1
Kowloon, Hong Kong
Tuesday, October 1
Jack Ryan, Jr., stood a foot taller than most of the passengers exiting Hong Kong's Star Ferry. With his tropical-weight suit jacket slung over a shoulder, his shirt sleeves rolled, and his tie askew, the American shortened his stride so he wouldn't bump into the people in front of him.
From behind his Wayfarer sunglasses, he scanned the commuters knotted at the ferry's prow, waiting to get off. He was in a hurry-desperate to get one more glimpse of the woman before she disappeared into this city of seven and a half million.
He dropped his eyes low, scanning briefcases, purses, and computer bags. She'd been carrying a string-handled white shopping bag, he remembered.
He felt elbows, shoulders, and knees pressing against him as the crowd packed together, ahead of the ferry's docking. The singsong Cantonese around him rose in pitch, the voices as indecipherable to Jack as squawking birds.
He kept searching, hoping to pick the woman out from the crowd. He etched what she'd looked like into his memory-shopping bag, surgical mask, sunglasses, long black hair, a fashionable charcoal skirt suit.
Jesus, he thought, scanning intently. More than half the women on this ferry looked like that. Provided the shopping bag hadn't been a figment of his imagination, it would be the only feature that distinguished her.
The ferry door opened. The first of the riders surged through it. Jack was swept onto the gangway with the crowd, over the pier, through the turnstile, and past the last security checkpoint.
He wondered if the woman might be behind him. He forced his way to the edge of the throng and stood still. Commuters flowed around him like rapids around a rock. He cleared enough space to put his computer bag at his feet and throw his jacket on. He reached into the jacket's lower right pocket. His fingers touched the note the woman had passed him.
Knowing he was under surveillance, Jack only touched the note. It wouldn't be safe to read it until he spotted his MSS minders again.
It took six minutes for the crowd to leave him behind. Before the onrushing set of passengers mobbed the ferry, Jack strode down the open quay. Dying autumn sunlight warmed his shoulders. A stew of cigarettes, fish, diesel exhaust, and salt air burned his nose. He heard the buzz that opened the gate for the new set of passengers headed from this side, Kowloon, to the island, Hong Kong.
Jack turned and walked along the ferry's hull, staying away from the rush that surged over the gangplank. He watched dockworkers loosen thick halyards from massive cleats bolted to the pier. He heard the engine rev.
Facing the harbor, he watched the ferry depart. Beyond it, at the far shore, he noted the tall buildings of Hong Kong's central business district. He turned around and looked up and down the quay. With his MSS surveillants at least a few hundred yards away, he chanced a last look at the note the woman had slipped him, making sure he had it right: Temple Street Night Market. Heirloom Watches, 2200.
He balled the paper in his fist and tossed it in the harbor.
He knew his MSS minders would be somewhere up the quay, waiting for him. Delaying the inevitable, Jack stood at the water's edge. It was a pleasure to see the ferry thread between freighters and junks and admire the glassy skyscrapers on the distant island shore, shining gold in the sunset.
Jack was happy to be across the harbor from those buildings. He'd spent the day trapped in one of them on the thirtieth floor, going blind as he worked over spreadsheets. He could see that very building now, the HSBC tower, right in the center.
Jack thought of Howard Brennan, the Hendley man who'd traveled with him to Hong Kong. Howard was Hendley's chief investment officer, the man who directed the firm's capital strategy.
He and Jack had come to Hong Kong to line up the financing for an acquisition. Gerry Hendley was making a bid for GeoTech, an acknowledged leader in the refinement of rare earth magnets, an incipient power player in the green energy revolution. Hendley was old friends with the company's CEO. The deal, they all thought, was a good one.
To pull it off, however, would require three hundred million dollars in borrowed capital. It was Howard's job to negotiate the terms for the loan with HSBC.
Jack could picture Howard up near the top of that tall building now, schmoozing the bankers, skillfully arguing to shave a point of interest here, add a few months of bond maturity there. Jack felt his phone buzz in his pants pocket. It was a text from Howard, right on cue, as though the banker had been reading his mind.
