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Chapters (83)
  1. Cover
  2. ALSO BY TOM CLANCY
  3. PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS
  4. 1
  5. 2
  6. 3
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  83. What’s next onyour reading list?

One of the van’s two rear doors was actually smashed open. Jack shoved it open further and checked the back. The cargo area was trashed, though still intact. Boxes of electrical components, spindles of colored wire, and thick paper-bound catalogs and technical manuals were heaped in a pile, having all been thrown from the metal shelving. He spotted a medical kit bolted to the wall and opened it, and found a box of Tylenol packets. He tore one open and tossed the pills in his mouth, chewing them into a bitter paste, his face souring as he swallowed. That would take the edge off, at least.

He crawled around in the pile further, searching for something else—exactly what, he wasn’t sure.

Until he found them.

One was a toolbox. He rooted around in it. Mostly electrical stuff—needle-nosed pliers, wire strippers, small screwdrivers. The heaviest tool he could find was a crescent wrench. Not exactly a weapon of choice, but it was a good hunk of cast steel. No telling who or what he might encounter. He pocketed it.

The other thing he grabbed was heavy but pliable. Probably a dumb idea, but his pounding headache wasn’t going to let him solve any quadratic equations tonight. He decided to trust his instincts.

He extricated himself from the pile of electrical supplies and exited the van with a grunt. When he stood up he saw the street number on the building in front of him. That meant the warehouse was two blocks farther up.

He arranged the items he’d pulled from the van on his person, then checked the street in both directions. He saw a pair of headlights a mile behind him, heading in his direction. Cop car? No flashing lights. But who knows? And if not this one, maybe the next.

If he was going to get in that warehouse, it was now or never.

He dashed across the street in a kind of a run-limp, every muscle in his body screaming, his brain bobbling against his skull with every thudding step.

Jack smiled. It suddenly occurred to him that this easy, white-side vacation Gerry sent him on just might wind up killing him.

—

Yong and Meili were dressed now, and staring at the computer screen, watching Jack’s red tracking dot advance toward the warehouse.

“I told you he was persistent,” Yong said.

Meili was on her cell phone.

“He’s on the way.”

49

FALLS CHURCH, VIRGINIA

Rhodes paced the floor of his fourth-floor office, ignoring the magnificent view.

Like his two defense-industry rivals Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics, Marin Aerospace was located in Fairfax County, Virginia. It wasn’t a convenient location for manufacturing and it didn’t offer any particular economic or comparative advantages except for one: The small Virginia county in the northernmost reaches of the state sat just across the border from Washington, D.C.