Conviction (2009) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1 - REIMS , FRANCE

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4 - HUSSIGNY-GODBRANGE, FRANCE

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9 - VIANDEN, LUXEMBOURG

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14 - BITBURG, GERMANY

  Chapter 15 - HAMMERSTEIN, GERMANY

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17 - MADRID, SPAIN

  Chapter 18 - CHINCHÓN, SPAIN

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20 - MADRID, SPAIN

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27 - ATHENS, GREECE

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29 - ODESSA, UKRAINE

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32 - RUSSIAN AIRSPACE

  Chapter 33 - LAKE BAIKAL

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  EPILOGUE

  Teaser chapter

  THE BESTSELLING NOVELS OF TOM CLANCY

  .THE TEETH OF THE TIGER

  A new generation—Jack Ryan, Jr.—takes over in Tom Clancy’s extraordinary, and extraordinarily prescient, novel.

  “INCREDIBLY ADDICTIVE.” —Daily Mail (London)

  RED RABBIT

  Tom Clancy returns to Jack Ryan’s early days—in an engrossing novel of global political drama . . .

  “A WILD, SATISFYING RIDE.” —New York Daily News

  THE BEAR AND THE DRAGON

  A clash of world powers. President Jack Ryan’s trial by fire.

  “HEART-STOPPING ACTION . . . CLANCY STILL REIGNS.”

  —The Washington Post

  RAINBOW SIX

  John Clark is used to doing the CIA’s dirty work. Now he’s taking on the world . . .

  “ACTION-PACKED.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  EXECUTIVE ORDERS

  A devastating terrorist act leaves Jack Ryan as President of the United States . . .

  “UNDOUBTEDLY CLANCY’S BEST YET.”

  —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

  DEBT OF HONOR

  It begins with the murder of an American woman in the backstreets of Tokyo. It ends in war . . .

  “A SHOCKER.”

  —Entertainment Weekly

  THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER

  The smash bestseller that launched Clancy’s career—the incredible search for a Soviet defector and the nuclear submarine he commands . . .

  “BREATHLESSLY EXCITING.”

  —The Washington Post

  RED STORM RISING

  The ultimate scenario for World War III—the final battle for global control . . .

  “THE ULTIMATE WAR GAME . . . BRILLIANT.”

  —Newsweek

  PATRIOT GAMES

  CIA analyst Jack Ryan stops an assassination—and incurs the wrath of Irish terrorists . . .

  “A HIGH PITCH OF EXCITEMENT.”

  —The Wall Street Journal

  THE CARDINAL OF THE KREMLIN

  The superpowers race for the ultimate Star Wars missile defense system . . .

  “CARDINAL EXCITES, ILLUMINATES . . . A REAL PAGE-TURNER.”

  —Los Angeles Daily News

  CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER

  The killing of three U.S. officials in Colombia ignites the American government’s explosive, and top secret, response . . .

  “A CRACKLING GOOD YARN.”

  —The Washington Post

  THE SUM OF ALL FEARS

  The disappearance of an Israeli nuclear weapon threatens the balance of power in the Middle East—and around the world . . .

  “CLANCY AT HIS BEST . . . NOT TO BE MISSED.”

  —The Dallas Morning News

  WITHOUT REMORSE

  His code name is Mr. Clark. And his work for the CIA is brilliant, cold-blooded, and efficient . . . but who is he really?

  “HIGHLY ENTERTAINING.”

  —The Wall Street Journal

  Novels by Tom Clancy

  THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER

  RED STORM RISING

  PATRIOT GAMES

  THE CARDINAL OF THE KREMLIN

  CLEARAND PRESENT DANGER

  THE SUM OF ALL FEARS

  WITHOUT REMORSE

  DEBT OF HONOR

  EXECUTIVE ORDERS

  RAINBOW SIX

  THE BEARAND THE DRAGON

  RED RABBIT

  THE TEETH OF THE TIGER

  SSN: STRATEGIES OF SUBMARINE WARFARE

  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 SPECIAL FORCES: A GUIDED TOUR OF U.S. ARMY SPECIAL FORCES

  INTO THE STORM: A STUDY IN COMMAND

  (written with General Fred Franks, Jr., Ret., and Tony Koltz)

