Read Online Splinter Cell (2004) by Tom - Splinter Cell 0 Clancy - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Tom - Splinter Cell 0 Clancy
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you’re right. Carly and I discussed this and there’s about a one-in-three-hundred chance that someone got in. Improbable but not impossible.”
“So what were Benton and this Belgian guy meeting about? What was his name?”
“Verbaken. The last report I received from Benton indicated he was investigating a possible connection between the Shop and ‘something in Belgium.’ He told me he was going to Brussels to meet with an intelligence contact there and that he would report in as soon as he was done. For months he was in the process of tracking a major Shop arms supply line coming into Iraq from the north. The customers are the various insurgents and terrorist factions that have been hounding our allies, the new Iraqi government, and us ever since the president declared that the war in Iraq was over. I know Benton was getting close to finding out some truths about those guys.” Lambert took a long slurp of soda. “I’m afraid Benton turned out to be careless. It cost him his life.”
“Is Belgium giving us any info on their guy? What was he working on?”
“Well, we have a clue. Benton’s OPSAT was recovered from the hotel room. It was smashed to hell, but upon examination of the device our people were able to extract a minimum number of files that hadn’t been transmitted to us. One was a shot of a page from a file belonging to Verbaken. When Belgian Intelligence saw the photo, they confirmed that it was from a missing file that detailed the activities of Gerard Bull.”
“Gerard Bull?” I’m surprised. I haven’t heard that name in many years. Gerard Bull was a Canadian arms designer and dealer who was active in the sixties, seventies, and eighties. He worked for our government for a while until there was a falling out. He served some prison time for illegal arms dealing. After he got out of prison, he worked extensively out of Europe. During the eighties he had close ties with Saddam Hussein and spent a lot of time designing and building high-tech arms for Iraq. His most famous “creation” was the design for what he called a “supergun.” He called it the “Babylon.” It was supposed to be a giant cannon-like weapon that could fire a payload an incredibly long distance. Alternatively, with the aid of boosters, a payload could be launched into space without the need of rockets. Bull never finished the project, but he did build a small prototype called the “Baby Babylon.” It was dismantled and destroyed during the Gulf War. Bull was assassinated in 1990—in Brussels, to be exact. It is widely believed that the Mossad was responsible for the killing.
“So what’s that all about?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” Lambert replies. “Belgian intelligence confirmed that Verbaken had recently added material to the file because he believed that someone previously associated with Bull was continuing the physicist’s work for terrorists in the Middle East. Unfortunately, Verbaken hadn’t completed his investigation and had not filed any detailed reports. He died without leaving anyone a clue as to where his notes are. They were probably in the file. And it’s gone.”
“Except for the one page recovered from the OPSAT.”
“Right.”
“Did the killers take the file?”
“We assume so. I wonder if they were after the file to begin with, or were the targets either Verbaken or Benton and the file was just gravy?”
“Or after both guys and the file,” I suggest.
“There’s that possibility, too.”
We’re quiet for a moment as we let these thoughts sink in. I finish my pizza and ask, “You heard the news about London?”
Lambert nods grimly. “That’s another thing I wanted to talk with you about. As you can imagine, we’re all very concerned about it.”
“The news report was very vague. What happened?”
“I was in my car when it happened,” Lambert says. “I got on to the Pentagon immediately, and what they could gather in the few minutes after it occurred was that
“So what were Benton and this Belgian guy meeting about? What was his name?”
“Verbaken. The last report I received from Benton indicated he was investigating a possible connection between the Shop and ‘something in Belgium.’ He told me he was going to Brussels to meet with an intelligence contact there and that he would report in as soon as he was done. For months he was in the process of tracking a major Shop arms supply line coming into Iraq from the north. The customers are the various insurgents and terrorist factions that have been hounding our allies, the new Iraqi government, and us ever since the president declared that the war in Iraq was over. I know Benton was getting close to finding out some truths about those guys.” Lambert took a long slurp of soda. “I’m afraid Benton turned out to be careless. It cost him his life.”
“Is Belgium giving us any info on their guy? What was he working on?”
“Well, we have a clue. Benton’s OPSAT was recovered from the hotel room. It was smashed to hell, but upon examination of the device our people were able to extract a minimum number of files that hadn’t been transmitted to us. One was a shot of a page from a file belonging to Verbaken. When Belgian Intelligence saw the photo, they confirmed that it was from a missing file that detailed the activities of Gerard Bull.”
“Gerard Bull?” I’m surprised. I haven’t heard that name in many years. Gerard Bull was a Canadian arms designer and dealer who was active in the sixties, seventies, and eighties. He worked for our government for a while until there was a falling out. He served some prison time for illegal arms dealing. After he got out of prison, he worked extensively out of Europe. During the eighties he had close ties with Saddam Hussein and spent a lot of time designing and building high-tech arms for Iraq. His most famous “creation” was the design for what he called a “supergun.” He called it the “Babylon.” It was supposed to be a giant cannon-like weapon that could fire a payload an incredibly long distance. Alternatively, with the aid of boosters, a payload could be launched into space without the need of rockets. Bull never finished the project, but he did build a small prototype called the “Baby Babylon.” It was dismantled and destroyed during the Gulf War. Bull was assassinated in 1990—in Brussels, to be exact. It is widely believed that the Mossad was responsible for the killing.
“So what’s that all about?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” Lambert replies. “Belgian intelligence confirmed that Verbaken had recently added material to the file because he believed that someone previously associated with Bull was continuing the physicist’s work for terrorists in the Middle East. Unfortunately, Verbaken hadn’t completed his investigation and had not filed any detailed reports. He died without leaving anyone a clue as to where his notes are. They were probably in the file. And it’s gone.”
“Except for the one page recovered from the OPSAT.”
“Right.”
“Did the killers take the file?”
“We assume so. I wonder if they were after the file to begin with, or were the targets either Verbaken or Benton and the file was just gravy?”
“Or after both guys and the file,” I suggest.
“There’s that possibility, too.”
We’re quiet for a moment as we let these thoughts sink in. I finish my pizza and ask, “You heard the news about London?”
Lambert nods grimly. “That’s another thing I wanted to talk with you about. As you can imagine, we’re all very concerned about it.”
“The news report was very vague. What happened?”
“I was in my car when it happened,” Lambert says. “I got on to the Pentagon immediately, and what they could gather in the few minutes after it occurred was that
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