Games of State - Tom Clancy [88]
Hood reached the building lobby. He entered the elevator, and as the speed lift reached Hausen's floor Hood began to feel manipulated. Nancy had left, shown up a score of years later, and presented herself to him. Offered herself to him. Why? Guilt? Not Nancy. She had the conscience of a circus clown. A pie in the face, seltzer down the waistband, oops! A big laugh and all was forgotten, at least by her. And people accepted it because she was selfish but endearing, not malicious. Loneliness? She was never lonely. Eyen when she was alone she was with someone who could keep her amused. A challenge? Maybe. He could picture her asking herself, Have you still got it, Nancy old girl?
Not that it really mattered. He was back in the present, back in the real world where he was in his forties, not twenties, living with his precious little planets instead of a wild, soaring comet. Nancy had come and she had gone, and at least he knew what had happened to her.
And maybe, he thought suddenly and surprisingly, you can stop blaming Sharon because she isn't Nancy. Did some deep, regretful part of him feel that? he wondered. God, it scared him, the cobwebbed corridors to which that staircase of his had taken him.
To complete his emotional buffet, Hood felt guilty for having left poor Hausen standing there, his soul exposed, a black part of his history on his lips. He'd left him without a shoulder or the help of the man to whom he'd just confessed.
Hood would make his apologies and Hausen, gentleman that he was, would probably accept them. Besides, Hood had bared his own soul and men understood men that way. Where tragedies of the heart or mistakes of youth were concerned, men freely gave one another absolution.
Hausen was standing beside Stoll in the main office. Lang was still at Stoll's right.
Hausen met Hood with concerned eyes. "Did you get what you needed?" he asked.
"Pretty much," Hood said. He smiled reassuringly. "Yes, thank you. Everything okay here?"
Hausen said, "I'm glad we spoke." He managed to smile as well.
Stoll was busy typing in commands. "Chief, Herr Hausen wasn't forthcoming about where you'd gone," he said without looking up, "but I find it strange that Paul Hood and Superman are never around at the same time."
"Cool it," Hood warned.
"At once, Boss," Stoll replied. "Sorry."
Now Hood felt guilty for having jumped on him. "Never mind," he said in a gentler tone. "It's been a wicked afternoon. What have you found out?"
Stop brought the game's title screen back on the monitor. "Well," he said, "as I was just telling Herrs Hausen and Lang, this game was installed with a time-release command by the Deputy Foreign Minister's assistant, Hans--"
"Who seems to have vanished," Lang contributed. "We tried him at home and at his health club, and there's no answer."
"And his E-mail address at home isn't receiving," Stoll said. "So he's definitely on the lam. Anyway, the photo of Herr Hausen is from coverage of a speech he gave to Holocaust survivors, while this landscape is from here."
Stoll hit the recycle command, dumped the title screen, and brought up the photo downloaded from Op-Center's Kraken.
Hood leaned forward and read the caption. " 'The Tarn at Montauban, le Vieux Pont.' " He straightened. "France or Canada?" he asked.
"The south of France," Stoll said. "When you arrived, I was just about to bring up Deirdre's report on the place." He used the keyboard to bring up the file. Then he read, "It says, 'The route rationale, blah-blah, goes north and northwest with the River