Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan Books 7-12 (424 page)

“Pig of a flight, all the way out from London,” the colonel sympathized.

“That it is,” Chavez agreed for his men.

“When do the games start?” Mike Pierce asked.

“Tomorrow,” Wilkerson replied. “We’ve got most of the athletes settled into their quarters, and our security teams are fully manned and trained up. We expect no difficulties at all. The intelligence threat board is quite blank. The people we have watching the airport report nothing, and we have photos and descriptions of all known international terrorists. Not as many as there used to be, largely thanks to your group,” the SAS colonel added, with a friendly, professional smile.

“Yeah, well, we try to do our part, Colonel,” George Tomlinson observed, while rubbing his face.

“The chaps who attacked you directly, they were IRA, as the media said?”

“Yeah,” Chavez answered. “Splinter group. But they were well briefed. Somebody gave them primo intelligence information. They had their civilian targets identified by name and occupation—that included my wife and mother-in-law, and—”

“I hadn’t heard
that,”
the Aussie said, with wide-open eyes.

“Well, it wasn’t fun. And we lost two people killed, and four wounded, including Peter Covington. He’s my counterpart, commanding Team-1,” Ding explained. “Like I said, wasn’t fun. Tim here turned out to have saved the day,” he went on, pointing at Noonan.

“How so?” Wilkerson asked the FBI agent, who looked slightly embarrassed.

“I have a system for shutting down cellular phone communications. Turns out the bad guys were using them to coordinate their movements,” the FBI agent explained. “We denied them that ability, and it interfered with their plans. Then Ding and the rest of the guys came in and messed them up some more. We were very, very lucky, Colonel.”

“So, you’re FBI. You know Gus Werner, I expect?”

“Oh, yeah. Gus and I go back a ways. He’s the new AD for terrorism—new division the Bureau’s set up. You’ve been to Quantico, I suppose.”

“Just a few months ago, in fact, exercising with your Hostage Rescue Team and Colonel Byron’s Delta group. Good lads, all of them.” The driver turned off the interstate-type highway, taking an exit that seemed to head into downtown Sydney. Traffic was light. It was still too early for people to be very active, aside from milkmen and paperboys. The minibus pulled up to an upscale hotel, whose bell staff was awake, even at this ungodly hour.

“We have an arrangement with this one,” Wilkerson explained. “The Global Security people are here, too.”

“Who?” Ding asked.

“Global Security, they have the consulting contract. Mr. Noonan, you probably know their chief, Bill Henriksen.”

“Bill the tree-hugger?” Noonan managed a strangled laugh. “Oh, yeah, I know him.”

“Tree-hugger?”

“Colonel, Bill was a senior guy in Hostage Rescue a few years ago. Competent guy, but he’s one of those nutty environmentalist types. Hugs trees and bunny rabbits. Worries about the ozone layer, all that crap,” Noonan explained.

“I didn’t know that about him. We do worry about the ozone down here, you know. One must use sunblock on the beaches and such. Might be serious in a few years, so they say.”

“Maybe so,” Tim allowed with a yawn. “I’m not a surfer.”

The door was pulled open by a hotel employee and the men stumbled out. Colonel Wilkerson must have called ahead, Ding thought a minute later, as they were fast-tracked to their rooms—nice ones—for wake-up showers, followed by big breakfasts with
lots
of coffee. As dreadful as the jet lag was, the best way for them to handle it was to gut their way through the first day, try to get a decent night’s sleep, and so synchronize themselves in a single day. At least that was the theory, Ding thought, toweling off in front of the bathroom mirror and seeing that he looked almost as messed up as he felt. Soon after that, wearing casual clothes, he showed up in the hotel coffee shop.

“You know, Colonel, if somebody made a narcotic that worked on jet lag, he’d die richer ’n hell.”

“Quite. I’ve been through it as well, Major.”

“Call me Ding. My given name’s Domingo, but I go by Ding.”

“What’s your background?” Wilkerson asked.

“Started off as an infantryman, but then into CIA, and now this. I don’t know about this simulated-major stuff. I’m Team-2 commander for Rainbow, and I guess that’ll have to do.”

“You Rainbow chaps have been busy.”

