He could not possibly fathom what Center wanted with this location. Maybe he was looking for some local real estate. As vague as his handler had been about what he needed to know about the place, Valentin wondered if all his subterfuge was unnecessary.
Maybe he should have just walked up to the front door and knocked and asked for a tour of the place.
No. That was not Kovalenko’s style. He knew the best thing for him personally was to keep his interactions with others to a minimum.
He returned to his car on Wisconsin and headed back to the airport to return the rental. He’d go home, report his findings to Center via Cryptogram, and then get good and drunk.
John Clark stood still as a stone on his back pasture, and a cold autumn wind blew oak leaves across his field of vision, but he did not focus on them as they passed.
Suddenly he moved; his left hand whipped across the front of his body, to his waistband under the right side of his leather bomber jacket, and then it drew back out, pulling with it a black SIG Sauer.45-caliber pistol with a short, stubby silencer attached. The pistol rose to John’s eye level, centered on a steel disk the width of a grapefruit that hung from a metal chain at chest level ten yards off, just in front of a backstop of hay bales.
John Clark fired one-handed at the small target, a double tap that cracked the cold air despite the suppressor.
A pair of satisfyingly loud metal “pings” echoed across the pasture as the bullets exploded against the steel.
All this took place in under two seconds.
John Clark used his right hand to move his jacket aside, and then he resecured the pistol back in his cross-draw appendix holster.
Clark had come a long way in a week of daily handgun drills, but he was not satisfied with his performance. He’d like to cut his time in half. And he’d like to achieve his hits from twice this distance.
But that would take both time and commitment, and though John had the time — he had nothing but time these days — for the first time in his adult life he wondered whether he really had the commitment he needed to achieve an objective.
As disciplined an individual as he was, there was something about a strong likelihood that you would need your gunfighting skills to save your own life in the future that tended to focus your energies into being an excellent student.
And John knew he would not be shooting his gun in anger anymore.
Still, he had to admit, the movements and the gun smoke and the feel of the weapon in his hand — even in his left hand — felt damn good.
John reloaded a magazine on the small wooden table next to him, told himself he’d run through a few more boxes of ammo before lunch.
He had nowhere else to be today.
FORTY-NINE
President Ryan felt like he was spending as much time in the Situation Room as he was in the Oval Office.
The usual suspects were there. Mary Pat Foley and Scott Adler on his right. Bob Burgess and Colleen Hurst on his left. Filling the rest of the table were Arnie van Damm, Vice President Pollan, Ambassador Ken Li, and various high-ranking generals and admirals from the Pentagon.
On the monitor at the far end of the room, Admiral Mark Jorgensen, commander of the Pacific Fleet, sat at a conference table with a laptop open in front of him.
Ambassador Li’s visit to Washington was the main reason for the meeting. The day before, he had been summoned by China’s foreign minister and given a message to be hand-delivered to the President of the United States.
Li had flown through the night, arrived the next day, and done as China asked.
The message had been succinct. China was directly warning the United States to move its Ronald Reagan carrier group three hundred nautical miles from the coast of China or risk “accidental and regrettable incidents.”
At present the Reagan was ninety nautical miles northeast of Taipei, meaning it could easily send its aircraft into the strait on patrols. Pushing it back to three hundred miles meant that the strait would be out of range for most regular flight operations.
Ryan did not want to do it, he wanted to show support to Taiwan, but he also recognized the Reagan was in the line of fire of virtually hundreds of missiles as powerful as, or more powerful than, those that had hit the Viraat in the South China Sea.
Secretary of Defense Burgess started the meeting by first updating everyone on Chinese aggression in the South China Sea in the days since the attack on the INS Viraat. PLAN warships had been seen as far south as Indonesian waters, and small landing parties had come ashore on several unoccupied islands in the Philippines. China’s one aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, set sail from Hainan into the South China Sea, surrounded by a full complement of missile frigates, destroyers, refuelers, and other support ships.
The secretary of defense said, “This is a flexing of muscle, but it is a pretty pathetic show.”
“What’s pathetic about it?” asked Ryan.
Burgess said, “The carrier doesn’t have any airplanes.”
“What?” Jack asked in astonishment.
“It’s carrying about twenty-five attack and transport helicopters, but the Chinese don’t have even one squadron of jets that are carrier-qualified. This cruise by the Liaoning is…” He hesitated. “I was going to say it was just for show, but I can’t say that. They will likely go out and attack some things and kill some folks. They just aren’t operating it like a real aircraft carrier, because they don’t have the capability.”
Ryan said, “I have a strong suspicion that China state media will forget to mention that the carrier isn’t operating with fixed-wing aircraft on board.”
Kenneth Li said, “You can take that to the bank, Mr. President. Most of China will react with fierce pride that, as far as they know, the Liaoning has set sail to claim the SCS.”
Ryan next asked, “Have there been more attacks over the Strait of Taiwan?”
“Not since the attack on the Viraat, but don’t expect that to hold. There has been some bad weather over the strait; that’s probably got more to do with it than any feeling by China that they have gone too far,” Burgess replied.
Ryan turned to Ambassador Li. “What does your gut tell you about what is going on, Ken?”
The Chinese-American ambassador said, “The attack on the Viraat had very little to do with the conflict between China and India, and much more to do with the conflict between China and the United States.”
Ryan said, “It was a signal to our Navy. A signal to me.”
Li nodded and said, “A signal that said, ‘Stay away.’”
“As messages go, killing two hundred and forty-something souls is pretty loud and clear.”
Li agreed.
Ryan said, “Wei singles us out, tells us not to meddle in affairs that don’t concern us. What specific thing are they pointing to when they threaten us like this? Just the carrier?”
“Partially they are pointing to our increased engagement in the region. But much of it is guilt by association, Mr. President. The countries there that are our allies, and that is virtually everyone in the SCS region, are hyping their relationship with us, insinuating that we will protect them in any conflict with China. This doesn’t help matters over there. Standoffs between Chinese and Philippine vessels have been increasing. Ditto with Indonesia and Vietnam.”
“The Chinese really feel the entire South China Sea belongs to them?”
“Indeed they do,” Li said. “They are doing everything in their ever-expanding power to extend Chinese sovereignty. They are pushing the Navies of Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, and India out of what they see as their own territory, and they do not care about international law. At the same time, they are doing their best to foment armed conflict in the strait with the air-to-air attacks.”