by Harold
“Continue observation” was the terse reply.
With the aid of the chauffeur, two passengers and a couple of porters, the luggage was taken to the Air France counter. Following check-in the three travelers exchanged farewells with their hosts, the older man and the woman, apparently his wife. She was fortyish, well coiffed, and gave each traveler a continental kiss: left cheek, right cheek, left.
The Vespa driver noticed that during the parting the older man spoke with one of the travelers with earnest brevity. A heartfelt hug and they parted. The older man and woman returned to the limousine.
The limo had diplomatic plates. Anybody with knowledge of the numbers would have identified it as belonging to the French embassy.
While the surveillance operative walked toward his scooter he made one more transmission. “Subjects departed for Paris.”
As he reached in his pocket to pay the attendant, he was approached from behind. Strong, silent men grasped each arm, took him a few steps to the curb, and shoved him into a waiting van. The door slid shut as the Volkswagen drove away.
* * * *
10
SSI OFFICES
Leopole asked, “Jack, have you heard back from Main?”
Jack Peters felt a bit defensive; he had ceded some of his responsibility to Sandra Carmichael, head of foreign ops. “Not yet—it’s only been a couple of days. But I told him that we need small-arms and tactics instructors qualified in French and Arabic. The most likely prospects are Special Forces guys since one of their missions is training local people.” He almost said “indigenous personnel” but thought better of it. SSI was not big on Pentagonese.
Leopole twirled the pencil between his fingers. “Well, these days the French part shouldn’t cause much fuss. But Arabic speakers are golden. We might have to call in some markers to get a couple of those guys.” He looked back at Mohammed. “Unless . . .”
Seated across the room, Omar Mohammed read his colleague’s mind. “Oh, no you don’t. Non. Laa.” He waved a deprecatory hand.
Leopole got the drift, though he spoke neither French nor Arabic. However, Omar Mohammed spoke them fluently, and five other languages besides. Now he was nearing completion of a course in Indonesian.
“Hey, you did just fine in Pakistan on the Pandora Project,” Leopole insisted.
Mohammed almost winced at the memory. “Only because I was the default for Pashto and Urdu.” He shook his head. “Nope, no way, Jose.” The latter phrase, incongruously crafted in Dr. Mohammed’s cultivated tones, drew immediate grins and chuckles around the table. With his dignified manner and elegant Vandyke beard, Mohammed appeared the last person in Arlington, Virginia, who would employ colloquialisms.
Leopole spoke to Peters again. “Jack, I take it that our standby files don’t have anybody with the language and technical skills just now.”
“The people we have on file are qualified either in French or Arabic, or they’re gun guys. Not both, other than J. J. But I’ll see if Dave can get his personnel contacts to move faster.”
Mohammed had a thought: “Where is Alex Cohen? After all, he speaks fluent Arabic.”
Leopole and Carmichael exchanged glances. Without waiting for Leopole, she replied, “Ah, he’s traveling. Besides, I don’t think an Israeli-American would be too popular in a Muslim—”
“Sorry I’m late, everybody!”
Martha Whitney burst into the room. It was odd, Carmichael thought, how Martha inevitably “burst.” Partly it was her joie de vivre; partly it seemed calculated. Martha was a thespian at heart—always “up,” always “on.”
Most of her colleagues thought it noteworthy that Whitney, who hailed from Detroit, usually affected a southern accent. It was as if she went through life doing a decent impersonation of Pearl Bailey. At forty-eight, she was heavier than a few years before, partly the result of bearing and rearing two sons.
“There was a three-car pile-up on 395 just before the Washington exit,” she explained. “I tell you what, baby, it looked pretty bad when I drove past. There was this Subaru with the front end all . . .”
“Martha, thanks for the traffic report,” Leopole interjected.
Whitney barely registered the mild rebuke. “Well, I was gonna stop on account of my CPR training, you know? But the ambulance just arrived so I kept on a-comin’.”
Leopole made certain that everyone was introduced, then nodded to Carmichael, the tacit message plain on his face. You have the conn. Babe.
“Ah, Martha, we’re discussing a training mission in Chad. We think you could make a contribution so we’d like to discuss it with . . .”
Whitney arranged herself in the padded chair. “Well, I’m not much of an instructor, y’know. But I’ve worked in Africa before. In the field, that is.”
Carmichael didn’t know whether to take that last comment as a catty dig at her lack of covert ops experience. She decided to ignore it. For now.
“Well, there are other reasons for considering you for this mission. After all, you speak French, and that’s . . .”
Whitney waved a bejeweled hand. “Oh, c’mon, honey. You think I don’t know why I was hired? Same reason the Company hired me: I’m practically invisible. Baby, I be Stealth Woman. Despite thirty years of women’s lib and sensitivity training, the plain fact is that most folks don’t expect much from a black woman.” She gave a conspiratorial grin. “That includes some black men.” After a dramatic pause and a furrowed brow she added, “No, wait. That includes most black men.”
Jack Peters had never met Martha Whitney. That was obvious to Leopole and Carmichael when he said, “Obviously it would help to have an African-American in Chad.”
