The Phoenix Affair

by Paul Clark

  *****

  Allen woke up, suddenly completely alert, but he didn’t know why. Then he heard it again. The night was silent, cold, still, but wasn’t that a sound like metal hitting concrete? His brain was getting up to speed. Again. And that was three, he was awake now and that was the sound that had woken him. He moved, shifted the duffel off his legs and in a fluid motion was up on his knees with the MP5 in his hands. He fired up the night scope, removed the glove from his right hand, gripped the pistol grip and lifted it to his shoulder.

  First the gate. All looked fine there. Then along the top of the wall to his left, he got about halfway to the corner and saw nothing. Panned right past the gate to the right side. He almost missed it, had to back up. About 30 feet to the right of the gate something was on the top of the wall. Black, curved, ugly. Grappling hook? He panned further right. Two more, all the same.

  “Holy Shit” he breathed into the stillness. He started thinking about the tactical problem. Three hooks, three ropes. The wall was 75 yards from where he knelt, downhill from his third floor perch. But 75 yards away was a long way for supressed rounds from an MP5SD. Not ideal. He hoped they didn’t have body armor or he might as well have been using a BB gun. Three ropes. How many guys? Five each? Ten? Thirty guys would get interesting really quick. He looked down at the fire selector behind his trigger, switched it to single shot. No use spraying bursts around at that range. Slow, deliberate fire, one at a time, that’s the thing. See if they could be discouraged by some of their guys going down. He had 4 30-round magazines…

  The night’s silence was shattered by the phone going off in the cargo pocket of his pants. He had to look down, reach in with his right hand, pulled out the phone, and ducked below the edge of the parapet. “Allen” he whispered.

  “Allen, Jones calling from Langley. What’s happening there?”

  “Nice of you to call. I happen to be on the roof taking the night air and three grappling hooks just landed on the compound wall, right front of the gate. I’m a little busy here…”

  “Right, well you’re gonna be. We think there may be 30 of them, and they may have heavy stuff with them.”

  “Like what?”

  “Don’t know, but the word “heavy” was used on the intercept. We’re on the phone to the embassy watch officer in Riyadh to try to get you some local help ASAP. But this time of morning, and the distance…you may be on your own for a while.”

  A noise from the front of the compound snapped Allen up to the parapet, where he held the scope to his eye with his left hand and the phone in his right. One guy was on the ground inside the compound, there were two more on the top of the wall and two halfway down the inside of it. Looked like all had AK-47s either already in hand or slung across their backs. He prayed that was all that “heavy” was going to mean, big enough problem there all by themselves.

  “Jonesy, I’m gonna be real busy now, there are a bunch of nasty people coming down the inside of my wall. Do us a favor and start calling the other phone to see if you can wake Ripley and the Colonel, I’m gonna need a little help here. I’ll leave this one open for you, but don’t expect much talking from me.”

  Allen put the phone down to his right and rose up to his knees. Not high enough to depress the sights down to ground level. He got to his feet and squatted to keep his head low to the parapet, the gun resting in his left hand and the hand on top of the wall. Four guys on the ground, three on top of the wall, two part-way down the inside. He thought, but faster than it seemed: “which one first? Which ones so that the rest don’t panic right away and start shooting? Gotta get a few before all hell breaks loose…”

  And then he shifted aim to the guy on the right, part way down the wall. It was a long shot for a 9mm weapon, even longer for one that deliberately cut muzzle velocity down below supersonic so it’d be quiet. No telescope. He aimed for the top of the guy’s spine, then elevated to the middle of the back of his head, and squeezed off one round.

  There was the sound like a telephone book being dropped on a concrete floor from about the height of a kitchen counter. Plop! Not quiet like the movies, but that was bullshit. But not the ‘crack’ of a rifle shot either, or the sharp bark of a pistol. He saw the round hit and the guy dropped like a sack of stones to the ground below. He shifted aim and shot another guy off the top of the wall, that one went back over to the outside. He shifted back down to the guys on the ground.

  They were looking at the wall, apparently wondering about their clumsy brothers falling off. One headed right to look at the guy on the ground. Allen could hear another rasping some commands. Two more guys resumed climbing down the wall, two guys already down turned back to face inward toward the villas …

  Allen shot them both in rapid succession, but it took two rounds for the guy on the right. Plop! Plop-plop! It was loud enough to him there on the roof, but 65 yards away, with some concrete from the parapet helping him, and the noise those guys were probably making trying to climb over…the guys were down 4 people and hadn’t figured it out yet. Another nice thing about the MP5SD was all the gas paths in the suppressor not only knocked the sound way down, it also cut the muzzle flash to almost nothing so if you didn’t know where to look, you likely wouldn’t see it. He liked the gun.

  He shifted aim and shot the guy facing the wall and giving orders in the back of the head. He went down, but that was the end of the easy stuff. One of the guys on the ground must’ve been looking right at him, because he’d seen the muzzle flash and his AK was coming up fast. He yelled something in Arabic, loud, and was part way through “Allahu akhbar….” when Allen shot him in the face and the back of his head exploded.

  But that was definitely it, because now there were 6 guys down but 4 on the ground still up and 3 more on the wall, and two guys opened up with their AKs. The night exploded, and Allen flattened himself on the roof deck as high velocity rifle bullets flew over his head, some pinged off the top of the wall and some chewed into the outer surface. He was pretty sure they’d come through the concrete wall pretty soon, too. It was likely made of cinder block, and from that range, the 7.62x39mm round from the AK-47 would make quick work of it. Bits of concrete were landing all around him, things were whizzing about above him, but with the angles he was relatively safe laying flat on the roof.

  But there was no time for taking it easy. He grabbed the duffel and stuffed magazines and Iridium into it and started low-crawling toward the opposite corner of the roof where nobody was shooting. Halfway there Ripley burst through the roof door and promptly hit the deck when he heard the first rounds whipping past his ears.

  “Where’s Cameron?” Allen yelled.

  “Sent him down to the hallway to hold the door” Ripley replied. “What’s going on?”

  “Probably 30 guys coming over the wall, all with AKs or maybe something heavier, but haven’t heard anything bigger yet. I put 6 of them down, so 24 to go”.

  “How do you know how many?”

  “Got a call from Langley right after their grappling hooks woke me up. Did your phone ring?”

  “I’d just picked it up when I heard your first shot. Dropped it, pulled on pants and boots and headed up here. Jones?”

  “Probably, told him to wake you up.” He looked at the parapet, still no fire on the right-front corner. “let’s crawl over there, full-auto, unload a mag each on these guys. Probably in a big crowd by now. Then we drop and scoot for the door and get off this roof before we get killed.”

