Read Jack Ryan, Books 7-12 for Free Online Page B

“policemen.”
    “What about these two?” one asked, pointing to Corp’s two personal bodyguards.
    “Leave ’em,” Ding replied.
    “You got it, sir,” a spec-4 replied, taking out steel cuffs and securing both pairs of wrists in addition to the plastic ties. Captain Checa cuffed Corp himself. He and a sergeant lifted the man off the ground while Clark and Chavez retrieved their personal gear from the Rover and followed the soldiers to the Blackhawk. One of the Rangers handed Chavez a canteen.
    “Oso sends his regards,” the staff sergeant said. Ding’s head came around.
    “What’s he doing now?”
    “First Sergeants’ school. He’s pissed that he missed this one. I’m Gomez, Foxtrot, Second of the One-Seventy-Fifth. I was here back then, too.”
    “You made that look pretty easy,” Checa was telling Clark, a few feet away.
    “Six weeks,” the senior field officer replied in a studiously casual voice. The rules required such a demeanor. “Four weeks to bum around in the boonies, two weeks to set the meet up, six hours waiting for it to happen, and about ten seconds to take him down.”
    “Just the way it’s supposed to be,” Checa observed. He handed over a canteen filled with Gatorade. The Captain’s eyes locked on the senior man. Whoever he was, Checa thought at first, he was far too old to play games in the boonies with the gomers. Then he gave Clark’s eyes a closer look.
    “How the fuck you do this, man?” Gomez demanded of Chavez at the door to the chopper. The other Rangers leaned in close to get the reply.
    Ding glanced over at his gear and laughed. “Magic!”
    Gomez was annoyed that his question hadn’t been answered. “Leaving all these guys out here?”
    “Yeah, they’re just gomers.” Chavez turned to look one last time. Sooner or later one would get his hands free—probably—retrieve a knife, and cut his fellow “policemen” free; then they could worry about the two with steel bracelets. “It’s the boss we were after.”
    Gomez turned to scan the horizon. “Any lions or hyenas out here?” Ding shook his head. Too bad, the sergeant thought.
    The Rangers were shaking their heads as they strapped into their seats on the helicopter. As soon as they were airborne, Clark donned a headset and waited for the crew chief to set up the radio patch.
    “CAPSTONE, this is BIRD DOG,” he began.
     
     
    The eight-hour time difference made it early afternoon in Washington. The UHF radio from the helicopter went to USS Tripoli, and then it was uplinked to a satellite. The Signals Office routed the call right into Ryan’s desk phone.
    “Yes, BIRD DOG, this is CAPSTONE.”
    Ryan couldn’t quite recognize Clark’s voice, but the words were readable through the static: “In the bag, no friendlies hurt. Repeat, the duck is in the bag and there are zero friendly casualties.”
    “I understand, BIRD DOG. Make your delivery as planned.”
    It was an outrage, really, Jack told himself as he set the phone back. Such operations were better left in the field, but the President had insisted this time. He rose from his desk and headed toward the Oval Office.
    “Get’m?” D’Agustino asked as Jack hustled down the corridor.
    “You weren’t supposed to know.”
    “The Boss was worried about it,” Helen explained quietly.
    “Well, he doesn’t have to worry anymore.”
    “That’s one score that needed settling. Welcome back, Dr. Ryan.”
     
     
    The past would haunt one other man that day.
    “Go on,” the psychologist said.
    “It was awful,” the woman said, staring down at the floor. “It was the only time in my life it ever happened, and ...” Though her voice droned on in a level, emotionless monotone, it was her appearance that disturbed the elderly woman most of all. Her patient was thirty-five, and should have been slim, petite, and blonde, but instead her face showed the puffiness of compulsive eating and drinking, and her hair was barely presentable. What ought to have