"Clancy, Tom - Op-Center 05 - Ballance of Power" - читать интересную книгу автора (Clancy Tom)

14 OP-CENTER
Spain's strife had been mostly internal in this
century, and the nation had remained neutral during
World War II. As a result, the world had paid
relatively little attention to its problems and
politics. But when Aideen was studying languages
in college her Spanish professor, Senor
Armesto, had told her that Spain was a nation on the
verge of disaster.
Where there are three Spaniards there are four
opinions,
he had said.
When world events favor the impatient and disaffected,
those opinions will be heard loudly and violently.
Senor Armesto was correct. Fractionalization was
the trend in politics, from the breakup of the
Soviet Union and Yugoslavia to the
secessionist movement in Quebec to the rising
ethnocentrism in the United States. Spain was
hardly immune. If Deputy Serrador's
fears were correct-and Op-Center's intelligence
had corroborated it-the nation was poised to suffer its
worst strife in a thousand years. As Intelligence
Chief Bob Herbert had put it before Martha left
Washington, "This will make the Spanish Civil
War look like a brawl."
The guard put his list down.
"Un momenta,"
he said, and picked up the red telephone on the
console in the back of the booth. He punched in a
number and cleared his throat.
As the sentry spoke to a secretary on the other
end, Aideen turned. She looked toward the broad
avenue, which was packed with traffic-
la hora de aplastar,
or "crush hour," as they called it here. The bright
lights of the slow-moving cars were blinding in the dark
twilight. They seemed to pop on and off as
BALANCE OF POWER 15
pedestrians scurried past. Occasionally, a
flashbulb would fire as a tourist stopped
to take a picture of the palace.
Aideen was blinking off the effects of one such flash
when a young man who had just taken a picture put his
camera in the pocket of his denim jacket. He
turned toward the booth. She couldn't see him
clearly beneath the brim of his baseball cap, but she
felt his eyes on her.
A
street extortionist posing as a tourist?