Tom Clancy Under Fire Read Free Page A

wasn’t due to reopen its Tehran embassy for another few months, something told Jack that Raymond Wellesley wouldn’t be the type to have an address here anyway. Wellesley’s business card told him nothing except the man was probably not in fact an employee of the FCO.
    Jack slipped the card into the pocket of his robe and said, “You mentioned Seth Gregory. Is he okay?”
    “Curious word,
okay
. Lends itself to all manner of interpretation, doesn’t it?”
    Wellesley’s accent was not just British, Jack decided, but what he’d come to recognize as Received Pronunciation—RP or BBC English. Nonregional and indistinct. Apparently, Jack thought, he’d absorbed something from meeting the panoply of British diplomats that had visited the White House during his dad’s first term. RP was standard dialect among higher-echelon people at the Secret Intelligence Service, an “old boy” tradition that hadn’t changed since the First World War.
    Wellesley added, “Whether Mr. Gregory is ‘okay’ is something I was hoping you could help me with.”
    Jack felt his heart quicken slightly.
What the hell is going on?
    Jack said, “Answer my question, Mr. Wellesley.”
    “As far as we can tell, your friend is alive and well. You had lunch with Mr. Gregory yesterday, did you not?”
    “Yes.”
    “Do you know where he is now?”
    “No, I don’t.”
    “What did you discuss during your lunch?”
    “How much I was hoping to get a predawn visit from the FCO. And here you are.”
    “I encourage you to take my questions seriously, Mr. Ryan. We’re affording you a courtesy we might not otherwise extend.”
    The message was clear, or at least he thought so: If he weren’t
that
Jack Ryan, this talk probably wouldn’t be even remotely cordial.
    Jack stepped around the club chair and took a seat opposite Wellesley.
    “Would you like some coffee?” he asked.
    “No, thank you. I can’t stay long.”
    “Mr. Wellesley, Seth is a friend of mine. We’ve known each other since high school. I’m here on business and I asked him if he’d like to have lunch and catch up.”
    “What did you discuss?”
    “Family, old times, Iran’s new government, and a bit about work.”
    “What kind of work does he do?”
    “He’s an engineer with Shell.”
    “Is that what he told you?”
    “Yes, that’s what he told me. You have reason to believe otherwise?”
    “I can’t discuss that.”
    “Why are you looking for him?”
    “I can’t discuss that, either, but if you can help us find him, we would be grateful.”
    “I’d trade gratitude for equity,” Jack said. “Give me a better idea what’s going on and I’ll see what I can do.”
    Raymond Wellesley pursed his lips and stared into space for a few seconds. “Very well. But not here. Are you free this afternoon?”
    Is Wellesley suggesting my room is bugged?
Jack wondered. It seemed unlikely, but he’d learned early on to never mistake probability with possibility.
    “I can be.”
    Wellesley stood up and drew another business card from the breast pocket of his suit. With a silver pen he scribbled on the back of the card, then handed it to Jack.
    “Meet me there at two o’clock.”
    •   •   •
    AS HAD BEEN drummed into him by Ding Chavez, Hendley’s senior operations officer, Jack arrived by taxi an hour early for the meeting, then got out and walked the ground, familiarizing himself with the neighborhood around the address Wellesley had given him, the upscale Zafaraniyeh district in northern Tehran. Always know your egress—or, in Ding’s SpecFor-influenced vernacular, “Know your GTFO plan”: Get the Fuck Out.
    According to the travel websites Jack had consulted, Zafaraniyeh was home to mostly Iranian and expatriate millionaires. Behind tree-lined sidewalks, the apartment façades were done in Pahlavi style, a circa-1960s mix of traditional Persian and modern European.
    A light rain began to fall. Jack opened the umbrella the hotel’s concierge had