Page 34 of Tom Clancy Line of Sight
Behind the stacks of desk lamps were a dozen wooden crates about ten feet long. The shorter cop pulled off the balaclava, spilling out a wave of shoulder-length blond hair. The woman grinned ear to ear and flashed her light on one of the crates as the tall cop pulled his balaclava off as well, and started working the crate lid with his thick blade. The weak nails squeaked inside the soft pine as the knife levered up the lid. When his fingers could finally get purchase, the big man sheathed his knife and pulled the lid off with his hands and tossed it aside as the woman knelt down and yanked out the packing material. They were looking for 122-millimeter missiles.
Instead, they found a crate of cold rolled-steel plumbing pipe.
The woman—a GRU major—swore a vile curse in her mother tongue.
Russian.
NEAR TJENTIŠTE, REPUBLIKA SRPSKA, BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
Eighty kilometers south, a thirty-nine-foot-long Happy Times! tour bus was parked behind a line of trees, far from the empty highway. Eight men in pairs, including the “Greeks”—Captain Walib and Lieutenant Dzhabrailov—pulled heavy ten-foot-long wooden crates out from the wide luggage compartments beneath the bus’s passenger cabin and loaded them onto a flatbed truck for the drive to the camouflaged storage building a hundred meters away.
19
WASHINGTON, D.C.
It was an informal meeting, if any meeting in the Situation Room could ever be characterized as such, particularly with the President and his closest advisers on hand—SecState Scott Adler, SecDef Robert Burgess, DNI Mary Pat Foley, and chief of staff Arnie Van Damm.
A regional map of the Balkans was displayed on one of the big screens on the wall nearest the table, along with satellite photographs of Russian forces in and around Belgrade, Serbia.
President Ryan had ordered up a buffet of salads and sandwich fixings for the late dinner gathering. He had a few things on his mind that he wanted to get cleared up as soon as possible, and this was the only time Arnie could pull everyone together. With a hundred urgent national and global issues clawing at his schedule every day, Ryan had learned to prioritize better than most.
But he’d also learned that the White House wasn’t just a firestation, and his job wasn’t limited to turning the hose on the nearest blaze raging out of control. Anticipation was one of his great strengths, born out of decades of analytical experience. Better to keep the fire from starting than to try to put it out. He’d also learned to trust his gut—technically, his limbic system—and his gut was boiling.
Ryan stacked a few slices of rare roast beef between pieces of dark and hearty pumpernickel bread slathered with Dijon mustard, serving himself after the others had filled their plates. Only DNI Foley helped herself to the kale salad with cranberries, almonds, and fig dressing, which she ate seated in a chair next to Arnie. SecState Adler and SecDef Burgess sat across from them, each sipping hot black coffee from a heavy ceramic mug bearing the presidential seal.
“Thank you all for taking the time out of your schedules and away from your families,” Ryan said, taking the black leather chair at the head of the room. “I’m hoping this will be a short one.” Ryan took a big bite of his sandwich.
“You mentioned two questions in your memo,” Arnie said.
Ryan nodded, swallowing. “The first question I want to tackle is this Russian buildup in Serbia. My PDB this morning”—Presidential Daily Brief—“contained photos of Murmansk-BN EW vehicles deployed near Belgrade.” Ryan hit one of the pictures on the big-screen monitor with his laser pointer. “I’m told it’s part of their Slavic Sword and Shield military exercise. Are we convinced that’s all there is to this?”
As the director of national intelligence, Mary Pat Foley oversaw the intelligence gathering and processing of all sixteen agencies in the IC, including the CIA. She didn’t miss much, and even scanned Ryan’s daily PDBs. “The Sword and Shield exercise is an annual event now—three years in a row.This one is the largest one yet, and the most sophisticated. But we have no indication of hostile intent.”
The SecDef set his coffee down. “It’s a massive training exercise for Russian, Serbian, and Belarusian Spetsnaz units. It’s the wrong mix of forces to launch any kind of sustained cross-border strike, if that’s your concern, Mr. President.”
“Key word ‘sustained,’” Ryan said.
“Noted,” the SecDef agreed.
“Spetsnaz are their best troops, and the EW equipment they’ve deployed is top drawer. Some say better than ours,” Ryan said. “Interesting combo. Putting their most advanced equipment that far forward is a helluva security risk for them. They must really want to make an impression.”
“They do,” SecState Adler said. “They’re feeling the pressure in that part of the world. Montenegro just joined NATO last year; Croatia and Slovenia are already members. Macedonia wants to join, and so does Bosnia-Herzegovina—except for the Republika Srpska. They all want to join the EU, even some Serbian politicians. The Russians are feeling encircled, and Serbia is the key to stopping the advance.”
Ryan rubbed his chin. “Okay, let’s assume all of this is to keep the Serbians in the fold, and that it actually works. That doesn’t stop the rest of the cards from falling out of their hands. Their strategic situation will continue to deteriorate. So, what’s the play here?”
“Restore their reputation,” the SecDef offered. “They let NATO bomb the hell out of the Serbs during the war. Maybe this is their way to try and rehabilitate themselves with their Slavic brethren.”
“National and ethnic appeals are very strong these days. Catalonia, Belgium, Brexit—the European Union is threatenedby nationalism. It only makes sense for the Russians to play on that to their advantage,” Mary Pat said. “While Europe is dividing, Russia might be trying to gather her Slavic children under her wing.”
“I’m sure that’s part of all of this,” Ryan said. “But there’s something more.” He stood and stared at the images on the wall monitors. “You all know how these guys think. If they can’t take a country outright, they like to stir up the pot.”
“Which ‘pot’ are you talking about?” Van Damm asked.
Ryan pointed at the center of the regional map. “Seems to me that there used to be sixty thousand NATO peacekeepers over there to enforce the peace accords, but they’re all pulled out now, aren’t they?”
Adler shifted in his seat. “Down to about six hundred total for the whole area.”
Ryan turned to him. “The Europeans were the ones who made a hash of that whole thing, and they’re the ones who promised to keep an eye on it. What happened?”
