Without Remorse (John Clark, #1; Jack Ryan Universe, #1)

by Tom Clancy

There had to be a better way, and Henderson was working on that, advising his senator carefully, shading things just a little bit, taking his time to become trusted so that he could learn things that Donaldson wasn’t supposed to tell anyone—but that was the problem with secrets. You just had to let others know, he thought on the way out the door.

“Not a laughing matter, Peter,” the KGB officer said. “This is a very serious business.” Please, not another bloody cowboy, Marvin thought to himself.

“I have something now if you’re interested,” Henderson told the KGB officer. Might as well let them know how important I am.

Marvin, whose real name was Ivan Alekseyevich Yegorov, had a real job, and everything that went along with it.

Doris was returning to a home and a father she’d left for a life that had nearly become a death. For many months the principal component of her new life would be guilt, part earned, part not. On the whole she was a very lucky young lady, something Doris had yet to grasp. She was, first of all, alive. With her confidence and self-esteem restored she might in two or three years be able to continue her life on a course so normal that no one would ever suspect her past or notice the fading scars. Restored health would change this girl, returning her not only to her father but also to the world of real people.

“Doc,” he interrupted softly, “that’s my little girl. She’s all I have, and I’m not going to… foul up and lose her again. I’d rather die.” “Mr. Brown, that is exactly what we needed to hear.”

“I’ll have some help, and I don’t have to swim back, do I?” “I suppose not. Sure will be nice to get those guys out.” “Yes, sir.”

Insertion

“We’ve been working on their phone systems lately,” Podulski explained. “It makes them use radios more.” “Clever,” Kelly noted. “Traffic from the objective?”

The command team arrives tomorrow, and the next day—” Franks looked across the table. “I go swimming,” Kelly said.

“Still nothing,” Emmet Ryan said, summarizing the Invisible Man Case. “All this evidence—and nothing.”

You’re ready, John.

“I guess you’d better get your helo warmed up.” Maxwell turned. “Captain Franks, would you signal Skate?” Two crisp aye aye, sirs answered him, and the men stood erect, stepping back from the chart and their decision.

There was now no turning back, Kelly told himself. But for him there rarely was.

First In

They are different, asshole! Let the politicians worry about why. Asking those kinds of questions distracted him from the fact that there were twenty people like Kelly up the river. He swore in his mind and concentrated again on driving the sled.

As entertaining as it might be for the Americans to rescue their people with this BOXWOOD GREEN operation, as much as it might show the Vietnamese again that they should cooperate more closely with the Soviet Union, that they really were a client state, it would also mean that the knowledge locked in those American minds would be lost to his country, and it was knowledge they must have.

Only the good luck of a low-level agent in the Southern United States had allowed them to warn Hanoi, and then almost too late—but now they had real forewarning.

Last Out

What do you suppose the chances are?

“Message from Mr. Snake.”

“People, our friend is in place. He counts forty-four guards, four officers, one Russian. Normal duty routine, nothing unusual is happening there.”

“That dude,” he said to his teammates, “is one cool motherfucker.”

For the moment, Kolya told himself, I have saved the man’s life. Even if the American curses me for that, he will have to breathe air to speak his curse. Colonel Grishanov would bear that burden with pride. He’d gotten his information and saved a life in the process, as was entirely proper for an air-defense pilot of PVO Strany who’d sworn his life’s real oath as a frightened and disoriented boy on his way from Moscow to Gorkiy.

“We’re going to get your sorry red ass,” Kelly whispered to himself.

Ryan hung up. “He’s our guy. He’s the Invisible Man.” “Kelly?”

Nightfall.

The humid air would muffle sound, not transmit it. It was, in a word, perfect.

Now it was up to the airedales, then the Marines. His part was almost done, Kelly thought.

“That Clark guy is pretty impressive, too. Smart,” Ritter observed. “What’s he do in real life?” “I gather he’s sort of at odds at the moment. Why?” “We always have room for a guy who can think on his feet. The boy’s smart,” Ritter repeated as all headed back to CIC.

With one last listen to the approaching NVA, Kelly picked a thin spot in the foliage and headed down the hill.

Travel Agents

That they would try to get Clark out was not a question. Marines have an institutional loathing of leaving people behind.

“SNAKE to CRICKET, over.” “This is CRICKET. We read you, and we are standing by.”

“West of my hill, past the road, about two miles west of objective, open field. I’m close. Send the helo. I can mark with strobe.”

“Roger, copy. Rescue One is moving in now, two-zero minutes away.”

Maybe God or fate or the Great Pumpkin hadn’t decided to curse him after all.

“Okay.” Greer put his own troubles aside for the moment. “I’ll have Barbara tell her you’re safe.”

The next stop, they’d told him, was Hickam in Hawaii, and he didn’t plan to be awake for any of that.

Home Is the Hunter

They were holding hands, he saw, father and daughter.

They have the police infiltrated. She remembered the words from John’s mouth. He was right, wasn’t he?

“Twenty-two’s, back of the head, both of ’em,” the Pittsburgh detective reported over the phone. “We’ve dusted the whole house—nothing. The flower box—nothing. The truck—nothing. The truck was stolen sometime last night—this morning, whatever. The florist has eight of them.

Committing the perfect murder wasn’t really all that demanding, a secret known within the fraternity of detectives and belied by a whole body of literature that made them into superhuman beings they never claimed to be, even among themselves in a cop bar.

“Everybody connected with Pam and Doris, you’re all in danger now.”

Home Is the Prey

Jack would be returning to Boston College in another week or so, Ryan thought, and he missed time with his son.

“Hello, Charles,” a voice said beside him. “Hello, Sergey.” “I do not know you,” the rezident observed. “This conversation is unofficial,” Ritter explained.

He’d have to work with Jim Greer on that, but Ritter decided on the spot that his next mission was to bring Kelly in from the cold, or the heat, or whatever you called it.

Thank God, Ryan thought, for people who don’t watch TV.