{"product_id":"tom-clancy-under-fire-isbn-9780425283189","title":"Tom Clancy Under Fire","description":"\u003cb\u003eJack Ryan Jr. stands alone against powerful enemies in this thrilling novel in Tom Clancy’s #1 \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestselling series.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e On a mission in Tehran, Jack Ryan, Jr., meets his oldest friend, Seth Gregory. As they part, Seth slips Jack a key, along with a perplexing message. The next day Jack is summoned to an apartment where two men claim Seth has disappeared with funds for a vital intelligence operation. They say he’s turned and leave Jack with a warning: \u003ci\u003e If you hear from Seth, call us. Do not get involved. \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Jack soon finds himself lost in a maze of intrigue, lies, and betrayal where no one is who they seem to be—not even Seth, who’s harboring a secret that harkens back to the Cold War. A secret that is driving him to the brink of treason....\u003cb\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eTom Clancy Under Fire\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[A] strong addition to bestseller Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan series Praise for the bestselling novels of Tom Clancy...fans will be pleased to discover that in Blackwood's more than capable hands, Jack remains the all-American hero they remember.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eMore Praise for the Jack Ryan Jr. Series\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Will satisfy the craving of the audience for more Ryan family adventures”\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eBooklist\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Under Fire \u003c\/i\u003eis a tour de force of the kind Clancy practically invented, a tale beautifully envisioned and realized.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eProvidence Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Mixes nail-biting suspense with hard-hitting action to deliver a blockbuster hit.”\u003cb\u003e—The Real Book Spy\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A high-octane, high stakes novel of international intrigue and military action, involving global brinksmanship, espionage, and romance.”\u003cb\u003e—The Huffington Post\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Continue[s] the intense, thrilling, and realistic plots that Tom Clancy was known for...riveting and gripping.”\u003cb\u003e—Elise Cooper for Military Press, Crimespree Magazine, and Blackfive.net\u003c\/b\u003eA little more than thirty years ago \u003cb\u003eTom Clancy \u003c\/b\u003ewas a Maryland insurance broker with a passion for naval history. Years before, he had been an English major at Baltimore’s Loyola College and had always dreamed of writing a novel. His first effort, \u003ci\u003eThe Hunt for Red October\u003c\/i\u003e—the first of the phenomenally successful Jack Ryan novels—sold briskly as a result of rave reviews, then catapulted onto the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestseller list after President Reagan pronounced it “the perfect yarn.” From that day forward, Clancy established himself as an undisputed master at blending exceptional realism and authenticity, intricate plotting, and razor-sharp suspense. He passed away in October 2013.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eGrant Blackwood\u003c\/b\u003e is the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestselling author of the Briggs Tanner series (\u003ci\u003eEnd of Enemies\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eWall of Night\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eEcho of War\u003c\/i\u003e). He is coauthor of the #1 \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestseller \u003ci\u003eDead or Alive\u003c\/i\u003e, with Tom Clancy, and of the thriller \u003ci\u003eThe Kill Switch\u003c\/i\u003e, with James Rollins. A U.S. Navy veteran, Grant spent three years aboard a guided missile frigate as an Operations Specialist and a Pilot Rescue Swimmer. He lives in Arizona, where he is working on his own stand-alone series starring a new hero.\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTehran, Iran\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBE CAREFUL how you spend your time. You never get it back.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOf all the lessons he’d learned from his father, this one truly resonated with Jack Ryan, Jr.—no small feat, as he’d received the advice as a teenager with little more on his mind than girls and football games. \u003ci\u003eGo figure,\u003c\/i\u003e Jack thought.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn this case, with his lunch appointment predictably late, Jack was playing a round of “watch the watchers,” a game introduced to him by John Clark. His location, Chaibar, an outdoor café on a quiet Tehran side street, made the game more challenging. Nestled in the courtyard garden of a renovated villa, Chaibar was full of couples and small groups seated at wrought-iron tables. Jack caught glimpses of muted flowered murals behind potted plants and hanging vines. Overhead, boughs cast the courtyard in dappled sunlight. While most of the murmured voices were speaking in Arabic or Persian, Jack also caught snippets of French and Italian.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe premise of “watch the watchers” was a simple one: He’s in the field for Hendley Associates, aka The Campus. He’s under surveillance. But by whom? If you’re largely unfamiliar with the nuances of casual Iranian interaction, how do you spot that one pair of eyes paying too much attention to you, or someone whose mannerisms are out of sync with the surroundings? With this checklist in mind, Jack studied faces, body language, banter between this couple, or forced banter among that group.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eNothing,\u003c\/i\u003e Jack thought. None of Chaibar’s patrons set off alarms for him. In real life, a good thing; for the purposes of this game, not so much.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIf Hendley Associates, aka The Campus, were in fact what it seemed, a privately held arbitrage firm, Jack’s game would have been one of fantasy, but The Campus’s true purpose went much deeper, as it sat squarely in the grayest of areas in the espionage\/counterterrorism world—an off-the-books intelligence group answerable only to the President of the United States. Where the CIA was a bazooka, The Campus was a stiletto.