''Threat Vector'' is a

techno-thriller A techno-thriller or technothriller is a hybrid genre drawing from science fiction, thrillers, spy fiction, action, and war novels. They include a disproportionate amount (relative to other genres) of technical details on their subject matter ( ...

novel, written by

Tom Clancy Thomas Leo Clancy Jr. (April 12, 1947 – October 1, 2013) was an American novelist. He is best known for his technically detailed espionage and military-science storylines set during and after the Cold War. Seventeen of his novels have ...

and co-written with

Mark Greaney Mark Greaney (born 23 June 1980) is an Irish musician. He is best known as the singer and guitarist in the alternative rock band JJ72, which he fronted from 1996 until 2006. He was later the frontman of Concerto for Constantine and describes ...

, and published on December 4, 2012. A direct sequel to '' Locked On'' (2011), President Jack Ryan and The Campus must prevent a Chinese

expansionist Expansionism refers to states obtaining greater territory through military empire-building or colonialism. In the classical age of conquest moral justification for territorial expansion at the direct expense of another established polity (who of ...

government from enacting war in the

South China Sea The South China Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean. It is bounded in the north by the shores of South China (hence the name), in the west by the Indochinese Peninsula, in the east by the islands of Taiwan and northwestern Phi ...

. The book debuted at number one on

the New York Times bestseller list ''The New York Times'' Best Seller list is widely considered the preeminent list of best-selling books in the United States. John Bear, ''The #1 New York Times Best Seller: intriguing facts about the 484 books that have been #1 New York Times ...

Plot summary

Chinese leader Wei Zhen Lin has been dealing with mounting political opposition over his country's economic recession. He tries to commit suicide in order to avoid his inevitable arrest when he is prevented by General Su Ke Qiang, the leader of the People's Liberation Army (PLA). Aware that his life now depends on the

hawkish In politics, a war hawk, or simply hawk, is someone who favors war or continuing to escalate an existing conflict as opposed to other solutions. War hawks are the opposite of doves. The terms are derived by analogy with the birds of the same name ...

military leader, Wei resolves to recoup his country's economic losses by retaking disputed territories in the

by military force, as well as

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

Macau Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a p ...

, and finally

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

. Expecting the United States to react to China's actions militarily, Su secretly orders

cyberattacks A cyberattack is any offensive maneuver that targets computer information systems, computer networks, infrastructures, or personal computer devices. An attacker is a person or process that attempts to access data, functions, or other restricted ...

on the country’s military infrastructure through

sub rosa ''Sub rosa'' (New Latin for "under the rose") denotes secrecy or confidentiality. The rose has an ancient history as a symbol of secrecy. History In Hellenistic and later Roman mythology, roses were associated with secrecy because Cupid ga ...

cyber espionage Cyber may refer to: Computing and the Internet * ''Cyber-'', from cybernetics, a transdisciplinary approach for exploring regulatory and purposive systems Crime and security * Cyber crime, crime that involves computers and networks ** Conventio ...

and

cyber warfare Cyberwarfare is the use of cyber attacks against an enemy state, causing comparable harm to actual warfare and/or disrupting vital computer systems. Some intended outcomes could be espionage, sabotage, propaganda, manipulation or economic wa ...

militia Ghost Ship and its head, Dr. Tong Kwok Kwan. The

Chinese Navy The People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN; ), also known as the People's Navy, Chinese Navy, or PLA Navy, is the maritime service branch of the People's Liberation Army. The PLAN traces its lineage to naval units fighting during the Chine ...

then aggressively harasses and sinks ships passing through the South China Sea, including an

Indian Indian or Indians may refer to: Peoples South Asia * Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor ** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country * South Asia ...

aircraft carrier (sent there by India to protect its own interests). U.S. President Jack Ryan tries to resolve the conflict by covertly sending in a contingent of Marine fighter pilots in order to reinforce the

Taiwanese Air Force The Republic of China Air Force, retroactively known by its historical name the Chinese Air Force and unofficially referred to as the Taiwanese Air Force, is the military aviation branch of the Republic of China Armed Forces, currently based i ...

