Tom Clancy

Henriksen: You only use deadly force when necessary—but when it's necessary, you do use it.

"We have thought that one through," Hans assured his guest.

Popov wondered briefly about that. But he'd be surprised if they even boarded an aircraft, much less got it to Africa. The problem with "missions" like this one was that no matter how carefully most of its parts had been considered, this chain was decidedly no stronger than its weakest link, and the strength of that link was all too often determined by others, or by chance, which was even worse.

"Joe!" a happy voice said out of his field of vision. He looked up to see a fortyish man with a beaming smile.

"Patrick!" Popov responded, standing, going over to shake hands. It's been a long time. Very long, as he'd never met this particular chap before, though they exchanged greetings like old friends.

"This is some place," one voice said. "Look at these trees, man."

"Yeah, big, ain't they?"

"What kind of trees?" a third asked.

"The kind somebody can hide behind and shoot your ass from!" a more serious voice pointed out.

"Chavez here, I just dropped two." The excitement of the moment masked the shame of how easy it had been. This was pure murder.

"So, then, you understand?"

Not in the way you mean, sport, Rainbow Six thought, before responding. "Yes, I suppose I do, Dmitriy Arkadeyevich."

"How did you find my name? Who told you?"

"Sergey Nikolay'ch and I are old friends."

"Ah," Popov managed to observe without fainting. His own agency had betrayed him? Was that possible? Then it was as if Clark had read his mind.

"Here," John said, handing over the sheaf of photocopies. Your evaluations are pretty good."

Not good enough," Popov replied, failing to recover from the shock of viewing items from a file that he had never seen before.

"Oso backs us up, but I don't think we'll have much use for him on this trip." Julio Vega had become their heavy-machine gunner, slinging a laser-sighted M-60 7.62-mm machine gun for really serious work, but there wasn't much use for that now—and wouldn't be, unless everything went totally to hell.

Ireland would not turn into a Marxist country, for all their wishes. The list of such nations was very thin now, though across the world academics still clung to the words and ideas of Marx and Engels and even Lenin.

Fools. There were even those who said that Communism had been tried in the wrong country—that Russia had been too far backward to make those wonderful ideas work. That was enough to bring an ironic smile and a shake of the head.

He'd once been a part of the organization called the Sword and Shield of the Party. He'd been through the Academy, had sat through all the political classes, learned the answers to the inevitable examination questions and been clever enough to write down exactly what his instructors wanted to hear, thus ensuring high marks and the respect of his mentors—few of whom had believed in that drivel any more than he had, but none of whom had found within themselves the courage to speak their real thoughts.

It was amazing how long the lies had lasted, and truly, Popov could remember his surprise when the red flag had been pulled down from its pole atop the Kremlin's Spasskaya Gate. Nothing, it seemed, lived longer than a perverse idea.

Clark: You get a nap. The rest of the team arrives in about half an hour."

Ding: "The rest of what team?"

Clark: Everybody who can move and shoot, son.

"And what will your neighbors think of all this?" Popov asked, with a lighthearted smile. What the hell were these people talking about?

"What neighbors?" Killgore asked.

[...] What neighbors? Popov thought again. They could see the roofs of farmhouses and buildings not ten kilometers away, well lit by the morning sun. What did they mean, what neighbors? They spoke of a radiant future with wild animals everywhere, but not of people. Did they plan to purchase all the nearby farms? Even Horizon Corporation didn't have that much money, did it? This was a settled, civilized area. The farms nearby were large prosperous ones owned by people of comfortable private means. Where would they go? Why would they leave? And yet again, the question leaped into Popov's mind.

What is this all about?

Eddie: What's the plan if the opposition just starts shooting out of hand?

Ding: Tell Louis, two flashbangs at the front door, four more inside, and we blow in like a tornado.

Eddie: Our body armor–

Ding: Won't stop a seven-six-two Russian. I know. Nobody ever said it was safe, Eddie.

One of them came outside and lit a pipe—how very Swiss! Popov thought. The bugger probably climbs mountains for personal entertainment, too.