safety, who pulled it in and fell at the forty.
Bock found the game exciting in a distant sort of way, but almost totally incomprehensible. Russell tried to explain, but it didn't really help very much. Gunther consoled himself with a beer, stretching out on the bed while his mind rolled over what he'd seen. Bock knew what he wanted his plan to accomplish, but the exact details — especially here in America — were looking harder than expected. If only—
“What was that they said?”
“The Secretary of Defense,” Russell answered.
“A joke?”
Marvin turned. “Sort of a joke. That's what they call the middle linebacker, Maxim Bradley, from the University of Alabama. But the real one owns the team. Dennis Bunker — there he is.” The camera showed Bunker in one of the stadium's sky-boxes.
How remarkable, Bock thought.
“What is this Superbowl they talked about?”
“That's the championship game. They have a playoff series of the most successful teams, and the last one is called the Superbowl.”
“Like the World Cup, you mean?”
“Yeah, something like that. 'Cept we do it every year. This year — actually next year, end of January — it's in the new stadium they built at Denver. The Skydome, I think they call it.”
“They expect these two teams to go there?”
Russell shrugged. “That's the talk. The regular season is sixteen weeks, man, then three weeks of playoffs, then another week wait for the Superbowl.”
“Who goes to this last game?”
“Lots of people. Hey, man, it's the game. Everybody wants to go to it. Getting tickets is a mother. These two teams are the best to go all the way, but it's real unpredictable, y'know?”
“President Fowler is a football enthusiast?”
“That's what they say. He's supposed to go to a lot of Redskin games right here in D.C.”
“What about security?” Bock asked.
'It's tough. They put him in one of the special boxes.
Figure they have it rigged with bulletproof glass or something.'
How very foolish, Bock thought. Of course, a stadium was easier to secure than it might seem to the casual observer. A heavy crew-served weapon could only be fired from an entrance ramp, and watching those was relatively easy. On the other hand…
Bock closed his eyes. He was thinking in an unorganized way, vacillating between conventional and unconventional approaches to the problem. He was also allowing himself to focus on the wrong thing. Killing the American President was desirable, but not essential. What was essential was to kill the largest number of people in the most spectacular way imaginable, then to coordinate with other activities in order to foment…
Think! Concentrate on the real mission.
“The television coverage for these games is most impressive,” Bock observed after a minute.
“Yeah, they make a big deal of that. Satellite vans, all that stuff.” Russell was concentrating on the game. The Vikings had scored something called a touchdown, and the score was now ten to nothing, but it seemed now that the other team was moving rapidly in the other direction.
“Has the game ever been seriously disrupted?”
Marvin turned. “Huh? Oh, during the war with Iraq, they had really tight security — and you remember the movie, right?”
“Movie?” Bock asked.
“Black Sunday, I think it was — some Middle East guys tried to blow up the place.” Russell laughed. “Already been done, man. In Hollywood, anyway. They used a blimp. Anyway, during the Superbowl when we were fighting Iraq, they wouldn't let the TV blimp come near the place.”
“Is there a game at Denver today?”
“No, that's tomorrow night, Broncos and the Seahawks. Won't be much of a game. The Broncos are rebuilding this year.”
“I see.” Bock left the room and arranged for the concierge to get them tickets to Denver in the morning.
Cathy got up to see him off. She even fixed breakfast. Her solicitude over the past few days had not made her husband feel any better. Quite the reverse. But he couldn't say anything about it, could he? Even the way she overdid it, straightening his tie and kissing him on the way out the door. The smile, the loving look, all for a husband who couldn't get it up, Jack thought on his way out to the car. The same sort of smothering attention you might give to some poor bastard in a wheelchair.
“Morning, Doc.”
“Hello, John.”
“Catch the Vikings-Chargers game yesterday?”
“No, I, uh, took my son to see the Orioles. They lost six to one.” Success was following Jack everywhere, but at least he'd kept his word to his son. That was something, wasn't it?
Twenty-four to twenty-one in overtime. God, that Wills kid is incredible. They held him to ninety-six yards, but when he had to deliver, he popped it for twenty yards and set up the field goal,' Clark reported.
“You have money on the game?”
“Five bucks at the office, but it was a three-point spread. The education fund won that one.”
It gave Ryan something to chuckle about. Gambling was as illegal at CIA as it was in every other government office, but a serious attempt to enforce a ban on football betting might have started a revolution — the same was true at the FBI, Jack was sure, which enforced interstate gambling statutes — and the semi-official system was that half-point betting spreads were not allowed. All “pushes” (odds-caused ties) forfeited into the Agency's in- house charity, the Education Aid Fund. It was something that even the Agency's own Inspector General winked at — in fact, he liked to lay money on games as much as the next guy.
“Looks like you at least got some sleep, Jack,” Clark noted, as they made their way towards Route 50.
“Eight hours,” Jack said. He'd wanted another chance the previous night, but Cathy had said no. You're too tired, Jack. That's all it is. You're working too hard, and I want you to take it easy, okay?
Like I'm a goddamned stud horse that's been overworked.
“Good for you,” Clark said. “Or maybe your wife insisted, eh?”
Ryan stared ahead at the road. “Where's the box?”
“Here.”
Ryan unlocked it and started looking at the weekend's dispatches.
They caught an early direct flight from Washington National to Denver's Stapleton International. It was a clear day most of the way across the country, Bock got a window seat and looked at the country, his first time in America. As with most Europeans, he was surprised, almost awed by the sheer size and diversity. The wooded hills of Appalachia; the flat farmlands of Kansas, speckled with the immense circular signature of the traveling irrigation systems; the stunning way the plains ended and the Rockies began within easy sight of Denver. No doubt Marvin would say something when they arrived about how this had all been the property of his people. What rubbish. They'd been nomadic barbarians, following the herds of bison, or whatever had once been there before civilization arrived. America might be his enemy, but it was a civilized country, and all the more dangerous for it. By the time the aircraft landed, he was squirming with his need for a smoke. Ten minutes after landing, they'd rented a car and were examining a map. Bock's head was dizzy from the lack of oxygen here. Nearly fifteen hundred meters of altitude, he realized. It was a wonder that people could play American football here.
They'd landed behind the morning rush hour, and driving to the stadium was simple. Southwest of the city, the new Skydome was a distinctive structure located on an immense plot of ground to allow ample room for parking. He parked the car close to a ticket window and decided that the simple approach would be best.
“Can I get two tickets for tonight's match?” he asked the attendant.
“Sure, we have a few hundred left. Where do you want them?”
“I don't know the stadium at all, I'm afraid.”
“You must be new here,” the lady observed with a friendly smile. “All we got's in the upper deck, Section Sixty-Six and Sixty-Eight.”
