WASHINGTON, D.C.
DIPLOMATIC RECEPTION ROOM, THE WHITE HOUSE
“Show him in, please.” Arnie van Damm, the President’s chief of staff, cradled the phone, then stifled a yawn. His suit was rumpled from a long day that always began before Ryan’s, and Ryan always started early.
“Can I get you a cup of coffee?” Ryan smiled. “Or maybe a can of Ensure?”
Arnie wiped a smudge off his rimless glasses with his tie. “Did I ever tell you that my old man used to work the graveyard shift at the steel mill to make extra money so he could put me through college so I wouldn’t have to work late nights?”
“You call this work?” Ryan pointed at the elegant Federal period room around them. The two old friends sat on gold silk wingback chairs in front of a roaring fireplace with the iconic Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington hanging over the mantel. The panoramic wallpaper surrounding the room had been installed by Jacqueline Kennedy, and every important president, prime minister, and potentate from the last fifty years had either stood or sat in this room at some point.
Ryan was in a pair of jeans, Sperry Top-Siders, and a Fly Navy sweatshirt, having come straight down from the family residence. He was already in bed and propped up on his pillows next to Cathy and only a few pages into Lieutenant Colonel Rip Rawlings’s latest when Arnie called forty minutes ago. He wasn’t all that surprised by the call but grew concerned when Arnie told him Buck Logan was actually on his way over. Ryan assumed he’d be getting a call from the big Texan. He wasn’t expecting a personal visit.
“Must be damned important,” Arnie said.
Ryan agreed.
The phone call with Logan that morning was odd, to say the least. When Ryan had asked Logan about his sunken ship, he denied it happened. According to Admiral Talbot, that was a lie. And then Logan insisted on mentioning the nonexistent Andrews fundraiser—not a lie so much as a statement that was demonstrably false.
It took about a heartbeat and a half for Ryan to figure out Logan’s coded message. I just told you an obvious lie about the fundraiser so that we both know I’m lying, and that way, you know I just lied to you about the sunken ship.
And that’s how Ryan knew Logan was in trouble.
Given the dramatic meeting about to happen, he assumed that meant big trouble.
Ryan had given Arnie a heads-up about Logan while he was still in transit from Walter Reed. Arnie was almost always the first call Jack made when the excrement hit the oscillator because his chief of staff was about the sharpest pencil in the drawer as far as politics was concerned. Arnie had been chief of staff to three presidents, including him from the beginning. The crow’s feet around Arnie’s pale blue eyes were deeper, and his bald scalp a little paler and flakier, than when he’d first met the man. But Arnie’s mind hadn’t aged. Arnie might have looked a little like Merkin Muffley, the hapless American President in Dr. Strangelove, but he was General Chesty Puller when it counted on the political battlefield, and Ryan couldn’t ask for more than that.
It was Arnie’s suggestion to meet in the Diplomatic Reception Room rather than the Oval. It was nearer the family residence so Jack wouldn’t have to walk so far at the late hour and it was still on the first floor for Logan’s convenience.
As always, Arnie thought of everything.
One of the double doors opened and an electric wheelchair rolled into the room.
Jack and Arnie stood as Buck Logan wheeled in their direction. Ryan watched Logan’s bodyguard, a six-foot-five slab of meat in a tailored suit, take a position outside next to the PPD agents stationed there before the door closed again.
“Mr. President, I’m so terribly sorry to inconvenience you,” Logan said as he pulled to a stop. He removed his gray felt Stetson. His bright blue eyes contrasted with his thick but short-cropped silver hair. He was five years younger than Ryan but the deep lines in his rugged face aged him considerably.
“I knew you had the smarts to figure out what I was trying to tell you. And I can’t thank you enough for allowing me to inconvenience you at this ridiculous hour.”
Ryan smiled. “It’s a little past Arnie’s bedtime, but I think it all worked out.”
Ryan shook Logan’s hand. The Texan’s grip was crushing. The former Naval Academy tight end had been nearly as big as his bodyguard when he played football. Tragically, a catastrophic spinal cord injury from a late hit by Notre Dame in his senior year put him in a wheelchair forever, ending both his collegiate football career and his dream of following in his father’s footsteps into military service.
