by Tom Clancy
“Do I have to be home for that?”
“I can do it, Jack. I’m off work now, remember?”
“Oh, of course,” Bennett said. “When is the baby due?”
“First week of August—that might be a problem for this,” Cathy realized belatedly.
“If something unexpected happens, you may be sure that Their Highnesses will understand. One more thing. This is a private matter, not one of the public events for the trip. We must ask that you keep this entirely confidential.”
“Sure, I understand,” Ryan said.
“If they’re going to be here for dinner, is there anything we shouldn’t serve?” Cathy asked.
“What do you mean?” Bennett responded.
“Well, some people are allergic to fish, for example.”
“Oh, I see. No, I know of nothing along those lines.”
“Okay, the basic Ryan dinner,” Jack said. “I—uh-oh.”
“What’s the matter?” Bennett asked.
“We’re having company that night.”
“Oh,” Cathy nodded. “Robby and Sissy.”
“Can’t you cancel?”
“It’s a going-away party. Robby—he’s a Navy fighter pilot, we both teach at the Academy—is transferring back to the fleet. Would they mind?”
“Doctor Ryan, His Highness—”
“His Highness is a good guy. So’s Robby. He was there that night we met. I can’t cancel him out, Mr. Bennett. He’s a friend. The good news is, His Highness will like him. He used to fly fighter planes, too, right?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“Do you remember the night we met? Without Robby I might not have gotten through it. Look, this guy’s a lieutenant commander in the United States Navy who happens to fly a forty-million-dollar fighter airplane. He probably is not a security risk. His wife plays one hell of a piano.” Ryan saw that he hadn’t quite gotten through yet. “Mr. Bennett, check Rob out through your attaché and ask His Highness if it’s all right.”
“And if he objects?”
“He won’t. I’ve met him. Maybe he’s a better guy than you give him credit for,” Jack observed. He won’t object, you dummy. It’s the security pukes who’ll throw a fit.
“Well.” That remark took him somewhat aback. “I cannot fault your sense of loyalty, Doctor. I will pass this through His Highness’s office. But I must insist that you do not tell Commander Jackson anything.”
“You have my word.” Jack nearly laughed. He couldn’t wait to see the look on Robby’s face. This would finally even the score for that kendo match.
“Contraction peaks,” Jack said that night. They were practicing the breathing exercises in preparation for the delivery. His wife started panting. Jack knew that this was a serious business. It merely looked ridiculous. He checked the numbers on his digital watch. “Contraction ends. Deep, cleansing breath. I figure steaks on the grill, baked potatoes, and fresh corn on the cob, with a nice salad.”
“It’s too plain,” Cathy protested.
“Everywhere they go over here, people will be hitting them with that fancy French crap. Somebody ought to give them a decent American meal. You know I do a mean steak on the grill, and your spinach salad is famous from here to across the road.”
“Okay.” Cathy started laughing. It was becoming uncomfortable for her to do so. “If I stand over a stove for more than a few minutes, I get nauseous anyway.”
“It must be tough, being pregnant.”
“You should try it,” she suggested.
Her husband went on: “It’s the only hard thing women have to do, of course.”
“What!” Cathy’s eyes nearly popped out.
“Look at history. Who has to go out and kill the buffalo? The man. Who has to carry the buffalo back? The man. Who has to drive off the bear? The man. We do all the hard stuff. I still have to take out the garbage every night! Do I ever complain about that?” He had her laughing again. He’d read her mood right. She didn’t want sympathy. She was too proud of herself for that.
“I’d hit you on the head, but there’s no sense in breaking a perfectly good club over something worthless.”
“Besides, I was there the last time, and it didn’t look all that hard.”
“If I could move, Jack, I’d kill you for that one!”
He moved from opposite his wife to beside her. “Nah, I don’t think so. I want you to form a picture in your mind.”
“Of what?”
