Tom Clancy's Op-Center: Divide and Conquer [042-4.7]
By: Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik
Synopsis:
Shadowy elements within the State Department secretly cause tensions to
flare between Iran and the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan. They
hope to start a shooting war to increase their own power and profit.
At the same time, the conspirators decide to up the ante- by deposing
the President of the United States. In a treacherous scheme, they
convince the President that he is mentally unstable, and a silent coup
d'etat is within their reach.
Now, Paul Hood and the members of Op-Center are pitted against the clock
to prevent the outbreak of war, save the honor of the President- and
expose the traitors within... A powerful profile of America's defense
intelligence, and crisis management technology,
Novels by Tom Clancy
THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER
RED STORM RISING
PATRIOT GAMES
THE CARDINAL OF THE KREMLIN
CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER
THE SUM OF ALL FEARS
WITHOUT REMORSE
DEBT OF HONOR
EXECUTIVE ORDERS
RAINBOW SIX
SSN: STRATEGIES OF SUBMARINE WARFARE
Created by Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik
TOM CLANCY'S OP-CENTER
TOM CLANCY'S OP-CENTER: MIRROR IMAGE
TOM CLANCY'S OP-CENTER: GAMES OF STATE TOM CLANCY'S OP-CENTER: ACTS OF
WAR
TOM CLANCY'S OP-CENTER: BALANCE OF POWER
TOM CLANCY'S OP-CENTER: STATE OF SIEGE
TOM CLANCY'S OP-CENTER: DIVIDE AND CONQUER
TOM CLANCY'S NET FORCE
TOM CLANCY'S NET FORCE: HIDDEN AGENDAS
TOM CLANCY'S NET FORCE: NIGHT MOVES
Created by Tom Clancy and Martin Greenberg
TOM CLANCY'S POWER PLAYS: POLITIKA
TOM CLANCY'S POWER PLAYS: RUTHLESS. COM
TOM CLANCY'S POWER PLAYS: SHADOW WATCH
Nonfiction
SUBMARINE: A GUIDED TOUR INSIDE A NUCLEAR WARSHIP
ARMORED CAV: A GUIDED TOUR OF AN ARMORED
CAVALRY REGIMENT
FIGHTER WING: A GUIDED TOUR OF AN AIR FORCE COMBAT WING
MARINE: A GUIDED TOUR OF A MARINE EXPEDITIONARY UNIT
AIRBORNE: A GUIDED TOUR OF AN AIRBORNE TASK FORCE
CARRIER: A GUIDED TOUR OF AN AIRCRAFT CARRIER
INTO THE STORM: A STUDY IN COMMAND
(written with General Fred Franks)
EVERY MAN A TIGER
(written with General Charles Horner) Tom Clancy's Op-Center
DIVIDE
AND
CONQUER
BERKLEY BOOKS. NEW YORK
If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that
this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed
to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received
any payment for this "stripped book."
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are
either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously,
and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business
establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
TOM CLANCY'S OP-CENTER: DIVIDE AND CONQUER
A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with Jack Ryan Limited
Partnership and S & R Literary, Inc.
PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley edition / June 2000
All rights reserved.
Copyright 2000 by Jack Ryan Limited Partnership and S & R Literary, Inc.
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PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
10 987654321 Acknowledgments
We would like to acknowledge the assistance of Martin H. Greenberg,
Larry Segriff, Robert Youdelman, Esq., Tom Manon, Esq." and the
wonderful people at Penguin Putnam, including Phyllis Grann, David
Shanks, and Tom Colgan. As always, we would like to thank Robert
Gottlieb of The William Morris Agency, our agent and friend, without
whom this book would never have been conceived. But most important, it
is for you, our readers, to determine how successful our collective
endeavor has been.
--Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik
PROLOGUE
Washington, D.C.
Sunday, 1:55 p.m.
