Jack Ryan 2 - Patriot Games (61 page)

The van was gone. It had been stolen to begin with, then customized by one of Alex's own people, and had used four different sets of tags. The tags were long gone, underneath a telephone/power pole in Anne Arundel County. If something had resulted from that, he'd have known it long before now, Alex thought. The van itself had been fully sanitized, everything had been wiped clean, the dirt from the quarry road . . . that was something to think about, but the van still led to a dead end. They'd left nothing in it to connect it with his group.

Had any of his people talked, perhaps a man with an aching conscience because of the kid who'd almost died? Again, had that happened, he would have awakened this afternoon to see a badge and gun in front of his face. So that was out. Probably. He'd talk to his people about that, remind them that they could never talk with anyone about what they did.

Might his face have been seen? Alex chided himself again for having waved at the helicopter. But he'd been wearing a hat, sunglasses, and a beard, all of which were now gone, along with the jacket, jeans, and boots that he'd worn. He still had the work gloves, but they were so common an item that you could buy them in any hardware store. So dump 'em and buy another pair, asshole! he said to himself. Make sure they're the same color, and keep the sales receipt.

His mind ran through the data again. He might even be overreacting, he thought. The feds could be investigating some totally unrelated thing, but it was stupid to take any unnecessary risks. Everything that they'd used at the quarry would be disposed of. He'd make a complete list of possible connections and eliminate every one of them. They'd never go back there again. Cops had their rules and procedures, and he'd unhesitatingly copied the principle to deny its advantage to his opponents. He had established the rules for himself after seeing what catastrophes resulted from having none. The radical groups he'd hovered around in his college days had died because of their arrogance and stupidity, their underestimation of the skill of their enemies. Fundamentally, they'd died because they were unworthy of success. Victory comes only to those prepared to make it, and take it, Alex thought. He was even able to keep from congratulating himself on spotting the feds. It was simple prudence, not genius. His route had been chosen with an eye to taking note of such things. He already had another promising site for weapons training.

“Erik Martens,” Ryan breathed. “We meet again.”

All of the FBI's data had been forwarded to the Central Intelligence Agency's working group within hours of its receipt. The Uzi that had been recovered -- Ryan marveled at how that had happened! -- had, he saw, been fabricated in Singapore, at a plant that also made a version of the M-16 rifle that he'd carried in the Corps, and a number of other military arms, both East and West, for sale to third-world countries . . . and other interested parties. From his work the previous summer, Ryan knew that there were quite a few such factories, and quite a few governments whose only measure for the legitimacy of an arms purchaser was his credit rating. Even those who paid lip-service to such niceties as “end-user certificates” often turned a blind eye to the reputation of a dealer who never quite proved to be on the wrong side of the shadowy line that was supposed to distinguish the honest from the others. Since it was the dealer's government that generally made this determination, yet another variable was added to an already inexact equation.

Such was the case with Mr. Martens. A very competent man in his business, a man with remarkable connections, Martens had once worked with the CIA-backed UNITA rebels in Angola until a more regular pipeline had been established. His principal asset, however, was his ability to obtain items for the South African government. His last major coup had been obtaining the manufacturing tools and dies for the Milan antitank missile, a weapon that could not be legally shipped to the Afrikaner government due to the Western embargo. After three months' creative effort on his part, the government's own armaments factories would be making it themselves. His fee for that had doubtless been noteworthy, Ryan knew, though the CIA had been unable to ascertain just how noteworthy. The man owned his own business jet, a Grumman G-3 with intercontinental range. To make sure that he could fly it anywhere he wished. Martens had obtained weapons for a number of black African nations, and even missiles for Argentina. He could go to any corner of the world and find a government that was in his debt. The man would have been a sensation on Wall Street or any other marketplace, Ryan smiled to himself. He could deal with anyone, could market weapons the way that people in Chicago traded wheat futures.

