Tom Clancy, Marc Cameron
Code of Honor
ALSO BY TOM CLANCY
The Hunt for Red October
Red Storm Rising
Patriot Games
The Cardinal of the Kremlin
Clear and Present Danger
The Sum of All Fears
Without Remorse
Debt of Honor
Executive Orders
Rainbow Six
The Bear and the Dragon
Red Rabbit
The Teeth of the Tiger
Dead or Alive (with Grant Blackwood)
Against All Enemies (with Peter Telep)
Locked On (with Mark Greaney)
Threat Vector (with Mark Greaney)
Command Authority (with Mark Greaney)
Tom Clancy Support and Defend (by Mark Greaney)
Tom Clancy Full Force and Effect (by Mark Greaney)
Tom Clancy Under Fire (by Grant Blackwood)
Tom Clancy Commander in Chief (by Mark Greaney)
Tom Clancy Duty and Honor (by Grant Blackwood)
Tom Clancy True Faith and Allegiance (by Mark Greaney)
Tom Clancy Point of Contact (by Mike Maden)
Tom Clancy Power and Empire (by Marc Cameron)
Tom Clancy Line of Sight (by Mike Maden)
Tom Clancy Oath of Office (by Marc Cameron)
Tom Clancy Enemy Contact (by Mike Maden)
Submarine: A Guided Tour Inside a Nuclear Warship
Armored Cav: A Guided Tour of an Armored Cavalry Regiment
Fighter Wing: A Guided Tour of an Air Force Combat Wing
Marine: A Guided Tour of a Marine Expeditionary Unit
Airborne: A Guided Tour of an Airborne Task Force
Carrier: A Guided Tour of an Aircraft Carrier
Into the Storm: A Study in Command
with General Fred Franks, Jr. (Ret.), and Tony Koltz
Every Man a Tiger: The Gulf War Air Campaign
with General Chuck Horner (Ret.) and Tony Koltz
Shadow Warriors: Inside the Special Forces
with General Carl Stiner (Ret.) and Tony Koltz
Battle Ready
with General Tony Zinni (Ret.) and Tony Koltz
PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS
Jack Ryan: President of the United States
Mary Pat Foley: director of national intelligence
Arnold “Arnie” van Damm: President Ryan’s chief of staff
Scott Adler: secretary of state
Gerry Hendley: director of The Campus and Hendley Associates
John Clark: director of operations
Domingo “Ding” Chavez: assistant director of operations
Jack Ryan, Jr.: operations officer/senior analyst
Dominic “Dom” Caruso: operations officer
Adara Sherman: operations officer
Bartosz “Midas” Jankowski: operations officer
Gavin Biery: director of information technology
Dr. Caroline “Cathy” Ryan: First Lady of the United States
Dr. Dan Berryhilclass="underline" former medical school classmate of Dr. Ryan
Peter Li: retired admiral, United States Navy
Michelle Chadwick: United States senator
Gunawan “Gugun” Gumelar: president of Indonesia
Geoff Noonan: gaming software engineer
Suparman: owner, Suparman Games
Zhao Chengzhi: president of China
David Huang: Chinese operative
General Song Biming: PRC military officer
General Bai: PRC military officer
Major Chang: Bai’s aide
Wu Chao: PLA major/operative Central Military Commission
Kang: Chinese assassin
Tsai Zhan: Communist Party minder
Epigraph
A man does what he must — in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures — and that is the basis of all human morality.
Doubt is unpleasant, but certainty is absurd.
1
Had the young woman at the bar been slightly more attractive, Geoff Noonan might have smelled a trap.
“Know your number.” That’s what they said. Oh, he knew his number, all right, and this was going to work out just fine…
The security goons at work were jealous of everyone else’s travel, relying on acronyms, spooky statistics, and stupid rules like that “know your number” bullshit at every single meeting. These destroyers of joy gleefully pointed out that a five in Plymouth was still a five in Phuket or Phnom Penh — or anywhere else, for that matter. They liked to remind everyone that eights and nines didn’t magically try to hook up with a five. Ever. If the situation was too good to be true, it was a setup. Noonan was an engineer, a software designer, smart enough to know the knuckle-dragging goons were right, mostly. But sometimes… Sometimes the circumstances indicated otherwise. Sometimes a hot girl didn’t realize she was a hot girl, especially if she was just hot enough.
Noonan watched the Indonesian beauty at the bar curl her toes on the crossbar of the stool, like a cat might flick the tip of its tail back and forth to rid itself of excess energy. This was good, all right, but not too good. Was it? Nah. It’s not like she was an eight or anything.
The Magma Lounge at the Hilton in Bandung, Indonesia, had oversized leather couches that swallowed people up, especially if they had short legs, which Noonan did. Mired in impossibly soft cushions, he didn’t think about his wife, his two kids, the baby on the way, or his wife’s father, who was a federal judge in Hartford. The danger level of his actions and the consequences of an affair should have made him think twice before he asked this woman to join him, but they never entered his mind. He was preoccupied with how to stand up without looking like an ass when the time came.
The girl at the bar was good-looking enough for Noonan’s taste, though not so handsome as to set off alarm bells. It was doubtful he would have heard them in any case. His pastor at the First Congregational Church in Beacon Hill had pointed out during a recent marriage counseling session that Geoff appeared to lack the capacity for what he called pre-transgression guilt — that little tickle in the back of the neck that warned most people away from bad behavior before they engaged in it. Noonan had a conscience. It just took a while to kick in. Moments after, whatever the deed, Noonan always found himself wallowing in guilt. He just couldn’t seem to remember that feeling prior to any action, and that inability kept him in constant trouble.