Tom Clancy – Op Center 6 State Of Siege

Barone Looked At Downer. “I’d Offer You A Bottle, But I Know You’d Refuse. You Like It Hot.

Boiling.” “Warm Beverages Are Better For You,” Downer Replied. “They Make You Sweat. Cleans The System.” “As If We Don’t Sweat Enough,” Barone Commented. “I Don’t,” Downer Said. “And It’s A Good Sensation. Makes You Feel Productive.

Alive.” “When You’re With A Lady, Sweating Is Great,” Barone Said. “In Here, It’s Self-Punishment.” “That Can Be A Good Feeling, Too,” Downer Said.

“To A Psychotic, Maybe.” Downer Grinned. “And Aren’t We, Mate?” “Enough,” Vandal Said As The Videotape Began To Play.

Downer Was A Talker, Too. In His Case, The Sound Of His Own Voice Comforted Him. He Used To Talk Himself To Sleep When He Was A Kid, Tell Himself Stories To Drown Out The Sound Of His Drunken Dockworker Father Slapping Around Whatever Cheap Woman He Was With In Their Rickety Wooden Apartment. Talking Was A Habit Downer Never Gave Up.

Barone Walked Into The Room. He Popped The Seal On His Own Water Bottle, Chugged It Down In A Long Swallow, Then Pulled Up A Chair And Sat Beside Downer. He Snatched A Graham Cracker And Chomped It Down As They All Watched The Nineteen-Inch Tv Set. He Leaned Toward Downer.

“I Don’t Like What You Said,” Barone Whispered.

“A Psychotic Is Irrational. I Am Not.” “If You Say So.” “Ah Dew, Was Barone Said, Imitating Downer, This Time With An Edge. Downer Let It Go. Unlike Barone, He Realized That He Only Needed The Man’s Skills, Not His Approval.

The Men Watched The Twenty-Minute Tape Through Once, Then Watched It Again. Before Watching It A Third Time, Vandal Joined Downer And Barone At The Rickety Table. Barone Had Gotten Himself Focused.

He Was A Former Revolutionary Who Had Helped Found The Short-Lived Consejo De Seguridad Nacional, Which Had Ousted The Corrupt President Bordaberry. His Expertise Was Explosives. Downer’s Experience Was Firearms, Rockets, And Hand-To-Hand Combat. Sazanka Flew.

Georgiev Had The Contacts To Obtain Whatever They Needed Through The Black Market, Which Was Tapped Into All The Resources Of ” The Former Soviet Union, Its Clients In The Middle And Far East, And In The United States. Georgiev Had Recently Returned From New York, Where He Spent Time Arranging For Weapons Through A Khmer Rouge Arms Supplier And Working With His Intelligence Contact, Going Over The Target Itself. All Of That Would Be Needed During The Second Part Of The Operation.

But Part Two Was Not On Their Minds Right Now. First Part One Had To Succeed. Together, The Three Men Single-Framed Through The Tape, Making Sure That The Explosion They Planned Would Get Them Through The Target Zone Without Destroying Anything Else. After Spending Four Hours On The Tape And The Rest Of The Afternoon Meeting In The Field With Vandal’s Local Contacts To Review The Truck, Helicopter, And Other Equip Ment They’d Be Using Here, The Team Ate At A Sidewalk Cafe. Then They Returned To The Room To Rest.

As Anxious As The Men Were, They All Slept.

They Had To. Tomorrow, They Would Begin To Inaugurate A New Era In International Relations.

One That Would Not Only Change The World By Calling Attention’to A Big Lie But Would Also Make Them Rich.

As Downer Lay On Top Of His Sleeping Bag, He Enjoyed The Gentle Breeze Of The Open Window. He Pictured Himself Being Somewhere Else. His Own Island, Perhaps. Maybe Even His Own Country. And He Calmed Himself By Listening To The Voice In His Head Telling Him All The Things He Could Do With His Share Of Two Hundred And Fifty Million Dollars.

Two Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland Sunday, 12:10 A.M. When He’d Ended His Tenure As The Mayor Of Los Angeles, Paul Hood Decided That Cleaning Out One’s Desk Was A Misnomer.

What You Were Really Doing Was Mourning, Just Like At A Funeral. You Were Remembering The Good And The Sad, The Bittersweet And The Rewards, The Accomplishments And The Unfinished Business, The Love And Sometimes The Hate.

The Hate, He Thought, His Hazel Eyes Narrowing.

He Was Full Of It Now, Though He Wasn’t Sure At Whom Or What Or Why. Hate Wasn’t The Reason He’d Resigned As The First Director Of Op- Center, The U.S. Government’s Elite Crisis Management Team. He’d Done That To Spend More Time With His Wife, His Daughter, And His Son. To Keep His Family Intact. But He Was Full Of It Just The Same.

At Sharon? He Wondered Suddenly, Half-Ashamed. Are You Mad At Your Wife For Making You Choose?