“Of the look on Robby’s face when he gets here for dinner. I’m going to jiggle the time a little.”
“I’ll bet you that Sissy handles it better than he does.”
“How much?”
“Twenty. ”
“Deal.” He looked at his watch. “Contraction begins. Deep breath.” A minute later, Jack was amazed to see that he was breathing the same way as his wife. That got them both laughing.
24
Connections Missed and Made
There were no new pictures of Camp -18 the day of the raid. A sandstorm had swept over the area at the time of the satellite pass, and the cameras couldn’t penetrate it, but a geosynchronous weather satellite showed that the storm had left the site. Ryan was cued after lunch that day that the raid was on, and spent his afternoon in fidgety anticipation. Careful analysis of the existing photos showed that between twelve and eighteen people were at the camp, over and above the guard force. If the higher number were correct, and the official estimate of the ULA’s size was also accurate, that represented more than half of its membership. Ryan worried a little about that. If the French were sending in only eight paratroopers ... but then he remembered his own experiences in the Marine Corps. They’d be hitting the objective at three in the morning. Surprise would be going for them. The assault team would have its weapons loaded and locked—and aimed at people who were asleep. The element of surprise, in the hands of elite commandos, was the military equivalent of a Kansas tornado. Nothing could stand up to it.
They’re in their choppers now, Ryan thought. He remembered his own experience in the fragile, ungainly aircraft. There you are, all your equipment packed up, clean utilities, your weapons ready, and despite it all you’re as vulnerable as a baby in the womb. He wondered what sort of men they were, and realized that they wouldn’t be too very different from the Marines he’d served with: all would be volunteers, doubly so since you also had to volunteer for parachute training. They’d opted a third time to be part of the antiterror teams. It would be partly for the extra pay they got and partly for the pride that always came with membership in a small, very special force—like the Marine Corps’ Force Recon—but mostly they’d be there because they knew that this was a mission worth doing. To a man, professional soldiers despised terrorists, and each would dream about getting them in an even-up-battle—the idea of the Field of Honor had never died for the real professionals. It was the place where the ultimate decision was made on the basis of courage and skill, on the basis of manhood itself, and it was this concept that marked the professional soldier as a romantic, a person who truly believed in the rules.
They’d be nervous in their helicopter. Some would fidget and be ashamed of it. Others would make a great show of sharpening their knives. Some would joke quietly. Their officers and sergeants would sit quietly, setting an example and going over the plans. All would look about the helicopter and silently hate being trapped within it. For a moment Jack was there with them.
“Good luck, guys,” he whispered to the wall. “Bonne chance.”
The hours crept by. It seemed to Ryan that the numbers on his digital watch were reluctant to change at all, and it was impossible for him to concentrate on his work. He was going over the photos of the camp again, counting the man-figures, examining the ground to predict for himself how the final approach would be made. He wondered if their orders were to take the terrorists alive. He couldn’t decide on that question. From a legal perspective, he didn’t think it really mattered. If terrorism were the mod
em manifestation of piracy—the analogy seemed apt enough—then the ULA was fair game for any nation’s armed forces. On the other hand, taken alive, they could be put on trial and displayed. The psychological impact on other such groups might be real. If it didn’t put the fear of God in them, it would at least get their attention. It would frighten them to know that they were not safe even in their most remote, most secure sanctuary. Some members might drift away, and maybe one or two of them would talk. It didn’t take much intelligence information to hammer them. Ryan had seen that clearly enough. You needed to know where they were, that was all. With that knowledge you could bring all the forces of a modem nation to bear, and for all their arrogance and brutality, they couldn’t hope to stand up to that.
Marty came into the office. “Ready to go over?”
“Hell, yes!”
“Did you have dinner?”
“No. Maybe later.”
“Yeah.” Together they walked to the annex. The corridors were nearly empty now. For the most part, CIA worked like any other place. At five the majority of the workers departed for home and dinner and evening television.
