Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan Books 7-12 (247 page)

Those ships were turning their engines for a reason. Ryan was doing something or thinking about doing something, and instead of merely asking, he had to be a spy again, working against another spy instead of working with an ally. Well, he had no choice.

“Form a special study group for the Persian Gulf. Everything we have, bring it together as quickly as possible. America will have to react somehow to the developing situation. First, we must determine what is happening. Second, what America probably knows. Third, what America will do. That general, G. I. Bondarenko, get him involved. He just spent time with their military.”

“Immediately, Comrade Chairman,” his principal deputy replied for the rest of the meeting. At least
that
hadn’t changed!

CONDITIONS, HE THOUGHT, were excellent. Not too hot, not too cold. The Javits Center was right on the river, and that made for relatively high local humidity, and that was good also. He’d be inside, and so there was no concern about ultraviolet radiation harming the contents of his container. For the rest, the theory of what he was doing was not his concern; he’d been briefed on it and would do exactly what he’d been told. Whether or not it worked, well, that was in Allah’s hands, wasn’t it? The traveler got out of his cab and walked in.

He’d never been in so capacious a building, and there was a little disorientation after he got his visitor’s badge and program book, which showed a map of the interior. With that came an index that allowed him to see the location of various exhibits, and with a muted smile he decided that he had hours to accomplish his goal, and would spend the time looking at cars, just like everybody else.

There were lots of them, sparkling like jewels, some on turntables for those too lazy to walk around them, many with scantily clad women gesturing at them as though one might have sexual relations with them—the cars, that is, though some of the women might be possibilities, he thought, watching their faces with concealed amusement. He’d known intellectually that America made millions of cars, and in almost that many shapes and colors. It seemed hugely wasteful—what was a car, after all, except for a method of moving from one place to another, and in the course of use they got damaged and dirty, and the show here was a lie in that it showed them as they would be for less time than it took to drive one home even in America, as he’d seen in the drive here from his hotel—

But it was a pleasant experience even so. He would have thought of it as shopping, but this was not the souk which he connected with the process, not an alley full of small shops operated by merchants for whom bargaining was as important as the air. No, America was different. Here they prostituted women to sell things for a pre-determined price. It wasn’t that he was personally against such use of women; the traveler was not married and had the usual carnal desires, but to proclaim it in this way attacked the puritanical modesty of his culture, and so while he never once looked away from the women standing by the cars, he was glad that none of them was from his part of the world.

All the makes and models. Cadillac had a huge display in the General Motors section. Ford had another area of its own for all of its trademark products. He wandered through the Chrysler section, and then off to the foreign makers. The Japanese section, he saw, was being avoided, doubtless as a result of the American conflict with that country—though above many of the displays were signs proclaiming
MADE IN AMERICA BY AMERICANS!
in three-meter letters to those few who seemed to care. Toyota, Nissan, and the rest would have a bad year, even the sporty Cressida, regardless of where they might be assembled. You could tell that by the lack of people in the area, and with that realization, his interest in Asian cars died. No, he decided, not around here.

European cars were profiting from Japan’s misfortune, he saw. Mercedes especially was drawing a huge crowd, especially a new model of their most expensive sports car, painted a glossy midnight black that reflected the overhead lighting like a piece of the clear desert sky. Along the way, the traveler picked up a brochure at every booth from a friendly manufacturer’s representative. These he tucked into his carry-on bag so as to make himself look like every other visitor. He found a food booth and got something to eat—it was a hot dog, and he didn’t worry if it had pork in it or not; America wasn’t an Islamic country, after all, and he didn’t have to worry about such things. He spent a good deal of time looking at all-terrain vehicles, first wondering if they’d survive the primitive roads of Lebanon and Iran, and deciding that they probably would. One was based on a military type he’d seen before, and if he’d had a choice, it would have been that one, wide and powerful. He got the entire publicity package for that one, then leaned against a post so that he might read it. Sports cars were for the effete. This was something of substance. What a pity he’d never own one. He checked his watch. Early evening. More visitors were crowding in as work let out and people took the evening to indulge their fantasies. Perfect.

Along the way he’d noted the air conditioning. It would have been better to set his canister in the system itself, but he’d been briefed on that, too. The Legionnaire’s disease outbreak years before in Philadelphia had taught Americans about the need for keeping such systems clean; they often used chlorine to treat the condensate water which humidified the recirculating air, and chlorine would kill the virus as surely as a bullet killed a man. Looking up from the color-printed brochure, he noted the huge circular vents. Cool air descended from them, and washed invisibly along the floor. On being heated by the bodies in the room, the warm air would rise back into the returns and go through the system for cooling—and some degree of disinfection. So he had to pick a spot where the air flow would be his ally, not his enemy, and he considered that, standing there like an interested car shopper. He started wandering more, walking under some of the vents, feeling the gentle, cooling breeze with his skin, evaluating one and another and looking for a good spot to leave his canister. The latter was equally important. The spray period would last for about fifteen seconds. There would be a hissing sound—probably lost in the noise of the crowded building—and a brief fog. The cloud would turn invisible in just a few more seconds; the particulate matter was so small and, being as dense as the surrounding air, would become part of the ambient atmosphere and spread around randomly for at least thirty minutes, perhaps more, depending on the efficiency of the environmental systems in the center. He wanted to expose as many people as possible, consistent with those parameters, and with that renewed thought in his mind, he started wandering again.

