The Teeth of the Tiger - Tom Clancy [100]
"Thanks, Dave," Hendley said in dismissal. "Keep us posted, if you would."
"Yes, sir." Cunningham gathered his papers and made his way out.
"You know, he'd be a little more effective if he had a personality," Davis said fifteen seconds after the door closed.
"Nobody's perfect, Tom. He's the best guy they ever had at justice for this sort of thing. I bet when he fishes, there's nothing left in the lake after he leaves."
"No argument here, Gerry."
"So, this Sali gent might be a banker for the bad guys?"
"It looks like a possibility. Langley and Fort Meade are still in a dither over the current situation," Hendley went on.
"I've seen the paperwork. It's a whole lot of paper for not much hard data." In the business of intelligence analysis, you got into the speculation phase too rapidly, the point when experienced analysts started applying fear to existing data, following it to God knew where, trying to read the minds of people who didn't speak all that much, even to each other. Might there be people out there with anthrax or smallpox in little bottles in their shaving kits? How the hell could you tell? That had been done once to America, but when you got down to it everything had been done once to America, and while it had given the country the confidence that her people could deal with damned near anything, it had also given Americans the realization that bad things could indeed happen here and that those responsible might not always be identifiable. The new President did not convey any assurance that we'd be able to stop or punish such people. That was a major problem in and of itself.
"You know, we're a victim of our own success," the former senator said quietly. "We've managed to handle every nation-state that ever crossed us, but these invisible bastards who work for their vision of God are harder to identify and track. God is omnipresent. So are His perverted agents."
"Gerry, my boy, if it was easy, we wouldn't be here."
"Tom, thank God I can always count on you for moral support."
"We live in an imperfect world, you know. There isn't always enough rain to make the corn grow, and, if there is, sometimes the rivers flood. My father taught me that."
"I always meant to ask you-how the hell did your family ever end up in goddamned Nebraska?"
"My great-grandfather was a soldier-cavalryman, Ninth Cavalry, black regiment. He didn't feel like moving back to Georgia when his hitch ran out. He'd spent some time at Fort Crook outside of Omaha, and the dumbass didn't mind the winters. So, he bought a spread near Seneca and farmed corn. That's how history started for us Davises."
"Wasn't any Ku Klux Klan in Nebraska?"
"No, they stayed in Indiana. Smaller farms there, anyway. My great-grandfather shot himself some buffalo when he got started. There's the biggest damned head over the fireplace at home. Damned thing still smells. Dad and my brother mainly hunt longhorn antelope now, the 'speed-goat,' they call it at home. Never got to like the taste."
"What's your nose say on this new intel, Tom?" Hendley asked.
"I'm not planning to go to New York anytime soon, buddy."
East of Knoxville, the road divided. I-40 went east. I-81 went north, and the rented Ford took the latter through the mountains explored by Daniel Boone when the western frontier of America had scarcely stretched out of sight of the Atlantic Ocean. A road sign showed the exit for the home of someone named Davy Crockett. Whoever that was, Abdullah thought, driving downhill through a pretty mountain pass. Finally, at a town named Bristol, they were in Virginia, their final major territorial boundary. About six more hours, he calculated. The land here, in the sunlight, was lush in its greenness, with horse and dairy farms on both sides of the road. Even churches, usually white-painted wooden buildings with crosses atop the steeples. Christians. The country was clearly dominated by them.
Unbelievers.
Enemies.
Targets.
They had their guns in the trunk to deal