“Now we have been spared President Ryan’s hyper-use of force in the past years, only because our leadership was weak and America enjoyed setting all the terms for us. As long as we were compliant, they were kind. A master who pets a lazy cat.
“But we have privileged interests in our region, and America would do well to remember we will protect those privileged interests.”
“What do you consider to be Russia’s privileged interests?”
“The neighboring post-Soviet nations where ethnic Russians live. It is my responsibility to guarantee they are protected.”
Volodin turned to the camera. “And to NATO, and especially to the Americans. I will remind you this is our backyard.” He pointed a finger at the camera. “You have been playing in our backyard, and we let it go. But now I will warn you to stay out of our backyard.”
Molchanova struggled to come up with her next question, but she needn’t have bothered, because Volodin lowered his pointed finger and continued talking to the camera.
“Ukrainians should understand that we love your country, we are your best neighbors. We don’t want to remove your flag or your anthem. I only want to address the question of Ukraine’s border. The Crimea is historically Russian—everyone knows this. It will be for the good of both nations for both of us to have the same rights, the same laws, the same bright future.”
Tatiana asked the next question with some trepidation. She was not certain if she was being pulled along into the question, but Volodin had made the follow-up so obvious, there was no way she could pass it up. “So, Mr. President, are you saying the Crimea is the objective of the security operation?”
Volodin did not answer at first. He seemed caught off guard. “One thing at a time, Miss Molchanova. We must see how our peacekeeping forces are treated. If the terrorism dies down . . . of course we will leave.” He said it with his hands up, as if he was trying to insinuate Molchanova had been the one promoting the takeover of Ukrainian territory.
—
The opening attacks of the invasion began as the president spoke on television. The late-afternoon start of the action had the desired effect of surprising the Ukrainian forces near the border. They did expect an attack from the east—but they did not expect one that began at dinnertime.
Long-range missile batteries devastated Ukrainian defensive positions, and fighter bombers flew inland to destroy airfields in the eastern Crimea. Tanks rolled west over the border, much as they had done in Estonia, but here they met more resistance in the form of the Ukrainian T-64s. The older Ukrainian tanks were not nearly the quality of the Russian T-90s, but they were plentiful, and most of them were well dug in or were in hardened bunker positions.
Pitched battles of tanks and Grad multiple rocket launcher system systems on both sides of the line continued for the first hours of the conflict, and as the Russian armor crossed deeper into Ukraine, Ukrainian howitzers were brought to bear. Russian MiGs and Sukhois controlled the skies, however, and they took out the gun emplacements just as fast as they could arrive overhead.
The Ukrainians also had a significant number of self-propelled 152-millimeter artillery vehicles—a Russian-built mobile howitzer named after the Msta River, and these were well hidden and mobile enough to present a problem for the T-90s, but the Ukrainian generals kept the majority of this valuable resource in reserve, all but condemning the forward-deployed Msta units to destruction by Russian Kamov helicopter gunships and MiG-29s.
By nine p.m. the Ukrainian cities of Sverdlovs’k and Krasnodon, both just miles from the Russian border, were taken with barely a shot fired within their city limits, and Mariupol, on the Sea of Azov, fell by ten-fifteen.
At midnight, a flight of six huge Antonov An-70 troop transport aircraft left Russian territory over the Sea of Azov; they crossed into Ukrainian airspace minutes later. On board each aircraft were between two hundred and three hundred troops. Most of them were members of the 217th Guards Airborne Regiment of the 98th Guards Airborne Division, but there were also several hundred GRU Spetsnaz forces in the mix.
The flight of air-transport aircraft was supported by fighter jets and radar-jamming equipment, and when they flew over Sevastopol, Russian ships in the Black Sea also provided defense for their countrymen overhead with their surface-to-air missiles.
The Ukrainians engaged the aircraft with a flight of Su-27s, but all four were shot down over the sea, two by Russian fighters and two more by surface-to-air missiles.
The Russians lost five fighters of their own, but all six An-70s made it to their drop zones.
The paratroopers leapt into the night from the Antonovs and landed all over the southern tip of the Crimean peninsula.
By half past one Russia had 1,435 lightly armed but well-trained troops on the ground in Sevastopol; they attacked two Ukrainian garrisons and destroyed several small anti-air batteries in the center of the city.
If the Ukrainians didn’t know why the Russians dropped troops in Sevastopol that evening, they would know soon enough. Across the Black Sea, the small port of Ochamchira in the autonomous nation of Abkhazia had been the makeshift home of a flotilla of Russian ships, on board of which some five thousand Russian marines had been living for several days. As soon as the An-70s took off from their base in Ivanovo, Russia, the flotilla set sail for Sevastopol. They would not arrive till the middle of the following day, but this would give the paratroopers and Spetsnaz forces the time they needed to completely control the neighborhoods around the port.
While the Russian forces spread out from drop zones in the Crimea, tanks and other armor rolled deeper into eastern Ukraine. The Russians had significantly better night-vision equipment than the Ukrainians, and their tanks would use this to press on through the entire night, catching the enemy blind and panicked. Although the invasion itself had been no surprise, the Ukrainian leadership recognized in hours that their generals had misjudged the speed, the tactics, and the utter intensity of the fight that the Russians were bringing over the border.
