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Page 83
and it's also true the Red Vicar was bolshie. But my Minister quite correctly reminds you that's ancient history. Reverend Mathis has been dead for years. It would be straining credulity to believe his daughter was still defending the old CP barricades. She's traveled; she's seen the world. By this time, she knows the only dedicated Marxists have tenure at places like Harvard, Cambridge, and McGill, not in the Kremlin. My Minister thinks that all she really cares about is finding whoever killed her husband. And her latest lover."
"And what about the CCND?" Morgan asked.
"Colonel, if advocating unilateral nuclear disinvestment were treason, half the congressmen and MPs in North America would be in jail."
"Point taken," Morgan said.
He sat now and thoughtfully considered his mission. Like many NSC assignments, it was deliberately vague and ill defined. Charlotte Conroy and the Adviser were too politically astute to put themselves on the record. It insulated them from failure. Or from success, if the price were suddenly deemed too high. Better a Seal mission on an undersea pipeline, a rescue assault on an African beach, a secret raid on an Iraqi army camp in Kurdish territory gathering intelligenceall of which he had done and would do again if asked or ordered with less reluctance than he now felt. In California, Morgan had one or two personal assets. He hoped he would not be forced to use them.
"Colonel? Bay Area dead ahead." In the gathering winter dusk, lights outlined San Francisco Bay. Oakland, Berkeley, and Alameda sparkled bright against the dark. The bridges glistened like necklaces of amber. The time was 1750 hours and it had begun to rain.

 
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