  “Right. How many mags you have?”

  “This one has 23 left, I have 3 more full. You?”

  “Four, full. Let’s do it. One mag each and we scoot.”

  They moved quickly for men on their bellies. At the corner of the wall they readied. Just before they moved another AK opened up, but closer and to their right. “Someone on the roof across the lane?” Allen said. “General’s guys waking up I think, and into action pretty quick
. We may live, yet.”

  Then he counted “one, two, three” and the two of them rose above the parapet, sighted, and fired.

  There was not one large group as they’d hoped, but six smaller ones. Some had 5 men, at least three were smaller. So the full automatic bursts of 2.25 seconds each were wasted initially, but they fanned outward from what they’d guessed would be the center of a large group and 4 more bad guys went down before their breeches locked open and they dove to lay flat on the deck as far from the wall as they could.

  There was firing and bullets and concrete fragments everywhere, but there was definitely outgoing fire from at least one other roof.

  “Now we’re outta here…GO” Allen yelled.

  He and Ripley fast-crawled to the door and into the stairway, then down the stairs. They found Cameron at the bottom watching the front door from a nearby doorway. They started talking about how to go outside, make a flanking maneuver, get behind the attackers at the gate-end of the lane. Then the phone started ringing in the living room.

  “You guys are better equipped than me for guard duty, I’ll get it.” Cameron said.

  It was Fahd calling from his villa. Cameron listened for 20 seconds and hung up.

  He walked back into the hallway. “That was the General. He says under no circumstances should we leave the villa. He’s thrown a switch that shoots steel bolts on the gates in the walls of each villa, so we’re safe enough if we sit tight. His guys are engaged from 3 rooftops, and the attackers are making a mistake: they’re working their way down the lane between the two rows of villas. Taking heavy casualties in the crossfire from the roofs of 2 and 3 on the West side and now just villa 3 on our side since you guys came inside. More importantly, there’s about to be a nasty surprise down by the…”

  He was interrupted by a hammering outside that both Ripley and Allen instantly recognized. “M-60” they said at the same time.

  “Yep. Two of the retainers got into the garage next to the mosque, armory under the mosque, and the M-60 is now hosing down the lane where all these guys are exposed.”

  The phone rang again, Cameron went to answer.

  BOOOOM! He never got there. Allen yelled “R-P-G” as he and Ripley found their way to the kitchen. “RPG” he said again, “and the M-60 has stopped. I think the tide just turned.” They could still hear AK’s firing outside…

  BOOOOM! “Shit, that had to be one of the gates going down,” Cameron said.

  “Yep, time for another game change,” this was Ripley. “We’re going out the back, gotta flank them and get rid of the RPG shooter, quick, or a lot of the General’s family are in the shit.”

  There was no argument. He brushed past Cameron and headed for the back door of the villa. Allen looked at Cameron, reached into his pocket and handed over his own pistol. “You may need two” was all he said.

  Cameron nodded in acknowledgment, then Ripley cracked open the door, took a peek outside. Nothing. Allen tugged it open and was first through, Ripley following and Cameron bringing up the rear. Nobody in the garden, wall tops clear. Across the yard to the back gate. Ripley on the gate, Allen ready, opening it a crack…

  RRRP! Allen let go a 3-round burst. “GO, GO, GO…” he yelled, and was out the gate and moving. Ripley fell in just behind him, and Cameron went out last.

  They were in a wide alley between the back wall of their villa’s garden and the outer wall of the compound. They hugged the garden wall, Allen looking toward the front gate, Ripley at the big wall, and Cameron back down the compound toward the mosque and garage end. They could hear the firing from the front side of course, but here there was nothing moving.

  Allen scuttled along the wall, quickly reaching the corner but staying in the shadow. He got down on the ground and peered around the corner. “Two guys on the gate” he said, loud enough for the others to hear but not loud enough to carry to the gate over the noise. “Ripley, can you hit anything from this range with an MP5?”

  Ripley was insulted. “Goddam right I can,” he said. “Together?”

  “Right. I’ve got right side and you have left. Get up here.” They squatted together at the corner, Allen very low and Ripley hunched just above him. “OK, on three, we shuffle forward, sort, and take ‘em. Ready?” Ripley nodded. “OK…one…two…three…”

  Cameron turned to watch. The two CIA shooters were like artisans. They leaned forward as one being, sighted just for an instant, then simultaneously loosed one round each, then they were back behind the corner.

  “Down” said Allen.

  “Down” echoed Ripley.

  “You fuckers are dangerous,” Cameron said.

  “Fucking-A” said Allen.

  “Now what?”

  Allen sat against the garden wall and looked up at him. “Well Colonel, there’s all hell breaking loose down the main drag out there. I got a look over that way…bad guys are holed up behind low walls either side of the lane, firing down toward the mosque at the end and upward at roofs, I guess. A lot of them I could see. I figure they’re down to maybe half their original number: those two make either 9 or 10 for Ripley and me alone. But it’s still nasty out there. We got no body armor, all you got is the two pistols…wait a minute.”

  Allen got down on all fours and crawled low over toward the outer wall. Cameron noticed a lump out there for the first time, and realized it must be the guy who took the burst as they came out of the garden gate. Allen came back out of the dark with an AK and a vest holding several magazines.

  “Colonel, you know how to use this thing?” he asked.

  “Not a bit” Cameron said, “other than point that end and squeeze the trigger.”

  “What about the H&K?” Ripley asked hopefully.

  “That either” Cameron answered. “Guys, I’m just a fighter pilot. Pistols, yes. M-16, sure way back when, for all the good that would do me tonight. But not this stuff.”

  Allen and Ripley engaged in a quick conversation about the virtues of either gun in the hands of the inexperienced. In the end, stealth won out.

  “OK boss, this is what we’ll do,” Allen finally said. “You take the AK, and put this on,” he handed over the vest with the spare ammo. “Me and Ripley will use the silenced HK’s, try to take down more guys without them figuring out we’re coming. You cover our asses with the AK, don’t shoot unless you have to so we stay quiet as long as we can”.

  “OK,” Cameron said. “But what’s the plan?”

  “Well, we go out there and help I guess,” said Ripley.