As physically impressive as he still was, Buck Logan’s greatest strength was his first-rate mind. His father had built a great regional trucking firm after the Korean War, but it was Buck who transformed it into a global logistics operation, with land, sea, and air assets. To satisfy his longing for military service, Logan had also built a top-tier private military contracting outfit. All together, Buck had forged White Mountain Logistics + Security into one of the largest and most reliable private-sector contractors servicing the DoD and several other federal departments.
But despite his outsized achievements in business and academics—he finished his USNA degree in civil engineering with a 4.0—Buck still lived in the long shadow of his famous father.
Logan nodded at Arnie. “Then my apologies to you as well, Mr. van Damm.”
“Please, it’s just Arnie.”
“Can I get you something to eat? Drink?” Ryan asked.
“No, sir, I’ve already put you out. I’ll be brief.” Logan motioned to the two empty wingback chairs. “Please, don’t stand on my account.”
Jack and Arnie took their seats.
“So, Buck, what’s this all about?” Ryan asked.
Logan sat up straighter in his motorized chair. “First of all, let me get it off my chest. As you’ve already figured out, I lied to you this afternoon, Mr. President, and I can hardly forgive myself for that. But the truth of the matter is, I didn’t have much of a choice. I’m in one hell of a pickle, and I’m afraid my personal security situation has been compromised. I just didn’t feel comfortable speaking with you on an unsecured line. Lucky for me, I own a fleet of private planes, so arranging an unscheduled flight up here wasn’t a problem, and I wanted to look you in the eye when we spoke.”
“I can appreciate that, Buck. So, let’s get to it. What’s going on?”
“The bottom line is that one of my ships—technically, a ship I was leasing for a single transport—was sunk seven days ago in the South Pacific.”
“Why lie about it?” Arnie asked.
Logan reached around behind his chair, pulled a file folder out of his seat pocket, and handed a couple of e-mail printouts to Arnie.
“As you can read there, that sinking was no accident. I was sent that note seventy-two hours before it happened. I was told to transfer ten million dollars in Bitcoin to a Dark Web address or else they’d sink one of my shipments. What concerns me is that they must have known it wasn’t my ship—only my cargo. Not many people have that information.”
“And that’s why you believe there’s someone on the inside of your organization—and why you couldn’t speak on the phone.”
Logan grinned. “That’s why I’m your biggest supporter in Texas, Mr. President. Sharp as a tack, and blunt as a hammer.”
“Why didn’t you contact us when you received this threat?” Arnie asked.
Logan laughed. “Are you kidding me? What was I going to do? Come crying to you guys because somebody said something mean to me? A non-specific, non-credible threat? What could you have done to prevent it? I’ve got operations all over the globe. It’s not like you were going to put Marine detachments on all of my ships or provide me with destroyer escorts.
“Besides, for all I know, this was sent by some ‘Nigerian princess’ riding a laptop somewhere in Romania.”
Logan blew air through his bleached white teeth, his face reddening. “Nobody’s gonna push Buck Logan around—sure ’n hell ain’t gonna squeeze ten million U.S. government dollars outta his wallet with a goddamn e-mail!”
Jack and Arnie exchanged a look. Logan was losing it right in front of them.
Logan saw their reaction.
“Sorry about that, gentlemen. I’m a little off my game, as you can well imagine. I lost seventeen million dollars’ worth of civilian cargo—mostly drilling pipe, steel fittings, generators. Nothing for Uncle Sam, mind you. Not to mention the poor bastards who went down with the ship, whoever they were.”
“You have insurance, don’t you?”
“Flip over to the second page. After the sinking, I was contacted again. Told in no uncertain terms: Do not contact your insurance and do not contact the authorities or more sinkings will follow. Given the circumstances, I was inclined to believe them.”
Logan pointed at the pages again. “You can see there, they listed out every one of my scheduled shipments for the next thirty days, and each one of my flagged vessels. I lose a few more of those, and I’m ruined, no matter what I do.
“If I don’t file insurance claims on the Jade Star cargo, I’m out of pocket on the losses. And if I do file a claim, my insurance rates will skyrocket and then these bastards said they’d sink another one. If they sank a second boat, I’d have to file a second claim, and then my insurance would get canceled. And if that happens, then I can’t carry goods and I’m out of business. Either way, my pooch is royally screwed.”
“What are you going to do now?”
“Cross my fingers and pray. Three days ago, they sent me another letter demanding twenty million dollars—ten for the first letter, and ten for not believing them.”