. However, Su discovers this and further sanctions more cyber attacks on the U.S. Meanwhile, The Campus deals with a breach in their organization when a hit job on a cell of former Libyan intelligence officers in

Istanbul ) , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = 34000 to 34990 , area_code = +90 212 (European side) +90 216 (Asian side) , registration_plate = 34 , blank_name_sec2 = GeoTLD , blank_i ...

attracts the attention of a mysterious hacker codenamed Center, who is later revealed to be Dr. Tong. They later find out about one of his associates, Zha Shu Hai (codenamed FastByte22), who is a fugitive from the United States and is pursued by

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

non-official cover In espionage, operatives under non-official cover (NOC) are operatives without official ties to the government for which they work who assume covert roles in organizations. This is in contrast to an operative with official cover, where they ass ...

operative Adam Yao in Hong Kong. While a

SEAL Team Six The Naval Special Warfare Development Group (NSWDG), abbreviated as DEVGRU ("Development Group") and commonly known as SEAL Team Six, is the United States Navy component of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). The unit is often referre ...

unit sent by the

Department of Defense Department of Defence or Department of Defense may refer to: Current departments of defence * Department of Defence (Australia) * Department of National Defence (Canada) * Department of Defence (Ireland) * Department of National Defense (Philipp ...

captures Zha first after a crossfire with his

14K Triad The 14K (十四K) is a triad group based in Hong Kong but active internationally. It is the second largest triad group in the world with around 20,000 members split into thirty subgroups. They are the main rival of the Sun Yee On, which is the ...

bodyguards, Campus operatives

Jack Ryan Jr. The Ryanverse is a term for the political drama media franchise created by acclaimed author Tom Clancy centering on the character of Jack Ryan (character), Jack Ryan and the fictional universe featuring Jack and other characters, such as John Cl ...

and Domingo Chavez, as well as I.T. head Gavin Biery, manage to gather intelligence from his hand-held computer, locating one of Center's command servers in

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...

. Ryan and fellow Campus operative Dominic Caruso try to go there against orders from operations head Sam Granger, only to be nearly killed by Russian mobsters sent by Center. After dispatching their would-be attackers and hastily escaping from Miami, the cousins are suspended from their duties. Upon hearing news about Zha, Center relocates the Ghost Ship headquarters to

Guangzhou Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong Kon ...

. He later orders his hit squad, composed of a few Chinese special operations forces, to assassinate FastByte22 in a CIA safehouse in Georgetown in order to silence him. Center then arranges for Yao to be killed by a car bomb; however, the CIA officer survives the blast and goes off the grid, investigating Center on his own. Ryan later realizes that his girlfriend and CIA analyst Melanie Kraft had bugged his phone with a

remote access trojan In computing, the term remote desktop refers to a software- or operating system feature that allows a personal computer's desktop environment to be run remotely off of one system (usually a PC, but the concept applies equally to a server or a ...

, explaining how Center knew of his whereabouts. Kraft had been blackmailed into spying on her boyfriend on behalf of corrupt

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, t ...

special agent Darren Lipton under orders from Center. While tailing Kraft on her way to work, Ryan witnesses and later intervenes on an attempt by Center's hit squad to assassinate her. After calling in retired Campus operative John Clark to take care of Kraft, he leaves for Hong Kong to find Yao. Center orders his hit squad to attack The Campus's headquarters in order to erase all their intelligence on Ghost Ship, killing Granger in the process. Clark and Kraft later intervene in the attack, killing all but two of the operatives. They also capture ex- SVR officer Valentin Kovalenko, who was unwittingly working for Center at the time. In China, Ryan tracks down Yao, who had discovered the location of the Ghost Ship headquarters in Guangzhou. After he informs his father, the building is later destroyed in a coordinated airstrike by American fighter jets, killing Center and his colleagues. The two then flee to Hong Kong and rescue a Marine pilot who was shot down during the strike. Meanwhile, realizing that Su has been manipulating him for his own gain, Wei intentionally leaks his whereabouts during a phone call with President Ryan, who interprets it as an implicit plea to assassinate the military leader and passes this information to The Campus. Clark then travels to China and joins Chavez, Caruso, and Sam Driscoll, who were sent earlier by director of national intelligence Mary Pat Foley to liaise with an underground faction of Chinese dissidents. Together and with assistance from Russian

