by Tom Clancy
"I said there was another reason I didn't contact you," Nancy said. She looked up again. "I assumed you would be questioned or watched, or your phone would be tapped. If I had called or written, the FBI would have found me." "That's true," Hood said. "The FBI did come to my apartment. They questioned me, without telling me what you'd done, and I agreed to let them know if I heard from you." "You did?" she seemed surprised. "You'd have turned me in?" "Yes," he said. "Only I never would have abandoned you." "You'd have had no choice," she said. "There would have been a trial, I'd have gone to prison—" "That's true. But I'd have waited." "Twenty years?" "If that's how long it took," Hood said. "But it wouldn't have. Industrial espionage committed by a young woman in love— you'd have been able to plea-bargain and been free in five years." "Five years," she said. "And then you'd have married a criminal?" "No. You." "Okay, an ex-con. No one would've trusted me— or you— around any kind of a secret. Your dreams of a life in politics, would have ended." "So what?" he said. "Instead, I felt as though my life had ended." Nancy stopped speaking. She smiled again. "Poor Paul," she said. "That's all very romantic and just a little theatrical, which is one of the things I loved about you. But the truth is, your life didn't end when I left. You met someone else, someone quite lovely. You married. You had the children you wanted. You settled down." I settled, he thought before he could stop himself. He hated himself for thinking it and apologized silently to Sharon.
"What did you do after you left?" Hood asked, wanting to talk instead of think.
"I moved to Paris," Nancy said, "and I tried to get a job designing computer software. But there wasn't a lot for me to do there. There wasn't much of a market yet and there was a real protectionist thing going, keeping Americans from taking French jobs. So after burning through the blood money I'd been paid— it's expensive to live in Paris, especially when you have to bribe officials because you can't get a visa and have your name show up at the American Embassy— I moved to Toulouse and began working for the company." "The company?" "The one I sold the secrets to," she said. "I don't want to tell you the name, because I don't want you doing anything out of your famous white-knight spite. Because you know you would." Nancy was right. He'd have gone back to Washington and found a dozen different ways for the U.S. government to lean on them.
Nancy said, "The not-so-funny thing was, I always suspected that the guy I sold those plans to was the one who turned me in, to force me to come over and work for him. Not because I was so brilliant, mind you— I stole my best idea, right? — but because he felt that if I depended on him I could never turn on him. I hadn't wanted to go to him because I was ashamed of what I'd done, but I needed to work." She smiled unhappily. "To top it all off, I failed at love repeatedly because I compared everyone to you." "Gee," he said, "I can't tell you how much better that makes me feel." "Don't," Nancy said. "Don't be like that. I still loved you. I bought the Los Angeles Times at an international newsstand just to keep up on your activities. And there were times, so very many times, that I wanted to write or phone.
But I thought it was best not to." "Then why did you decide to see me now?" Hood asked. He was in pain again, rocking between that and sadness. "Did you think it would hurt any less today?" "I couldn't help myself," she admitted. "When I heard that you were in Hamburg, I had to see you. And I think that you wanted to see me." "Yes," he said, "I ran after you in the hotel lobby. I wanted to see you. I needed to see you." He shook his head.
"Jesus, Nancy. I still can't believe it's you." "It is," she said.
Hood looked into those eyes with which he had spent so many days and nights. The pull was both extraordinary and awful, a dream and a nightmare. His strength to resist them just wasn't in the same class.
The cool twilight breeze chilled the perspiration along Hood's legs and back. He wanted to hate her. Wanted to walk away from her. But what he wanted most of all was to go back in time and stop her from leaving.
Her eyes held him as she slipped her hands around his.
Her touch jolted him, then settled into an electric tingle that raced from his chest to his toes. And he knew he had to get away from her.
Hood stepped back. The electric connection broke. "I can't do this," he said.