The two middle-aged men sat in leather armchairs in a corner of the
wood-paneled library. The room was in a quiet corner of a Massachusetts
Avenue mansion. The blinds were drawn to protect the centuries-old art
from the direct rays of the early-afternoon sun. The only light came
from a dull fire that was smoldering in the fireplace.
The fire gave the old, wood-paneled room a faintly smoky smell.
One of the men was tall, stout, and casually dressed with thinning gray
hair and a lean face. He was drinking black coffee from a blue Camp
David mug while he studied a single sheet of paper resting in a green
folder.
The other individual, seated across from him with his back to the
bookcase, was a short bulldog of a man with a three-piece gray suit and
buzz-cut red hair. He was holding an empty shot glass that, moments
before, had been brimming with scotch. His legs were crossed, his foot
was dancing nervously, and his cheek and chin bore the nicks of a quick,
unsatisfactory shave.
The taller man shut the folder and smiled.
"These are wonderful comments. Just perfect."
"Thank you," said the red-haired man.
"Jen's a very good writer." He shifted slowly, uncrossing his legs. He
leaned forward, causing the leather seat to groan.
"Along with this afternoon's briefing, this is really going to
accelerate matters. You know that, don't you?"
"Of course," the taller man said. He put his coffee mug on a small
table, rose, and walked to the fireplace.
He picked up a poker.
"Does that scare you?"
"A little," the red-haired man admitted.
"Why?" the taller man asked as he threw the folder into the flames. It
caught fire quickly.
"Our tracks are covered."
"It's not us I'm worried about. There will be a price," the red-haired
man said sadly.
"We've discussed this before," the taller man said.
"Wall Street will love it. The people will recover. And any foreign
powers that try to take advantage of the situation will wish they
hadn't." He jabbed the burning folder.
"Jack ran the psychological profiles. We know where all the potential
trouble spots are. The only one who's going to be hurt is the man who
created the problem.
And he'll recover. Hell, he'll do better than recover.
He'll write books, give speeches, make millions."
The taller man's words sounded cold, though the redhaired man knew they
weren't. He had known the other man for nearly thirty-five years, ever
since they served together in Vietnam. They fought side by side in Hue
during the Tet offensive, holding an ammunition depot after the rest of
the platoon had been killed. They both loved their country
passionately, and what they were doing was a measure of that deep, deep
love.
"What's the news from Azerbaijan?" the taller man asked.
"Everyone's in place." The red-haired man looked at his watch.
"They'll be eyeballing the target close-up, showing the man what he has
to do. We don't expect the next report for another seven hours or so."
The taller man nodded. There was a short silence broken" only by the
crackling of the burning folder.
The red-haired man sighed, put his glass on the table, and rose.
"You've got to get ready for the briefing. Is there anything else you
need?"
The taller man stabbed the ashes, destroying them.
Then he replaced the poker and faced the red-haired man.
"Yes," he said.
"I need you to relax. There's only one thing we have to fear."
The red-haired man smiled knowingly.
"Fear itself."
"No," said the other.
"Panic and doubt. We know what we want, and we know how to get there.
If we stay calm and sure, we've got it."
The red-haired man nodded. Then he picked up the leather briefcase from
beside the chair.
"What was it that Benjamin Franklin said? That revolution is always
legal in the first person, as in 'our' revolution. It's only illegal in
the third person, as in 'their' revolution."
"I never heard that," said the taller man.
"It's nice."
The red-haired man smiled.
"I keep telling myself that what we're doing is the same thing the
founding fathers did. Trading a bad form of government for a better
one."
"That's correct," the other man said.
"Now, what I want you to do is go home, relax, and watch a football
game. Stop worrying. It's all going to work out."
"I wish I could be as confident."
"Wasn't it Franklin who also said, "In this world nothing can be said to
be certain, except death and taxes'?
We've done the best we can, and we've done everything we can. We have
to put our trust in that."
The red-haired man nodded.
