Tom Clancy's op-center_ acts of war - Tom Clancy [61]
"Yes, Bob."
"Chief, I know you're in a rush," Herbert said, "but there's something you've got to take a look at."
"Something bad?" Hood asked. "Is Mike okay?"
"It may involve Mike directly," Herbert said, "and I'm sorry. Yeah, it does look pretty bad."
"Send it over," Hood said.
"Right away," Herbert replied.
Hood sat back and waited. He'd been busy downloading classified data onto diskettes to take with him on the airplane. The diskettes were specially designed for use on government flights. The jackets became superheated in a fire, though they, could not burn. In the event of a crash, the disks as well as their data. would be reduced to slag.
The White House was sending a chopper to Andrews and putting him and Assistant Deputy Director Warner Bicking on a three p.m. State Department flight to London. Hood was scheduled to meet Dr. Nasr at Heathrow Airport and catch a British Airways flight to Syria an hour later. Hood watched as the computer finished copying files onto diskettes. When the hard drive stopped humming, Hood continued to stare at the blank screen.
"Hold on a second," Herbert said. "I want the computer to animate the stuff for you."
"I'm holding on," Hood said, a trace of impatience in his voice. He tried to imagine what could possibly be worse than Mike Rodgers having been captured by terrorists.
Mike Rodgers a hostage, he thought bitterly. Your wife disappointed in you. A new problem will give you a hat trick. Still, it was a record he didn't feel like shooting for.
Less than two minutes ago Hood had phoned his wife to tell her he wouldn't be able to make daughter Harleigh's piccolo solo at school that night, and almost certainly son Alexander's championship soccer game on Thursday. Sharon had reacted the way she always did when work came before family. She immediately grew cold and distant. And Hood knew she would stay that way until he came back. Part of her reaction was concern for her husband's safety. American government and business leaders abroad, particularly in the Middle East, were neither low-profile nor particularly well liked. And after her husband's experiences with the New Jacobin terrorists in France, Sharon was less complacent than ever about his safety.
Another, possibly larger, part of her reaction was Sharon's oft-voiced concern that time was passing and they weren't spending enough of it together. They weren't building the memories that helped make marriages rich and durable. Ironically, long hours was one of the reasons he'd gotten out of politics and then out of banking. The directorship of Op-Center was supposed to have been about managing a modest staff which managed domestic crises. But after being drawn into a near-disaster in North Korea, Op-Center suddenly found itself an international player, a streamlined counterpart to the bureaucracy-heavy CIA. As a result, Hood's own responsibilities had increased dramatically.
Working hard certainly didn't make him a bad person. It provided a very comfortable life for his family and it exposed their two children to interesting people and events. But on top of everything else, he had to deal with the fact that his freedom to work, and to work hard, made Sharon jealous. She'd been forced to cut back her "healthy cooking" appearances on Andy McDonnell's cable food show to twice a week. There simply wasn't enough time to do a daily segment and shuttle the kids to where they had to go and run the house. Though Hood felt bad for his wife, there was nothing he could do.
Except get home on time, he thought, which sounds great on the surface but isn't practical. Not in a city that operates on international time.
"Here it is," Herbert said. "Watch the left side of the screen."
Hood leaned forward. He saw an extremely jerky motion picture of what looked like the ROC sitting in darkness. From the ID numbers in the lower left corner of the picture, he knew that these were successive NRO photographs being flashed together sequentially, flipbook style. There was approximately a one-second delay between each image.
"Am I looking