Текст книги "Whiplash"

Автор книги: Dale Brown

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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 31 страниц)

33

Base Camp Alpha

WHILE THE PRESIDENT WAS MEETING WITH HER ADVISORS, Danny and Nuri were trying to figure out what had happened to Tarid. The biomarker was still active and showed that he was moving, indicating he was alive. That in itself was a minor miracle—from the looks of the video shot by the Owl, the Sudanese army had overwhelmed Colonel Zsar’s force near the road, killing nearly all of the men there. A much larger force of rebels, arriving after the battle was finished, had been repulsed with light losses, leaving the body of their leader behind.

Tarid and the other rebels had been rounded up and driven about a hundred miles to an outpost near the village named Al-Quazi. The camp wasn’t much—a few buildings inside a minefield about a half mile from the outskirts of the village. But it was the most secure spot the army had in the area.

Shortly after dawn, an American ferret satellite picked up a Sudanese transmission indicating that the prisoners were to be taken to Khartoum for interrogation as soon as possible. The commander replied that he would set out the following day.

“Gives us a little time to rescue him,” said Nuri, reading the message with Danny not ten minutes after it had been sent. Neither man had gotten much sleep.

Danny Freah furled his arms and rested his elbows on the top of the table. He leaned closer to the computer screen, staring at a satellite image of the camp area.

“Can we get them out?” asked Nuri. He unpacked a bagel from its vacuum-packed container and put the two halves on the camp stove to toast. The bagels came preslit, but tended to be a little mushy.

“I don’t know,” admitted Danny. He sat back. “There are a lot of troops. I’m not sure we have enough firepower.”

“We can hire more mercenaries.”

“That’s the problem. I don’t know that we can trust them if things get tough.”

“I can ask Reid for more people.”

“I have the military end,” said Danny, only to emphasize the point; there was not enough time for reinforcements to arrive. “I’ll ask.”

“Fair enough.”

Danny flipped through the satellite images, examining the defenses at the post. The pictures had been made over a period of several days, but the defensive posture was always the same. A pair of soldiers manned a single checkpoint on the road between the village and the camp, blocking the road with a large troop truck. They had a sandbagged position nearby where they could retreat to if necessary. Their job was to check traffic and provide a warning for the fort in the unlikely event that rebels decided to move up the road in a column.

The road swept toward the camp, veering south about a hundred yards from the gate. A Chinese-made Hummer knockoff sat blocking the turnoff. It wasn’t clear from the photos how many soldiers were in the vehicle, or even if there were any inside, but Danny assumed at least two men would be posted. A simple wooden gate barred the entrance. This was flanked by a pair of sandbagged gun positions and patrolled by four or five men.

Machine guns were located at the four corners of the camp in sandbagged positions. With the exception of the machine-gun nest on the southwest corner, they were all elevated about four feet above ground level, giving the occupants a better view of the distance and excellent firing lines, but also making them easier targets. The post at the southwest was heavier than the others, angled differently, and a little farther from the base perimeter. It appeared to be a cement bunker left over from an earlier camp and incorporated into the new defenses.

The gun posts were connected to trenches that zigged backward through a minefield surrounding the perimeter, allowing the soldiers and any reinforcements to get there without going through the minefield. A single fence topped by barbed wire surrounded the perimeter of the camp. This was not guarded, the commander either short of men or trusting to the machine guns and mines to keep the base safe.

There were several sandbagged walls along the sides of the rectangular camp, which could be used for cover if the outer defenses were breached, but there were no prepositioned guns behind any of them. However, there were six pickup trucks with weapons mounted in the back bed—five of them were machine guns, the last a grenade launcher. These could easily be rallied if the camp were attacked, and Danny saw them as potentially the most difficult obstacle to an assault.

The camp itself measured hardly more than an acre and a half. There were two buildings on the north: a barracks, where the soldiers who had taken part in the raid the night before were staying, and a smaller headquarters building adjacent to it. A large pair of gasoline tanks sat in the southeast corner, not far from the entrance. Next to them was a large open pen where the prisoners were being kept. The prisoners had no shelter from the sun or elements except for a small tarp strung at one side.

“No helipad,” said Danny.

“No, the choppers would have come from further west and north,” said Nuri. “They’re part of an Egyptian-funded initiative. They wouldn’t risk them on the ground here where they’d be potential targets.”

Danny stared at the screen.

“So can we do it?” Nuri asked.

“Maybe. We better ask for permission first.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re not at war with Sudan.”

“You shot down two of their helicopters last night.”

“Only because they were going to kill me if I didn’t.”

“I think we just do it if we can do it,” said Nuri. “That’s why we’re here.”

“We’ll ask anyway,” said Danny.

34

Washington, D.C.

