The sum of all fears - Tom Clancy [345]
"What is it, Ben?"
"Does this place have a dorm?" Goodley asked.
Jack shook his head. "You can use the couch in Nancy's office if you want. How's your paper coming?"
"I'm going to be up all night anyway. I just thought of something."
"What's that?"
"Going to sound a little crazy - nobody ever checked to make sure that our friend Kadishev actually met with Narmonov."
"What do you mean?"
"Narmonov was out of town most of last week. If there was no meet, then the guy was lying to us, wasn't he?"
Jack closed his eyes and cocked his head to one side. "Not bad, Dr Goodley, not bad."
"We have Narmonov's itinerary. I have people checking on Kadishev's now. I'm going all the way back to last August. If we're going to do a check, it might as well be a comprehensive one. My position piece might be a little late, but this hit me last - this morning, actually. I've been chasing it down most of the day. It's harder than I thought."
Jack motioned to the storm outside. "Looks like I'm going to be stuck here a while. Want some help?"
"Sounds good to me."
"Let's get some dinner first."
Oleg Yurievich Lyalin boarded his flight to Moscow with mixed feelings. The summons was not all that irregular.
It was troublesome that it had come so soon after his meeting with the CIA Director, but that was probably happenstance. More likely, it had to do with the information he'd been delivering to Moscow about the Japanese Prime Minister's trip to America. One surprise he had not told CIA concerned Japanese overtures to the Soviet Union to trade high-technology for oil and lumber. That deal would have upset the Americans greatly only a few years earlier, and marked the culmination of a five-year project that Lyalin had worked on. He settled into his airline seat and allowed himself to relax. He had never betrayed his country, after all, had he?
The satellite up-link trucks were in two batches. There were eleven network vehicles, all parked just at the stadium wall. Two hundred meters away were thirty-one more, smaller Ku-band up-links for what looked like regional TV stations, as opposed to the bigger network vans. The first storm had passed, and what looked like a tank division's worth of heavy equipment was sweeping up the snow from the stadium's enormous parking lot.
There was the spot, Ghosn thought, right next to the ABC 'A' unit. There was a good twenty meters of open space. The absence of security astounded him. He counted only three police cars, just enough to keep drunks away from men trying to get their work done. The Americans felt so secure. They'd tamed the Russians, crushed Iraq, intimidated Iran, pacified his own people, and now they were as totally relaxed as a people could be. They must love their comforts, Ibrahim told himself. Even their stadia had roofs and heat to keep the elements out.
"Gonna knock those things over like dominos," Marvin observed from the driver's seat.
"Indeed we will," Ghosn agreed.
"See what I told you about security?"
"I was wrong to doubt you, my friend."
"Never hurts to be careful." Russell started another drive around the perimeter. "We'll come in this gate right here, and just drive right up." The headlights of the van illuminated the few flakes of this second storm. It was too cold to snow a lot, Russell had explained. This Canadian air mass was heading south. It would warm up as it hit Texas, dropping its moisture there instead of on Denver, which had half a meter, Ghosn estimated. The men who cleared the roads were quite efficient. As with everything else, the Americans liked their conveniences. Cold weather - build a stadium with a roof. Snow on the highways - get rid of it. Palestinians - buy them off. Though his face didn't show it, he had never hated America more than at this moment. Their power and their arrogance showed in everything they did. They protected themselves against everything, no matter how big or