The Uzis from Singapore had come to him. Everyone loved the Uzi. Even the Czechs had tried to copy it, but without great commercial success. The Israelis sold them by the thousands to military and security forces, always -- most of the time -- following the rules that the United States insisted upon. Quite a few had found their way to South Africa, Ryan read, until the embargo had made it rather more difficult. Is that the reason they finally let someone make the gun under license? Jack wondered. Let someone else broaden the market for you, and just keep the profits . . .

The shipment had been five thousand units . . . about two million dollars, wholesale. Not very much, really, enough to equip a city police force or a regiment of paratroopers, depending on the receiving government's orientation. Large enough to show a profit for Mr. Martens, small enough not to attract a great deal of attention. One truckload, Ryan wondered, maybe two? The pallets of boxes would be tucked into a corner of his warehouse, technically supervised by his government, but more likely in fact to be Martens' private domain . . .

That's what Sir Basil Charleston told me at the dinner, Ryan reminded himself. You didn't pay enough attention to that South African chap . . . So the Brits think he deals to terrorists . . . directly? No, his government wouldn't tolerate that. Probably wouldn't, Ryan corrected himself. The guns might find their way to the African National Congress, which might not be very good news for the government they were pledged to destroy. So now Ryan had to find an intermediary. It took thirty minutes to get that file, involving a call to Marty Cantor.

The file was a disaster. Martens had eight known and fifteen suspected intermediary agents . . . one or two in every country he sold to -- of course! Ryan punched Cantor's number again.

“I take it we've never talked to Martens?” Ryan asked.

“Not for a few years. He ran some guns into Angola for us, but we didn't like the way he handled things.”

“How so?”

“The man's something of a crook,” Cantor replied. “That's not terribly unusual in the arms business, but we try to avoid the type. We set up our own pipeline after the Congress took away the restriction on those operations.”

“I got twenty-three names here,” Ryan said.

“Yeah, I'm familiar with the file. We thought he was passing arms to an Iranian-sponsored group last November, but it turned out he wasn't. It took us a couple of months to clear him. It would have been a whole lot easier if we'd been able to talk to him.”

“What about the Brits?” Jack asked.

“Stone wall,” Marty said. “Every time they try to talk with him, some big ol' Afrikaner soldier says no. You can't blame them, really, if the West treats them like pariahs, they're sure as hell going to act like pariahs. The other thing to remember is, pariahs stick together.”

“So we don't know what we need to know about this guy and we're not going to find out.”

“I didn't say that exactly.”

“Then we're sending people in to check a few things out?” Ryan asked hopefully.

“I didn't say that either.”

“Dammit, Marty!”

“Jack, you are not cleared to know anything about field operations. In case you haven't noticed, not one of the files you've seen tells you how the information gets in here.”

Ryan had noticed that. Informants weren't named, meeting places weren't specified, and the methods used to pass the information were nowhere to be found. “Okay, may I safely assume that we will, by some unknown means, get more data on this gentleman?”

“You may safely assume that the possibility is being considered.”

“He may be the best lead we have,” Jack pointed out.

“I know.”

“This can be pretty frustrating stuff, Marty,” Ryan said, getting that off his chest.

“Tell me about it,” Cantor chuckled. “Wait till you get involved with something really important -- sorry, but you know what I mean. Like what the Politburo people really think about something, or how powerful and accurate their missiles are, or whether they have somebody planted in this building.”

“One problem at a time.”

“Yeah, that must be nice, sport, just to have one problem at a time.”

“When can I expect something on Martens?” Ryan asked.

“You'll know when it comes in,” Cantor promised. “ 'Bye.”

“Great.” Jack spent the rest of the day and part of another looking through the list of people Martens had dealt with. It was a relief to have to go back to teaching class the next two days, but he did find one possible connection. The Mercury motors found on the Zodiac used by the ULA had probably -- the bookkeeping had broken down in Europe -- gone through a Maltese dealer with whom Martens had done a little business.

