Power and Empire (Jack Ryan Universe, #24)

by Marc Cameron

“Bakayaro!” she spat.

Japanese for “Stupid asshole!”

“A girl can’t wear flannel to the White House twice in a row.”

The Kōanchōsa-chō, or Public Security Intelligence Agency, was akin to the CIA, FBI counterintelligence, and MI6,

Per Wikipedia, “The PSIA had been supposed to be integrated with Naicho [Cabinet Research Office] in order to reorient the agency to a post-Cold War and to enhance its resources, but the proposal was not adopted.”

They’d been good intelligence officers, if a bit humorless for Ding’s taste. But the IC world was not one where you could name-drop.

heijokyōfushō . . . fear of small places.” “Claustrophobia,” Chavez said. “Yes,” Yukiko said.

The More You Know…

and that old East Timor independence group we looked into . . . What were they called?” “Revolutionary Front,”

The Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (Portuguese: Frente Revolucionária de Timor-Leste Independente, abbreviated as Fretilin)

“Yubikiri,” she said. “I promise.”

The IC world was often a multigenerational affair, with children following parents into the business. Clearances could be somewhat easier to obtain when a relative had already been scrutinized to the nth degree during a security background check.

Have you heard of Chongryon?” “Sounds Korean,” Jack said. Chavez nodded. “Isn’t that the political arm of the DPRK in Japan?” “Precisely that,”

Such orders may include the use of a rifle.” She shrugged. “Your country has been known to put the faces of certain . . . high-value targets on playing cards.”

“Wei, xingan baobei,” he said. Hello, sweetheart.

He did not actually end the call first. Such an act would have proven disastrous. Even a man as powerful as the foreign minister of China knew to let his wife be the one to end the call.

“When your wife is happy, *you’re* happy!”—Jeff Foxworthy

the Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base in West Fort Worth.

You mean NAS Carswell?

Clark stopped at a Whataburger

A Texas burger icon—just ask Ronald “RoJo” Jones!

Hookers hardly ever worked the corners anymore. Sites like Craigslist and Backpage had taken the girls off the street—and

He’d learned long before that knocking someone silly wasn’t all that difficult so long as the possibility of killing them in the process wasn’t taken off the table.

“How about . . . Imagine Dragons

GI Joe smacking a Ken doll.

“Felt that, did you?” Clark said. “That’s what we call your common peroneal nerve.

My final year of university, my father took me to climb Fujisan. If you do not climb it once, they say, you are not Japanese.” She smiled. “If you climb it twice, they say you are a fool.

jaku niku kyō shoku—the weak are meat, the strong eat.

“My father very much liked your American idea of a sheepdog, protecting the weak. I am sure he wished he would have had a son . . .”

He’d checked the place for fire ants and other stickers, stingers, and stinkers

AKA “creepy-crawlies.”

yucca

I can’t remember a single time when Jack Ryan Senior or Junior listened to me when I warned either of them not to do something because it was dangerous.”

New agents learned quickly to plan on three hours of paperwork for every one hour in the field. So much for the intrepid gumshoe detective. Sometimes she felt like a typist with a Glock.

Loading magazines was a Zenlike experience for him,

CZ Scorpion SMG

Again, that’s Skorpion.

Warren Buffett’s sentiment that “no matter how great the talent or efforts, some things just take time. You can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.”

we’re about to get a very uncomfortable saltwater enema if this typhoon hits us while we have no power.”

No, he could sing like Pavarotti for all Clark cared. That didn’t give him a soul.

“There’s always some son of a bitch who didn’t get the word,” the SecDef said, obviously referring to then President Kennedy’s response when he was informed of the American U-2 pilot who, navigating with all he was given—a compass and sextant—inadvertently flew from Alaska into Soviet air space.

She was a tall, no-nonsense woman with a stern face that made Ryan think she probably voted for the other guy in the last election. Still, she was professional and looked him in the eye when she shook his hand.

Unlike members of the U.S. Secret Service, even supervisory members of the Central Security Bureau’s presidential protection unit did not have take-home cars.

Meh, take-home G-rides are overrated anyway; just extra liability and extra competition for limited parking space availability.

Most, including Major Ts’ai, did not mind, preferring to take the train over paying hundreds of thousands of yuan—the equivalent of thousands of dollars—for parking.

Exactly.

Japan turned out to be one of those Unless Otherwise Directed situations when it came to carrying a firearm.

feeling uncharacteristically light without his pistol,

I can totally empathise!

“We’re going to a place called Shinjuku.

The site of the capsule hotel I stayed at in 2014. Aahh, the memories…

“Shinjuku is the area,” Adara said. “Kabukichō is the red-light district in that area.

Jack, you should probably call your new girlfriend and let her know what we have.” “She’s not my girlfriend,” Ryan said. “You say so, ’mano,” Chavez said.

Heh, heh…

“I’ll be out as soon as I can figure out the buttons on this Japanese toilet.”

Have you found the bidet function yet there, Ding?

Japan remained a place where you could buy a white shirt and tie at the corner convenience store. Conservative dress and demeanor were lauded, and for the most part, Tokyo Station was a sea of dark hair and dark suits—for men and women alike.

Unlike China and some other countries where Jack and the others had worked, the trains in Japan seemed to have the same rules as libraries or urinals. No eye contact, no talking.

But Japanese male passengers are apparently still free to grope their female counterparts?

It was like Vegas in code.

She nodded, producing a stainless SIG Sauer P230.

In any case, gunfire is extremely rare in Japan. Ammunition is accountable here, not just firearms.

Yuki picked the lock to the back door of a bar off the alley,

A Japanese version of Fiona Glenanne from “Burn Notice!”

“I will return it if needed,” Yuki said. “Possession of a firearm is seven years in prison in this country. No matter who you are.”

Reminds me why I could never retire to Japan.

A woman would probably be his downfall as well.

Yeah, and mine too.

He didn’t much care for water. It could kill you, but you couldn’t kill it back.