Shadow of the Dragon Read online

  ALSO BY TOM CLANCY

  FICTION

  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

  Dead or Alive (with Grant Blackwood)

  Against All Enemies (with Peter Telep)

  Locked On (with Mark Greaney)

  Threat Vector (with Mark Greaney)

  Command Authority (with Mark Greaney)

  Tom Clancy Support and Defend (by Mark Greaney)

  Tom Clancy Full Force and Effect (by Mark Greaney)

  Tom Clancy Under Fire (by Grant Blackwood)

  Tom Clancy Commander in Chief (by Mark Greaney)

  Tom Clancy Duty and Honor (by Grant Blackwood)

  Tom Clancy True Faith and Allegiance (by Mark Greaney)

  Tom Clancy Point of Contact (by Mike Maden)

  Tom Clancy Power and Empire (by Marc Cameron)

  Tom Clancy Line of Sight (by Mike Maden)

  Tom Clancy Oath of Office (by Marc Cameron)

  Tom Clancy Enemy Contact (by Mike Maden)

  Tom Clancy Code of Honor (by Marc Cameron)

  Tom Clancy Firing Point (by Mike Maden)

  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

  with General Fred Franks, Jr. (Ret.), and Tony Koltz

  Every Man a Tiger: The Gulf War Air Campaign

  with General Chuck Horner (Ret.) and Tony Koltz

  Shadow Warriors: Inside the Special Forces

  with General Carl Stiner (Ret.) and Tony Koltz

  Battle Ready

  with General Tony Zinni (Ret.) and Tony Koltz

  G. P. Putnam’s Sons

  Publishers Since 1838

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  penguinrandomhouse.com

  Copyright © 2020 by The Estate of Thomas L. Clancy, Jr.; Rubicon, Inc.;

  Jack Ryan Enterprises, Ltd.; Jack Ryan Limited Partnership

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Ebook ISBN 9780593188118

  Maps by Jeffrey L. Ward

  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, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  pid_prh_5.6.1_c0_r0

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Also by Tom Clancy

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  Principal Characters

  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

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  About the Authors

  Men who are accustomed to eat at tiny tables in howling gales have curiously neat and finished table-manners.

  Rudyard Kipling

  When two tigers fight, one is injured beyond repair . . . and the other one is dead.

  Chinese proverb

  PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS

  UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT

  Jack Ryan: President of the United States

  Arnold “Arnie” van Damm: President Ryan’s chief of staff

  Mary Pat Foley: Director of national intelligence

  Scott Adler: Secretary of state

  Robert Burgess: Secretary of defense

  Admiral John Talbot: Chief of naval operations

  Gary Montgomery: Special agent, Secret Service Presidential Protection Detail

  Jay Canfield: Director of the Central Intelligence Agency

  Robbie Forestall: Commander of the United States Navy, adviser to President Ryan

  THE CAMPUS

  Gerry Hendley: Director of The Campus and Hendley Associates

  John Clark: Director of operations

  Domingo “Ding” Chavez: Assistant director of operations

  Jack Ryan, Jr.: Operations officer/senior analyst

  Dominic “Dom” Caruso: Operations officer

  Adara Sherman: Operations officer

  Bartosz “Midas” Jankowski: Operations officer

  Gavin Biery: Director of information technology

  Lisanne Robertson: Director of transportation

  OTHER CHARACTERS

  Dr. Caroline “Cathy” Ryan: First Lady of the United States

  Adam Yao: CIA case officer (NOC)

  Dr. Patti Moon: Scientist on light icebreaker R/V Sikuliaq

  Kelli Symonds: First officer, R/V Sikuliaq

  Chief Petty Officer Shad Barker: Sonar technician, USS John Paul Jones

  China

  Liu Wangshu: Engineering professor

  Medina Tohti: Uyghur woman, fugi
tive from PRC authorities

  Hala Tohti: Medina’s daughter

  Zulfira Azizi: Medina’s sister; Hala’s aunt

  Timur Samedi: Kashgar contact

  Yunus Samedi: Kashgar contact

  Ren Shuren: Major, Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps

  Ren Zhelan: Chinese assistant bureaucrat, Kashgar Medina

  Mr. Suo: Chinese bureaucrat, Kashgar

  Ma “Mamut” Jianyu: Leader of the Wuming movement; Uyghur mother, Han father

  Zheng Guiying: PLAN admiral in charge of naval intelligence

  Fu Bohai: Zheng’s henchman and primary hunter of Medina

  Qiu: Fu Bohai’s assistant

  PLAN Yuan-class attack submarine Expedition #771 (Blue Dragon)

