by Dale Brown
"How are you going to fly home?" said Breanna.
"We could stay over and leave in the morning," he said, putting his hand on her knee.
His touch brought a dozen other hints into focus.
Oh no, she thought. How did she miss this? How could she be so stupid?
She took his hand off her knee. Gently, but firmly.
"I think you have the wrong idea," she told him.
"Really? You sure?"
"Very."
"Doesn't have to be anything serious."
"You're a nice guy, Sleek, but no. No thanks."
He gave her a brave smile, the sort she hadn't seen since well before she got married. She felt a pang in her heart. But she wasn't about to cheat on Zen.
"No hard feelings?" he asked.
"Never happened."
"Hawthorne Airport, same as usual," he told the driver. "I'll get you right around to the hangars." "Great," said Sleek Top, still wincing a bit.
Bucharest, Romania
26 January 1998
0732
Stoner had to pound on the door before Sorina Viorica answered.
"Stoner?" she called from inside.
"Open up."
She worked the locks and pulled the door open. She was wearing a sweatshirt over a thin cotton nightgown. "You need to get dressed," he told her.
"What?"
"Come on. We have to go."
She took it the way he thought she would — as a warning that she had been found. Her sleepy expression changed instantly. Quietly, she turned and went inside, changed and started to throw her things into a bag.
"You won't need a bag," said Stoner. "We have to move quickly."
She came out wearing the dark clothes he had first seen her in.
"You should look a little less… " He searched for the word. "Militant."
Without saying anything, she turned and went back inside. She came out a few moments later wearing a thick brown sweater over the dark pants, along with a red patterned scarf. It softened her look and made her look prettier, though Stoner tried not to notice.
He found a cab within a block of the apartment.
"Train station," he said in English.
The man said in Romanian that he didn't understand.
"Which train station, Mark?" Sorina asked.
She told the driver; when they reached the station, she bought the tickets. They made the train just as it was boarding.
"Where are we going?" she asked as it pulled out. "You bought the tickets." "Yes, but the town—"
"You'll see," Stoner said, and refused to tell her anything else.
Sorina became more nervous at each stop as they headed north. "Are you giving me up?" she asked finally.
He looked at her, looked into her pretty eyes, then shook his head.
"What then?"
"You'll see," was all he would say.
Bacau, Romania
0750
Dog gave his crew the morning and early afternoon off, but the long night mission he'd just completed didn't earn him any extra rest; he had to report to a meeting of the local Romanian army commanders with the defense minister in Bacau at 0800. Fortunately, the base commander was going there as well, and Dog was able to hitch a ride, slumping in the backseat and half sleeping during the thirty minute drive.
Word of his pending Medal of Honor had apparently been making the rounds, and his overnight e-mail included a number of congratulations from people he hadn't heard from in years. With each message, he felt more and more phony.
No, phony was too strong a word, but he certainly didn't feel as if he merited the award — less now even than before. He'd done what he had to do — there was no choice involved, as far as he was concerned.
Was that what made you a hero?
No, he thought. But pointing that out to people would make him sound even worse.
The meeting was held in a former school building near the center of town, a brown-brick structure that dated from the mid-nineteenth century and had first been used as a music academy. The original builder had created a mosaic of musical notes and instruments on the foyer and hallway floor, and the ceiling's chipped plaster sconces were in the shape of musical scrolls.
Armed soldiers guarded the entrance and stood in bunches along the halls; they wore combat fatigues and their guns showed signs of wear, the wood furniture scraped and dented. This made the soldiers also seem like part of the past, and Dog felt as if he were walking through a newsreel of World War II.
Danny Freah had beaten him to the meeting room and was standing near the front of the room, arms folded, staring down at a map unfurled over the table. The large-scale topo map showed not only where the guerrillas had hit the night before, but where they'd made raids in the past. Dog noticed that the attacks clustered south of the highway, and that most of them formed a rough arrow pointing from Moldova; there were more attacks near the border, the cluster narrowing as it moved eastward. There were a few attacks outside the cluster, most notably the attack on the pipeline, which was well to the north.
"How you doing, Danny?" Dog asked. "Get any sleep?"
Danny shook his head. "You should have seen what they took out of the house, Colonel. Parts of bodies. It was pretty awful. Worse than Bosnia."
Danny looked at him as if expecting him to say something, but Dog didn't know how to answer. It sucked, plain and simple. Some of the younger guys had a saying. "Embrace the suck," meaning that you had to somehow find a way to deal with it. But the more horror you saw, the harder it became to come up with any sort of saying that put it to rest.
"They're still not sure how many guerrillas were involved," said Danny. "Body parts were all mixed up together." Dog shook his head.
"They know there are camps over the border," said Danny. "They ought to attack them there." "I agree," said Dog.
"Maybe you should suggest it. They aren't listening to me."
Everyone around them snapped to attention. Dog turned in time to see General Locusta and two of his aides enter the room. Locusta also looked like he hadn't slept; there were deep purple rings around his eyes, making his face look almost like a hound dog's.