59
There were a lot of morning joggers in London, not as many as in D.C., but considering how miserable the weather had been here this spring, Jack Ryan, Jr., was surprised just how many men and women he saw lacing up their shoes to get some dawn cardio exercise in the elements.
Usually, however, Jack saw the majority of the runners during the home stretch of his morning cardio. He liked to hit it very early, before the other joggers were out, as this gave him a certain sense of accomplishment that he never felt when he got a late start to his day.
But this morning was different. Yes, he was up early—it was just after six and he’d already run several miles. But he wasn’t feeling the normal sense of exuberance that came along with the workout. It was wet and cold, and he was tired, and his head hurt a little from all the ale he drank the night before.
After returning from his wasted trip to Corby to meet a man once called Bedrock, he’d gone to a pub near his flat in Earl’s Court. He’d downed two orders of fish-and-chips and several pints of ale. Mercifully, no one noticed him or even talked to him at all in the pub, but on his way back to his place on Lexham Gardens he’d detoured around several blocks, making a winding, backtracking hour-long surveillance-detection run until the early morning, and he was almost certain an unmarked panel truck had passed three different times.
He lay in bed for hours wondering who the hell was tailing him, and now it was half past six and his run was suffering greatly for the poor treatment he’d subjected his body to the evening before.
At mile three he ran through Holland Park, trying to sweat out some of the alcohol and fried food he’d put into his system. He circled a brown soccer pitch enshrouded in mist and then started up the long, steep hill to the Notting Hill neighborhood, following the Holland Walk, a narrow footpath that ran at the edge of the park along a brick garden wall of a long row of townhomes on his right.
He passed a pair of women running downhill with their high-end baby strollers,
and they both gave him a smile.
Fifty yards behind them were two more joggers, big and broad men who crested the top of the hill at a leisurely pace and continued down the footpath in his direction.
Jack’s mind wandered back to Oxley, the old British spy. Bedrock. Jack had not called his father to tell him he’d struck out in his attempt to get any information from the man. He tried to think of some new tactic to get the geezer to talk, but he hadn’t come up with anything so far. He halfway wanted to just forget the entire affair and have his dad sic the CIA or some other organization on the man to try to find out what he knew about a shadowy, perhaps imaginary, assassin called Zenith.
He told himself he’d give himself another day to try to think of a new tactic, and then he would hand over his info on Bedrock.
The war had begun in Ukraine; Jack had seen this on the news this morning as he laced up his shoes. He had no way of knowing the United States had forces in country ready to engage, but he still knew his father would be working diplomatically and in the intelligence field against the Russian government’s attack, so he knew finding out any details about Talanov could prove useful in resolving this crisis.
As he ascended the narrow footpath, Jack glanced at the faces and the hands of the two big joggers ahead. He had been trained to identify preassault indicators, small cues of trouble, and he did this automatically now, especially when he saw fit or muscular young men in his proximity.
The two men’s hands were empty, and their faces showed no indications of any threat.
Ryan turned his attention back to his run; he forced himself to pick up his knees a little and to relax his shoulders. He still wasn’t feeling it, but he decided he would make himself push through the funk and hit five miles, even if it killed him.
When the two approaching joggers were just fifteen yards away, his eyes automatically flicked back to them. He realized he was, once again, scanning them for preassault indicators, and he chastised himself for living his new existence wound up as tight as he had lived his previous life. Despite the situation he had gotten himself and Sandy Lamont into in Antigua, he told himself there was no reason to feel threatened wherever he went. He knew he’d drive himself crazy if he had to rule out every passerby as a potential danger for the rest of his—
What’s that? Jack saw some sort of solid object under the pullover of the man running on the right; it pointed through the fabric as his right leg came up. It looked like a stick or some sort of club. Within two strides of noticing the abnormality, Jack saw the man on the right start to reach under his pullover.
Jack’s body snapped into alert mode instantly; his muscles tightened and his senses went into overdrive.
The gait of the two men changed at five paces, a slight weight shift, and this was exactly one of the indicators Jack had been trained to recognize. He registered instantly that they were turning their bodies to cross into his path. He carried no weapon, and he knew his only chance was to use the speed and surprise of his own attack to his advantage, along with the momentum of the approaching men.
The man on the right pulled out a foot-long black rod, while the man on the left brought his arms up as though he was planning on simply tackling Jack off his feet.
Jack dove low, below the big onrushing bear hug. He executed a forward roll on the wet pavement, snapping back up to his feet as he spun around, and he charged back at his attackers. Jack’s right fist shot out at the man with the club, who was just then spinning back toward him while raising his weapon high as if to strike.
Jack’s right jab took the man straight in the nose, snapping his head back and causing him to drop his weapon onto the concrete path, where it made the unmistakable sound of iron clanging on the pavement before bouncing off the path and into the bushes.
