Call to Treason by Tom Clancy, Steve Pieczenik, Jeff Rovin Page B
Tags: United States, Fiction, Suspense, Generals, Thrillers, Action & Adventure, Suspense fiction, Espionage, Adventure stories, Presidents, Secret service, Crisis Management in Government
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call her now. It would not be fair to Ann.
He thought about calling Daphne Connors. However, several dates with the public relations queen had told him they could never be more than friends. In every restaurant they went to, at the movies, at each bar they visited, Daphne always had one ear on the conversation taking place beside or behind her. She never stopped looking for new accounts or useful intelligence to service existing clients. Hood may be a workaholic, but Op-Center did not come with him when he left the office.
Hood was tempted to call Sergei Orlov, head of the Russian Op-Center in Saint Petersburg. The men had been good friends since working together to thwart the coup against the Kremlin. But Sergei was not the kind of man you talked to over the phone. He was the kind of man you sat down with over a huge bowl of uha fish soup and vodka shots taken from twenty-five-gram glasses.
Okay, Hood thought. There's still a lot of work to do.
Unable to think of anyone he particularly wanted to call, Hood placed the call that had to be made. He asked Ron Plummer to come and see him. Plummer was a team player. He would feel uneasy about Rodgers's resignation, but he would assume whatever responsibilities Paul Hood asked.
As he punched in Plummer's extension, Hood found himself suddenly feeling very insecure about his own future. It was in the nature of men to want to build things, not oversee their downsizing. Hood had always envisioned Op-Center as an increasingly vital part of the intelligence and crisis management community. What happened today was not a move in that direction. It was not about making Op Center more streamlined, about reducing bureaucracy and internal redundancies. The NCMC was being gutted. Hood would still have a great deal of work to do, but how important would that work be? Where would it take Op-Center? Where would it take Paul Hood personally?
"That's up to you, isn't it?" he asked himself aloud, to chase away the silence.
Hood asked Plummer to come in. He would deal with the situation one minute at a time. After all, this was what Op-Center was about.
Crisis management.
----
EIGHT
Las Vegas, Nevada Monday, 7:43 a.m.
The five-story, white-brick Atlantica was one of the older, less flashy hotels on the southern end of the Strip. There were no dancing fountains, no caged jungle creatures, no landmarks re-created half-scale. When the hotel opened thirty-seven years before, it was, as the flashing red neon sign in the window announced, Deluxe! Now it was simply convenient, located close to all the major casinos.
The Atlantica was also relatively inexpensive. Tourists came here looking for a place to drop their stuff before heading to the larger hotels to gamble or see shows. As a result, there were a lot of tourists and constant activity. It was easy to be anonymous here. That appealed to Tom "Melter" Mandor.
The thirty-seven-year-old drove his white Toyota van to the third level of the parking structure. He pulled into a space overlooking the hotel, then undid the seat belt, lit a hand-rolled cigarette, and waited for Richmond. He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. It was idle tapping but not impatient. Mandor was never in a hurry.
During the twelve years he had spent working as an oil rig roughneck, Mandor had learned to take things easy. All the workers had.
Otherwise, the downtime would have driven them mad, and the bored, isolated oilmen would have torn each other apart. It was during his three years on the Alaskan North Slope that Mandor had met Michael Wayne Richmond who drove an oil truck for the Trans-Eastern Shipping Company. He shuttled crude oil to ships that went to South Korea and Japan. That was where the men had come up with the business plan for their new line of work.
Richmond's vintage Thunderbird pulled up fifteen minutes later. The
He thought about calling Daphne Connors. However, several dates with the public relations queen had told him they could never be more than friends. In every restaurant they went to, at the movies, at each bar they visited, Daphne always had one ear on the conversation taking place beside or behind her. She never stopped looking for new accounts or useful intelligence to service existing clients. Hood may be a workaholic, but Op-Center did not come with him when he left the office.
Hood was tempted to call Sergei Orlov, head of the Russian Op-Center in Saint Petersburg. The men had been good friends since working together to thwart the coup against the Kremlin. But Sergei was not the kind of man you talked to over the phone. He was the kind of man you sat down with over a huge bowl of uha fish soup and vodka shots taken from twenty-five-gram glasses.
Okay, Hood thought. There's still a lot of work to do.
Unable to think of anyone he particularly wanted to call, Hood placed the call that had to be made. He asked Ron Plummer to come and see him. Plummer was a team player. He would feel uneasy about Rodgers's resignation, but he would assume whatever responsibilities Paul Hood asked.
As he punched in Plummer's extension, Hood found himself suddenly feeling very insecure about his own future. It was in the nature of men to want to build things, not oversee their downsizing. Hood had always envisioned Op-Center as an increasingly vital part of the intelligence and crisis management community. What happened today was not a move in that direction. It was not about making Op Center more streamlined, about reducing bureaucracy and internal redundancies. The NCMC was being gutted. Hood would still have a great deal of work to do, but how important would that work be? Where would it take Op-Center? Where would it take Paul Hood personally?
"That's up to you, isn't it?" he asked himself aloud, to chase away the silence.
Hood asked Plummer to come in. He would deal with the situation one minute at a time. After all, this was what Op-Center was about.
Crisis management.
----
EIGHT
Las Vegas, Nevada Monday, 7:43 a.m.
The five-story, white-brick Atlantica was one of the older, less flashy hotels on the southern end of the Strip. There were no dancing fountains, no caged jungle creatures, no landmarks re-created half-scale. When the hotel opened thirty-seven years before, it was, as the flashing red neon sign in the window announced, Deluxe! Now it was simply convenient, located close to all the major casinos.
The Atlantica was also relatively inexpensive. Tourists came here looking for a place to drop their stuff before heading to the larger hotels to gamble or see shows. As a result, there were a lot of tourists and constant activity. It was easy to be anonymous here. That appealed to Tom "Melter" Mandor.
The thirty-seven-year-old drove his white Toyota van to the third level of the parking structure. He pulled into a space overlooking the hotel, then undid the seat belt, lit a hand-rolled cigarette, and waited for Richmond. He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. It was idle tapping but not impatient. Mandor was never in a hurry.
During the twelve years he had spent working as an oil rig roughneck, Mandor had learned to take things easy. All the workers had.
Otherwise, the downtime would have driven them mad, and the bored, isolated oilmen would have torn each other apart. It was during his three years on the Alaskan North Slope that Mandor had met Michael Wayne Richmond who drove an oil truck for the Trans-Eastern Shipping Company. He shuttled crude oil to ships that went to South Korea and Japan. That was where the men had come up with the business plan for their new line of work.
Richmond's vintage Thunderbird pulled up fifteen minutes later. The
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