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Pardon, sir. Another coffee, please?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJack glanced up. His waitress was a petite twentysomething woman in black-rimmed glasses, her hair completely covered by a light blue scarf. Her English was heavily stilted.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eShe wore no niqab. Perhaps Kamran Farahani wasn’t simply giving lip service to his administration’s moderate platform. Hell, even a year ago Chaibar might have been subject to a police raid; to the previous government, coffee shops were incubators for youthful subversives.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJack glanced down at his empty cup. The shop’s version of coffee made a Starbucks dark roast seem like weak tea.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“No, thank you, two is enough for me. Hopefully my guest will . . .”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs if on cue, over his waitress’s shoulder, Jack saw a man with wild, curly black hair walking into the courtyard, his head turning this way and that. There was no mistaking that mop.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Here he is,” Jack told her, raising his hand to get the man’s attention. “Give us a couple minutes.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Of course, sir.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe man walked over to the table. Jack stood up, the iron legs of his chair scraping on the cobblestones. They shook hands, shared a quick bear hug, then sat down.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Sorry I’m late, Jack.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I’m used to it. What would a lunch be with an on-time Seth Gregory?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt had been that way since high school. If the movie started at seven-twenty, you told Seth seven o’clock.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Yeah, yeah. It’s my only failing. And if you believe that . . . How’s the coffee?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“It bent my spoon.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Puts hair on your chest.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“How’ve you been, Seth?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Sharp stick, my friend, sharp stick.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJack smiled. This was Seth’s standard response to such questions. Translation: Doing better than if I had a sharp stick in the eye.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Glad to hear it.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I’ve been here before; I know what I want. The \u003ci\u003easheh gojeh farangi\u003c\/i\u003e—that’s a tomato stew with onions, meat, peas, spices. Delicious. Huh . . . still no alcohol on the menu, I see.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“That might take longer. Farahani can’t shock the old guard too much, too quickly.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe waitress returned. They both ordered the stew. “And we’ll share a basket of barbari bread,” Seth added. The waitress collected their menus and disappeared.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWith elbows on the table, Seth reached across and gave Jack’s hand a couple of gentle slaps. “Jack, you look good! I’ve missed you. How ya doing?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Never better.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I was surprised to get your call.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I was thinking we’d have lunch the next time you were in the States. I had no idea you were in the area.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSeth shrugged, waved his hand. “How’s the family? Olivia? And El Presidente . . . Il Duce?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Fine, all fine.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJack had to smile, and not just because Seth was one of the few people who called Sally by her given name and refused to call Jack’s father by his correct title, but because this exuberant and near-frenetic questioning was pure Seth Gregory. His friend not only was the quintessential people person, but also suffered from ADHD—emphasis on the “hyperactivity disorder” part. Seth had struggled in school. Jack had been his unofficial tutor.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJack had always sensed an undercurrent of sadness behind Seth’s gregariousness. Despite having known the man since St. Matthew’s Academy, Jack always felt there was a part of Seth he kept hidden not only from the world, but from Jack as well. Jack had few friends at St. Matthew’s, as most of his classmates had either shunned him as the stuck-up Golden Child of then CIA bigwig Jack Ryan or had been intimidated by the ostensibly lofty circles in which “Spy Boy” orbited. Of course, neither scenario had been true, and Jack had spent his first year at St. Matthew’s trying to prove so, to no avail. But Seth had accepted Jack for who he was—an awkward teenager just trying to find his way like everyone else. Looking back at that time, Jack knew Seth had saved him from withdrawing into himself and spiraling into self-isolation. Seth didn’t give a shit who Jack’s father was, or where he lived, or that he rubbed shoulders with foreign royalty and heads of state at grand dinner parties. In fact, invariably, Seth’s only question about such affairs had been whether there’d been any hot girls at the event and whether Jack had hooked up with any of them in some über-secret room at Langley.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJack had always regretted not telling Seth how much his friendship had meant to him. Perhaps now was the time. Before Jack could do this, Seth continued his rapid-fire interrogation. Sometimes having a conversation with him was like being in the middle of a verbal tornado.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“What’s going on with Olivia?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Sally?” Jack replied. “You haven’t heard? She’s an astronaut.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“What? Oh, that’s very funny, Jack. You’re quite the commode-ian.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJack laughed. “Man, you’re still saying that? It wasn’t even funny when we were fifteen.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Oh, it was funny, and you know it. So: Sally?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“She just finished with her residency at Johns Hopkins.