Tom Clancy - Op-Center 06 - Divide and Conquer Read online

  Tom Clancy's Op-Center: Divide and Conquer [042-4.7]

  By: Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik

  Synopsis:

  Shadowy elements within the State Department secretly cause tensions to

  flare between Iran and the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan. They

  hope to start a shooting war to increase their own power and profit.

  At the same time, the conspirators decide to up the ante- by deposing

  the President of the United States. In a treacherous scheme, they

  convince the President that he is mentally unstable, and a silent coup

  d'etat is within their reach.

  Now, Paul Hood and the members of Op-Center are pitted against the clock

  to prevent the outbreak of war, save the honor of the President- and

  expose the traitors within... A powerful profile of America's defense

  intelligence, and crisis management technology,

  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

  SSN: STRATEGIES OF SUBMARINE WARFARE

  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 NET FORCE

  TOM CLANCY'S NET FORCE: HIDDEN AGENDAS

  TOM CLANCY'S NET FORCE: NIGHT MOVES

  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

  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

  INTO THE STORM: A STUDY IN COMMAND

  (written with General Fred Franks)

  EVERY MAN A TIGER

  (written with General Charles Horner) Tom Clancy's Op-Center

  DIVIDE

  AND

  CONQUER

  BERKLEY BOOKS. NEW YORK

  If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that

  this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed

  to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received

  any payment for this "stripped book."

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

  either 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 OP-CENTER: DIVIDE AND CONQUER

  A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with Jack Ryan Limited

  Partnership and S & R Literary, Inc.

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Berkley edition / June 2000

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright 2000 by Jack Ryan Limited Partnership and S & R Literary, Inc.

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by mimeograph or

  any other means, without permission. For information address:

  The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc., 375

  Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is

  http://www.penguinputnam.com

  ISBN: 0-425-17480-8

  BERKLEY

  Berkley Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a division

  of Penguin Putnam Inc." 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  BERKLEY and the "B" design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam

  Inc.

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  10 987654321 Acknowledgments

  We would like to acknowledge the assistance of Martin H. Greenberg,

  Larry Segriff, Robert Youdelman, Esq., Tom Manon, Esq." and the

  wonderful people at Penguin Putnam, including Phyllis Grann, David

  Shanks, and Tom Colgan. 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. But most important, it

  is for you, our readers, to determine how successful our collective

  endeavor has been.

  --Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik

  PROLOGUE

  Washington, D.C.

  Sunday, 1:55 p.m.

  The two middle-aged men sat in leather armchairs in a corner of the

  wood-paneled library. The room was in a quiet corner of a Massachusetts

  Avenue mansion. The blinds were drawn to protect the centuries-old art

  from the direct rays of the early-afternoon sun. The only light came

  from a dull fire that was smoldering in the fireplace.

  The fire gave the old, wood-paneled room a faintly smoky smell.

  One of the men was tall, stout, and casually dressed with thinning gray

  hair and a lean face. He was drinking black coffee from a blue Camp

  David mug while he studied a single sheet of paper resting in a green

  folder.

  The other individual, seated across from him with his back to the

  bookcase, was a short bulldog of a man with a three-piece gray suit and

  buzz-cut red hair. He was holding an empty shot glass that, moments

  before, had been brimming with scotch. His legs were crossed, his foot

  was dancing nervously, and his cheek and chin bore the nicks of a quick,

  unsatisfactory shave.

  The taller man shut the folder and smiled.

  "These are wonderful comments. Just perfect."

  "Thank you," said the red-haired man.

  "Jen's a very good writer." He shifted slowly, uncrossing his legs. He

  leaned forward, causing the leather seat to groan.

  "Along with this afternoon's briefing, this is really going to

  accelerate matters. You know that, don't you?"

  "Of course," the taller man said. He put his coffee mug on a small

  table, rose, and walked to the fireplace.

  He picked up a poker.

  "Does that scare you?"

  "A little," the red-haired man admitted.

  "Why?" the taller man asked as he threw the folder into the flames. It

  caught fire quickly.

  "Our tracks are covered."

  "It's not us I'm worried about. There will be a price," the red-haired

  man said sadly.

  "We've discussed this before," the taller man said.

  "Wall Street will love it. The people will recover. And any foreign

  powers that try to take advantage of the situation will wish they
<
br />   hadn't." He jabbed the burning folder.

  "Jack ran the psychological profiles. We know where all the potential

  trouble spots are. The only one who's going to be hurt is the man who

  created the problem.

  And he'll recover. Hell, he'll do better than recover.

  He'll write books, give speeches, make millions."

  The taller man's words sounded cold, though the redhaired man knew they

  weren't. He had known the other man for nearly thirty-five years, ever

  since they served together in Vietnam. They fought side by side in Hue

  during the Tet offensive, holding an ammunition depot after the rest of

  the platoon had been killed. They both loved their country

  passionately, and what they were doing was a measure of that deep, deep

  love.

  "What's the news from Azerbaijan?" the taller man asked.

  "Everyone's in place." The red-haired man looked at his watch.

  "They'll be eyeballing the target close-up, showing the man what he has

  to do. We don't expect the next report for another seven hours or so."

  The taller man nodded. There was a short silence broken" only by the

  crackling of the burning folder.

  The red-haired man sighed, put his glass on the table, and rose.

  "You've got to get ready for the briefing. Is there anything else you

  need?"

