THREAT VECTOR.

TOM CLANCY.

with MARK GREANEY.

PROLOGUE.

These were grim days for former operatives of the Jamahiriya Security Organization, the dreaded national intelligence service of Libya under Moammar Gaddafi. Those members of the JSO who had managed to survive the revolution in their home nation were now scattered and in hiding, fearing the day when their cruel and brutal past would catch up with them in a cruel and brutal way.

After the fall of Tripoli to Western-backed rebels the year before, some JSO operatives had remained in Libya, hoping that by changing their identities they would save themselves from reprisal. This rarely worked, as others knew their secrets and were all too happy to finger them to revolutionist headhunters, either to settle old scores or to win new favors. Gaddafi's spies in Libya were rounded up wherever they hid, tortured, and then killed; in other words, they were treated no worse than they deserved, though the West had held out some naive hope that fair trials for past crimes would be the order of the day when the rebels took power.

But no, mercy did not follow Gaddafi's death any more than mercy had preceded it.

Meet the new boss, same as the old.

The smarter JSO spies made it out of Libya before capture, and some went to other African nations. Tunisia was close, but it was hostile to former spies of the Mad Dog of the Middle East, a fitting nickname bestowed on Gaddafi by Ronald Reagan. Chad was desolate and similarly unwelcoming to the Libyans. A few made it into Algeria and a few more into Niger, and in both places they found some measure of security, but as guests of these dirt-poor regimes their future prospects were severely limited.

One group of former Jamahiriya Security Organization operators, however, fared better than the rest of their hunted colleagues because they possessed a marked advantage. For years this small cell of spies had been working not just in the interests of the Gaddafi regime, but also for their own personal enrichment. They accepted after-hours work for hire, both in Libya and abroad, doing odd jobs for organized criminal elements, for Al-Qaeda, for the Umayyad Revolutionary Council, even for the intelligence organizations of some other Middle Eastern nations.

In this work the group had suffered losses even before the fall of their government. Several had been killed by American operators a year before Gaddafi's death, and during the revolution several more died at the port of Tobruk in a NATO airstrike. Two others were captured boarding a flight out of Misrata and burned with electric shocks before being hung naked from meat hooks at the market. But the cell's seven surviving members did make it out of the country, and even though their years of extracurricular assignments had failed to make them rich men, when it came time to jump like rats from the ship called the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, their international connections helped keep them safe from the rebels back home.

The seven made their way to Istanbul, Turkey, where they were sponsored by elements in the local underworld who owed them a favor. Soon two of their number left the cell and went into honest work. One became a jewelry store security guard and the other found a job in a local plastics factory.

The other five remained in the spy game, and they farmed themselves out as a highly experienced unit of intelligence professionals. They also attempted to focus on both their personal security and their operational security, knowing that only by maintaining strict PERSEC and OPSEC could they be safe from the threat of reprisals from agents of the new government of Libya, just across the Mediterranean Sea.

This attention to security kept them safe for a few months, but complacency returned, one of their number grew overconfident, and he did not do as he was told. In a breach of PERSEC, he contacted an old friend in Tripoli, and the friend, a man who had switched allegiance to the new government to keep his head attached to his neck, reported the contact to Libya's new and fledgling intelligence service.

Though Tripoli's new crop of spies was excited by the news that a collection of their old enemies had been tracked to Istanbul, they were in no position to act on the intel. Infiltrating a team into a foreign capital with a kill/capture objective was no move for a rookie agency just finding its way around its new building.

But another entity intercepted the information, and it had both the means and the motive to act.

Soon the Istanbul cell members of former JSO operatives became targets. Not targets of the Libyan revolutionaries looking to eradicate the last vestiges of the Gaddafi regime. Not targets of a Western intelligence agency looking to settle scores with members of a former enemy spy shop.

No, the five Libyans became targets of an off-the-books assassination team from the United States of America.

More than a year earlier, a member of the JSO cell had shot and killed a man named Brian Caruso, the brother of one of the Americans, and a friend of the rest. The shooter had died soon after, but his cell lived on, surviving the revolution, and now they flourished in their new lives in Turkey.

But Brian's brother and Brian's friends did not forget.

Nor did they forgive.

ONE.

The five Americans had been lying low in the decrepit hotel room for hours, waiting for nightfall.

Sheets of warm rain rapped on the window, generating the majority of the sound in the dim room, as there was little talk among the men. This room had served as the base of operations for the team, though four of the five had stayed at other hotels throughout the city during their weeklong stay. Now that preparations were complete, those four had checked out of their quarters and consolidated their gear and themselves here with the fifth man in their group.

Though they all were still as stones now, they had been a blur of activity over the past week. They had surveilled targets; developed op plans; established covers; memorized their primary, secondary, and tertiary exfiltration routes; and coordinated the logistics of the mission to come.

But preparations were now complete, and there was nothing left to do but sit and wait for darkness.

A rumble of thunder rolled in from the south, a lightning strike far out in the Sea of Marmara illuminated the five statues in the room for an instant, and then the darkness covered them once again.