It helped that, vast as the auto show was, it did not fill the Javits Center. Every exhibit was constructed of prefabricated parts like those in a business office, and behind many of those were large swatches of cloth, like vertical banners, whose only purpose was to break up the line of sight to empty portions of the building. They were easily accessible, the traveler saw. Nothing was fenced off. You simply ducked around an exhibit. He saw some people holding mini-meetings there, and some circulating maintenance personnel, but little else. The maintenance personnel were a potential problem, though. It wouldn’t do to have his canister picked up before it discharged. But such people would be on regular routines, wouldn’t they? It was just a matter of discerning the patterns of their movement. Of course. So, he thought, where is the best spot? The show would be open for several more hours. He wanted to pick a perfect place and time, but he’d been briefed not to worry too greatly about that. He took that advice to heart. Better to be covert. That was his primary mission.

The main entrance is ... there.
People entered and left through the same side of the building. Emergency exits were everywhere, all of them properly marked, but with alarm buzzers on them. At the entrance was a bank of air-conditioning vents to form a thermal barrier of sorts, and the returns were mainly in the center of the exhibit hall. So the air flow was designed to move inward from the periphery ... and everyone had to come in and out the same way... how to make that work for him ... ? A bank of rest rooms was on that side, with regular traffic back and forth—too dangerous; someone might see the can and pick it up and put it in a trash can. He walked to the other side, fumbling with his program as he did so, bumping into people, and finding himself again at the edge of the General Motors section. Beyond that were Mercedes and BMW, all on the way to the returns, and there were lots of people in all three areas—plus the downward bloom of the air would wash across part of the entrance/exit. The green banners blocked view of the wall, but there was space under them, open area ... partially shielded from view. This was it. He walked away, checking his watch and then the program for the show’s hours. The program he tucked into the carry-on bag while his other hand unzipped the shaving kit. He circulated around one more time, looking for another likely place, and while he found one, it wasn’t as good as the first. Then he made a final check to see if someone might be following him. No, nobody knew he was here, and he wouldn’t announce his presence or his mission with a burst from an AK-47 or the crash of a tossed grenade. There was more than one way to be a terrorist, and he regretted not having discovered this one sooner. How much he might have enjoyed setting a canister like this one into a theater in Jerusalem... but, no, the time for that would come later, perhaps, once the main enemy of his culture was crippled. He looked at the faces now, these Americans who so hated him and his people. Shuffling around, like cattle, purposeless. And then it was time.

The traveler ducked behind an exhibit, extracted the can and set it on its side on the concrete floor. It was weighted to roll to the proper position, and, lying on its side, it would be harder to see. With that done, he pressed the simple mechanical timer and walked away, back into the exhibition area, turning left to leave the building. He was in a taxi in five minutes, on the way back to his hotel. Before he got there, the timer-spring released the valve, and for fifteen seconds the canister emptied its contents into the air. The noise was lost in the cacophony of the crowd. The vapor cloud dispersed before it could be seen.

IN ATLANTA, IT was the Spring Boat Show. About half of the people there might have serious thoughts of buying a boat, this year or some other. The rest were just dreaming. Let them dream, this traveler thought on the way out.

IN ORLANDO, IT was recreational vehicles. That was particularly easy. A traveler looked under a Winnebago, as though to check the chassis, slid his canister there, and left.

IN CHICAGO’S MCCORMICK Center, it was housewares, a vast hall full of every manner of furniture and appliance, and the women who wished to have them.

IN HOUSTON, IT was one of America’s greatest horse shows. Many of them were Arabians, he was surprised to note, and the traveler whispered a prayer that the disease didn’t hurt those noble creatures, so beloved of Allah.

IN PHOENIX, IT was golf equipment, a game that the traveler didn’t know a thing about, though he had several kilos of free literature which he might read on the flight back to the Eastern Hemisphere. He’d found an empty golf bag with a hard-plastic lining that would conceal the canister, set the timer, and dropped it in.

IN SAN FRANCISCO, it was computers, the most crowded show of all that day, with over twenty thousand people in the Moscone Convention Center, so many that this traveler feared he might not get outside to the garden area before the can released its contents. But he did, walking upwind to his hotel, four blocks away, his job complete.

THE RUG SHOP was just closing down when Aref Raman walked in. Mr. Alahad locked the front door and switched off the lights.

“My instructions?”

“You will do nothing without direct orders, but it is important to know if you are able to complete your mission.”

“Is that not plain?” Raman asked in irritation. “Why do you think ”

“I have my instructions,” Alahad said gently.

“I am able. I am ready,” the assassin assured his cutout. The decision had been made years before, but it was good to say it out loud to another, here, now.

“You will be told at the proper time. It will be soon.”

“The political situation ...”

“We are aware of that, and we are confident of your devotion. Be at peace, Aref. Great things are happening. I know not what they are, merely that they are under way, and at the proper time, your act will be the capstone of the Holy Jihad. Mahmoud Haji sends his greetings and his prayers.”

“Thank you.” Raman inclined his head at word of the distant but powerful blessing. It had been a very long time since he’d heard the man’s voice over anything but a television, and then he’d been forced to turn away, lest others see his reaction to it.

“It has been hard for you,” Alahad said.

“It has.” Raman nodded.

“It will soon be over, my young friend. Come to the back with me. Do you have time?”

“I do.”

“It is time for prayer.”

38

GRACE PERIOD

I
’M NOT AN AREA SPECIALIST,” Clark objected. He’d been to Iran before.

Ed Foley would have none of that: “You’ve been on the ground there, and I think you’re the one who always talks about how there’s no substitute for dirty hands and a good nose.”

“He was just laying more of that on the kiddies at the Farm this afternoon,” Ding reported with a sly look. “Well, today it was about reading people by lookin’ in their eyes, but it’s the same thing. Good eye, good nose, good senses.”
He
hadn’t been to Iran, and they wouldn’t send Mr. C. alone, would they?