The good news of the spring was that Ernie was a quick study. The dog got the hang of relieving himself outside within the first two weeks, which relieved Jack of a message from his daughter, “Daaaaddy, there's a little proooblem . . . ” invariably followed by a question from his wife: “Having fun, Jack?” In fact, even his wife admitted that the dog was working out nicely. Ernie could only be separated from their daughter with a hard tug on his leash. He now slept in her bed, except when he patrolled the house every few hours. It was somewhat unnerving at first to see the dog -- rather, to see a black mass darker than the night a few inches from one's face -- when Ernie seemed to be reporting that everything was clear before he headed back to Sally's room for two more hours of protective slumber. He was still a puppy, with impossibly long legs and massive webbed feet, and he still liked to chew things. When that had included the leg of one of Sally's Barbie dolls, it resulted in a furious scolding from his owner that ended when he started licking Sally's face by way of contrition.

Sally was finally back to normal. As the doctors had promised her parents, her legs were fully healed, and she was running around now as she had before. This day would mark her return to Giant Steps. Her way of knocking glasses off tables as she ran past them was the announcement that things were right again, and her parents were too pleased by this to bring themselves to scold the girl for her unladylike behavior. For her part, Sally endured an abnormally large number of spontaneous hugs which she didn't really understand. She'd been sick and she was now better. She'd never really known that an attack had happened. Jack was slow to realize. The handful of times she referred to it, it had always been “the time the car broke.” She still had to see the doctors every few weeks for tests. She both hated and dreaded these, but children adapt to a changing reality far more readily than their parents.

One of these changes was her mother. The baby was really growing now. Cathy's petite frame seemed poorly suited to such abuse. After every morning shower, she looked at herself, naked, in a full-length mirror that hung on the back of the closet door and came away with an expression that was both proud and mournful as her hands traced over the daily alterations.

“It's going to get worse,” her husband told her as he emerged from the shower next.

“Thanks, Jack, I really need to hear that.”

“Can you see your feet?” he asked with a grin.

“No, but I can feel them.” They were swelling, too, along with her ankles.

“You look great to me, babe.” Jack stood behind her, reaching his arms around to hold her bulging abdomen. He rested his cheek on the top of her head. “Love ya.”

“That's easy for you to say!” She was still looking in the mirror. Jack saw her face in the glass, a tiny smile on her lips. An invitation? He moved his hands upward to find out. “Ouch! I'm sore.”

“Sorry.” He softened his grip to provide nothing more than support. “Hmph. Has something changed here?”

“It took you this long to notice?” The smile broadened a tad. “It's a shame that I have to go through this for that to happen.”

“Have you ever heard me complain? Everything about you has always been A-plus. I guess pregnancy drops you to a B-minus. But only in one subject,” he added.

“You've been teaching too long, Professor.” Her teeth were showing now. Cathy leaned back, rubbing her skin against her husband's hairy chest. For some reason she loved to do that.

“You're beautiful,” he said. “You glow.”

“Well, I have to glow my way to work.” Jack didn't move his hands. “I have to get dressed. Jack.”

“ 'How do I love thee, let me count the ways . . .' ” he murmured into her damp hair. “One . . . two . . . three . . . ”

“Not now, you lecher!”

“Why?” His hands moved very gently.

“Because I have to operate in three hours, and you have to go to spook city.” She didn't move, though. There weren't all that many moments that they could be alone.

“I'm not going there today. I got stuck with a seminar at the Academy. I'm afraid the department is a little miffed with me.” He kept looking in the minor. Her eyes were closed now. Screw the department . . . “God, I love you!”

“Tonight, Jack.”

“Promise?”

“You've sold me on the idea, okay? Now I --” She reached up to grab his hands, pulled them downward, and pressed them against the taut skin of her belly.

He -- the baby was definitely a he, insofar as that was what they called him -- was wide awake, rolling and kicking, pushing at the dark envelope that defined his world.

“Wow,” his father observed. Cathy's hands were over his, moving them about every few seconds to follow the movements of the baby. “What does that feel like?”