The Sum of All Fears.pdf - Delta Force

was years old – she'd been a child-bride in the most literal sense of the word
when she'd first come to America, a tiny little thing with a doll's face. A more
recent photo taken by his field investigator showed a mature woman still short
of forty, her face now showing some lines where once there had been the
smoothness of china. If anything she was more beautiful than before. The timid,
almost hunted look in the first photo – understandable, since it had been taken
after her escape from Laos – had been replaced by that of a woman secure in her
life. She had a cute smile, Wellington told himself.
The lawyer remembered a classmate in law school, Cynthia Yu. Damn, hadn't she
been quite a lay . . . same sort of eyes, almost, the Oriental coquette . . .
Might that be it?
Something that simple?
Ryan was married: wife, Caroline Muller Ryan, M.D., eye surgeon. Photo: a
quintessential Wasp, except that she was Catholic, slender and attractive,
mother of two.
Well, just because a man has a pretty wife . . .
Ryan had established an educational trust fund . . . Wellington opened another
file. It was a Xerox copy of the document.
Ryan, he saw, had done it alone, through a lawyer not his regular lawyer! A D.C.
guy. And Caroline Ryan had not signed the papers . . . did she even know about
it? The information on his desk suggested that she did not.
Wellington next checked the birth records on the newest Zimmer child. Her
husband had been killed in a 'routine training accident' – the timing was
equivocal. She might have gotten pregnant the very week her husband had been
killed. Then again, she might not have. It was her seventh child – eighth? You
couldn't tell with those, could you? Gestation could be nine months, or less.
First kids were usually late. Later kids, as often as not, were early. Birth
weight of the child . . . five pounds seven ounces . . . less than average, but
she was an Asian, and they were small . . . did they have smaller-than-normal
babies? Wellington made his notes, recognizing that he had a series of maybes,
and not a single fact.
But, hell, was he really looking for facts?
The two punks. Ryan's bodyguards, Clark and Chavez, had mangled one of them. His
investigator had checked that out with the Anne Arundel County Police
Department. The local cops had signed off on Clark's story. The punks in
question had long but minor records, a few summary probations, a few sessions
with youth-counselors. The cops were delighted at the way things had turned out.
'Okay with me if he'd shot that worthless little fucker,' a police sergeant had
said, with a laugh recorded on the investigator's tape cassette. 'That Clark guy
looked like one very serious dude. His sidekick ain't much different. If those
punks were dumb enough to hassle them, hey, it's a tough world, y'know? Two
other gang members confirmed the story the way the good guys told it, and that's
a closed case, man.'
But why had Ryan set his two bodyguards on them?
He's killed to protect his family, hasn't he . . . ? This is not a guy who
tolerates danger to his . . . friends . . . family . . . lovers?
It is possible.