Nancy said, "You can't do what? Be honest?" She added a little jab, the kind she had always been so good at. "What did politics do to you?" "You know what I mean, Nancy. I can't stay here with you." "Not even for an hour? For coffee, to catch up?" "No," Hood said firmly. "This is my closure." She grinned. "This is not closure, Paul. This is anything but that." She was right. Her eyes, her wit, her walk, her presence, her everything had breathed new life into something that had never quite died. Hood wanted to scream.
He stepped up beside her, looking north while she looked south. "Jesus, Nancy, I'm not going to feel guilty about this. You ran away from me. You left without an explanation and I met someone else. Someone who threw in her lot with me, who trusted me with her life and heart. I won't do anything to cheapen that." "I didn't ask you to," Nancy said. "Coffee isn't betrayal." "It is the way we used to drink it," Hood said.
Nancy smiled. She looked down. "I understand. I'm sorry— for everything— sorrier than I can say, and I'm sad. But I do understand" She faced him. "I'm staying at the Ambassador and I'll be here until this evening. If you change your mind, leave a message." "I won't change my mind," Hood said. He looked at her.
"As much as I'd like to." Nancy squeezed his hand. He felt the charge again.
"So politics didn't corrupt you," she said "I'm not surprised. Just a little disappointed." "You'll get over it," Hood said. "After all, you got over me." Nancy's expression changed. For the first time Hood saw the sadness that had been hidden beneath her smile and the longing in her eyes.
"Do you believe that?" she asked.
"Yes. Otherwise, you couldn't have stayed away." She said, "Men really don't understand love, do they?
Not on my best day, with the closest pretender to the Paul Hood throne, did I ever meet anyone as, bright or as compassionate or as gentle as you." She leaned over and kissed him on the shoulder. "I'm sorry I disturbed you by coming back into your life, but I wanted you to know that I never got over you, Paul, and I never will." Nancy didn't look at him as she walked back toward the edge of the park. But he looked at her. And once again Paul Hood was standing alone, two movie tickets in his wallet, suffering the absence of a woman he loved.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Thursday, 4:35 P.M., Hanover, Germany
As soon as he saw the gun, Bob Herbert threw his car into reverse and crushed the hand controlled gas pedal down. The sudden backward acceleration threw him hard against his shoulder harness, and he cried out as it snapped tight against his chest. But the bullets from the van missed the driver's seat, pelting the hood and the front fender as the car rocketed away. Herbert continued moving away, even after his vehicle's right rear side struck a street light and caromed off, skidding onto the road. Oncoming cars braked fast or swerved to avoid him. The drivers shouted and blasted their horns.
Herbert ignored them. He looked ahead and saw the front-seat passenger of the van lean out the window. The man trained the gun on Herbert.
"Sons of bitches don't give up!"! Herbert yelled. Slowed because he had to do everything by hand, Herbert slammed the gas pedal down and spun the steering wheel to the left.
Then he braced himself against the wheel with his left arm.
Racing ahead, he quickly covered the fifteen feet which separated him from the van. He rammed the van's left rear fender. Metal twisted and screamed as they collided, the van was thrown forward, and Herbert swung his Mercedes into the street. Still pressing hard on the gas, he raced past the driver's side and sped ahead.
Traffic had now stopped well behind them and pedestrians were running away in all directions.
Then Herbert remembered the cellular phone. He scooped it up. "Mike, are you still there?" "Christ, didn't you hear me shouting?" "No. Jesus, now I got two continents mad
at me!" "Bob, what's—" Herbert didn't hear the rest. He dropped the phone in his lap and swore as a tram turned onto the street in front of him. Speeding up, he swept around it, putting the tram between him and the van. He hoped the gunman didn't shoot the tram out of frustration and sheer cussedness.
Herbert retrieved the phone. "Sorry, General, I didn't hear that." "I said what's going on?" "Mike, I've got these lunatics with guns who decided we had to have our own private Grand Prix in Hanover!" "Do you know where you are?" Rodgers asked.
Herbert glanced in his rearview mirror as the van screeched around the tram. "Hold on," he said to Rodgers.
