Locked On

  After obtaining advanced degrees in mathematics, he returned to Czechoslovakia to follow his father into banking. A good communist, Laska had done well for himself in the Soviet satellite nation, but in 1968 he came out in support of the liberal reforms of First Party Secretary Alexander Dubček.

  For a few short months in 1968, Laska and other Dubček supporters felt the reforms of the Czechoslovakian decentralization from Moscow. They were still communists but nationalized communists; their plan was to break away from the Soviets and apply Czech solutions to Czech problems. The Soviets didn’t like that plan, needless to say, and KGB operatives flooded into Prague to break up the party.

  Pavel Laska and a radical girlfriend were picked up with a dozen others at a protest and held for questioning by the KGB. Both were beaten; the girlfriend was sent to prison, but somehow Laska returned to work with the leadership of the uprising, and he stayed with them until one night in August when Warsaw Pact tanks rolled into Prague, and the fledgling rebellion was crushed on orders from Moscow.

  Unlike most of the leadership, Laska was not killed or imprisoned. He returned to his bank, but soon emigrated to the United States, taking with him, as he’d told the story thousands of times, only the clothes on his back and a dream.

  And by most anyone’s standards his dream had been realized.

  He moved to New York in 1969 to attend NYU. Upon graduation, he went into banking and finance. First he had a few good years, then he had a few great years, and by the early eighties he was one of the wealthiest men on Wall Street.

  Though he bought properties including his homes in Rhode Island, Los Angeles, Aspen, and Manhattan, in the 1980s he and his wife used much of their money on their philanthropy, throwing their huge financial resources behind reformers in Eastern Europe in an attempt to enact the changes that had failed to materialize during the Prague Spring. After the fall of world communism, Paul started the Progressive Nations Institute to assist grassroots change in oppressed countries around the world, and he funded development projects across the globe from clean-water initiatives in Central America to land mine eradication efforts in Laos.

  In the late 1990s Laska turned his sights inward, toward his adopted nation. He’d long felt the America of the post–Cold War period to be no better than the Soviet Union of the Cold War days; to him the United States was an oppressive brute in world affairs and a bastion of racism and bigotry. Now that the Soviet Union was no more, he poured billions of dollars into causes to fight American evils as he perceived them and, along with spending enough effort engaging in the capitalistic shrine known as the New York Stock Exchange to benefit himself, Laska spent the rest of his time and money supporting the enemies of capitalism.

  In 2000 he formed the Progressive Constitution Initiative, a liberal political action organization and law firm, and he staffed it with the best and the brightest radical lawyers from the ACLU, academia, and private practice. As well as taking on states and municipalities, the main function of the organization was to sue the U.S. government for what it considered to be overreaches of power. It also defended those prosecuted by the United States, and worked against any and all state or federal capital punishment cases, as well as many other causes célèbres.

  Since the death of his wife seven years before, Laska had lived alone, save for a team of servants and a security detail, but his homes were rarely lonely places. He threw lavish parties attended by liberal politicians, activists, artists, and foreign movers and shakers. The Progressive Nations Institute was run out of midtown Manhattan, and the Progressive Constitution Initiative out of D.C., but ground zero for the overarching belief system of Paul Laska was his home in Newport. It was no joke when people claimed that more progressive punditry had been doled out on Paul Laska’s pool deck than in most liberal think tanks.

  But his influence did not stop at his organizations or his garden parties. His foundation also financed many left-wing websites and media outlets, and even a confidential online clearinghouse for liberal journalists to gather and pass on story ideas and agree on a cohesive progressive message. Paul funded, sometimes covertly, sometimes not, many radio and television networks across the country, always with a quid pro quo that he and his causes would be given positive press. More than once an organization had had its financial spigot shut off, either temporarily or permanently, because its reporting did not match the political beliefs of the man who financed the entire operation from behind the scenes.

  He had contributed to the campaigns of Ed Kealty for fifteen years, and many political junkies gave Paul much of the credit for Kealty’s success. In interviews Paul shrugged at these claims, but in private he fumed. He did not deserve much of the credit for Kealty’s success. No, he felt he deserved all of the credit. Laska thought Kealty to be a blow-dried dolt, but a dolt with the right ideas and just enough of the right connections, so Laska had thrown his extensive support behind the man years earlier.

  It would be unfair to sum up the political beliefs of the billionaire immigrant into one headline, but the New York Post had done so recently after a Laska speech at a Kealty fund-raiser. In typical Post fashion, they filled the inches above the fold with “Laska to Ryan: You Suck!” Just hours after the paper came off the presses, Ryan was photographed mugging for the cameras, smiling and holding the newspaper in a “Dewey Defeats Truman” pose.

  Laska, not to be outdone, was also shown holding the paper, but in typical humorless Laska style, he was not smiling. He held it up for the camera, his eyes framed by square glasses on a square head, and he stared expressionless at the lens.

  Needless to say, this picture did not convey the lighthearted moment that Ryan’s photo did.

