Mr. Dennis?”

“Yes?”

“Can we cut the electricity to the castle?”

“Yes,” the park engineer answered for his boss.

“Do it, doc?” John asked Bellow, getting a nod. “Okay, pull the plug now.”

“Fair enough.” The engineer sat at a computer terminal and worked the mouse to select the power-control program. In a few seconds, he isolated the castle and clicked the button to turn their electricity off.

“Let’s see how long this takes,” Bellow said quietly.

It took five seconds. Dennis’s phone rang.

“Yes?” the park manager said into the speakerphone.

“Why did you do that?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. The lights went off.”

Dr. Bellow leaned over the speaker. “I am Dr. Bellow. Who am I talking to?”

“I am One. I am in control of Worldpark. Who are you?”

“My name is Paul Bellow, and I have been asked to speak with you.”

“Ah, you are the negotiator, then. Excellent. Turn the lights back on immediately.”

“Before we do that,” Bellow said calmly, “I would like to know who you are. You have my name. I do not have yours.”

“I told you that. I am One. You will call me Mr. One,” the voice replied evenly, devoid of excitement or anger.

“Okay, Mr. One, if you insist, you can call me Paul.”

“Turn the electricity back on, Paul.”

“In return for which you will do what, Mr. One?”

“In return for which I will abstain from killing a child—for the moment,” the voice added coldly.

“You do not sound like a barbarian, Mr. One, and the taking of a child’s life is a barbaric act—and also one calculated to make your position more difficult, not less so.”

“Paul, I have told you what I require. Do it immediately.” And then the line went dead.

“Oh, shit,” Bellow breathed. “He knows the playbook.”

“Bad?”

Bellow nodded. “Bad. He knows what we’re going to try to do, on my side, I mean.”

“Andre,” René called from his desk. “Select a child.”

He’d already done that, and pointed to the little Dutch girl, Anna, in her wheelchair, wearing her special-access button. René nodded his approval. So, the other side had a physician talking to him. The name Paul Bellow meant nothing to him, but the man would be a Spanish psychiatrist, probably one experienced or at least trained in negotiations. His job would be to weaken their resolve, ultimately to get them to surrender and so condemn themselves to life in prison. Well, he’d have to see about that. René checked his watch and decided to wait ten minutes.

Malloy eased back on the cyclic control, flaring his helicopter for landing where the fuel truck was parked. There were five soldiers there, one of them waving orange-plastic wands. In another few seconds, the Night Hawk touched down. Malloy killed the engines, and watched the rotor slow as Sergeant Nance opened the side door and hopped out.

“Time for some crew rest?” Lieutenant Harrison asked over the intercom.

“Right,” Malloy snorted, opening his door to climb down. He walked to what looked like an officer standing a few yards away, answering his salute when he got there to shake hands. Malloy had an urgent request to make.

“The trick will be to get close enough,” Covington said.

“Yeah.” Chavez nodded. They’d circulated carefully to the other side of the castle now. They could hear the Dive Bomber ride running behind them. There was a good forty meters of open ground all around the castle, doubtless planned by the main architect of the park to give the structure primacy of place. It did that, but it didn’t give Ding and Peter much to work with. Both men took their time, examining everything from the little man-made streams to the bridges over them. They could see the windows into the command center where the terrorists were, and the line of sight was just too damned good, even before they considered the task of racing up the interior stairs—and those were probably covered by men with guns.

“They don’t make it easy for us, do they?” Covington observed.

“Well, that’s not their job, is it?”

“How’s the recon going?” Clark asked over the encrypted radio circuit.

“Pretty well done, Mr. C,” Chavez replied. “Malloy in yet?”

“Just landed.”

“Good, ’cuz we’re gonna need him if we gotta go in.”

“Two groups, up and down,” Covington added. “But we need something to tell us about that room.”

The Spanish officer, an army major, nodded instant agreement and waved to some people in the helicopter hangar. They trotted over, got their orders, and trotted back. With that done, Malloy headed to the hangar, too. He needed a men’s room. Sergeant Nance, he saw, was heading back with two thermos jugs. Good man, the Marine thought, he knew how important coffee was at a time like this.

“That camera is dead. They shot it out,” Dennis said. “We have a tape of him doing it.”

“Show me,” Noonan commanded.

The layout of the room was not unlike this one, Tim Noonan saw in the fifty seconds of tape they had. The children had been herded to the corner opposite the camera. Maybe they’d even stay there. It was not much, but it was something. “Anything else? Audio systems in the room, a microphone or something?”

“No,” Dennis replied. “We have phones for that.”

“Yeah.” The FBI agent nodded resignedly. “I have to figure a way to spike it, then.” Just then the phone rang.

“Yes, this is Paul,” Bellow said instantly.

“Hello, Paul, this is One. The lights remain out. I told you to restore power. It has not been done. I tell you again, do it immediately.”

“Working on that, but the police here are fumbling around some.”

“And there is no one from the park there to assist you? I am not a fool, Paul. I say it one last time, turn the electricity back on immediately.”

“Mr. One, we’re working on it. Please be a little patient with us, okay?” Bellow’s face was sweating now. It started quite suddenly, and though he knew why, he hoped that he was wrong.

“Andre,” René said, doing so mistakenly before he killed the phone line.

The former park security guard walked over to the corner. “Hello, Anna. I think it is time for you to go back to your mother.”

“Oh?” the child asked. She had china-blue eyes and light brown hair, nearly blond in fact, though her skin had the pale, delicate look of parchment. It was very sad. Andre walked behind the chair, taking the handles in his hands and wheeling her to the door. “Let’s go outside,
mon petit chou,”
he said as they went through the door.

The elevator outside had a default setting. Even without electricity it could go down on battery power. Andre pushed the chair inside, flipped off the red emergency-stop switch, and pressed the 1 button. The doors closed slowly, and the elevator went down. A minute later, the doors opened again. The castle had a wide walk-through corridor that allowed people to transit from one part of Worldpark to another, and a mosaic that covered the arching walls. There was also a pleasant westerly breeze, and the Frenchman wheeled Anna right into it.

“What’s this?” Noonan asked, looking at one of the video monitors. “John, we got somebody coming out.”

“Command, this is Rifle Two-One, I see a guy pushing a wheelchair with a kid in it, coming out the west side of the castle.” Johnston set his binoculars down and got on his rifle, centering the crosshairs on the man’s temple, his finger lightly trouching the set-trigger. “Rifle Two-One is on target, on the guy, on target now.”

“Weapons tight” was the reply from Clark. “I repeat, weapons are tight. Acknowledge.”

“Roger, Six, weapons tight.” Sergeant Johnston took his finger out of the trigger guard. What was happening here?

“Bugger,” Covington said. They were only forty meters away. He and Chavez had an easy direct line of sight. The little girl looked ill in addition to being scared; she was slumped to her left in the chair, trying to look up and back at the man pushing her. He was about forty, they both thought, a mustache but no beard, average-normal in height, weight, and build, with dark eyes that displayed nothing. The park was so quiet now, so empty of people, that they could hear the scrape of the rubber tires on the stone courtyard.

“Where is Momma?” Anna asked in English she’d learned in school.

“You will see her in a moment,” Nine promised. He wheeled her around the curving entrance to the castle. It circled around a statue, took a gentle upward and clockwise turn, then led down to the courtyard. He stopped the chair in the middle of the path. It was about five meters wide, and evenly paved.

Andre looked around. There had to be policemen out here, but he saw nothing moving at all, except for the cars on the Dive Bomber, which he didn’t have to look at to see. The familiar noise was enough. It really was too bad. Nine reached into his belt, took out his pistol, and—