“Okay, Jack, this is real-time. Remember that you can’t discuss any aspect of this.” Cantor looked rather tired, Jack thought.
“Marty, if this op is successful, I will tell my wife that the ULA is out of business. She has a right to know that much.”
“I can understand that. Just so she doesn’t know how it happens.”
“She wouldn’t even be interested,” Jack assured him as they entered the room with the TV monitor. Jean-Claude was there again.
“Good evening, Mr. Cantor, Professor Ryan,” the DGSE officer greeted them both.
“How’s the op going?”
“They are under radio silence,” the Colonel replied.
“What I don’t understand is how they can do it the same way twice,” Ryan went on.
“There is a risk. A little disinformation has been used,” Jean-Claude said cryptically. “In addition, your carrier now has their full attention.”
“Saratoga has an alpha-strike up,” Marty explained. “Two fighter squadrons and three attack ones, plus jamming and radar coverage. They’re patrolling that ‘Line of Death’ right now. According to our electronics listening people, the Libyans are going slightly ape. Oh, well.”
“The satellite comes over the horizon in twenty-four minutes,” the senior technician reported. “Local weather looks good. We ought to get some clear shots.”
Ryan wished he had a cigarette. They made the waiting easier, but every time Cathy smelled them on his breath, there was hell to pay. At this point the raiding force would be crawling across the last thousand yards. Ryan had done the drill himself. They’d come away with bloody hands and knees, sand rubbed into the wounds. It was an incredibly tiring thing to do, made more difficult still by the presence of armed soldiers at the objective. You had to time your moves for when they were looking the other way, and you had to be quiet. They’d be carrying the bare minimum of gear, their personal weapons, maybe some grenades, a few radios, slinking across the ground the way a tiger did, watching and listening.
Everyone was staring at the blank TV monitor now, each of them bewitched by his imagination’s picture of what was happening.
“Okay,” the technician said, “cameras coming on line, attitude and tracking controls in automatic, programming telemetry received. Target acquisition in ninety seconds.”
The TV picture lit up. It showed a test pattern. Ryan hadn’t seen one of those in years.
“Getting a signal.”
Then the picture appeared. Disappointingly, it was in infrared again. Somehow Ryan had expected otherwise. The low angle showed very little of the camp. They could discern no movement at all. The technician frowned and increased the viewing field. Nothing more, not even the helicopters.
The viewing angle changed slowly, and it was hard to believe that the reconnaissance satellite was racing along at over eighteen thousand miles per hour. Finally they could see all of the huts. Ryan blinked. Only one was lit up on the infrared picture. Uh-oh. Only one hut—the guards’ one—had had its heater on. What did that mean? They’re gone—nobody’s home ... and the assault force isn’t there either.
Ryan said what the others didn’t want to say: “Something’s gone wrong.”
“When can they tell us what happened?” Cantor asked.
“They cannot break silence for several hours.”
Two more hours followed. They were spent in Marty’s office. Food was sent up. Jean-Claude didn’t say anything, but he was clearly disappointed by it. Cantor didn’t touch his at all. The phone rang. The Frenchman took the call, and spoke in his native tongue. The conversation lasted four or five minutes. Jean-Claude hung up and turned.
“The assault force came upon a regular army unit a hundred kilometers from the camp, apparently a mechanized unit on an exercise. This was not expected. Coming in low, they encountered them quite suddenly. It opened fire on the helicopters. Surprise was lost, and they had to turn back.” Jean-Claude didn’t have to explain that, at best, operations like this were successful barely more than half the time.
“I was afraid of that.” Jack stared at the floor. He didn’t need to have anyone tell him that the mission could not be repeated. They had run a serious risk, trying a covert mission the same way twice. There would be no third attempt. “Are your people safe?”
“Yes, one helicopter was damaged, but managed to return to base. No casualties.”
