The Sum of All Fears.pdf - Delta Force

credits,' Talbot added. 'It's cheap at the price. Soviet cooperation in this
affair is hugely important to us, and the prestige associated with the treaty is
important for them. It's a very equitable deal for the both of us, Besides, we
have all that wheat lying around and doing nothing.'
'So, the only stumbling block is Israel?' Fowler asked the table. He was
answered with nods. 'How serious?'
'Jack,' Cabot said, turning to his deputy, 'how did Avi Ben Jakob react to
things?'
'We had dinner the day before I flew to Saudi Arabia. He looked very unhappy.
Exactly what he knew I do not know. I didn't give him very much to warn his
government with, and – '
'What does "not very much" mean, Ryan?' Elliot snapped down the table.
'Nothing,' Ryan answered. 'I told him to wait and see. Intelligence people don't
like that. I would speculate that he knew something was up, but not what.'
'The looks I got at the table over there were pretty surprised,' Adler said to
back Ryan up. 'They expected something, but what I gave them wasn't it.'
The Secretary of State leaned forward. 'Mr President, Israel has lived for two
generations under the fiction that they and they alone are responsible for their
national security. It's become almost a religious belief over there – and
despite the fact that we give them vast amounts of arms and other grants every
year, it is their government policy to live as though that idea were true. Their
institutional fear is that once they mortgage their national security to the
good will of others, they become vulnerable to the discontinuance of that good
will.'
'You get tired of hearing that,' Liz Elliot observed coldly.
Maybe you wouldn't if six million of your relatives got themselves turned into
air pollution, Ryan thought to himself. How the hell can we not be sensitive to
memories of the Holocaust?
'I think we can take it as given that a bilateral defense treaty between the
United States and Israel will sail through the Senate,' Arnie van Damm said,
speaking for the first time.
'How quickly can we deploy the necessary units to Israeli territory?' Fowler
wanted to know.
'It would take roughly five weeks from the time you push the button, sir,' the
SecDef replied. 'The 10th Armored Cavalry Regiment is forming up right now.
That's essentially a heavy brigade force, and it'll defeat – make that "destroy"
– any armored division the Arabs could throw at it. To that we'll add a Marine
unit for show, and with the home-port deal at Haifa, we'll almost always have a
carrier battle-group in the Eastern Med. Toss in the F-16 wing from Sicily, and
you've got a sizable force. The military will like it, too. It gives them a big
play area to train in. We'll use our base in the Negev the same way we use the
National Training Center in Fort Irwin. The best way to keep that unit tight and
ready is to train the hell out of it. It'll be expensive to run it that way, of
course, but – '
'But we'll pay that price,' Fowler said, cutting Bunker off gently. 'It's more
than worth the expenditure, and we won't have any problems on The Hill keeping
that funded, will we, Arnie?'