“IF IRAN IS TRYING TO CIRCUMVENT THE AGREEMENT THEY just signed, we should hit them hard with everything we’ve got,” said Secretary of Defense Charles Lovel as the debate about the uranium finding continued. “We should obliterate these weapons plants.”

“We have to find them first,” said Secretary of State Alistair Newhaven. “And what do we do to the ones in another country? Like here, in Sudan. Do we just attack Sudan?”

“Sudan is not one of our allies,” said Lovel. “By any stretch of the imagination. And they’d be thankful we took out the rebels.”

“We’re not at the stage where we can plan a strike,” said the President, ending the discussion. “If we attack one plant, all of the others will be hidden. Clearly, we need to flesh this out. We can discuss the ethics and practicalities at a later date.”

“Preferably before the president of Iran gets here,” said Dr. Bacon.

The President looked across the table at Breanna and Reid. “Good work. Keep it up, please.”

“Mrs. President, I did want to point out one thing,” said CIA Director Edmund. “The operation started with a very small group.” Edmund chose his words carefully, trying to find a diplomatic way of suggesting that Whiplash be pushed aside. “Time being of the essence, I would suggest that we’re now at a point where the operation has exceeded their ability to handle it.”

“Is that so?” President Todd looked directly at Breanna.

“I think we can continue to coordinate things under the present arrangement,” said Breanna. “Jonathon has a great deal of expertise. We have excellent people in the field. They should remain in the lead.”

“This is going to be too big for the Whiplash unit to handle,” said Edmund. He turned to Reid. “Don’t you agree, Jonathon?”

The tone in Edmund’s voice would have intimidated many people. But if Reid had been one of them, he never would have been invited back to the CIA in the first place.

“There is difficulty in changing horses in midstream,” he said. “I would suggest that the CIA work on fleshing out the larger network, while Whiplash concentrates on the implications of what it has discovered. The situation is still developing. The team should be allowed to continue following it to its logical extreme—if only for expediency’s sake.”

Edmund frowned, but part of him couldn’t help admiring the art of Reid’s reply. “Who’s in charge?” he asked.

“The President,” said Reid.

It was a dodge—Edmund meant of the overall operation, and Reid knew it—but mention of the President stopped any further discussion.

“Continue as we were,” she said. “Whiplash follows the trail it has discovered. Mr. Edmund—your agency will coordinate a broader search and intelligence operation. I want an update on the situation every twelve hours. Now please, Breanna, Jonathon—we have some other items on our agenda, and I’m afraid we’re going to have to ask you to leave.”

“THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING ME,” BREANNA SAID AS THEY walked back to his car.

“Supporting us both, I believe.”

“You stood up to your boss.”

“That’s my job, really. He doesn’t mind, too much…but…” Reid let the word hang there for a moment. “…if this thing does get too big, then we hand it off.”

“Absolutely.”

“No ego.”

“None. Well, maybe a little.”

Reid laughed. So did Breanna.

Their laughter was short-lived. Breanna’s secure satellite phone rang as she got into the car. It was Danny, who used the Voice’s communication module to call her.

“Yes?”

“We have a situation,” he told her. “And an opportunity.”

Danny explained where Tarid was and what they hoped to do.

“Are you sure you can get him out?” Breanna asked when he finished.

“I can’t be giving out guarantees like that. I think I can, or I wouldn’t have called. I may be able to do it without the Sudanese army taking any casualties, if luck runs with us. But that’s a big if. I can’t guarantee anything. There’s a village nearby—again, I’m not guaranteeing anything. Once things start happening, a lot of their soldiers may die.”

Breanna turned to Reid. “They found the subject. He’s being held in camp about fifty miles from the battle site. They want to follow him.”

“That’s what they should be doing,” said Reid.

“The Sudanese army is guarding him,” Breanna said. “Do you think we could get them to release him?”

“Given the state of relations between our countries, I’d say there’s no chance at all.”

Breanna covered the phone. “They have a plan to get him out, but Danny’s concerned that some of the Sudanese soldiers will be killed if things go wrong.”

“We have to be ruthless in this game.”

Breanna wondered if it was really that easy for him. There were, of course, many arguments in favor of getting Tarid out, even if it did mean casualties among the Sudanese regulars. An atomic bomb would threaten millions. But somehow she felt the calculus should take more time.

“If they think they can get him out and follow him to the other elements in this chain,” Reid added, “we should urge them to do so.”

Breanna put the phone back to her head.

“Do it.”

BREANNA CHECKED WITH ZEN ON THE WAY BACK TO HER office, making sure that Teri was all right. Zen’s report was filled with his usual optimism and humor; according to him, Teri had charmed the staff and would no doubt have been running the place if he’d let her. Since it was too late to return to school by the time the X rays—“very negative,” said the doctor—were done and read, Zen had taken her back to his office, where Teri did a little homework and research on the Web before heading home with him.