  Sun Luoyang: Captain

  Bai Jiahao: Commander, XO (Executive Officer)

  PLAN Nuclear SSBN 880 (Long March)

  Tian Ju: Captain

  Wan Xiuying: Commander, XO (Executive Officer)

  USS Indiana (SSN 789) Virginia-class fast-attack submarine

  Cole Condiff: Captain

  Lowdermilk: Lieutenant, officer of the deck

  Markette: Petty officer, sonar technician

  Ramirez: New crew member

  Roosevelt “Rosey” Jackson: Captain, USS Makin Island; nephew of former POTUS Robert Jackson

  Jay Rapoza: Captain, USCG icebreaker Healy

  ELISE

  Monica Hendricks: CIA operations officer in charge of ELISE

  Peter Li: Retired USN admiral

  David Wallace: FBI counterintelligence agent assigned to ELISE

  Odette Miller: CIA counterintelligence officer

  Tim Meyer: CIA case officer

  Albania

  Leigh Murphy: CIA case officer, Tirana

  Fredrick Rask: CIA chief of station, Tirana

  Vlora Cafaro: CIA case officer, Tirana

  Joey Shoop: CIA officer, Tirana

  Urkesh Beg: Uyghur refugee living in asylum in Albania

  Terms

  ELISE: Operation to find Chinese mole within U.S. intelligence

  PLAN: People’s Liberation Army Navy

  Bingtuan: “The Corps,” short for Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps

  1

  Dr. Patti Moon sat bolt upright in her plastic deck chair, startled at the sudden noise coming across her headset.

  The biting wind blowing off the Chukchi Sea didn’t realize it was spring and pinked her round cheeks and smallish nose. Apart from her hands, which she needed to work the Toughbook portable computer, her face was the only part of her not bundled in layers of wool or fleece. Dr. Moon leaned toward the folding table, situated on the afterdeck of the research vessel Sikuliaq, straining to hear the noise again. Sikuliaq was Inupiaq for young ice—appropriate for a science vessel capable of traveling through more than two feet of the stuff.

  They were in open water now, taking advantage of a large lead, more than a mile wide, to set some research buoys before the wind blew the ice pack back in.

  Moon touched a finger to her headset as if that would help her make more sense of the sudden burst of sound. A former sonar technician on a Navy destroyer, she’d listened to a lot of noises from the deep, but nothing like this.

  She sat up again, shook away a chill, telling herself it was just the wind.

  The scientist slouching beside her turned to look at her with sleepy eyes that dripped barely veiled contempt. She didn’t take offense. He looked at everyone and everything on the boat that way. Steven “Snopes” Thorson had spent his entire adult life in the world of academia. He knew he was smart—and he liked to make sure everyone around him knew it, too, fact-checking everything anyone said—especially his colleague and fellow Ph.D., Patti Moon.

  Her academic bona fides were stellar—but she’d also had the experience of a life growing up in the Arctic, which apparently burned Dr. Thorson worse than the bitter wind.

  Moon spent her first seventeen years in the tiny coastal village of Point Hope, Alaska, just four hundred miles south of where the Sikuliaq now motored to stay hove-to against the wind. She’d been in Anchorage for a high school basketball tournament when the USS Momsen, an Arleigh Burke–class destroyer, stopped for a port call. A female sailor had come ashore with the skipper—and that changed her life. No one pressured her to enlist—they didn’t have to. She’d grown up on the ocean, fishing and seal-hunting with her father. The sea was in her blood, and though she wasn’t sure how she felt about the U.S. government, the beautiful gray warship off the coast of her home state was all the inducement she needed to sign on the dotted line as soon as she graduated. She served six years as a sonar technician.

  Her test scores were through the roof, and though she had a reputation for believing most every conspiracy theory she heard or read online, her sea-daddies (and -moms) pushed her to go to school when her enlistment ended. The GI Bill put her through undergrad at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, after which she’d gone on to attain a first-class graduate degree, and her doctorate in physics from Oxford.

  She was just as smart as Dr. Thorson. And frankly didn’t give two shits if he judged her for being human and touching her headset in hopes that it would make her hear better. Something was down there. A sound that didn’t belong.

  And then it was gone, yielding to the other squeals and grunts and songs of the ocean as quickly as it had arisen.

