by Fritz Galt
“Yes, sir. Loud and clear,” Wolf responded over his shoulder.
When the door closed, Park reached into his desk drawer. The pistol was for his personal protection if enemy forces ever penetrated the Pentagon. The enemy forces had entered. They came in through his phone and straight from the White House.
Tears in his eyes, he looked at the row of photographs on the far wall of his office. One secretary of defense was removed for insanity. Then there was the one who committed suicide. The sad portrait gallery continued: men removed for either mental or psychological incompetence. The last mug shot in the row showed a young man who still looked like an aviator, with jet-black hair, barely a wrinkle on his brow and determination written across his purposeful expression.
He fingered the pistol for a full minute, checked the clip, sighted down its barrel and hefted it for balance.
Then, out of curiosity, he returned to the young man in the last picture on the wall. It was indeed a young Park Bunker, far different from the gray-haired man currently slumped in his chair. It was a photograph of him the day he had accepted the position of secretary of defense, only three years before.
His hand calm and steady, he lowered the pistol into his drawer. It wasn’t his fault that he had dropped bombs on civilians in Cambodia. Nor was it his fault that hundreds of millions of Indians would die in the coming weeks. In his heart he knew it was not his fault.
It was just that no man should have to play God.
Chapter 41
Natalie walked into the entrance to Abu’s Casa do Rio with a confident air.
A young man in casual cotton plaid shirt and khaki slacks strolled out to meet her. He was boyishly handsome with a trace of black beard, an easygoing manner and large, watchful eyes.
He was Abu Khan.
With a graceful flourish, he extended his right hand, revealing a Rolex watch. He could have been the prodigal son of a Moghul emperor.
Natalie felt his soft grip. Such a surprise.
“So you’re the one sent me by bin Laden’s organization,” he said, letting her go. “My parents have told me about you.” His gleaming eyes took in her appearance.
“It was a long path to get here.”
“I’m dreadfully sorry for all the trials and tribulations,” he said. “My name is Abu Khan.”
“I already guessed that,” she said. She would maintain a professional air despite the young man’s warm reception.
“How is my good friend Osama?” Abu asked. “I haven’t laid eyes on him for quite some time.”
Natalie smiled. “Mr. Khan. I’d like to talk with you at greater length. But it’s been a very long day for me. Would you mind if I freshened up a bit?”
“Not at all. You’re perfectly welcome to use one of our guestrooms. Our boy will show you the way.” He clapped his hands sharply, and a young man in white servants’ uniform appeared. “Show our guest to her room.”
She reached to the floor for her travel bag, but the servant beat her to it.
“I would be delighted if you could join us for dinner at nine,” Abu said with an ingratiating grin.
“I’ll look forward to it.”
She turned away and dropped the fixed grin. What a creep.
Over her shoulder, she saw Abu greet the bodyguard and take the briefcase loaded with money.
She and the servant climbed a set of stairs to the second floor. As she passed various chambers, including a study, sitting rooms and a library, she could visualize British royalty staying there. At the same time, she began to wonder how she’d ever find the vaccine.
She entered a dark room, and the servant illuminated a chandelier with a dimmer switch. The room was thrown into light. It was a Victorian suite, complete with a four-poster bed, portraits of long-since dead Gujarati Maharajahs, a colonial rosewood dresser from China, an oval mirror and porcelain-handled hairbrush, a shady balcony overlooking a garden, a spacious water closet with a lie-down bath, an elegant writing desk by the balcony window and a telephone.
“Is there anything I can get for you, madam?” the servant asked.
“Just some privacy,” she said.
“Of course,” he said, stepping backward and closing the double doors.
She picked up the phone and unscrewed the mouthpiece. No bugs there. She reassembled the phone.
After splashing water over her face at the sink, she returned to the writing desk, sat down and picked up the phone. There was no extra click, so the line might not be tapped. It was a risk she’d have to take.
She dialed Mick’s cell phone number and waited nervously. She had to make the conversation brief.
He picked up after several rings. “Yes?”
“I’m here in Panjim,” she said.
“I know. I almost shot you.”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Thanks for holding your fire. Now I’m at Abu’s house. It’s a huge place called Casa do Rio and backs onto a canal in Panjim.”
“Can you get your hands on the vial?”
“I’m working on it,” she whispered. “It won’t be easy. I can try to snoop around and find it, but I don’t have a weapon. If they catch me looking for it, they’ll behead me on the spot.”
“I’ve got American counter-terrorism troops with me. We’ll surround the place. You just give us the signal, and we’re inside the place in seconds.”
“Be careful, this place is like Fort Knox. Give me some time to find the vial, although I’m not quite sure how I can get myself out of this mess. My credibility won’t last forever.”
“Stay put. We’ve got some special backup for you. You can tell Abu that you’ve called a certain Mademoiselle Camille Dinad just now. Just knowing her name and phone number will gain you more credibility. We’ll send her in within the hour. Abu will recognize her from the terrorist camps. He doesn’t know it, but she’s working for us and can get hold of the vial.”
“That’s a relief. Bye for now.”
She set the receiver down quietly and sank into the cane chair.
