Tom Clancy – Op Center 6 State Of Siege

There Were Footsteps In The Hall Followed By The Distinctive Phup- Phup-Phup Of An Automatic.

The Shots Were Followed By Clattering, Cries, Shouts, And More Footsteps. Then The Hall Was Silent. “Whose Side Was That?” Charlie Asked No One In Particular.

Hood Didn’t Know. He Left Sharon And Walked Toward The Door. He Crouched Low In Ease Someone Fired And Motioned For Everyone In The Room To Stand Back, Clear Of The Door. Then He Reached Up And Slowly Turned The Silver Knob. He Eased The Door Open.

There Were Four Bodies Lying In The Corridor Between The Correspondents’ Room And The Security Council.

They Belonged To Un Security Personnel.

Whoever Had Shot Them Was Gone, Though They’d Left Bloody Tracks In Their Wake. Tracks That Led To The Security Council.

Hood Experienced A Strange Flashbackcom He Felt Like Thomas Davies, A Firefighter He Used To Play Softball With In Los Angeles. One Afternoon, Davies Had Gotten A Call That His Own Home Was Burning. The Man Knew What To Do, He Knew What Was Happening, Yet He Couldn’t React. Hood Shut The Door And Walked Toward The Desks. “What Is It?” Charlie Asked.

Hood Didn’t Answer Him. He Was Trying To Get Himself Moving. “Dammit, What Happened?” Charlie Shouted. Hood Said, “Four Guards Are Dead, And Whoever Shot Them Has Gone Into The Security Council Chambers.” “My Baby,” One Of The Mothers Sobbed.

“I’m Sure They’re All Right For Now,” Hood Said. “Yeah, And You Were Sure They’d Be All Right If We Stayed In Here!” Charlie Yelled.

Charlie’s Rage Brought Hood Out Of His Shock.

“If You’d Been Outside, You’d Be Dead Now,” Hood Said. “Mr. Dillon Wouldn’t Have Let You Into The Chambers, And You’d’ve Been Killed With The Guards.” He Took A Breath To Calm Himself. Then He Slipped His Cell Phone From The Pocket Of His Blazer. He Punched In A Number. “Who Are You Calling?” Sharon Asked.

Her Husband Finished Entering The Number. He Looked At Her And Touched Her Cheek. “Someone Who Won’t Give A Shit That This Is International Territory,” He Replied. “Someone Who Can Help Us.” Ten Bethesda, Maryland Saturday, 7:48 P.M.

Mike Rodgers Was Going Through A Gary Cooper Phase. Not In His Real Life But In His Movie Life –Though At The Moment, The Two Lives Were Entirely Codependent.

Op-Center’s Forty-Five-Year-Old Former Deputy Director, Now Acting Director, Had Never Been Confused Or Insecure. He Had His Nose Broken Four Times Playing College Basketball Because He Saw The Basket And Went For It, Damning The Torpedoes-As Well As The Badgers, The Ironmen, The Thrashers, And The Other Teams He Played. When He’d Served Two Tours Of Duty In Vietnam And Commanded A Mechanized Brigade In The Gulf War, He Was Given Objectives And Had Met Them All. Every Damn One Of Them. On His First Mission With Striker, To North Korea, He’d Kept A Fanatical Officer From Nuking Japan. When He Returned From Vietnam, He’d Even Found Time To Get A Ph.D. In World History. But Now- It Wasn’t Just Paul Hood Resigning That Depressed Him, Though That Was Part Of The Problem. It Was Ironic. Two And A Half Years Ago, Rodgers Had Found It Difficult To Report To The Man–A Civilian Who Had Been Attending Fund-Raisers With Movie Stars While Rodgers Was Chasing Iraq Out Of Kuwait. But Hood Had Proven Himself A Steady, Politically Savvy Manager. Rodgers Was Going To Miss The Man And His Leadership.

Dressed In A Loose-Fitting Gray Sweat Suit And Nikes, Rodgers Shifted Carefully On The Leather Sofa. He Slumped Back Slowly. Just Two Weeks Before, He’d Been Captured By Terrorists In The Bekaa Valley In Lebanon. The Second- And Third-Degree Burns He’d Suffered During Torture Were Still Not Completely Healed. Neither Were The Internal Wounds.

Rodgers’s Gaze Had Wandered. He Looked Back At The Tv, Profound Sadness In His Light Brown Eyes. He Was Watching Vera Cruz, One Of Cooper’s Last Films. He Was Playing A Former Civil War Officer Who Went South Of The Border To Work As A Mercenary And Ended Up Embracing The Cause Of Local Revolutionaries. Strength, Dignity, And Honor-That Was Coop.

That Used To Be Mike Rodgers, He Reflected Sadly. He’d Lost More Than Some Flesh And His Freedom In Lebanon. Being Strung Up In A Cave And Burned With A Blowtorch Had Cost Him His Confidence. And Not Because He’d Been Afraid To Die.