He set the phone down on the passenger's seat and put both hands on the wheel as the van shot onto the road. As it raced after him, Herbert looked forward. Hanover was a blur as he raced onto Lange Laube, made a few quick turns, and was on Goethe Strasse. Fortunately, he realized, traffic was lighter than it might have been at this hour because people had stayed out of town during Chaos Days.
Herbert heard Mike Rodgers's voice coming from far away. "Shit!" he said, snatching up the phone as he sped ahead. "Sorry, Mike. I'm here." "Where exactly are you?" Rodgers asked.
"I've got no idea." "Can you see any signs?" Rodgers interrupted.
"No," he said. "Wait, yes." His eyes fixed on a street sign as it whipped past. "Goethe Strasse. I'm on Goethe Strasse." "Hold on," Rodgers said. "We're bringing a map up on the computer." "I'll hold on," Herbert said. "Man, I've got nowhere to go." The van spun onto Goethe Strasse, clipped a car as it did, then accelerated. Herbert didn't know whether these jerks had some kind of legal immunity, zero brains, or just a lot of mad, because they obviously weren't giving up. He figured they were pissed because he was an American and a handicapped man, and he'd stood up to them. That kind of behavior simply could not be tolerated.
And of course, he thought, there isn't a policeman in sight. But as the officer back at the Beer-Hall had said, most of the Landespolizei were tied up watching other meeting places and events. Besides, no one expected a car chase in the middle of the city itself.
Rodgers came back on. "Bob— you're okay there. Get onto Goethe Strasse and continue east if you can. It's a straight run to Rathenau Strasse, which runs south. We'll try to get help to you over there—" "Shit!" Herbert cried again, and dropped the phone.
As the van got closer, the gunman leaned from the window and began firing low, at the tires. Herbert had no choice but to drive into the less-crowded oncoming lane, the lane heading into town. He quickly put himself out of range.
Cars swung out of his way as he raced ahead.
Suddenly, his flight was halted and his orientation rattled as he thumped hard into a pothole. Pinwheeling a half-turn toward the oncoming van, Herbert tapped the brake and took command of the spin. The van shot past him as he stopped facing west, facing the way he'd come.
The van screamed to a stop some fifty yards behind him.
Herbert was back within range. He grabbed the phone and hit the gas.
"Mike," he said, "we're goin' the other way now. Back along Goethe to Lange Laube." "Understood," Rodgers said. "Darrell's on the phone too. Stay cool and we'll try to get you some help." "I'm cool," Herbert said as he glanced back at the roaring van. "Just make sure I don't end up cold," he said.
He looked in his rearview mirror and saw the gunman reloading his weapon. They weren't going to give up, and sooner or later his luck would run out. As he looked in the mirror, he saw the wheelchair and decided to get in front of the van, press the button to activate the bucket, and dump his wheelchair under their wheels. It might not stop them, but it would certainly cause some damage. And if he lived, he'd have fun filling out the requisition form for a new one.
Reason for Loss. He thought of the only essay section of form L-5. "Dropped it from a speeding car to foil neo-Nazi assassins. " Herbert slowed, let the van come closer, then pressed the button on the dash.
The rear door remained closed as a singsongy female voice informed him, "I'm sorry. This device will not operate while the car is in motion. " Herbert slammed his palm on the gas pedal and sped up. He watched the van closely in his rearview mirror, staying dead-center in front of them as much as possible so the gunman wouldn't have much of a shot from the side window.
Then he saw the gunman put his foot to the windshield and push it out. The glass flew up and away in a fluid sheet, then shattered into countless, jagged pellets as it hit the road.
The man poked the gun out and sighted on the car. He fought to steady his weapon in the whipping wind. It was a nightmarish sight, a thug riding shotgun in a van.
Herbert only had a moment to act. He smashed his hand down on the brake, the Mercedes stopped suddenly, and the van rear-ended him hard. His trunk folded up and in like a ribbon. But above it, he saw the gunman tossed forward. The man was thrown at the waist across the lower portion of the window frame. The gun flew from his hands, onto the hood of the van, and slid over the side. The driver was also thrown ahead, his chest colliding hard with the steering wheel. He lost control of the van, though the vehicle stopped as his foot slipped from the gas.
