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  Driscoll’s hands moved over his body now; he felt bllood on his arms and on his face, but he was able to move without pain. He then lifted his legs slowly, one at a time, and found them operational. He reached out into the dry dirt and brush, searching with his fingertips for his rifle, but the weapon had come off his body when he fell off the truck. His pistol was still on his hip, however. He knew this because the weapon was digging into his lower ribs.

  Once reasonably certain that he was ambulatory, he looked around him in the dark. A low copse of trees lay fifty yards farther down the hill to the west, and he thought he might try and low crawl there to find cover before daylight.

  Just then, from the road above, a flashlight’s beam illuminated the trees. Another beam tracked to the east, to Driscoll’s left. The lights searched the hillside haphazardly, searching perhaps for anyone who’d fallen from the escaping truck.

  Sam did not move; there wasn’t much he could do but hope the beam didn’t settle on him as he lay there. If nothing else, he wanted his hand on the grip of his Glock 17 pistol, but even accomplishing that small feat would involve more movement than he was prepared to make.

  The lights passed over him, and then stopped on a point on the hill to his left and another twenty yards on. Men on the road began shouting now, there was no question but that they had seen something.

  Shit, thought Sam. If the Haqqani shooters started heading down the hill, he would have no choice but to—

  And then, movement right where the flashlight beams had settled. A lone SSG commando, the man who had been in the back of the truck with Driscoll when it ran off the road, stood up and opened fire with his M16. He must have been tossed out as well, but he’d now been spotted, he knew it, and he had no choice but to go loud. Driscoll saw that the man was wounded; blood covered his clothing and gear and shone in the white light beams centered on him.

  Sam could have stayed right where he was, but he did not even consider it. He rolled up to his knees, drew his Glock 9-millimeter pistol, and opened fire on the men above. By doing this he knew he was risking the chance that the Zarrar soldier would shoot him in the back in surprise at the sudden movement and noise, but he decided to put his trust in the training and instincts of the commando and concentrate on killing as many of the Haqqani forces as possible.

  With his pistol, he dropped both of the men holding flashlights, hitting one in the thigh and the other center mass. Others on the road dove for cover, giving Driscoll a second to turn toward his colleague in the SSG. “Head for those trees, ten yards at a time!” he shouted, and the young soldier looked back over his shoulder, found the copse halfway down the hill, and then turned and ran back ten yards. While he did this, Sam fired a few pistol shots up the hill, then when the SSG man laid down suppressive fire, Driscoll leapt to his feet and began running down toward the trees himself.

  They moved in a leapfrog fashion — bounding ten yards, then providing supporting fire for the other, as they hurried for the relative cover of the trees below them. More than once either Sam or the SSG sergeant fell during his descent, slowing the process and giving the men above a near stationary target at which to shoot.

  They made it to within twenty yards of the trees when the slide of Driscoll’s Glock locked open after firing the last round. The Zarrar commando was bounding past him at just that instant. Sam pulled his last full pistol mag from his belt and slammed it into the gun’s grip, and then dropped the slide, chambering a roamberingund.

  Next to him he heard the soldier grunt loudly, then the man pitched forward and tumbled to the ground. The American fired seven rounds up toward the road, then spun and ran to help his wounded comrade. He dropped to the ground next to the commando’s still form, and he found the back of the soldier’s head completely sheared away by a well-placed AK round.

  The man had died instantly.

  “Fuck!” Sam shouted in frustration and anguish, but he could not stay here. The sparks kicked up by impacting jacketed bullets in the rocks around him encouraged him to move his ass. Driscoll grabbed the rifle off the dead man and then crawled, rolled, and slid the rest of the way to the trees.

  The Haqqani network fighters wasted no time in targeting the woods where Driscoll had sought cover. Kalashnikov rounds tore into the trunks and limbs of the mulberry and fir and sent leaves and needles raining down like heavy mountain snowfall. This forced Sam to drop down onto his belly and crawl as fast as possible to the other side of the little copse. It was only thirty yards across and thirty yards deep, so he knew he could not hide out here for long.

