"Wouldn't be the first time."
***
QUANTICO, VIRGINIA:
Donald Gene pulled his Corvette into the parking lot outside the briefing building. The parking lot was filling up with vehicles; he saw Butch Verlaine making his way to the building, pulling his Delsey suitcase behind him. Don got out of his Corvette, his Hawaiian shirt hanging open over his naked chest, his baggy shorts still damp, his Teva sandals tracking sand.
"Hey, Homey," he called to Butch. "What the fuck is all this about?"
"I don't know. They just told me to get here and to bring my stuff, so here I am."
Don followed Butch into the building. There were several sets of suitcases and piles of gear set up in the entryway alcove; all of the slots in the storage lockers against the walls were filled. In the briefing room, most of the available seats were taken, and marshals slouched on tables or leaned against the walls. In defiance of the 'No Smoking' signs, several smokers, led by Warren Maid, puffed away.
"Hey, faggot," Don called to Warren, who lifted his middle finger in response.
"Anybody know what is going on?" Don asked.
Several marshals turned towards him in amusement. "Don't you?" they asked.
"Fuck, nobody tells me anything."
"This is the Air Marshal Special Olympics and you're in charge of the cock sucking squad," Warren said.
"Remind me to give you some naked pictures of your wife before you give that assignment away, Maid," Don said.
"Ooooh," said one of the marshals.
Warren grinned. "Love your shirt, Donnie. Where's your pukka shells and white socks?"
"That's enough of that," said Simon Dinkey, who had entered unseen behind Don. "Let's get started, we've got work to do."
"Yeah!" Don said, grabbing Dinkey's arm and sashaying along as though he were at the prom. "You heard what my honey said."
Dinkey shook Don's arm off and stalked away. Don saw Charley standing against the wall, a grim look on his face. He made his way through the glad handing marshals to his partner's side.
"What's the story, buddy?" Don asked.
"Special deployment," Charley said. "It's getting ugly. Here and over there." He nodded at Dinkey and Crock, who were huddled near the podium with General Stone and Al Garber, the head of Intelligence.
"We just stood down, man." Don looked around the room. "We've got three teams in here, where they going to send all of us? I need more time on the beach to recharge my tender young body and restore my bodily juices."
"Whatever," Charley said.
"They drag you in from a funeral, or what?"
"Maria was visiting me this weekend."
Don was genuinely glad, and surprised. He thought Charley was his happiest and most efficient when he was dating Maria. Secretly he thought that the two of them might link up permanently if Charley ever got over his wounded warrior routine.
"When did she come out?"
"Friday."
"Oh, shit, man."
Mike Crock stood at the podium and cleared his throat several times. "Guys? Guys? Can we get..."
"I look like a fucking guy to you, Mikey?" Stacy Grace snapped from the second row of seats.
Don turned and looked at her, then took his friend by the arm and steered them into seats in the last row. "What's your point, Stacy?" he called out as he settled into his seat.
"That's enough!" Dinkey snapped. "We have business to take care of. Take your seats, all of you."
General Stone cleared his voice, and the rest of the marshals slouched into the row seating. A few, Warren Maid among them, leaned against the wall.
"Thanks, guys," Mike Crock said. "I'm glad to see you all..."
"Speak for yourself," Stacy said from the front.
"...we've got a situation here, and it's a pretty serious one. Simon will be delivering the rest of the briefing..."
"Simon," Don muttered.
"...so let me just turn things over to him. Simon?"
"Like you haven't already?" Warren Maid said.
Dinkey fixed Warren with a long stare from the podium. "Let me begin, marshals. We have recent information, from the CIA and Department of Defense, that a known hijacking team leader has been spotted in the same theater of operations as some of our air marshal teams. This spotting coincides with detailed surveillance on some of our teams..."
"What other teams?" Butch said to Don.
"There weren't any other teams under surveillance," Don said.
"...and so in light of this new information, and the heightened threat against US civil aviation, we are launching this operation, IRIS FURY, to..."
