The sum of all fears - Tom Clancy [128]
"God damn it!" Trent swore. "I've told Olson about this. His technical weenies do their rain-dance and he buys it every time. What if -"
"Yeah, what if all our communications are compromised." Jack did not make it a question. "Thank God for glasnost, eh?"
"Does Marcus understand the implications?"
"I explained it to him this morning. He understands. Al, Cabot may not have all the experience you or I would like, but he's a fast learner. I've had worse bosses."
"You're too loyal. Must be a lingering symptom of your time in the Marines," Trent observed. "You'd be a good director."
"Never happen."
"True. Now that Liz Elliot is National Security Advisor, you'll have to cover your ass. You know that."
"Yep."
"What in hell did you do to piss her off? Not that it's all that hard to do."
"It was back right after the convention," Ryan explained. "I was up in Chicago to brief Fowler. She caught me tired from a couple of long trips and she yanked my chain pretty hard. I yanked back."
"Learn to be nice to her," Trent suggested.
"Admiral Greer said that."
Trent handed the papers back to Ryan. "It is difficult, isn't it?"
"Sure is."
"Learn anyway. Best advice I can give you." Probably a total waste of time, of course.
"Yes, sir."
"Good timing on the request, by the way. The rest of the committee will be impressed as hell with the new operation. The Japan-bashers will put the word out to their friends on Appropriations that the Agency is really doing something useful. We'll have the money to you in two weeks if we're lucky. What the hell, fifty million bucks - chicken feed. Thanks for coming down."
Ryan locked his case and stood. "Always a pleasure."
Trent shook his hand. "You're a good man, Ryan. What a damned shame you're straight." Jack laughed. "We all have our handicaps, Al."
Ryan returned to Langley to put the NIITAKA documents back in secure storage, and that ended his work for the day. He and Clark took the elevator down to the garage, and left the building an hour early, something they did every two weeks or so. Forty minutes later, they pulled into the parking lot of a 7-Eleven between Washington and Annapolis.
"Hello, Doc Ryan!" Carol Zimmer said from behind the register. One of her sons relieved her there, and she led Jack into the back room. John Clark checked out the store. He wasn't worried about Ryan's security, but he had some lingering worries about the way some local toughs felt about the Zimmer enterprise. He and Chavez had taken care of that one gang leader, having done so in front of three of his minions, one of whom had tried to interfere. Chavez had shown mercy to that lad, who hadn't required an overnight stay at the local hospital. That, Clark judged, was a sign of Ding's growing maturity.
"How is business?" Jack asked in the back room.
"We up twenty-six percent from this time last year."
Carol Zimmer had been born in Laos less than forty years before, rescued from a hilltop fortress by an Air Force special-operations helicopter just as the North Vietnamese Army had overrun that last outpost of American power in Northern Laos. She'd been sixteen at the time, the last living child of a Hmong chieftain who'd served American interests and his own - he'd been a willing agent - courageously and well, and to the death. She'd married Air Force sergeant Buck Zimmer, who'd died in yet another helicopter after yet another betrayal, and then Ryan had stepped in. He hadn't lost his business sense despite his years of government service. He'd selected a good site for the store, and as fate had it, they hadn't needed his educational trust fund for the first of the kids now in college. With a kind word from Ryan to Father Tim Riley, the lad had a full scholarship at Georgetown and was already dean's-listed in pre-med. Like most Asians, Carol had a reverence for learning that bordered on religious fanaticism, and which she passed on to all of her kids. She also ran her store with the mechanistic precision a Prussian sergeant expected of an infantry squad.