Clancy, Tom - Ballance of Power

Home > Other > Clancy, Tom - Ballance of Power > Page 15
Clancy, Tom - Ballance of Power Page 15

by Balance of Power [lit]


  frames-innocuously, like serial numbers-was a

  series of four telephone numbers and identifying

  letters.

  Ingenious,

  Juan thought. His boss didn't need glasses-

  hadn 'I

  needed glasses, he thought bitterly- but no one would

  ever think to check them for coded messages or phone

  numbers.

  He called the number with the

  S

  next to it. Serrador answered-whoever that

  was. The man was indignant, brusque, and in

  trouble, judging from the sounds Juan heard over the

  telephone. He decided to hang up before the call

  could be traced.

  He remained behind the desk in the large

  secondfloor office. He looked out the bank of

  windows at the large yacht factory. Esteban

  Ramirez had been good to him for many years. Juan

  hadn't been an intimate but he was a member of

  Segnor Ramirez

  'sfamilia.

  And that loyalty continued even after death.

  Juan looked at the eyeglasses. He called the

  other numbers. Housekeepers answered using the

  family

  BALANCE OF POWER 145

  name: they were all men who had been on the ship.

  Juan knew because he had ferried them there.

  Something evil was afoot, as Senor Ramirez had

  warned. Someone had been careful to wipe out everyone

  who was involved with the boss and his new project. It

  was a matter of honor, nothing else, that Juan

  find that someone and avenge the murders.

  The night crew at the factory was already talking about

  the rumors of the death of their employer. They

  were also talking about a tape recording that had just been

  played at the local radio station. A tape that

  reportedly had their boss revealing his involvement in

  the murder of the American tourist.

  Juan was too angry to allow himself to be overcome

  by grief. Rounding up several other members of the

  familia-

  two watchmen and a night manager-he decided to go

  to the radio station to find out if there were such a tape.

  And if there were, find out who had brought it to them.

  And whoever it was, cause him to regret that he had.

  TWELVE

  Monday, 5:09 p.m. Washington, D.c.

  Paul Hood was unhappy. That was occurring a lot

  lately, and usually for the same reason.

  Hood had phoned his wife to tell her that he'd be

  missing dinner with the family tonight.

  "As usual," Sharon reminded him before leaving him

  with a curt goodbye and hanging up.

  Hood tried not to blame his wife for being

  disappointed. How could he? She didn't know he'd

  lost Martha in the field. He wasn't permitted

  to discuss OpCenter matters with anyone over an

  open line. Anyway, Sharon was more upset for the two

  kids than for herself. She said that even though

  it was spring vacation, eleven-year-old Alexander had

  gotten up early and set up his new scanner

  by himself. He was burning to show his father some of the

  computer-morphs he'd created. By the time Hood

  got home most nights, Alexander was too drowsy

  to boot the system and talk him through the steps of

  whatever he'd been working on, which was what the boy

  liked to do. Thirteen-yearold Harieigh practiced

  her violin for an hour after dinner each night.

  Sharon said that for the past few days, ever since she'd

  mastered her Tchaikovsky piece, the

  BALANCE OF POWER 147

  house at sunset had been a magical place

  to be. Sharon said it would be more magical for them all

  if Paul were there once in a while.

  A part of Hood felt guilty. Sharon and also

  Madison Avenue were responsible for that.

  Family-first was the advertising mantra of the

  nineties. But Pennsylvania Avenue made him

  feel guilty too. He had a responsibility

  to the President and to the nation. He had a

  responsibility to the people whose lives and

  livelihoods depended upon his industry, his

  judgment. His focus.

  He and Sharon both knew what the rules

  were when he took this job. Wasn't it she who had

  wanted him to get out of politics? Wasn't she the

  one who had hated the fact that being the family of the

  mayor of Los Angeles had entitled them to zero

  privacy even when they were together? But the truth was,

  whatever he did Hood wasn't a high school

  principal with summers off like her father. He wasn't

  a banker anymore, who worked from eight-thirty

  to five-thirty with the occasional client dinner. Or

  an independently wealthy yachtsman like that rugged,

  self-impressed Italian winemaker Stefano

  Renaldo with whom she'd sailed the world before marrying

  Hood.

  Paul Hood was a man who enjoyed his work and the

  responsibility of it. And he enjoyed the rewards,

  too. Each morning he woke up in the quiet

  house and went downstairs to make his coffee and sat

  there drinking it in the den and looking around and thinking, I

  did this.

  They all enjoyed the rewards. There wouldn't

  be

  a computer or violin lessons or a nice house

  for them to

  148 OP-CENTER

  miss him at if he didn't work hard.

  Sharon would have to work full-time instead of being able

  to appear semiregularly on a cable TV cooking

  show. She didn't have to thank him but did she have

  to damn him? She didn't have to enjoy his absence-he

  didn't-but she could make it easier.