We're working through dinner to get the financing terms closed. You coming back?
Jack typed his response. No. Going to run the risk profile numbers in my room tonight. Will catch you in the morning and-
He stood still, thinking through his response. He knew MSS would be monitoring his communications. Before hitting send, he evaluated how they might read this note to Howard. After a moment's reflection, he decided it would fit with his plan. He sent it.
A fishy gust came in off the harbor. The sea air was gaining a raw edge in this first week of October. Glad for the suit jacket now, Jack closed one button. He hurried up the quay with his sunglasses still on, even though it was getting dark.
There.
He caught sight of his first MSS minder. It was the same man Jack had spotted that morning, the one in the blue suit jacket and gray trousers. Jack had mentally named him Blue.
Blue was standing by a bench on the wide promenade that abutted the harbor. He was trying to look natural, one foot up on the bench, a cell phone pressed to his ear. He was deliberately looking away from Jack.
Well, thought Jack, if Blue is looking away, then Brown must be around here somewhere.
There.
Jack spotted him at the far end of the quay, near the street. He wore a leather jacket and blue jeans. He had unkempt hair. He was younger and more athletic than Blue. Jack figured that Blue was the leader and Brown was the muscle.
Jack strode over the promenade and ascended the steps to the Peninsula Hotel, knowing they would follow.
Along the way, he wondered about his duty to report the contact with the woman on the ferry to John Clark. Though on a purely "white-side" assignment for Hendley, Jack could at least let Clark know he'd been approached by an unknown contact with a request for a meet. That seemed to be something he should do.
If he'd been on a "black-side" op, the decision would be easy. Hendley's black-side was The Campus, an embedded national security team that took direction from the President in operations that prized speed, discretion, and deniability above all else. Hendley's white-side private equity business was legitimate. It also happened to serve as both a funding source and cover for The Campus.
As Jack rode the hotel elevator up, he visualized how the conversation with Clark might go. Mr. C had pointedly sent Jack on this all-business white-side assignment to Hong Kong. He'd emphasized the importance of GeoTech, telling Jack the acquisition was more strategic than the Campus op going down right now in the Philippines, where Cary, Jad, and Lisanne were tracking a known terrorist. He'd also given Jack's fiancée, Lisanne, her dream role, promoting her from logistics coordinator to a full-blown field intelligence operative.
As Jack saw it, the repercussions of Clark's decisions were twofold. One, he was missing out on the real action, stuck here on a city pier wearing a suit that felt like a straitjacket. Two, with his betrothed hopscotching the eastern hemisphere on a black-side op, there was no one left at home to look after Emily, Lisanne's niece, who was now living with them.
Lisanne had found a solution, naturally, arranging for the fifteen-year-old to stay with her grandfather for the week-but not before Jack had made a fool of himself, telling Lisanne she'd be putting herself in harm's way without him there to protect her. That crack had opened an old wound-and earned him a cold cheek when he'd gone to kiss her goodbye.
He'd taken his concerns to Clark, who'd been respectful but unyielding. Mr. C. was adamant that Jack accompany Howard Brennan to Hong Kong to close this deal. The old SEAL had said it would be good for Jack to take part in a more strategic initiative for the firm-while also learning to let the team operate without him.
And-as if that weren't enough-Clark had said that since Jack would be working in Hong Kong, a special administrative region of the People's Republic of China, he was absolutely forbidden to stay in touch with the team in the Philippines. Operational security was the name of the game, Clark had said.
Jack swiped his key and stood just inside the room, inspecting it carefully. After a quarter-minute, he put his phone up to his eyes to unlock it and opened the room-scanning app Gavin Biery, Hendley's infotech specialist, had created for The Campus. Per the app's instructions, Jack took a picture, then let the AI program compare it with the room photo from that morning.
The app returned three red dots on the new photo-three depressions in the carpet, likely from a man's oxford shoe, size nine Sendas, a Chinese brand. Jack had put a do-not-disturb sign on the door that morning, and since the room was still a mess, he could only assume Brown and Blue's helpers had searched it.