  “Right,” said Allen. “OK, we go around the corner, haul ass for that planted area short of the center roadway, dive into the plantings and hide behind the palm trees. Or a rock if you find one in there. We get set up, prone, and then Ripley and me start taking down these guys from their right flank. If we’re lucky, we get enough of them that the others break and start to run for the gate, and they never turn their fire on us. If we’re not…”

  “If we’re not, you open up with the AK, sir,” Ripley finished. “Hold low, stroke the trigger, try for 3 round bursts or so. Pick your targets. Lemme show you how to reload this thing.”

  He did, showing Cameron how to eject the magazine, insert a new one, close the breech, begin shooting again. “These hold 30 rounds each” Ripley tapped a magazine. “Try to keep track, and change in a lull if you can; you don’t want to run dry at the wrong time.”

  Cameron swallowed hard. “OK, got it.”

  The volume of fire over on the lane increased, and there was another “BOOM” from the RPG. Cameron wondered suddenly how long this had been going on…he’d lost track of time. Seemed like forever, but surely someone would have come by now if it had been that long. Or maybe the police were happy not to come toward something that sounded this nasty, way out in the boonies in Saudi Arabia?

  “Ready?” Allen asked.

  Nods from Ripley and Cameron.

  “OK, let’s
GO!” Allen was up, and he dashed around the corner, Ripley was 3 long strides behind him, and Cameron brought up the rear. They didn’t run, but walked fast, rifles up at their shoulders. Cameron looked right of Ripley’s right shoulder, along the villa wall. Ahead, Allen was scanning from front to left front. The trees were up ahead, and Cameron saw they would be scant cover…the hoped-for rock wasn’t there.

  Ahead he could now see at least 10 or twelve men firing down the lane. They two were sheltered in the trees across the way, or in the shadow of a low wall that flanked the drive. The angle wasn’t good. But Cameron took the right flank, behind a tree planted on a small rise in the hard earth.

  There was no warning, but the soft barks of the H&Ks started up as Allen and Ripley engaged the targets. He saw two go down, then a third, and a fourth. He saw the guy next to that last one, who watched his pal get it and keel over, and he saw him turn to his right rear and unleash a whole magazine in their general direction…

  Suddenly there were bullets everywhere. Some hit the dirt in front of Cameron, but luckily they guy was surprised, or scared, or inexperienced, or all three, because his rifle rose on its own with the trigger held down, and after the first few they all were spattering in or through the trees above them. Without thinking, Cameron lifted his cheek off the dirt, sighted his rifle on the shooter, and squeezed the trigger.

  One round, center of mass. The bullet struck near the middle of his chest. Cameron saw the mist behind the guy, although in the dark he didn’t see the color. At this range it hurled the limp body back two paces where it dropped in a heap. His rifle sailed through the air to his right and clattered to the ground next to another guy.

  And then it was just madness. The attackers could tell by their comrade’s fall that they were flanked. Cameron heard a shout in Arabic, and half the remaining shooters turned their guns toward the Americans. Cameron kept shooting, conscious of the bullets everywhere, but strangely also not caring much. Later, he remembered a “WHOOSH” as an RPG flew over his head and a “BOOM” as it exploded against the compound wall well behind him. He was still stroking the trigger when he realized nothing was happening, and he wondered how long that had been going on.

  He rolled left, flat on his back behind his tree, and fumbled to change magazines. He was thumbing the breech closed when Ripley yelled, “Colonel on your RIGHT!”

  Cameron still on his back, looked to his left as three attackers came running out of the dark ten paces away. He started to sweep the rifle that way, through a 90 degree arc, while his thumb tried to find the fire selector to switch to full automatic. It all seemed to be incredibly slow. He could see the nearest guy suddenly see them, could see his rifle also coming around. Cameron’s brain did the math…it would be close, but it looked like he would be too late, he was going to lose the race. In a flash he decided to fire early, maybe distract the guy. He squeezed the trigger: one round, not full auto. He squeezed again. The guy on the left staggered and went down. Then the guy on the right went down too, which was strange since he wasn’t pointing that way. He fired again, nothing. The last guy fired, but low, the bullet plowed up a big dust cloud right in front of him. He fired again, and the guy was on him.

  Cameron rolled right, once, twice, three times, and the guy went right over him. He heard him fall to the ground to his left, and then Cameron rolled his feet under him and he was up, throwing the rifle to his left and the big 10mm Smith and Wesson pistol was coming out of the pocket in his right hand.

  The guy was also coming back up, and he was close. He saw the pistol, and he swept the butt of his own rifle hard across his front, striking the gun's muzzle before it could come up and knocking it from Cameron’s hand. He stepped in and tried to club Cameron with the rifle butt on the backhand return stroke. Cameron was in overdrive. He stepped into the guy on his right side and threw a hard left elbow into his nose, felt a satisfying crunch, then he continued to pivot to his right as the guy’s rifle butt came down between them. Cameron grabbed the top of the rifle just forward of the breech with his left hand, and punched the guy in the nose again with his right. He felt a little of the strength go out of him. Now he pivoted sharply backward on his right foot, twisting the rifle in the guy’s hands and throwing him down roughly onto his right shoulder. The rifle went off once. Cameron continued twisting, which rolled the guy onto his own front. He removed the rifle from the man’s grip, reversed the muzzle, placed it behind the guy’s right ear, and fired. His head exploded and he lay still.

  Cameron looked around. It had gotten quiet, except for the shouts, all in Arabic. His ears were ringing. He felt a little dazed. Without deciding to, he sat down hard on his ass. He wondered about this. Then the world started to tilt, which he thought was very strange, and he landed hard on his right side and shoulder, and that hurt a lot, more than it should. He lay there wondering why for a moment, then closed his eyes and everything went dark.

  “Medic! Medic here” Ripley was yelling. He squatted where Cameron lay. Allen got there just after. There was a pool of blood starting to soak into the dirt on the Colonel’s right side.

  “Bad,” Allen said.

  “Maybe, Maybe not,” Ripley countered. See if you can find where he’s hit.”

  They picked sides, Allen the right, Ripley the left. Allen found it, right side low in the abdomen. “Got it,” he said. “Steady flow, not pulsing. Venous bleeding.”

  “Through and through?”

  “Don’t think so” Allen said. “Too damn much blood, can’t find a hole, just blood everywhere.”

  Cameron groaned and flinched away from the probing hand.

  “Roll him this way” Ripley said, “Gently”.

  They did, got him on his back. It was too dark to really tell anything except there seemed a lot of blood. Cameron was back out, unconscious. “Pressure here” Ripley indicated, stuffing his shirt where he wanted it. “You stay, going for help”.