“Research meaning sending text messages to her friends?” Breanna asked.

“We have a rule in the Senate,” replied Zen. “We only text enemies.”

“Har-har.”

“When are you coming home?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

“No sweat. Teri and I have dinner covered. I’m thinking spaghetti and meatballs.”

“Again?”

“It’s the chef’s favorite dinner. And I don’t mind it, either.”

“All right.” Breanna glanced to the left, suddenly conscious of Reid. “I’ll probably be home around six. Maybe seven.”

“Which means nine, right?”

“Close to seven.”

“Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

Breanna clicked off the call and returned her cell phone to her pocketbook.

“Tough job with a family,” said Reid.

“It can be,” she admitted.

“When I was younger—it is a very difficult balance. But you seem to get a lot of support from your husband.”

“He tries. He’s very busy.”

“You don’t have a nanny?” Reid asked.

“No.”

Breanna suddenly felt uncomfortable, not so much because of the content of the conversation, but because of whom she was having it with. While she and Reid had worked well together over the past few months, they’d never discussed personal matters—hers or his. She didn’t even know if he had any children.

“We’ve had various helpers,” Breanna said. “But we’ve always felt—we feel very strongly that, if we can, we’d prefer to raise Teri ourselves.”

“Don’t want her calling someone else ‘Mom.’ I completely agree,” said Reid. “Raising them yourself—there’s no substitute. As hard as it is, I’m sure she’ll be better off in the long run.”

“I hope so,” said Breanna.

BREANNA RETURNED TO A WHIRLWIND OF TASKS AT THE Pentagon. Most of them had nothing to do directly with Whiplash, but she interrupted her schedule when her secretary, Ms. Bennett, finally managed to get hold of the man she wanted to run the group’s support team: her father’s former right-hand man, Terence “Ax” Gibbs.

“I’m having a fantastic time down here,” Ax told her over the video phone. He looked it, too—he was on a porch on an island in the Florida Keys. “How are you all enjoying the snow?”

“It hasn’t snowed all winter up here,” said Breanna. “And now it’s almost spring.”

“Too bad.” Ax winked. The former Air Force chief master sergeant had retired when Dog was assigned out of Dreamland. Up until then, Ax wasn’t just the epitome of a chief master sergeant, he was a chief’s chief, a candidate for sainthood or the devil incarnate, depending on your perspective.

Most people would have said he was a little of both.

“I need your help, Ax,” said Breanna. “I have a new command. It’s a joint operation involving intelligence and the military. I need someone who can get things done, who can work with the military side lining up support for different missions, who’s not afraid of getting his hands dirty.”

“Sounds like it would be right up my alley,” said Ax. “If I were looking for a job.”

“Now before you say no—”

“You’re just like your father, you know that?”

“Ax—”

“Fortunately for you, my sources indicated that this call might be coming. And I was able to do a little research into the subject.”

“How—”

“Once a chief, always a chief.” Ax raised his glass of home-brewed ale as a toast. “There are some things I can’t tell, even when retired. Don’t worry, no state secrets have been betrayed. Who would be, well, not better than me, but nearly as good?”

“I—”

“Greasy Hands Parsons. And he has far too much time on his hands now that his grandson Robert has started school. Even better, he lives not ten miles from the Pentagon, so he wouldn’t have to relocate.”

“Greasy Hands? He has to be pushing eighty by now.”

Ax laughed. “Everyone at Dreamland thought he was about sixty when he was there, right?”

“Seventy.”

“Greasy Hands was younger than most of the sergeants he had working for him. You can’t fool another chief. Especially one with access to personnel records. I think if you called him up, he’d jump at the chance to get back to doing something useful.”

“Could he work at something where he wasn’t going to get his hands dirty?”

“Who says that’s not part of the job?”

Few nicknames had ever been as appropriate as “Greasy Hands.” Parsons not only had incredible mechanical skills; he couldn’t resist putting them to use. Breanne knew that his military background and association with Dreamland would be definite pluses. He got along with Ray Rubeo—not an easy task—and of course already knew Danny and would be respected by him. If she couldn’t have Ax, Greasy Hands would be an excellent choice.

“Maybe I will talk to him,” she said. “You wouldn’t happen to know what his phone number is these days, would you?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.”

FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER AL PARSONS FELT HIS CELL PHONE rattling his pocket, vibrating before it rang. He considered not answering it, since he was under his car examining a ball joint that had, in technical terms, gone all hell out of whack. But technically he wasn’t actually working on the car—the mechanic at the auto shop where he’d stopped was being paid to do that. And since the young man seemed to have a rough idea of the trouble now that Greasy Hands had pointed it out, he decided he’d step outside and take the call.

