The Sum of All Fears.pdf - Delta Force

for the transfer.'
'Close enough to Russia that an intercept is possible . . . but not likely . . .
have to be a one-way mission,' Bunker thought aloud. 'Unless they strayed over a
Soviet warship with SAMs . . . Vice President is temporarily in charge.'
'Sir, I – '
'That's my call to make, Jack. The President is either out of the loop or has
had his comm links compromised. SecDef says that the Vice President is in charge
until the comm links are reestablished and validated by codeword authentication.
Forces are now at DEFCON-ONE on my authority.'
One thing about Dennis Bunker, Ryan thought, the man never stopped being a
fighter jock. He makes decisions and sticks to them. He was usually right, too,
as he was here.
***
Ryan's file was a thick one. Almost five inches, Goodley saw in the privacy of
his seventh-floor cubbyhole. Half an inch of that was background and
security-clearance forms. The academic record was fairly impressive, especially
his doctoral work in history at Georgetown University. Georgetown wasn't
Harvard, of course, but it was a fairly respectable institution, Goodley told
himself. His first Agency job had been as part of Admiral James Greer's junior
Varsity program, and his first report, 'Agents and Agencies,' had dealt with
terrorism. Odd coincidence, Goodley thought, given what had happened later.
The documents on Ryan's encounter in London occupied thirty double-space pages,
mainly police-report summaries and a few news photos. Goodley started making
notes. Cowboy, he wrote first of all. Running into things like that. The
academic shook his head. Twenty minutes later, he read over the executive
summary of Ryan's second CIA report, the one which confidently predicted that
the terrorists would probably never operate in America – delivered days before
the attack on his family.
Guessed wrong there, didn't you, Ryan? Goodley chuckled to himself. As bright as
they said he was, he made mistakes like everyone else . . .
He'd made a few while working in England, too. He hadn't predicted Chernenko's
succession of Andropov, though he had predicted Narmonov was the coming man well
in advance of nearly everyone, except Kantrowitz up at Princeton, who'd been the
first to see star quality in Andrey Il'ych. Goodley reminded himself that he'd
been an undergraduate then, bedding that girl at Wellesley, Debra Frost . . .
wonder what ever happened to her . . . ?
'Son of a bitch . . .' Ben whispered a few minutes later. 'Son of a bitch.'
Red October, a Soviet ballistic missile submarine . . . defected. Ryan was one
of the first to suspect it . . . Ryan, an analyst at London Station had . . .
run the operation at sea! Killed a Russian sailor. That was the cowboy part
again. Couldn't just arrest the guy, had to shoot him down like something in a
movie . . .
Goddamn! A Russian ballistic-missile submarine defected . . . and they kept it
quiet . . . oh, the boat was later sunk in deep water.
Back to London after that for a few more months before rotating home to be
Greer's special assistant and heir-apparent. Some interesting work with the arms
control people . . .