Autorentext
Tom Clancy was the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than eighteen books. He died in October 2013.

Don Bentley spent a decade as an Army Apache helicopter pilot, and while deployed in Afghanistan was awarded the Bronze Star and the Air Medal with "V" device for valor. Following his time in the military, Bentley worked as an FBI special agent focusing on foreign intelligence and counterintelligence and was a Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team member.

Zusammenfassung
Jack Ryan, Jr., uncovers a secret that may threaten the United States and its president, Jack Ryan, Sr., in the latest thrilling entry in the #1 New York Times bestselling series.

Jack Ryan, Jr., is a man of action, and when he uncovers a terrorist plot to kill innocents he jumps in to thwart the evil plan. However, it turns out this attack was just a piece of a larger, more insidious plot designed to deceive the United States and paint President Jack Ryan into a political corner. 
 
Jack Jr. isn't about to let that happen, but his options are almost as narrow as his chances of getting out of this alive. 
 

Leseprobe
1

University of Regensburg
Regensburg, Germany

"Entschuldigung-wo ist die Fakultät für Mathematik?"

Jack Ryan, Jr., did in fact know the way to the mathematics department, but not because he was an aficionado of the Pythagorean theorem. In fact, Jack's last math class had been under the tutelage of Father O'Neil, whose love of equations and variables was rivaled only by his adoration for the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas. Jack had escaped the class with a C-plus, much to the chagrin of his surgeon mother, who took a dim view of any mark less than a B.

Jack's familiarity with the University of Regensburg's quaint campus was not the result of a newfound thirst for knowledge or a desire to right his past collegiate wrongs characterized by too much time on the football field and not enough in the library. Neither had Jack's familiarity come from strolling along the campus's network of pedestrian paths under the azure sky and brilliant German sunshine. No, Jack knew where the math building was for the same reason he was seated at a section of tables in the cobblestone-paved common area that formed the university's heart.

Jack was running a surveillance operation.

But he couldn't say this to the cute blonde dressed in a white half-shirt, black Lululemon leggings, and white cross-trainers. While Jack hadn't thought much of college math, there were certainly some aspects of the higher-education experience he'd found enjoyable.

"Sorry," Jack said with a smile. "I'm not a student."

The girl smiled back, and Jack's grin widened.

At six foot two and two hundred twenty pounds, Jack was a big boy. Now that he was closer to forty than twenty, he had to hit the gym harder to maintain his athletic build. But his blue eyes were still bright, his face unwrinkled, and his brown hair thick and curly.

Judging by the coed's reaction, Jack must not be aging too terribly.

He still had it.

"Of course not," the girl said, laughing, as she switched to German-accented English. "You are much too old to be a student. I thought you might be visiting your child for parents' weekend?"

Or perhaps not.

"Nope, no child," Jack said, fighting to keep his grin from withering. "Just here for a conference."

"Oh," the girl said, her face reddening. "Sorry. Could you tell me where the mathematics building is located?"

"Sure," Jack said. "Quickest way is through there." He turned in his chair to point to the doors of the University Student Office behind him. "It'll be the first building you see on the other side."

"Danke," the girl said.

She offered Jack a final smile that reeked of pity before heading into the building.

Jack gritted his teeth as he waited for the other shoe to drop. As jolting as it had been to learn that he could no longer pass as a college student, he knew the worst was still to come. As if on cue, a feminine voice echoed from a Bluetooth-equipped combination transmitter/receiver lodged deep in the canal of his right ear.

"Do we have a med kit?"

"Why?" Jack said, instantly alert.

"Thought you might need something for your bruised ego."

The raspy tone engendered images of raven hair and vanilla-scented olive-toned skin. Unlike Jack, who was seated at a flimsy metal table with a doner kebab wrapped in aluminum foil for company, his coworker and girlfriend, Lisanne Robertson, was lounging in the grass on the south side of the University Student Office. In fact, if they'd been the only two operatives on the net, Jack might have broken protocol long enough to tell the Lebanese American woman how he'd accidentally mixed salt into his coffee after seeing her in "college attire."

Jack didn't.

This was partly because he was still trying to navigate the pitfalls of working clandestinely with someone who was also a love interest and partly because he and Lisanne weren't alone on the net.

Not by a long shot.

"Don't sweat it, Jack. We all get old."

The high-pitched voice belonged to Gavin Biery.

Like Jack and Lisanne, Gavin was an employee of The Campus, an off-the-books intelligence agency. Unlike Jack and Lisanne, who were paramilitary officers, Gavin was The Campus's director of information technology, and its resident hacker. As such, he was perched in his comfortable chair at The Campus's Alexandria, Virginia, headquarters rather than in Germany.

Since the operation the three operatives were currently running had been billed as surveillance only, Gavin had asked to accompany his teammates. Jack had turned down the portly keyboard warrior. Gavin brought more to the fight ensconced in his climate-controlled IT labyrinth than he would deployed to the field.

Not to mention that he looked far less appealing in summer wear.

"First of all, I'm not old," Jack said. "Second, I need everyone focused on the task at hand. Coffee break is coming up."

"Whatever you say, pops," Lisanne said, her husky voice raising goose bumps across Jack's skin.

Before catching his flight to Munich, Jack had been called in for a sit-down with his boss and The Campus's director of operations, John T. Clark. Clark's operational history was both long and distinguished, beginning with his time as a SOG veteran and Vietnam-era Navy SEAL. In the ensuing years, Clark had worked as a CIA paramilitary officer and served as the original Rainbow Six. He and Jack's father had met in the jungles of Colombia during a CIA-helmed counter-drug operation gone wrong.

Now Jack's father was the President of the United States, and Clark was Jack's boss. When John Clark talked, Jack listened, even on the rare occasions when he didn't agree with what his boss had to say.

This had been one of those times.

Jack and Lisanne had been honest with their brothers- and sisters-in-arms when their relationship had firmly left platonic territory. While this wasn't a surprise to most of their compatriots, Clark had counseled the pair on what this meant from an operational sense. In short, it changed things. Contrary to the movies, operating with someone with whom you were romantically involved was difficult.

Serving objectively as that person's team leader was nearly impossible.

Jack hadn't disagreed with Clark's assessment. Who was he to argue with someone who'd been hunting his nation's adversaries while Jack had still been in diapers? Still, this was not an operation, per se, as much as a tactical test-drive. A test-drive of Isabel Yang's utility as well as a demonstration for a rather unique bit of software Gavin had been tinkering with for the last several months. It would also serve as a trial run for Jack's ability to operate with Lisanne in …