“Just clunk it with the fork one time and it’ll come right off,” he told the mechanic. “I gotta take this call.”

“Is this Al Parsons?” said a woman’s voice when he hit the Call button.

“Depends on who’s calling,” he answered.

“Please hold the line for Ms. Stockard.”

“Who?”

Breanna came on the line. “Chief Parsons?”

“Breanna, is that you? Holy God, girl—how are you?”

“I’m good, Greasy Hands, how are you?”

“Bored out of my mind. What can I do for you?”

Breanna described as much of the job as she could over the phone. Before she was done, Greasy Hands had all but volunteered to do it for free. They arranged for him to come in the following day for an interview and to meet some of the other key people in the organization, including Reid. Greasy Hands hung up practically singing—a skill Breanna hadn’t known he possessed.

The mechanic working on his car might have said he didn’t possess it. But he was a fairly discreet fellow and wouldn’t have said anything bad about his customer, especially since his customer’s good mood led to a twenty dollar tip.

BREANNA’S WORK, ALONG WITH UPDATES ON THE SUDAN and Iranian situation, kept her in her office until a few minutes after eight; in truth, she could have easily stayed several more hours and still not finished everything. By the time she finally reached home, not only was dinner done, but Teri had finished her homework and was getting ready for bed.

Breanna popped her head into the bathroom while Teri was brushing her teeth. She studied her daughter’s face. It was soft and relaxed, innocent.

She’d held that face close to hers forever, it seemed; at times it was impossible to even imagine not seeing it.

Teri glanced up and caught a glimpse of her mother behind her in the mirror. Instantly, her expression changed to a scowl. She put her head down, concentrating on her brush.

“How’s your leg, honey?” Breanna asked.

Teri didn’t say anything.

“Teri?”

The girl leaned forward to spit out the toothpaste. She was determined not to talk to her mother. She took a paper cup from the holder and rinsed.

“The doctor told me the X rays were negative,” said Breanna. “I called to check.”

Mouth rinsed, Teri dropped her toothbrush on the sink and spun around to leave. Breanna put her hand out and grabbed her.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, though she knew exactly why Teri was angry.

“It’s time for bed.”

“Teri—”

Breanna looked into her daughter’s eyes. Anger, fear, and disappointment mingled in equal parts. Breanna wanted to say something, but wasn’t sure what. She couldn’t apologize for not going to the hospital—there was nothing to apologize for. Zen had been there, and there was no reason both of them always had to be by Teri’s side. And yet she felt as if she had let her daughter down.

Teri certainly thought so, even though, if asked, she would not have been able to put her feelings precisely into words.

“I’m fine,” said Teri.

Her angry tone annoyed Breanna, who snapped back. “Then put your toothbrush back where it belongs.”

Teri grabbed it, practically flinging it into the holder. Breanna closed her eyes as her daughter stomped to bed—she hadn’t meant to be a scold.

“Hey listen,” she told her daughter when she caught up to her in the bedroom. “I’m sorry I couldn’t go to the hospital for you. Dad said he could.”

“You had to talk to the President.”

“That’s right.”

Teri frowned.

Part of her thought she was making too much of this, but another part of her was just angry and didn’t care. “Listen, Teri, what I do is very important for a lot of people.”

“I know that.”

“Well…good.”

Breanna couldn’t help thinking back to her own childhood. Her mother had been on her own, and had to work full-time. They were not poor—her mother had just become a doctor—but there were many, many nights when Breanna tucked herself into bed…after having come home, made dinner, studied, and cleaned up, all without having anyone home or telling her what to do.

She didn’t want Teri to repeat that childhood, but at the same time, Breanna wanted her daughter to realize how good she had things.

There seemed to be no magic formula to make that happen.

“All right,” said Breanna. “Good night, then.”

“Good night.”

Breanna leaned down and kissed her.

“Send dad in,” said Teri sharply as Breanna turned off the light.

“OH, SHE’S FINE,” ZEN TOLD BREANNA AFTER TUCKING TERI in. “Just a little spoiled.”

“Are you saying I spoil her?”

“Hell, no—I spoil her.” Zen rolled his wheelchair to the refrigerator and got out a beer. “But it’s not fatal. She’ll get over it.”

“I don’t think she’s spoiled,” said Breanna.

“And I don’t think you have to be there for her every second of every day,” said Zen.

“She does.”

“She’ll get over it.” He wheeled over to the cabinet for a bottle opener. “Believe me. Another couple of years, she’ll be saying we never leave her alone.”

“I can’t wait.”

“Me, neither.”