Net Force (1998) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  EPILOGUE

  THE BESTSELLING NOVELS OF TOM CLANCY

  RED RABBIT

  Tom Clancy returns to Jack Ryan's early days--in an extraordinary novel of global political drama ...

  "A wild, satisfying ride."--New York Daily News

  THE BEAR AND THE DRAGON

  A clash of world powers. President Jack Ryan's trial by fire . . .

  "Heart-stopping action ... Clancy still reigns."

  --The Washington Post

  RAINBOW SIX

  John Clark is used to doing the CIA's dirty work. Now he's taking on the world ...

  "Action-packed."--The New York Times Book Review

  EXECUTIVE ORDERS

  A devastating terrorist act leaves Jack Ryan as president of the United States ...

  "Undoubtedly Clancy's best yet."

  --The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

  DEBT OF HONOR

  It begins with the murder of an American woman in the back streets of Tokyo. It ends in war ...

  "A shocker."--Entertainment Weekly

  THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER

  The smash bestseller that launched Clancy's career--the incredible search for a Soviet defector and the nuclear submarine he commands ...

  "Breathlessly exciting."--The Washington Post

  RED STORM RISING

  The ultimate scenario for World War III--the final battle for global control ...

  "The ultimate war game ... brilliant."--Newsweek

  PATRIOT GAMES

  CIA analyst Jack Ryan stops an assassination--and incurs the wrath of Irish terrorists ...

  "A high pitch of excitement."--The Wall Street Journal

  THE CARDINAL OF THE KREMLIN

  The superpowers race for the ultimate Star Wars missile defense system ...

  "Cardinal excites, illuminates ... a real page-turner."

  --Los Angeles Daily News

  CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER

  The killing of three U.S. officials in Colombia ignites the American government's explosive, and top secret, response ...

  "A crackling good yarn."--The Washington Post

  THE SUM OF ALL FEARS

  The disappearance of an Israeli nuclear weapon threatens the balance of power in the Middle East--and around the world ...

  "Clancy at his best ... not to be missed."

  --The Dallas Morning News

  WITHOUT REMORSE

  The Clancy epic fans have been waiting for. His code name is Mr. Clark. And his work for the CIA is brilliant, cold-blooded, and efficient ... but who is he really?

  "Highly entertaining."--The Wall Street Journal

  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

  THE BEAR AND THE DRAGON

  RED RABBIT

  THE TEETH OF THE TIGER

  SSN: STRATEGIES OF SUBMARINE WARFARE

  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

  SPECIAL FORCES: A GUIDED TOUR OF U.S. ARMY SPECIAL FORCES

  INTO THE STORM: A STUDY IN COMMAND

  (written with General Fred Franks, Jr., Ret.)

  EVERY MAN A TIGER

  (written with General Charles Horner, Ret.)

  SHADOW WARRIORS: INSIDE THE SPECIAL FORCES

  (written with General Carl Stiner, Ret., and Tony Koltz)

  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 OP-CENTER: LINE OF CONTROL

  TOM CLANCY'S OP-CENTER: MISSION OF HONOR

  TOM CLANCY'S OP-CENTER: SEA OF FIRE

  TOM CLANCY'S OP-CENTER: CALL TO TREASON

  TOM CLANCY'S NET FORCE

  TOM CLANCY'S NET FORCE: HIDDEN AGENDAS

  TOM CLANCY'S NET FORCE: NIGHT MOVES

  TOM CLANCY'S NET FORCE: BREAKING POINT

  TOM CLANCY'S NET FORCE: POINT OF IMPACT

  TOM CLANCY'S NET FORCE: CYBERNATION

  TOM CLANCY'S NET FORCE: STATE OF WAR

  TOM CLANCY'S NET FORCE: CHANGING OF THE GUARD

  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

  TOM CLANCY'S POWER PLAYS: BIO-STRIKE

  TOM CLANCY'S POWER PLAYS: COLD WAR

  TOM CLANCY'S POWER PLAYS: CUTTING EDGE

  TOM CLANCY'S POWER PLAYS: ZERO HOUR

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either

  are 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 NET FORCE(r)

  A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with

  Netco Partners

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Berkley edition / February 1999

  Copyright (c) 1998 by Netco Partners.