  Sam found a spot behind a thick tree trunk and he took a moment to check his body for injuries. He was slick with blood; certainly he’d caught shrapnel from kicked-up rocks on the hillside and cuts from head to toe falling out of the truck and rolling down to his current cover.

  He also checked his gear, or what was left of it.

  The rifle he had confiscated from the dead soldier was an older M16. A good gun with a nice long barrel, great for hitting targets at distance, though he would have preferred his scoped M4 lost up on the hillside. His three remaining M4 mags in his chest rig would work in the M16, and for this he was grateful. He reloaded his new rifle with an old magazine, and then he moved to another position, this one right at the southern edge of the grove.

  Here he thought over his options. He could surrender, he could run, or he could fight.

  He did not consider surrender for a moment, which left two options, run or fight.

  Driscoll was a brave man, but he was a pragmatist. He had no problem hauling ass if that was his best option for survival at this point. He peered out of the woods and checked to see if there was any escape route possible.

  A grenade, possibly fired from an RPG launcher, exploded thirty yards behind him.

  Fuck.

  He peered out across the valley now; a sliver of moon shone through a break in the clouds, casting a faint glow across the dry limestone riverbed that ran off to the east and west. The rock field was fifty yards wide at the floor of the valley, and anyone leaving the grove where he had sought cover would be exposed to the guns above him on the road for several minutes before he could find more cover.

  No way Sam was going to slip away into the night. He couldn’t run down to the riverbank and try to run away. It would be suicide.

  Driscoll decided then and there that he wasn’t going to go out with a bullet in the back. These trees would be his Alamo. He would face his enemy and fight them, make as many of them pay as he could before their sheer number did him in. Slowly, and with some reluctance, he hefted his M16, stood, and headed back up through the woods.

  He’d not made it ten yards before chattering AK fire sent more leaves on top ofves on t him. He dropped down on his knees and fired blindly through the cover, dumped half a magazine downrange to put any heads down, then he regained his feet and ran up, charging toward the enemy.

  A group of six Haqqani men had made it halfway down the hillside from the road. They’d been sent down by their leaders to search for the soldier who would certainly be hiding under a rock in the trees. Sam knew he surprised them by breaking out of the trees in front of them, his rifle on his shoulder and flames and smoke spewing from it. As they returned fire, along with a firing line of men on the road above, Driscoll dropped onto his heaving chest, sighted on the flashes of their Kalashnikovs, and fired three-round bursts until his magazine ran dry. He knew he’d taken out at least two of the men, and four remained, so he rolled onto his hip, pulled a mag out of his chest harness, and began reloading his gun.

  Just then he saw a larger flash of light up on the roadside. Instantly he recognized the wide flash of an RPG taking flight, and in another instant he realized the missile was going to hit right where he lay.

  With no time to think, he vaulted to his boots, turned, and leapt back toward the trees.

  The grenade hit the ground just behind him, exploded in fire and light, and blew American operative Sam Driscoll e
nd over end, sending hot sharp shrapnel into his body and tossing him into the woods like a discarded rag doll.

  There he lay facedown and motionless while the Haqqani descended on his position.

  38

  President Ed Kealty had spent virtually all of the past two weeks on the campaign trail. There were five swing states that Benton Thayer felt could go either way, so Kealty canvassed them in Air Force One. This morning he went to a church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and then headed to a wind-turbine plant for lunch and a quick tour. He then flew to Youngstown, Ohio, for a rally before shooting east for a dinnertime black-tie affair in Richmond, Virginia.

  It was after ten-thirty in the evening when Kealty climbed out of Marine One on the White House’s back lawn. On the short chopper flight over from Andrews Air Force Base he’d been informed by his chief of staff, Wesley McMullen, that Benton Thayer needed to meet with him in the Oval Office. Thayer had also asked that Mike Brannigan be there. This was odd, the campaign manager requesting the attorney general be present at a meeting, but Wes had everyone assembled and waiting on the President.