Herbert's only wound was another unpleasant scrape across his chest, inflicted by the shoulder strap.
There was a moment of clear silence, broken by cars honking from far off, and people approaching cautiously, yelling to other people to get help.
Not sure that he had put the car or its occupants out of commission, Herbert pressed down on the gas to get away.
The car didn't move. He could feel his tires racing, but he could also feel the tug of the two fenders locked together.
He sat still for a moment, realizing for the first time how his heart was racing as he wondered if he could get himself and the wheelchair out.
Suddenly, the van bellowed back to life. Herbert felt a rough tug and looked in the rearview mirror. A new driver had taken the place of the old one and had shifted into reverse. Now he moved ahead, then shifted back, then jerked ahead.
Trying to shake me loose, Herbert thought, even as the vehicles unhooked. Without stopping, the van continued to back up. It sped off, then turned a corner and vanished.
The intelligence officer sat gripping the steering wheel, trying to decide what to do. In the distance, he heard the siren which had sent the neo-Nazis on their way. One of those loud ones which made the Opel police cars sound like Buicks. People began coming up to the window and speaking to Herbert softly, in German.
"Danke, " he said. "Thanks. I'm all right. Gesund Healthy." Healthy? he thought. He thought of the police coming to question him. German police were not famed for their friendliness. At best, he would be treated objectively. At worst.
At worst, he thought, the police station has a couple of neo-Nazi sympathizers. At worst; they put me in prison. At worst, somebody gets to me in the middle of the night with a knife or a length of steel wire.
"Screw that," he said. Thanking the onlookers again and politely urging them to get out of the way, Herbert quickly shifted gears, picked up the phone, and set off after the van.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Thursday, 11:00 A.M., Washington, D.C.
It was nicknamed the Kraken, after the fabled, manytentacled sea monster. And it was set up by Matt Stoll when he was hired as one of Op-Center's first employees.
The Kraken was a powerful computer system which was linked to databases worldwide. The resources and information ranged from photo libraries to FBI fingerprint files, from books in the Library of Congress to newspaper morgues in every major city of the United States, from stock prices to air and rail schedules, from telephone directories around the world to troop and police strength and deployment in most cities at home and abroad.
But Stoll and his small staff had designed a system which not only accessed data, it analyzed it. An ID program written by Stoll allowed researchers to circle a nose or an eye or mouth on a terrorist's face and find it anywhere it appeared in international police or newspaper files.
&nbs
p; Landscapes could likewise be compared by highlighting the contour of a mountain, horizon, or shore. Two full-time day and night operators were stationed at the Archive, which could handle over thirty separate operations at once.
It took the Kraken less than fifteen minutes to find the photograph of Deputy Foreign Minister Hausen. It had been snapped by a Reuters photographer and published in a Berlin newspaper five months before, when Hausen had arrived to give a speech at a dinner of Holocaust survivors.
When he received the information, Eddie couldn't help but resent the cruelty of the juxtaposition of this particular image in the game.
The landscape behind Hausen took a little longer to identify, though here the programmers got lucky. Instead of asking for a worldwide check, Deirdre Donahue and Natt Mendelsohn started with Germany, then moved to Austria, Poland, and France. After forty-seven minutes, the computer found the spot. It was located in the south of France.
Deirdre located a history of the view, wrote a complete summary, and added it to the file.
Eddie faxed the information to Matt. Then the long, powerful tentacles of the Kraken rested as the monster went back to watching, silently, from its secret lair.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Thursday, 5:02 P.M., Hamburg, Germany
As he walked back to the office building, Paul Hood was showered with memories. Crisp, detailed memories of the buried but unforgotten things he and Nancy Jo had done and said to each other nearly twenty years ago.
He remembered sitting in a Mexican restaurant in Studio City, discussing whether or not they would eventually want kids. He thought they would; she definitely did not.
They ate tacos and drank bitter coffee and debated the pros and cons of parenthood into the small hours of the morning.