Net Force - Tom Clancy [52]
What to do and how to do it-well, those were the problems.
Wednesday, September 22nd, 6 a.m. San Diego
Ruzhyo did not much care for television, though he sometimes watched the international news to see what mention there was of his homeland. CNN droned in the background as he fixed coffee in the small pot provided by the hotel. The coffee was prepackaged and stale, but it was better than nothing.
It had been yet another bad night for dreams. After managing to get back to sleep for an hour or two, he came awake and knew it was pointless to try again. He had known a man in the army once who, it was said, could sleep while eating a bowl of hot soup. Ruzhyo was not that good, but he had learned to survive on a minimum amount of rest when he had been a soldier, catching naps when he could; two hours was enough to fuel a day.
He took his coffee and went back to stare at the television.
In Idaho, some cult had gone into a barn and set it on fire, to free themselves from the flesh to join their god. Ruzhyo did not know how free they were, but the flesh was certainly well-done, to judge from the pictures.
In France, student demonstrators had attacked a police line outside a hotel where the French President was scheduled to speak. Nine of the demonstrators had been hospitalized with wounds from rubber bullets; two others had died from the same cause.
In India, a flood drowned two hundred people, uncounted sacred cows, and washed away several villages.
In Japan, an earthquake on the island of Kyushu had killed eighty-nine people in collapsing buildings and done major damage to the city of Kagoshima. During the quake, the new bullet train that spanned the island had also crashed when the ground in front of it dropped twenty feet, killing sixty and injuring more than three hundred.
Of Chechnya, CNN had nothing to say.
Ruzhyo sipped his bad coffee and shook his head. Just as well that there was no news of home, given how dreary it all seemed. The world was a dangerous place, full of misery. All over it, people would be lamenting the loss of loved ones this day, family or friends taken by accidents or illness or murder. During those few times when he had felt qualms about the work he did, all he had ever needed to do was watch the television, or read the newspapers, or just talk to someone. Life was full of woe. He was no more than a drop in a sea of misery. If he took a man out, what did it matter? If not him, something or somebody else would. In the end, it did not matter all that much, did it?
His com unit cheeped. He sipped the coffee and stared at the com. No, it did not matter. And just as well-more wetwork was surely about to be forthcoming.
Wednesday, September 22nd, 4:45 p.m. Washington, D.C.
Naked, save for a sweatband around her head, the Selkie sat at the small kitchen table and examined her cane.
She checked the wood for nicks and gouges. Every couple of months, she would take fine sandpaper and Watco satin-finish oil to the cane, to smooth and polish the already smooth hickory. It was hardwood, but it scratched easily, and she liked to have it gleaming. The manufacturer recommended mineral oil, but Watco gave a tougher finish. Smelled better, too.
It was a couple hours work to do it right, the sanding and finishing, but one of the first things shed learned from her father was to take care of her tools so they wouldnt fail her when she needed them. The guys who made the wooden weapons did excellent work. She owned five of their canes in three different styles, as well as two sets of escrima sticks, and a custom-made pair of six-inch yawaras.
The cane she preferred for work in places where she did not carry a gun was the Custom Combat model. It was hickory, thirty-seven inches long, blond in color, with a round shaft a little over an inch in diameter; it had a large crook tipped by a flamingo-beak design. Hickory was best for the street, heavier than the walnut tournament models, more sturdy than the oak. The end