  A strand of black hair escaped her wool beanie and blew across Moon’s wind-chapped cheek. The wind had shifted, coming from the northeast now—beyond the pack ice. She ignored the cold, focusing instead on the sound she’d heard for only an instant as the hydrophone descended beneath the Sikuliaq.

  Ballpoint pens were iffy in the cold, so Dr. Moon used a pencil to record the depth and time in her notebook. She shot a quick glance at Snopes Thorson.

  “You didn’t hear that?”

  Wind fanned the ash on the end of Thorson’s cigarette, turning it bright orange—like a tiny forge. Bundled in layers of merino wool, fleece, and orange arctic bibs, it was difficult to tell much about him, except that he wasn’t very tall, and was, perhaps, very well fed. He wielded his sideways glares like weapons when he was annoyed, or, more often, when he was about to annoy someone else by fact-checking every little detail of a conversation. Thorson relished the notion of calling everyone out on the slightest error. Patti Moon made it a point to speak as little as possible around the man—not an easy thing to do when their jobs overlapped and their office was a 261-foot boat in the middle of the Arctic Ocean.

  Like Moon, Dr. Thorson was a science officer, managing the dispersal of five expendable buoys that would be sunk in the deep water six hundred miles north of the Bering Strait and eight hundred miles south of the North Pole. If there were any mysteries left on earth, they were in the sea, Moon thought. And some of the greatest mysteries of all lay here, in the Chukchi Borderland, where the relatively warmer and saltier Atlantic met the colder, fresher, and more nutrient-rich waters of the Pacific. Oh, the Navy had bathymetric charts of the seafloor, but she knew from experience that they were not entirely accurate. Hidden reefs and shoals appeared and disappeared. Some believed them to be thick clouds of sea life that rose from the depths fooling a ship’s sonar techs into thinking they were in much shallower waters.

  No matter where one stood on climate change, there was no denying that the Arctic Ocean was opening to more and more sea traffic during summer months, cutting the delivery time of fossil fuels from ports in Russia and the North Slope of Alaska to the rest of the world by as much as two-thirds. Polar nations like Russia, Canada, Denmark, and the United States were as busy as they had ever been collecting data on the Arctic. Even China had edged into the game, arguing that they were a near-polar nation and going so far as to plant a CCP flag beneath th
e ice on the seafloor. Other countries had laughed this off as a stunt, but everyone worked to enhance their own capabilities on and under the ice.

  Where there were ships of commerce, there were also ships of war.

  Dr. Moon noted the hydrophone’s depth at the time she’d first heard the noise. Two hundred and fifteen feet, but descending rapidly as the buoy and her underwater mic dropped toward the seafloors on the Kevlar cable. She adjusted the gain the old-fashioned way—by turning a knob, attempting to pick up the burst again.

  “A passing whale?” Thorson said, his cigarette bobbing between his lips. “Sound can travel 4.3 times faster in water. Whatever you heard could be miles from here.”

  “Maybe,” Moon conceded, ignoring the elementary physics lesson. She was professional enough not to rule out anything without a process. But even as she said the word, she knew that this was no whale.

  The noise had not faded, but winked out, as if a switch had been thrown—leaving the rest of the ocean chorus to continue in its absence.

  The sea was dark and cold, but it was not a quiet place. When she was only five, Patti’s father had let her come with him seal-hunting beyond the jutting spit of land that gave Point Hope its Inupiaq name of Tikigaq—forefinger. Her father had showed her how to put the handle of the wooden paddle to her ear and listen to the undersea songs of uguruq—the bearded seal—as they vibrated up from the blade he’d left submerged in the water. The wooden paddle made for a rudimentary listening device, but she was able to hear the occasional song of a bowhead whale, bearded seals, and the ever-moving pack ice that shrieked and squealed like a badly fitting lid on a Styrofoam cooler. Later, during her time in the Navy, she’d learned that fish grunted, croaked, farted, and ground their teeth.

  “Pack ice?” Thorson offered. Sullen, but wanting to guess correctly before she did.

  She shook her head. “I’d still be hearing it if it was ice. No . . . it’s gone dark, whatever it is.”

  Moon listened to the relatively dull burble of water as the science buoy continued to plummet toward the seafloor, taking the hydrophone with it. She stretched, glancing out at the sea. Calm today for this part of the world, the Arctic churned and swirled, looking like blue Gatorade and crushed ice—the good stuff, the kind you get from a drive-in.