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Underachiever, that one. Are you still at that place . . . that financial group?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Hendley Associates.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Right. Making tons of money?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Doing okay,” Jack replied. The true answer was yes. Though the investment side of Hendley Associates was merely a cover for The Campus, Jack and his cohorts had in fact made hundreds of millions playing the world’s markets. Of that revenue, only a fraction paid their salaries. The rest funded the off-the-books intelligence organization.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSeth said, “And how about—”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJack laughed and raised his hands in mock surrender. “Enough, Seth. You’re wearing me out. Tell me about you.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Still consulting. Been on contract with Shell for the last eighteen months. I was based out of Baku until about eight months ago, when they moved me here.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAfter high school Seth had snagged a Gus Archie Memorial Scholarship to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s College of Engineering. Now, apparently, he was parlaying that into big bucks.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I like it in Tehran, actually. My condo’s within walking distance of here. Great place.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“What’s your specialty?” asked Jack.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Mostly looking at drilling rigs and refining plants. It’s a nice gig. I spend most of my time in Central Asia.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Dicey areas.” \u003ci\u003eEspecially the two “stans” from which the Emir, aka Saif Rahman Yasin, sprang,\u003c\/i\u003e Jack thought. Helping to nab that son of a bitch had been not only damned satisfying, but also Jack’s first foray into the world of field operations.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSeth said, “We get good training and plenty of security when we need it—Blackwater-type guys, mostly retirees from U.S. Special Forces. Nice guys. I’d hate to get on their bad side, though.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA sentiment most bad guys share after receiving a visit from Navy SEALs or Army Delta Force, Jack thought.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Got any investment advice for me?” Jack said.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“No. And you wouldn’t listen if I did,” replied Seth. “You’re a straight arrow, Jack, and you know it.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJack shrugged. “True enough. Plus, I’ve got a healthy fear of the SEC.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTheir food came and they ate. Jack followed Seth’s lead, tearing chunks off the barbari bread and mixing it into the tomato stew. It was delicious and filling.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I was sorry to hear about your dad,” Jack said.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Yeah. I got your card, thanks. Sorry I didn’t say anything.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“How’s your mom doing with it all?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“It’s been three years. Looking at her, you’d think he died last week.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“It’s understandable.” Seth’s father, Paul, had died of a sudden stroke. Seth’s mother had found him in the study. She’d never fully recovered.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Man, I don’t know what to do for her,” said Seth. “My sister, Bethany—you remember Bethany, right?—lives about an hour north of her in Georgia. She took her to the doctor, who gave her some kind of prescription—Lamictal, I think.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Mood stabilizer and antidepressant,” Jack said. Half expecting Seth to have jumped to another subject, Jack was surprised he was being forthcoming with such intimate details. “How long has she been on it?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A couple weeks.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“If it’s going to start helping, it’ll be any time now.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSeth smiled. “The benefits of having two doctors in the family, huh?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Yep. Osmotic knowledge, I suppose.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSeth dipped a chunk of bread into his stew, then popped it into his mouth. “So, what brings you to Tehran?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Scouting. Iranian markets are starting to open up. If Farahani keeps his course, there’s going to be a boom. Hendley needs to be ready.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhile this was true and was certainly part of the reason for Jack’s presence in the country, this was primarily an intelligence-gathering junket. While poring over the new media outlets blossoming in Iran was informative, there was no substitute for what John Clark, Hendley’s new operations chief, called a Mark I Eyeball inspection. It was a Navy term, Clark had explained. “Walk the streets and talk to people. Best tool in a spook’s arsenal.” So far Jack had neither seen nor heard anything to suggest Iran’s new president was anything but what he seemed—the first true moderate to hold office since the 1979 revolution. Whether he’d last was anyone’s guess.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJack put that question to Seth: “You’ve been here awhile. What’s your take on all this?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Hell, Jack, I don’t know. I came here for the first time after the election. I can tell you this much: Nobody’s been anything but polite to me. I get dirty looks occasionally from some of the graybeards but that’s about it. No one’s ever called me ‘imperialist Satan,’ if that tells you anything.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eIt does,\u003c\/i\u003e Jack thought. Before Farahani took office, Seth would have had minders on his tail every moment he was outside his apartment. That would’ve been the best-case scenario. And with no reports of SAVAK-style crackdowns on the population, the fact that Seth—an American, of all things—could walk the streets unmolested suggested most of Iran’s citizenry was on board with Farahani’s reforms.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eCeaseless miracles,\u003c\/i\u003e Jack thought.