The Sum of All Fears.pdf - Delta Force

Forty minutes later, Jack's phone rang. He lifted it, noting that it was his
most secure line, the direct one that bypassed Nancy Cummings.
'Ryan.' He listened for a minute and made some notes. 'Thanks.'
Next the DDCI rose and walked into Nancy's office, then turned left through the
door into Marcus Cabot's more capacious room. Cabot was lying on the couch in
the far corner. Like Judge Arthur Moore, his predecessor, Cabot liked to smoke
the occasional cigar. His shoes were off, and he was reading over a file with
striped tape on the borders. Just one more secret file in a building full of
them. The folder dropped, and Cabot, looking like a pink, chubby volcano, eyed
Ryan as he approached.
'What is it, Jack?'
'Just got a call from our friend in Israel. They're coming to Rome, and the
cabinet voted to accept the treaty terms, with a few modifications.'
'What are they?' Ryan handed over his notes. Cabot scanned them. 'You and Talbot
were right.'
'Yeah, and I should have let him play the card instead of me.'
'Good call, you predicted all but one.' Cabot rose and slipped into his black
loafers before walking to his desk. Here he lifted a phone. 'Tell the President
I'll meet him at the White House when he gets back from New York. I want Talbot
and Bunker there also. Tell him it's a go.' He set the phone back in the cradle.
He grinned around the cigar in his teeth, trying to look like George Patton, who
hadn't smoked to the best of Ryan's knowledge. 'How about that?'
'How long you figure to finalize it?'
'With the advance work you and Adler did, plus the finishing work from Talbot
and Bunker . . . ? Hmm. Give it two weeks. Won't go as fast as it did with
Carter at Camp David, because too many professional diplomats are involved, but
in fourteen days the President takes his seven-four-seven to Rome to sign the
documents.'
'You want me to go down with you to the White House?'
'No, I'll handle it.'
'Okay.' That wasn't unexpected. Ryan left the room the same way he'd come in.
CHAPTER 7
The City of God
The cameras were in place. Air Force C-5B Galaxy transports had loaded the
newest state-of-the-art ground-station vans at Andrews Air Force Base and flown
them to Leonardo da Vinci Airport. This was less for the signing ceremony – if
they got that far, commentators worried – than what wags called the pre-game
show. The fully digital improved-definition equipment just coming on line, the
producers felt, would better depict the art collections that litter Vatican
walls as trees line national parks. Local carpenters and specialists from New
York and Atlanta had worked around the clock to build the special booths from
which the network anchors would broadcast. All three network morning news shows
were originating from the Vatican. CNN was also there in force, as were NHK,
BBC, and nearly every other television network in the world, all fighting for
space in the grand piazza that sprawls before the church begun in 1503 by