Support and Defend by Tom Clancy, Mark Greaney Read Free Book Online

Penn.
    He made it into the third-floor NSC wing at 9:39, entered his small office, put his coat on the rack, and frowned. His secretary, Angela, always had his coffee ready for him, a Venti mocha from Starbucks that she picked up on her way in to work and placed next to his telephone to the right of his desk.
    Angela was here, he had seen her sweater hanging over the back of her chair in his outer office when he entered, but his coffee was nowhere to be found.
    Ross sighed. You had one job, Angie, and you dropped the ball first thing on Monday morning.
    A moment later he heard movement outside his office, and he called out as he sat down. “Angie?”
    His fifty-four-year-old secretary appeared in the doorway a moment later. “Good. You’re here.”
    With both a look and a tone crafted to convey just a hint of displeasure, he said, “Did you forget my coffee?”
    “No, sir. I put it at your place in the conference room. Everyone else is waiting.”
    Ethan jerked his head to his morning agenda lying on his blotter, worried he’d forgotten a meeting. Rarely did he have any planned events so early on a Monday. But his agenda confirmed he was free. “I don’t have anything till ten-thirty, and that’s off-site.”
    “They said they were calling everyone on their way in. I thought you’d gotten the message.”
    Ethan had heard his phone ring through the sound system in his Mercedes, but he’d muted the call without looking at it. The speakers had been pouring out Neil Young, after all, and by the time the last smoky notes of Ambulance Blues drifted away, he’d been pulling into the parking lot and he’d forgotten about the call.
    “What’s going on?”
    “I don’t know, but it must be a big deal. Everyone was supposed to be in the conference room at nine-thirty.”
    Ethan looked at his watch. It was 9:41.
    He sighed again, and headed off for the conference room.

5
    E THAN ENTERED the open double doors of the NSC conference room and saw a full house looking back at him. The U-shaped table was completely occupied, and it was standing room only against the walls. He knew the table could accommodate sixteen, so he estimated there were at least twenty-five in attendance.
    His Venti mocha was right there on the table, but sitting in front of it was Walter Pak from the South and Central Asia desk, and Ross couldn’t muster the gall to push his way through the crowd and grab his drink when all eyes were on him.
    As he headed for an open spot by the wall, he scanned faces quickly in an attempt to discern the reason for this morning’s emergency meeting.
    He saw the deputy directors and assistant deputies for all the other regions: Europe, Russia and Eurasia, Asia, South Asia, Central Africa—even the Western Hemisphere. Whatever new problem had popped up seemed to be impossibly wide in scope. Ross half smiled to himself, wondering if NASA had gotten word that aliens were poised to attack.
    He also noticed several men and women from the IT department. This he considered odd, but not especially so, as they were higher-level system administrators and they found their way into many staff meetings when questions about access and networks came into play.
    He located a spot on the wall and then turned to face the front, and now he noticed someone who didn’t belong. A fit looking male in his late thirties wearing a dark blue suit stood at the front of the room behind Madeline Crossman and Henry Delvecchio, who were positioned side by side at the lectern and had obviously been addressing the group.
    Ethan didn’t know blue-suit guy, but he did know Delvecchio and Crossman.
    Delvecchio was the deputy for regional affairs, the head of all the regions. He worked directly for the national security adviser, and that made him one of the top men in the NSC.
    Crossman, on the other hand, was not a big deal as far as Ethan was concerned. Any worries Ethan had that this was something of major import vanished the instant he saw Maddy