Support and Defend Read online




  Tom Clancy

  with Mark Greaney

  SUPPORT and DEFEND

  A CAMPUS NOVEL

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

  New York

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS Publishers Since 1838

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC

  375 Hudson Street

  New York, New York 10014

  USA • Canada • UK • Ireland • Australia New Zealand • India • South Africa • China

  penguin.com

  A Penguin Random House Company

  Copyright © 2014 by Rubicon, Inc.

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Printed in the United States of America

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  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, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  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

  Red Rabbit

  The Teeth of the Tiger

  Dead or Alive

  Against All Enemies

  Locked On

  Threat Vector

  Command Authority

  NONFICTION

  Submarine: A Guided Tour Inside a Nuclear Warship

  Armored Cav: A Guided Tour Inside 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.) and Tony Koltz

  Every Man a Tiger: The Gulf War Air Campaign with General Chuck Horner (Ret.) and Tony Koltz

  Shadow Warriors: Inside the Special Forces with General Carl Stiner (Ret.) and Tony Koltz

  Battle Ready with General Tony Zinni (Ret). And Tony Koltz

  Contents

  Title Page

  Also by Tom Clancy

  Principal Characters

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Epilogue

  Principal Characters

  Dominic Caruso: operative, The Campus

  Ethan Ross: deputy assistant director for Near East and North African affairs, National Security Council

  Eve Pang: computer network systems engineer, Ross’s girlfriend

  Darren Albright: supervisory special agent, FBI Counterintelligence Division

  Nolan and Beale: investigative specialists, FBI Special Surveillance Group

  Adara Sherman: director of transportation, The Campus

  Harlan Banfield: journalist, member of the International Transparency Project

  Gianna Bertoli: director, International Transparency Project

  Mohammed Mobasheri: Iranian Republican Guard

  Kashan, Shiraz, Isfahan, and Ormand: operatives, Quds Force

  Leo: Venezuelan security officer

  Rigoberto Finn: Polygraph examiner, FBI

  Gerry Hendley: director, The Campus/Hendley Associates

  Arik Yacoby: former operative, Shayetet 13, Israeli naval Special Forces

  David: Israeli intelligence agent

  Phillip McKell: computer network expert

  Prologue

  THE COAST OF INDIA appeared in the moonlight. There wasn’t much to it, really, just a narrow strip of sand that emerged from the darkness a few hundred meters off the ship’s bow—but the first sight of land in four days told the man standing on the foredeck two important things.

  One: The ingression phase of his operation had succeeded.

  And two: The time had come to slit the captain’s throat.

  The man on the foredeck drew his knife and moved toward the stairs leading up to the navigation bridge. Two of his men fell into step behind him, but they were just along to watch. Responsibility for killing the captain fell to the leader and, in truth, he considered it no burden; in fact, he welcomed the opportunity to once again put his commitment to this mission on display for the others.

  The leader and his team of six had spent three days on board an Omani fishing trawler on the open water of the Arabian Sea. Last night they came abreast of this eighty-foot drygoods vessel and waved a shredded fan belt in the air. In Hindi they asked for help, but when the cargo ship drew even with them, the leader and his men scurried aboard like swamp rats and overran the small crew; they slaughtered all save the captain, and ordered him to head due east with a course set for India’s Malabar Coast.

  It had taken the leader half a day to convince the terrified captain he would not suffer the same fate as his crew. Killing him would make lie of this, of course, but as the leader climbed the steps up to the dark bridge, he wasn’t troubling himself about going back on his promise; his mind was already off this boat and on to the objective phase of the operation.

  The leader was a lieutenant in the Ezzedeen Al-Qassam Brigades, the militant wing of the Palestinian political organization Hamas. He’d been sent on this mission to target a single man, but he had known all along that many others, the captain and his crew, for instance, would necessarily be sacrificed in the action.

  So far he had been in total control of his operation. The next phase, by contrast, was in the hands of someone else, and this worried him greatly. Everything now hinged on the competence of a local contact. A woman, he had been told in his mission brief, who had verified the presence of the target and the disposit
ion of the local police and had also, Inshallah, delivered a vehicle to his landing point and, Inshallah, remembered to leave the keys under the driver’s seat.

  The leader lost his balance momentarily at the top of the stairs on the outer bridge deck, and he reached out to steady himself. The men behind him were still climbing, they had not seen him stumble, and he was glad of this. They might wonder if it was a show of nerves on his part, and this he could not allow. It was just a slight sway to starboard that unbalanced him, and it stood to reason his sea legs would falter. Born in the Gaza Strip, the leader had grown up within sight of the ocean but had never set foot on anything larger than a fishing skiff with an outboard motor before this week.