He Tried To Sort Through That As He Cleaned Out His Desk, Dropping Declassified Memories Into A Cardboard Box–The Classified Files And Even Personal Letters Therein Had To Stay. He Couldn’t Believe He’d Only Been Here Two And One-Half Years. That Wasn’t A Long Time Compared To Many Jobs.

But He’d Worked Cockpit-Close With The People Here And He Was Going To Miss Them. There Was Also What His Intelligence Chief Bob Herbert Once Described As “A Pornographic Excitement” In The Work. Lives, Sometimes Millions Of Them, Were Affected By The Wise Or Instinctive Or Occasionally Desperate Decisions He And His Team Had Made Here.

It Was Like Herbert Had Said. Hood Never Felt Like A God Making Those Decisions. He Felt Like An Animal. Every Sense Hair-Trigger Alert, Nervous Energy At A High Boil.

He Was Going To Miss Those Feelings, Too. He Opened A Small Plastic Box That Held A Paper Clip General Sergei Orlov Had Given Him. Orlov Was The Head Of The Russian Op-Center, A Facility Code-Named Mirror Image.

Op-Center Had Helped Mirror Image Prevent Renegade Russian Officers And Politicians From Throwing Eastern Europe Into War. The Paper Clip Had A Fiber-Thin Microphone Inside. It Had Been Used By Colonel Leonid Rossky To Spy On Potential Rivals Of Minister Of The Interior Nikolai Dogin, One Of The Organizers Of The War Effort.

Hood Put The Plastic Box In The Cardboard Carton And Looked At A Small, Black Piece Of Twisted Metal. The Shard Was Stiff And Light, The Ends Bubbled And Charred. It Was Part Of The Skin Of A North Korean Nodong Missile It Had Melted When Op-Center’s Military Unit, Striker, Destroyed The Weapon Before It Could Be Launched At Japan. Hood’s Second-In-Command, General Mike Rodgers, Had Brought The Fragment Back For Him.

My Second-In-Command, Hood Thought.

Technically, Hood Would Be On Vacation For Two Weeks Before His Resignation Took Effect. Mike Would Be Acting Director Until Then. Hood Hoped The President Would Give Mike The Job Full Time After That. It Would Be A Terrible Blow To Mike If He Didn’t.

Hood Picked Up The Nodong Fragment. It Was Like Holding A Piece Of His Life. Japan Was Spared An Attack, One To Two Million Lives Saved.

Several Lives Lost. This Memento And Others Like It Were Passive, But The Memories They Triggered Were Anything But. He Put The Fragment Back In The Carton. The Hum Of Air Coming From The Overhead Vents Seemed Unusually Loud. Or Maybe The Office Was Just Unusually Silent? The Night Crew Was On, And The Phone Wasn’t Ringing. Footsteps Weren’t Coming To Or From His Door. Hood Quickly Went Through The Other Memories Tucked In The Top Drawer Of His Desk.

There Were Postcards From The Kids When They Vacationed At Grandma’s–Not Like This Last Time, When His Wife Took Them There While She Decided Whether Or Not To Leave Him.

There Were Books He’d Read On Airplanes With Notes Scribbled In The Margins, Things He Had To Remember To Do When He Got Where He Was Going Or When He Returned. And There Was A Brass Key From The Hotel In Hamburg, Germany, Where He Bumped Into Nancy Jo Bosworth, A Woman He’d Loved And Planned To Marry. Nancy Had Walked Out Of His Life Over Twenty Years Before Without An Explanation.

Hood Held The Brass Key In His Palm. He Resisted The Urge To Slip It Into His Pocket, Feel Like He Was Back At The Hotel, Just For A Moment.

Instead, Hood Placed The Key In The Box.

Returning To The Girl, Even In Memory, Who’d Walked Out Of His Life, Wasn’t Going To Help Save His Family.

Hood Shut The Top Drawer. He’d Told Sharon That He Would Take Her On One Big Last-Night Of Having-An- Expense-Account Dinner, And There Was No Excuse To Miss It. He’d Already Said His Last Good-Byes To The Office Workers, And The Senior Staff Had Thrown Him A Surprise Party That Afternoon–Even Though It Wasn’t Much Of A Surprise. When Intelligence Chief Bob Herbert Had E-Mailed Everyone The Time And Date, He’d Forgotten To Remove Hood’s E-Mail Address From His List. Paul Had Pretended To Be Surprised When He Walked Into The Conference Room. He Was Just Glad That Herbert Didn’t Make Mistakes Like That As A Rule. Hood Opened The Bottom Drawer.

He Took Out His Personal Address Book, The Crossword Puzzle Cd-Rom He’d Never Gotten To Use, And The Scrapbook Of Daughter Harleigh’s Violin Recitals. He’d Missed Too Damn Many Of Those. The Four Of Them Would Be Going To New York At The End Of The Week So Harleigh Could Perform With Other Young Washington Virtuosi At A Function For United Nations Ambassadors.

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