Several of the marshals looked at each other and mouthed "IRIS FURY?" Don shook his head and looked at Charley, who stared silently at Dinkey.
"...counter this threat. We are putting three units: 10, 30, and 70 into the European theater of operations. Unit 70 will be led by Warren Maid..."
Warren mimed a masturbatory motion in front of his crotch.
"...Unit 30 by Drew Harding..."
Drew, from Seattle, a former Military Police officer who was despised by most of the cadre, sat straighter in his seat.
"...and Unit 10 by Harold D. Blooming. These assignments..."
"Are completely fucking asinine," Don said, standing up. "Unit 10 has a permanent team leader, Harold's not even on the team!"
"Sit down, Don," Charley said.
"No, goddammit. It's about time somebody told this idiot that he's not in the USMC anymore and nobody cares whose ass he's kissing! This has gone beyond stupid into fucked up beyond all recognition. I'm not going to tolerate somebody playing with my life!"
There were murmurs of assent from the marshals seated on the benches. General Stone stepped forward and spoke clearly.
"Don, I hear what you're saying." He fixed his clear blue eyes on the angry SEAL. "Listen to me now. There's no game playing here. We're trying to make the best of the situation. We know you just stood down, but you're going to have to march on. We brought in fresh people for key positions to give you who have been working so hard a little slack...even while we're asking you into the breach once more. Hang with us, Don. We need you."
"That's correct," Dinkey interjected smoothly. "There's no offense intended here, we're just looking out for you."
"Bullshit," Don said. He looked over to Charley for support. "Don't you have anything to say?"
Charley sat with his arms crossed, staring through Dinkey. "Not a thing, Don. Not a thing." He looked over at his friend. "I really don't give a shit one way or the other."
"You're getting pretty fucking fatalistic on me, Charley."
"Maybe I'm just getting realistic. Or maybe just sick to death."
Don sat down and looked with genuine concern at his friend. "Whatever."
On the podium, Al Garber stepped up beside Dinkey to give the threat briefing. Garber was a smiling, low key man, who had spent twenty years with the Secret Service, and had flown with the marshals for a couple of years before he took the Intelligence position. Under his calm and measured hand, the Intelligence Unit, once the bastard stepchild of the intelligence community, had started to gain a measure of respect. His liaison work with CIA had gone a long way towards easing the Agency's concerns with the FAA. With the better relationship had come an improved flow of useful intelligence.
"How you all doing?" Al said in his soft Texas accent. "We've got some information to pass on to you all, so let me get on with it. I'd like to thank Charley Dey and Don Nelson for the help they gave the Agency over in Europe..."
"Let's get on with it, Garber. Time is short," Dinkey interrupted.
Garber looked coldly at Dinkey. "Like I was saying, I want to thank these two for their work. The leads they developed regarding the surveillances in Frankfurt, Athens and Istanbul were substantive and very useful to the intelligence community in developing the threat profile." Garber nodded to Don and Charley.
"This is the picture: There's been surveillance o
f the air marshal units in Europe. A known terrorist with experience in hijacking has been identified meeting with a principal terrorist logistics expert. There's been movement of logistical and intelligence cells in Europe."
Al nodded again to Charley. Dinkey's face reddened.
"Information developed from other intelligence agencies," Al continued. "Indicates that a class recently graduated from the hijacking school run by HizbAllah in the Bekaa Valley. The curriculum appears to have been recently upgraded to add detailed information on air marshal operations. To summarize, we expect a hijacking attempt on a US air carrier in the European theater. We expect the hijacking team to be comprised of highly trained and well led operatives, either veterans of the Kuwaiti operation and/or graduates of the hijacking school. We expect this team to be comprised of between eight and fourteen hijackers."
There was a stir among the marshals; most hijackers operated in two to four man teams. While there was never a definite count on the Kuwaiti hijacking, estimates put the number of hijackers between eight and ten.