  Kealty shot straight into the office without going to the residence first. He still wore his tuxedo, having not changed out of it during the twenty-minute flight from Richmond.

  “Can we make this quick, guys? It’s been a long day.”

  Thayer sat on one of the two sofas, Wes McMullen sat next to him, and Brannigan sat across, next to Kealty.

  The campaign manager got right down to it. “Mr. President. Something came into my possession today. A computer drive. It was left on my car at my club, I have no idea who gave it to me, or why I was chosen.”

  “What is on it?”

  “It is a dossier on a retired Navy SEAL and CIA paramilitary operations officer named John Clark. He is a recipient of the Medal of Honor.”

  “I’m bored already, Benton.”

  “You won’t be bored for long, Mr. President. Clark is a close personal friend of Jack Ryan’s; they worked together on certain operations. Certain black-ops — type missions.”

  Kealty leaned forward. “Go on.”

  “Someone has plopped a computer drive into our laps that contains evidence of criminal wrongdoing by this Mr. Clark. Assassinations for the CIA.”

  Kealty nodded. “Assassinations?”

  “As well as wiretaps, breaking and entering, et cetera, et cetera.”

  “This file comes from someone at CIA?”

  “It doesn’t look like it. The drive does have information from CIA sources, that’s for damn sure. There must be a leak over there. But this information looks like it might be coming from China, or Russia, or even a friendly government that doesn’t want Ryan back in the saddle over here.”

  Kealty nodded. Looked at Brannigan. The AG was hearing about this for the first time. He had a look on his face like he knew he had a long night ahead of him checking all this out.

  Thayer continued, “But all this stuff Ryan’s buddy Clark did — every murder, every breaking and entering, every illegal wiretap, it is all inadmissible in court.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because several years ago President Ryan gave him a full pardon for each and every act he did while working for the CIA.”

  Kealty smiled as he stood up slowly. “He didn’t.”

  “He did. Some in the Justice Department know about it, but not many.”

  Kealty turned to Mike Brannigan. “Mike. Tell me you didn’t know.”

  “I had no idea, sir. It must have been sealed. Whoever has given us this information, if it is true, must have gotten the information illegally through—”

  “Can he do it?” Kealty asked. “Was that legal, just waving a wand over a CIA black operator to say, ‘no harm, no foul’?”

  Brannigan did speak up with some authority now. “A presidential pardon can clean your slate for most any federal crime. Civil, state, and local charges aren’t affected, although I assume with a CIA operator, that wouldn’t be a factor.”

  Kealty’s chest heaved with excitement, but then he deflated. “Okay. So… if Ryan gave this meathead a pardon, sure, we could leak it, if we did it carefully. That will be embarrassing for Ryan, but we won’t be able to get to Clark. And without Clark in hand, up on charges, it won’t be anything other than one-day news. You know how Ryan is. He’ll wrap himself up in the flag and salute the camera and say, ‘I did what I had to do to keep your kids safe,’ or some bullshit like that.”

  Thayer shook his head. “Ryan pardoned him for his actions with the CIA. But there is one murder in the file that, apparently, did not happen as part of his CIA duties.” Thayer looked down to the pages in his lap. “He supposedly killed an East German named Schuman, 1981, in Berlin. The file I have doesn’t have a word on it. I checked other avenues, as well. As far as the CIA is concerned, even internally, this never happened.”

  Kealty connected the dots. “So if he is off the hook for killings while working his CIA job, and this murder was not a CIA job…”

  Thayer said, “Then the full pardon is irrelevant.”

  Ket size="alty looked to Brannigan. “Is that enough to pick him up on?”

  Mike Brannigan looked stunned. “Mr. President. I am only just hearing about this. I really need to get together with my staff, some key people at FBI, and look over any information you have on Clark. I can tell you DOJ is going to need to know that this information would be admissible in court before they will go any further. I mean, who the hell is this source?”

  Kealty looked at the attorney general. “If you can corroborate information in Benton’s file through CIA or other sources, then you won’t need Benton’s file anymore. The source becomes a nonissue. It’s just a nudge in the right direction.”