The bear-hug man had stumbled, but he pushed himself off the garden wall, and now he charged at Ryan. Ryan didn’t see a weapon at first, but the man came at him leading with his right arm outstretched, so Ryan felt certain the attacker must have had some sort of blade. Ryan swept his arm out, blocking the attacker’s arm at a forty-five-degree angle, and only then did he see the glint of steel. It was a small hooked knife, no more than three inches in length, but it was deadly nonetheless.
Jack executed his hand-to-hand combat moves with the skill of a man who had trained in the art almost daily for years. He threw his back into the attacker while using both hands to control the weapon hand. He twisted the man’s arm hard to the right, and simultaneously slammed his head back hard into the big man’s nose, dropping him down to the pavement. The knife fell free, and Jack kicked it off into the grass.
Both of his foes were bleeding from the face, but he could see they were very much still in the fight.
The thug who had dropped his metal club swung a fist at Jack, but the fist missed its target when Jack dropped down onto a knee and then shot up at the man, closing the distance and impacting the man’s chest. Both men tumbled to the wet grass between the footpath and the six-foot-high garden wall, and Jack made sure he came to rest on top. He immediately threw a punch into the man’s already bloody face, and then he rolled away quickly and shot back up to a standing position because he knew the other thug was on his feet and behind him, where he could easily get an arm around his neck or slam a foot into his rib cage. Jack had chosen his tactic wisely, as the second attacker kicked into the air where Jack had been, and his wild miss caused him to fall on his back.
Jack charged the man on the ground mercilessly and drove his knee hard into the side of the man’s head as the thug tried to get up. As soon as he felt the impact, Jack knew the man would be out cold, and his own knee would swell up like a grapefruit.
Now Jack was on his feet and both men were down. One was not moving, and the other was dazed, sitting up with his back against the garden wall.
Jack’s adrenaline was through the roof, but he knew he needed answers. What the hell was this all about? Were these the same assholes who had been following him?
They were young, neither older than twenty-five, and they both had short brown hair and big muscles, but Jack could not tell anything else about who they were.
He started over to the man against the wall—he looked like the best bet for conversation at the moment, so he knelt down next to him and brought his fist up high.
A shrill whistle from across the park caused Jack to turn his head.
“You there! What are you doing?” Two police officers, one male and one female, ran across the soccer pitch fifty yards away. One had a whistle in her mouth, and the other shouted again.
“Get off of that man!”
Jack wasn’t actually on anyone, but he stood up and turned to the police officers.
He’d made it less than five feet in their direction when he felt an impact from behind, between his shoulder blades. The man who’d been sitting on the ground next to the wall had, apparently, leapt to his feet and shoved Ryan with all his might.
Jack was propelled across the path, and he fell face-first into the wet grass. He wasn’t hurt, but he was mad at himself for turning his attention away from the men he’d been fighting.
From his hands and knees, he turned and looked back over his shoulder. To his surprise, both men were on their feet now, and they were running away, leaving their weapons behind.
They ran a few yards up the path and then climbed the brick garden wall and disappeared over the side. Jack was astonished that both men were able to stand, much less function well enough to escape. He started to go after them, but both of the police shouted for him to stop where he was.
The cops were still twenty-five yards away, and they didn’t have guns; Jack could have easily climbed the stone fence and hopped into the backyard, and there was a good chance he could have run down the two injured men. But the cops had seen him, he lived here in the area, and it wouldn’t be terribly difficult for them to find him.
Ryan let the two attackers go, and he put up his hands to show the cops he was
no threat. He took a quick look down at his warm-ups and saw them covered with mud and streaked with blood from the gushing noses of the two thugs.
He took long breaths to calm himself down as the police turned him around and had him put his hands on the wall. Later, he was thankful for taking his time before speaking, because in that moment when he paused to control his heartbeat and his breathing, he also realized that if he told the police about the two weapons lying in the bushes, his father would find out that there had most likely been an attempt on his life.
Jack’s dad would have the Secret Service rain down on him and form a diamond-shaped barrier of suits and guns all around him, and that would end his time here in England and seriously impede the younger Ryan’s future plans.
No, that would not do.
He told the two police that he had been jogging and two men jumped him, demanding money. Muggings weren’t uncommon here in London, although a six-thirty a.m. assault of a jogger who wasn’t even carrying his wallet was admittedly unique.
Jack was taken to the Notting Hill station by the police after the two patrol officers quickly sorted out the fact the son of the President of the United States had just been attacked before their eyes. He was treated like a celebrity, and the most difficult part of the ordeal for Jack was the fact he had to tell no less than a dozen different people a dozen different times that he neither needed nor wanted to go to a hospital.
His knee was going to be good and sore, but it wasn’t hospital sore. He just wanted to go home.
The police lectured him that he was a high-profile person and was entitled to security officers and, if only he would allow this, there would be people around to protect him the next time two muggers in a park chose him as a target.
Ryan thanked them, told them he’d think about it, and a little squad car delivered him back to his flat at eight-thirty a.m. The two officers made him promise to call if he had any other problems, and he thanked them once again for their concern. He climbed the stairs to his flat, went inside, and triple-locked the door.