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThey chatted for another hour and shared half a dozen cups of mint tea from a silver samovar the size of a small terrier until finally Seth glanced at his watch. “Shoot. I gotta go, Jack, sorry.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSeth stood up. Jack did the same and extended his hand. Seth grasped it and then did something he rarely did: He held Jack’s gaze. “Really good to see you, man. I mean it.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“You too, Seth.” Jack hesitated. “Everything okay with you?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Yeah, why wouldn’t it be? Hey, listen, my apartment’s about fifteen minutes from here.” Seth gave him the address. “It’s right off Niavaran Park. If you’re ever back in town and need a place to crash, it’s yours. Just use the key. There’re steaks in the freezer.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Thanks, man, that’s—”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Travel safe, Jack.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSeth turned and walked away, disappearing through a vine-wrapped arch.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eKey . . . what key?\u003c\/i\u003e Jack thought. He sat back down and reached for his teacup. Sitting beside it was a bronze key.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“What the hell was all that about?” he muttered to himself.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEdinburgh, Scotland\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs the only member of her team to have spent time in the United Kingdom prior to the start of the job, Helen was unsurprised by the blitz of blinking lights and cacophony of voices filtering through the van’s half-open windows.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYegor braked hard and the van lurched to a stop as a young man and woman, clearly inebriated, stumbled past the front bumper. The woman raised two fingers at Yegor and called, “Tosser!”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHelen saw Yegor’s jaw pulse with anger, but he did not respond, and instead waited for them to pass before easing the van forward. On either side of the street, similarly intoxicated youth staggered and weaved along the sidewalks. On the passenger side, outside Helen’s half-open window, a pub’s door burst open, issuing a stream of drunks and pulsing dance music.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“What’s a tosser?” asked Yegor.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eSomeone who desperately needs a girlfriend,\u003c\/i\u003e Helen thought with a smile. “I’ll explain later,” she said.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“This is amazing. What are all these places?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Pubs,” Helen answered.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“All of them?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Pretty much. This is just one area. This is Rose,” Helen said. “It’s the most popular pub street for students.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“All of these people are students from the university?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Most of them.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“How do they function in the morning?” asked Yegor. “Don’t they have lectures to attend?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHelen smiled at this. Ever the pragmatist, Yegor wasn’t so concerned about the immorality he was seeing but rather how it affected the revelers’ study habits.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Coffee,” she answered. “And other things, I suspect.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the backseat, the other two members of the team, Roma and Olik, sat with their foreheads nearly pressed against the rear windows, their eyes agog. Where they came from, public displays like these were punishable by imprisonment. Or worse.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOf course, Helen reminded herself, Roma and Olik were men, and sheltered ones at that. Most of their astonishment probably stemmed from the sea of exposed female skin passing before their eyes. Not to mention the physical intimacy couples showed each other on the street. \u003ci\u003eSnogging\u003c\/i\u003e was the term here. At home, neither of these were seen outside the bedroom of a husband and wife.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOlik leaned over the front seat’s center console and said, “And this is an important school, you say?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“One of the most prestigious in the world,” Helen replied.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThere were a few seconds of silence. “And what exactly are the admission requirements?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHelen chuckled, as did Yegor, who said, “Get ahold of yourself, Olik.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRoma, however, muttered, “Whores, all of them. Every one of them. They should be whipped.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis comment didn’t surprise Helen. Of the three men on her team, Roma, a last-minute addition, had been the only one chafing under her leadership. He was a zealot, and he thought like one. Theirs was a business of dispassion; Roma didn’t understand that. The man bore watching. Sooner or later she would have to put him in his place.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThey drove for a few minutes before turning onto Castle Street. Here, too, the sidewalk was lined with pubs and restaurants, though these were more subdued, geared to those students who disliked the “meat markets,” she knew. \u003ci\u003eIs that the correct term now, “meat markets”?\u003c\/i\u003e she wondered. She would check. Standing out was a hazard to be avoided.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“My contact says her favorite spot is called The Stable,” she said.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Like for horses?” asked Olik.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Like for university students,” Helen answered. “There it is, Yegor, ahead on the left.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I see it. Olik, Roma, look for her car. A red Mini Cooper with white hood stripes.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“How does she afford such a vehicle?” asked Roma.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eA gift from Daddy,\u003c\/i\u003e Helen thought but did not say. “Never mind that. Just keep your eyes open.