Oath of Office

Both Ryan and Clark were dressed in khaki slacks and casual lace-ups with rubber soles that provided good traction. Long experience had taught Clark that he was bound to do a lot more running than he did shooting. He wore a pair of simple suede Desert Boots that were probably half as old as Ryan. Long-sleeve shirts, slightly tailored, made them look a little less American — Ryan’s charcoal gray and Clark’s white. John’s wife, Sandy, always joked that he had to be extra brave to wear white shirts on an operation, since the guys wearing white in the movies always seemed to die before the show ended. It was amazing that she could still joke about that sort of thing — but, he supposed, it was her way of coping. Everyone had to have some mechanism. Sandy’s was her sense of humor. There was rarely a time when she wasn’t grinning — at least with her eyes. It was a good thing, too, because one of them needed to look happy, and Clark’s smiles always looked a little forced — except when he watched his grandson play ball.

Clark had never really stopped paying attention to the Russians, but someone practicing a few notes on the trumpet in the nearby bullring jerked him fully into the here and now of the street.

Absent the colorful splash of the purple jacaranda trees along the banks of the canal off of the Guadalquivir River just two blocks away, the knotted sycamores of Calle Adriano were set against muted buildings painted amber and rust. Siesta time was over, and people were up and about, preparing for the bullfights that would begin in less than two hours. There was room in the arena for twelve thousand, and hundreds of locals hustled like bees on the streets and sidewalks surrounding the centuries-old Plaza de Toros de la Real Maestranza de Caballería de Sevilla. Vendors rented cushions for the stone benches and sold roasted nuts, beer, and gaseosas. Ticket scalpers prepared to haggle with frugal locals and earn their losses back on eager turistas. Carriage drivers checked horses’ hooves and folded blankets customers would need once the sun went down and the evening grew chilly.

Shafts of bright light cut rapierlike down the east-west alleys, leaving those on the east side of the road still in sunglasses and low hats, while Clark, and those experienced enough to choose a table on the west side of the street, received welcome shade. Inside the bullring, aficionados paid much more for seats in the shade, or sombra, than in the eastern, or sol, side of the ring.

Clark had already purchased two tickets in the sombra, in the upper boxes, for a hundred and twenty euros apiece. This high vantage point would give them a good view of the Russians, no matter where they sat. None of the team had been eager to go in and watch the bullfights — each offering various reasons. Adara had already made plain her disgust for the practice, and appeared ready to gut anyone who thought otherwise. The others were more taciturn, but no one was excited about it. For Clark, the problem was the horses. His rational brain said they should not be any higher ranked than another animal, but they were, and to a lot of people. Seeing horses blindfolded and gored while the picadors went after the bull’s shoulders with the spear, well, he could do without that. But the Russians and this new Spaniard looked as though they were going in. Someone had to follow them.

Clark didn’t mind at all when Jack Junior drew the short straw. He and Ryan Senior went way back, certainly further than either of them wanted to remember, but he didn’t get to work directly with the kid very often. Junior was a good deal like his dad. A little more off-the-cuff than Senior, who had more of an analytical bent. Sometimes. Both were incredibly brave, which meant even more when you considered how smart they were. It was easy to appear brave if you were too dumb to realize what kind of danger you were really in.

Clark took a sip of his San Miguel 1516. It was less boozy than the other beers on the menu, leaving him able to drink a little more and still stay on his toes.

“It’s tough being your old man’s kid,” he offered, suddenly nostalgic.

Ryan gave a half-smile and took a drink of his own beer. The kid was absent his usual easy smile. Life seemed to have beaten it out of him of late. “I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do.” Clark shrugged. “This business is hard enough on someone who’s not the firstborn son of the immortal Jack Ryan. You doing okay?”

“I’m fine,” Jack lied. It was obvious he was not.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Clark said. “But it’s my job to ask — as your boss and your friend. I’m just saying, you’re a little young to be circling the drain like a dead spider.”

“Is that what I’m doing?”

“I got a nose for these things. You need to get your legs under you, son.”

Jack eyed the men across the street. “You think Beret Guy is another weapons dealer?”