  He stood and ran away fast, Allen pressed hard where he’d been told. “Stay with me, Colonel, stay with me. Dumb ass fighter jock, stupid thing to do. Fucking hand-to-hand unarmed combat against a guy with a fucking AK. Fucking stupid fucking officer…Just hang in there now…”

  XXV. Epilogue: Northern Virginia

  “Blue Line train to Franconia-Springfield,” it was the voice of the train driver over the intercom. The doors of the Blue Line train, Washington D.C. Metro system slid shut with a whoosh at the Van Dorn Street stop in Alexandria, Virginia. Inside the third car from the front of the train, an elderly man sat alone in the seat closest to the front door. He wore a shabby looking corduroy sportcoat with suede patches at the elbows, a tweed wool vest, and underneath a blue oxford shirt and red striped tie, all over a pair of charcoal grey flannel slacks. His shoes were worn-looking brown tassel loafers. His beard was three days old, and his head was covered by a grey tweed driving cap that almost matched the vest. He appeared to be dozing as he leaned into the corner where the seat back met the outer wall of the train, a wooden walking cane pressed against his left thigh, his left hand resting on the pommel.

  The rest of the car was nearly empty. Toward the back there was a young black man with retro-afro hair that sprang out 3 inches all around his face, burnt orange 70’s style bell bottoms, sneakers, and a brown polyester shirt, the whole affair capped off by the white earphones in his ears, and an iPod blaring loud enough that anyone could have heard the rap from the other end of the car. About midway back, between the kid and the old man, sat a tired looking junior executive from the looks of his suit. It was a good suit, but not terribly good. The young man wore his hair close-cropped, almost military, and by the fit of the suit one could tell he was rather more athletic than is usual. Probably a recent college football star. At the very front of the car there was an elderly woman, also carrying a cane, with very dark glasses and a wide-brimmed hat pulled low over her forehead. She sat rather hunched, looking a bit afflicted by
osteoporosis or some ailment of the upper back. Everyone was silent, except for the noise from the earphones and the iPod.

  The train pulled into the Braddock Road station, and the doors whooshed open as the driver recited his litany again, but no-one got on or off the third car from the front. A short two minute ride later, the King Street station came into view, and as the driver began his announcement the old man was first to move, but slowly. He looked as though he’d wakened from a doze, then began straightening his tie with his free right hand, adjusting his cap, and bracing the cane to help himself rise. The doors opened on the left side of the car as it came to a full stop, and the old man levered himself to his feet, waited for the surprisingly quick old woman to pass through the door in front of him, and then walked shakily out himself, leaning heavily on the cane and limping, favoring his left leg. The athletic kid and the black guy stared into space, making no move at all.

  The two elderly people made their way separately toward the same elevator, and as they boarded it to share the ride down to street level they made the obligatory nods at each other that pass for elevator etiquette, by unspoken agreement, everywhere in the United States. Neither made any further gesture, neither spoke—the usual contract. When the door opened, however, the old man made a chivalrous gesture for the woman to exit first, which she did, turning to her left where she immediately sighted her ride waiting at the curb. The old man walked straight ahead to the opposite curb, looked left and then right, searching for a taxi. At precisely that moment one appeared at the far entrance to the station parking lot, and seeing him, gunned his engine to arrive in front of the old man just as he began to make a gesture to hail. The car came to the stop, the old man got into the car a little more nimbly than he had a right to do, and in a moment the taxi roared away, East bound on King Street into Old Town Alexandria.

  Old Town is an interesting mix of the old and the new, a trendy juxtaposition of 18th century Colonial-era port city, the two hundred year old buildings containing slick modern restaurants and shops, old brick townhouses butted one against the other, some still multi-million dollar homes, others businesses, law offices, and political consultancies. King Street is the center of it all, and in the early evening, which it was just turning to be, it is busy with the well-off, professional, well-connected chic of Washington, jogging, stopping for a beer, or looking for a meal, or just out to see and be seen. Old Town is bisected North to South by the George Washington Parkway, which connects Crystal City, near the Pentagon, to George Washington’s estate of Mount Vernon about 10 miles south along the Potomac. One block West of the GW Parkway, about 8 blocks East of the King Street station, the old man’s taxi stopped and deposited him on the sidewalk in front of the La Tasca restaurant, a modest looking establishment in a nice brick building, the sidewalk tables huddled against the front window under a blue-striped awning, and above that three flags—American, Spanish, and curiously, the Scots national flag adorned with the Royal Lion of Scotland.

  The old man limped across the walk and in by the front door. Once inside, his limp immediately disappeared and he stood upright, appearing to gain five inches in height, and he greeted the hostess in a beautiful aristocratic Spanish as he scanned the tables in the almost-empty space before him. He found the man he was looking for right away—athletic looking, dark hair graying at the sides, a long nose, sharp face, and steel blue eyes that were fixed on his own so tightly that for a moment he felt the glare physically, as though something was searching his soul. “Christ,” he muttered aloud, and then turning to the alarmed hostess he said in the easy Spanish, “my dear, I’m meeting this man, would you have someone bring me an Estrella, please?” The girl nodded and the old man walked confidently across the room to take a seat opposite his man.

  “Colonel Cameron, I presume?” Randall Anderson said, leaning the cane against the wall and extending his hand across the table. “It’s good to see you more or less in one piece my boy. I heard about your little accident, if you’ll allow me to call it that just here, but it looks like you’re mending nicely. How are you, then?”

  Cameron stared across the table at the old man, recognizing him after half a moment, a memory from a very, very long time ago. “You,” he muttered, trying to put it all together . . .

  “Yes, me,” Anderson agreed. “So you remember? We have met before of course, at your Company interview, what, twenty-one years ago? You continue to amaze us all, Colonel, yes, you do. I would not have thought I’d have been remarkable at all on that occasion.”

  Regaining his wits, the picture of the interview room now firmly in his mind, Cameron smiled. “You weren’t, errr, Sir, not really. I have this occasional curse of a memory is all, pictures that never leave me, damndest thing, and no telling when it will fire off. I did enjoy the interview, though, would have come to work for you guys if it hadn’t been for the war . . .”

  “Yes, yes, I know, pity, that, but admirable, admirable. In any case, it’s all turned out fine in the end, you’ve come to work for me after all in a way, and things worked out pretty well I think, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Well, I guess that depends on whether you’ve just had thirty stitches removed from your abdomen, and more important, whether your wife is about to throw you out of the house for being a reckless, thoughtless, idiot, numbskull sonofabitch.”

  “Your wife said that? How is the, umm, wound doing? OK I trust?”