"That's right," Garber went on. "A lot of bodies with guns. We don't believe that they'll attack an aircraft they know is protected by marshals. However, the possibility exists. Our strategy is to flood the flights with as much coverage as possible. This will serve as a deterrent in several ways: the word will get out, through the airlines and airport operations, that there are a lot of armed American marshals working these flights. In addition, we will be putting out additional security advisories requiring more security measures on all US flights. On the high-threat routes, we will mount full time coverage; random coverage on all others. By raising the tempo of operations, we hope to deter any hijacking operation. Concurrently, elements of the USGOV will be working with foreign governments to try and track down these people. We believe that this combination will deter any possible hijacking. Any questions?"
"Yeah, Al," Warren Maid said. "What about coverage in the other theaters? We're going to be stretched pretty thin here. What about if the terrorists just move their operation elsewhere?"
"That's a good question, Warren. We've considered that. At this point we don't have any information that indicates that they have in-place capability, resources or shooters anywhere but in Europe."
"Has there been any positive ID of shooters or action cells in our area?" Stacy asked.
"The only positive ID we have is on the known team leader. We haven't made any shooting or direct action cells. We have identified several logistical cell members."
"What are your thoughts about them mounting an attack on a covered flight?" Charley asked.
"That would be stupid," Dinkey snapped.
"It's a reasonable question," Garber overrode Dinkey. "We think it's unlikely. They would have to get their people past the profile, weapons and explosives past the detectors, get past your people on board till take off, and eliminate all the marshals before they could be assured that they had control of the aircraft. While anything's possible, it doesn't make sense to tackle something that hard, when they can pick a softer target."
"What if they just want to kill marshals?" Charley said flatly.
"Then why not do it on the ground? You're a softer target there," Garber countered.
Charley shrugged. Don watched the interplay with interest.
"What's your feeling on this, Charley?" he asked as Garber went on with the briefing.
"I think they want to kill us, Don," Charley said. "I think it's not enough that they can take a plane. I think they want to take a plane with us on it."
***
Harold stood nervously in front of Air Marshal Unit 10. There were three other marshals in the conference room to bring the team up to twelve. Shirleen Walker was a tough dishwater blond ex-Jacksonville cop who had just returned to the cadre after having had a child; Dyer Shaw was a retired Air Force military policeman, an old-timer who flew with Unit 40, and Ray Rydell was a jug-eared redhead just out of training with Jon and Joan. Ray was huddled in the corner with Jon and Joan. Don and Charley sat at the far end of the table away from Harold. Don stared coolly at him. Charley looked down at his mission book and flipped aimlessly through the pages.
Harold straightened to his full five feet eight inches, and said, "Hey, everybody, I'd like to get started." The looks he got back weren't encouraging. About half were neutral, which was better than he had hoped, but the other half were openly hostile.
"Look," he began. "I didn't ask for this job, I was told to do it. I got a lot of respect for Charley and Don, and I'm not up here saying I'm better than them or anybody else in here. But I got tasked with the job and I've got to do it. I'd appreciate it if you guys would help me out. Like you said, Don, there's enough politics and backstabbing going around where we don't need to add to it." Harold was surprised to see Charley nodding in agreement. Encouraged, he went on: "We all need to focus on the mission, and I'm going to need all the help I can get..."
***
Charley tuned out Harold's drone, and just nodded everytime the nervous young marshal looked his way. His own thoughts were far away. Maria had taken the news of his departure gracefully.
"It's your job, Charley," she said softly, looking away. "It's what you do. It's not who you are." She smiled. "Call me when you get back...maybe next time you should come to Tucson. You won't be so easy to find, then."
He dropped her off at the Dulles terminal. On the drive out to Quantico, he thought long and hard about what his future might hold. His passion for the mission was fading; he was old enough, mature enough, to know there were things he was missing, things he still had time for, things like a good marriage, children, quiet times. He had enough money saved so he wouldn't have to work right away. He could work for a small police department, or find a straight job, get out of the business altogether. Charley was tired and burnt out. He had to be careful with that.
