Read Jack Ryan 11 - Bear And The Dragon for Free Online Page A

Shablikov of the Moscow Militia was sure. How else could the police collect the information they needed on people who did stray too far? No police agency in the world had the time to investigate everything, and thus using criminals against criminals was the easiest and least expensive method of intelligence-gathering.
    The one thing to remember was that the informants were criminals, and hence unreliable in many things, too given to lying, exaggeration, to making up what they thought their master wanted to hear. And so Shablikov had to be careful believing anything this criminal said.
     
    For his part, Pavel Petrovich Klusov had his own doubts, dealing as he did with this corrupted police colonel. Shablikov was not a former KGB officer, but rather a career policeman, and therefore not as smart as he believed himself to be, but more accustomed to bribes and informal arrangements with those he pursued. That was probably how he had achieved his fairly high rank. He knew how to get information by making deals with people like himself, Klusov thought. The informant wondered if the colonel had a hard-currency account somewhere. It would be interesting to find out where he lived, what sort of private car he or his wife drove. But he'd do what he was told, because his own “commercial” activities thrived under Shablikov's protection, and later that night he'd go out drinking with Irina Aganovna, maybe take her to bed later, and along the way find out how deeply mourned Avseyenko was by his...former...employees.
    “Yes, Comrade Polkovnik Leytnant,” Klusov agreed. “It will be as you say. I will try to be back with you tomorrow:”
    “You will not try. You will do it, Pasha,” Shablikov told him, like a schoolmaster demanding homework from an underachieving child.
     
    “It is already under way,” Zhang told his Premier.
    “I trust this one will go more smoothly than its two predecessors,” the Premier replied dryly. The risks attached to this operation were incomparably greater. Both previous times, with Japan's attempt to drastically alter the Pacific Rim equation, and Iran's effort to create a new nation from the ashes of the Soviet Union, the People's Republic had not done anything, just...encouraged, behind the scenes. This venture, though, was different. Well, one could not really expect great things to happen on the cheap, could one?
    “I -- we have been unlucky.”
    “Perhaps so.” A casual nod as he switched papers on his desk.
    Zhang Han San's blood went a little cold at that. The Premier of the People's Republic was a man known for his detachment, but he'd always regarded his Minister Without Portfolio with a certain degree of warmth. Zhang was one of the few whose advice the Premier usually heeded. As indeed today the advice would be heeded, but without any feeling on the part of the senior official.
    “We have exposed nothing and we have lost nothing,” Zhang went on.
    The head didn't come up. “Except that there is now an American ambassador in Taipei.” And now there was talk of a mutual-defense treaty whose only purpose was to place the American navy between the two countries, regular port visits, perhaps even a permanent base (to be built entirely, most certainly, from Taiwanese money) whose only purpose, the Americans would innocently say, was merely to be a replacement for Subic Bay in the Philippines. The economy on Taiwan had exploded after the renewal of full U.S. diplomatic recognition, with an influx of massive new capital investments from all over the world. Much of that money would -- and should -- have come to the PRC, except for the change in Americas outlook.
    But the American President Ryan had taken his action entirely on his own, so the intelligence services claimed, contrary to political and diplomatic advice in Washington -- though the American Secretary of State, that Adler man, had reportedly supported Ryan's foolish decision.
    Zhang's blood temperature dropped another degree or