He Believed Passionately In The Viking Code, That The Process Of Death Began With The Moment Of Birth, And That Death In Combat Was The Most Honorable Way Of Reaching One’s Inevitable End. But He Was Nearly Denied That.

Extreme Pain, Like A High Fever, Robs The Mind Of Orderliness. The Calm And Collected Torturer Becomes The Voice Of Reason And Tells The Mind Where To Touch Down. And Rodgers Was Perilously Close To That Point, To Telling The Terrorists How To Operate The Regional Op-Center They’d Captured.

That’s Why Rodgers Needed Gary Cooper. Not To Heal His Soul-He Didn’t Think That Was Possible.

He’d Seen His Breaking Point, And He Could Never Lose That Knowledge, That Awareness Of His Own Limitations. It Reminded Him Of The First Time. He Twisted His Ankle Playing Basketball And It Didn’t Heal Overnight. The Sense Of Invulnerability Was Gone Forever. A Broken Spirit Was Worse.

What Mike Rodgers Needed Now Was To Try To Prop Up The Confidence His Captors Had Taken From Him. Fortify Himself Enough To Run Op-Center Until The President Decided On A Replacement For Paul Hood. Then He Could Make Decisions About His Own Future. Rodgers Looked Back At The Tv Screen. Movies Had Always Been A Haven For Him, A Source Of Nourishment. When His Alcoholic Father Used To Punch The Bell Out Of Him-Not Just Hit But Punch, With His Yale Class Ring Young Mike Rodgers Would Get On His Bicycle, Go To The Local Movie Theater, Pay His Twenty-Five Cents, And Crawl Into A Western Or War Film Or Historical Epic. Over The Years, He Modeled His Morality, His Life, His Career After The Characters Played By John Wayne And Charlton Heston And Burt Lancaster. He Couldn’t Remember A Time When Any Of Them Came Close To Breaking Under Torture, Though. He Felt Very Alone. Coop Had Just Rescued A Mexican Girl Who Was Being Abused By Renegade Soldiers When The Cordless Phone Rang.

Rodgers Picked It Up.

“Hello?” “Mike, Thank God You’re In-Was “Paul?” “Yeah. Listen,” Hood Said. “I’m Inside The United Nations Correspondents’ Room Across From The Security Council Chambers.

Four Guards Have Just Been Gunned Down In The Corridor.” Rodgers Sat Up. “By Whom?” “I Don’t Know,” Hood Said. “But It Looks Like The People Who Did It Went Inside.” “Where’s Harleigh?” Rodgers Asked.

“She’s In There,” Hood Said. “Most Of The Members Of The Security Council And The Entire String Ensemble Were In The Chambers.” Rodgers Grabbed The Remote, Switched Off The Dvd, And Turned On Cnn. Reporters Were Live At The United Nations. It Didn’t Sound As If They Knew Much About What Was Going On. “Mike, You Know What The Security Setup Is Here,” Hood Said. “If This Is A Multinational Hostage Situation, Depending On Who The Perpetrators Are, The Un Could Argue About Jurisdiction For Hours Before They Even Address The Issue Of Getting The People Out.” “Understood,” Rodgers Said. “I’ll Call Bob And Put Him On This. Are You On Your Cell Phone?” “Yes.” “Keep Me Apprised When You Can,” Rodgers Said.

“All Right,” Hood Replied. “Mike-Was “Paul, We’re Going To Take Care Of This,” Rodgers Assured Him. “You Know There’s Usually Some Kind Of Cooling-Down Period Immediately After A Takeover. Demands Stated, Attempts To Negotiate. We Won’t Waste Any Of That Time.

You And Sharon Just Have To Try And Stay Calm.” Hood Thanked Him And Hung Up. Rodgers Turned Up The Volume On The Tv, Listening As He Rose Slowly. The Newscaster Had No Idea Who Had Driven The Van Or Why They’d Attacked The United Nations. There Had Been No Official Announcement, And No Communication From The Five People Who’d Apparently Gone Into The Security Council Chambers.

Rodgers Shut Off The Television. While The General Headed To His Bedroom To Dress, He Punched In Bob Herbert’s Mobile Phone Number.

Op-Center’s Intelligence Chief Was At Dinner With Andrea Fortelni, A Deputy Assistant Secretary Of State. Herbert Hadn’t Dated Much In The Years Since His Wife Was Killed In Beirut, But He Was A Chronic Intel Collector. Foreign Governments, His Own Government, It Didn’t Matter.

As In The Japanese Movie Rashomon–Which Was The Only Thing Besides Sushi And The Seven Samurai That Rodgers Enjoyed From Japan-There Was Rarely Any Truth In Government Affairs. Just Different Perspectives. And Professional That Herbert Was, He Liked Having As Many Perspectives As Possible.

Herbert Was Also A Man Who Was Devoted To His Friends And Coworkers. When Rodgers Called To Tell Him What Had Happened, Herbert Said He’d Be At Op-Center Within The Half Hour. Rodgers Told Him To Have Matt Stoll Come In As Well. They Might Need To Get Into Un Computers, And Matt Was A Peerless Hacker.

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