“What did you do?” Arnie asked.
“I paid the bastards. What else could I do?”
“Have they threatened any more of your ships?”
“No, they said this was a one-time payment.”
Arnie pressed further. “And you actually believe them?”
“Whoever these shitheads are, they’re smart. I doubt I’m the first one they’ve done this to and probably not the last. It’s one thing to swipe a few apples from the neighbor’s tree but there’s no point in cuttin’ it down ’cuz then the apples run out.”
“You don’t know how right you are, Buck. There have been several other unexplained sinkings, along with yours,” Ryan said.
“I’ll be damned.”
“They must have been threatened the same way you were,” Arnie said. “Same conditions.”
Logan’s eyes narrowed. “Who else have they hit?”
“Big companies with deep pockets, like yours. All in the Pacific, just like yours.”
“And they haven’t said anything, either?”
“No. You’ve told us the most—and that wasn’t a hell of a lot,” Ryan said. He leaned forward. “No idea at all who’s behind this?”
Logan shifted around in his chair.
“I’ve thought long and hard on this. Could be a political group. Could be a religious outfit. Or it might just be your run-of-the-mill, greedy-ass pirate. They all have the same motive: money. The question is, what do they want to do with that money?”
“Something tells me you’ve ruled all of those out,” Ryan said.
“Motive ain’t enough. You gotta have the means, which tells me we’re talking about a blue water navy. As I’ve noodled on it, I think we’re talking about the Russians.”
“Why the Russians?” Arnie asked. “That seems like a real stretch.”
“Is it? The South Pacific is a far piece out in the middle of nowhere. Who else has the reach? North Korea has a navy, but mostly coastal vessels, and their deepwater stuff is mostly secondhand Cold War crap from the Russians. China has the reach but it’s all tangled up in Hong Kong right now and their navy is playing footsie with us in the South China Sea. And last I heard, there sure as hell ain’t no flip-flop-wearing Somali pirates running around in the Cook Islands.”
Logan leaned forward. “But the Russkies have eight deepwater surface vessels and eighteen-plus submarines just in their Pacific Fleet—hell, they got more subs in their navy than we do.”
“I’ll grant you they have the means,” Ryan said. “But what’s their motive?”
“That’s what I can’t quite figure out. Maybe they’ve had some kind of breakthrough in their underwater operations or their hypersonic anti-ship missiles and they’re running real-world tests. Any Russian-flagged ships sunk?”
“No.” Ryan wondered if Logan was onto something. “Not U.S.-flagged or Chinese-flagged, either.”
“But you’re missing the obvious, Buck. They hit you up for cash,” Arnie said. “That’s not a military operation.”
“Are you kidding me? Russia is run by the world’s richest gangsters. They love money, the dirtier the better. What better way to hide their testing program than to pretend it’s a piracy operation—and make some serious bank on the side doing it?”
Ryan and Arnie exchanged another look. Maybe Logan wasn’t crazy after all.
“You said you think you have an insider on your hands. What are you doing about it?” Arnie asked.
Logan shifted around in his chair again, unable to get comfortable. It was obviously a losing battle.
“I’ve got my most trusted security people sniffing around to find out who the backstabbing sumbitch is, but no luck so far.”
Arnie held up the blackmail threat. “Your IT people must have searched for the source of this e-mail? Chased down the Dark Web bank account address?”
“Jumped right on it. But you know that computer stuff—VPNs and firewalls and such. They couldn’t find anything we could grab ahold of. And we all know how good the Russians are at that kind of thing.”
“You never struck me as a man who left his fate in the hands of others,” Ryan said.
Logan grimaced, obviously in some discomfort. “Believe me, I’m not. I’m going on the offensive and putting my security team on this. I’ll find the bastards who did this, come hell or high water, and God help them when I find them.” Buck pointed a meaty finger in their direction. “You two gents have to color inside the lines, I don’t.”
“If it really is the Russians, you’re taking on a helluva risk,” Arnie noted.
“No worries on that account. I have a few arrows in my quiver I’m not afraid to loose.”
“We can’t sanction any illegal activities,” Arnie said.
“No, we can’t,” Ryan said. He stood, ending the meeting. “But if you do find out anything, Buck, you be sure to let us know.”
Buck smiled and winked. “Will do, Mr. President. Will do.”