Tom Clancy Flash Point


 
 
 
 
 Also 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 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) Tom Clancy Shadow of the Dragon (by Marc Cameron) Tom Clancy Target Acquired (by Don Bentley) Tom Clancy Chain of Command (by Marc Cameron) Tom Clancy Zero Hour (by Don Bentley) Tom Clancy Red Winter (by Marc Cameron) G. P. Putnam’s Sons Publishers Since 1838 An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC penguinrandomhouse.com Copyright © 2023 by The Estate of Thomas L. Clancy, Jr.; Rubicon, Inc.; Jack Ryan Enterprises, Ltd.; and Jack Ryan Limited Partnership Penguin Random House 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 Random House to continue to publish books for every reader. Library of Congress Control Number: 2023933369 Hardcover ISBN: 9780593422786 Ebook ISBN: 9780593422793 Cover design: Eric Fuentecilla Cover images: (clouds) Evgeniyqw / Shutterstock; (flares) MyImages - Micha / Shutterstock Title page image by Anton Balazh/Shutterstock.com Adapted for ebook by Maggie Hunt 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_6.0_143576124_c0_r0 Contents Cover Also by Tom Clancy Title Page Copyright Principal Characters Prologue 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 Chapter 66 Chapter 67 Chapter 68 Chapter 69 Chapter 70 Epilogue About the Authors _143576124_ Principal Characters United States Government Jack Ryan: President of the United States Mary Pat Foley: Director of national intelligence Arnold “Arnie” van Damm: President Ryan’s chief of staff Scott Adler: Secretary of state Robert Burgess: Secretary of defense The Campus John Clark: Director of operations Domingo “Ding” Chavez: Assistant director of operations Dominic “Dom” Caruso: Operations officer Gavin Biery: Director of information technology Lisanne Robertson: Former director of transportation Jack Ryan, Jr.: Operations officer/senior analyst USS Delaware Commander Christina Dixon: Skipper Senior Chief Petty Officer Bill Davis: Sonar technician Lieutenant Commander Dan Young: Executive officer P-8 Poseidon Lieutenant Tom McGrath: Pilot-in-command Lieutenant Junior Grade Jack Stewart: Copilot Lieutenant Commander Vinnie Shorts: Naval flight officer Chinese Characters Fen Li: Chief executive officer of the HAZ Corporation Aiguo Wu: Member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China President Chen: President of the People’s Republic of China Other Characters Dr. Cathy Ryan: First Lady of the United States Isabel Yang: Potential Campus helper Master Sergeant Cary Marks: Operational Detachment Alpha 555 Sergeant First Class Jad Mustafa: Operational Detachment Alpha 555 Mario Reyes: CIA asset Prologue Vicinity of Paracel Islands South China Sea Li Jie watched as a wave broke over the bow of his ship. The green foam scoured away the paint flecking from the Dragon’s discolored deck. To Li Jie’s seasoned eye, the frothing sea was a harbinger of what was to come. An omen of both the approaching storm and the violence brewing on his vessel. Keeping his left hand on the wheel, Li Jie used his right to touch a button on the digital display mounted in the dashboard in front of him. A swirl of angry reds and oranges filled the LCD screen as the weather radar rendered the looming storm into abstract art. As predicted, the typhoon was shaping up to be a monster. But while the sea was rough going now, Li Jie planned to have his precious cargo tucked safely back in Zhanjiang Port before the worst of the storm hit. The same could not be said of the Vietnamese fishing trawler wallowing through the choppy seas two points off his bow and three hundred meters distant. “Are you certain the boat is dead in the water?” The question came from behind Li Jie, but he didn’t turn to answer. Ostensibly, this was so that he could keep his eyes on the unforgiving waves, but the raging sea was not the only danger Li Jie feared. The slip of a woman with her bone-white hair and voice as quiet as the grave terrified Li Jie in a way that