The Teeth of the Tiger - Tom Clancy [108]
"Damn. You sure about that?"
"The Secret Service teaches that. They send one of their instructors down to Quantico to lecture every class on security issues. The fact surprised us, too. A lot of questions on it. The guy said you could walk right past the SS guard on your way to the liquor store, like. Easy hit, man. Easier'n hell. The thinking is that Adolf thought he was immortal, that there wasn't a bullet anywhere with his name on it. Hey, we had a President whacked on a train platform waiting for his train to arrive. Which one was it? Chester Arthur, I think. McKinley got shot by a guy who walked right up to him with a bandage around his hand. I guess people were a little careless back then."
"Damn. It'd make our job a lot easier, but I'd still prefer a rifle from five hundred meters or so."
"No sense of adventure, Aldo?"
"Ain't nobody paying me enough money to play kamikaze, Enzo. No future in that, y'know?"
"What about those suicide bombers over in the Mideast?"
"Different culture, man. Don't you remember from second grade? You can't commit suicide because it's a mortal sin and you can't go to confession after. Sister Frances Mary made that pretty clear, I thought."
Dominic laughed. "Damn, haven't thought of her in a while, but she always thought you were the cat's ass."
"That's 'cause I didn't screw around in class like you did."
"What about in the Marines?"
"Screwing around? The sergeants took care of that before it came to my attention. Nobody messed with Gunny Sullivan, not even Colonel Winston." He looked at the TV for another minute or so. "You know, Enzo, maybe there are times when one bullet can prevent a lot of grief. That Hitler needed his ticket punched. But even trained military officers couldn't bring it off."
"The guy who placed the bomb just assumed that everybody in the building had to be dead, without going back inside to make sure. They say it every day in the FBI Academy, bro-assumptions are the mother of all fuckups."
"You want to make sure, yeah. Anything worth shooting is worth shooting twice."
"Amen," Dominic agreed.
It had gotten to the point that Jack Ryan, Jr., woke up to the morning news on NPR expecting to hear about something dreadful. He guessed that came from seeing so much raw intelligence information, but without the judgment to know what was hot and what was not.
But though he did not know all that much, what he did know was more than a little worrying. He'd become fixated by Uda bin Sali-probably because Sali was the only "player" he knew much about. And that had to be because Sali was his personal case study. He had to figure this bird out, because if he didn't he'd be encouraged to seek other employment ? He hadn't seen that possibility until now, which by itself did not speak well for his future in the spook business. Of course, his father had taken a long time to find something he was good at-nine years, in fact, after graduating Boston College-and he himself had not yet lived one whole year past his Georgetown sheepskin. So, would he make the grade at The Campus? He was about the youngest person there. Even the secretary pool was composed of women older than he was. Damn, that was an entirely new thought.
Sali was a test for him, and probably a very important one. Did that mean that Tony Wills already had Sali figured out, and he was off chasing data already fully analyzed? Or did it mean that he had to make his case and sell it after he'd reached his own conclusions? It was a big thought for standing in front of the bathroom mirror with his Norelco. This wasn't school anymore. A failing grade here meant failing-life? No, not that bad, but not good, either. Something to think about with coffee and CNN in the kitchen.
For breakfast, Zuhayr walked up the hill, where he purchased two dozen doughnuts and four large coffees. America was such a crazy country. So many natural riches-trees, rivers, magnificent roads, incredible prosperity-but