Full Force and Effect
Full Force and Effect is a Jack Ryan novel , written by series co-author Mark Greaney. It was released on December 2, 2014. In the Ryanverse series it is preceded by Support and Defend and is followed by Under Fire.
Publisher's Summary
A North Korean ICBM crashes into the Sea of Japan. A veteran CIA officer is murdered in Ho Chi Minh City, and a package of forged documents goes missing. The pieces are there, but assembling the puzzle will cost Jack Ryan, Jr. and his fellow Campus agents precious time. Time they don’t have.
The challenge facing President Jack Ryan is an old one with a terrifying new twist. The international stalemate with North Korea continues into its seventh decade. A young, untested dictator is determined to prove his strength by breaking the deadlock. Like his father before him, he hangs his plans on the country’s nuclear ambitions. Until now, that program was impeded by a lack of resources. However, there has been a dramatic change in the nation’s economic fortune. A rich deposit of valuable minerals have been found in the Hermit Kingdom. Coupled with their nuclear capabilities, the money from this find will make North Korea a dangerous force on the world stage.
There’s just one more step needed to complete this perfect plan…the elimination of the president of the United States.
Plot
Choi Ji-hoon is the Supreme Leader of North Korea. He has become frustrated with the sanctions the other world powers have put in place against his country and is eager to be seen as an equal player on the world stage. He believes that fast-tracking North Korea’s nuclear weapons program is the way to do this. Therefore he sets a mandate for his foreign intelligence chief, Lieutenant General Ri Tai-jin: develop the means to launch nuclear missiles that will reach the United States of America in three years’ time.
General Ri works out a plot with the director of the Korea Natural Resources Trading Corporation, Hwang Min-ho, to jump-start the country’s rare earth mineral mining industry, and use the proceeds to fund the nuclear weapons program. Together they proposition Mexican mining mogul Oscar Roblas de Mota, who agrees to invest in North Korea’s mining operation and facilitate the acquisition of the necessary equipment and skilled labor. He in turn hires Duke Sharps, head of Sharps Global Intelligence Partners, an American-based firm specializing in corporate espionage and investigations, to do the hands-on part of the work.
Colin Hazelton, an employee of Sharps, is in Ho Chi Minh City to meet another Sharps employee for a hand off. Hazelton is under surveillance by Jack Ryan, Jr. and the other operators of The Campus. Hazelton has forged documentation that will enable skilled labor to enter North Korea and work at the mining operation. The woman meeting him is Veronika Martel. He tells Martel that now that he realizes that the work is being done in the interests of North Korea, he has had a change of heart and refuses to hand over the documentation. Hazelton leaves the meeting and The Campus men follow him. They realize that Hazelton is also being shadowed by a group of men on motorcycles. Though The Campus men try to prevent it, the men on motorcycles kill Hazelton and take the forged documents. Just before Hazelton dies, he manages to scribble a note with the words “Skala” and “DPRK”, the abbreviation for Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, on it. Martel has gathered a group of Australian geologists at a safe house. The men on motorcycles, North Korean agents, deliver the forged documents to Martel. The geologists are being staged to travel to North Korea to work at the mining operation.
In Washington D.C., President Jack Ryan is meeting with his national security leaders. They are discussing the results of the latest missile test in North Korea. To the director of national intelligence Mary Pat Foley he laments that they do not have better intelligence on what is happening inside of North Korea. Meanwhile the analysts at The Campus deduce that the name Skala is actually Karel Skala, a forger in the Czech Republic. They decide that Jack Ryan, Jr., Dominic Caruso and Gavin Biery will go to Prague to check into the forger, while John Clark, Sam Driscoll and Domingo Chavez will go to New York to check into Sharps’ firm.
A Liberian cargo ship called the Emerald Endeavor is found by the USS Freedom sailing from the Philippines toward North Korea with its Automatic Identification System disabled, a violation of maritime law. The Freedom dispatches Echo Platoon from SEAL Team Five to board the ship and secure its cargo. They find parts for an intercontinental ballistic missile similar in design to the missile North Korea recently test-fired, which is a violation of UN resolutions.
Choi Ji-hoon meets with General Ri to discuss the seizure of the missile parts. Choi has decided that President Ryan in particular is an obstacle to his plans and orders General Ri to orchestrate the “elimination” of this problem, implying assassination. Meanwhile, President Ryan meets with his security advisors to discuss next steps to address North Korea. It is decided that they will push for further sanctions in the UN. Jack Ryan, Jr., Dominic Caruso, and Gavin Biery track down Skala at his apartment in Prague, where he has been hiding out from the North Koreans. They had recently threatened him to forge more documents for them. While they are making preparations to flee with Skala, a team of North Korean agents storm the apartment. The Campus operators survive the attack but Skala is killed.
CIA officer Adam Yao is recalled from Singapore to Washington, D.C. Mary Pat Foley explains to him that the US needs to place someone in North Korea at the mining operation to gather more intelligence about it and Yao accepts the mission. His cover will be that of a skilled worker. The CIA have arranged for there to be communications equipment in place at the mine for him to send and receive messages covertly.
