They were breathing heavily.
Or was he imagining that?
They were getting very close.
He looked around for a depression in the side of the trench, in the bottom, anything he could fold himself inside.
There was nothing.
Wyatt pulled the Browning from its holster and slipped the safety.
In the far distance, he heard turboprops.
Were they bringing in more troops?
Thought about the radio. It had a range of a couple of miles. If the others were near, they should know.
He slipped the survival pack off his webbing and unzipped it. Pulling the harness out and tossing it aside, he found the radio.
Flicking the on switch, he immediately heard, “…back to me, Yucca One.”
Wyatt turned the volume down, then pressed the transmit.
“One.”
“Gotcha!” Vrdla said. “Saddle up! We’re coming!”
Dropping the radio, Wyatt shoved the pistol into his belt, picked up the harness, and stepped into it. He pulled it up, snugged it into his crotch, then hooked the shoulder strap fasteners. From a yoke at the top of the shoulder straps, a coiled line of cable was suspended, held in place by a plastic tie. On the other end of the one-hundred-foot line was a small pouch.
The pounding feet were coming closer.
He picked up the pouch, pulled it free of the balloon, jerked the lanyard on the aluminium cartridge, and heard the helium escaping into the bright orange balloon. It filled rapidly, rose from his hands, and trailed the thin cable behind it after he broke the plastic tie.
He was watching it rise and listening to the oncoming turboprops when the pounding boots stopped pounding.
He looked up to the top of the wadi.
A soldier, an officer, stood there, panting slightly and aiming his pistol up at the balloon.
He felt the tug when the balloon reached the end of its tether.
It was, however, a bit too late.
*
Al-Qati yelled to his soldiers in Arabic, “Do not shoot! We want him alive!”
The soldiers fanned out on both rims of the depression, keeping the muzzles of their AK-74s trained on the man who was wearing a soft grey flight suit. His helmet was attached to his webbing belt and looked out of place.
The three soldiers in the wadi went to their stomachs, rifles extended before them.
The pilot was holding his own pistol, aiming it directly at al-Qati.
Without letting his own aim waver from the balloon, al-Qati said in French, “Who are you?”
Al-Qati was well-versed in military strategies. He knew what the balloon meant, and he knew what the approaching airplane engines meant.
He also knew that if he shot the balloon, he would die seconds later.
The man did not answer.
He tried again, in English. “Who are you?”
“You speak English? That’s nice.”
“Give me your name, or I will shoot.”
“Your last shot,” the pilot said.
He seemed very determined, standing with his legs spread wide, the pistol aimed at al-Qati’s heart. “Perhaps. It would be yours, also.”
“I’m not too handy in Arabic,” the man said, “but does your name tag read, ‘al-Qati?”‘
“It does.”
The airplane engines were becoming louder. They raised their voices in compensation.
“I’m not sure I believe this.”
“What are you talking about?” al-Qati asked. Unbelievably, the pilot lowered his pistol, then shoved it into the holster under his arm.
“She loves you, you know,” he said.
“What! Who?”
“She specifically asked me not to shoot you. So I won’t.”
Ahmed al-Qati was stunned.
And also hopeful.
He lowered his own pistol.
And stood there as the massive C-130 came roaring down the wadi, its four propellers scattering sunlight, a hundred feet off the ground, trailing a big wire loop from its lowered ramp.
The loop snatched the balloon.
The pilot was there one second.
And gone the next.
Reincarnation
Twenty-one
The sun had gone down hours before, leaving North-field, Maine, wrapped in blackness. There were no runway lights, and there was no traffic.
At the side of the runway, the C-130 was parked next to Church’s Falcon business jet.
With the aid of flashlights and stepladders, a half-dozen men were taping blue stripes to the side of the Hercules and changing her N-numbers.
Inside the Falcon, Wyatt lounged in one of the soft seats, sipping from a squat glass of Chivas Regal.
Barr, who had grabbed the bottle and was pouring his second glass, said, “Your budget must have improved, Marty. This is real Scotch.”
“I bought that out of my own pocket, Bucky,” George Embry said. “But it’s only because I thought you deserved it.”
“You have nice taste,” Barr said. “Send me a case for Christmas.”
“This can’t be what you people call a debriefing,” Jan Kramer said.
She had flown to Washington right after Church had called her to say they were out of Libya, and she had demanded that Church bring her along to this meeting. Barr was riding back to Washington with Church, to catch a plane to Lincoln. He planned to personally deliver one of his scholarships to Julie Jorgenson.
Kramer was sitting in the chair next to Wyatt, and he reached over and took her hand.
“We work slowly up to it,” he said.
“Get on with it, will you?” Her voice was hard, but her hand was soft when she squeezed his own.
Barr did the honours, uncharacteristically skipping the frills and condensing the substantial points. “…and then we made one last stop,” he said, glancing at Kramer, “picked up Andy, and came on home.”
Wyatt set his glass down in the armrest holder and scratched the beard on his face. The numbness had gone, and his hearing was coming back in the right ear, but his left cheek was scabbed over. He wouldn’t be shaving for awhile.
He hoped he wouldn’t be doing any more ejections or ground retrievals ever again. His back was going to be sore for weeks.
Embry looked over at him and said, “Ahhhh, that more or less corresponds to your first reports. You did meet al-Qati?”
“For one extremely brief moment,” Wyatt said.
“My gal says to thank you. She has, by the by, resigned from the Agency and is living in Rome.”
“And al-Qati?”
Embry shrugged. “Who knows? We haven’t heard about him. Perhaps one day, he’ll show up in Rome.”
“What are the first reactions?” Wyatt asked.
Church answered that one. “The Leader has appealed to the UN for assistance in locating the perpetrators. Remember, this is the man who doesn’t like UN interference in his affairs. This was a few hours after he insisted that the explosions at the factory were simply an industrial accident. I think he changed his mind after overflying the area.
“On specifics, the chemical factory is out of business. Our people estimate that the gases have already dissolved, and they may go back in and try to rebuild. The same holds true for Marada Air Base. It’s hard to keep these people down.”
“Ramad?”
“I don’t know. He seems to have disappeared, but then again, he’s disappeared on us before. He may be on the run, if the shortcomings at Marada are placed on his head.”
“They’re determined people,” Wyatt said. “They’ll probably rebuild.”
“I hate to think we might have to go back and do it all over again in a couple of years.”
Church smiled while saying that.
“If it’s necessary, Marty,” Kramer said, “give me a call and we’ll talk about it.”
Church stopped smiling.
Kramer smiled and ran her forefinger along Wyatt’s palm. “There was a boa
rd meeting of the only available board member of Aeroconsultants yesterday, and there’s been some restructuring. I’m now in charge of contracts.”
Wyatt grinned at her. “What else was reorganized? Am I still president?”
“Of course.”
“And me?” Barr asked.
“You don’t do much, Bucky, so you’re still just right for vice president.”
“That’s a relief,” Barr said. “I’d hate to have to go to work.”
“There’s just one other change,” she said. “The new chief of security is Ace the Wonder Cat.”
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