They shook hands, and the shorter man left.
A young aide was working at a large, mahogany desk outside the library.
She smiled up at the red-haired man as he strode down the long, wide,
carpeted corridor toward the outside door.
He believed that this would work out. He truly did.
What he didn't believe was that the repercussions would be so easy to
control.
Not that it matters, he thought as a security guard opened the door for
him and he stepped into the sunlight.
He pulled sunglasses from his shirt pocket and slipped them on. This
has to be done, and it has to be done now.
As he walked down the paved drive to his car, the red-haired man held
tight to the notion that the founding fathers had committed what many
considered to be treasonous acts when they forged this nation. He also
thought of Jefferson Davis and the Southern leaders who formed the
people were doing now was neither unprecedented nor immoral.
But it was dangerous, not just for themselves but for the nation. And
that, more than anything, would continue to scare the hell out of him
until the country was firmly under their control.
fiaAu. Azerbaijan Sunday, 11:33 p.m.
David Battat looked impatiently at his watch. They were over three
minutes late. Which is nothing to be concerned about, the short, agile
American told himself.
A thousand things could have held them up, but they would be here. They
would come by launch or motorboat, possibly from another boat, possibly
from the wharf four hundred yards to his right. But they would arrive.
They had better, he thought. He couldn't afford to screw up twice. Not
that the first mistake had been his fault.
The forty-three-year-old Battat was the director of the Central
Intelligence Agency's small New York field office, which was located
across the street from the United Nations building. Battat and his
small team were responsible for electronic SOS activities: spying on
spies.
Keeping track of foreign "diplomats" who used their consulates as bases
for surveillance and intelligence gathering activities. Battat also had
been responsible for overseeing the activities of junior agent Annabelle
Hampton.
Ten days before, Battat had come to the American embassy in Moscow. The
CIA was running tests in the communications center on an uplink with a
new highgain acoustic satellite. If the satellite worked on the
Kremlin, the CIA planned on using it in New York to eavesdrop more
efficiently on foreign consulates. While Battat was in Moscow, however,
Annabelle helped a group of terrorists infiltrate the United Nations.
What made it especially painful was that the young woman did it for pay,
not principle. Battat could respect a misguided idealist. He could not
respect a common hustler.
Though Battat had not been blamed officially for what Annabelle did, he
was the one who had run the background check on her. He was the one who
had hired her.
And her "seconding action," as it was officially classified, had
happened during his watch. Psychologically and also politically, Battat
needed to atone for that mistake. Otherwise, chances were good that he
would get back to the United States and discover that the field agent
who had been brought in from Washington to operate the office in his
absence was now the permanent New York field director.
Battat might find himself reassigned to Moscow, and he didn't want that.
The FBI had all the ins with the black marketeers who were running
Russia and the Bureau didn't like to share information or contacts with
the CIA. There wouldn't be anything to do in Moscow but debrief bored
aparatchiks who had nothing to say except that they missed the old days
and could they please get a visa to anywhere west of the Danube?
Battat looked out over the tall grasses at the dark waters of the Bay of
Baku, which led to the Caspian Sea.
He raised his digital camera and studied the Rachel through the
telephoto lens. There was no activity on the deck of the sixty-one-foot
motor yacht. A few lights were on below deck. They must be waiting. He
lowered the camera. He wondered if the passengers were as impatient as
he was.
Prob
ably, he decided. Terrorists were always edgy but focused. It was
an unusual combination, and one way that security forces zeroed in on
potential troublemakers in crowds.
Battat looked at his watch again. Now they were five minutes late.
Maybe it was just as well. It gave him a chance to get a handle on the
adrenaline, to concentrate on the job. It was difficult.
Battat had not been in the field for nearly fifteen years.
In the closing days of the war in Afghanistan, he had been a CIA liaison
with the Mujahideen guerrilla fighters.
He had reported from the front on Soviet troop strength, arms,