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYegor slowed the van. Moments later, from behind them came the impatient honking of car horns.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A little faster, Yegor,” Helen said, and he pressed the accelerator slightly. It wouldn’t do to be stopped by the police.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Wait, I think we just passed her car,” said Olik. “On the right.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHelen glanced in her side mirror. “Yes, that’s the one. Keep going, Yegor.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYegor sped up, then turned left onto Frederick Street, where he found a parking space a block away from a petrol station. He put the van in park, shut off the engine, and checked his watch. “Now what?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Now we wait,” replied Helen.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eNow we build a pattern.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eParsian Hotel Azadi, Tehran\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJACK SAT BOLT UPRIGHT in bed and looked around. \u003ci\u003eJust someone at your door, Jack. Relax.\u003c\/i\u003e As much as he loved fieldwork, especially the high-adrenaline stuff, it did tend to put you in that zero-to-sixty mind-set.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe exhaled and rolled his shoulders, then his neck. Hotel pillows never agreed with him.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe knock on the door came again, polite but insistent. Jack checked the nightstand clock. Six in the morning. He rolled over, got to his feet, donned his terry-cloth robe, and headed for the door. “Who is it?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNo answer, but another knock.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Who is it?” Jack repeated a little more firmly. There was no peephole. Isn’t that against fire code? It was in the United States, at least.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Mr. Jack Ryan?” The man’s accent was English.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJack didn’t respond.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Mr. Ryan, my name is Raymond Wellesley. May I speak to you for a few minutes?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“About what, Mr. Wellesley?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Your friend Seth Gregory.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis got Jack’s attention.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWellesley said, “This is perhaps a matter best discussed in private.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eEase up, Jack.\u003c\/i\u003e If by some fluke there had been a coup overnight and these were in fact the Shah’s SAVAK back from the dead, he was screwed anyway. Plus, that kind of visitor didn’t knock.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJack unlocked the dead bolt, swung the latch, and opened the door. Standing before him was a short, middle-aged man with thinning brown hair. He wore a tailored dark blue British-cut suit. Savile Row, Jack decided.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Mr. Jack Ryan, yes?” said Raymond Wellesley.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Yes, come in.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWellesley stepped through the door and strode across Jack’s suite to the sitting area beside the balcony windows. He carefully lowered himself into one of the club chairs and looked around as though checking for cleanliness.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJack shut the door and walked over.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Apologies for the early hour,” Wellesley said. “Pressing matters, I’m afraid. Good heavens, I’m sorry, would you care to see some identification?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Please,” Jack replied. Something told him he was about to be handed a nondescript business card.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe was right. The card read:\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRAYMOND L. WELLESLEY\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFOREIGN \u0026amp; COMMONWEALTH OFFICE\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eKING CHARLES STREET\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLONDON SW1A 2AH\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eUNITED KINGDOM\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRLW@FCO.GOV.UK\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e+44 20 7946 0690\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThough Britain wasn’t due to reopen its Tehran embassy for another few months, something told Jack that Raymond Wellesley wouldn’t be the type to have an address here anyway. Wellesley’s business card told him nothing except the man was probably not in fact an employee of the FCO.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJack slipped the card into the pocket of his robe and said, “You mentioned Seth Gregory. Is he okay?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Curious word, \u003ci\u003eokay\u003c\/i\u003e. Lends itself to all manner of interpretation, doesn’t it?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWellesley’s accent was not just British, Jack decided, but what he’d come to recognize as Received Pronunciation—RP or BBC English. Nonregional and indistinct. Apparently, Jack thought, he’d absorbed something from meeting the panoply of British diplomats that had visited the White House during his dad’s first term. RP was standard dialect among higher-echelon people at the Secret Intelligence Service, an “old boy” tradition that hadn’t changed since the First World War.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWellesley added, “Whether Mr. Gregory is ‘okay’ is something I was hoping you could help me with.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJack felt his heart quicken slightly. \u003ci\u003eWhat the hell is going on?\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJack said, “Answer my question, Mr. Wellesley.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“As far as we can tell, your friend is alive and well. You had lunch with Mr. Gregory yesterday, did you not?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Yes.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Do you know where he is now?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“No, I don’t.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“What did you discuss during your lunch?