So be it. On this Hendley white-side assignment, he had nothing to hide.
He dropped his bag on the desk, kicked off his shoes, and sat at the edge of his bed. He opened another Gavin-Campus app on his phone, the secure communications portal, hoping to see a message from Campus ops that might redirect him to the real action in the Philippines.
If he was honest with himself, he'd admit that he also hoped to see a message from Lisanne, given the way they'd left things with each other.
A disappointed sigh escaped his pursed lips. His shoulders slumped.
The inbox was empty.
By eight-thirty that evening, Jack had eaten a mediocre room-service club sandwich and traded a dozen messages with Howard, who was still across the harbor, hammering away on the terms with the British bankers at HSBC. Jack sat at his hotel room desk, running the terms through the risk analysis tool he’d built for Hendley Associates.
He took the work seriously. Gerry Hendley, a former senator with deep ties in the energy industry, believed that within a year or two they could flip GeoTech for nearly three billion-the firm's biggest strike to date. But if Jack's analysis got any of the underlying numbers wrong, then the company could just as easily go bankrupt trying to repay the HSBC loan.
After analyzing GeoTech's disclosed financial statements and inputting the relevant figures, Jack updated his model with Howard's new terms. However Howard had managed to drive his latest bargain with the bankers across the harbor, he'd done a fine job. Jack's model showed the deal working well, the risk profile within acceptable limits. In his final email of the evening, he congratulated Howard on a job well done.
There, he thought. He'd done his white-side work, the equivalent of eating his vegetables. Now on to more flavorful fare.
The digital clock in the upper corner of his laptop showed 8:45. There was still time to make it up to the Temple Street Night Market and meet the woman who'd passed him the note.
And why shouldn't he? he asked himself. That woman might well be a disaffected citizen chafing under PRC rule, highly placed, a future asset. A year earlier, Jack and Lisanne had recruited just such a woman in Seoul, a defecting North Korean scientist who'd since paid big dividends to the American intelligence establishment.
So why shouldn't he? he asked himself again.
For starters, his mind answered, Mr. C. had warned him that MSS would be all over him in Hong Kong-Brown and Blue were certainly proof of that. Moreover, Clark had counseled him that MSS could play dirty, that they might even do something to entrap Jack. Especially since he was the son of the sitting President of the United States.
Then again, thought Jack, Mr. C. had also counseled him to trust his gut, to never forsake his duty, to look for every opportunity to gain the upper hand over his adversaries. As Mr. C. had said time and again, Debate can be fatal. You must think, decide, act.
Ensuring he was connected to the internet via Gavin's node-hopping, encrypted virtual private network, Jack alt-tabbed from his risk analysis spreadsheet over to Google. He looked up the Temple Street Night Market.
Condé Nast described the wet market as not to be missed. The travel writer harkened it to Hong Kong's roots as an exotic trading port, full of the sights, sounds, and smells of Asia. A deeper dive into Google located Heirloom Watches, smack in the middle of the market.
Jack finished the remains of his room-service ice water and rattled the old Rolex on his wrist. The watch had been a gift from his parents fifteen-ish years ago, back when he'd graduated Georgetown with a major in finance for his own passions and a minor in history for his father's. Heirloom Watches, indeed.
What the hell, he thought finally, checking his phone once more to see that Lisanne hadn't messaged. It was a nice night to do some sightseeing, wasn't it? And besides, he had ways to prepare for a contact meeting. Though Mr. C. had told him not to deviate from his white-side assignment, he'd given Jack the business card of a friendly local resource to be used in case of emergency, as the old SEAL had put it.
There was still an hour before the woman would be there, waiting for him. Time enough. Jack rifled through his bag and dug out the business card. Clark had said the man on the card was a hell of a tailor-and that MSS knew nothing of his black-market weapons business. According to Google, the tailor shop was on the way to the Temple Street Night Market.
He looked at his old watch again. His father, Jack Ryan, Sr., would never have ignored a contact bump like the woman on the ferry, right under MSS's nose.
Copyright © 2024 by M.P. Woodward. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