  He had been chosen because of his intelligence, his ruthlessness, and his resolve, but certainly not for any maritime prowess.

  Up here on the bridge deck, the leader stopped to scan the night in all directions. There were few signs of civilization on shore except for some wooden shacks, but an electric glow hung in the haze over the huge coastal metropolis of Kochi just forty-five kilometers to the south.

  Satisfied no one was around to hear a scream across the open water, he reached for the door latch.

  The middle-aged Indian captain did not turn as the leader entered the bridge. He kept his hands on the wheel, looking straight ahead, his chest heaving from dread.

  He knew.

  The leader continued forward with his knife shielded down behind his thigh; he’d planned on asking a question as he approached, something nonchalant to distract the man, to put him at ease for the moment, but instead he kept silent, raising the blade in his right hand.

  At three paces he rushed the man’s back, reached around in front of his body with the knife, then thrust the blade into his neck and pulled it back across the bare throat. He withdrew the knife and took a single stride back. The Indian spun, blood spewed across the bridge, catching the leader’s pants and sneakers though he leapt back the length of the small room to avoid it.

  The other two watched through a portal by the door, clear of the arterial spray.

  The captain dropped to his knees, air hissed and gurgled through the bloody wound for a moment. Then he died. Mercifully quick for everyone, the leader thought.

  “Allahu Akbar.” He said it with reverence, and he stepped over the body, tracking through the blood because there was no way to avoid it, and he put his hands on the wheel.

  But for only a moment—he was no captain. In fact, none of the men on board knew how to bring the cargo ship safely into port, the captain had even told them there was no port where they were going, so the leader just pulled the engines back to idle and ordered his men to move to the tender that had already been packed with gear and lowered into the black water on the port side.

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER the seven men climbed out of the small tender and into gentle shoreline surf, then pulled the boat onto the sand, beaching it just clear of the licking waves.

  Leaving the boat here in the open would be no problem. They would not need it again; the leader’s exfiltration route would be overland to the east, into Madurai and then out on an aircraft with forged papers. Plus, the boat would not stand out and jeopardize the mission, as several other small watercrafts lay unattended around this spit of sand. Net fisherman had left them for the night, having first removed their outboard motors and taken them back to their thatched-roof homes to protect them from thieves.

  The men pulled black canvas bags from the tender and donned their gear. Three strapped heavy vests under their large black windbreakers; the other four hung small rifles on slings around their necks along with pouches of extra ammunition. The guns were micro-Uzis, a nine-millimeter machine pistol of Israeli manufacture, but any irony in the choice of firearm was outweighed by the gun’s undeniable reliability.

  In three minutes they were off the sand, running up a dark beach road lined with palm and coconut trees.

  The local contact had left her vehicle just off the road alongside a narrow ditch, exactly where she had been instructed to do so. True to the leader’s brief, the vehicle was a large brown panel truck that delivered milk from a local farm to the residents of Kochi. The refrigerators had been removed from the back, and this created barely enough room for the five men who climbed through the side door.

  The keys were there, under the seat, and the leader found himself both pleased with and surprised by the woman’s competence. He slipped into the front passenger seat, his secondin-command took position behind the wheel, and the others sat in back without a word spoken among them.

  They drove east, away from the beach and down a narrow paved road through the backwater, a system of both natural and man-made brackish lakes and canals where the Arabian Sea and the Periyar River meet. Coconut trees lined the road on both sides here, and thick haze diffused the headlights.

  The leader checked his watch, then consulted with a handheld GPS device, loaded with coordinates given to him by the local agent. Their first stop was the cell-phone tower on Paravur–Bhoothakulam Road. There were no landlines at the objective, so disabling the tower would cut off their target’s line of communication with the local police.

  The leader conferred with his driver, then turned to face the men behind him. He saw only dark silhouettes.

  He had known two of the five men for years; they, like the leader and the driver, were fedayeen from the territories. He could make them out by their posture even though he could not see their faces. The other three men he’d met at the camp in Yemen only shortly before setting sail. He focused on these foreigners exclusively, and even smiled at them like a patient and benevolent uncle.

  The smile was a ruse; he thought the men fools; he refused to arm them with guns because he didn’t trust them as competent soldiers. These men would not wield weapons, the leader had decided, because they were weapons.

  His smile deepened, and then he spoke to the fools in Arabic. “The time draws near, my brave brothers. You must prepare yourselves for martyrdom.”

