Read Online Tom Clancy Under Fire by Grant Blackwood - Free Book Online

that.
    Also, he preferred to live outside his dad’s shadow—as well as outside his aegis. Of course, Ryan Senior had no control over the former, but fortunately, Jack’s dad had so far resisted imposing the latter.
    A more pressing question for Jack was what to do about The Campus. He’d found himself neck-deep in a CIA-SIS operation. Gerry Hendley and John Clark would want to know about it. Later.
    Much would depend on what was inside Seth’s mystery accordion folder. Jack pulled it toward him, unwound the elastic band closure, and opened the flap. Ysabel scooted her chair around the table until she was shoulder to shoulder with Jack.
    “This is like Shab-e Cheleh,” she said with a tinge of giddiness. Seeing Jack’s confused expression, she explained, “Think of it as Persian Christmas. In the West you celebrate the birth of the son. Here we celebrate the rebirth of the sun—the Winter Solstice.”
    “You’re a font of fascinating trivia,” Jack replied.
    “You have no idea. Open it.”
    Jack did so. Inside was a stack of legal-sized loose-leaf paper, at least five hundred sheets, he guessed. He shuffled through the ream. All the pages had a faded, old-style typewriter font. In Cyrillic.
    The date on the first sheet was 4 Ma H 1963.
    Ysabel said, “I don’t suppose you read Russian?”
    “Only fair.” This was a slight understatement, but not far from the mark. Though his grasp of the language had improved dramatically, for some reason he had a hard time getting Russian to stick in his brain. “That middle word is
May
.”
    Yet more questions,
Jack thought. The biggest being: What the hell were they looking at? Aside from Gavin Biery, Jack had access to no one who could faithfully translate the document, and he sure as hell couldn’t fax the damn thing. Such a task wouldn’t escape Gerry’s notice, and Jack wouldn’t put Biery in that kind of spot. He’d have to give it some thought.
    “None of this looks familiar?” he asked Ysabel. “Seth never mentioned something like this?”
    “Never.”
    “Do you know anyone else in the network?”
    “Only one—code-named Ervaz.”
    “Is that a Persian name?”
    “No, I don’t think so. I’ve got an e-mail address. It’s bad form, I know, for me to know even that much, but I suppose I’d become Seth’s ‘right hand,’ as it were. I’ve never tried contacting Ervaz. Should I?”
    “We’ll do it together.”
    Unbidden, Raymond Wellesley’s “apple tree” comment popped into Jack’s head. “Ysabel, did Seth ever talk about his father?”
    “Are you testing me again, Jack?”
    “No. Genuine question.”
    “Yes, he did, quite a lot. He said his dad—Paul, I think—died of a stroke a few years ago and that his mother was having a hard time with it.”
    “Nothing else?”
    “Uhm . . . His father worked for the government. Something to do with farming.”
    “Department of Agriculture.”
    “Yes, that was it. You know, one thing always struck me when Seth talked about his father: He always seemed”—Ysabel paused, searching for the right words—“more bitter than sad. Almost scornful sometimes.”
    “About what specifically?”
    “The death, I assumed. I remember because it seemed an odd reaction. Why do you ask?”
    “Something Wellesley said—that Seth hadn’t fallen far from the tree.”
    “Strange. Then again, if this Wellesley is who you think he is, those types like to play mind games, yes?”
    “True.” If so, had Wellesley been trying to plant doubt in his head about Seth, or was there something to the comment?
    “Jack, you haven’t asked me what Seth had me working on. Why?”
    The question had been on Jack’s mind.
    “That’s a morning-cup-of-coffee question,” he said. “Where am I sleeping?”

J ACK DOWNED THE DREGS of his coffee and set the cup on the counter, where Ysabel scooped it up and headed back to the French press. She returned with the second cup, and they walked to the sunken seating area and