by Tom Clancy
"Sir."
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Monday, January 17th, 11 a.m. Quantico, Virginia
Michaels said, "All right, I think that's it. Questions?"
He looked around the conference room at the others: Howard, Fernandez, Winthrop, Gridley, and Toni.
Toni said, "Have we cleared this with the Director?"
"Currently the Director is in a don't-ask-don't-tell frame of mind," Michaels said. "If we deliver Hughes, he won't much care what we had to do to get him. And certain members of the Senate who might ordinarily scream to high heaven will be, I expect, very quiet about this particular detention." He grinned. "We also have some off-the-record help from the CIA. About as much as we want. Anything else?"
Nobody spoke.
"Good. You all have your assignments. Better go and get started."
The others left. Toni stayed behind.
"This is not a good idea, Alex."
"You heard the colonel, it should work."
"You know I'm not talking about the operation, I'm talking about you going along."
"Rank has its privileges, Toni. I was a good field op, once upon a time. I need to get out once in a while. The administration and politics of this job grind you down."
"It's dangerous."
"Crossing the street is dangerous."
He saw she was really concerned about him, and he didn't want to be flip, so he said, "What would make you feel better about this?"
"You not going."
"Aside from that?"
She looked him straight in the eyes. "If I went with you."
He started to shake his head. "I need somebody here to run things—"
"For three or four days? Bring in Chavez from nights, shift Preston over from Operations. They can handle things for that long."
"I don't know—"
"Oh, it's fine for you to go play in the field but not me?"
"It's against regulations for both of us to be on the same plane," he tried. He knew it was lame when he said it.
"You're going to quote regulations at me? You're going to toss the rule book out the window, go along on a mission you'd never get approved if the Director knew about it, and then talk to me about both of us flying on the same plane?!"
Ooh, she was mad. It was a side of her he'd never seen. And of course, she was perfectly justified in feeling that way, and he knew it.
"Okay," he said, holding up his hands in surrender. "Okay, you're right. You can go."
"I can?"
And in those two words, he heard what she must have sounded like as a little girl. In her concern, anger, and her sudden astonishment, she was in that moment drop-dead gorgeous, calling to him like a Siren. He wanted to hug her, kiss her — and he wanted to fall on the couch with her. Not a good idea, and certainly not a good idea here in the office, but that was how he felt.
Something was going to have to be done about this. He was going to have to do something.
"You're right. We'll work something out. That way, we'll both be looking for new jobs if this goes sour."
"I can live with that."
"Good. Now go take care of those other details we need handled, okay?"
"Right," she said. She smiled at him, stood there for what seemed a long time, then very softly, so softly he wasn't sure he had heard it, said, "I love you."
And then she was gone, and he was standing there with his mouth open, caught totally flat-footed and stunned.
Monday, January 17th, 6 p.m. Bissau, Guinea-Bissau
Hughes sipped at his drink, a good brandy in a monogrammed crystal snifter, and frowned up at the President's chauffeur/bodyguard.
"You're sure?"
"Sorry, sir, but he wasn't on the plane. I would have recognized him. I did drive him around when he was here before. He's rather difficult to miss."
"Yes. Well, thank you anyway."
The chauffeur departed, and Hughes reached for the Cuban cigar in the ashtray on the table next to the overstuffed chair in which he sat. The cigar had gone out. He carefully relit it, using one of the wooden matches from the carved ivory box.
"This is a concern for you?" Domingos said. He puffed on his own fine cigar and blew out fragrant smoke.
"Not really," Hughes said. "Platt will show up sooner or later. If not today's flight, then tomorrow's or the next day's. I have his money, and the arrangement was for him to collect it in person."
"Giles will take care of him whenever he arrives," Domingos said. "Not to worry."
Hughes swirled the brandy, lifted the snifter to his lips, and sipped it. "I'm not worried at all, Mr. President."
"Please, you must call me Freddie. We are going to have a long and very pleasant association together, no?"