General Ri reviews President Ryan’s travel plans and decides that the President’s upcoming trip to Mexico is a good time to attempt an assassination. He coordinates the plan with an Iranian bomb maker named Zarif and the Maldonado criminal organization in Mexico.
Edward Riley, an employee of Sharps, is in the process of finding, intimidating, blackmailing and bribing the UN officials that will be part of the procedural vote that determines whether or not more sanctions will be imposed against North Korea. He meets with the official from Chile, a woman named Marleni Allende who has had financial problems, with the intent to bribe her to get her to vote in North Korea’s favor during the upcoming UN procedural vote. At the meeting she lets Riley know that she is actually going to refuse the bribe: her conscience has won out over her money concerns. The team from The Campus (including Caruso who has now joined the team in New York) is watching the meeting, and as Allende leaves they notice that a group of men, probably North Koreans, are following her. Caruso and Chavez catch up to her and there is a confrontation between them and the North Koreans in the subway. They keep the North Koreans occupied while Allende escapes, then the standoff ends with Caruso and Chavez killing the North Koreans.
Back at Campus headquarters, Biery has been looking into people coming and going at Sharps headquarters. He has found that a woman seen at Sharps is a forger, and she recently created some credentials for the woman they saw meeting Hazelton in Ho Chi Minh city. She is at a rare earth refinery in California under the name of Elise Legrande, supposedly monitoring the use of mining equipment.
Jack Ryan, Jr., Chavez and Clark fly to Las Vegas. Their plan is for Ryan to go to the refinery, posing as an investor. He will attempt to get close to the woman and find out who she is and what she is doing there. At the refinery Ryan and the woman he knows as Legrande (who is really Veronika Martel) socialize. He invites her to his hotel room. While Ryan is distracting her, Caruso goes to her hotel room and begins searching it. Riley, who has been monitoring activity at her hotel room, calls Martel to inform her that her room is being searched and she immediately realizes that Ryan is duping her. Men with guns show up at Martel’s room but Caruso manages to elude them, taking Martel’s phone in the process. Adam Yao flies to China and joins a group of technicians who will be traveling to the mine in North Korea to work.
Martel travels back to New York to discuss her operation in Las Vegas with Sharps. Sam Driscoll, who has been performing surveillance on Sharps’ headquarters notices Martel and follows her. Jack Ryan, Jr. and the other Campus operators join Driscoll in New York. Ryan confronts Martel about essentially working for North Korea, asks her to leave Sharps and offers her protection. She scoffs at him and he leaves. Riley visits Martel and invites her to come work for him apart from Sharps, but when she refuses he kills her.
President Ryan arrives in Mexico for his scheduled visit. As his motorcade is en route, Zarif detonates the bomb he has placed along the route remotely. Several people in the motorcade are killed. Ryan is injured but survives. Zarif takes refuge in a safe house. General Ri sends a hit squad to the safe house to eliminate him because he doesn’t want the assassination attempt to be traced back to North Korea, but Zarif escapes. General Ri then contacts Roblas who contacts Riley. They want Riley to track down Zarif, interrogate him and then kill him. Riley agrees and flies down to Mexico. The Campus has been tracking Riley’s movements and sends a team to follow him. In Mexico, Riley meets a contact from North Korea and assembles a group of mercenaries. They abduct Zarif and take him to a secluded villa owned by Roblas. The Campus team storms the villa. They succeed in rescuing Zarif, though Riley escapes and Sam Driscoll is killed.
General Ri knows that Choi will have him and his family killed for his failure to assassinate President Ryan and obtain nuclear weapons. So while he is at home with his family at the dinner table he detonates a grenade, killing them all. Hwang knows he is in a similar predicament and reaches out to a contact in China, intending to defect. The CIA intercepts the communication and sends a message to Yao, telling him to offer Hwang a way to escape. Clark confronts Sharps about Riley, and Sharps tells Clark that he can find Riley in Thailand.
Yao makes contact with Helen Powers, who has been working at the Korean mine and has regular contact with Hwang. She arranges for them to meet, and Yao convinces them to leave, taking Hwang’s family with them. They all drive to a rendezvous point the CIA informed Yao about. A nearby US Navy ship sends drones with the ability to carry passengers to pick them up. There is room for everyone but Yao, so he has to wait for a drone to come back for him. Meanwhile North Koreans who have been looking for them all find Yao and chase him. Analysts at National Geospatial-Intelligence find Yao by analyzing satellite imagery of the area. President Ryan contacts Chinese president Ling and coordinates a rescue. The Campus operators track down Riley in Thailand. They confront him on a rooftop. Riley tries to get away and ends up falling to his death.
Characters
Trivia
- In chapter 39 it is stated that Jack Ryan, Jr., Chavez and Clark go to Las Vegas to perform surveillance on Legrande (Martel). Later in chapter 45 Caruso is there with them having a conversation. It is unclear whether Caruso was there the whole time or caught up with them in Las Vegas later.