The Sum of All Fears.pdf - Delta Force

'Come along with us. Brent wants to talk to you. We'll have a light dinner at my
shop.' Adler led Jack to the elevator.
'Well?' the President asked, still back in the room.
'I'd say it looks awfully good,' van Damm said. 'Especially if we can bring this
one in before the elections.'
'Be nice to hold a few extra seats,' Fowler agreed. The first two years of his
administration had not been easy. Budget problems, added to an economy that
couldn't seem to decide what it wanted to do, had crippled his programs and
saddled his tough managerial style with more question marks than exclamation
points. The congressional elections in November would be the first real public
response to their new President, and early poll numbers looked exceedingly iffy,
It was the general way of things that the President's party lost seats in
off-year elections, but this President could not afford to lose many. 'Shame we
have to pressure the Israelis, but . . .'
'Politically it'll be worth it – if we can bring the treaty off .'
'We can,' Elliot said, leaning against the doorframe. 'If we make the time-line,
we can have the treaties out of the Senate by October 16th.'
'You are one ambitious lady, Liz,' Arnie noted. 'Well, I have work to do. If you
will excuse me, Mr President?'
'See you tomorrow, Arnie.'
Fowler walked over to the windows facing Pennsylvania Avenue. The blistering
heat of early August rose in shimmers from the streets and sidewalks. Across the
street in Lafayette Park, there remained two anti-nuclear-weapons signs. That
garnered a smirk and a snort from Fowler. Didn't those dumb hippies know that
nukes were a thing of the past? He turned.
'Join me for dinner, Elizabeth"
Dr Elliot smiled at her boss. 'Love to, Bob.'
***
The one good thing about his brother's involvement with drugs was that he had
left nearly a hundred thousand dollars cash behind in a battered suitcase.
Marvin Russell had taken that and driven to Minneapolis, where he'd bought
presentable clothes, a decent set of luggage, and a ticket. One of the many
things he'd learned in prison was the proper methodology for obtaining an
alternate identity. He had three of them, complete with passports, that no cop
knew anything about. He'd also learned about keeping a low profile. His clothes
were presentable, but not flashy. He purchased a stand-by ticket on a flight he
expected to be underbooked, saving himself another few hundred dollars. That
$91,545.00 had to last him a long time, and life got expensive where he was
heading. Life also got very cheap, he knew, but not in terms of money. A warrior
could face that, he decided early on.
After a layover in Frankfurt, he traveled on in a southerly direction. No fool,
Russell had once participated in an international conference of sorts – he'd
sacrificed a total identity-set for that trip, four years previously. At the
conference he'd made a few contacts. Most importantly of all, he'd learned of
contact procedures. The international terrorist community was a careful one. It
had to be with all the forces arrayed against it, and Russell did not know his
luck – of the three contact numbers he remembered, one had long since been