Games of State - Tom Clancy [63]
Hood and Stoll both jumped
Lang placed a hand on Hood's wrist. "I'm sorry," he said, "I should have prepared you. That's our digital bell tower. It chimes at ten o'clock, twelve o'clock, and three o'clock and signals break time."
"Charming," said Hood, his heart racing.
"We feel it has a pleasant Old World feel," Lang said. "To create a sense of fraternity, the bell rings simultaneously in all of our satellite factories throughout Germany. They're linked fiber-optically."
"I see," Stoll said. "So that's your little Quasimodem, the bell-ringer."
Hood frowned deeply at that.
After the meeting and a half-hour ride back to Hamburg proper, Hood, Stoll, and Lang head three miles northeast to the modern City Nord region. Within the nearly elliptical, encircling Ubersee Ring roadway were over twenty public and private administration buildings. These sleek structures housed everything from the Hamburg Electricity Works to international computer firms, as well as shops, restaurants, and a hotel. Every weekday, over twenty thousand people commuted to City Nord to work and to play.
When they arrived, Richard Hausen's neatly groomed young male assistant Reiner showed them right into the Deputy Foreign Minister's office. Stoll took a moment to stare at the framed stereogram hanging on the assistant's wall.
"Orchestra conductors," Stoll said. "Clever. I've never seen this one."
"It's my own design," Reiner said proudly.
Hausen's Hamburg office was located at the top of a complex in the southeastern sector, overlooking the 445-acre Stadtpark. When they entered, the Deputy Foreign Minister was on the phone. While Stoll sat down to have a look at Hausen's computer setup, Lang watching over his shoulder, Hood walked over to the large picture window. In the deep gold light of late afternoon, he could see a swimming pool, sporting areas, an open-air theater, and the famed ornithological facility.
As far as Hood could tell from looking at him, Hausen was once again his strong, outspoken self. Whatever had been bothering him earlier was either taken care of or somehow had been back burnered.
Hood thought sadly, If only I could do the same. In the office, he was able to manage pain. He kept Charlie's death from getting to him because he had to be strong for his staff. He'd felt bad when Rodgers told him about the hate game in Billy Squires's computer, but there had been so much hate back in Los Angeles that it didn't shock him very much anymore.
All of that, he could manage, yet the incident in the hotel lobby was still with him. All those fine thoughts about Sharon and Ann Farris and fidelity were just that: thoughts. Bullshit and words.
After just a few weeks, he had accepted Squires's death. Yet after more than twenty years she was still with him. He was surprised by the disorientation, the urgency, the near-panic he had felt speaking to the doorman.
God, he thought, how he wanted to despise her. But he couldn't. Now, as over the years, whenever he tried he ended up hating himself. Now as then, he felt that somehow he was the one who had screwed up.
Though you'll never know for sure, he told himself. And that was nearly as bad as what had happened. Not knowing why it had happened.
He absently ran his hand along the breast pocket of his sports jacket. The pocket with his wallet. The wallet with the tickets. The tickets with the memories.
As he looked out the window at the park, he asked himself, And what would you have done if it had been her? Asked her, "So. How've you been? Are you happy? Oh, and by the way, hon-- why didn't you put a bullet in my heart to finish the job?"
"It's quite a view, is it not?" Hausen asked.
Hood was caught off guard. He came back to reality hard. "It is a magnificent view. Back home, I don't even have a window."
Hausen smiled. "The work we do is different, Herr Hood," he said. "I need to see the people I serve. I need to see young couples pushing baby carriages. I need to see elderly couples walking hand in hand.