Divide and conquer - Tom Clancy [57]
He would see to it that Friday was transferred. To India or Pakistan, perhaps. That was where Friday really wanted to go. There were oil issues to be dealt with there, in the Arabian Sea and on the border between the Great Indian Desert in the Rajasthan province of India and the Thar Desert in Pakistan. But more than that, the Indian subcontinent was the place where the next big war would begin, perhaps triggered by a nuclear exchange. Friday wanted to be in there, helping to manipulate the politics of the region. It had been a dream of his ever since he was in college. Since the day when he had first gone to work for the National Security Agency. Friday put the key in the door and listened. He heard the cat cry. Her mewing was a normal welcome.
That was a very good indication that no one was waiting for him inside.
Friday had been recruited by the NSA when he was in law school. One of his professors, Vincent Van Heusen, had been an OSS operative during World War II. After the war. Van Heusen had helped draft the National Security Act of 1947, the legislation that led to the founding of the Central Intelligence Agency. Professor Van Heusen saw in Friday some of the same qualities he himself had possessed as a young man. Among those was independence. Friday had learned that growing up in the Michigan woods where he attended a one-room schoolhouse and went hunting with his father every weekend-not only with a rifle but with a longbow. After graduating from NYU, Friday spent time at the NSA as a trainee. When he went to work for the oil industry a year later, he was also working as a spy. In addition to making contacts in Europe, the Middle East, and the Caspian, Friday was given the names of CIA operatives working in those countries. From time to time, he was asked to watch them-to spy on the spies, to make certain that they were working only for the United States. Friday finally left the private sector five years ago, bored with working for the oil industry. They had become more concerned with international profits than with the vitality of America and its economy.
But that was not why he quit. He left the private sector out of patriotism. He wanted to work for the NSA full-time. He had watched as intelligence operations went to hell overseas. Electronic espionage had replaced hands-on human surveillance. The result was much less efficient mass intelligence gathering. To Friday, that was like getting meat from a slaughterhouse instead of hunting it down. The food didn't taste as good when it was mass produced The experience was less satisfying. And over time, the hunter grew soft. Friday had no intention of growing soft. So when his Washington contact told him that Jack Penwick wanted to talk to him, Friday was eager to meet. Friday went to see him at the Off the Record bar at the Hay-Adams Hotel. It was during the week of the president's inauguration, so the bar was jammed, and the men were barely noticed. It was then that Fenwick suggested a plan so bold that Friday thought it was a joke. Or a test of some kind. Then Friday agreed to meet with some of the other members of the group. And he believed. Oh, how he believed. They sent him here and, through contacts in Iran, he was put in touch with the Harpooner. Iran did not realize they were going to be double crossed That once they had an excuse to move into the Caspian Sea, a new American president would move