Читать книгу Damage Control - Gordon Kent, Gordon Kent - Страница 44

In the parking lot of Fifth Fleet headquarters, Spinner could hardly wait until he was out of the building before he was on his cell phone to his father in Washington. The other times he’d passed information along, he’d sent e-mails because he’d heard they were more secure, but now time was everything. If he could scoop the intel agencies with his dad, he’d score points, and his father would score points with the White House. Scoring points was very big medicine with both of them—Spinner because he felt in his gut that he never pleased his father, and the old man because he loved power.

“Dad!”

“Hey, boyo. How’s public service?”

“Listen, Dad, are you watching the news?”

“I’m in a meeting.” The implied comment was that he was doing something too important to be interrupted but could make time for his son.

“Dad, turn on CNN. There’s something going down in India.”

“Ray, I’m in a meeting—” Warning sign. Dad was not a patient man, as Ray’s mother had discovered.

“Dad, this is more important!” Spinner had the windows of his car rolled up despite the heat, his cell phone clutched to one ear. “Dad, now hear this: an Indian fighter jet just crashed into the deck of a carrier called the Jefferson. The doomsayers are telling the admiral it could have been deliberate. Pilchard is asking his staff for scenarios for intervention in India.” Spinner grinned. “I thought you’d want to know.”

There was a pause at the other end of the line, and Spinner could picture his father waving apologetically at somebody powerful and walking out of the leather-upholstered meeting room in the Mass Avenue office and heading to the staff lounge down the hall where the TV was.

“The President doesn’t want to waste resources on a country like India.”

“Yeah, Dad, no kidding. Like, that’s why I called.”

TV sounds bled through the digital connection.

“Okay, India’s in chaos. What’s Pilchard up to?”

“He has people on the ground there because of a fleet exercise, and they’re panicked that the carrier accident might have some connection. Plus just now we got a report that a destroyer may have been fired at by an Indian vessel.”

“I think this goes right to my guy.” His “guy” was a deputy to the National Security Advisor. “Call me the instant you know more.”

“You bet! Out here.”

He punched off and looked around the parking lot. Had anybody seen him? Would anybody be suspicious, seeing an officer with a cell phone at his ear, at this hour? No, everybody had his own problems to think about. And everybody used cell phones all the time. And a plane had hit a carrier, so who gave a damn about a phone call?

And he was Ray Spinner. Born to win. Born to make out. Born to rule.