  It was true, Laska hated Jack Ryan, there was no other way to describe the feelings he had for the man. To Laska, Ryan was the perfect embodiment of everything evil and wrong with America. A former military officer, a former head of the dreaded CIA, a former operative himself whose evil deeds around the world had been swept under the rug and replaced with a legend that made him appear to the fools in flyover country like some sort of rugged and handsome paladin.

  To Laska’s way of thinking, Ryan was an evil man who had stumbled into incredible fortune. The plane crash at the Capitol just as he was awarded the vice presidency was evidence of a cruel God as far as Laska was concerned.

  Paul had suffered through the first Ryan presidency, and he’d supported Ed Kealty in his campaign against Ryan’s underling Robby Jackson. When Jackson had all but sewn up the victory and was assassinated, leaving Kealty to win the election by default, Laska began to have hope for God after all, though he never said such a thing anywhere other than on his pool deck.

  Kealty had not been the savior the progressives had hoped he would be. Yes, he’d had some wins in Congress on issues dear to the hearts of those on the left, but on Laska’s main concern, the American government’s projection of power both at home and around the world, Kealty had proven to be not much better than his predecessor. He’d launched more missiles against countries with whom America was not at war than any president in history, and he’d made only cosmetic changes to federal laws against habeas corpus, illegal searches and seizures, wiretapping, and other issues Paul Laska cared about.

  No, the Czech American was not satisfied with Ed Kealty, but he was a damn sight better than any Republican who would run against him, so Laska had begun investing heavily in Kealty’s reelection as soon as he took office.

  And this investment had been in danger ever since Ryan had put his hat in the ring. Things looked so bleak earlier in the summer, when Ryan came out strong after the Republican convention, that Laska had made it known to Kealty’s campaign manager that he would be scaling back his fund-raising for the embattled Democratic incumbent.

  He didn’t come right out and say it, but the inference was clear. Ed was a lost cause.

  This provoked an immediate response from Kealty and his people. The next morning, Laska was on his jet from Santa Ba
rbara with a private dinner invitation to the White House. He was ushered in to “the people’s house” quietly, no record of his visit was recorded, and Kealty sat down for a private dinner with the venerable liberal kingmaker.

  “Paul, things may look bleak right now,” the President said between sips of pinot noir, “but I have the mother of all trump cards.”

  “Another assassination is in the works?”

  Kealty knew Laska did not possess a sense of humor, so this was, in fact, a serious question. “Jesus, Paul!” Kealty shook his head violently. “No! I had nothing to do with … I mean … Don’t even…” Kealty paused, sighed, and then let it go. “The Emir is in my custody, and when the time is right, I will pull him out and shut off Jack Ryan’s asinine claim that I am weak on terrorism.”

  Laska’s bushy eyebrows rose. “How did you get him?”

  “It doesn’t matter how I got him. What matters is that I have him.”

  Paul nodded slowly and thoughtfully. “What are you going to do with the Emir?”

  “I just told you. Late in the election—my campaign manager, Benton Thayer, says I should do it at the second or third debate—I am going to announce to the country that I—”

  “No, Ed. I am talking about his trial. How will you proceed with holding him accountable for his alleged actions?”

  “Oh.” Kealty waved an arm in the air as he slid another luscious morsel of prime rib onto his silver fork. “Brannigan at Justice wants to try him in New York; I’ll probably let him do that.”

  Laska nodded. “I think you should do just that. And you should send a message to the world.”

  Kealty cocked his head. “What message?”

  “That America is, once again, the land of justice and peace. No kangaroo courts.”

  Kealty nodded slowly. “You want your foundation to defend him.”

  “It’s the only way.”

  Kealty nodded, sipped his wine. He had something that Laska wanted. A high-profile case against the U.S. government. “I can make that happen, Paul. I’ll get heat from the right, but who gives a damn? Probably more ambivalence from the left than I would like, but nobody on our side of the aisle will squawk too much about it.”

  “Excellent,” Laska said.

  “Of course,” Kealty said, his tone changed a little now that he was no longer sitting in front of Laska with his hat in hand, “you know what a Ryan victory would do to the trial. Your Progressive Constitution Initiative would have no role in a military tribunal at Gitmo.”

  “I understand.”

  “I can only make this happen if I win. And even with this big reveal I plan at the presidential debate, I will only win with your continued support. Can I count on you, Paul?”

  “You give my people the Emir case, and you will have my continued backing.”

  Kealty grinned like the Cheshire cat. “Wonderful.”

  Paul Laska lay in bed and thought back to that conversation at the White House. Laska’s PCI legal team had ironed out all the complicated secret details.

  As Paul listened to the grandfather clock tick in the corner of his dark bedroom, all he could think about was how Ryan would undo it all when he became President of the United States.

  When, not if, Laska said to himself.

  Hovno. Fucking Ed Kealty. Kealty couldn’t even win a debate where he had the best news the country has heard in a year.

  Son of a bitch.

  Paul Laska decided, at that very moment, that he would not spend one more goddamned dime on that loser Ed Kealty.

  No, he would divert his funds, his power, into one thing.

  The destruction of John Patrick Ryan, either before he took his inevitable seat in the Oval Office or during his administration.