  1

  DOMINIC CARUSO was only thirty-two years old, and by any fair measure physically fit, but still he found it difficult keeping stride with the fifty-year-old man running several paces ahead of him. In the past hour the pair had done five miles of roadwork broken up by a half-mile swim, and the conditions here weren’t helping. Dom sucked as much of the fetid air as he could get into his lungs just to keep going. It was the middle of the night and still hot as hell, and the jungle path was dark save for a little hazy moonlight that filtered through the palms above.

  Dom’s running partner seemed to be having no trouble finding his way in the darkness, but Dom caught the toe of his shoe on the exposed root of a jacaranda tree, and he fell headlong to his hands and knees.

  “Son of a bitch.” He said it under labored breath.

  His trainer looked back at him but kept running. Dom thought he detected a smile on the older man’s face. His voice was low and heavily accented. “Do you need an ambulance?”

  “No, I just—”

  “Then get the fuck up.” The older man chuckled, then added, “C’mon, D, soldier on.” He turned away and picked up the pace.

  “Right.” Dom climbed back to his feet, wiped warm mud on his shorts, and took off in pursuit.

  A month ago there was no way in hell the American could have run a ten-K in eighty-five-degree heat and ninety-five percent humidity, especially not in the middle of the night after a full day of training in martial arts. But since his arrival here in India he’d made advances in his physical and mental strength faster than he could have imagined, and he owed this all to Arik Yacoby, the man now forty feet ahead of him.

  The muddy jungle path ended at a paved road, and Arik turned to the left and began sprinting along it. Dominic gave chase even though he thought they should have been going to the right; he was the visitor, after all, and he trusted that Yacoby knew his way around these roads better than he.

  Yacoby wasn’t a local, but he’d li
ved here a few years, and by his elite physical condition it was obvious he’d run these trails and roads hundreds of times.

  Dom knew very little about Arik Yacoby’s past: only that he was Israeli, an émigré to India, and he had once been a member of the IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces. Dom had no trouble picturing Arik as an elite soldier; his fitness and discipline and the confident and determined glint in his steely eyes announced this fact to anyone who knew what to look for.

  Dom had come here to India to train with the man for six weeks. Yacoby held a fourth-degree black belt in Krav Maga, a martial art developed for the Israeli military. Dom’s hand-tohand training with Arik had been intense in and of itself, but these additional nighttime PT sessions had added another facet to the grueling experience.

  They’d swam, they’d run, they’d climbed—often all in the same night. It seemed to Dom as if Arik felt it his duty to impart not just the skills of hand-to-hand combat, but every physical and mental aspect of serving in the Israeli Special Forces.

  Everything short of the use of firearms, that was. This was India, and although Arik Yacoby was now a permanent resident of Peravur, he was no cop, and no soldier, and he therefore could not obtain a gun legally.

  But Dom didn’t think Yacoby’s lack of a firearm made him in any way less dangerous.

  This India quest to study Krav Maga was the third evolution of five in a four-month training course for Dominic Caruso. Just before coming here, Dom had spent three weeks mountain climbing in the Yukon, led in one-on-one tutelage by a veteran Canadian alpinist. And before that, he’d spent two weeks in Reno, Nevada, studying sleight of hand and other applications of misdirection from a master magician.

  After his Krav Maga training in India, Dom was slated to fly to Pennsylvania to work with a former U.S. Marine sniper on his long-distance shooting, and then from there he would go straight to Sapporo, Japan, to learn from a master in edgedweapon combat.

  At each of these evolutions Dom tapped the experience of his expert trainers in the one-on-one courses and peppered them with literally thousands of questions. The trainers, on the other hand, didn’t ask him much of anything. They didn’t know his real name—Arik just referred to him as D—they didn’t know his organization, they didn’t know his background. All they knew, all they needed to know, was that Dom came with the blessing of important people connected to the U.S. intelligence community.

 