Mick turned to Alec and Captain Savage, who had just rappelled with Butler and his daughter down the outer wall of the fort due to the entrance having been turned to rubble.
“What was Natalie doing there?” Alec asked angrily. “I damn near put a hole through her forehead.”
“You know that woman, too?” Keri asked, still rubbing her sore face and lips from the duct tape. “I recognized her from Bombay. She’s a diplomat.”
“We know her, all right,” Mick said. “She’s my wife.”
“I had her in my sights,” Alec said. “Camille was tapping on my shoulder to shoot, and I almost pulled the trigger when I said to myself, ‘Hey, that’s no Indian terrorist.’”
“Why did she take my money?” Butler asked.
Mick shook his head. “I don’t know why she did it, or even how, but I think she’s infiltrated their organization.”
The group stared at him, waiting for an explanation.
“I just received a call from her,” he said. “She gave us Abu’s position. She’s at his house right now. According to her, it’s a huge place called Casa do Rio in Panjim. She says it backs onto a canal. That could be useful to us. “
“We’ve got our underwater gear if we need it,” Savage said.
“Now that our first plan failed, things won’t be so easy,” Mick said. “We might need additional equipment and backup. Let’s radio Beta for some motorized launches and more men.”
Savage summoned the radioman.
“Tell Beta we need four launches and our Gamma backup detachment. Give them our coordinates here. They can drop us the men and Zodiacs here at the fort.”
“Got it,” the radioman said, and went to work.
Next, Mick clicked on his cell phone and dialed the hotel. “Rajiv Khan’s room, please.”
A moment later, Rajiv came on the line. “We heard a loud explosion and saw a helicopter flying overhead.”
“Yeah, they killed on
e of our men and took the money. At least we got Keri Butler back,” Mick said. “Your brother has made off with the money. Just as we suspected, he’s at Casa do Rio. I’ll need you to come here, tell us how to get there and give us a description of the place. We may need to launch an attack.”
“I’ll sketch out a few maps,” Rajiv said.
“Okay. I’ll send a car for you.”
Mick clicked off the phone and stuffed it into his pocket. Then he gathered the group together.
“All right, Mr. Congressman. You’ve had a big day. I want you and Keri to return to the hotel, get some sleep and catch up on old times.”
Butler looked around the parking area that was fading in the dusk. “It appears my taxi has disappeared.”
Savage blew a shrill whistle, and three Land Rovers emerged from the trees. “Take your pick,” he said.
Keri took Mick’s hand in both of hers. “Peace to you. And thank you for rescuing me.”
“You’ll find Guru Swamiji waiting for you at the hotel. You can introduce him to your dad.”
He saw the congressman flinch. Then the father and daughter walked arm in arm toward a Land Rover.
“Don’t worry,” Alec said softly to him. “That’ll be you and Mariah someday.”
Mick, Alec and the Alpha detachment waited a full hour at the fort and never heard back from Beta. No second detachment was dispatched. No water launches arrived.
The radio ship did not respond, and the receiver remained silent on all frequencies.
Mick frowned. “We’ll have to go it alone.”
He looked from man to man. The team had already reduced its number by one. The soldiers had spent the hour removing stones by hand and uncovered their dead comrade under the rubble.
Squirrelhunter’s body, with its burn marks and crushed skull, lay before them on the ground.
Captain Savage lowered a map drawn in meticulous detail by the scientist, Rajiv Khan. He stared down at the body. “This is for Squirrelhunter,” he said.
His men growled their agreement.
“Strip him, burn the uniform and bury him,” Savage said. “Alec, you’re our new assistant weapons officer. You carry the Stinger and missiles.”
Mick turned Camille away from the grisly sight and went over their plan. “Have you thought of a good cover to explain why you’re in India?”
“I have a story,” she said. “Osama sent me to spy on Abu Khan.”
“Then Abu won’t let you into his camp.”
“I know Abu. He knows me, and he likes intrigue. He’ll welcome me as an old friend, then keep me by his side so that I can’t betray him.”
“How will you find the vial and spring Natalie?”
“That’s another matter. It won’t be easy.”
“We’ll have men stationed on the canal side of the grounds,” Mick said, studying the hand-drawn map. “We’ll set up explosives on the opposite side to create a diversion, maybe drop a compound wall or something like that. If you hear an explosion, you’ll know that we’ve found it necessary to infiltrate.”
He looked Camille directly in the eye. For a brief moment, he sensed the vulnerability and bravery that his brother must have seen in her.
He continued with a stern tone. “At that point, your cover will be blown, and you’ve got to grab the vial and Natalie and get the hell out of there. Run for the water, where we can protect you.”
He lifted the map and jabbed a finger at the wide body of water depicted approximately twenty meters from the bungalow.
“Is that agreed?”
She nodded, her frizzy black hair jutting out from her combat helmet in all directions.
“You’ll need to find different clothes,” he said.
She patted her backpack. “I brought something to wear just in case. I’ll change now.”
As several soldiers dug a shallow grave for Squirrelhunter, another soldier burned his uniform. The radioman gave up trying to reach Beta and packed up his equipment. The team would leave no evidence of their presence.