  NET FORCE is a trademark of Netco Partners.

  All rights reserved.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without

  permission. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via

  the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the

  publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only

  authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage

  electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author's

  rights is appreciated.

  For information address:
The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-00198-1

  BERKLEY(r)

  Berkley Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  BERKLEY and the "B" design

  are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  Acknowledgments

  We'd like to thank Steve Perry for his creative ideas and his invaluable contributions to the preparations of the manuscript. We would also like to acknowledge the assistance of Martin H. Greenberg, Larry Segriff, Denise Little, John Helfers, Robert Youdelman, Esq., Richard Heller, Esq., and Tom Mallon, Esq.; Mitchell Rubenstein and Laurie Silvers at BIG Entertainment; the wonderful people at The Putnam Berkley Group, including Phyllis Grann, David Shanks, and Tom Colgan; our producers on the ABC mini-series, Gil Cates and Dennis Doty; the brilliant screenwriter and director Rob Lieberman; and all the good people at ABC. 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, as well as Jerry Katzman, Vice Chairman of the William Morris Agency, and his television colleagues. But most important, it is for you, our readers, to determine how successful our collective endeavor has been.

  Tuesday, September 7th, 2010, 11:24 p.m. Washington, D.C.

  "Okay, Commander," Boyle said. "We're clear."

  Steve Day stepped out into the muggy autumn night from the cooler air-conditioned restaurant, surrounded still by the wonderful odors of exquisite Italian cooking. Already on the sidewalk, Boyle, Day's chief bodyguard, spoke into his link. The limo was there, but Boyle was a very careful young man, one of the FBI's finest. Only after he spoke did the limo's electrically locked rear door click open. The whole time, Boyle looked everywhere but at Day.

  Day nodded at the driver, the new guy. Larry? Lou? Something like that. As he slid across the cloned-leather seat, he was feeling pretty good. Nothing like a seven-course meal and three kinds of excellent wine to put a man in a good mood. Umberto's was new, but it was at least a four-star eatery--or would be as soon as somebody got around to ranking it, though Day hoped that wouldn't be anytime soon. It never failed. As soon as he found a new out-of-the-way place with decent food, it was quickly "discovered" and reservations were impossible to get.

  True, he was the Commander of the recently established Net Force, still the flavor of the month in Washington power circles, but that didn't cut much ice when rich Senators or even richer foreign diplomats were in line ahead of you. Even restaurant owners in this town knew which backsides to kiss first, and top of the list sure wasn't a political appointee as far down the food chain as Day was. For now, anyway.

  Still, the meal had been great: al dente pasta and artery-clogging sauce and shrimp, and salad and palate-cleansing ices. Day was both pleasantly full and slightly tipsy. Good thing he didn't have to drive.

  His virgil cheeped at him.

  Boyle slid in next to Day, closed the door, then tapped on the bullet-proof Lexan partition with one knuckle.

  The driver started the car as Day unclipped the virgil from his belt and looked at it.

  His Virtual Global Interface Link--virgil for short--had a flashing telephone icon in the upper right corner of the small LCD screen. He touched the icon and a number blinked onto the screen. Marilyn, calling from home. He looked at the timesig. Just after eleven. She must have gotten back from her DAR meeting early. Those gab sessions usually ran past midnight. He grinned, tapped the phone number twice and waited for the connection.

  Not much bigger than a pack of cigarettes--he'd given those up twenty years ago, but he hadn't forgotten how big a pack was--the virgil was a terrific toy. It was a computer, a GPS unit, phone, clock, radio, TV, modem, credit card, camera, scanner and even a little weavewire fax, all in one. The GPS could tell you where you were anywhere on the planet--and because he was a ranking FBI officer, it didn't have the fudge-factor that commercial civilian units came with, so it was accurate to within five meters. You could link to anybody with a phone or computer, via a scrambled hyperdigital channel so dense they called it a pipe and that would take an expert codebreaker a month of Sundays to tap into. This particular unit would, with the proper code, allow Day to access the FBI and Net Force mainframe DNAs, with their vast information stores. Had he been so inclined, Day could have grabbed a pinch of the powdered sugar that came on the cheesecake he'd had for dessert, dusted a fingerprint left on a plate by his waiter and had it checked, ID'd, and a full history on the man back to him before he'd finished eating.