Locusta had barely reached the front of the room when the defense minister, Fane Cazacul, arrived. A tall, aristocratic-looking man in his thirties, he wore a finely tailored black suit and smelled vaguely of aftershave. He nodded at Locusta; it was clear from their body language that the two men could barely stand each other.
The general opened the meeting without any preliminaries, talking in rapid Romanian about the evening's events. He was clearly angry, though since he wasn't speaking English, Dog could only guess what he was saying. Several of the men in the room shifted uncomfortably as the speech continued; they seemed to be singled out by the general for criticism. After twenty minutes of this, the general ran out of steam. He glanced around the room, gesturing as if to ask whether anyone had anything to say. When no one spoke up, he looked at Dog.
"This is Colonel Bastian, of the U.S. Air Force," he said, speaking first in English for Dog's benefit, and then in his native Romanian. "His men assisted last night, though they were not able to stop the attack. Perhaps next time."
The general sat down. The defense minister looked at Dog, apparently waiting for him to say something.
"I am sorry about the deaths last night," Dog said. "I see what monsters you are up against. Anyone who would kill innocent children — there can be no mercy."
The men nodded.
"I'm sorry that I don't speak Romanian. I'm not even sure my English is all that good," continued Dog. He meant that as a joke, though he was the only one who cracked a smile. He continued, reminding himself to speak slowly and distinctly. "Beginning today, we will have aircraft up around the clock, helping survey the border areas. Captain Freah and his men will help prepare—"
The defense minister raised his hand a few inches, his forefinger extended as if to ask a question.
"Sir?" prompted D
og.
"Will two aircraft be enough?" the minister asked in English. "In light of this attack, I am sure we would welcome more."
"The number isn't up to me, sir, but I will definitely ask for more," said Dog.
Apparently feeling that the Americans were being criticized, the colonel whose unit had been responsible for surrounding the house began explaining that the Dreamland team had played an important role in finding the guerrillas.
"We believe they were intending another attack today," said the Romanian. "Perhaps they would have hit a school, or a bank. The Americans helped us a great deal."
"One thing I don't understand," said Danny, interrupting. "Why don't you guys attack their bases? Hit them where they live?"
General Locusta shot an angry glance at Cazacul, then rose, saying something in heated Romanian before stalking from the room.
"He said, 'That's the first thing that anyone's said that makes sense,' " whispered the Romanian general who'd accompanied Dog to the meeting.
* * *
"I didn't mean to cause trouble," Danny told Dog after the meeting broke up. "It just seemed pretty obvious."
"Don't worry about it. The politics are complicated. Obviously Locusta and Cazacul don't like each other. The general told me that Locusta wants to go over the border, but the government is afraid it will start an incident that will get out of control."
"It's already out of control," said Danny. "I talked to Mark Stoner this morning. The CIA officer we worked with in Asia."
"Sure, I know Stoner."
"He's been assigned special duty out here. He thinks the Russians are involved somehow." "In this attack?"
"No, not directly. But he wanted samples of the explosives if I could get them. He thinks that probably came from them."
Dog nodded.
"They could send scout teams across the border and watch for them," said Danny. "Or better, follow the guerrillas after an operation and track them down."
"That's their call." Dog rubbed his forehead. "If they mount an operation, we won't be able to support it. Our orders are explicit. The border is off limits. And you're included in that."
"We have to get the rules changed."
"Copy that," said Dog.
Bacau, Romania
1103
The guerrilla raid on the village police station and the guerrillas' subsequent decision to blow themselves up left General Locusta in a foul mood. It was probably true, as his aides insisted, that a much more serious attack had been averted; clearly the guerrillas were planning to do serious harm. But that was of small consolation. Coming so soon after the attack on the pipeline, politicians in Bucharest were raising questions about his ability. If he was stripped of his position, his entire plan would crumble.
The Russians were no doubt behind this. They were more trouble than they were worth. As for the Americans…
Well, at least they had the right idea about what should be done. Though they were a problem as well.
The general was mulling the difficulties on the way back to his headquarters when he received a text message from a Yahoo address declaring that the state oil company's stock was going to split and that it would be wise to invest as soon as possible.
The message looked like a routine piece of spam, but in fact it had nothing to do with oil or stock. It was from the Russian military attache, Svoransky, asking for an immediate meeting.
Asking or demanding?
Locusta preferred to think the former, but the arrival of a second message twenty minutes later drove him to cancel his afternoon schedule. He called a number ostensibly registered to the Romanian information ministry but which in fact forwarded his call to a machine at the Russian embassy. He named a time—2:00 p.m. — and hung up.
Locusta got up from his desk and began pacing, thinking about what he had done — not now, but months making contact with the Russians, using them to advance his dream of running Romania the way it should be run, of establishing the country as the most important in Eastern Europe.
From the start, it had been a deal with the devil. But what other choice did he have?
He needed to extricate himself somehow, perhaps with American help.
But wouldn't that simply be making matters worse?
The only solution was to move ahead with the coup as quickly as possible. Then these complications could be untangled.