"But of course, Freddie."
Monday, January 17th, 7 p.m. Tanaf, Senegal
Platt had driven his rented Land Rover to Sedhiou, where he'd taken the dinky ferry across the sluggish and brown Casamance River, then south to Tanaf. From there, if he stayed on the road, he was only about five miles away from Senegal's southern border with Guinea-Bissau. If he stayed on the road, it would take him through Olo Province south across the Canjambari River by way of Mansoa, and into Bissau from the northeast. That was if he stayed on the road. Thing with a Land Rover was, you didn't have to stay on the road if you didn't feel like it. And most of the roads around here were dirt tracks anyhow. He didn't particularly trust the guy who'd rented him the Rover, but the guy was white, and he'd said there were more ways to cross the border unseen than you could shake a stick at, and that was probably true.
It wasn't that far, as the crow flew, from where he was to Bissau, maybe fifty miles, but if the crow had to walk it on these crappy paths it was not only longer, it was a lot slower than the bird could fly with one wing busted. Platt would probably get there while it was still dark, assuming he didn't get pulled over by some native Army patrol out for blood. He was prepared for that, having bought himself a K-bar sheath knife, a Browning 9mm semiautomatic pistol, a vintage AK-47, and enough ammunition for both guns to take out a small-town high school football stadium. Plus he had picked up two WWII surplus hand grenades — German potato mashers, the dealer told him, old, but guaranteed to work.
If he ran into some local soldiers who wanted to give him grief, he'd see if could mash them like potatoes. Nobody in this dark land was gonna stop him getting where he wanted to go, not without being real sorry if they tried.
And after he had gotten far enough out in the boonies, he had pulled over and taken time to apply a couple of coats of the darkest tanning foam he could find. He wasn't exactly black, but he was a kind of nutty brown, and with a baseball cap on to hide his hair, he didn't look much like a white man at any distance more than a few yards.
Platt found a cow path or something a couple of miles away from the border, leading through a grassy field and a couple of plowed areas, then into some woods. He stayed on the compass until he came to a fence that stretched off into the woods in both directions.
Must be the border, he figured.
The fence that protected the border was three whole strands of rusted barbed wire tacked to wooden posts that were mostly rotted away.
Damned savages couldn't do any better than that? Jesus. No wonder they never amounted to nothin' over here. This fence wouldn't keep the livestock in back home.
He hacked most of the way through one of the posts with the K-bar, then knocked it the rest of the way down with the Rover's front bumper and rolled across the border.
Welcome to Guinea-Bissau, hoss. Hope you enjoy your visit.
He had gotten kind of turned around, so he pulled over to check the map. And it was a lucky thing too. While the hot engine ticked, he heard another vehicle. He got out of the Land Rover and moved down the trail.
Ahead was a beat-up pickup, painted jungle green, with four soldiers in it, two inside, two in the back. They had AKs like his, and they were cruising along slow, looking.
Platt
realized that if he hadn't stopped, he might have run right into them, and with four guns against his one, that could have been real bad — especially if they had seen him first, which they would have probably done, since they were looking and he wasn't.
He hadn't figured on a border patrol. He revised his opinion up a little. Maybe these jungle bunnies were sharper than he'd thought. Bad idea to underestimate the other side.
After the truck had time to get a couple of miles away, he went back to the Rover. Better take it slow and careful from here on in.
He figured he needed to get fairly close to the city, then find himself a place to hide the Rover, ‘cause he'd need it to leave. And he'd have to hole up for a day, until tomorrow night, because he definitely didn't want to be moving around during the day, disguise or not. Tuesday night, good and dark, he'd mosey on in and do his business.
As he drove through a field of high grass, the damp and heavy air rumbled with distant thunder. He could smell the approaching rain.
Oh, good. A storm, just what he needed to slow him down even more.
On the other hand, a thunderstorm would probably keep the local militia inside drinking bull pee or whatever it was they drank, and that would be good. He wasn't lookin' to get shot if he could help it.