“That’s a fact, Colonel,” Ding agreed, shaking his head as the waiter came with a pot of coffee. Ding wondered if anyone had the Army type of coffee, the sort with triple the usual amount of caffeine. It would have come in handy right now. That and a nice morning workout might have helped a lot. In addition to the fatigue, his body was rebelling against the full day of confinement on the 747. The damned airplane was big enough for a few laps, but somehow the designers had left out the running track. Then came the slightly guilty feeling for the poor bastards who’d made the hop in tourist. They must really be suffering, Ding was sure. Well, at least it had been quick. A ship would have taken a whole month—of palatial comfort, lots of exercise opportunities, and good food. Life was full of trade-offs, wasn’t it?

“You were in on the Worldpark job?”

“Yeah.” Ding nodded. “My team did the assault on the castle. I was a hot hundred feet away when that bastard killed the little girl. That really wasn’t fun, Colonel.”

“Frank.”

“Thanks. Yeah, Frank, that was pretty damned bad. But we got that bastard—which is to say, Homer Johnston did. He’s one of my long rifles.”

“From the TV coverage we saw, that wasn’t a particularly good shot.”

“Homer wanted to make a little statement,” Chavez explained, with a raised eyebrow. “He won’t be doing it again.”

Wilkerson figured that one out instantly. “Oh, yes, quite. Any children, Ding?”

“Just became a father a few days ago. A son.”

“Congratulations. We’ll have to have a beer for that, later today perhaps.”

“Frank, one beer and you might just have to carry my ass back here.” Ding yawned, and felt embarrassment at the state of his body right then and there. “Anyway, why did you want us down here? Everybody says you guys are pretty good.”

“Never hurts to get a second opinion, Ding. My lads
are
well trained, but we haven’t had all that much practical experience. And we need some new hardware. Those new radios that E-Systems make, and that Global Security got for us, they’re bloody marvelous. What other magic tools might you have?”

“Noonan’s got something that’ll knock your eyes out, Frank. I hardly believe it myself, but I don’t think it’ll be worth a damn down here. Too many people around. But you’ll find it interesting. I promise you that.”

“What’s that?”

“Tim calls it the ‘Tricorder’—you know the gadget Mr. Spock used all the time in
Star Trek.
It finds people like radar finds airplanes.”

“How’s it do that?”

“He’ll tell you. Something about the electrical field around a human heart.”

“I’ve never heard of that.”

“It’s new,” Chavez explained. “Little company in the States called DKL, I think. That little fucker is magic, the way it works. Little Willie at Fort Bragg’s in love with it.”

“Colonel Byron?”

“He’s the man. You said you’ve worked with him recently?”

“Oh, yes, splendid chap.”

Chavez had a chuckle at that one. “He doesn’t like Rainbow all that much. We stole some of his best people, you see.”

“And gave them practical work to do.”

“True,” Chavez agreed, sipping his coffee. The rest of the team appeared then, dressed as their commander was, in semimilitary casual clothes. Sauntering into the coffee shop, they spotted their boss and came over.

It was about four in the afternoon in Kansas. The morning ride had left Popov sore in unusual places. His hips especially protested the way they’d been used earlier in the day, his upper legs held out at an unusual angle. But it was a pleasant memory for all that.

There was nothing for Popov to do here. He had no assigned work, and by lunch he’d run out of things he could conveniently explore. That left television as a diversion, but TV was not one of his favorite things. A bright man, he was easily bored, and he hated boredom. CNN kept repeating the same stories on the Olympics, and while he’d always enjoyed watching that international competition, it hadn’t started yet. So, he wandered the corridors of the hotel, and looked out the huge window-wall at the surrounding countryside. Another ride tomorrow morning, he thought, at least it got him outside into pleasant surroundings. After over an hour’s wandering, he headed down to the cafeteria.

“Oh, hello, Dmitriy,” Kirk Maclean said, just ahead of him in the line. Maclean wasn’t a vegan either, the Russian saw. His plate had a large slice of ham on it. Popov remarked on that.

“Like I said this morning, we’re not designed to be vegetarians,” Maclean pointed out with a grin.

“How do you know that is true?”

“Teeth mainly,” Maclean replied. “Herbivores chew grass and stuff, and there’s a lot of dirt and grit in that kind of food, and that wears the teeth down like sandpaper. So they need teeth with very thick enamel so they won’t wear out in a few years. The enamel on human teeth is a lot thinner than what you find on a cow. So either we’re adapted to washing the dirt off our food first, or we’re designed to eat meat for most of our protein intake. I don’t think we adapted that fast to running water in the kitchen, y’know?” Kirk asked with a grin. The two men headed off to the same table. “What do you do for John?” he asked after they’d sat down.

“Dr. Brightling, you mean?”

“Yeah, you said you work directly for him.”

“I used to be KGB.” Might as well try it on him, too.

