Divide and conquer - Tom Clancy [14]
He thought about it when he swept the train station where his father sold tickets. He thought about it when he slept with his two brothers and grandfather in the living room of their one-bedroom flat, a flat that always smelled of perspiration and trash from the adjoining alley.
He thought about it when he helped his father coach the local men's football team. The elder Charles knew how to communicate, how to strategize, how to win. He was a natural leader. But Maurice's father, his family, his working-class people were held down by the upper class.
They were not permitted to go to the better schools, even if they could have afforded them. They weren't allowed to work in the upper levels of banking, of communications, of politics. They had funny, common accents and brawny shoulders and weather-beaten faces and weren't taken seriously.
Charles grew up feeling bad that the only outlet, the only joy his father had was football. Charles also idolized the Beatles because they had made it out-the same reason, ironically, his father and so many of his contemporaries hated "those young punks." Charles realized that he could not escape poverty musically because he had no talent for that and it had already been done. He had to get out his way, make a mark that was uniquely his own. How could he have known that he would find his hidden skills by joining the Royal Marines, 29 Commando Regiment, Royal Artillery, and learning to work with explosives? By discovering the pleasure and genius involved in tearing things down?
It was a glorious feeling to put events like- this in motion. It was the creation of art: living, breathing, powerful, bleeding, changing, utterly unforgettable art. There was nothing else like it in the world, the aesthetics of destruction. And what was most rewarding was that the CIA had inadvertently helped him by sending that man to watch for him.
The agency would conclude that it couldn't be the Harpooner who had attacked their man. No one had ever survived an encounter with the Harpooner.
Charles settled comfortably into his seat as the Cessna left the lights of the rig behind.
That was the beauty about being an artist, he told himself.
It gave him the right and privilege to surprise.
Camp Springs, Maryland Monday, 12:44 a.m.
Throughout the Cold War, the nondescript two-story building located near the Naval Reserve flight line at Andrews Air Force Base was a staging area for pilots and their crews. In the event of a nuclear attack, their job would have been to evacuate key officials from the government and military to a safe compound in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
But the ivory-colored building with its neat, green lawn was not just a monument to the Cold War. The seventy-eight full-time employees who worked there now were employed by the National Crisis Management Center, familiarly known as Op-Center, an independent agency that was designed to collect, process, and analyze data on potential crisis points domestically and abroad.
Once that was done, Op-Center then had to decide whether to defuse them preemptively through political, diplomatic, media, economic, legal, or psychological means or else-after gaining the approval of the Congressional Intelligence Oversight Committee-to terminate them through military means. To this end, Op Center had at its disposal a twelve-person tactical strike team known as Striker. Led by Colonel Brett August, Striker was based at the nearby Quantico FBI Academy.
In addition to the offices upstairs, a secure basement had been built into the facility to house the more sensitive intelligence retrieval systems and personnel. It was here that Paul Hood and his top advisers worked.
Hood came directly from the White House affair. He was still dressed in his tuxedo, which earned him a "Good morning, Mr. Bond" greeting from the Naval officer at the gate. It made him smile. It was the only thing that had done that for days.
A strange uneasiness had settled over Hood after the president made his comments.