foreign intelligence Intelligence assessment, or simply intel, is the development of behavior forecasts or recommended courses of action to the leadership of an organisation, based on wide ranges of available overt and covert information (intelligence). Assessments d ...

, they manage to ambush and assassinate Chairman Su in his motorcade with few casualties. Afterwards they plant Center's two surviving operatives there as scapegoats. President Ryan addresses the nation and threatens China with blockading the

Strait of Malacca The Strait of Malacca is a narrow stretch of water, 500 mi (800 km) long and from 40 to 155 mi (65–250 km) wide, between the Malay Peninsula (Peninsular Malaysia) to the northeast and the Indonesian island of Sumatra to the southwest, connec ...

, crippling their economy by starving them of their oil supplies unless they cease military activity around the

. Once again cornered, Wei tries to commit suicide for a second time but ends up choking on his own blood. Meanwhile, Ryan and Kraft decide to break up due to their trust issues. The latter decides to resign from the CIA due to lying to the

polygraph A polygraph, often incorrectly referred to as a lie detector test, is a device or procedure that measures and records several physiological indicators such as blood pressure, pulse, respiration, and skin conductivity while a person is asked ...

about her father being an unwitting asset for Egyptian intelligence.

Characters

United States government

* Jack Ryan:

President of the United States The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States ...

* Arnold van Damm: President Ryan's Chief of Staff * Robert Burgess: Secretary of Defense * Scott Adler: Secretary of State * Mary Patricia Foley: Director of national intelligence * Colleen Hurst:

National Security Advisor A national security advisor serves as the chief advisor to a national government on matters of security. The advisor is not usually a member of the government's cabinet but is usually a member of various military or security councils. National sec ...

* Jay Canfield: Director of the

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

* Kenneth Li: U.S. Ambassador to China * Adam Yao: Operations officer,

National Clandestine Service The Directorate of Operations (DO), less formally called the Clandestine Service,Central Intelligence AgencyCareers & Internships Retrieved: July 9, 2015. is a component of the US Central Intelligence Agency. It was known as the ''Directorate o ...

, Central Intelligence Agency * Melanie Kraft: Reports officer, Central Intelligence Agency (on loan to Office of the Director of National Intelligence) * Darren Lipton: Senior special agent,

Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...

National Security Branch The National Security Branch (NSB) is a service within the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The NSB is responsible for protecting the United States from weapons of mass destruction, acts of terrorism, and foreign intelligence operations and e ...

, Counterintelligence Division

United States military

* Admiral Mark Jorgensen:

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

, commander of the Pacific Fleet * General Henry Bloom:

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Aerial warfare, air military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part ...

, commander of

United States Cyber Command United States Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) is one of the eleven unified combatant commands of the United States Department of Defense (DoD). It unifies the direction of cyberspace operations, strengthens DoD cyberspace capabilities, and integr ...

* Captain Brandon "Trash" White:

United States Marine Corps The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through combi ...

F/A-18C The McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet is an all-weather, twinjet, twin-engine, supersonic aircraft, supersonic, carrier-based aircraft, carrier-capable, Multirole combat aircraft, multirole combat aircraft, designed as both a Fighter aircraft, ...