  It was great living here in the future, a mere decade after the turn of the century. If 2010 had such wonders, what might it look like in another twenty or thirty years? He was looking forward to finding out, and with advances in medicine, he could pretty much expect to do so.

  The virgil's speaker said, "Hi, Steve."

  "Hi, Marilyn. What's up?"

  "Nothing much. We got done early. I was just wondering if you might want a late supper."

  He grinned at the virgil. He didn't have his camera on, so she couldn't see the smile. "I just left Umberto's," he said. "I think I'll pass on eating for the next couple of weeks."

  She laughed. "I understand. You coming home?"

  "On the way."

  He had a condo in the city, but most nights he tried to get across the river and to the house. The kids were grown, but Marilyn and the dog still liked to see him now and again.

  He tapped the virgil and re-clipped it to his belt, which needed a little attention. He loosened the buckle a couple of holes and slid the Galco paddle holster with his SIG .40 around toward the front a little so it wouldn't dig into his right hip. He could have carried one of the new-model wireless KTs--kick-tasers--that were supposed to be better than a gun, but he didn't really trust them. Yes, he was a political appointee for the current job, but he'd been in the field a long time to earn the spot. He trusted his old-fashioned pistol.

  Moving the gun helped. While he was at it, he undid the Velcro on his Kevlar vest's side panels and re-tabbed them a little looser, too.

  Next to him, Boyle fought to keep his grin under control.

  Day shook his head. "Easy for you to laugh. You're what--thirty? Still bulking up at the gym three or four times a week, right? Us fat old desk jockeys don't have time to stay in shape."

  Not that he was that much out of shape. Five-eight, maybe 190? He could drop a few pounds, but hey, he was fifty-two last June and he was entitled to carry a little extra baggage. He'd earned it.

  They were on the narrow street behind the new projects, the shortcut toward the expressway. It was a dark and dreary part of town, with streetlights broken out and dead, stripped cars lining the road. Another of the instant slums, going down fast even before the original paint had dried. In his opinion, the current welfare philosophy needed major work; of course, it always had. Though things were getting better, the future still had a way to go to pick up all of its passengers. There were streets in D.C. he wouldn't walk alone after dark; gun, vest, and virgil notwithstanding. An armored limo made him feel a little more secure--

  There came a terrific bang, a flash that strobed the limo's interior a sudden bright orange. The car rocked up on the driver's side, hung for what seemed like forever on two wheels, then fell back and hit the street hard.

  "What the hell?"

  Boyle already had his pistol out as the limo fishtailed, slewed and slammed into a streetlight post. The post was fiberglass. It snapped off at bumper level and fell on the limo, spraying shattered glass in a tinkly rain upon the car's trunk.

  Day saw a bulky man in black run toward the car from out of the sticky night. The man wore a watch cap pulled low but not covering his face. He had blond hair, a scar running through h
is right eyebrow. He was smiling.

  Day thought he caught a flash of movement at the rear of the limo, but when he looked, he didn't see anything.

  "Go!" Boyle yelled. "Go, go!"

  The driver tried. The engine roared, the wheels screeched, but the car didn't move. The stench of burning rubber filled the car.

  Day thumbed the emergency scramble button on the virgil, and was already reaching for his own pistol when the man in black reached the limo and slapped something on the door. Whatever it was thunked metallically. The man turned and sprinted away, back into the darkness--

  "Out!" Boyle screamed. "He's stuck a limpet on the door! Out!"

  Day grabbed the door handle on the driver's side, jerked it up, dove out and hit the ground in a sloppy shoulder roll.