The Sum of All Fears.pdf - Delta Force

national security to an obsession. One thousand nine hundred years after Masada
and the diaspora, they'd returned to a land they'd consecrated, fleeing
oppression and genocide . . . only to invite more of the same. The difference
was that they now held the sword, and had well and truly learned its use. But
that, too, was a dead end. Wars were supposed to end in peace, but none of their
wars had really ended. They'd stopped, been interrupted, no more than that. For
Israel, peace had been nothing more than an intermission, time to bury the dead
and train the next class of fighters. The Jews had fled from near-extermination
at Christian hands, betting their existence on their ability to defeat Muslim
nations that had at once voiced their desire to finish what Hitler had started.
And God probably thought exactly what He had thought during the Crusades.
Unfortunately, parting seas and fixing the sun in the sky seemed to be things of
the Old Testament. Men were supposed to settle things now. But men didn't always
do what they were supposed to do. When Thomas More had written Utopia, the state
in which men acted morally in all cases, he had given both the place and the
book the same title. The meaning of 'Utopia' is 'Noplace.' Jack shook his head
and turned a corner down another street of white-painted stucco buildings.
'Hello, Dr Ryan.'
The man was in his middle fifties, shorter than Jack, and more heavy-set. He had
a full beard, neatly trimmed, but speckled with gray, and looked less like a Jew
than a unit commander in Sennacherib's Assyrian army. A broadsword or mace would
not have been out of place in his hand. Had he not been smiling, Ryan would have
wanted John Clark at his side.
'Hello, Avi. Fancy meeting you here.'
General Abraham Ben Jakob was Ryan's counterpart in the Mossad, assistant
director of the Israeli foreignintelligence agency. A serious player in the
intelligence trade, Avi had been a professional army officer until 1968, a
paratrooper with extensive special-operations experience who'd been
talent-scouted by Rafi Eitan and brought into the fold. His path had crossed
Ryan's half a dozen times in the past few years, but always in Washington. Ryan
had the utmost respect for Ben Jakob as a professional. He wasn't sure what Avi
thought of him. General Ben Jakob was very effective at concealing his thoughts
and feelings.
'What is the news from Washington, Jack?'
'All I know is what I saw on CNN at the embassy. Nothing official yet, and even
if there were, you know the rules better than I do, Avi. Is there a good place
to eat around here?'
That had already been planned, of course. Two minutes and a hundred yards later,
they were in the back room of a quiet mom-and-pop place where both men's
security guards could keep an eye on things. Ben Jakob ordered two Heinekens.
'Where you're going, they do not serve beer.'
'Tacky, Avi. Very tacky,' Ryan replied after his first sip.
'You are taking Alden's place in Riyadh, I understand.'
'How could the likes of me ever take Dr Alden's place anywhere?'
'You will be making your presentation about the same time Adler makes his. We
are interested to hear it.'
'In that case you will not mind waiting, I guess.'