Breaking point - By Tom Clancy & Steve Perry & Steve Pieczenik Page 0,43

in June, and to the left Mount Saint Helens did, too. He’d talked to people who’d lived here when the volcano blew its top off, back in the spring of 1980, and it had apparently been quite impressive.

The initial blast had not only blown powdered rock upward, it had spewed outward, knocking down trees, a “stone wind” that had scoured everything in its path. The explosion created ash and snowmelt pyroclastic flows that had filled lakes and rivers, knocked out bridges, buried a tourist lodge—empty, fortunately, save for the old man who ran it and refused to evacuate. Most of the people who died had been inside the safety zone established by the state, and it could have been a lot worse.

According to an old staff sergeant Howard knew who had been in town when it blew, the volcano had looked like a nuclear blast, great clouds of pulverized rock boiling into the stratosphere. The wind hadn’t been blowing toward the city that day, so they’d missed the big ash fall, though they got some in subsequent eruptions. It was like living next door to a concrete plant when that happened, the sarge said, fine clouds of gray dust swirling in the streets like powdered snow. Jets had to detour around the city when the ash was at its heaviest; it would eat up the engines otherwise, and car air filters clogged and had to be changed within a few hours. People wore painters’ masks to keep from choking on the stuff. It was hard to imagine it.

And you couldn’t tell by looking at it now.

“Stay in this lane.”

“I heard you the first time. Who’s driving this car, me or you?”

“You’re driving. I’m navigating. Clearly the more important job.”

Howard grinned. Was there anything more wonderful than a bright woman? Even if she was shining that brightness into a place you’d rather keep dark sometimes, that didn’t detract from her radiance.

“Yes, ma’am, you are the navigator.”

She smiled back, and looked at the car’s dash-mounted GPS. The little computer screen showed a map.

“Stay on this street—Market—until you get to Front Street, then turn left. Immediately get into the right lane, and turn right on the Hawthorne Bridge. The restaurant we want is called Bread and Ink, and it’s thirty blocks east of the Willamette River.”

“Begging the navigator’s pardon, ma’am, but that’s pronounced ‘Will-lam-it,’ not ‘Will-uh-met.’ Accent is on the second syllable.”

“Ask me if I care.”

“Just trying to keep the navigator honest, ma’am.”

Howard’s virgil chimed. He pressed the receive button. “Yes?”

“Hi, Dad. This is Tyrone. Just calling to check in. We’re fine here. Everybody is fine, no problems, and how are you?”

“Nobody likes a smart-ass, Tyrone.” He shook his head. “But thanks for calling.”

Tyrone put on his airline pilot’s voice: “Ah, roger that, parental unit two-oh-two. We’ll, ah, be standing by here for, ah, your return. That’s a discom.”

“He’s a good boy,” Nadine said when Howard shut off the virgil.

“Yeah, I know. Too bad he’s turned into a teenager.”

“You survived it.”

“Once. I don’t know if I can do it again.”

“I have great faith in you, General Howard. You are, after all, a leader of men. One boy, how hard could it be?”

They both grinned.

15

Friday, June 10th

Coeur d’Alene, Idaho

A pair of armed guards—heavily armed guards—stepped from a cedar planked and shingled kiosk and waved the cars to a stop at a big wood-and-wire gate. The men were in camouflage clothing, and one of them kept his assault rifle trained on the ground right next to the car as the other man approached. Aside from the rifles, they had sidearms, big sheath knives, and some kind of grenades strapped on.

They must be burning up in that, Morrison thought. It was in the high eighties out here, even in the woods.

“Colonel Ventura,” the guard said. He saluted. “Good to see you again, sir.”

Morrison’s roommate of last night, Missey, was at the wheel. As they drove through the gate in a ten-foot-tall chainlink fence topped with coils of razor wire, Morrison said, “Colonel Ventura? What is this place?”

“The rank is honorary,” Ventura said. “I did some work for the man who runs the place, once. And let’s call it a ... patriot compound.”

There was a car in front of them with Ventura’s operatives, and one behind them, special vehicles rented at a place Morrison didn’t think was going to run Hertz out of business. The guy who provided the cars had been covered in what looked like Maori tattoos, including his face, and the deal had been