The Sum of All Fears.pdf - Delta Force

only more anger.
She needed advice. She didn't want her marriage to end, did she? She could feel
the process by which emotion and anger were taking over from reason and love.
She knew that she ought to be worried about that, ought to resist the process,
but she found herself unable to do either as the anger simply fed on itself.
Cathy walked quietly into the kitchen and got herself a drink. She didn't have
any procedures tomorrow. It was okay to have one drink. Again she looked over at
her husband, and again he didn't notice. Didn't notice her? Why didn't he notice
her? She'd put up with so much. Okay, the time they'd spent in England had been
all right, she'd had a fairly good time teaching on staff at Guy's Hospital; it
hadn't hurt her tenure at Hopkins a bit. But the other stuff – he was away so
damned much! All that time back and forth to Russia when he was messed up with
the arms treaty, so many other things, playing spy or something, leaving her at
home with the kids, forcing her to lose time at work. She'd missed a couple of
good procedures for that reason, when she'd been unable to get a sitter and had
been forced to stick Bernie with something that she ought to have done.
And what had Jack been up to all that time? She had once accepted the fact that
she couldn't even ask. What had he been doing? Maybe having a good laugh? A
little fling with some sultry female agent somewhere? Like in the movies. There
he was, in some exotic setting, a quiet, darkly-lit bar, having a meeting with
some agent, and one thing might have led to another . . .
Cathy settled back in front of the TV and gulped at her drink. She nearly
sputtered it back out. She wasn't accustomed to drinking bourbon straight.
This is all a mistake.
It seemed as though there were a war within her mind, the forces of good on one
side, and the forces of evil on the other – or was it the forces of naiveté and
those of reality? She didn't know, and she was too upset to judge.
Well, it didn't matter for tonight, did it? She was having her period, and even
if Jack had asked – which he wouldn't, she knew – she'd say no. Why should he
ask, if he was getting it somewhere else? Why should she say yes if he was? Why
get the leavings? Why be second-string?
She sipped more carefully at her drink this time.
Need to get advice, need to talk to somebody! But who?
Maybe Bernie, she decided. She could trust Bernie. Soon as she got back. Two
days.
***
'That takes care of the preliminaries.'
'Sure does, boss,' the coach said. 'How goes the Pentagon, Dennis?'
'Not as much fun as you're having, Paul.'
'That's the choice, isn't it? Fun or importance?'
'Everybody all right?'
'Yes, sir! We're pretty healthy for this far into the season, and we have this
week to get everybody up to speed. I want another crack at those Vikings.'
'So do I,' Secretary Bunker said from his E-Ring office. 'Think we can really
stop Tony Wills this time?'
'We can sure try. Isn't he one great kid? I haven't seen running like that since
Gayle Sayers. Defensing him is a bitch, though.'