Tom Clancy Under Fire: A Jack Ryan Jr Novel - Softcover

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A little more than thirty years ago Tom Clancy was 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, The Hunt for Red October—the first of the phenomenally successful Jack Ryan novels—sold briskly as a result of rave reviews, then catapulted onto the New York Times 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.

Grant Blackwood is the New York Times bestselling author of the Briggs Tanner series (End of Enemies, Wall of Night, and Echo of War). He is coauthor of the #1 New York Times bestseller Dead or Alive, with Tom Clancy, and of the thriller The Kill Switch, 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.

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Tehran, Iran

BE CAREFUL how you spend your time. You never get it back.

Of 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. Go figure, Jack thought.

In 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.

The 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.

Nothing, 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.

If 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.

Pardon, sir. Another coffee, please?

Jack 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.

She 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.

Jack glanced down at his empty cup. The shop s version of coffee made a Starbucks dark roast seem like weak tea.

No, thank you, two is enough for me. Hopefully my guest will . . .

As 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.

Here he is, Jack told her, raising his hand to get the man s attention. Give us a couple minutes.

Of course, sir.

The 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.

Sorry I m late, Jack.

I m used to it. What would a lunch be with an on-time Seth Gregory?

It had been that way since high school. If the movie started at seven-twenty, you told Seth seven o clock.

Yeah, yeah. It s my only failing. And if you believe that . . . How s the coffee?

It bent my spoon.

Puts hair on your chest.

How ve you been, Seth?

Sharp stick,