Read Online Command Authority by Mark Greaney Tom Clancy - Free Book Online

expectancy of a Russian male was around sixty, and Sergey was over seventy. On top of this, Golovko had been traveling on a grueling speaking tour here in the United States for the past two weeks. Why shouldn’t the man look a little the worse for wear?
    Face it, Jack,
he thought,
we’re all getting old.
    As the entourage walked through the Diplomatic Reception Room on its way to the staircase to the second floor, Jack put his hand on the back of the smaller Russian. “How are you, my friend?”
    “I’m well,” Sergey answered as he walked. And then he added with a shrug, “I woke up this morning a bit under the weather. Last night in Lawrence, Kansas, I ate something called a barbecue brisket. Apparently, even my iron Russian stomach was not prepared for this.”
    Ryan chuckled, put his arm around his old friend. “I’m sorry to hear that. We have a great physician on staff here. I can have her come up and talk to you before lunch if you would like.”
    Sergey shook his head politely. “
Nyet.
I will be okay. Thank you, Ivan Emmetovich.” He caught himself quickly, “I mean, Mr. President.”
    “Ivan Emmetovich is fine, Sergey Nikolayevich. I appreciate the honorific of my father.”
    —
    A nthony Haldane and Stanislav Biryukov stood in the lobby of Vanil restaurant chatting while donning their coats. As they prepared to leave, the SVR director’s principal protection agent radioed to the street to have Biryukov’s Land Rover pulled up to the door.
    The men shook hands. “Until next week, Anthony Arturovich.”
    “
Da svidaniya
, Stan.”
    Tony Haldane exited the doors along with one of Biryukov’s security men, who headed out in advance of his principal to check the street. Stanislav himself stood in the doorway, surrounded by three bodyguards, waiting for the all-clear.
    As Haldane stepped to the curb behind the row of SUVs to hail a taxi, Biryukov was ushered out the door, twenty-five feet behind the Englishman. He had just stepped between the two planters bracing Vanil’s doorway when a flash of light enveloped the entire scene.
    In microseconds a thunderclap of sound and pressure rocked the neighborhood.
    The explosion threw security men like debris into the street, the armored Range Rovers jolted or rolled over like Matchbox cars, and projectiles from the explosion shattered window glass and injured passersby one hundred meters away. Dozens of car alarms erupted in bleats and wails, drowning out all but the loudest moans of pain and screams of shock.
    On the far side of the park, Dino Kadic sat back up in his Lada. He had knelt down, almost to the floorboard, to press the send button on his phone while out of the direct line of any shrapnel, though his sedan was mostly shielded by the corner of a bank building.
    Before the last bit of debris from the blast had rained back to earth, Kadic started his car and pulled out into light evening traffic. He drove off slowly and calmly, without a look back at the devastation, although he did roll his window down slightly as he left the scene, taking in a deep breath of the smoke already hanging in the air.
    —
    P resident Jack Ryan and First Lady Cathy Ryan sat down with their guest for lunch in the Family Residence dining room on the second floor of the White House, just across the West Sitting Hall from the master bedroom. Joining them for lunch was the director of national intelligence, Mary Pat Foley, and her husband, former director of the CIA, Ed Foley.
    Having the former head of Russia’s security services over for lunch in the White House’s private dining room was somewhat surreal to the small group of those who both knew about today’s luncheon and remembered the Cold War, but times had changed in many ways.
    Golovko was no longer a member of Russia’s intelligence service—in fact, he was much the opposite. He was a private citizen now, and proving to be a thorn in the side of the current occupant of the Kremlin. The State Department had