  “It was just a nasty gash is what the surgeon said, 7.62mm round dug a 1/16 inch trench about 3 inches long across the right side of my abdomen. Messy but lucky. Someone said it may have glanced off one of the spare magazines in the vest I was wearing. The bullet came about as close to missing me as it could, without actually missing, was what the doc said. Great sense of humor, right? And Yes, she did say exactly that, and some other things I won’t repeat as I’m a gentleman and she a lady whose reputation I value even more than my own skin.”

  Anderson smiled broadly at that, then began to chuckle, and Cameron followed suit, both of them laughing deep and hearty, pausing only to take up their beers when the hostess brought them. After each had taken a long drag, Anderson resumed “Well, sounds like my Amelia, actually, God rest her soul, I’ll probably love her. Elizabeth, right?”

  Cameron was briefly stunned, but of course, he reckoned, the Boss would know everything about him. “Of course, Sir, of course. By the way, do you move around Washington un-escorted all the time?”

  “Certainly not,” Anderson answered, a little put off himself, but recovering. “It’s not like the bad old days when my Soviet number would have given his family jewels for a fair crack at me, and God knows a few times they tried with my predecessors you know, but still, there are bad people who know who and what I am, so I take precautions. You see . . .”

  “The old woman in the car at the curb across the street?” Cameron cut in, “and the driver, and I suspect that guy at the front of the restaurant at the table with the really striking woman with the black hair?”

  Anderson chuckled, “Damn, son. We gotta find you honest work. All mine of course, except the black haired girl, I think my guy there is just having a date on my nickel, but nothing wrong with that in our business.” The waiter approached and he switched quickly to Arabic, saying, “aquid, do you know the food of the Caliphate of Andalusia? I recommend the jamon Serrano, it is quick, and I cannot afford much time with you, perhaps an hour, no more.”

  “Aiwa, ya mushir”, which is “yes, Marshall,” Cameron using the highest military rank he knew in Arabic, which drew a smile from Anderson. Then, looking at the waiter and switching to Spanish, Cameron ordered four different plates of tapas, the Spanish appetizers that everyone who has ever been to Madrid has tried, and if they didn’t die of ecstasy on the spot, are in love with for the rest of their lives. The ham, blood sausage, salami, sautéed mushrooms with garlic, onion, and oyster, deep fried prawns wrapped in the cured ham, and spinach and cheese turnove
rs in filo dough.

  “Perfecto, and two more Estrellas, por favor,” Anderson added. The waiter nodded and left. “So, you’ve done very well, Paul, for your first time out. Very, very well, actually, for any number of times out. The dominoes are still falling, but for now your take stands at fifteen operatives in France, nearly all dead now but some still singing. In England, Her Majesty is grateful for the thirty heads that she would have on pikes at her Fortress and Tower of London if it was fashionable to do so these days, according to my opposite number at MI6, and that in addition to the numerous others that are simply under surveillance. In Jordan, the French are very obliged to us, indirectly and quietly of course, for the privilege of rounding up another ten in Amman, with several more good prospects in Syria, of all places. And of course, there are the twenty-odd bodies at the compound in al-Ha’il in Saudi. We have some weak leads on a group of Saudis who seem to have begun to arrive in various places in Canada as well. You are, my friend, quite a train wreck where al-Qaeda is concerned this month.”

  Cameron wasn’t sure where this was going, but he simply shrugged. “Had a friend in trouble, the rest was luck, and the top-notch services of Ripley, Jones, and Allen of course. Great guys, by the way. Do you guys, ummm, give medals or anything at the Company?”

  “Not like you do in the Air Force, no, but we do give rewards where they’re needed, and the guys are being taken care of.” Anderson paused, not certain for a moment how to proceed, but then chose a direct tack. “What are your plans, Colonel? What will you do now?”

  “To be honest, I’ve thought of that, and I think I’ll probably retire from the Air Force. I’m not going to be a general anyway, my current command is due to end in four months or so, and after that it’s nothing more than a staff job for me, I think, but I’m not that kind of guy. I’m ready—funny, they tell you in counseling at all our senior schools that ‘you’ll know when it’s time’, I never thought I’d know, but I do. It’s time to go.”

  “Then what?”

  Cameron paused. “I have a few ideas, nothing definite. General Fahd and I are thinking of a little business venture together, a boutique hotel, bed-and-breakfast kind of thing, maybe somewhere in the North Carolina mountains. Sounds crazy, I know, but I think I could use the independence and the challenge of doing something completely different, if you know what I mean. Plus, I’m thinking it might be good to sort of “disappear” a little bit.” He looked across the table with an eyebrow raised in silent question.

  “I do, I do know what you mean, believe me, and yes you should. Honestly, I think the idea is perfect, but don’t you think that might be a little quiet for you?” Anderson said. A mercurial look crossed his face. “But . . .”

  “You sure you’re a life-long spook?” Cameron interrupted. “Your face is easier to read than a six-year-old’s bedtime book, and you’ve got something sinister in mind.”

  “Damned youngsters, don’t respect your elders anymore,” was the first thing that came to Anderson’s mind. “Well, where was I? Oh . . .” the food arrived. They arranged it and starting picking at the various dishes, sipping beer and enjoying the rich flavors of Spain, and then Anderson continued. “I was going to suggest that perhaps you could continue to serve, do what you want to do, and still, how shall we say, dabble a bit here and there, for the Company you understand. Just so things don’t get too quiet in the hills down there.”

  Cameron chewed slowly on the slice of ham in his mouth, slowly enough to make it last while he considered a response. This was starting to feel like deep water, and he wasn't up for drowning today. He took a long pull of the beer, and said, “What do you have in mind, exactly? Elizabeth might not like it, and I’m not sure I’ll survive another tirade like this last one.”

  “Well, I think she’ll like this. First, I have arranged a, how shall I put this? Oh hell, well, a promotion for you. Now, now, don’t look like that. It was the President’s idea, not mine, and who are you or I to deny Himself a bit of gracious thanks? His exact words were, “Randy, I want that sonofabitch promoted, least we can do, he’s a one man train wreck.” See, I’m not that original, I think he said that before I did. Anyway, it’s all arranged, your name will be on the next promotion list. It happens that the Air Force promotion board is meeting in just under a month, list will be released in three months or so after that, you’ll be on it.”

