Tom Clancy Code of Honor

A little more than thirty years ago, Tom Clancy was a Maryland insurance broker with a passion for naval history. Years before, he had been an English major at Baltimore's Loyola College and had always dreamed of writing a novel. His first effort, The Hunt for Red October, sold briskly as a result of rave reviews, then catapulted onto the New York Times bestseller list after President Reagan pronounced it "the perfect yarn." From that day forward, Clancy established himself as an undisputed master at blending exceptional realism and authenticity, intricate plotting, and razor-sharp suspense. He passed away in October 2013.

A native of Texas, Marc Cameron spent twenty-nine years in law enforcement. He served as a uniformed police officer, mounted (horse patrol) officer, SWAT officer, and a U.S. Marshal. Cameron is conversant in Japanese, and travels extensively, researching his New York Times bestselling Jericho Quinn novels. Cameron's books have been nominated for both the Barry Award and the Thriller Award.

1

Had the young woman at the bar been slightly more attractive, Geoff Noonan might have smelled a trap.

"Know your number." That's what they said. Oh, he knew his number, all right, and this was going to work out just fine . . .

The security goons at work were jealous of everyone else's travel, relying on acronyms, spooky statistics, and stupid rules like that "know your number" bullshit at every single meeting. These destroyers of joy gleefully pointed out that a five in Plymouth was still a five in Phuket or Phnom Penh-or anywhere else, for that matter. They liked to remind everyone that eights and nines didn't magically try to hook up with a five. Ever. If the situation was too good to be true, it was a setup. Noonan was an engineer, a software designer, smart enough to know the knuckle-dragging goons were right, mostly. But sometimes . . . Sometimes the circumstances indicated otherwise. Sometimes a hot girl didn't realize she was a hot girl, especially if she was just hot enough.

Noonan watched the Indonesian beauty at the bar curl her toes on the crossbar of the stool, like a cat might flick the tip of its tail back and forth to rid itself of excess energy. This was good, all right, but not too good. Was it? Nah. It's not like she was an eight or anything.

The Magma Lounge at the Hilton in Bandung, Indonesia, had oversized leather couches that swallowed people up, especially if they had short legs, which Noonan did. Mired in impossibly soft cushions, he didn't think about his wife, his two kids, the baby on the way, or his wife's father, who was a federal judge in Hartford. The danger level of his actions and the consequences of an affair should have made him think twice before he asked this woman to join him, but they never entered his mind. He was preoccupied with how to stand up without looking like an ass when the time came.

The girl at the bar was good-looking enough for Noonan's taste, though not so handsome as to set off alarm bells. It was doubtful he would have heard them in any case. His pastor at the First Congregational Church in Beacon Hill had pointed out during a recent marriage counseling session that Geoff appeared to lack the capacity for what he called pre-transgression guilt-that little tickle in the back of the neck that warned most people away from bad behavior before they engaged in it. Noonan had a conscience. It just took a while to kick in. Moments after, whatever the deed, Noonan always found himself wallowing in guilt. He just couldn't seem to remember that feeling prior to any action, and that inability kept him in constant trouble.

He caught the girl's eye again.

For now, trouble was looking pretty damned sweet.

Her honeyed complexion and flawless features suggested she was Sundanese, the most prevalent ethnicity in Bandung-and West Java, for that matter. Sundanese were often said by Indonesians to be the most attractive people in their country. Hard to argue, though Noonan had to admit he hadn't seen many ugly girls since he and his bosses had arrived in Jakarta for the computer gaming trade show five days earlier. Bandung was even better-and worse, but mostly better.

Blue eyes and straw accents in the girl's dark hair suggested she had more than a few Dutch branches in her family tree-a remnant from Dutch East India plantations that had raised tea and cinchona, from which quinine was still derived. A skintight fire-engine-red dress had a heart-shaped neckline below her collarbones. The sultry, fist-size swell of visible cleavage provided a sexy counterpoint to the nervous way she curled the toes of one dainty foot and dangled a shoe off the end of the other.

Noonan scooted forward on the deep cushions to take his third dirty martini of the evening from the waiter. He held the glass