Patriot games - Tom Clancy [235]
"Hi, Ernie," Jack said quietly. The dog showed up as a dark spot on the light-colored carpet in the living room. It was four in the morning. Ernie had heard a noise and come out of Sally's room to see what it was. One thing about dogs, they never slept the way people did. Ernie looked at him for several minutes, his tail gyrating back and forth until he got a scratch between his ears, then he moved off, back to Sally's room. It was amazing, Jack thought. The dog had entirely supplanted AG Bear. He found it hard to believe that anything could do that.
They're coming back, aren't they? he asked the night. Jack rose off the leather couch and walked to the windows. It was a clear night. Out on the Chesapeake Bay, he could see the running lights of ships plying their way to or from the Port of Baltimore, and the more ornate displays of tug-barge combinations that plodded along more slowly.
He didn't know how he could have been so slow on the uptake. Perhaps because the activity at Camp -18 almost tracked with the pattern that he'd tried repeatedly to discern. It was about the right time for them to show up for refresher training. But it was equally likely that they were planning something big. Like maybe right here
"Jesus. You were too close to the problem, Jack," he whispered. It was public knowledge-had been for a couple of weeks-that they were coming over, and the ULA had already demonstrated its ability to operate in America, he remembered. And we're bringing known targets into our home! Real smart, Jack. In retrospect it was amazing enough. They'd accepted the backward invitation without the first thought and even when the security people had been here the previous day, he'd made jokes. You asshole!
He thought over the security provisions, taking himself back again to his time in the Corps. As an abstract battle problem, his house was a tough objective. You couldn't do anything from the east-the cliff was a more dangerous obstacle than a minefield. North and south, the woods were so thick and tangled that even the most skilled commando types would be hard-pressed to come through without making a horrendous racket-and they sure as hell couldn't practice that kind of skill in a barren, treeless desert! So they had to come from the west. How many people did Avery say-well, he didn't say, but I got the impression of about twenty. Twenty security people, armed and trained. He remembered the days from the Basic Officer's Course at Quantico, and the nights. Twenty-two years old, invincible and immortal, drinking beer at local bars. There'd been one night at a place called the Command Post, the one with a picture of Patton on the wall, when he'd started talking to a couple of instructors from the FBI Academy, just south of the Marine base. They were every bit as proud as his brother Marines. They never bothered to say "we are the best." They simply assumed that everyone knew it. Just like us. The next day he'd accepted the invitation to shoot on their range and settle a gentlemanly wager. It had cost him ten dollars to learn that one of them was the chief firearms instructor. God, I wonder if Breckenridge could beat him! The Secret Service wouldn't be very different, given their mission. Would you want to tangle with them? Hell, no!
If I assume that the ULA is as smart as it seems to be and it is an unannounced trip, a private sort of thing They won't know to come here, and even if they did, if they're too smart to take this one on it should be safe, shouldn't it?
But that was a word whose meaning was forever changed. Safe. It was something no longer real.
Jack walked around the fireplace into the house's bedroom wing. Sally