Whitney’s cheery face abruptly wrinkled in disdain. She shook her head in one direction and a warning finger in the other. “Darlin’,” she began. “Don’t you be layin’ that PC BS on me. When I hear African-American’ or ‘Eye-talian-American’ or ‘Mexican-American’ that’s like a red flag to the bull, you know? It’s like you’re sayin’ I’mhalf American. Like maybe I don’t quite measure up, you know?”
“Well, I was just. . .”
“Now I’m tellin’ you for sure. If you figure you got to describe me racially, well, honey, I’m sorry for you. I’m a woman, and I’m black, so I’m a black female American. That’s an adverb modifying an adjective modifying a noun, and the proper noun is American! But I ain’t never an African-American. If you gotta hyphenate me, then you better remember that I’m an All-American!”
He gulped visibly. “Yes, ma’am!”
It was too late; Whitney was spooled up. “Just ‘cause I can’t show you my pedigree don’t mean that I walk around like my oldest boy, wearin’ his kinte cloth. I don’t know what tribe sold my people into slavery, or even if they ever was slaves. But I figure anything that happened before my people learned to read and write is way beyond my poor ability to add or detract, so let’s get past it, shall we?”
Leopole smiled in spite of himself. Martha Whitney had given an impromptu English lesson and, knowingly or otherwise, had quoted the Gettysburg Address.
Peters stuck out his hand. “Let’s start over. Martha, I’m Jack.”
She shook. “Glad to meet you, honey.”
* * * *
11
ANNANDALE, VIRGINIA
Sandy Carmichael walked into the lobby of the indoor shooting range, toting her concealed-carry purse with her custom Kimber .45. She was a regular at The Bullet Trap; at least monthly, sometimes more. There were better equipped ranges at Chantilly and Springfield but Annandale was closer to SSI, just off Route 495.
“Hi, Ed!” Sandy gave the co-owner her cheeriest cheerleader grin. She took care to pronounce her greeting as “Hah, Ay-ed.” She had learned earlier than most females that a perky smile and a southern accent melted the testosterone in some males and pumped it in others.
Near as she could recall, she’d been about three and a half.
Ed Masterson liked to hint that he was related to t
he gunfighting Bat, but the frontiersman had carved his single notch three years before Ed’s forebears disembarked at Norfolk in 1879. “Why, Colonel Carmichael. We haven’t seen you around much, young lady.”
“Oh, Ay-ed, y’all’re u-shally workin’ too early for me. I been in here at least twice-et since I last saw y’all.” She waved a deprecating hand, adding, “Ah sway-yer, ya’ll’re avoidin’ me.” She batted her baby blues for effect. No harm in keeping in practice, she told herself.
Truth be told, sometimes it was so easy that it wasn’t even fun anymore. A mid-fortyish single mom with no steady relationship had ample time to perfect her flirting technique—no head tilt or hair flip this time—and poor, lovable Ay-ed was so easy.
Masterson actually blushed, his ruddy complexion contrasting with his pale blue shirt with The Bullet Trap logo. He recovered enough to reply, “Colonel, honey, you surely know how to shine on an ol’ southern boy.”
“Well dip me in honeysuckle an’ pour me full of mint juleps. The cornpone is getting hip deep in here.”
Sandy turned at the familiar voice: the lilting tones, the slightly exaggerated accent.
Martha Whitney.
She stood there, a formidable mixture of Queen Latifah fashion and Aunt Jemima bonhomie. Carrying a combination-lock gun case, Whitney advanced to the counter and nodded to her colleague. “Evenin’, Sandy.”
“Hullo, Martha.” Carmichael managed an ephemeral grin.
Behind the counter, Ed Masterson noted a perceptible drop in the ambient temperature. He knew Sandra Carmichael better than Martha Whitney, whom he had once introduced as “Martha Washington.” He never did that again.
Shoving a registration sheet across the glass display case, he sought to retrieve the situation. “Just sign in, ladies. We’re a little slow this afternoon so I can give you adjoining lanes if you . . .”
Sandy began, “Well, I was . . .”
“Why that’d be just precious, Sugar.” Martha smiled hugely, pronouncing the endearment as “Sugah.” She flashed her driver’s license and signed the hold-harmless release without reading it. “Girls’ night out, at the shooting range,” she enthused.
At that moment Sandra Carmichael abandoned any thought of meaningful practice.
“Lanes four and five,” Masterson said, accepting Sandy’s registration slip.
“Thanks, Ed,” she intoned. “Ay-ed” was long gone as she went all squinty-eyed in anticipation of the impending battle.
Watching the two women stride toward the glassed-in shooting bay, Ed mused that it was gonna be a combination gunfight and catfight and, if it strayed to the cafeteria next door, likely a food fight as well.
Taking their positions beside one another, the SSI operatives were separated by a Plexiglas barrier to stop flying brass. Neither spoke as they loaded magazines: Carmichael using Blazer .45; Whitney Wolf 9 mm.
