As they both halfway expected, John Clark made zero small talk before getting down to business. “I’ve been planning this expansion ever since I left the operational ranks and Sam died. I wanted Gerry to see how difficult a job you had performing complicated direct-action missions as short-staffed as you are. Frankly, I expected you to succeed, but for Gerry to listen in on the after-action report as you discussed how hamstrung you were with only three guns in the fight. Instead, you two fucked it up. I guess I should be glad that my point was made so well, but it’s never a good day when a training evolution informs you that you would have died in an identical real-world scenario.”
No one spoke.
Clark looked around the table slowly. Finally he said, “Good. I didn’t want to hear any lame excuses. It takes character to own your mistakes. Now it’s my job to get you the help you obviously need.
“You three have had the weekend to think it over. Ding, let’s start with you. Who do you recommend for an operational billet?”
Chavez said, “I nominate Bartosz Jankowski.”
Clark cocked his head; he didn’t recognize the name. “Who the hell is that?”
Chavez smiled now. He clearly knew he’d be getting that reaction. “You know him by his call sign, Midas.”
It had been well over a year since The Campus had worked with a small unit of Delta Force operators in Ukraine, during Russia’s initial invasion of the eastern portion of the nation. Midas had been the officer in charge of the Delta Force unit, and Clark remembered he’d been one impressive individual.
“Interesting. What do you know about him?”
Chavez said, “I asked around. I have some buddies behind the fence at Fort Bragg.”
Clark knew “behind the fence” was a euphemism for working at Delta, who were based at Fort Bragg near Fayetteville, North Carolina, and were, indeed, separated by a fence from other forces there, at least nominally.
“And?”
“Luckily for us, Midas just got out of the military, retired after twenty years, but he’s only thirty-eight. A lieutenant colonel.”
Clark did the math. “If he’s been in the full twenty at that age, and an O, then he must have been a Mustang.”
“He was,” Ding confirmed.
Jack said, “You guys are speaking military again. What’s an O, and what’s a mustang?”
“An O is an officer, and a guy who enlists in the military, then turns into an officer, is called a Mustang officer. They have to go to college at some point, then leave the enlisted ranks to become an officer. They usually make great O’s, because they’ve seen military from the perspective of the men they lead.”
Chavez said, “Anyway, I didn’t hear anything but good stuff about Barry. His real name is Bartosz, he’s first-generation Polish, but he goes by Barry in the civilian world. His men loved him, the other O’s respected him, and Delta was damn sorry to lose him.”
Clark said, “What’s he doing now?”
Ding smiled again. “Fishing.”
“What?”
“He’s applied at CIA, but that’s a slow process, even for a former Delta dude. Some hangup with all the foreigners in his family, I suspect, although the military didn’t seem to care when he got into Delta.”
Clark wasn’t surprised by this. “CIA can be a confounding organization. How long till they get that straightened out?”
Chavez said, “I called Jimmy Hardesty to see what the scoop was on that. He said that if we wanted Midas, we better snatch him up, and quick. In the meantime, though, a guy who knows him says he’s pitching a tent on the grounds of Fort Bragg, fishing the lakes and rivers. Kind of an extended vacation before things get rough again.”
Clark made some notes. “Good selection, Ding. Okay, on to Jack. Who do you nominate?”
Jack said, “Adam Yao. CIA officer. We worked with him in Hong Kong a couple years back, and I ran into him again in California working that North Korea deal last year. He’s a very good man, smart as hell, unquestionably brave, and as dedicated as he can be. He speaks Mandarin, which could be handy.”
Clark said, “Young guy, from what I remember.”
“No, he’s getting up there in years. Probably thirty-four or so.” There was a glint in Jack’s eyes as he said this. Jack himself was just younger than this, while Clark was twice Yao’s age.
Clark’s eyes narrowed. “I can reach you from here, Jack. You want to get smacked?”
“Sorry, boss. Anyway, I checked him out a little bit and found out he’s not in the field at the moment. He’s working a desk at Langley.”
Clark thought it over. “Gerry will have to check with Mary Pat. We’re not stealing anybody out from under her or Canfield. Good nomination, though.”
Clark turned to Caruso. “Okay, Dom. Who’s your guy?”
Caruso hesitated.
The other three men in the room looked to him. Finally, Clark said, “Dom. You okay?”
“Yeah. Um… Well, my recommendation is that we promote Adara Sherman to an operational role.”
Jack Ryan just muttered softly, “Oh, boy.”
Dom found himself quickly defending his suggestion, even though he had reservations that were obvious on his face. “Look, we know what she’s done in the field, we know her background in the Navy. She’s a terrific employee here, she’s as vetted as we can possibly vet anyone, and she has a ton of training, even training we don’t have.”
Clark went silent for half a minute. Finally he looked to Chavez with a raised eyebrow. “Thoughts?”
Chavez said, “The one worry that keeps running through my mind is how we will be able to replace her on the aircraft. She’s doing such a kick-ass job now.”
Clark nodded. “If our main concern about promoting her is that she is terrific at her current position, I guess that means Dom has made one hell of a good recommendation.”
Caruso had been afraid someone would say that.
Clark turned to Jack now. “You said, ‘Oh, boy.’ You have a problem working with a woman in general, or with Adara in particular?”
Jack’s face reddened, and he looked around the room awkwardly. He said, “Neither. I think she’s awesome. I just…”
“You just what?”
Ryan looked to Dom Caruso for an instant, then looked away. “I think she’d be great. I really do.”
And he left it there.
But Dom knew what Jack was thinking. He was thinking about Dom, knowing that Adara was his girlfriend. And he was thinking about the prospect of Dom losing someone else close to him.
The President had his national security staff in for a morning briefing, and all the principals were in attendance. Surprisingly, the ongoing U.S. air and special ops campaign against ISIS in the Middle East ended up being dropped down to third place today on the list of critical areas that needed to be brought to Ryan’s attention. This wasn’t because nothing was going on in the fighting; rather, it was just the opposite. The United States, allied with Iraqi and Kurdish forces, and the Shiite forces allied with Iran, were making headway against the Islamic State on multiple fronts.
But other international hot spots competed every day as the primary concern of the Commander in Chief, and it was up to the men and women who wrote the presidential daily brief to decide what took top billing.
This morning, the first issue was China landing long-range bombers on islands it had constructed in the China Sea, and after the conference room discussed this for fifteen minutes, the topic turned to Russia’s ongoing attempt to move into parts of eastern Ukraine that the Ukrainian Army was having trouble holding.
Both of these events might have seemed, on the surface, at least, to be less important to American national interests than ongoing military operations involving American troops, but the United States’ unique position and responsibility in the world meant the Commander in Chief needed to be up to date on all crises, everywhere.