Net Force - Tom Clancy [29]
He waved a hand back and forth over his com unit.
From her office next door, Toni said, Yes?
Hey, Toni. Anything new?
Sorry, Alex, no.
Days murder still hung over the unit like a heavy thundercloud: dark, threatening, unresolved.
He started to say something to his assistant, but decided to hold off. He didnt want to sound like the little boy crying wolf; besides, there was enough on his plate to worry about: the murder investigation, the situation in Ukraine, the other net problems. Better to keep his unfounded suspicions to himself, unless something else came along to give them some weight.
9
Friday, September 17th, 5:01 a.m. In the air over Northern Europe
Colonel John Howard leaned back in the jetliners seat and nodded at Sergeant Fernandez next to him. Probably one of the smartest things Net Force had ever done was to lease several 747s, then outfit them for fast tactical flights. The big Boeing jets were a long way from the old bone-jarring military transports that were little more than hollowed-out aluminum shells, so noisy you couldnt talk or even think straight. Aside from the comfort factor, there was a very practical reason for this choice: A 747 with civilian markings could land in places where a U.S. military cargo plane would get a Stinger missile up the spout for being stupid enough to try.
Okay, Julio, lets run through it one more time.
The sergeant shook his head. Begging the colonels pardon-
There would be a first, Howard broke in.
-and no disrespect intended, Fernandez continued, ignoring Howards comment, but the colonel must have a brain like a sieve.
Thank you for your neurological opinion, Dr. Fernandez. He rolled his finger in the continue sign. Move along.
Fernandez sighed. Sir. Ukraine is about the size of France, holds fifty-two million people, has an elected President, and a four-hundred-fifty-person parliament called the Verkhovna Rada. The U.S. Embassy is in the capital of Kiev, at 10 Yuriya Kotsubinskoho. The building used to be the Communist Party precinct and Communist Youth League HQ, before the Ukrainians kicked the Commies out in 91. There are one hundred and ninety-eight American employees and two hundred and forty-four Ukrainian nationals working at or for the embassy.
Howard smiled, but kept it to himself. Sarge never told it the same way twice.
Fernandez continued. Kiev has a population of three million, covers forty-five by forty-four kilometers and sits on the Dnieper River, which runs all the way to the Black Sea. This time of year its still warm, though mostly overcast and about to get rainy. About seventy-five percent of the population is Ukrainian, twenty percent are Russian, the rest are Jews, Byelorussians, Moldovans, Poles, Armenians, Greeks and Bulgarians. Counting yourself, there might be three people of African descent in the country, although some of the Crimeans and ethnic Mongols are a bit dark. You will draw a crowd on the streets, sir.
Howard waved him off. They had argued about this for half the trip. According to Fernandez, there was no way the colonel should be on this operation. He should sit back at the embassy and direct traffic by radio and satlink. Sir.
Go on.
Sir. The city is eight time zones ahead of D.C. It has an okay subway and surface street system, lousy radio and TV stations. You can get the CNBC Superstation until noon, and CNN after six p.m., and yesterdays Wall Street Journal and New York Times if you go to a big hotel and are willing to pay half your retirement for a copy of either. If you go into a public bathroom, best you take your own toilet paper, you will need it.
Money is the hryvnia, and one of ours will get you two of theirs at the legal exchanges. The water is okay to bathe in if you let it run a few seconds for the lead to settle out, but you dont want to drink it without boiling it, due to bacteria