  “You gotta be shitting me! But how? That’s ridiculous, My boss . . . the Air Force . . . I have that Promotion Form already, and it doesn't say. . .I’m not . . .the process doesn’t…”

  “Yes, you are,” Anderson interrupted, “and the form has been, err, let’s just say "adjusted" by the President. It’s all above board. Sure, there’s a lot of guys whose records might look better to the Air Force brass than yours, but none of them is going to have a personal, hand-written note on a Promotion Recomendation Form, if that’s the right phrase, from the President himself, saying precisely what I just repeated to you. No shit, Cameron.” Anderson’s face turned completely serious. “You guys all serve at the pleasure of the President, you know. Himself knows it, too, and he’s made it perfectly clear to the gents that will sit on that board, all generals who want to stay that way, that his pleasure is that you’re promoted, or his pleasure will sort of “lapse” in their cases. You’ll be on the list.”

  “Jesus. Well, I’ll be damned,” was all Cameron could say for a moment, and he sat there, fork in hand, a large piece of sausage perched on the tines, staring past Anderson out the window at the busy street life passing by. Anderson could see him thinking of other reasons why it wasn’t possible, then discovering quickly why it was, moving to the next objection, and the next, finally giving up as he exhausted them all. “If you do that, I’m going to be very unpopular with a bunch of people. It’s really, really cheesy. Guys will think I cheated somehow. That’s how it feels to me, anyway. But, you know, sir, there’s another problem,” he finally said. “Shortly after that list comes out, there’ll be a “draft” of sorts by the 4-stars around the Air Force where all the new Brigadiers will get farmed out to new jobs. What the hell will I get? Nothing I want, we’ve already covered that ground, and all the 4-stars will be pissed that I somehow jumped the line and got them a finger in the chest from the President of the United States. I’ll be PNG, ‘persona non grata’ with everyone in the Service above the rank of Colonel, and some more below that. No, thanks, sir, really. Like I said, it’s time for me to go, I’m ready for something new. You’re gonna have to tell the Boss . . .”

  “Well, not really, you’re not ready, not until the great man says you are. Pleasure of the President, again. Truth be told, he has to approve your retirement anyway, starting at Colonel. True, such a thing is usually signed off by a General somewhere, or the service Secretary at most, but in your case I’m sure he’ll insist, and he ain’t gonna sign. Not yet. He’s bound and determined you’re going to serve at least the three years’ time-in-grade so you can retire as a one-star, coincidentally the same amount of time remaining in his term. But don’t worry about the job, I think we have something you’ll be OK with.”

  Alarm bells were still going off in Cameron’s head, and now they got even louder and higher-pitched. He wondered if this would get him closer to killed than he’d been a month ago. “And what, pray tell, might that be?” Cameron asked, skeptically.

  “By the way,” Anderson interrupted, changing the subject. “Why was Allen up on the roof to begin with? Very lucky he was, mind you. Our guys have done a simulation of the attack, and if he hadn’t started shooting, slowed them down, then got them shooting which woke everyone up…well, let’s just say it would not have been pretty, completely different outcome.”

  “He had a feeling apparently, and a very good Sergeant way back that taught him not to ignore one in a situation like that,” Cameron mused. “He and Ripley talked about it before they went to bed, but couldn’t pin i
t down. Allen couldn’t sleep, so he just went up on the roof, set up his weapon, and dozed off there. Uncanny really—the first grappling hook hitting the top of the concrete wall 75 yards away apparently woke him up, next thing he knows is he’s looking through the starlight scope at all these guys coming over the wall, and then Jones calls, and the fight is on. And after it was all over, he figured it out. He’d seen one of the guys the previous evening at the shwarma shop he and Ripley went to in town. The guy had “the look” is what he and Ripley both said, but they couldn’t place the feeling. Later they said it was like “what’s a guy like that doing in a place like this?” We were lucky, but they were also really, really good.”

  “Amazing,” was all Anderson said.

  Cameron went on: “And back to the subject at hand, allow me to point out that Mrs. Cameron happens to outrank the President, and if you ask him, he’ll say he knows it just like you and I do.”

  Both of them laughed again at this, both knew it was true, and Anderson knew the President would know it, too. Cameron was too damned smart for anyone’s good, that much was clear to him. “Well, here’s the deal, and this is the beautiful part. We want you to go into business with General Fahd, build the hotel, the whole thing . . .”

  “How the hell did you already know about that?” Cameron blushed, slightly embarrassed.

  “Ripley, of course, how else? You told him the story at some camp in the desert, right?”

  “Well, yeah, but I didn’t know it was gonna happen. Turns out my friend Fahd is kinda filthy rich, and his family is so grateful for what we did, well, the rest is pretty straightforward. It’s just a loan, though, we’re gonna be partners, sort of.”

  “Right, well, there you are. Anyway, you build it, run it, make money at it, enjoy it. You’ll be a pillar of the local community I’m sure. There’ll need to be some security systems, the Company will take care of that and the costs for it, and we’ll have some other unique requirements I’ll want built in while you’re at it. We’ll be a minor investor, sort of, but not on the record anywhere. I’ll have a contractor work with whoever builds this thing to get the design right. Meantime, I’ve looked into this Brigadier’s list deal, and I believe that there are very often jobs where the name is listed, with the job title as “Commander, Data Masked” or something like that, and the location is “Classified?” Well, that’s what yours will say. You’ll be Commander of a small, special unit, seconded to us at the Company. Not unique by the way, we always have an Air Force 3 star at Langley as Liaison. Bet you didn’t know that, eh? Meanwhile you draw 1-star pay for three years, then retire if you’re ready. During that time we send you some business, guests at the new place when we need someplace quiet and secure, and we pay the premium rate, just to make things get off to a profitable start. Plus, you’re working for us, so you and your staff do the things you’ve already shown you’re good at, an easy operation here and there when we need you, studies, analysis, some site observation, recon, planning, that kind of thing. NO shooting, at least no planned shooting. As for all those Air Force guys that might be pissed off at you—well, you’ll be out of circulation, as good as retired as far as they know, you probably never see them and they never see you, so no problem. Some of the things we might send your way will be a little easier if you’re a Brigadier is all: working with foreign services of one kind or another, for example.”

  The bells were still ringing and getting louder for Cameron. “Staff? What Staff? What do I do with them, how many?”

  “That’s for us to decide here today so I can get the ball rolling. You tell me how many you think you need to run the hotel, but be generous, ‘cause it might be less than what you need to run the Unit. But that’s really up to you too, just don’t skimp. You get to pick the guys, or we can pick ‘em if you like. They all live and work with you at the hotel, run it for you as their “cover”, and run the other part of the Company business from a secure spot inside or on the grounds. Speaking of which, I’d like you to pick a spot reasonably close to an airport, medium sized, you still fly, right?”