“Please thank your people for trying, Colonel.” Cantor excused himself and walked to his private bathroom. Once in there, he threw up. His ulcers were bleeding again. Marty tried to stand, but found himself faint. He fell against the door with a hard rap on the head.
Jack heard the noise and went to see what it was. It was hard to open the door, but he finally saw Marty lying there. Ryan’s first instinct was to tell Jean-Claude to call for a doctor, but Jack himself didn’t know how to do that here. He helped Marty to his feet and led him back into his office, setting him in a chair.
“What’s the matter?”
“He just tossed up blood—how do you call ...” Ryan said the hell with it and dialed Admiral Greer’s line.
“Marty’s collapsed—we need a doctor here.”
“I’ll take care of it. Be there in two minutes,” the Admiral answered.
Jack went into the bathroom and got a glass of water and some toilet paper. He used this to wipe Cantor’s mouth, then held up the glass. “Wash your mouth out.”
“I’m okay,” the man protested.
“Bullshit,” Ryan replied. “You jerk. You’ve been working too damned late, trying to finish up all your stuff before you leave, right?”
“Got—got to.”
“What you got to do, Marty, is get the hell out of here before it eats you up.”
Cantor gagged again.
You weren’t kidding, Marty, Jack thought. The war is being fought here, too, and you’re one of the casualties. You wanted that mission to score as much as I did.
“What the hell!” Greer entered the room. He even looked a little disheveled.
“His ulcers let go,” Jack explained. “He’s been puking blood.”
“Aw, Jesus, Marty!” the Admiral said.
Ryan hadn’t known that there was a medical dispensary at Langley. Someone identifying himself as a paramedic arrived next. He examined Cantor quickly, then he and a security guard loaded the man on a wheelchair. They took him out, and the three men left behind stared at each other.
“How hard is it to die from ulcers?” Ryan asked his wife just before midnight.
“How old is he?” she asked. Jack told her. Cathy thought about it for a moment. “It can happen, but it’s fairly rare. Somebody at work?”
“My supervisor at Langley. He’s been on Tagamet, but he vomited blood tonight.”
“Maybe he tried going without it. That’s one of the problems. You give people me
dications, and as soon as they start feeling better, they stop taking the meds. Even smart people,” Cathy noted. “Is it that stressful over there?”
“I guess it was for him.”
“Super.” It was the kind of remark that should have been followed by a roll-over, but Cathy hadn’t been able to do that for some time. “He’ll probably be all right. You really have to work at it to be in serious trouble from ulcers nowadays. Are you sure you want to work there?”
“No. They want me, but I won’t decide until you lose a little weight.”
“You’d better not be that far away when I go into labor.”
“I’ll be there when you need me.”
“Almost got ’em,” Murray reported.
“The same mob who raided Action-Directe, eh? Yes, I’ve heard that was a nicely run mission. What happened?” Owens asked.
“The assault group was spotted seventy miles out and had to turn back. On reexamination of the photos, it may be that our friends were already gone anyway.”
“Marvelous. I see our luck is holding. Where did they go, you reckon?”
Murray grunted. “I’ve got to make the same assumption you have, Jimmy.”
“Quite.” He looked out the window. The sun would be rising soon. “Well, we’ve cleared the DPG man and told him the story. ”
“How’d he take it?”
“He immediately offered his resignation, but the Commissioner and I prevailed upon him to withdraw it. We all have our little foibles,” Owens said generously. “He’s a very good chap at what he does. You’ll be pleased to learn that his reaction was precisely the same as yours. He said we should arrange for His Highness to fall off one of his polo ponies and break his leg. Please don’t quote either of us on that!”
“It’s a hell of a lot easier to protect cowards, isn’t it? It’s the brave ones who complicate our lives. You know something? He’s going to be a good king for you someday. If he lives long enough,” Murray added. It was impossible not to like the kid, he thought. And his wife was dynamite. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, the security on ’em in the States will be tight. Just like what we give the President. Even some of the same people are involved.”
