Clear and Present Danger полностью

It was ironic, Ritter thought, that his first notification of the mission's success should come from another CAPER intercept. The really good news, the NSA guys reported, was that they now had a voiceprint on Cortez. That greatly improved their chances of locating him. It was better than nothing, the DDO thought as his visitor arrived for the second time today.

"We missed Cortez," he told Admiral Cutter. "But we got d'Alejandro, Fern ndez, Wagner, and Untiveros, plus the usual collateral damage."

"What do you mean?"

Ritter looked again at the satellite photo of the house. He'd have to get a new one to quantify the damage. "I mean there were a bunch of security guards around, and we probably got a bunch of them. Unfortunately there was also Untiveros's family - wife, a couple of kids, and various domestic servants."

Cutter snapped erect in his chair. "You didn't tell me anything about that! This was supposed to be a surgical strike."

Ritter looked up in considerable annoyance. " Well, for Christ's sake, Jimmy! What the hell do you expect? You are still a naval officer, aren't you? Didn't anybody ever tell you that there are always extraneous people standing around? We used a bomb , remember? You don't do surgery with bombs, despite what all the 'experts' say. Grow up!" Ritter himself took no pleasure from the extraneous deaths, but it was a cost of doing business - as the Cartel's own members well understood.

"But I told the President -"

"The President told me that I had a hunting license, and no bag limit. This is my op to run, remember?"

"It wasn't supposed to be this way! What if the papers get hold of it? This is cold-blooded murder!"

"As opposed to taking out the druggies and their shooters? That's murder, too, isn't it? Or it would be, if the President hadn't said that the gloves were off. You said it's a war. The President told us to treat it as a war. Okay, we are. I'm sorry there were extraneous people around, but, damn it, there always are. If there were a way to bag these jokers without hurting innocent people, we'd use it - but there isn't." To say that Ritter was amazed didn't begin to explain matters. This guy was supposed to be a professional military officer. The taking of human life was part of his job description. Of course, Ritter told himself, Cutter'd spent most of his career driving a desk in the Pentagon - he probably hadn't seen much blood since he learned how to shave. A pussycat hiding in tiger's stripes. No, Ritter corrected himself. Just a pussy. Thirty years in uniform and he'd allowed himself to forget that real weapons killed people somewhat less precisely than in the movies. Some professional officer. And he was advising the President on issues of national security. Great.

"Tell you what, Admiral. If you don't tell the newsies, neither will I. Here's the intercept. Cortez says it was a car bomb. Clark must have rigged it just the way we hoped."

"But what if the local police do an investigation?"

"First of all, we don't know if the local cops will even be allowed there. Second, what makes you think they have the resources to figure it out? I worked pretty hard setting this up to look like a car-bombing, and it looks like Cortez got faked out. Third, what makes you think that the local cops'll give a flying fuck one way or another?"

"But the media!"

"You've got media on the brain. You're the one who's been arguing for turning us loose on these characters. So now you're changing your mind? It's a little late for that," Ritter said disgustedly. This was the best op his Directorate had run in years, and the guy whose idea it had been was now wetting his pants.

Admiral Cutter wasn't paying enough attention to Ritter's invective to be angry. He'd promised the President a surgical removal of the people who had killed Jacobs and the rest. He hadn't bargained for the deaths of "innocent" people. More importantly, neither had WRANGLER.

Chavez was too far south to have heard the explosion. The squad was staked out on another processing site. Evidently the sites were set up in relays. As he watched, two men were erecting the portable bathtub under the supervision of several armed men, and he could hear the grunts and gripes of others who were climbing up the mountainside. Four peasants appeared, their backpacks containing jars of acid. They were accompanied by two more riflemen.

Probably the word hadn't gotten out yet, Ding thought. He'd been certain that what the squad had done the other night would discourage people from supplementing their income this way. The sergeant didn't consider the possibility that they had to run such risks to feed their families.