Jack Ryan 05 - The Sum of All Fears by Tom Clancy

Author:Tom Clancy [Clancy, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780425184226
Published: 1991-08-15T04:05:25+00:00

20

COMPETITION

At the halfway point of the NFL season, the Vikings and Chargers were still the class of the league. Shrugging off their overtime loss to Minnesota, San Diego took their revenge the next week at home against doormat Indianapolis, whom they buried 45-3, while the Vikings had to struggle against the Giants in a Monday Night game, emerging on the sweet side of a 21-17 score. Tony Wills passed a thousand rushing yards in the third quarter of the season’s eighth game, and was already consensus rookie of the year, plus becoming the official NFL spokesman for the President’s Campaign Against Substance Abuse (CASA). The Vikings stumbled against the Forty-Niners, losing 24-16, which evened their record with San Diego’s 7-1, but their nearest competition in the NFL Central—“Black and Blue”—division was the Bears at 4—3. Parity in the National Football League had come and gone. The only serious challenge in the American Conference came, as always, from the Dolphins and Raiders, both of which were on the Chargers’ dance card for the tail end of the season.

None of this was the least comfort to Ryan. Sleep came hard, despite the enveloping fatigue that seemed to define what his life had become. Before when thoughts had plagued his night, he’d come to the windows facing the Chesapeake Bay and stood, watching the ships and boats pass a few miles away. Now he sat and stared. His legs were weary and weak, always tired, until standing took a conscious effort. His stomach rebelled at the acid produced by stress and augmented by caffeine and alcohol. He needed sleep, slumber to relax his muscles, dreamless oblivion to loosen his mind from the day-to-day decisions. He needed exercise. He needed many things. He needed to be a man again. Instead he got wakefulness, a mind that would not stop turning over the thoughts of the day and the failures of the night.

Jack knew that Liz Elliot hated him. He even thought he knew why, that first meeting a few years before in Chicago where she’d been in a bad mood and he’d been in one also, and their introduction had been one of harsh words. The difference was that he tended to forget slights—most of them, anyway—and she did not; and she had the ear of the President. Because of her, his role in the Vatican Treaty would never be known. The one thing he had done that was untainted by his work at the Agency—Ryan was proud of what he’d done in CIA, but knew that it was narrowly political or strategic, aimed at the betterment of his own country, while the Vatican Treaty had been for the betterment of the whole world. That one proud insight. Gone, credited to others. Jack didn’t want sole credit. It had not been exclusively his work, but he did want fair mention as one of the players. Was that asking too much? Fourteen-hour days, much of it spent in cars, the three times he’d risked his

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