A Tom Clancy Primer

The Palace was larger than he'd expected, but it seemed a dour building, three hundred yards away, hidden behind a marble monument of some sort.
—Patriot Games

He moved quickly around the stopped car, head down, keeping low and accelerating rapidly, his eyes locked on his target--the small of the man's back--just as he'd been taught in high school football.
—Patriot Games

Ryan got up instantly--winded but full of adrenaline--and crouched beside the body.
—Patriot Games

This was a guardsman, he told himself, a professional soldier from a crack regiment who'd had to prove he had real balls before they sent him to the finishing school that made windup toys for tourists to gawk at.
—Patriot Games

It seemed that a hundred sirens were converging on the scene with men--some in uniform, some not--leaping out to join the party.
—Patriot Games

It took an indeterminate period of concentration for Jack to remember why he was here.
—Patriot Games

Her brown eyes belied the wheat-colored hair.
—Patriot Games

Nurse Kittiwake breezed out the door with her ingenuous smile.
—Patriot Games

The reason the summary paragraphs are so--well, lurid, I guess--is to entice a reporter to quote them verbatim in the public media.
—Patriot Games

Only after finishing had he realized that her demeanor had probably been a sham, a device to get him to eat all the slop.
—Patriot Games

The dock that had held his Red October for two interminable months was now a water-filled concrete box, one of the many specially built to shelter strategic missile submarines from the harsh elements.
—The Hunt for Red October

It would not do at all for the Soviet Navy's newest missile submarine to be damaged by an errant chunk of frozen water.
—The Hunt for Red October

In 1944 he returned to his native land with the spearhead of the Eleventh Guards Army to wreak bloody vengeance on those who had collaborated with the Germans or been suspected of such.
—The Hunt for Red October

The missile struck the Spade 1 at the base of its starboard rudder fin.
—The Hunt for Red October

The water grew rougher as they approached the open sea, and their icebreaker escort began to wallow on the swells.
—The Hunt for Red October

She had plenty of engine power and a new drive system that he hoped would befuddle American and Soviet submarines alike, but she was so big that she changed depth like a crippled whale.
—The Hunt for Red October

"A true Marxist is objective, Comrade Political Officer," Ramius chided, savoring this last argument with Putin.
—The Hunt for Red October

It was another paradox that a man could engender trust within a society that scarcely recognized the concept.
—The Hunt for Red October

The reactor plant noises, mainly from pumps that circulated the cooling water, were almost imperceptible.
—The Hunt for Red October

They were all prima donnas--even the farmboy conscripts still picking shit from between their toes paraded around like members of the Party elite.
—The Hunt for Red October