Autorentext

Marc Cameron

Klappentext

A shadowy billionaire uses his fortune to further his corrupt ambitions. Along the way, he's toppled democratically elected governments and exacerbated divisions within stable nations. The competitors he's destroyed, the people he's hurt, they're all just marks on a ledger. Now, he's ready to implement his most ambitious plan of all. There's only one force standing in his way, President Jack Ryan. How do you compel a man like Jack Ryan to bend? He's personally faced down everything from the Russian navy to cartel killers. It will take more than political headwinds or media disfavor to cause him to turn from his duty to the American people, but every man has an Achilles heel. Jack Ryan's is his family. The answer is as simple as it is shocking. The billionaire has assembled an international team of the most ruthless mercenaries alive. Their mission, kidnap the First Lady.

Zusammenfassung
The United States has stared down many threats with President Jack Ryan at the helm, but what if he’s not there when we need him? That’s the question facing a nation in the most shocking entry in Tom Clancy's #1 New York Times bestselling series.

A shadowy billionaire uses his fortune to further his corrupt ambitions. Along the way, he’s toppled democratically elected governments and exacerbated divisions within stable nations. The competitors he’s destroyed, the people he’s hurt, they’re all just marks on a ledger. Now, he’s ready to implement his most ambitious plan of all. There’s only one force standing in his way—President Jack Ryan.

How do you compel a man like Jack Ryan to bend? He’s personally faced down everything from the Russian navy to cartel killers. It will take more than political headwinds or media disfavor to cause him to turn from his duty to the American people, but every man has an Achilles heel. Jack Ryan’s is his family.

The answer is as simple as it is shocking. The billionaire has assembled an international team of the most ruthless mercenaries alive. Their mission—kidnap the First Lady.

Leseprobe
1

Washington Air Route Traffic Control Center

Leesburg, Virginia

Time to decide: sixteen minutes.

Tim Goode grabbed the edge of the desk and pushed his padded chair away from the radar console, rolling it forward and back, bleeding off nervous energy while he took a scant moment to study the electronic blip moving northeast. At least once a day some clueless pilot flew their little Cessna or Piper or Beechcraft across the imaginary line that fenced the United States capital.

"Bewitched, ballsy, or bewildered?" Goode muttered under his breath, rolling his chair all the way forward again. A low growl rumbled in his chest.

Seriously, dude? All you gotta do is look at the chart . . .

Dozens of blips and corresponding transponder codes moved across his scope. It wasn't like this moron was the only aircraft he had to worry about at the moment.

Goode adjusted the mic on his headset-as if that would do any good-and tried the radio for the third time.

"Aircraft on a sixty-degree south of Nokesville, identify yourself on this frequency."

Nada. Nothing. NORDO.

Aircraft were not permitted within thirty nautical miles of the Washington Reagan Airport VOR-the SFRA, or Special Flight Rules Area-unless they met three specific criteria. They needed a flight plan. They had to be in communications with air traffic control. And their transponder had to squawk on the assigned frequency.

This inbound numbnuts was batting zero for three-and making a beeline for the capital at a hundred and twenty knots, covering two miles every minute.

Goode waved over his shoulder for a supervisor with his left hand. His right moved for the computer mouse on his desk, activating the red and green signaling lasers located around the SFRA. Aided by radar tracking, the intense beams were aimed directly at the offending aircraft, warning the pilot to make an immediate one-hundred-eighty-degree turn.

See it-flee it.

This guy continued inbound with no response, undeterred by the warning lights.

At this point, Goode reported this Track of Interest to the Air National Guard duty officer at the Eastern Air Defense Sector, or EADS, 390 miles to the north in Rome, New York. Her name was Lieutenant Mary Wong. Both were frequent fliers when it came to SFRA incursions, and the two have had spoken many times before.

"Got another TOI for you," Goode said, getting down to business with the particulars. "Bullseye two-four-zero degrees for thirty-one nautical miles. Airspeed 120 knots."

Bullseye was the VOR at Reagan National Airport, the center of the restricted airspace circle.

Lieutenant Wong kept Goode on and notified her commander, who had a direct line to the United States Coast Guard Blackjack helicopter crews at Reagan and the F-16s with the 121st Fighter Squadron at Andrews. Both of these units were immediately placed on a heightened state of alert.

It cost the American taxpayer over fifty thousand dollars to scramble a single F-16, so no one took the action lightly-nor would they hesitate once certain trip wires were crossed.

"Who is this guy?" Lieutenant Wong said. "He's bullseye two-four-zero degrees for . . ." She paused, then spoke again. "Still NORDO?"

Goode tried the offending aircraft on the radio once more before answering Wong. "Correct," he said. "Either he's having radio problems or he's ignoring me altogether."

Wong was in deep conversation with her supervisor, ticking down the checklist of responses for an incursion into restricted airspace. Goode watched the green dot, expecting to see a Coastie MH-65 launch on his screen at any moment.

Time to decide: twelve minutes.

The inbound Track of Interest met the criteria for an immediate Operation Noble Eagle (ONE) conference call. Lieutenant Wong began by contacting 601st Air Operations Center at Tyndall Air Force Base-Continental U.S. NORAD Region (CONR) headquarters near Panama City, Florida, where Lieutenant General Rhett Farrer served as the CFACC, or Combined Forces Air Component Commander.

The commander of NORAD/NORTHCOM, four-star general Mike Hopkin, was enduring a root canal at a specialist off base in Colorado Springs at that moment, so his J-5, Major General Steven Armstrong (the joint director of policy and planning), stood in for him on the phone in the N2C2-NORAD/NORTHCOM Command Center. In this capacity, General Armstrong was armed with Civilian Aircraft Engagement Authority-a benign way of saying he'd been delegated the responsibility from the secretary of defense through General Hopkin to give the shootdown order so an F-16 Falcon could blow this little four-seater civilian airplane out of the sky.

Neither Goode nor Lieutenant Wong spoke the words aloud, but both knew that if this pilot continued on the same course, he would have his choice of the Pentagon, the Capitol, or the White House as targets.

Nine hundred miles north of Tyndall and sixteen hundred miles east of Colorado Springs, the scramble sirens sounded at Andrews Air Force Base. Captain Scott Hill and Lieutenant Rich Waggoner sprinted across the flight line to their waiting F-16s.

Time to decide: eleven minutes.

Twenty minutes earlier:

Early mornings were George Cantu's favorite time for flight lessons. His wife would drop their three-year-old daughter at daycare about now, and then head to Culpeper Middle School, where she taught seventh grade-a far more dangerous endeavor than instructor pilot, to George's way of thinking. The air was crisp and dense enough that the little Cessna would leap off the runway when the time came. Cooler mornings meant new students didn't have to deal with much turbulence during…