  His hand was still on the phone. His eyes were on his hand.

  It had taken only a moment for the pros and cons

  to flash through his brain. He lifted his hand and sat

  back, a sour look on his face.

  These weren't exactly new or deeply buried

  feelings. Neither was the bitterness, which set in next.

  If only Sharon supported him instead of condemning

  him. It wouldn't make him try any harder to be

  home earlier. He couldn't. His hours were what they

  were. But it would make him feel like he had a real

  home to go to instead of a seminar on What's Wrong with

  Paul Hood.

  He thought of Nancy Bosworth again. Not long before,

  he'd bumped into his old flame in Germany. Never

  mind that she'd been the one who ran out on him years

  before. Never mind that she'd shattered his heart. When

  he saw her again he felt drawn to her because she was

  someone who wanted him, uncritically. She had

  only kind and flattering things to say.

  Of course.

  Hood said, his conscience taking Sharon's side.

  Nancy can afford to be generous. She doesn't have

  to live comwith you and raise two kids and hurt for them

  when Dad's not there.

  But that didn't change the fact that he'd wanted

  to hold Nancy Jo Bosworth tightly and he'd

  wanted to be held

  by

  her. That he'd yearned to crawl into. her

  BALANCE OF POWER 149

  arms
because she wanted him there, not as a reward for being

  good to his kids. That was passionless.

  Then he thought about Arm Farris. The beautiful and

  sexy press liaison liked him. She cared about

  him. She made him feel good about himself. And he

  liked her. There were many times when he'd had to fight the

  urge to reach across the desk and touch her hair. But

  he knew that if he ever crossed that line, even a

  bit, there would be no going back. Everyone at

  OpCenter would know. Washington would know. Eventually

  Sharon would know.

  So

  what?

  he asked himself.

  What's wrong with ending a marriage that isn

  'I working the way you want it to anyway?

  The words hung in his brain like a medical

  diagnosis he didn't want to hear. He hated

  himself for even flirting with the notion of divorce, for

  despite everything he loved Sharon. And she had

  thrown in her lot with him, not with Renaldo. She had

  committed to building a life

  with

  him, not around him. And there were some things women would always

  be more possessive of than men. Like kids. That

  didn't make her right and him wrong, her good and him

  bad. It made them different, that's all. And

  differences could be worked out.

  The bitterness was softened by the reminder that he and

  Sharon were vastly different people. She was a dreamer and

  he was a pragmatist. He was being judged by a standard

  that was more romantic wishfulness than reality. It was

  time to shelve those concerns for now because reality had to be

  dealt with. Besides,

  because

  150 OP-CENTER

  they were family, his wife and children would forgive him.

  At least, that's how it was supposed to work in the World

  According to Paul.

  Mike Rodgers, Bob Herbert, and

  Ron Plummer arrived for a 5:15 update.

  Hood was ready for them, his conscience relatively

  clear and his mind almost entirely focused. Plummer

  had been named the acting diplomatic officer until

  an official review process for Martha's

  replacement could take place. That would not happen

  until the current crisis had passed. If

  Plummer had the chops for the job they'd know soon enough

  and the review would be a simple formality.

  "Grim news," Herbert said as he rolled in on

  his automated wheelchair. "The Germans just canceled

  a big soccer match they were supposed to play tomorrow in

  Barcelona at the Olympic Stadium. Said

  they're concerned about the 'air of violence" in

  Spain."

  "Will the cancellation be recorded as a forfeit for

  Germany?" Hood asked.

  "That's a good question," Herbert said, "to which the answer

  is no, unfortunately." He pulled a printout

  from a pouch on the side of his chair. " 'The

  Federation of International Football Associations

  has ruled that in a nation where-and I quote-'there is

  a substantial disturbance of services or a

  reasonable fear for security, a visiting team may

  request a postponement for the duration of said

  unrest." What's going on in Spain certainly

  fits that requirement."

  "Which will probably cause more unrest among soccer

  fans," Plummer said, "which will help the situation

  unravel further."

  BALANCE OF POWER 151

  "In a peanut shell, yeah," Herbert replied.

  "The prime minister is going to go on TV in the

  morning to urge everyone to stay calm. But the

  military has already been sent into major cities in

  three Castilian provinces to keep peace where the

  police have been sitting on their hands. The people there have

  always had a real dislike for the Catalonians and

  Basques who work there. The stuff with Serrador and the

  group in San Sebastian really sent them over the

  edge."

  "The question is, where does it go from here?" Hood

  asked.

  "We'll know more after the prime minister speaks,"

  Plummer replied.

  "What's your sense of things?" Hood pressed.

