The Sum of All Fears.pdf - Delta Force

'I come to you for advice,' he said, after his first sip of coffee.
'Certainly.' Qati leaned forward in his chair. 'I am honored to be of help. What
is the problem, my friend?'
'It is my father.'
'How old is he now?' Qati asked. The farmer had occasionally given his men gifts
also, most often a lamb. Just a peasant, and an infidel peasant at that, but he
was one who shared his enemy with Qati and his men.
'Sixty-six – you know his garden?'
'Yes, I was there some years ago, soon after your mother was killed by the
Zionists,' Qati reminded him.
'In his garden there is an Israeli bomb.'
'Bomb? You mean a shell.'
'No, Commander, a bomb. What you can see of it is half a meter across.'
'I see – and if the Syrians learn of it . . .'
'Yes, as you know, they explode such things in place. My father's house would be
destroyed.' The visitor held up his left forearm. 'I cannot be of much help
rebuilding it, and my father is too old to do it himself. I come here to ask how
one might go about removing the damned thing.'
'You have come to the right place. Do you know how long it has been there?'
'My father says that it fell the very day this happened to me.' The shopkeeper
gestured with his ruined arm again.
'Then surely Allah smiled on your family that day.'
Some smile, the shopkeeper thought, nodding.
'You have been our most faithful friend. Of course we can help you. I have a man
highly skilled in the business of disarming and removing Israeli bombs – and
then he takes the guts from them and makes bombs for our use.' Qati stopped and
held up an admonishing finger. 'You must never repeat that.'
The visitor jerked somewhat in his chair. 'For my part, Commander, you may kill
all of them you wish, and if you can do it from a bomb the pigs dropped into my
father's garden, I will pray for your safety and success.'
'Please excuse me, my friend. No insult was intended. I must say such things, as
you can understand.' Qati's message was fully understood.
'I will never betray you,' the shopkeeper announced forcefully.
'I know this.' Now it was time to keep faith with the peasant sea. 'Tomorrow I
will send my man to your father's home. Insh'Allah,' he said, God willing.
'I am in your debt, Commander.' Sometime between now and the new year, he hoped.
CHAPTER 8
The Pandora Process
The converted Boeing 747 rotated off the Andrews runway just before sunset.
President Fowler had had a bad day and a half of briefings and unbreakable
appointments. He would have two more even worse; even presidents are subject to
the vagaries of ordinary human existence, and in this case, the eight-hour
flight to Rome was coupled with a six-hour time change. The jet-lag would be a
killer. Fowler was a seasoned enough traveler to know that. To attenuate the
worst of it, he'd fiddled with his sleep pattern yesterday and today so that