  EVERY MAN A TIGER

  (written with General Charles Horner, Ret., and Tony Koltz)

  SHADOW WARRIORS: INSIDE THE SPECIAL FORCES

  (written with General Carl Stiner, Ret., and Tony Koltz)

  BATTLE READY

  (written with General Tony Zinni, Ret., and Tony Koltz)

  TOM CLANCY’S GHOST RECON

  TOM CLANCY’S ENDWAR

  TOM CLANCY’S SPLINTER CELL

  SPLINTER CELL OPERATION BARRACUDA

  CHECK M ATE

  FALLOUT

  CONVICTION

  Created by Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik

  TOM CLANCY’S OP-CENTER

  OP-CENTER

  MIRROR IMAGE

  GAMES OF STATE

  ACTS OF WAR

  BALANCE OF POWER

  STATE OF SIEGE

  DIVIDE AND CONQUER

  LINE OF CONTROL

  MISSION OF HONOR

  SEA OF FIRE

  CALL TO TREASON

  WAR OF EAGLES

  TOM CLANCY’S NET FORCE

  NET FORCE

  HIDDEN AGENDAS

  NIGHT MOVES

  BREAKING POINT

  POINT OF IMPACT

  CYBER NATION

  STATE OF WAR

  CHANGING OF THE GUARD

  SPRINGBOARD

  THE ARCHIMEDES EFFECT

  Created by Tom Clancy and Martin Greenberg

  TOM CLANCY’S POWER PLAYS

  POLITIKA

  RUTHLESS.COM

  SHADOW WATCH

  BIO-STRIKE

  COLD WAR

  CUTTING EDGE

  ZERO HOUR

  WILD CARD

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  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. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  TOM CLANCY’S SPLINTER CELL®: CONVICTION

  A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with Ubisoft, Ltd.

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Berkley premium edition / November 2009

  Copyright © 2009 by Ubisoft, Ltd.

  All rights reserved.

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  eISBN : 978-1-101-14955-3

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  1

  REIMS , FRANCE

  SO confident was the target in his invincibility that Sam Fisher had little trouble finding him, and even less in determining how to best take him down. Then again, as jobs went, Romain Doucet wasn’t the toughest nut Fisher had ever cracked. Not even close, in fact. He did, however, rank high on Fisher’s “Waste of Humanity” list.

  As he had been for the last hour, Doucet was holding court, as it were, on the bleachers beside a basketball court off rue Voltaire, under the shadow of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame. Physically, the Frenchman was impressive: almost six and a half feet tall, 270 pounds, with a weight lifter’s body. On the other hand, his powder blue gangsta-style tracksuit and gold chains were something less than magisterial.

  Fisher, sipping coffee and reading his copy of L’hebdo du Vendredi, watched, trying to guess what topics someone like Doucet might be covering. Judging by the guffaws and gaping of his five compatriots, the man’s proclamations involved whatever women happened to stroll by on the sidewalk. Fisher caught only a few snippets of conversation, but most of Doucet’s comments seemed to be anatomical in nature. This was no surprise. In fact, it was Doucet’s lack of impulse control that had brought him into Fisher’s sights.

  Romain Doucet fancied himself an up-and-coming Mafioso of sorts, though most of his crimes involved strong-arm robbery and burglary. But his crew was loyal and the residents of his neighborhood frightened, so Doucet never wanted for an alibi, and this, sadly, was the case in the recent rape of a local man’s fifteen-year-old daughter. The police had investigated, of course, but with no forensic evidence, and eyewitnesses placing Doucet elsewhere at the time of the crime, the city prosecutor had been forced to drop the case. The girl’s father refused to accept this, and word quickly spread that the father would be willing to pay for retribution. Reims was a relatively crime-free city, however; what few solicitors the father received had clearly been unequal to the task. For his part, Fisher had, over the last year, realized the mercenary business was one of feast or famine (too often the latter), so he had taken the job. Any other time and he would happily have done the job for free, simply because Doucet deserved it, but men of Fisher’s ostensible vocation weren’t known for their sentimentality, and he dared not show any now. Plus, the five thousand euros—almost seven thousand U.S. dollars—would cover his expenses for the next week or so, until he received his next payment from his German friend. What interested Fisher most, however, was one of Doucet’s side businesses: identity theft. If one knew where to look, money was fairly easy to come by, but not so with passable identity documents. For what he had to accomplish over the next month, he’d need plenty of those.

