The Sum of All Fears.pdf - Delta Force

that. It's also true that your way of thinking has its own pitfalls. If you can
prove to me that you are no more a prisoner of your views than I try to be of
mine, then you have a future here. Objectivity isn't easy. You have to exercise
it.'
It was a very clever challenge, Goodley thought. He wondered next if he'd
perhaps misjudged the DDCI.
***
'Will Russell cooperate?'
'Yes, Ismael, he will,' Bock said, sipping at a beer. He'd gotten a case of a
good German export brew for Fromm, and kept a few for himself. 'He thinks we'll
be setting off a large conventional bomb to eliminate television coverage of the
game.'
'Clever, but not actually intelligent,' Qati observed. He wanted a beer himself,
but could not ask. Besides, he told himself, it would probably upset his
stomach, and he'd actually enjoyed three consecutive days of relative health.
'His outlook is limited to tactical matters, yes. On tactical matters he is
quite useful, however. His assistance will be crucial to that phase of the
operation.'
'Fromm is working out well.'
'As I thought he would. It really is a pity that he will not see it to fruition.
The same with the machinists?'
'Unfortunately, yes.' Qati frowned. Not a man who blanched at the sight of
blood, neither was he one to kill unnecessarily. He'd had to kill people for
reasons of security before, though never this many. It was almost becoming a
habit. But, he asked himself, why worry about a few when you plan to kill so
many more?
'Have you planned for the consequences of failure or discovery?' Bock asked.
'Yes, I have,' Qati replied with a sly smile, followed by an explanation.
'That is ingenious. Good to plan for every contingency.'
'I thought you'd like it.'
CHAPTER 21
Connectivity
It took two weeks, but something finally came back. A KGB officer in the employ
of CIA nosed around and heard something: there might be an ongoing operation
about nuclear weapons in Germany. Something being run out of Moscow Center.
Golovko himself was overseeing things. People working in KGB Station Berlin were
cut out of it. End of report.
'Well?' Ryan asked Goodley. 'What do you think?'
'It fits the SPINNAKER report. If the story about a flukey inventory of tactical
nukes is correct, it certainly makes sense that it would have something to do
with the pullbacks of their forward-deployed forces. Things get lost in transit
all the time. I lost two boxes of books when I moved down here myself.'
'I'd like to think that people take closer care of nuclear weapons than that,'
Ryan said dryly, noting that Goodley still had a hell of a lot to learn. 'What
else?'