He wiped sweat away from his forehead with the back of his right hand. Damn, but it was muggy here.
He saw a cloud of mosquitoes or flies or something buzzing in the air ahead of him, and he reached for the bug dope spray in the bag on the passenger seat. Be another good thing the rain would do, keep the bugs down. All he needed was to catch sleeping sickness or malaria or elephantitis from all this crap.
No two ways about it, he was gonna take a little more than the twenty million when he talked to Hughes. He sure had it coming.
Monday, January 17th, 9 p.m. In the air over the Atlantic Ocean
"Banjul, huh?" Joanna said.
Seated next to her in the seat of the team's 747, Fernandez said, "Yep. It's in The Gambia, kind of an insert around the Gambia River, runs right into the lower half of Senegal. A little farther away than we wanted, right on the coast, but it's the only airport south of Dakar where we can put this bird down and not be noticed. The Company has a store there — we're switching to a couple of Hueys for the rest of the trip. So we'll go in at treetop level Tuesday night, land, do our thing, then come out. It worked great on that Chechnya caper, it sure ought to work out here in darkest Guinea-Bissau. I don't think their radar is exactly state-of-the-art. Even if they see us, they don't have much to throw at us or chase us with."
"Heads up, here comes the colonel," Joanna whispered.
"Sir," Fernandez said as John Howard stopped next to their seats.
"Sergeant, Lieutenant." Howard looked at them for a couple of seconds, then smiled.
"Something funny, sir?" Fernandez said.
"Not really. You know that joke you were remembering when I called you on the way back from Washington State? The one you laughed at?"
"I remember."
"I do believe I get it now, Sergeant. Carry on."
After the colonel left, Joanna looked at Fernandez. "What was that all about?"
Fernandez grinned widely. "I expect the colonel knows that you and I have been, ah… intimate."
"How would he know that? You bragging?"
"No, ma'am, as proud as I am of it, I didn't say a word. But I've been working for the man for a long time. He doesn't have a dull edge, and he knows me too well. Any time a man feels as good as I do, it shows. And I expect that it shows more when you're around, seeing as how you're the reason. Is this a problem?"
"Not for me. In fact, I'm going to take a run to the head. You want to come along?" She waggled her eyebrows like Groucho Marx in an old black-and-white movie.
"You know, you are an evil woman, Lieutenant Winthrop, teasing a man that way."
"You don't know the half of it, Sergeant. I'm just getting vanned up with you. Besides, who said I was teasing?"
* * *
"Brought your wavy knife, I see," Alex said.
Toni looked up and nodded. She had the kris in its wooden scabbard on her lap. "Guru is convinced the kris is magic. I figured it wouldn't hurt."
He nodded, then said, "I'm just going to have a few words with the colonel. Looks like everything is on schedule. We'll be at the airport in a few more hours. We'll transfer stuff to helicopters there, then on to the target."
"You couldn't talk the colonel into letting you go into the city on the mission, could you?"
He smiled, shook his head. "No. And the truth is, I'm not unhappy with us staying with the pilots at the copters until they get back. My recent success as a soldier in the field was more luck than skill. This is what Howard and his team do. I don't want to get in the way."
"We could stay in Banjul," she said.
"Do that, and we might as well have stayed in Washington."
"Didn't I say that in the first place?"
"Yep. But look, we came this far, we might as well go along for the ride."
"As long as we both go along for the ride," she said.
He smiled at her.
So far, he hadn't said anything to her about that other thing she had said. The "I love you" part. It had seemed the right thing to her at the time, but after she had done it, she'd been almost sick with fear. They had kissed each other for a few minutes in the front seat of a very small car, that was all. It was maybe too early to be hitting him with something that heavy. What if he didn't feel anything for her other than lust? She knew that was there, there wasn't any way to hide the evidence of that. And she wanted it, sex with him, and she would settle for that, for now, but she also wanted a lot more.