"...and Charley, I'd like you to be my assistant team leader, if you would," Harold's question interrupted Charley's reverie.
"I'm sorry, Harold. I don't think that would be appropriate, in light of the command decisions here...besides, I'm going to enjoy having a vacation from all that. I'm sure you'll do just fine," Charley said pleasantly.
"Don?" Harold asked, hesitantly.
"No."
"Stacy?"
"I'd rather not, Harold."
"Look, I need somebody experienced..."
"All right, all right!" Stacy snapped. "I'll cover for you, Harold." She looked at Charley.
"Thanks, Stacy," Harold said. "Well, that's all I've got. There's a shuttle to Dulles in five hours. Here's a sheet with the cell seat assignments and hotels. I'll see you on the shuttle, I've got to talk to Mike and Simon." Harold hurried out of the room.
Stacy turned to Charley and Don. "How can you let this go? Harold can't do this."
"He looked like he was doing fine to me, Stacy," Charley said.
The other marshals stared at Charley with disbelief.
"What's up with you, Charley?" Butch asked. "I can't believe how you're taking this."
"What am I supposed to do, Butch?" Charley said evenly. "I can throw a tantrum and get pulled off the team, or I can keep my mouth shut and do my job and be here if it goes down. At least I'm here. Harold might do a good job if you all let him."
"Jesus, Charley," Don said.
"You know I'm right, Don. Give the kid a chance. I could use a break and so could you. How long has it been since you just flew?"
"So long I don't remember."
"Then let's go outside and smoke a cigar and celebrate having a little slack time. All right? And the rest of you give Harold a break. Especially you, Stacy."
"A fucking team within a team, leaders within leaders," Dyer Shaw said.
"Shut up, Shaw, or I'll use your head for a bullet stop," Butch said.
"They must have a tight schedule if they're not going to have us shoot," Steve said.
"That's a good point, Steve," Stacy said. "Go round up the new bloo
ds and get some bullets. Take em out and check them out, will you?"
"Sure Stacy," Stevey said. He pointed at Jon and Joanne and the other augmented marshals, who filed behind him out the door.
Shirleen brought up the rear, grumbling. "This is my last goddamn mission, I tell you. I'm sick of this shit."
"Word, home girl," Stacy said. "How's that baby boy?"
"Growing like a horse, Stace," Shirleen said. "Got a dick on him bigger than Nelson's."
"That ain't saying much," Stacy said.
***
Karen fiddled nervously with her blond hair and avoided Simon Dinkey's stare. Dinkey sat motionless and silent, his hands carefully folded on top of the tidy desk in the administration office, until she spoke.
"I'm not comfortable with this," Karen said. "I'm spying on my team mates. I didn't see anything like you said. All I've seen so far is us get treated like criminals at the airport."
"There's a lot going on you don't see, Karen. There's the big picture. The information you've provided is useful in that."
"But he's a good team leader! I don't understand why I have to do this!"
"Like I said, there is a larger picture. I need you to do this. This will be helpful to you down the road, Karen. You help me, and I help you."
The two of them continued talking for a time, and neither one noticed Stacy Bagley and Steve Paulson pausing outside of the door for a time.
***
Simon Dinkey and General Ira Stone stood in the terminal at Dulles airport and watched the bus-like people movers pull away and head out onto the tarmac. Some of those people movers carried air marshals, deploying out to their aircraft bound for Paris, Frankfurt and London. Once there, the teams would spread out and begin their coverage of the high-threat routes.
"We're spreading them thin, Simon," General Stone said.
"Yes sir. We need to keep coverage up in Asia, though, and we need to have reserves." Dinkey brushed at his hair.
"It's unprofessional, you know...this feud you have going on with Charley Dey. I want it to stop," General Stone said casually. "Dey is the best leader we've got, with some of the best connections in the business we have. A lot of the respect we get from other members of the community comes because of Dey."
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