  “Yes, I’ve got my own airplane, a Mooney, it’s . . .”

  “Yeah, I know all about it. Big surprise, right? Sell it, I’m buying you a new one, or the Company is. We’ll title it in the name of your company, whatever that’s going to be. I need you in something new, reliable, fast, and well maintained, and we’ll take care of that part, too. You’re going to have to be available when I need you, I assume you’re not going to build this thing in Washington or close by, so I need you mobile and in one piece. We’ll depreciate the airplane using the new laws passed after 9-11, and when you retire from the service in 3 years we’ll sell it to you for a song and a whistle, another of the President’s suggestions, although I might have put the idea in his head.”

  Anderson half-turned toward the front window, looked at the guy with the dark-haired semi-date, and snapped his fingers. The guy reached into a messenger bag, removed an 8x10 envelope, brought it to Anderson, and returned to the girl

  “Shit, you kidding? That’s gonna cost someone nearly six hundred thousand bucks. Is this legal? It sounds fishy as hell. I don’t go in for that kind of thing, Mr Anderson, and I’m not ever going to be as Teflon coated as Oliver . . .”

  Anderson held up both hands to ward off the assault, he couldn’t stand the name. “Don’t say his name, I know the Lieutenant Colonel well, as you can imagine, but yes, this is legal. I have a signed Presidential finding that says so, and you get a copy, for the safe, at this palace you’re building, did I mention that?”

  He opened the envelope, and said “there are a few people I want you to meet in here.” He produced an 8x10 photo, color, poor resolution, probably a blow up of a passport photo. “Not very good, but have you seen him before?”

  Cameron looked hard. Arab, that was clear. “Nope”.

  “Good. Ibrahim bin Sultan al-Otaibi, Saudi national, a real hard guy, dangerous as hell. It was his network you literally destroyed in 3 days in Paris. Current whereabouts unknown, but possibly in Germany, we think Hamburg or Berlin, maybe Cologne. Next…”

  Another photo, also grainy, clearly a Saudi passport photo.

  “Nope” again from Cameron.

  “Good again. Khalid al-Shahrani, Saudi national also. We’re a little less sure of what he is, but we very strongly suspect it was his network in Saudi, his guys at the compound, and more importantly, his guys who are now somewhere in the United States. For sure we know he was in Afghanistan in the old days, and at least twice in 2000 and early 2001. We think he caught a flight to Sudan the morning after the firefight at the compound. No sightings since, but he’ll be back. Next…”

  Another photo. This one Cameron recognized. “The little guy, from that night in Paris?”

  “Correct. Ahmed Al-Kisani, Moroccan but with Syrian ancestry, hence the names. Recovered from his recent mugging in Paris, and back to being a small time hood. Nice touch by the way. We’re watching him, tapping his phones etc, but we think he’s off the net until Ibrahim resurfaces in Paris. One more…

  A fourth photo, bigger guy. “The Pharoah, Paris again. Ripley and I took him down a little way up the sidewalk from the General’s second hotel the night we moved him.”

  “Correct again. Salah Razick, Egyptian. Now a resident at one of our more discrete locations in Eastern Europe. He gave us quite a lot on the Paris network, actually. Nice guy as long as he’s tied up. Probably will never see the light of day again.” He gazed into the emptiness past Cameron’s head for a second or two.

  The he continued, “the point is there are a lot of guys on ice, but there are some nasty characters who aren’t. All in all, as usual, the nastiest aren’t. And while none of them has ever laid eyes on you, either, you caused them all some truly serious discomfort, and they’ll be looking for payback. It will take them some time, hopefully more time to find you than for us to find them, bu
t they’ll be looking. So…I need you to take a concealed-carry course, and start practicing and keep practicing, and I need you to carry ALL the time. And, if you ever see these first two guys, ever…” he patted the shots of Ibrahim and Khalid, “you shoot ‘em right then, two in the chest and one in the head, no questions. Because if you see them, it’s because they’ve come for you.” Anderson collected the photos and put them back in the envelope.

  “Therefore, you’re not flying commercial, at least not very often, since you’re carrying, and therefore you need an airplane that gets you where I need you and quick.”

  Then he brightened up. “Anyway, this is not even close to being across the line, you’ll just need a little help preparing your taxes for a few years, but we’ve got people for that, too.” Anderson looked at his watch. “Shit, time flies. I have to get moving in a few minutes, and we’re not done. Think, now, Colonel, what do you need for the business and the unit, for starters at least? We can adjust some as we go, I figure the thing’s gotta take a year to build right?”

  “Two years probably, maybe more,” Cameron answered, but he was thinking about the other problem. He was silent for a minute or more, sipping the last of his Estrella, then a swig of iced tea when that was gone. Finally he said, “OK here’s what I think. I need a guy who can be the “manager” of sorts, handle bookings, service management, subcontracting for maid service, horses, stables, groundskeeping, that kind of thing. It’d be best if this was an officer, Captain maybe, Air Force or Navy, Lieutenant in the latter case, not Army if we can help it. Seal or a PJ if we have the choice, just in case we need muscle. See if you can find a guy who’s interested in this kind of thing anyway so that he likes it to begin with, send him to a good college for hotel management while we build the place. He’s also the lead guy to coordinate support inter-agency when we do—well, whatever it is you have in mind for us to do. Next, someone to cook. This guy can be enlisted, especially if he’s a Seal, Warrant Officer maybe, but come to think of it either guy can be either rank, as long as there’s one of each. Send him to chef’s school, takes about a year, I have a brother in law that’s done that. Next, a junior enlisted guy, probably Air Force but not necessarily, Arabic linguist and intelligence background, solid communications experience. Last, another guy, don’t care whether he’s officer or enlisted, good at security, good with horses, a woodsman/outdoorsy type, weapons, Arabic, maybe Farsi and/or Dari if you can find it. And really last, obviously we need at least one solid CIA spook so we're not a complete bunch of amateurs. Someone who can keep us all from getting killed if we ever go out into the field again." He came out of his reverie, grinning. “I don’t need much, eh? Just a few simple, easy-to-find Joes. But you know better what you have in mind for us to be doing. Can you get them?”

  “Sure, we can get them, if they exist anywhere. I assume you want to talk to them before we actually bring them on? That's only four guys plus my spook: is that enough?”

