The sum of all fears - Tom Clancy [382]
"Who's the duty officer of this whorehouse?" Keitel bellowed. A corporal just pointed. Corporals do not dispute the orders of staff-grade officers. The duty officer, they found, was a major, perhaps thirty years of age.
"What is this?" the young officer asked.
"I am Colonel Ivanenko of the Inspectorate. This is an unannounced operational-readiness inspection. Hit your alarm!" The major walked two steps and punched a button that set off sirens all over the camp area.
"Next, call your regimental commander, and get his drunken ass over here! What is your readiness state, Major?" Keitel demanded, without giving the man a chance to take a breath. The junior officer stopped in mid-reach for the phone, not knowing which order he was supposed to follow first. "Well?"
"Our readiness is in accordance with unit norms, Colonel Ivanenko."
"You have a chance to prove that." Keitel turned to one of the others. "Take this child's name!"
Less than two thousand meters away, they could see lights going on at the American base in what had so recently been West Berlin.
"They're having a drill also," Keitel/Ivanenko observed. "Splendid. We'd better be faster than they are," he added.
"What is this?" The regimental commander, also a colonel, arrived without his buttons done.
"This looks like a sorry spectacle!" Keitel boomed. "This is an unannounced readiness inspection. You have a regiment to lead, Colonel. I suggest you get to it without asking any further questions."
"But-"
"But what?" Keitel demanded. "Don't you know what a readiness inspection is?"
There was one thing about dealing with Russians, Keitel thought. They were arrogant, overbearing, and they hated Germans, however much they protested otherwise. On the other hand, when browbeaten, they were predictable. Even though his rank insignia was no higher than this man's, he had a louder voice, and that was all he needed.
"I'll show you what my boys can do."
"We'll be outside to watch," Keitel assured him.
"Dr Ryan, you'd better get down here." The line clicked off.
"Okay," Jack said. He grabbed his cigarettes and walked down to room 7-F-27, the CIA's Operations Center. Located on the north side of the building, it was the counterpart to operations rooms in many other government agencies. In the center of the twenty-by-thirty-foot room, once you got past the cipher lock on the door, was a large circular table with a lazy-Susan bookcase in the center, and six seats around it. The seats had overhead plaques to designate their functions: Senior Duty Officer, Press, Africa - Latin America, Europe - USSR, Near-East - Terrorism, and South Asia - East Asia - Pacific. The wall clocks showed the time in Moscow, Beijing, Beirut, Tripoli, and, of course, Greenwich Mean. There was an adjacent conference room that looked down on the CIA's internal courtyard.
"What gives?" Jack asked, arriving with Goodley in his wake.
"According to NORAD, a nuclear device just went off in Denver."
"I hope that's a fucking joke!" Jack replied. That, too, was a reflex. Before the man had a chance to respond, Ryan's stomach turned over. Nobody made jokes like that one.
"I wish it were," the Senior Duty Officer replied.
"What do we know?"
"Not much."
"Anything? Threat board?" Jack asked. Again it was reflexive. If there had been anything, he would have heard it by now. "Okay - where's Marcus?"
"Coming home in the C-141, somewhere between Japan and the Aleutians. You're it, sir," the SDO pointed out, quietly thanking a beneficent God that it wasn't himself. "President's at Camp David. SecDef and SecState -"
"Dead?" Ryan asked.
"It would appear so, sir."
Ryan closed his eyes. "Holy Jesus. The Vice President?"
"At his official residence. We've only been going about three minutes. The NMCC watch officer is a Captain James Rosselli. General Wilkes is on the way in. DIA's on line. They - I mean the President just ordered DEFCON-TWO on