  "The situation will probably deteriorate,"

  Plummer said. "Spain has always been a patchwork

  of very different people-not unlike the Soviet Union

  was. Something like this, which polarizes ethnic

  groups, is a very tough fix."

  Hood looked at Rodgers. "Mike?"

  The general was leaning against the wall. He shifted

  slowly, still obviously in pain. "The military people

  I spoke with in Portugal are extremely

  concerned. They can't remember a time when tensions were so

  openly high."

  "I'm sure you know that the White House has

  contacted our ambassador in Spain," Herbert

  said. "They've been told to button the embassy

  up tight."

  Hood nodded. National Security Chief Steve

  Burkow had phoned a half hour earlier to tell

  him that the embassy in Madrid was being put on

  alert. Passes for the military staff had been

  revoked and all nonmilitary

  152 OP-CENTER

  personnel were ordered to remain on the compound. There was

  some fear about further attacks against Americans.

  But there was a more general concern that Americans might

  get caught in the overall violence that seemed to be

  brewing.

  "Does NATO have any jurisdiction here?"

  Hood asked.

  "No," Rodgers replied. "They're not

  a domestic police force. I checked with General

  Roche, Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces in

  Central Europe. He's pretty conservative.

  Doesn't want to plant a toe outside the

  charter."

  " 'With Basques being attacked, the French

  Basques might not let it remain a domestic

  matter for long," Plummer said.

  "That's true," said Rodgers. "But NATO still

  won't want to break their primary mandate, which is

  to resolve disputes between member nations peaceably."

  "I know William Roche," Herbert said, "and I

  don't blame him. NATO still has egg on its

  face from the Serbian-Bosnian conflict in

  ninety-four. The Serbs violated designated

  safe havens all over the place despite the

  threat of limited NATO air strikes. If you

  don't intend to go in with everything you've got, stay on

  the sidelines."

  "Anyway," Rodgers said, "there's a larger

  issue. If Portugal or France or any

  local government puts troops on alert it might

  help to precipitate a crisis."

  "The Spanish are kinda ornery that way," Herbert

  said. "Groups of 'em will get together and start

  some BALANCE OF POWER 153

  thing because they're insulted that someone would

  think

  they'd start something."

  "Are we talking about lynch mobs?" Hood asked.

  " "They might look for Portuguese or French

  nationals to beat up on," Herbert said. "Then, of

  course, those governments will have to respond."

  Hood shook hi
s head.

  "Welcome to the world of precipitating crises,"

  Herbert said. " 'From my kinfolk firing on

  Fort Sumter to blowing up the battleship

  Maine,

  from shooting Archduke Ferdinand to the bombing of Pearl

  Harbor. Give people a spark and you usually end up

  with a fire."

  "That's the old way," Hood said tensely. "Our

  job is to figure out how to manage these things,

  to defuse crises." That came out sounding harsher than

  Hood had intended and he took a long, slow

  breath. He had to be careful not to let frustration with

  his personal crisis seep into his professional

  crisis. "Anyway," he said, "this brings us to the

  matter of Darrell and Aideen. Darrell has

  recommended sending Aideen to San

  Sebastian with an Interpol agent. I've okayed

  this. They're going to go undercover to try and find out how

  the tape from the yacht was made, by whom, and why."

  "Who's the Interpol agent?" Herbert asked.

  "Maria Comeja," Hood told him.

  "Ouch," Herbert said. "That's got to sting a bit."

  Hood thought back to his own brush with his former

  lover. "They'll have very minimal contact. Darrell

  will be able to handle it."

  "I meant it's gonna sting her," Herbert said.

  "She

  154 OP-CENTER

  may handle it like the Castilians are handling the

  Catalonians."

  It was a joke but a nervous one. Maria had been

  infatuated with McCaskey. Their romance, two

  years before, had caused almost as much conversation as

  Op-Center's first crisis, finding and defusing a

  terrorist bomb onboard the space shuttle

  Atlantis.

  "I'm not worried about it," Hood said. "I

  am

  worried about giving Aideen an exit strategy in

  case something goes wrong. They're flying up

  to San Sebastian tonight. Darrell says

  that Interpol is worried about the same thing that's been

  hounding police all over Spain:

  ethnic loyalties within the organization."

  "Meaning that Aideen and Maria are on their own,"

  Rodgers said.

  "Pretty much," Hood agreed.

  "Then I think we need Striker over there,"

  Rodgers continued. "I can set them down at the

  NATO airfield outside Zaragoza. That'll

  put them about one hundred miles south of San

  Sebastian. Colonel August knows that region

  well."

  "Get them going," Hood said. "Ron, you'll have

  to take this to the CIOC. Get Lowell to work with you

  on it."

  Plummer nodded. Martha Mackall had always handled

  the Congressional Intelligence Oversight

 

‹ Prev