Then again, he hadn't said anything about it, and that meant he hadn't refuted it either. Or maybe he hadn't even heard it.
No news was good news — or at least it wasn't bad news.
She wouldn't push it. She would see what happened. The magic in the kris had gotten her this far. Maybe it would help take her the rest of the way…
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Tuesday, January 18th, 6 p.m. Bissau, Guinea-Bissau
Domingos had some pressing state business he had to attend to — probably a ribbon cutting at a new bodega or something — so Hughes enjoyed his cigar and brandy in solitude. Well, save for the brief appearance of a messenger who informed him that the five o'clock plane had come, and that once again Platt was not on it.
This was worrisome. Platt certainly wanted his money, and the only reason Hughes could imagine that he hadn't hurried here to collect it was that something had prevented him from doing so. And the only things that came to mind that were capable of stopping Platt from doing anything were serious injury, death, or being arrested. And Platt hadn't called, another thing that bothered Hughes.
What if somehow Platt had run afoul of the law? What if he had been captured?
Hughes held the cigar in his mouth without puffing on it. He had considered this before, of course, although he had to admit to himself he hadn't really thought it likely. And even if he had been caught, Hughes did not think Platt would say anything about their venture; it would hardly be in his best interest to do so. Still, what if somehow he was made to speak? If the feds had Platt, and if they had squeezed him, then that would alter Hughes's plans considerably.
Going back to the U.S. would be out of the question. As soon as he stepped off the plane, the feds would swoop down on him like a hawk on a chicken, and he'd be in real trouble.
What to do?
The least risky proposition was simply to sit tight. Wait until Platt showed up here, or called. If he didn't do either in the next week or so, Hughes would have to risk some longdistance research and see if he could figure out what had happened to his operative. If Platt was in a hospital from a car wreck or some such, or even dead, well, so much the better. But if the authorities had somehow caught him, if he had slipped up, then one had to assume the worst.
Th
e cigar was out. He reached for a match.
He wasn't due to return to the U.S. from Ethiopia until Thursday, so he had a couple of days. If Platt hadn't shown up by then, Hughes would put in a call to the senator and offer some reason why he had to stay in Africa for a few more days. Easy enough. And if Platt had been caught and had given him up, then here was where Hughes would stay. It would be ahead of schedule, and irritating to have been found out, but not a major setback, all things considered.
He lit the cigar. When he had his house built, he'd have to be sure to include in it a humidor, a walk-in humidor, to keep his own stock of Cubans nice and fresh…
Tuesday, January 18th, 9 p.m. Banjul, The Gambia
Rain fell on the corrugated metal roof, a constant, almost hypnotic drumming that felt relaxing despite the muggy interior of the staging shed. The hard rain almost drowned out the electrical generator droning on outside the building.
Michaels felt lulled by the rain and the heat. This was supposed to be the dry season, the monsoons were supposed to be over. What must the wet season be like then, if this was dry?
Howard had a map projected on a more-or-less-white concrete block wall. "This is the city of Bissau," he said. "On the north side of the Rio G6ba where it turns into the bay." He waved a laser pointer in a circle of red around the Presidential Palace. "This is the compound."
Howard used a remote, and the viewpoint zoomed in. "This is the main building and this is where our target should be."
He fiddled with the remote, and the map was replaced by a computer-enhanced spysat photograph, the angle altered to give a view from what appeared to be only a few hundred feet above the buildings. "The CIA rerouted one of their fast-flying high-eyes to footprint the city for us, and we'd like to thank them for that, and for the use of the Hueys and this staging area."
Howard would have liked even more assistance from the Agency — like a geosynch spysat with full IR capabilities foot-printing the area from now through the time of the assault — but this operation was strictly unofficial. The Agency had done all it could without risking calling attention to what Net Force was doing out here, and Howard appreciated their efforts. He nodded at a fit-looking gray-haired man in khaki shorts and a T-shirt, who smiled and waved.
