Read Online Commander-In-Chief by Tom Clancy, Mark Greaney - Free Book Online

at Jack, but something seemed familiar about him. Jack wasn’t certain he’d seen this person before—central Rome was full of men, many had long hair, and this guy didn’t look or act different from the norm—but something inside Jack triggered when he noticed the man.
    Jack had long ago learned that the moment you think there is any chance whatsoever that someone might be following you,suddenly
everyone
looks suspicious. He had been living with this phenomenon for years, and over time he had trained himself to keep a cool head and a dispassionate, analytic eye scanning the world around him. He saw no one else in the area who piqued his senses, so he simply filed the man’s appearance in his mental database and kept walking.
    But by the time he reached the large, open Piazza del Popolo, he was convinced something was wrong. He’d slowed down significantly a block before so he could window-shop. This wasn’t a countersurveillance ruse—a magnificent Breitling watch really did catch his eye in a shop window, and although he wouldn’t let himself go in and inquire as to the price, neither could he tear his eyes away from the big chronograph for nearly a minute.
    When he made his way into the piazza a few moments later he glanced into the glass of another passing car and realized Mr. Ponytail was still behind him, at the exact same distance he was before.
    Either this guy had managed to stumble across a distraction that lasted exactly as long as Jack had been looking at the watch, or else the man slowed down or stopped so that he did not overtake Ryan on the sidewalk.
    Suddenly Jack knew he was being tailed. He had noticed during his last reflection check that the man had a small backpack over one shoulder, and he wondered what was inside.
    Jack crossed the street and entered the piazza. A stage was being erected in the center—he assumed there would be some sort of open-air concert here this evening—but for now it was easy to walk across the cobblestones among the small crowd milling about.
    Now everyone
did
look suspicious. A man sweeping the piazza, a young woman sitting on a scooter and talking on her cell phone, an ice cream vendor standing behind his cart and gazing Jack’s way.
    Jack picked up the pace for a moment, then turned suddenly atanother vendor’s cart and purchased a bottle of water. While he fished a few euro coins out of his pocket he glanced back to his left and saw Ponytail tying his shoe, his foot propped up on an iron bench.
    Yep, he was most definitely a follower, and not much of one at that. It looked to Ryan as if this guy had trained in surveillance by watching shitty made-for-television movies.
    Ryan thought if this guy was part of a crew, he was either the weakest link or else they would all be as obvious as he was. As he began to walk away from the vendor cart, sipping his bottled water, Jack scanned the crowd more intently, all the way south across the Piazza del Popolo.
    It was a three-minute walk, his wrapped steaks in hand, and through it all Jack ID’d no one else who appeared to be interested in him.
    He chanced a quick look behind him as he tossed the empty water bottle into the trash. Ponytail was still there, seventy-five feet or so back, and he looked away as Jack turned in his direction.
    Jack’s body tensed, and his mind began working on the situation. He’d been compromised, and that was bad, but he was too in-the-moment to think of the ramifications this surveillance had on his operation at this point. Now it was just about slipping this character and getting back to the apartment.
    He’d work out his next move after that.
    It occurred to Jack that the best way to shake this incompetent flunky, if he was in fact alone, was to simply climb into a cab. Ponytail probably didn’t have wheels close by, he would have no way of knowing that Jack would be heading to the Popolo, so the likelihood that he’d staged a vehicle right here was next to none.
    Ryan walked to the