“Oh, you spy for us, then?” Maclean asked, cutting up his ham slice.

Popov shook his head. “Not exactly. I established contact with people in whom Dr. Brightling had interest and asked them to perform certain functions which he wished them to do.”

“Oh? For what?” Maclean asked.

“I am not sure that I am allowed to say.”

“Secret stuff, eh? Well, there’s a lot of that here, man. Have you been briefed in on the Project?”

“Not exactly. Perhaps I am part of it, but I haven’t been told exactly what the purpose of all this is. Do you know?”

“Oh, sure. I’ve been in it almost from the beginning. It’s really something, man. It’s got some real nasty parts, but,” he added with a cold look in his eyes, “you don’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs, right?”

Lenin said that,
Popov remembered. In the 1920s, when asked about the destructive violence being done in the name of Soviet Revolution. The observation had become famous, especially in KGB, when occasionally someone objected to particularly cruel field operations—like what Popov had done, interfacing with terrorists, who typically acted in the most grossly inhuman manner and . . . recently, under his guidance. But what sort of omelet was this man helping to make?

“We’re gonna change the world, Dmitriy,” Maclean said.

“How so, Kirk?”

“Wait and see, man. Remember how it was this morning out riding?”

“Yes, it was very pleasant.”

“Imagine the whole world like that” was as far as Maclean was willing to go.

“But how would you make that happen . . . where would all the farmers go?” Popov asked, truly puzzled.

“Just think of ’em as eggs, man,” Maclean answered, with a smile, and Dmitriy’s blood suddenly turned cold, though he didn’t understand why. His mind couldn’t make the jump, much as he wanted it to do so. It was like being a field officer again, trying to discern enemy intentions on an important field assignment, and knowing some, perhaps much, of the necessary information, but not enough to paint the entire picture in his own mind. But the frightening part was that these Project people spoke of human life as the German fascists had once done.
But they’re only Jews.
He looked up at the noise and saw another aircraft landing on the approach road. Behind it in the distance, a number of automobiles were halted off the road/runway, waiting to drive to the building. There were more people in the cafeteria now, he saw, nearly double the number from the previous day. So, Horizon Corporation was bringing its people here. Why? Was this part of the Project? Was it merely the activation of this expensive research facility? The pieces of the puzzle were all before him, Popov knew, but the manner in which they fit was as mysterious as ever.

“Hey, Dmitriy!” Killgore said, as he joined them. “A little sore, maybe?”

“Somewhat,” Popov admitted, “but I do not regret it. Could we do it again?”

“Sure. It’s part of my morning routine here. Want to join me that way?”

“Yes, thank you, that is very kind.”

“Seven A.M., right here, pal,” Killgore responded with a smile. “You, too, Kirk?”

“You bet. Tomorrow I have to drive out and get some new boots. Is there a good store around here for outdoors stuff?”

“Half an hour away, U.S. Cavalry outlet. You go east two exits on the interstate,” Dr. Killgore advised.

“Great. I want to get ’em before all the new arrivals strip the stores of the good outdoors stuff.”

“Makes sense,” Killgore thought, then turned. “So, Dmitriy, what’s it like being a spy?”

“It is often very frustrating work,” Popov replied truthfully.

“Wow, this is some facility,” Ding observed. The stadium was huge, easily large enough to seat a hundred thousand people. But it would be hot here, damned hot, like being inside a huge concrete wok. Well, there were plenty of concessions in the concourses, and surely there’d be people circulating with Cokes and other cold drinks. And just off the stadium grounds were all manner of pubs for those who preferred beer. The lush grass floor of the stadium bowl was nearly empty at the moment, with just a few groundskeepers manicuring a few parts. Most of the track-and-field events would be here. The oval Tartan track was marked for the various distance and hurdle races, and there were the pits for the jumping events. A monster scoreboard and Jumbotron sat on the far end so that people could see instant replays of the important events, and Ding felt himself getting a little excited. He’d never been present for an Olympic competition, and he was himself enough of an athlete to appreciate the degree of dedication and skill that went into this sort of thing. The crazy part was that as good as his own people were, they were not the equal of the athletes—most of them little kids, to Ding’s way of thinking—who’d be marching in here tomorrow. Even his shooters probably wouldn’t win the pistol or rifle events. His men were generalists, trained to do many things, and the Olympic athletes were the ultimate specialists, trained to do a single thing supremely well. It had about as much relevance to life in the real world as a professional baseball game, but it would be a beautiful thing to watch for all that.