With fewer rounds to load, Carmichael finished first. She activated her remote target console and picked up two targets. “Silhouette or bull’s-eye?”
Whitney suggested, “Why not both, darlin’?”
“Why not?”
From two previous encounters, Sandy knew that she was more accurate but Martha shot faster. The tacit agreement seemed headed for a tie: Sandy would likely take the bull’s-eye contest and Martha the “combat” segment.
They ran their targets out to fifteen meters, pulled on their glasses and ear protectors, and went to low ready. Sandy’s Kimber and Martha’s Glock touched the bench in front of them. “Ten rounds,” Sandy said.
Martha nodded.
“Ready, go!”
Thirty-two seconds and a reload later, Sandy laid down her Kimber, the thumb safety engaged.
Martha finished four seconds later, the Glock 19’s slide locked back.
“You usually shoot faster than that,” Sandy ventured.
“Baby, I’m shootin’ for score this time.”
They reeled in their targets and counted scores. Sandy won, forty-two to thirty-nine. “You got bigger holes,” Whitney observed. “Those .45s turn nines into tens.”
Sandy beamed. “Sure do, Sugar.”
“Well, honey, the first man I killed didn’t know the difference ‘cause I put six out of six in his sorry ass.”
Sandy shrugged. “First man I killed only took two.”
Martha ignored the retort, knowing that her rival had shot two armed intruders in SSI offices less than a year before. “Then the next time . . . well, the next time I done smoked two of ‘em. I’d tell you ‘bout it but it’s still classified, don’t you know.”
“We gonna talk or shoot?” Sandy taped up her silhouette target and ran it out to ten meters. Martha did the same.
Sandy picked up the Pact timer and set it for delay start. “Five rounds, rapid fire.” She pressed the button and three seconds later the beep went.
Whitney pushed the Glock’s black snout straight out from her body, locked her arms in an isosceles triangle, and went to work on the trigger. Allowing the trigger to reset after each shot, she dumped five rounds into the torso in less than three seconds. The hits were scattered in a buckshot pattern, but they were all there.
Sandy brought the .45 to eye level in a Weaver stance, left elbow low, and took nearly five seconds to put five rounds into a melon-sized group in the target’s solar plexus. “More recoil,” she murmured unnecessarily.
In the lobby a small crowd was gathering, all fascinated, all male. The observers stepped close to the safety glass partition for a better look.
“What’s with the women?” asked a revolver shooter.
“Catfight,” explained Ay-ed.
“Who’s winning?” queried a Sig advocate.
“Looks about even,” the wheelgunner opined.
Sig turned to Masterson. “Well, who are they?”
“Oh, a coupla ladies who work for a Beltway outfit.”
“Dang,” Wheelgunner exclaimed. “I never saw a black gal shoot before.”
“Not like that you didn’t,” Masterson said.
The conversation lagged while the women resumed firing. The next string was timed head shots.
The string after that was strong hand only, fifteen meters.
The string after that was support hand only, ten meters.
“Looks like they’ve done this before,” Sig observed.
Wheelgunner nodded. “Looks like they’re plumb serious.”
Masterson knew something about Colonel Sandra Carmichael, U.S. Army, retired. “Serious as it gets, Earl.”
When the range session ended the crowd parted as the women hung up their earmuffs. The parting words were Whitney’s:
“Hey, girlfriend, your Kimber’s dandy but my Glock is the ultimate in feminine protection!”
* * * *
12
GOWEN FIELD, BOISE, IDAHO
The United 777 had barely begun debarking passengers when Bosco strode down the jetway. He overtook the first-class passengers, bumping a dignified woman old enough to be his mother and then some. Barely missing a beat, he barked, “Excusemema’am,” took her valise from her without being asked, and solicitously carried it to the security gate.
“Bosco!”
“J. J. my man!”
The two mercenaries exchanged male-bonding hugs accompanied by considerable back slapping. As Johnson stepped back, he grinned conspiratorially. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
Bosco looked around. “Like what?” Then the light dawned. “Oh, hell, I ain’t gonna say, like,‘I love ya, man.’“
With an exaggerated motion, Johnson pointed over Bosco’s left shoulder. The gray-haired lady stood with a bemused expression, her pale blue eyes sparkling at the boisterous pair.
Bosco blushed visibly—a rarity for him—and sheepishly handed back the valise. “Sorry, ma’am. I sorta forgot. . .”
She patted his muscled arm and leaned close. “It’s quite all right, young man. I heard you say that you love your partner.” She winked. “My gods
on is gay, too.”
Bosco watched the sympathetic lady walk away his jaw at half mast.
“What’d she say?” Johnson asked.
“Uh . . . she . . . uh.” He looked at the carpeted floor. “I couldn’t understand her.”
As they walked to the baggage claim Johnson enthused, “Hey I’m goin’ trout fishing in a couple days. I have a buddy from LaGrande— ex-Marine who says they’re biting real well at Horsethief. I can fix you up with everything you’d need. I hear that Chironomid and Woolly Buggers are workin’ real well.”
