Power and Empire

The Principal Committee was an abbreviated version of the National Security Council — consisting of the DNI, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, D/CIA, and a handful of cabinet secretaries. They could convene in the Situation Room, but the number was small enough that they could meet in his office.

Ryan thought over the value of calling in even the abbreviated committee on a Saturday evening. “No Americans are involved?”

“Not to my knowledge,” Arnie said.

“But China again…”

“Yep.”

Ryan watched two Argentine firefighters carry a body out of the restaurant in a bag. He shook his head. “No,” he said. “Let’s just get Mary Pat on the line for now. I want to run a couple things by her.”

Van Damm sat down at the small desk in the cramped study and went to work getting in touch with the DNI while Ryan sat back on one of the two tufted leather chairs to watch the coverage from Buenos Aires. The news crawl along the bottom of the screen carried the BREAKING NEWS message, but with nothing but amateur video coming in, there was little to report. The crawl repeated headlines from the last few hours, including news of Typhoon Catelyn gathering strength two hundred nautical miles east of Okinawa. He’d already been briefed on what was then Tropical Storm Catelyn when it narrowly missed the U.S. Naval base on Guam. Now the damn thing had turned north toward Yokosuka, Japan.

“I have MP,” Arnie said. “Want me to put her on speaker?”

Ryan shook his head. “On second thought, go ahead and patch in Bob Burgess, too. I’d like to get a sitrep on the safety of the Seventh Fleet while we’re at it.”

44

Ding Chavez stood with Jack Ryan, Jr., on the sidewalk in front of the Freddo ice cream shop, across the street from Recoleta Cemetery. Ten feet away, Midas and Adara flanked the seething Japanese woman.

“Impossible to prove,” Ding said. “It’s not like Kōanchōsa-chō carry around ID cards.”

The Kōanchōsa-chō, or Public Security Intelligence Agency, was akin to the CIA, FBI counterintelligence, and MI6, responsible for gathering intelligence and conducting counterespionage activities against both internal and external threats to the people of Japan.

“She has support and training,” Ryan said. “It’s no easy task to get a suppressed rifle into the country and then set up a sniper hide across the street from an international event. And I did see her following the brunette.”

“Tell me her name again,” Ding said.

Ryan looked at the palm of his hand where he’d written it down. “Yukiko,” he said. “At least that’s the name she gave.”

“Well, shit,” Chavez said. He’d worked with a couple Kōanchōsa-chō guys a few years before. 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. For one thing, cover identities came and went. A real name might get nothing but a blank stare — even if you were both talking about the same person.

Chavez walked over to look the woman in the eye. “You’ve put us in a bit of a pickle,” he said.

Yukiko glared. “I could scream rape.”

“Go for it,” Chavez said. “I doubt you want to talk to the cops any worse than we do — even if you are Kōanchōsa-chō. Hell, especially if you are.”

Her eyes flashed toward the cemetery wall. “We waste time standing here.”

“How’s that?” Chavez said.

“You are CIA?”

Chavez shook his head. “Nice try.”

The Japanese woman stared hard at him, obviously thinking through her options. If she were truly Japanese intelligence, she’d realize she didn’t have many. At length, her shoulders dropped and she heaved a long sigh. She nodded toward Jack.

“Your young friend says they went into the cemetery.”

“They did.” Chavez played along. That tidbit of information wasn’t exactly a state secret. “Probably went straight over the far side before we could get around.”

Yukiko shook her head. “I do not believe that is true.”

Adara moved a half-step closer. “What, then?”

“The Basilica del Pilar is at the northeast corner of the grounds. Many of the churches in Buenos Aires have underground cloisters where nuns or Jesuit priests—”

“No, no, no.” Jack cut her off. “No more tunnels!” He said it loud enough that a passing couple turned to look at the crazy turista.

“As I was saying.” The Japanese woman gave a half-smile, then turned back to Chavez. “Jesuit priests constructed tunnels under many portions of the city. Some believe they planned to build a network so vast as to connect most of the churches in Buenos Aires.”

“Okay…” Chavez said. “Let’s say Chen took one of these tunnels. Can you take us to the entrance?”

“Trust me,” Jack said. “You don’t want to go down there.”

Yukiko shook her head. “There are almost five thousand burial vaults in an area covering fifty thousand square meters. There may be many entrances… or the way down could be beneath the church itself.”

“If there is one,” Chavez said.