    Changing of the Guard Read onlineChanging of the GuardClear and Present Danger Read onlineClear and Present DangerHounds of Rome Read onlineHounds of RomeBreaking Point Read onlineBreaking PointTom Clancy's Jack Ryan Books 7-12 Read onlineTom Clancy's Jack Ryan Books 7-12Full Force and Effect Read onlineFull Force and EffectThe Archimedes Effect Read onlineThe Archimedes EffectCombat Ops Read onlineCombat OpsInto the Storm: On the Ground in Iraq Read onlineInto the Storm: On the Ground in IraqUnder Fire Read onlineUnder FirePoint of Impact Read onlinePoint of ImpactRed Rabbit Read onlineRed RabbitRainbow Six Read onlineRainbow SixThe Hunt for Red October Read onlineThe Hunt for Red OctoberThe Teeth of the Tiger Read onlineThe Teeth of the TigerConviction (2009) Read onlineConviction (2009)Battle Ready Read onlineBattle ReadyPatriot Games Read onlinePatriot GamesThe Sum of All Fears Read onlineThe Sum of All FearsFallout (2007) Read onlineFallout (2007)Red Storm Rising Read onlineRed Storm RisingThe Cardinal of the Kremlin Read onlineThe Cardinal of the KremlinExecutive Orders Read onlineExecutive OrdersLincoln, the unknown Read onlineLincoln, the unknownThreat Vector Read onlineThreat VectorThe Hunted Read onlineThe HuntedShadow Warriors: Inside the Special Forces Read onlineShadow Warriors: Inside the Special ForcesEnd Game Read onlineEnd GameSpecial Forces: A Guided Tour of U.S. Army Special Forces Read onlineSpecial Forces: A Guided Tour of U.S. Army Special ForcesLocked On Read onlineLocked OnLine of Sight Read onlineLine of SightTom Clancy Enemy Contact - Mike Maden Read onlineTom Clancy Enemy Contact - Mike MadenFighter Wing: A Guided Tour of an Air Force Combat Wing Read onlineFighter Wing: A Guided Tour of an Air Force Combat WingSpringboard Read onlineSpringboardLine of Sight - Mike Maden Read onlineLine of Sight - Mike MadenEndWar Read onlineEndWarDead or Alive Read onlineDead or AliveTom Clancy Support and Defend Read onlineTom Clancy Support and DefendCheckmate Read onlineCheckmateCommand Authority Read onlineCommand AuthorityCarrier: A Guided Tour of an Aircraft Carrier Read onlineCarrier: A Guided Tour of an Aircraft CarrierBlacklist Aftermath Read onlineBlacklist AftermathMarine: A Guided Tour of a Marine Expeditionary Unit Read onlineMarine: A Guided Tour of a Marine Expeditionary UnitCommander-In-Chief Read onlineCommander-In-ChiefArmored Cav: A Guided Tour of an Armored Cavalry Regiment Read onlineArmored Cav: A Guided Tour of an Armored Cavalry RegimentTom Clancy's Jack Ryan Books 1-6 Read onlineTom Clancy's Jack Ryan Books 1-6The Ultimate Escape Read onlineThe Ultimate EscapeAirborne: A Guided Tour of an Airborne Task Force Read onlineAirborne: A Guided Tour of an Airborne Task ForceDebt of Honor Read onlineDebt of HonorCyberspy Read onlineCyberspyPoint of Contact Read onlinePoint of ContactOperation Barracuda (2005) Read onlineOperation Barracuda (2005)Choke Point Read onlineChoke PointPower and Empire Read onlinePower and EmpireEvery Man a Tiger: The Gulf War Air Campaign Read onlineEvery Man a Tiger: The Gulf War Air CampaignEndgame (1998) Read onlineEndgame (1998)EndWar: The Missing Read onlineEndWar: The MissingSplinter Cell (2004) Read onlineSplinter Cell (2004)The Great Race Read onlineThe Great RaceTrue Faith and Allegiance Read onlineTrue Faith and AllegianceDeathworld Read onlineDeathworldGhost Recon (2008) Read onlineGhost Recon (2008)Duel Identity Read onlineDuel IdentityLine of Control o-8 Read onlineLine of Control o-8The Hunt for Red October jr-3 Read onlineThe Hunt for Red October jr-3Hidden Agendas nf-2 Read onlineHidden Agendas nf-2Acts of War oc-4 Read onlineActs of War oc-4Ruthless.Com pp-2 Read onlineRuthless.Com pp-2Night Moves Read onlineNight MovesThe Hounds of Rome - Mystery of a Fugitive Priest Read onlineThe Hounds of Rome - Mystery of