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“How much I was hoping to get a predawn visit from the FCO. And here you are.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I encourage you to take my questions seriously, Mr. Ryan. We’re affording you a courtesy we might not otherwise extend.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe message was clear, or at least he thought so: If he weren’t \u003ci\u003ethat\u003c\/i\u003e Jack Ryan, this talk probably wouldn’t be even remotely cordial.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJack stepped around the club chair and took a seat opposite Wellesley.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Would you like some coffee?” he asked.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“No, thank you. I can’t stay long.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Mr. Wellesley, Seth is a friend of mine. We’ve known each other since high school. I’m here on business and I asked him if he’d like to have lunch and catch up.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“What did you discuss?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Family, old times, Iran’s new government, and a bit about work.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“What kind of work does he do?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“He’s an engineer with Shell.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Is that what he told you?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Yes, that’s what he told me. You have reason to believe otherwise?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I can’t discuss that.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Why are you looking for him?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I can’t discuss that, either, but if you can help us find him, we would be grateful.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I’d trade gratitude for equity,” Jack said. “Give me a better idea what’s going on and I’ll see what I can do.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRaymond Wellesley pursed his lips and stared into space for a few seconds. “Very well. But not here. Are you free this afternoon?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eIs Wellesley suggesting my room is bugged?\u003c\/i\u003e Jack wondered. It seemed unlikely, but he’d learned early on to never mistake probability with possibility.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“I can be.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWellesley stood up and drew another business card from the breast pocket of his suit. With a silver pen he scribbled on the back of the card, then handed it to Jack.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Meet me there at two o’clock.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e•   •   •\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAS HAD BEEN drummed into him by Ding Chavez, Hendley’s senior operations officer, Jack arrived by taxi an hour early for the meeting, then got out and walked the ground, familiarizing himself with the neighborhood around the address Wellesley had given him, the upscale Zafaraniyeh district in northern Tehran. Always know your egress—or, in Ding’s SpecFor-influenced vernacular, “Know your GTFO plan”: Get the Fuck Out.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAccording to the travel websites Jack had consulted, Zafaraniyeh was home to mostly Iranian and expatriate millionaires. Behind tree-lined sidewalks, the apartment façades were done in Pahlavi style, a circa-1960s mix of traditional Persian and modern European.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA light rain began to fall. Jack opened the umbrella the hotel’s concierge had suggested and continued down the damp sidewalk. The few passersby he saw, mostly Europeans in casual sport coats and trousers, offered him a perfunctory smile. The locals were a mix of men and women, the latter wearing no headscarves at all, simply nodding. No smiles. Neither friendly nor unfriendly. A good sign, Jack knew. He had chosen his attire in hopes of blending in.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAt one-fifty, Jack made his way to the correct address, an apartment fronted by granite columns and a line of neatly trimmed squared hedges. He climbed the steps into the tiled foyer and found the intercom panel. He pressed the button labeled \u003ci\u003eVII\u003c\/i\u003e. A moment later a voice said, “Come up, Mr. Ryan.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eGood guess or foresight?\u003c\/i\u003e Jack thought. \u003ci\u003eAssume the latter, Jack.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe foyer’s inner door let out a soft buzz. Jack opened it, stepped through, and followed the carpeted runner to the elevator, an old-style accordion-gated elevator that took him to the seventh floor and another tiled foyer. As the gate parted, a door across from him opened, revealing Raymond Wellesley.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Early is punctual,” he said. “A man after my own heart. Come in.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJack followed Wellesley inside and down a short hallway to a spacious room decorated in what Jack could only describe as gray, with furniture and decor that were neither British nor Persian, neither colorless nor vibrant. A perfectly forgettable safe house with furnishings that came with the place, Jack thought.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe stopped at the entrance of the room and looked around. To his left a pair of hallways led back to what he guessed were bedrooms; to his right was an alcove minibar. Standing beside a sectional couch area in front of the windows was a second man of medium height, with dark cropped hair and a heavy beard. His face was deeply tanned, as though he spent more time outdoors than he did indoors.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWellesley said, “Jack, may I introduce Matthew Spellman.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSpellman stepped around the couch and extended his hand. “Matt.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Jack Ryan.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Coffee, Mr. Ryan?” Wellesley asked.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Thanks.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThey settled into the sitting room, Jack taking a wingback chair, Spellman on the\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"G.P. 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