  “For the business yes, and for your part, yes for starters, when we start working on stuff we’ll know what else we might need. These are the guys I need you to train for the business piece while we're building it. Also, yeah, I'd like to talk to them. Send them to Dayton, I’ll talk to them in my office there if you find them in the next three months, after that . . .hmm, where do you expect me to be for the rest of the time that the “palace” as you call it is a-building? I’m out of a job once my name’s on that promotion list, and it’s going to be really awkward if I have to hang around. Impossible, actually. I need to disappear from the Air Force. Like I said before, maybe that’s a really bad idea, anyway. I can still do this for 3 years as a Colonel and that keeps everyone I know from being pissed at me for life. . .”

  “Give it up, it’s done, the President’s already fixed it with the Chief of Staff and the Director of Personnel. You don’t have to tell all your pals anyway, they can think you’ve retired as a gentleman of property in North Carolina or wherever. Now, where to be: at home there in Dayton is fine with us, “special assignment, data masked, classified”, nobody will give you a hard time about that. We’ll get you the airplane pretty quick anyway, and you can begin using that to supervise the project until you’re ready to make the move, maybe go find the guys and interview them in situ, whatever works for you. Come to DC to chat with me and the guys from time to time when we need to. Meantime, enjoy the semi-retirement with your wife for a while.”

  Cameron looked a little sick. The promotion felt, well, cheesy, really cheesy. But he said simply, “Fine, Dayton is good until then. We have some scheduling stuff to work out, but I need to work on the building project a bit before we can firm that up: when the guys move, that kind of thing. Here’s an idea, since you have the President’s ear: ask him if my name can be masked on that promotion list, along with the location and assignment and all. That’ll help me pretend it never happened. Now, what else do you have, Herr Direktor?”

  Anderson grinned. “I do like you, son. I almost forgot, there are two other small things. First, the President wants to give you the Silver Star next month some time, his people will call you to set it up. Here in D.C., bring your wife, you’ll stay with me at my place. Last, I noticed you took a trip to Grand Cayman with your wife? I trust you had a satisfactory time?”

  Cameron’s face remained blank. Everything in Grand Cayman had been perfectly satisfactory. But he wondered what Anderson knew about that? It wasn’t that he didn’t trust the Company or his new Boss about the money he’d found in his account, which had quietly gone from the $800,000 that’d been there when the whole escapade started to a round $1,000,000 by the time he’d left Saudi Arabia. It was more that he wondered how traceable it all was, who else knew about it in the government, and whether at some point he might be vulnerable to pressure from someone, maybe through the IRS. So he’d done a little maneuvering.

  Five days after the fight at the al-Auda compound he was relaxing by the pool at Fahd’s home in Riyadh. That’s when the offer had come to go into business with the hotel, but also when Cameron decided to make the move he’d been considering since his flight to Paris took off. So, he and Fahd had gone to the biggest office of the Saudi-British Bank, Fahd’s bank in Riyadh. There, they’d wire transferred all but $50,000 from Cameron’s Cayman account at the Royal Bank of Canada in Georgetown into Fahd’s personal account. At the same time, Fahd’s private banker, a very efficient Englishman in a custom Saville Row suit, opened a new numbered account for Cameron across the street down in Georgetown at the Royal Bank of Scotland. Three days later, with Cameron on a flight back to the US, Fahd walked into his bank, and ordered his man to wire transfer $950,000 to the RBS account in Georgetown. Cameron paid a comfortable visit to his new fortune with Elizabeth, who was delighted to have joined the spy business, the money having somewhat recovered her pique at his having been shot. In theory, neither the CIA nor anyone else now had a clue where the money had gone.

  Getting no response to this innocent question, and guessing that none was coming, Anderson got up, as did Cameron, and they shook hands across the small table. “Thanks for all this, sir” the latter said, more than a little embarrassed. It was an awful lot, after all, he thought.

  “Nonsense, you’re buying,” Anderson quipped, pulling on his cap with a look at the plates on the table. Then he turned serious. “No kidding, though, Colonel. You did good, really, really good, better than anyone could or would have expected. The President is grateful, I’m grateful, the nation is grateful whether they know it or not, which of course they don’t. There’s a lot of bad guys out there still, we’re at war, but you made war like nobody else has in a long time. We don’t hand out knighthoods like Her Majesty’s government, but we do know how to say “thanks” to guys like you when the chance presents itself. It has, and “Thanks”. President told me to be sure and tell you that. Now, I’m outta here. I’ll see you next month for the Silver Star.�
�

  “Two last things before you go,” Cameron stopped him. An Anderson eyebrow went up. “OK, first, can I ever go to France again? Second, what’s the deal on the Saudis who tried to get into the States?”

  Anderson glanced around quickly, there was just the two of them, his own guy by the window with his date, and the hostess at the stand near the door. Far enough. “OK. One, yes you can go back to France, but to be safe you will have a diplomatic passport, always, and we’ll make sure the embassy knows you’re coming every time. That’ll be fixed. However, I think it might be best to put off such a trip for a while, I’d prefer a year or more but we can talk about it. The French are going to be a little testy, best to let them cool off. Two, things are not quite as good. We found 5 of them trying to cross from Canada. They’re not talking, but we figure there may be as many as 25, possibly even 30 left somewhere. We have to assume they’re here and they’ve disappeared, waiting for instructions or something. That truly sucks, these are nasty people, but we’re working on it. Right now it’s not your problem, but if we have something for you to think about, you’ll hear from us right away. Now I really have to move. Next month, the White House, or else…we’ll talk more then.”

  Then he turned away and walked briskly past the hostess stand and out the front door. Cameron watched as he transformed into the old man again out on the sidewalk, stooped a little, leaning on the cane, limping heavily. The traffic on King Street seemed to magically make a space big enough for him to cross to the car on the other side of the street at his old-man-pace, where the door opened and he disappeared inside. A moment later the car pulled into traffic and was gone.

  Cameron was dazed, felt like wood, and sat down with a thump on the hard chair, still staring at the spot where the car had been. He took a big gulp of the iced tea, then forked another piece of the Spanish ham into his mouth, where it melted in a burst of flavor against his palate. He sat there like that for nearly ten minutes, staring like a shell-shocked soldier at something a thousand yards away, eating and drinking on automatic, but otherwise as rigid as though made of stone. At length he eased a bit, shrugged both shoulders in slow circles a few times, and looked around. The place was empty, even the dark haired girl and her “date” were gone, the server waited patiently against the wall on the other side of the room.

  “Well, old son,” he said quietly to the empty room, “isn’t that quite the thing?” But the steel blue eyes were alight now, the face animated, smile broad, everything sharp and full of energy. He reached for his wallet right-handed and made the international “check” sign with his left, sending the waiter scurrying. In just 3 minutes he’d melted into the crowd moving east on King Street.