  The taller man stabbed the ashes, destroying them.

  Then he replaced the poker and faced the red-haired man.

  "Yes," he said.

  "I need you to relax. There's only one thing we have to fear."

  The red-haired man smiled knowingly.

  "Fear itself."

  "No," said the other.

  "Panic and doubt. We know what we want, and we know how to get there.

  If we stay calm and sure, we've got it."

  The red-haired man nodded. Then he picked up the leather briefcase from

  beside the chair.

  "What was it that Benjamin Franklin said? That revolution is always

  legal in the first person, as in 'our' revolution. It's only illegal in

  the third person, as in 'their' revolution."

  "I never heard that," said the taller man.

  "It's nice."

  The red-haired man smiled.

  "I keep telling myself that what we're doing is the same thing the

  founding fathers did. Trading a bad form of government for a better

  one."

  "That's correct," the other man said.

  "Now, what I want you to do is go home, relax, and watch a football

  game. Stop worrying. It's all going to work out."

  "I wish I could be as confident."

  "Wasn't it Franklin who also said, "In this world nothing can be said to

  be certain, except death and taxes'?

  We've done the best we can, and we've done everything we can. We have

  to put our trust in that."

  The red-haired man nodded.

  They shook hands, and the shorter man left.

  A young aide was working at a large, mahogany desk outside the library.

  She smiled up at the red-haired man as he strode down the long, wide,

  carpeted corridor toward the outside door.

  He believed that this would work out. He truly did.

  What he didn't believe was that the repercussions would be so easy to

  control.

  Not that it matters, he thought as a security guard opened the door for

  him and he stepped into the sunlight.

  He pulled sunglasses from his shirt pocket and slipped them on. This

  has to be done, and it has to be done now.

  As he walked down the paved drive to his car, the red-haired man held

  tight to the notion that the founding fathers had committed what many

  considered to be treasonous acts when they forged this nation. He also

  thought of Jefferson Davis and the Southern leaders who formed the

  Confederacy to protest what they considered repression. What he and his

  people were doing now was neither unprecedented nor immoral.

  But it was dangerous, not just for themselves but for the nation. And

  that, more than anything, would continue to scare the hell out of him

  until the country was firmly under their control.

  fiaAu. Azerbaijan Sunday, 11:33 p.m.

  David Battat looked impatiently at his watch. They were over three

  minutes late. Which is nothing to be concerned about, the short, agile

  American told himself.

  A thousand things could have held them up, but they would be here. They

  would come by launch or motorboat, possibly from another boat, possibly

  from the wharf four hundred yards to his right. But they would arrive.

  They had better, he thought. He couldn't afford to screw up twice. Not

  that the first mistake had been his fault.

  The forty-three-year-old Battat was the director of the Central

  Intelligence Agency's small New York field office, which was located

  across the street from the United Nations building. Battat and his

  small team were responsible for electronic SOS activities: spying on

  spies.

  Keeping track of foreign "diplomats" who used their consulates as bases

  for surveillance and intelligence gathering activities. Battat also had

  been responsible for overseeing the activities of junior agent Annabelle

  Hampton.

  Ten days before, Battat had come to the American embassy in Moscow. The

  CIA was running tests in the communications center on an uplink with a

  new highgain acoustic satellite. If the satellite worked on the

  Kremlin, the CIA planned on using it in New York to eavesdrop more

  efficiently on foreign consulates. While Battat was in Moscow, however,

  Annabelle helped a group of terrorists infiltrate the United Nations.

  What made it especially painful was that the young woman did it for pay,

  not principle. Battat could respect a misguided idealist. He could not

  respect a common hustler.

  Though Battat had not been blamed officially for what Annabelle did, he

  was the one who had run the background check on her. He was the one who

  had hired her.

  And her "seconding action," as it was officially classified, had

  happened during his watch. Psychologically and also politically, Battat

  needed to atone for that mistake. Otherwise, chances were good that he

  would get back to the United States and discover that the field agent

  who had been brought in from Washington to operate the office in his

  absence was now the permanent New York field director.

  Battat might find himself reassigned to Moscow, and he didn't want that.

  The FBI had all the ins with the black marketeers who were running

  Russia and the Bureau didn't like to share information or contacts with

  the CIA. There wouldn't be anything to do in Moscow but debrief bored

  aparatchiks who had nothing to say except that they missed the old days

  and could they please get a visa to anywhere west of the Danube?

  Battat looked out over the tall grasses at the dark waters of the Bay of

  Baku, which led to the Caspian Sea.

  He raised his digital camera and studied the Rachel through the

  telephoto lens. There was no activity on the deck of the sixty-one-foot

  motor yacht. A few lights were on below deck. They must be waiting. He

  lowered the camera. He wondered if the passengers were as impatient as

  he was.

  Prob
ably, he decided. Terrorists were always edgy but focused. It was

  an unusual combination, and one way that security forces zeroed in on

  potential troublemakers in crowds.

  Battat looked at his watch again. Now they were five minutes late.

  Maybe it was just as well. It gave him a chance to get a handle on the

  adrenaline, to concentrate on the job. It was difficult.

  Battat had not been in the field for nearly fifteen years.

  In the closing days of the war in Afghanistan, he had been a CIA liaison

  with the Mujahideen guerrilla fighters.

  He had reported from the front on Soviet troop strength, arms,