Locusta hoped that Svoransky would send another message, saying that the meeting was too far from the capital for the Russian to make, giving him a perfect excuse to call it off. But no message came; the meeting was on.
Two hours later, Locusta told his aides that he wasn't feeling well and was going home for a nap.
"Perhaps I'll take a ride in the country," he added offhandedly, as if it wasn't his intention all along.
He stopped at his house, a modest cottage on a large piece of land owned by a family with royal blood. The housekeeper had come and was just finishing; he told her not to worry about him, that he had just stopped by to feed his cat. The woman, a portly grandmother type who had been employed on the estate in one capacity or another since she was a teenager, nodded approvingly, then went back to work as he got out the kibbles to fill the pet's bowl.
There was something soothing about the mewing of a cat. Locusta waited on his haunches as the pet scampered into the kitchen, rubbing its side against his bent leg as a thank-you before digging in. He gave it a scratch behind its ears, then rose. He told the housekeeper she was doing a very good job. With one last stroke of the cat's back, he walked out to his car and drove toward the highway.
The peace the cat brought dissipated by the time he was halfway to the small cafe where they were to meet. Ordinarily, he felt comfortable at the restaurant, which was run by a distant relative in a town about thirty miles southwest of Bacau, but today he felt awkward, moving as if his clothes were a half size too small.
He was ten minutes early, but Svoransky was already there. And not alone.
"This is Major Jurg," said Svoransky, gesturing to the dark-haired, ruddy-faced man in a poorly cut gray suit who sat next to him, nursing a glass of vodka. "He is a good man to know."
"I'm sure," said the general, pulling out his chair. It was the first time since they had been meeting that the attache had brought a companion.
Svoransky signaled to the waiter. "Stew?" he asked Lo-casta.
"I'm not very hungry this afternoon."
"A drink, then?"
Locusta asked for some bottled water. "That was a desperate attack yesterday evening," said Svo-ransky.
"A dozen of my men were killed," said Locusta. "The only consolation is that all of the criminals died as well."
He looked up as the waiter returned with his glass and the bottle of carbonated spring water. He sipped it slowly, waiting until the server had again retreated.
"My explosives experts believe the criminals may have had as much as a suitcase worth of plastic explosives," said Locusta. "I wonder where they would have gotten that."
"I would guess from the Iranians," said Svoransky smoothly. "They have made a habit of selling such items very cheaply."
"I would think that a chemical analysis would show that it came from Russia," said Locusta, staring at Major Jurg. Jurg stared back.
"Russian? Nyet. We would not sell to criminals. Of course, items can always be obtained on the black market. Over that we have no control."
"You had nothing to do with the attack, I presume," said Locusta, his eyes still locked with Jurg's.
"General, please," said Svoransky. "Your voice is rather loud. I thought you chose this place to be discreet."
"The death of my men bothers me. A great deal." Locusta leaned across the table toward Jurg. "I was especially bothered the other evening to find my men were killed in an attack on the pipeline."
"Casualties must be expected in a war," said Svoranksky.
"I am not fighting a war," said Locusta. "Yet."
Svoransky had the good sen
se not to answer. It seemed to Locusta that Jurg had a smirk on his face, but if so, he'd covered it with his glass.
"What precisely is it you want to talk about?" Locusta asked.
"The Americans are an extremely arrogant people," said Svoransky. "Pushy and interfering."
"They are our allies," said Locusta.
"The government's allies only. I hope. You would not mind seeing them suffer an embarrassment, I think."
"What sort of embarrassment?"
Svoransky shrugged. "An attack?"
"My people are defending their base," said Locusta.
Svoransky turned to Jurg and began speaking in Russian, presumably translating what he had just said, though it seemed to Locusta that Jurg had understood. Jurg's stubble and dark skin made him appear crude, but he wore a gold watch on his wrist — an expensive watch, Locusta thought.
The man must be a member of the Spetsnaz. Very likely he was in charge of the squad that had killed his soldiers at the pipeline; it was even possible he had been on the raid himself.
Locusta worked to suppress his loathing. All he had to do was raise his hand and his cousin would come from the back with a gun. Or he could be more subtle, wait until the meeting was over, then have their car blown up.
But it would be foolish. Svoransky's superiors might hate Voda and the government, but they would not stand idly by while their agent was assassinated. They would change sides in an eye blink.
"Perhaps your people could be moved," suggested Svoran-sky finally.
General Locusta turned toward Jurg. "What exactly do you want, Major?" he asked in English. "Be specific. And have the courtesy to speak to me directly."
"We want two things," said Jurg, switching to English. "We want to embarrass the Americans, as Mr. Svoransky has said."
"Embarrassing them is one thing. An attack while my men are guarding them is very difficult."
"Not if you help."
"I do not need to be at war with the Americans."
Locusta started to rise. Svoransky grabbed his arm. "You misunderstand," he said. "Your men will not be involved. All they need do is look the other way."
"I doubt that can be arranged."
"You owe us quite a bit, General," said Jurg.