  “Mr. President, I—”

  “And Mike, I know you will do the right thing.”

  Wes McMullen, the chief of staff, had been silent throughout the conversation, but now he leaned in. “Isn’t there a law that says we can’t out a CIA agent?”

  There were shrugs around the room, then all heads turned to Brannigan again. “I believe that is for active employees. If we know, and I mean one hundred percent know, that this guy is out of the intelligence services, then he’s fair game.”

  Kealty looked relieved by this, but McMullen still had reservations.

  “I’m worried this is going to look like sort of a lame Hail Mary. Like us digging up some thirty-year-old murder to try and pin tangentially on Jack Ryan here with just a few days until the election. I mean, really?”

  Kealty said, “It’s not a Hail Mary. The information was dumped in our laps. I will stress this, and I will ask the question: If this was handed to us and we did nothing, how would that look? We came into this term promising to right the wrongs of the Ryan years, and boys and girls, I am still the President of the United States.”

  Wes McMullen tried another approach to put this toothpaste back in the tube. “Clark has a Congressional Medal of Honor. They don’t just hand those out in a box of Cracker Jack, sir.”

  “So? Big fucking deal! We throw in a line about how while we honor his military service we cannot condone acts of murder, blah, blah, blah! I’ll mention that I am the goddamn commander in chief, for Christ sakes! Stop fighting me on this, Wes! I’m going forward. Mike, I need cover to do so.”

  Brannigan gave an unsure nod. “If we can get some bit of corroboration from CIA, anything, really, then I’ll be able to, at least, bring the man in for questioning.”

  Kealty nodded. “I’ll talk to Kilborn at CIA and tell him Justice Department investigators want to talk to everyone who worked with this John Clark.”

  Thayer said, “If we can get this to stick to Clark, it will affect Ryan, as it pushes the narrative that he acts above the law.”

  Kealty was standing and pacing now over by his desk. “Fuck, yes, this will affect Ryan! This needs to come out in the next twenty-four hours so that I can use it on my last swing through the Rust Belt. I can ask th
e crowd if a President Ryan would just whack the president of Mexico the next time he doesn’t get his way on a trade issue. It speaks to his past, it speaks to his present insofar as he is supposedly so strong on foreign affairs, but are you really strong on foreign affairs if you have to resort to sending out your goon squad to kill others, and then cover it up with a secret pardon?” Kealty was nearly breathless, but he thoughtut he th of something else and spun in his patent-leather shoes to the three men on the sofas. “And it speaks to the future of this country if we allow a man who works with and cavorts with a bloodthirsty killer like this John Clark to take over the Oval Office.”

  Kealty looked to his chief of staff. “Wes, I’m going to need that line. Write that down and hang on to it.”

  “Of course.”

  “Okay, gentlemen. Anything else?”

  Thayer said, “Clark has a partner. He was mentioned several times in the file. He is tight with Ryan, as well.”

  “Does this guy have a full pardon?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Okay, let’s get to work on him, too.” He saw a look of reticence in Thayer’s eyes. “No? Why not?”

  “Domingo Chavez is the guy’s name. He’s Mexican-American.”

  “Shit,” Kealty said, thinking it over. “There goes fucking Arizona and New Mexico. Won’t affect Texas. I didn’t have a prayer there.” He gasped. “California?”

  Thayer shook his head. “You could carpet-bomb Mexico City with B-52s and you won’t lose California to Jack fucking Ryan. Still… you will lose a shitload of Hispanic votes, all over the country, if the FBI goes after a guy named Chavez.”

  “Okay.” The political wheels in Kealty’s head turned. “Bury the Mexico angle on the Ryan story. Let’s go after Clark and Clark alone.”

  Everyone agreed.

  “All right. Mike, you go to Kilborn for access to CIA personnel, but Wes, I want you to get Deputy Director Alden over here tomorrow first thing. I want to see if he knows anything about John Clark. Alden is a suck-up. He’ll play ball with me in a way Kilborn won’t.”