Net Force - Tom Clancy [30]
If you drink alcohol and drive and get caught, youll probably get thrown into jail, unless it is the militia that catches you, in which case youll probably be shot on the spot. They drink like fish here, but they walk when they get potted. Zero tolerance for drunk drivers and more power to em.
A lot of folks still speak Russian, but the official language is now Ukrainian. The most useful phrase youll want to know in Ukrainian is, Probachteh, deh cholovee-chy tualeht.
Howard said, Which means?
Excuse me, but where is the mens room?
Howard grinned, and shook his head. Keep going.
Fernandez droned on, but now Howard was only listening with half his attention. Despite his sergeants concern over his brain leakage, he did know this material. He was just burning it in deeper. Better to be sure than sorry.
Unfortunately, Sarge was right about him not skulking around on the streets of Kiev. Hed been to China, and everywhere he had gone people had come up to him to stare, and sometimes to touch him. Black wasnt just different in some cultures; it was amazing. No way could he move around surreptitiously with that kind of attention on him. And yet, the idea of sitting in an embassy command room trading comments with the CIA station chief while his teams went hunting for a terrorist lair did not appeal in any way, shape or form. He was a soldier, a field man before he joined Net Force, and he did not want to spend any more time behind a desk than he had to.
-weapons and sub-rosa field gear are scheduled to arrive by diplomatic pouch at approximately 0945, local time. Although diplomatic shipping crate would be more appropriate. FedEx is bringing it in. Aint that something? We dont need bombers, we can just FedEx it to our enemies, have em sign for it, then set it off. Boom.
Howard made an appropriate grunt to show he was still awake. So-how was he going to do it, get out on the street? Some kind of disguise? Makeup, maybe? It was his operation, and he ought to be able to post himself to the active side of it. Maybe he could let his units scout things out, then get there for the finale, if it came to that. There had to be a way. Hed already sat out too many wars.
-crime is on the rise and we are advised not to go down dark alleys late at night alone. Fernandez grinned. Bet the local muggers will go into major pucker-factor if they jump one of ours and find themselves target-laser-painted and staring down the barrel of an H&K subgun.
Lets not be shooting the locals, even the muggers, if we can help it, Sarge. This is supposed to be a surgical operation, in and out like a lance, no more damage than necessary. We dont want any incidents we cant sweep under a thin rug.
Certainly, sir. Ill make sure the boys keep the barroom brawls to an absolute minimum.
Howard grinned and shook his head again. There was no better man to have at your side or watching your back than Julio Fernandez. He had trouble working a computer that a six-year-old could operate with ease, but when push came to shove, he was the best. He could pin a fly to the wall with his throwing knife, then shoot its eyes out with whatever hardware he happened to be holding, either hand and you pick em.
And a bunch of half-baked local radicals were about to discover that making threats against a United States embassy was an extremely stupid idea.
Friday, September 17th, 1:25 p.m. New York City
Luigi Sampson, Security Chief for Genaloni Industries, left the midtown Chinese restaurant, flanked by two bodyguards. Despite his position and ancestry, Sampson did not like Italian food. He did enjoy Chinese cuisine, however, and large amounts of it. For lunch, he had consumed an order of hot and spicy chicken, hard wheat noodles, sweet and sour pork, lemon duck and snow crab in peanut sauce, as well as two beers and three cups of tea. There had not been enough of