Camille stepped out from behind the trees in a tight, one-piece dress. The team turned around and stopped breathing. Red fabric hugged her hips and chest and twisted seductively as she approached on spiked heels.
Someone let out a low whistle.
Alec struggled to his feet with the weapons on his back.
She paused before Mick, her silhouette caught in the twin beams of a Land Rover’s headlights.
“Will this be effective, sir?” she asked.
Mick gulped. “That’ll work.”
Chapter 42
Three Land Rovers rolled through the hot Goan night. Inside hulked Mick, Alec, eleven men prepared for battle and one woman prepared for sex.
Counter-terrorism, Mick mused, let people live on the extremes.
He tried to relax his grip on the large steering wheel, while Rajiv leaned over his shoulder pointing out where to turn. The canvas-covered rear of the vehicle was crammed with silent men in wetsuits. Captain Savage and more frogmen followed Mick in the second Land Rover. Dressed in full battle gear, Alec steered the third vehicle with the explosives experts and Camille.
They had given the drivers the night off.
Mick braked to a halt on a leafy side street in Panjim, Goa’s capital.
“Alec will drop Camille off here,” he explained.
In his rearview mirror, he watched her blow Alec a kiss under a streetlight, then stride sinuously down the rutted road in search of a cab to Casa do Rio.
Mick popped the Land Rover into gear, and they headed across a narrow earthen causeway, the longest in Asia, toward the former city known as Old Goa. In the light of a half moon, tranquil patties soaked on their right, and a large river flowed by on their left. They zigzagged through several small towns with red-tiled roofs. Their headlights fell on soft drink signs painted on the sides of buildings.
After several miles, the causeway joined up with firm land and they were driving through a jungle.
“We’ll stop here,” Rajiv whispered after a minute. “Our house is the third property on the left.”
Mick doused the headlights and pulled onto a wide shoulder of the empty road. He could easily make out house lights on the first two estates. After that, Casa do Rio sat hidden behind a high white wall.
He picked up a walkie-talkie and radioed the other two cars. “Alec’s team will set up on the right side of the road. Casa do Rio is the third bungalow on the left. Stay out of sight. Savage and I will drive past it, park a hundred meters upriver and swim back down to the grounds.”
Alec’s car peeled off and crashed through the woods to the right.
Mick clicked on his headlights and put the car in gear. As they approached Khan’s estate, he could see white paint peeling off the concrete wall. The only security at the front gate was a lone watchman. The gate itself was solid metal and he couldn’t see inside. Trees grew within the compound, their branches hanging over sharp shards of embedded glass on top of the wall.
He saw the watchman toss something into the dark. A group of gray monkeys grabbed and peeled it, a small banana. Their chattering increased. They made good lookouts as their cries could alert the guard.
Mick cruised a hundred meters past the bungalow and pulled into tall weeds along the river.
The men jumped out and checked their gear.
The communications NCO set his backpack in the weeds. “Should I inform Beta, sir?”
Mick let out an exasperated scowl.
Savage’s gruff voice intervened in the darkness. “Washington needs to know.”
“Give them one last try,” Mick told the radioman. “Tell Beta we’re going in. We don’t need their consent.”
A few minutes later, the radioman caught Mick’s attention. “No response, sir. I sent out word that we’re about to launch a raid, and I’m getting no signal back on the radio ship’s frequency. I tried our backup frequencies, and still no response.”
Mick thought for a moment. Per
haps the radio ship was remaining off the air on purpose, possibly to protect their operation.
“That’s it. Don’t broadcast any more,” Mick said. “Maintain radio silence.”
“Okay, men,” Savage said, buckling his diving belt. “Ready for a swim?”
“Our radio ship off the coast of India just received word that Fatal Sting is continuing their operations on their own, sir,” Park told the president over the phone. “They radioed that they were launching a raid.”
Labored breathing came over the line. At last the president responded. “Did you radio back to stop the operation?”
“No, sir. We purposefully broke off all communication with India.”
“Good. It’s out of our hands,” the president said quickly, as if suddenly in a giddy mood.
Park wondered if the president kept some booze in the Oval Office.
As he slowly hung up the phone, he felt a similar sense of relief. But his reaction was more prayerful. He began whispering as if talking directly to the troops on the ground. “I don’t care if you’re supposed to fail. Get that bastard and get that damned vaccine.”
Alec scoured the front of the bungalow with a night scope. His men could force their way through the gate, but not without alerting the guards inside. That would trigger a gun battle on unfamiliar ground.
The master sergeant tapped him on the shoulder. “If we surprise ’em, we might be able to penetrate.”
“If Mick feels we need to infiltrate, our job is to create a diversion. Only then can we penetrate.”
The engineer NCO whispered, “That wall might be reinforced. The best we can do with our equipment is to blast a few small holes in it.”
“Any better ideas about creating a diversion?” Alec asked around.
The master sergeant said slowly, “We can play some tricks.”
“Like what?”
“For one thing, we can arouse their suspicions. Get their guards’ attention. Pull their men over to this side of the building.”
“Go on.”
“We’ve got sleeping gas, flares, time delayed grenades.”