BooksBarbecue
Back Balance of Power
Chapters (53)
  1. BALANCE OF POWER
  2. Acknowledgments
  3. About The Creators
  4. ONE
  5. TWO
  6. THREE
  7. FOUR
  8. FIVE
  9. SIX
  10. SEVEN
  11. EIGHT
  12. NINE
  13. TEN
  14. ELEVEN
  15. TWELVE
  16. THIRTEEN
  17. FOURTEEN
  18. FIFTEEN
  19. SIXTEEN
  20. SEVENTEEN
  21. EIGHTEEN
  22. NINETEEN
  23. TWENTY
  24. TWENTY-ONE
  25. TWENTY-TWO
  26. TWENTY-THREE
  27. TWENTY-FOUR
  28. TWENTY-FIVE
  29. TWENTY-SIX
  30. TWENTY-SEVEN
  31. TWENTY-EIGHT
  32. TWENTY-NINE
  33. THIRTY
  34. THIRTY-ONE
  35. THIRTY-TWO
  36. THIRTY-THREE
  37. THIRTY-FOUR
  38. THIRTY-FIVE
  39. THIRTY-SIX
  40. THIRTY-SEVEN
  41. THIRTY-EIGHT
  42. THIRTY-NINE
  43. FORTY
  44. FORTY-ONE
  45. FORTY-TWO
  46. FORTY-THREE
  47. FORTY-FOUR
  48. FORTY-FIVE
  49. FORTY-SIX
  50. FORTY-SEVEN
  51. FORTY-EIGHT
  52. FORTY-NINE
  53. FIFTY

Three of the operatives were based in North Korea. Their mission was an ongoing follow-up to the Striker team's destruction of the secret missile site in the Diamond Mountains. The agents' job was to make sure that the missile launchers weren't rebuilt. Even though a traitorous South Korean officer had masterminded the construction of the base originally, no one put it past the opportunistic North Koreans to take advantage of the equipment that had been left behind by attempting to build a new missile installation.

Two Op-Center agents were located in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon and two others were working in Damascus, Syria. Both teams were based in terrorist hideouts and were reporting on the political fallout due to Op-Center's activities there. The fact that Op-Center operatives had helped to avert a war between Syria and Turkey was not being looked upon favorably: the feeling in the Middle East was that nations there took care of their own problems, even if that solution was war. Peace brought by outside forces, particularly by the United States, was looked upon as illicit and dishonorable.

The last two agents were in Cuba, keeping an eye on developing political situations in that nation. The reports were that the aging Castro's hold was beginning to fray. Whatever the dictator's drawbacks-and they were considerable-his iron heel had ironically kept the entire Caribbean more or less stabilized. Whatever tyrant came to power in Haiti, Grenada, Antigua, or on any of the other islands still needed the approval of Castro to run arms or drugs or even maintain a sizeable military force. They knew that the Cuban leader would have rivals assassinated before he let them become too powerful. The concensus was that as soon as Castro was gone, chaos and not democracy would come to the island and to the region. The United States had a contingency plan. Operation Keel, to fill and control that power vacuum using the military and economic incentives. Op-Center's agents were key parts of the EWAP network-early warning and preparedness-which was designed to pave the way for the plan.

Nine lives. Hood thought. And for each of those lives there were maybe two, three, or four dependents. That was not a responsibility to be taken lightly. He examined the afternoon reports and saw that the situations were relatively stable and unchanged. He closed the file.