The Sum of All Fears.pdf - Delta Force

a hot spot – but you still should have told us. We have some tricks at Livermore
we might have used, stuff not too many people know about.'
'I am sorry, but it is done,' General Ben Jakob said. 'You fly to Damascus,
then?'
***
They used Prince Ali's plane for that, a personal Boeing 727 whose flight crew,
Jack learned, was exclusively composed of former drivers from the President's
Wing. It was nice to travel first class. The mission was covert, and the Syrians
cooperated. Representatives from the U.S., Soviet, and Saudi embassies attended
a brief meeting at the Syrian Foreign Ministry, and then they went off to the
hospital.
He'd been a powerful man, Jack could see, but he was wasting away like dead,
rotting meat. Despite the oxygen line under his nose, his skin was almost blue.
All his visitors had to wear protective gear, and Ryan was careful to keep back.
Ali handled the interrogation.
'You know why I am here?'
The man nodded.
'As you hope to see Allah, you will tell me what you know.'
***
The armored column of the 10th Armored Cavalry Regiment ran from the Negev to
the border of Lebanon. Overhead was a full squadron of F-16s, and another of
Tomcats from the USS Theodore Roosevelt. The Syrian army was also deployed in
force, though its air force was staying out of the way. The Middle East had
taken its lesson on American air power. The display of force was massive and
unequivocal. The word was out: nobody would get in the way. The vehicles drove
deep into the small, abused country, and finally onto a valley road. The spot
had been marked on the map by a dying man anxious to save what remained of his
soul, and only an hour's work was needed to determine the exact location. Army
engineers found the entrance and checked for booby-traps, then waved the others
in.
'God Almighty,' Dr Lowell said, swinging a powerful light a-round the darkened
room. More engineers swept the room, checking for wires on the machines, and
carefully checking every drawer of every table , before the rest were allowed
farther than the door. Then Lowell went to work . There was a set of plans that
he took outside to read in the light.
'You know,' he said after fifteen minutes of total silence, 'I never really
appreciated how easy this was. We've had this illusion that you really needed to
–' He stopped. 'Illusion, that's the right word.'
'What are you telling me?'
'It was supposed to be a five-hundred-kiloton device.'
'If it had gone off right, we would have known it had to be the Russians,' Jack
said. 'No one could have stopped it. We wouldn't be here now.'
'Yeah, I think we have to adjust our threat estimate some.'
'Doc, we think we found something,' an Army officer said. Dr Lowell went inside,
then returned to don protective clothing.
'So large as that?' Golovko asked, staring at the plans.
'Clever people. Do you know how hard it was for me to persuade the President