The Sum of All Fears.pdf - Delta Force

Ali replaced the phone and turned to his visitor. 'I think it is time for us to
see His Majesty.'
'That fast?'
'One advantage to our form of government is that when one government minister
wishes access to another, it is merely a matter of calling a cousin or an uncle.
We are a family business. I trust that your President is a man of his word.'
'The UN speech is already written. I've seen it. He expects to take heat from
the Israeli lobby at home. He's ready for that.'
'I've seen them in action, Dr Ryan. Even when we were fighting for our lives
alongside American soldiers, they denied us weapons we needed for our own
security. Do you think that will change?'
'Soviet communism is at an end. The Warsaw Pact is at an end. So many things
that shaped the world I grew up in are gone, and gone forever. It's time to get
rid of the rest of the turmoil in the world. You ask if we can do it – why not?
Sir, the only constant factor in human existence is change.' Jack knew that he
was being outrageously confident, and wondered how Scott Adler was doing in
Jerusalem. Adler wasn't a screamer, but he knew how to lay down the word. That
hadn't been done with the Israelis for a long enough time that Jack didn't know
when it had last been – or ever – been tried. But the President was committed to
this. If the Israelis tried to stop it, they might just find out how lonely the
world was.
'You forgot God, Dr Ryan.'
Jack smiled. 'No, Your Highness. That's the point, isn't it?'
Prince Ali wanted to smile, but didn't. It wasn't time yet. He pointed to the
door. 'Our car is waiting.'
***
At the New Cumberland Army Depot in Pennsylvania, the storage facility for
standards and flags dating back to Revolutionary times, a Brigadier General and
a professional antiquarian laid flat on a table the dusty regimental colors once
carried by the 10th United States Cavalry. The General wondered if some of the
grit on the standard was left over from Colonel John Grierson's campaign against
the Apaches. This standard would go to the regiment. It wouldn't see much use.
Maybe once a year it would be taken out, but from this pattern a new one would
be made. That this was happening at all was a curiosity. In an age of cutbacks,
a new unit was forming. Not that the General objected. The 10th had a
distinguished history, but had never gotten its fair shake from Hollywood, for
example, which had made but a single movie about the Black regiments. For the
10th was one of four Black units – the 9th and 10th Cavalry, the 24th and 25th
Infantry – each of which had played its part in settling the West. This
regimental standard dated back to 1866. Its centrepiece was a buffalo, since the
Indians who'd fought the troopers of the 10th thought their hair similar to the
rough coat of an American bison. Black soldiers had been there at the defeat of
Geronimo, and saved Teddy Roosevelt's ass on the charge up San Juan Hill, the
General knew. It was about time that they got a little official recognition and
if the President had ordered it for political reasons, so what? The 10th had an
honorable history, politics notwithstanding.
'Take a week,' the civilian said. 'I'll do this one personally. God, I wonder