Hornet pilot * Major Scott "Cheese" Stilton: United States Marine Corps,

Hornet pilot * Chief Petty Officer Michael Meyer:

element leader

The Campus

* Gerry Hendley: Director of Hendley Associates / The Campus * Sam Granger: Director of operations * John Clark: Operations officer * Domingo "Ding" Chavez: Operations officer * Dominic Caruso: Operations officer * Sam Driscoll: Operations officer *

: Operations officer / analyst * Rick Bell: Director of analysis * Tony Wills: Analyst * Gavin Biery: Director of information technology

The Chinese

* Wei Zhen Lin: China's Paramount leader /

General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party The general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party () is the head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Since 1989, the CCP general secretary has been the paramount leader ...

* Su Ke Qiang: Chairman of the Central Military Commission of China * Wu Fan Jun: Intelligence officer, Ministry of State Security,

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...

* Dr. Tong Kwok Kwan ("Center"): Computer network operations director of Ghost Ship * Zha Shu Hai ("FastByte22"):

Interpol The International Criminal Police Organization (ICPO; french: link=no, Organisation internationale de police criminelle), commonly known as Interpol ( , ), is an international organization that facilitates worldwide police cooperation and cri ...

-wanted cybercriminal * Crane: Leader of "Vancouver Cell" / Divine Sword * Han: Factory owner and high-tech counterfeiter

Other characters

* Valentin Olegovich Kovalenko: Ex- SVR (Russian foreign intelligence) assistant ''

rezident A resident spy in the world of espionage is an agent operating within a foreign country for extended periods of time. A base of operations within a foreign country with which a resident spy may liaise is known as a "station" in English and a (, 're ...

'' of London Station * Todd Wicks: Territory sales manager of Advantage Technology Solutions * Charlie "DarkGod" Levy: Amateur hacker * Dr. Cathy Ryan: First Lady of the United States * Sandy Clark: Wife of John Clark * Dr. Patsy Clark: Wife of Domingo Chavez / daughter of John Clark * Emad Kartal: Ex-Libyan intelligence officer, communications specialist

Reception

Commercial

The book debuted at number one on the New York Times bestseller list for the week of December 23, 2012. In addition, it charted at number three on ''

USA Today ''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgi ...

s Best-Selling Books list. A year later, the mass-market paperback edition of the novel debuted at number four on the New York Times bestseller list for the week of December 22, 2013.

Critical

The book received generally positive reviews. Threat Vector benefited greatly from the collaboration with author Mark Greaney. Kirkus Reviews praised the book as "a satisfying thriller" where "Clancy’s writing has shed some of its erstwhile woodenness" and "doesn't read a technical manual, which is all to the good".

Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of ...

hailed the "highly readable if workmanlike techno-thriller", concluding: "Clancy fans will welcome all the high-tech data as well as heroes who can single-handedly take out whole teams of bad guys." The book was nominated for Best Mystery & Thriller during the

Goodreads Goodreads is an American social cataloging website and a subsidiary of Amazon that allows individuals to search its database of books, annotations, quotes, and reviews. Users can sign up and register books to generate library catalogs and read ...

Choice Awards of 2013, but lost to the novel ''

Inferno Inferno may refer to: * Hell, an afterlife place of suffering * Conflagration, a large uncontrolled fire Film * ''L'Inferno'', a 1911 Italian film * Inferno (1953 film), ''Inferno'' (1953 film), a film noir by Roy Ward Baker * Inferno (1973 fi ...

'' by

Dan Brown Daniel Gerhard Brown (born June 22, 1964) is an American author best known for his thriller novels, including the Robert Langdon novels ''Angels & Demons'' (2000), '' The Da Vinci Code'' (2003), ''The Lost Symbol'' (2009), '' Inferno'' (2013), ...

References

{{Jack Ryan fiction 2012 American novels American thriller novels Techno-thriller novels Novels by Tom Clancy Ryanverse Novels set in China Novels set in Hong Kong Novels set in Taiwan Novels set in Pakistan Novels set in Miami Works about the United States Marine Corps G. P. Putnam's Sons books Michael Joseph books