This hotel was situated in the Sultanahmet district of Istanbul, and it was chosen as the team safe house due to the courtyard parking for their vehicles and the fact that it was more or less equidistant to where the operations would be carried out later in the evening. The hotel was not, however, chosen for the vinyl bedspreads or the grimy hallways or the surly staff or the stench of pot smoke that wafted up from the youth hostel on the ground floor.

But the Americans did not complain about their accommodations; they thought only of their tasks ahead.

At seven p.m. the leader of the cell looked down to the chronograph on his wrist; it was fastened over bandaging that covered his entire hand and a portion of his forearm. As he stood up from a wooden chair, he said, "We'll head out one at a time. Five-minute separation."

The others-two seated on a bed speckled with rat shit, one leaning against the wall by the door, and one more standing by the window-all nodded.

The leader continued. "I sure as hell do not like splitting up the op like this. This is not how we do business. But frankly . . . circumstances dictate our actions. If we don't do these mutts damn near simultaneously, word will get out and the roaches will scatter in the light."

The others listened without responding. They'd been over this a dozen times in the past week. They knew the difficulties, they knew the risks, and they knew their leader's reservations.

Their leader's name was John Clark; he'd been doing this sort of thing since before the youngest of the men on his team had been born, so his words carried weight.

"I've said it before, gentlemen, but indulge me one more time. No points for style on this one." He paused. "In and out. Quick and cold. No hesitation. No mercy."

They all nodded again.

Clark finished his speech and then slipped a blue raincoat over his three-piece pinstripe suit. He stepped over to the window and reached out with his left hand, shaking the offered left hand of Domingo "Ding" Chavez. Ding was dressed in a three-quarter-length leather coat and a heavy watch cap. A canvas bag lay at his feet.

Ding saw perspiration on his mentor's face. He knew Clark had to be in pain, but he'd not complained all week. Chavez asked, "You up for this, John?"

Clark nodded. "I'll get it done."

John then reached a hand out to Sam Driscoll, who stood up from the bed. Sam was dressed in a denim jacket and jeans, but he also wore knee and elbow pads and, on the bed next to where he'd been sitting, a black motorcycle crash helmet lay on its side.

"Mr. C.," Sam said.

John asked, "You ready for the fly swat?"

"'Bout as ready as I'm gonna get."

"It's all about the angle. Get the angle right, commit to it, and let momentum do the rest."

Sam just nodded as another flash of lightning lit up the room.

John stepped over to Jack Ryan, Jr. Jack was in head-to-toe black; cotton pants, a pullover knit sweater, and a knit mask rolled up above his face so it looked like a watch cap, similar to the one worn by Chavez. He also wore soft-soled shoes that looked like black slippers. With a handshake Clark said, "Good luck, Junior," to the twenty-seven-year-old Ryan.

"I'll be fine."

"I know you will."

Last, John walked around the bed, and here he shook the left hand of Dominic Caruso. Dom wore a red-and-gold soccer jersey and a bright gold scarf, upon which the word Galatasaray was emblazoned in red. His attire stood out from the muted colors around the room, but his countenance was much less bright than his dress.

With a severe expression Dom said, "Brian was my brother, John. I don't need-"

Clark interrupted. "Have we talked about this?"

"Yes, but-"

"Son, whatever our five targets are up to here in Turkey, this op has gone way past simple revenge for your brother. Still . . . we are all Brian's brothers today. We are all in this together."

"Right. But-"

"I want your mind on your job. Nothing else. Every one of us knows what we are doing. These JSO assholes have committed other crimes against their own people and against the U.S. And it's clear from their present movements that they are up to no good. Nobody else is going to stop them. It's up to us to shut them down."

Dom nodded distractedly.

Clark added, "These fuckers have it coming."

"I know."

"Are you good to go?"

Now the young man's bearded chin rose. He looked into Clark's eyes. With a resolute tone he said, "Absolutely."

And with that John Clark picked up his briefcase with his non-bandaged hand and left the room without another word.

The four remaining Americans checked their watches and then stood or sat quietly, listening to the rain pelt the window.

TWO.

The man the Americans had dubbed Target One sat at his regular bistro table at the sidewalk cafe in front of the May Hotel on Mimar Hayrettin. Most nights, when the weather was nice, he stopped here for a shot or two of raki in chilled sparkling water. The weather this evening was awful, but the long canopy hung over the sidewalk tables by the staff of the May kept him dry.

There were just a few other patrons seated under the canopy, couples smoking and drinking together before either heading back up to their rooms in the hotel or out to other Old Town nightlife destinations.

Target One had grown to live for his evening glass of raki. The anise-flavored milky white drink made from grape pomace was alcoholic, and forbidden in his home country of Libya and other nations where the more liberal Hanafi school of Islam is not de rigueur, but the exJSO spy had been forced into the occasional use of alcohol for tradecraft purposes during his service abroad. Now that he had become a wanted man, he'd grown to rely on the slight buzz from the liquor to help relax him and aid in his sleep, though even the liberal Hanafi school does not permit intoxication.

