Op-Center - 07 - Divide and Conquer by Tom Clancy

Author:Tom Clancy
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Thriller
ISBN: 9780425174807
Publisher: Penguin Group
Published: 2000-07-15T07:00:00+00:00

Baku, Azerbaijan Tuesday, 6:15 a.m.

When forty-seven-year-old Ron Friday first arrived in Baku, he felt as though he had been dropped into medieval times. It was not a question of architecture. Embassy row was in a very modern section of the city.

The modern buildings could have been lifted whole from Washington, D.C." or London, or Tokyo, or any other modern metropolis. But Baku was not like those cities where he had spent so much time. Once you moved past the embassies and business center of Baku, there was a pronounced sense of age. Many of the buildings had been standing when Columbus reached the Americas. No, the architecture was not what made Baku seem so old, so feudal. It was a sense of entropy among the people. Azerbaijan had been ruled from the outside for so long, now that the people were free and independent, they seemed unmotivated, directionless. If it were not for petrodollars, they would probably slip deep into the Third World. At least, that was Friday's impression. Fortunately, when the former Army Ranger and his people were finished with what they were doing here, Azerbaijan would not be quite so independent. Friday entered his seven-story apartment building. The ten-year-old brick building was located two blocks from the embassy. He made his way up the marble stairs. Friday lived on the top floor, but he did not like being in elevators. Even when he was with the other embassy workers who lived here, he took the stairs. Elevators were too confining, and they left him vulnerable. Friday walked toward his apartment. He could not believe that he had been here nearly six months. It seemed much longer, and he was glad his tenure was coming to an end. Not because Deputy Ambassador Williamson didn't need him. To the contrary, Friday had proven valuable to the diplomat, especially in her efforts to moderate Azerbaijani claims on Caspian oil. Friday's years as an attorney for a large international oil company served him well in that capacity. But Friday's real boss would need him elsewhere, in some other trouble spot.

He would see to it that Friday was transferred. To India or Pakistan, perhaps. That was where Friday really wanted to go. There were oil issues to be dealt with there, in the Arabian Sea and on the border between the Great Indian Desert in the Rajasthan province of India and the Thar Desert in Pakistan. But more than that, the Indian subcontinent was the place where the next big war would begin, perhaps triggered by a nuclear exchange. Friday wanted to be in there, helping to manipulate the politics of the region. It had been a dream of his ever since he was in college. Since the day when he had first gone to work for the National Security Agency. Friday put the key in the door and listened. He heard the cat cry. Her mewing was a normal welcome.

That was a very good indication that no one was waiting for him inside.

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