  21

  One full day after the Paris operation, all the Campus operators, John Clark included, sat in the conference room on the ninth floor of Hendley Associates in West Odenton, Maryland. All five men were still tired and sore from the op, but they’d each had a chance to go home and sleep for a few hours before heading into the office for the after-action debriefing.

  Clark had slept more than the others, but that was only because of the meds. On the aircraft, Adara Sherman had administered painkillers that knocked him out until touchdown, and then he’d been picked up by Gerry Hendley and Sam Granger themselves and driven to the private office of a surgeon Hendley had retained in Baltimore for just such an eventuality. In the end, Clark hadn’t needed surgery, and the doctor was effusive in his praise of the work of the person or persons who’d given the injury its initial cleaning and bandaging.

  He had no way of knowing the person who had treated the wounded man had worked on more than her share of gunshot wounds in Iraq and Afghanistan, and most of those GSWs were much more serious than the hole left by the 9-millimeter round that pinged off of Clark’s ulna. Other than administering an X-ray that revealed a hairline fracture of the bone, then handing over a removable cast, a sling, and a course of antibiotics, Hendley’s surgeon had little to do other than to remember to keep quiet about the entire matter.

  Hendley and Granger then drove Clark home. Both John’s wife, Sandy, a retired nurse, and his daughter, Patsy, a doctor herself, were there waiting for him. They checked his wound over, yet again, ignoring his protests that he was fine and the complaints about the seemingly constant pulling and changing of the medical tape holding his dressing. Finally John managed to crash a few hours before driving himself back to work for the morning after-action briefing.

  Gerry started the briefing by entering the room, pulling off his coat and draping it over the chair at the head of the table. He blew out a long sigh and said, “Gentlemen, I, for one, miss the days of poison pens.”

  The first several “wet” missions The Campus had undertaken, the operators had employed succinylcholine injector pens that were an efficient means for taking a life. A quick turn of the nub of the pen to reveal the syringe tip, then a stroll past the target, and finally a quick jab in the target’s ass. The assassin had, in all but a couple of cases, just walked on unnoticed while the target himself continued on down the street, wondering what had just bit or stung him.

  Until moments later, when the target succumbed to a sudden heart attack, and died there, his colleagues standing over him with no idea what was wrong, and no idea the man gasping for air had just been murdered before their eyes.

  It was quick and it was clean, and that was Gerry’s point. No one fought back against a heart attack. No one even pulled their guns or their knives, because no one realized they were under attack.

  “Would that it always worked like that,” Gerry said to the room.

  Next each of the operators talked about what they did, what they saw, what they thought about what they did and saw. They went around the room like this for most of the morning, and other than some self-criticisms over small things, the general consensus was that they had all done extremely well to react and respond to the drastic change in the operation at, literally, the last minute.

  And they also all agreed that they had been damn lucky, John Clark’s forearm not withstanding.

  Campus head of operations Sam Granger had kept quiet through most of the discussion. He had not been on the scene, after all. After the five operators had finished, he stood up and addressed the table. “We’ve gone over what happened, but now it’s time to talk about fallout. Comebacks. Because even though you guys saved the DCRI officers and took down a known terrorist leader and five of his confederates, that does not mean the FBI won’t be fast-roping down on Hendley Associates if the word gets out that we were involved.”

  A smile from Dom and Sam Driscoll, the two most “go with the flow” operators in the unit. The other men were a little more serious about the implications. Granger said, “I’ve been monitoring the media reports of the incident, and there is speculation already that this is some sort of terrorist catfight that French security found themselves in the middle of. It is not being reported that DCRI wa
s rescued from assassination by unknown armed individuals. As shitty as it was for you guys at the time that this was such a complicated takedown, it was even more confused from the side of the DCRI. They just saw men crashing into their room and shooting at each other. I can’t imagine what they were thinking.”

  Sam motioned to Rick Bell, the chief of analysis at The Campus. “Fortunately, I don’t have to. Rick has tasked his analysts downstairs to look into what French authorities know, or think they know, about what’s going on.”

  Rick stood and addressed the boardroom. “DCRI and judicial police are both investigating this, but DCRI has not granted interviews of its people on the scene to the police investigators, so the judicial police aren’t getting anywhere with their inquiry. DCRI does recognize there were two different sets of actors here, not a single cell that went berserk and shot it out with each other. They haven’t gotten much further than that yet, but they are going to dig a lot deeper.

  “That they will continue to investigate is the bad news, but it’s nothing that we didn’t expect. The good news is, as far as video evidence, you guys seem to be in the clear. There are a couple of distant grainy shots from street cameras. Jack crossing the Avenue George V on his way around the corner to the Hôtel de Sers, and one of John going in the front of the Four Seasons and then coming back out. Also Ding and Dom turning the corner with the gear under their jackets. But the best facial-recog software in the world doesn’t have algorithms that can solve for the distortion masks and the sunglasses all you guys are wearing during the ops.”

  Rick sat back down, and Sam Granger again addressed the room: “That isn’t to say some tourist with a cell phone cam didn’t get a close-up shot of one of you. But if that happened, so far, it has not come out.”