a Fugitive PriestInto the Storm: On the Ground in Iraq sic-1 Read onlineInto the Storm: On the Ground in Iraq sic-1Threat Vector jrj-4 Read onlineThreat Vector jrj-4Combat Ops gr-2 Read onlineCombat Ops gr-2Virtual Vandals nfe-1 Read onlineVirtual Vandals nfe-1Runaways nfe-16 Read onlineRunaways nfe-16Marine: A Guided Tour of a Marine Expeditionary Unit tcml-4 Read onlineMarine: A Guided Tour of a Marine Expeditionary Unit tcml-4Shadow Warriors: Inside the Special Forces sic-3 Read onlineShadow Warriors: Inside the Special Forces sic-3Jack Ryan Books 1-6 Read onlineJack Ryan Books 1-6Cold Case nfe-15 Read onlineCold Case nfe-15Changing of the Guard nf-8 Read onlineChanging of the Guard nf-8Splinter Cell sc-1 Read onlineSplinter Cell sc-1Battle Ready sic-4 Read onlineBattle Ready sic-4The Bear and the Dragon jrao-11 Read onlineThe Bear and the Dragon jrao-11Fighter Wing: A Guided Tour of an Air Force Combat Wing tcml-3 Read onlineFighter Wing: A Guided Tour of an Air Force Combat Wing tcml-3Patriot Games jr-1 Read onlinePatriot Games jr-1Jack Ryan Books 7-12 Read onlineJack Ryan Books 7-12Mission of Honor o-9 Read onlineMission of Honor o-9Private Lives nfe-9 Read onlinePrivate Lives nfe-9Operation Barracuda sc-2 Read onlineOperation Barracuda sc-2Cold War pp-5 Read onlineCold War pp-5Point of Impact nf-5 Read onlinePoint of Impact nf-5Red Rabbit jr-9 Read onlineRed Rabbit jr-9The Deadliest Game nfe-2 Read onlineThe Deadliest Game nfe-2Springboard nf-9 Read onlineSpringboard nf-9Safe House nfe-10 Read onlineSafe House nfe-10EndWar e-1 Read onlineEndWar e-1Duel Identity nfe-12 Read onlineDuel Identity nfe-12Deathworld nfe-13 Read onlineDeathworld nfe-13Politika pp-1 Read onlinePolitika pp-1Rainbow Six jr-9 Read onlineRainbow Six jr-9Tom Clancy's Power Plays 1 - 4 Read onlineTom Clancy's Power Plays 1 - 4Endgame sc-6 Read onlineEndgame sc-6Executive Orders jr-7 Read onlineExecutive Orders jr-7Net Force nf-1 Read onlineNet Force nf-1Call to Treason o-11 Read onlineCall to Treason o-11Locked On jrj-3 Read onlineLocked On jrj-3Against All Enemies Read onlineAgainst All EnemiesThe Sum of All Fears jr-7 Read onlineThe Sum of All Fears jr-7Sea of Fire o-10 Read onlineSea of Fire o-10Fallout sc-4 Read onlineFallout sc-4Balance of Power o-5 Read onlineBalance of Power o-5Shadow Watch pp-3 Read onlineShadow Watch pp-3State of War nf-7 Read onlineState of War nf-7Wild Card pp-8 Read onlineWild Card pp-8Games of State o-3 Read onlineGames of State o-3Death Match nfe-18 Read onlineDeath Match nfe-18Against All Enemies mm-1 Read onlineAgainst All Enemies mm-1Every Man a Tiger: The Gulf War Air Campaign sic-2 Read onlineEvery Man a Tiger: The Gulf War Air Campaign sic-2Cybernation nf-6 Read onlineCybernation nf-6Support and Defend Read onlineSupport and DefendNight Moves nf-3 Read onlineNight Moves nf-3SSN Read onlineSSNCutting Edge pp-6 Read onlineCutting Edge pp-6The Cardinal of the Kremlin jrao-5 Read onlineThe Cardinal of the Kremlin jrao-5War of Eagles o-12 Read onlineWar of Eagles o-12Op-Center o-1 Read onlineOp-Center o-1Mirror Image o-2 Read onlineMirror Image o-2The Archimedes Effect nf-10 Read onlineThe Archimedes Effect nf-10Teeth of the Tiger jrj-1 Read onlineTeeth of the Tiger jrj-1Bio-Strike pp-4 Read onlineBio-Strike pp-4State of Siege o-6 Read onlineState of Siege o-6Debt of Honor jr-6 Read onlineDebt of Honor jr-6Zero Hour pp-7 Read onlineZero Hour pp-7Ghost Recon gr-1 Read onlineGhost Recon gr-1Command Authority jr-10 Read onlineCommand Authority jr-10Tom Clancy's Power Plays 5 - 8 Read onlineTom Clancy's Power Plays 5 - 8Checkmate sc-3 Read onlineCheckmate sc-3Breaking Point nf-4 Read onlineBreaking Point nf-4Gameprey nfe-11 Read onlineGameprey nfe-11The Hunted e-2 Read onlineThe Hunted e-2Hidden Agendas Read onlineHidden AgendasDivide and Conquer o-7 Read onlineDivide and Conquer o-7