Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan Books 7-12 (600 page)
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Authors: Tom Clancy
“Really? Why?”
“There appears to have been some sort of riot in Beijing. Reports are very sketchy, but it seems that their government has fallen. Minister Fang Gan seems to be the interim leader. That’s all I know, Jack, but it looks like a decent beginning. With your permission, and with the concurrence of the Russians, I think we ought to agree to this.”
“Approved,” the President said, without much in the way of consideration.
Hell,
he told himself,
you don’t have to dwell too much on ending a war, do you?
“Now what?”
“Well, I want to talk to the Russians to make sure they’ll go along. I think they will. Then we can negotiate the details. As a practical matter, we hold all the cards, Jack. The other side is folding.”
“Just like that? We end it all just like that?” Ryan asked.
“It doesn’t have to be Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel, Jack. It just has to work.”
“Will it work?”
“Yes, Jack, it ought to.”
“Okay, get hold of the Russians,” Ryan said, setting his glass down.
Maybe this was the end of the last war,
Jack thought. If so, no, it didn’t have to be pretty.
I
t was a good dawn for General Bondarenko, and was about to get better. Colonel Tolkunov came running into his command center holding a sheet of paper.
“We just copied this off the Chinese radio, military and civilian. They are ordering their forces to cease fire in place and to prepare to withdraw from our territory.”
“Oh? What makes them think we will let them go?” the Russian commander asked.
“It’s a beginning, Comrade General. If this is accompanied by a diplomatic approach to Moscow, then the war will soon be over. You have won,” the colonel added.
“Have I?” Gennady Iosifovich asked. He stretched. It felt good this morning, looking at his maps, seeing the deployments, and knowing that he held the upper hand. If this was the end of the war, and he was the winner, then that was sufficient to the moment, wasn’t it? “Very well. Confirm this with Moscow.”
I
t wasn’t that easy, of course. Units in contact continued to trade shots for some hours, until the orders reached them, but then the firing died down, and the invading troops withdrew away from their enemies, and the Russians, with orders of their own, didn’t follow. By sunset, the shooting and the killing had stopped, pending final disposition. Church bells rang all over Russia.
G
olovko took note of the bells and the people in the streets, swigging their vodka and celebrating their country’s victory. Russia felt like a great power again, and that was good for the morale of the people. Better yet, in another few years they’d start reaping the harvest of their resources—and before that would come bridge loans of enormous size... and maybe, just maybe, Russia would turn the corner, finally, and begin a new century well, after wasting most of the previous one.
I
t was nightfall before the word got out from Beijing to the rest of China. The end of the war so recently started came as a shock to those who’d never really understood the reasons or the facts in the first place. Then came word that the government had changed, and that was also a puzzling development for which explanations would have to wait. The interim Premier was Fang Gan, a name known from pictures rather than words or deeds, but he looked old and wise, and China was a country of great momentum rather than great thoughts, and though the course of the country would change, it would change slowly so far as its people were concerned. People shrugged, and discussed the puzzling new developments in quiet and measured words.
For one particular person in Beijing, the changes meant that her job would change somewhat in importance if not in actual duties. Ming went out to dinner—the restaurants hadn’t closed—with her foreign lover, gushing over drinks and noodles with the extraordinary events of the day, then walked off to his apartment for a dessert of Japanese sausage.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1 - RUMBLINGS AND DREAMS
CHAPTER 2 - VISIONS AND HORIZONS
CHAPTER 10 - BOLT FROM THE BLUE
CHAPTER 16 - A FUR HAT FOR THE WINTER
CHAPTER 22 - PROCUREMENTS AND ARRANGEMENTS
CHAPTER 25 - EXCHANGING THE BOGIES
CHAPTER 30 - FLAVIAN AMPHITHEATER
ALSO BY TOM CLANCY
FICTION
The Hunt for Red October
Red Storm Rising
Patriot Games
The Cardinal of the Kremlin
Clear and Present Danger
The Sum of All Fears
Without Remorse
Debt of Honor
Executive Orders
Rainbow Six
The Bear and the Dragon
NONFICTION
Submarine:
A Guided Tour Inside a Nuclear Warship
Armored Cav:
A Guided Tour of an Armored Cavalry Regiment
Fighter Wing:
A Guided Tour of an Air Force Combat Wing
Marine:
A Guided Tour of a Marine Expeditionary Unit
Airborne:
A Guided Tour of an Airborne Task Force
Carrier:
A Guided Tour of an Aircraft Carrier
Into the Storm:
A Study in Command
(With General Fred Franks, Jr. (Ret.))
Every Man a Tiger
(With General Chuck Horner (Ret.))
Shadow Warriors
(With General Carl Stiner (Ret.))
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
G. P. Putnam’s Sons
Publishers Since 1838
a member of
Penguin Putnam Inc.
375 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10014
Copyright © 2002 by Rubicon, Inc.
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not
be reproduced in any form without permission.
Published simultaneously in Canada
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Clancy, Tom, date.
Red rabbit / Tom Clancy.
p. cm.
eISBN : 978-1-101-00233-9
To Danny O and the men of Engine 52 and Ladder 52
Heroes are often the most ordinary of men.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Leanart, Joni, and Andy, for holding my hand behind the Old Curtain, and the crash-course in smuggling.
Alex, of course, for holding the other one at all times.
Tom and the lads at Her Majesty’s Royal Palace and Fortress. So fine a body of men is difficult to find, and a rare pleasure to discover.
The FSOs at the United States Embassy, Budapest, for so graciously handling an unannounced walk-in.
And to Michael, Melissa, Gilbert, and CDR Marsha, in anticipation of your superior professionalism.
The most momentous thing in human life is the art of winning the soul to good or to evil.
PYTHAGORAS
Without recognizing the ordinances of Heaven, it is impossible to be a superior man.
CONFUCIUS
PROLOGUE
THE BACK GARDEN
THE SCARY PART, Jack decided, was going to be driving. He’d already bought a Jaguar—pronounced
jag-you-ah
over here, he’d have to remember—but both times he’d walked to it at the dealership, he’d gone to the left-front door instead of the right. The dealer hadn’t laughed at him, but Ryan was sure he’d wanted to. At least he hadn’t climbed into the passenger seat by mistake and really made an ass of himself. He’d have to remember all that: The “right” side of the road was the
left.
A right turn crossed oncoming traffic, not a left turn. The left lane was the slow lane on the interstates—
motorways,
he corrected himself. The plugs in the wall were all cockeyed. The house didn’t have central heating, despite the princely price he’d paid for it. There was no air-conditioning, though that probably wasn’t necessary here. It wasn’t the hottest of climates: The locals started dropping dead in the street when the mercury topped 75. Jack wondered what the D.C. climate would do to them. Evidently, the “mad dogs and Englishmen” ditty was a thing of the past.
But it could have been worse. He did have a pass to shop for food at the Army-Air Force Exchange Service—otherwise known as the PX at nearby Greenham Commons Air Base—so at least they’d have proper hot dogs, and brands that resembled the ones he bought at the Giant at home in Maryland.
So many other discordant notes. British television was different, of course, not that he really expected much chance to vegetate in front of the phosphor screen anymore, but little Sally needed her ration of cartoons. Besides, even when you were reading something important, the background chatter of some mindless show was comforting in its own way. The TV news wasn’t too bad, though, and the newspapers were particularly good—better than those he normally read at home, on the whole, but he’d miss the morning
Far Side.
Maybe the
International Tribune
had it, Ryan hoped. He could buy it at the train station kiosk. He had to keep track of baseball anyway.