Splinter 05: Conviction

53o50 15.61 N, long 108o 2 35.13 E, 210 miles northeast Irkutsk.No

The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in combat."

Deuter Quantum 55+10 backpack,

the National Security Agency's deputy director, Nicholas Andrew Kovac.

Louis "Marty" Moreau was one of Third Echelon's best technical operations managers--in other words, a Splinter Cell "handler."

"By the way, who are the other two? The blonde and the Japanese Vin Diesel." At this Grimsdottir laughed. "Maya Valentina and Nathan Noboru.

He looped one end of the paracord through the handle and secured it with a taut-line hitch, then threaded the other end through a rusted eye bolt in the jamb. He repeated the process, knotting and looping until he was out of line. He cinched the paracord with a bowline and stepped back to examine his handiwork. It wasn't perfect, he decided, but it would slow them down.

Gore-Tex camelback rucksack,

A standard equipment loadout: subvocal transceiver; OPSAT; Trident goggles equipped with night-vision, infrared, and electromagnetic settings; SC pistol; SC-20K AR MAWS (Modular Assault Weapon System) with all the goodies, including ring airfoil grenades, Sticky Shockers and Cameras, and gas grenades; Mark V Tactical Operations RhinoPlate suit; and six grenades (three XM84 flashbang, two M67 fragmentation, and one AN-M8 HC White Smoke).

He found a restaurant, the Auberge, and ordered what turned out to be one of the best meals of his life: lobster soup with langoustine tails, Ardennes salad, game terrine on a bed of salad, confit of red plums, and a lemon tartelette for dessert.