There were just a few vehicles rolling by on the cobblestone street ten feet from his table. This road was hardly a busy thoroughfare, even on weekend nights with clear skies. There was some foot traffic on the pavement around him, however, and Target One was enjoying himself watching the attractive women of Istanbul pass by under their umbrellas. The occasional view of the legs of a sexy woman, coupled with the warming buzz of the raki, made this rainy night especially pleasant for the man seated at the sidewalk cafe.

- At nine p.m., Sam Driscoll drove his silver Fiat Linea calmly and carefully through the evening traffic that flowed into Istanbul's Old Town from the outlying neighborhoods.

The city lights sparkled on his wet windshield. Traffic had thinned out more and more the deeper he got into Old Town, and as the American stopped for a red light, he glanced quickly at a GPS locator Velcroed onto the dashboard. Once he reconfirmed the distance to his target, he reached over to the passenger seat and wrapped his hand around his motorcycle helmet. As the light changed he did a long neck roll to relax himself, slipped the crash helmet over his head, and then lowered the visor over his eyes.

He winced at what was to come, he could not help it. Even though his heart was pounding and nearly every synapse of his brain was firing in the focus of his operation, he still found the perspective to shake his head and talk to himself.

He'd done a lot of nasty things in his days as a soldier and an operator, but he had never done this.

"A goddamned fly swat."

- The Libyan took his first sip from his second glass of raki of the evening as a silver Fiat headed quickly up the street, some eighty yards to his north. Target One was looking in the opposite direction; a beautiful Turkish girl with a red umbrella in her left hand and a leash to her miniature schnauzer in her right passed by on the sidewalk, and the seated man had a great view of her long and toned legs.

But a shout to his left caused him to shift his attention toward the intersection in front of him, and there he saw the silver Fiat, a blur, racing through the light. He watched the four-door shoot up the quiet street.

He expected it to shoot on by.

He brought his drink to his lips; he was not worried.

Not until the car veered hard to the left with a squeal of its wet tires, and the Libyan found himself staring down the approaching front grille of the car.

With the little glass still in his hand, Target One stood quickly, but his feet were fixed to the pavement. He had nowhere to run.

The woman walking the miniature schnauzer screamed.

The silver Fiat slammed into the man at the bistro table, striking him square, running him down, and sending him hard into the brick wall of the May Hotel, pinning him there, half under and half in front of the vehicle. The Libyan's rib cage shattered and splintered, sending shards of bone through his vital organs like shot from a riot gun.

Witnesses at the cafe and on the street around it reported later that the man in the black crash helmet behind the wheel took a calm moment to put his vehicle into reverse, even checking the rearview mirror, before backing into the intersection and driving off toward the north. His actions seemed no different than those of a man on a Sunday drive who had just pulled into a parking space at the market, realized he had left his wallet at home, and then backed out to return for it.

- One kilometer southeast of the incident, Driscoll parked the four-door Fiat in a private drive. The little car's hood was bent and its front grille and bumper were torn and dented, but Sam positioned the car nose in so the damage would not be evident from the street. He stepped out of the vehicle and walked to a scooter locked on a chain nearby. Before unlocking it with a key and motoring away into the rainy night, he transmitted a brief message into the radio feature of his encrypted mobile phone.

"Target One is down. Sam is clear."

- The iragan Palace is an opulent mansion that was built in the 1860s for Abdlaziz I, a sultan who reigned in the midst of the Ottoman Empire's long decline. After his lavish spending put his nation into debt he was deposed and "encouraged" to commit suicide with, of all things, a pair of scissors.

Nowhere was the extravagance that led to the downfall of Abdlaziz more on display than the iragan. It was now a five-star hotel, its manicured lawns and crystal clear pools running from the faade of the palace buildings to the western shoreline of the Bosphorus Strait, the water line that separates Europe from Asia.

The Tugra restaurant on the first floor of the iragan Palace has magnificent high-ceilinged rooms with windows affording wide views of the hotel grounds and the strait beyond, and even during the rain shower that persisted this Tuesday evening, the bright lights of passing yachts could be seen and enjoyed by the diners at their tables.

Along with the many wealthy tourists enjoying their exquisite meals, there were also quite a few businessmen and women from all over the world, alone and in groups of varying number, dining in the restaurant.

John Clark fit in nicely, dining by himself at a table adorned with crystal, fine bone china, and gold-plated flatware. He'd been seated at a small table near the entrance, far away from the grand windows overlooking the water. His waiter was a handsome middle-aged man in a black tuxedo, and he brought Clark a sumptuous meal, and while the American could not say he did not enjoy the food, his focus was on a table far across the room.

Moments after John bit into his first tender bite of monkfish, the maitre d' seated three Arab men in expensive suits at the table by the window, and a waiter took their order for cocktails.

Two of the men were guests of the hotel; Clark knew this from his team's surveillance and the hard work of the intelligence analysts employed by his organization. They were Omani bankers, and they were of no interest to him. But the third man, a fifty-year-old Libyan with gray hair and a trim beard, was John's concern.

He was Target Two.