"Clancy, Tom - Jack Ryan 09 - Rainbow Six" - читать интересную книгу автора (Clancy Tom)

"Mark us down as fully mission-capable, Mr. C," Chavez said with a confident smile. "Tell the bad guys they better watch their asses. How'd Team-1 do?"

"Two-tenths of a second faster," John replied, glad to see the diminutive leader of -2 deflate a little. "And thanks."

"What for?"

"For not wasting your father-in-law." John clapped him on the shoulder and walked out of the room.

"Okay, people," Ding said to his team, "let's police up the brass and head back for the critique." No fewer than six TV cameras had recorded the mission. Stanley would be going over it frame by frame. That would be followed by a few pints at the 22nd's Regimental NCO club. The Brits, Ding had learned over the previous two weeks, took their beer seriously, and Scotty McTyler could throw darts about as well as Homer Johnston could shoot a rifle. It was something of a breach of protocol that Ding, a simulated major, hoisted pints with his men, all sergeants. He had explained that away by noting that he'd been a humble staff sergeant squad leader himself before disappearing into the maw of the Central Intelligence Agency, and he regaled them with stories of his former life in the Ninjas - stories that the others listened to with a mixture of respect and amusement. As good as the 7th Infantry Division had been, it wasn't this good. Even Domingo would admit to that after a few pints of John Courage.



"Okay, Al, what do you think?" John asked. The liquor cabinet in his office was open, a single-malt Scotch for Stanley, while Clark sipped at a Wild Turkey.

"The lads?" He shrugged. "Technically very competent. Marksmanship' is just about right, physical fitness is fine. They respond well to obstacles and the unexpected, and, well, they didn't kill us with stray rounds, did they?"

"But?" Clark asked with a quizzical look.

"But one doesn't know until the real thing happens. Oh, yes, they're as good as SAS, but the best of them are former SAS . . . ."

Old-world pessimism, John Clark thought. That was the problem with Europeans. No optimism, too often they looked for things that would go wrong instead of right.

"Chavez?"

"Superb lad," Stanley admitted. "Almost as good as Peter Covington."

"Agreed," Clark admitted, the slight on his son-in-law notwithstanding. But Covington had been at Hereford for seven years. Another couple of months and Ding would be there. He was pretty close already. It was already down to how many hours of sleep one or the other had had the night before, and pretty soon it would be down to what one or the other had eaten for breakfast. All in all, John told himself, he had the right people, trained to the right edge. Now all he had to do was keep them there. Training. Training. Training.

Neither knew that it had already started.





"So, Dmitriy," the man said.

"Yes?" Dmitriy Arkadeyevich Popov replied, twirling his vodka around in the glass.

"Where and how do we begin?" the man asked.

They'd met by a fortunate accident, both thought, albeit for very different reasons.It had happened in Paris, at some sidewalk cafe, tables right next to each other, where one had noted that the other was Russian, and wanted to ask a few simple questions about business in Russia. Popov, a former KGB official, RIF'ed and scouting around for opportunities for entering the world of capitalism, had quickly determined that this American had a great deal of money, and was therefore worthy of stroking. He had answered the questions openly and clearly, leading the American to deduce his former occupation rapidly - the language skills (Popov was highly fluent in English, French, and Czech) had been a giveaway, as had Popov's knowledge of Washington, D.C. Popov was clearly not a diplomat, being too open and forthright in his opinions, which factor had terminated his promotion in the former Soviet KGB at the rank of Colonel - he still thought himself worthy of general's stars. As usual, one thing had led to another, first the exchange of business cards, then a trip to America, first class on Air France, as a security consultant, and a series of meetings that had moved ever so subtly in a direction that came more as a surprise to the Russian than the American. Popov had impressed the American with his knowledge of safety issues on the streets of foreign cities, then the discussion had moved into very different areas of expertise.

"How do you know all this?" the American had asked in his New York office.

The response had been a broad grin, after three double vodkas. "I know these people, of course. Come, you must know what I did before leaving the service of my country."

"You actually worked with terrorists?" he'd asked, surprised, and thinking about this bit of information, even back then.

It was necessary for Popov to explain in the proper ideological context: "You must remember that to us they were not terrorists at all. They were fellow believers in world peace and Marxism-Leninism, fellow soldiers in the struggle for human freedom - and, truth be told, useful fools, all too willing to sacrifice their lives in return for a little support of one sort or another."