The Sum of All Fears.pdf - Delta Force

as magical engines of destruction, but they were not. They were merely highly
powerful bombs with some interesting secondary effects. It also made for the
finest terrorist weapon yet conceived.
Terrorist? Bock asked himself. Is that what I am?
It was, of course, in the eye of the beholder. Bock had long since decided his
measure of respect for the judgment of others. This event would be the best
expression of it.
***
'John, I need an idea,' Ryan said.
'What's that?' Clark asked.
'I've drawn a blank. The Japanese prime minister is going to be in Mexico in
February, then he's flying up here to see the President. We want to know what
he's going to be saying on his airplane.'
'I don't have the legs to dress up as a stew, Doc. Besides, I've never learned
to do the tea ceremony either.' The field officer turned SPO paused and became
serious. 'Bug an airplane . . . ? That sounds like a real technical challenge.'
'What do you know about this?'
John examined his coffee. 'I've placed intelligence gathering devices before,
but always on the ground. With an aircraft you have lots of ambient noise to
worry about. You also have to sweat where your subject intends to sit. Finally,
with a presidential aircraft you need to worry about security. The technical
side is probably the hardest,' he decided. 'The greatest personal threat to the
guy is probably at home – unless he's going to stopover at Detroit, right?
Mexico City. Okay, people speak Spanish there, and my Spanish is pretty good.
I'd take Ding down with me, of course . . . What sort of aircraft will he be
using?'
'I checked. He'll be flying a JAL 747. The upper deck behind the cockpit is laid
out as his conference room. They put in beds, too. That's where he'll be. Their
PM likes to kibbitz with the drivers. He's pretty smart about traveling, sleeps
as much as he can to handle the jet-lag.'
Clark nodded. 'People have to wipe the windows. Not like he's got an air force
base to handle all the ground-service requirements like we do it. If JAL flies
into there regularly, they'll have Mexican ground crews, I'll check out data on
the 747 . . . Like I said, that's the easy part. I can probably talk my way
there. Might even get Ding to head down with a good set of papers and get a job.
That would make it easier. I presume this has executive approval?'
'The President said "find a way." He'll have to approve the final op-plan.'
'I need to talk to the S&T guys.' Clark referred to the CIA's Directorate of
Science and Technology. 'The real problem is noise . . . How fast, Doc?'
'Fast, John.'
'Okay.' Clark rose. 'Gee, I get to be a field-spook again. I'll be over in the
new building. It may take me a few days to figure if it's possible or not. This
means I can't go on the U.K. trip?'
'Bother you?' Jack asked.
'Nope. Just as soon stay home.'
'Fair enough. I get to do some Christmas shopping at Hamley's.'
'You know how lucky you are to have 'em little? All my girls want now is