Without remorse - Tom Clancy [142]
'When?'
'Beginning of the week, something tasty. I want to take down something that looks nice.'
'I'll get back to you.' Tucker replaced his book and walked away. Charon spent another few minutes, searching for the right book. He found it, along with the envelope that sat next to it. The police lieutenant didn't bother counting. He knew that the amount would be right.
Greer handled the introductions.
'Mr Clark, this is General Martin Young, and this is Robert Ritter.'
Kelly shook hands with both. The Marine was an aviator, like Maxwell and Podulski, both of whom were absent from this meeting. He hadn't a clue who Ritter was, but he was the one who spoke first.
'Nice analysis. Your language wasn't exactly bureaucratic, but you hit all the high points.'
'Sir, it's not really all that hard to figure out. The ground assault ought to be fairly easy. You don't have first-line troops in a place like this, and those you have are looking in, not out. Figure two guys in each tower. The MGs are going to be set to point in, right? It takes a few seconds to move them. You can use the treeline to get close enough for M-79 range.' Kelly moved his hands around the diagram. 'Here's the barracks, only two doors, and I bet there's not forty guys in there.'
'Come in here?' General Young tapped the southwest corner on the compound.
'Yes, sir.' For an airedale, the Marine caught on pretty fast. 'The trick's getting the initial strike team in close. You'll use weather for that, and this time of the year that shouldn't be real hard. Two gunships, just regular rockets and miniguns to hose these two buildings. Land the evac choppers here. It's all over in under five minutes from when the shooting starts. That's the land phase. I'll leave the rest to the fliers.'
'So you say the real key is to get the assault element in close on the ground -'
'No, sir. If you want to do another Song Tay, you can duplicate the whole plan, crash the chopper in the compound, the whole nine yards - but I keep hearing you want it done small.'
'Correct,' Ritter said. 'Has to be small. There's no way we can sell this as a major operation.'
'Fewer assets, sir, and you have to use different tactics. The good news is that it's a small objective, not all that many people to get out, not many bad guys to get in the way.'
'But no safety factor,' General Young said, frowning.
'Not much of one,' Kelly agreed. 'Twenty-five people. Land them in this valley, they hump over this hill, get into place, do the towers, blow this gate. Then the gunships come in and hose these two buildings while the assault element hits this building here. The snakes orbit while the slicks do the pickup, and we all boogie the hell down the valley.'
'Mr Clark, you're an optimist,' Greer observed, reminding Kelly of his cover name at the same time. If General Young found out that Kelly had been a mere chief, they'd never get his support, and Young had already stretched a long way for them, using up his whole year's construction budget to build the mockup in the woods of Quantico.
'It's all stuff I've done before, Admiral.'
'Who's going to get the personnel?' Ritter asked.
'That's being taken care of,' James Greer assured him.
Ritter sat back, looking at the photos and diagrams. He was putting his career on the line, as was Greer and everyone else. But the alternative to doing something was doing nothing. Doing nothing meant that at least one good man, and perhaps twenty more, would never come home again. That wasn't the real reason, though, Ritter admitted to himself. The real reason was that others had decided that the lives of those men didn't matter, and those others might make the same decision again. That kind of thinking would someday destroy his Agency. You couldn't recruit agents if the word got out that America didn't protect those who worked for