State of Siege - Tom Clancy [5]
Downer was a talker, too. In his case, the sound of his own voice comforted him. He used to talk himself to sleep when he was a kid, tell himself stories to drown out the sound of his drunken dockworker father slapping around whatever cheap woman he was with in their rickety wooden apartment. Talking was a habit Downer never gave up.
Barone walked into the room. He popped the seal on his own water bottle, chugged it down in a long swallow, then pulled up a chair and sat beside Downer. He snatched a graham cracker and chomped it down as they all watched the nineteen-inch TV set. He leaned toward Downer.
"I don't like what you said," Barone whispered. "A psychotic is irrational. I am not."
"If you say so."
"Ah dew, was Barone said, imitating Downer, this time with an edge. Downer let it go. Unlike Barone, he realized that he only needed the man's skills, not his approval.
The men watched the twenty-minute tape through once, then watched it again. Before watching it a third time, Vandal joined Downer and Barone at the rickety table. Barone had gotten himself focused. He was a former revolutionary who had helped found the short-lived Consejo de Seguridad Nacional, which had ousted the corrupt President Bordaberry. His expertise was explosives. Downer's experience was firearms, rockets, and hand-to-hand combat. Sazanka flew. Georgiev had the contacts to obtain whatever they needed through the black market, which was tapped into all the resources of " the former Soviet Union, its clients in the Middle and Far East, and in the United States. Georgiev had recently returned from New York, where he spent time arranging for weapons through a Khmer Rouge arms supplier and working with his intelligence contact, going over the target itself. All of that would be needed during the second part of the operation.
But part two was not on their minds right now. First part one had to succeed. Together, the three men single-framed through the tape, making sure that the explosion they planned would get them through the target zone without destroying anything else. After spending four hours on the tape and the rest of the afternoon meeting in the field with Vandal's local contacts to review the truck, helicopter, and other equip ment they'd be using here, the team ate at a sidewalk cafe. Then they returned to the room to rest.
As anxious as the men were, they all slept. They had to. Tomorrow, they would begin to inaugurate a new era in international relations. One that would not only change the world by calling attention'to a big lie but would also make them rich. As Downer lay on top of his sleeping bag, he enjoyed the gentle breeze of the open window. He pictured himself being somewhere else. His own island, perhaps. Maybe even his own country. And he calmed himself by listening to the voice in his head telling him all the things he could do with his share of two hundred and fifty million dollars.
* * *
TWO
Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland Sunday, 12:10 A.m.
When he'd ended his tenure as the mayor of Los Angeles, Paul Hood decided that cleaning out one's desk was a misnomer. What you were really doing was mourning, just like at a funeral. You were remembering the good and the sad, the bittersweet and the rewards, the accomplishments and the unfinished business, the love and sometimes the hate.
The hate, he thought, his hazel eyes narrowing. He was full of it now, though he wasn't sure at whom or what or why. Hate wasn't the reason he'd resigned as the first director of OpCenter, the U.s. government's elite crisis management team. He'd done that to spend more time with his wife, his daughter, and his son. To keep his family intact. But he was full of it just the same.
At Sharon? he wondered suddenly, half-ashamed. Are you mad at your wife for making you choose?
He tried to sort through that as he cleaned out his desk, dropping declassified memories into a cardboard box-the classified files and even personal letters therein had to stay. He couldn't believe he'd only been here two and one-half years. That wasn't a