  RODOLPHE Vernier spent thirty-two years making his fortune from a chain of high-end brasseries in Paris and Marseille before retiring in 1999 and turning the business over to his sons. A widower, he retired to Reims, where he met his current wife. Shortly after they married, Vernier adopted the woman’s daughter, Marie. He loved the girl as his own, he’d told Fisher during their first meeting, and if not for his advanced age and prominence would have happily handled Romain Doucet himself. From any other man it might have come off as a boast, but the hard sadness in Vernier’s eyes told Fisher the man was telling the truth.

  “You found him?” Vernier now asked Fisher. They were sitting on Vernier’s cobblestoned garden patio, beside a trickling fountain—a puffy-faced marble cherub spitting water in a high arc. “He was where I said he would be?”

  “I found him,” Fisher replied in French. He wore a disguise, not a good one, but enough that Vernier would have trouble giving an accurate description: a ball cap that hid Fisher’s shaggy hair, dark glasses, and five days’ worth of stubble.

  “You can do it?” Vernier asked.

  “Yes. I won’t kill him, though.”

  “No? Why not? If it is money—”

  “It’s not money. Neither of us needs the trouble. If you hurt a deserving man, the police will smile in private; if you kill a man—even if he’s deserving of it—the prosecutors will force them to do their job. Trust me: When I’m done, Doucet won’t ever be the same.”

  Vernier considered this, then nodded. “Do you want part of the money now?”

  “No.” Again Fisher felt a pang of guilt: If not necessary to his larger mission, he would tell Vernier to keep the money. Handling Doucet was a necessary public service. Even so, Fisher now gave Vernier instructions on where and when to leave the cash. “Once I’ve done the job, I’ll pick it up. How is your daughter getting along?”

  Vernier shrugged. “A bit better, we think. She is seeing a therapist. She has started talking to us, taking an interest in things. I want to thank you for—”

  “Thank me by forgetting me. Forget me. Forget you hired me to do this. Don’t talk about it to anyone. No bragging. For the next twenty-four hours, go out with your family and be seen. Do you understand?”

  “An alibi.”

  “Yes.”

  Vernier studied Fisher for a few seconds. “Aren’t you going to threaten me—tell me not to talk to the police?”

  Fisher gave him a hard smile. “You won’t tell the police.”

  “No, I suppose not.” Fisher held his gaze until he said it again: “I won’t.”

  “They will come see you, ask you questions. Don’t be too quick with your alibi. Let them do the legwork. Tell them you’re not sorry about what happened to Doucet, but you and your wife and daughter are just trying to move on with your lives. For a while everyone will assume you’re responsible. Stick to your story and it will pass. Understood?”

  “I understand.”

  “Keep your eye on the news Sunday. Leave the key for me later tonight. I’ll collect.” On Fisher’s instructions, Vernier had left a manila envelope containing the money in a locker he’d rented at a local hostel. Once certain Fisher had in fact done the job, Vernier would leave the key under a bird feeder in the backyard.

  Fisher stood up and extended his hand to the Frenchman. “Good luck to you.”

  “And you.”

  DOUCET and his gang of five had watched too many episodes of The Sopranos, and perhaps the Godfather trilogy a doz
en too many times, going so far as to have their own social club/communal apartment: a 2,500-square-foot Quonset-style warehouse in a largely abandoned industrial park on Reims’s western outskirts. Every weekend night, after trolling the city’s bars, they returned to the warehouse—sometimes with women they’d picked up but more often alone—where they drank and watched bad kung fu movies until dawn.

  FISHER tailed them on foot for an hour, just long enough to be sure they were sticking to their Saturday-night routine of barhopping, then walked back to his car and drove to the industrial park. He found a spot a half mile from the warehouse, then walked the remaining distance, making a complete circuit of the side streets before spiraling inward to the bolt-hole he’d scouted earlier. It was nearly eleven, so the area was dark and quiet. He found the thicket of trees that bordered the warehouse’s loading ramp and settled down to wait. He had time to think.