“Can’t they be off-loaded in small boats and ferried ashore?” Farrar asked. “That was one of our contingency plans we had as a backup in case of trouble.”
Kareem shook his head. “The commanders of the ships feel it would pose an unacceptable risk, my leader, with the shore under the control of the Scouts. The smaller boats would make easy targets for the snipers and Scouts on shore. They’d never make it intact, and the heavy equipment would need cranes to be off-loaded, a feat plainly impossible now.”
“Allah forgive me for what I am thinking now,” Farrar said with heavy feeling.
“There is more, Abdullah,” Kareem said hesitantly.
“What else could there be, my friend?” Farrar asked suspiciously.
“I have been unable to make contact with our men in Boise since four hours ago.”
“Boise?” Araman asked. “What is this place?”
“It is where our planes are scheduled to land in . . .” Farrar glanced at a watch on his wrist. “Three hours,” he finished.
“Have you alerted the planes to divert to a safer landing spot?” Farrar asked, a worried frown on his face.
Sweat beaded Kareem’s forehead and ran in rivulets down his face, though the temperature of the room was not all that hot. It was plain he didn’t want to speak.
“No, sir,” he almost croaked through dry lips.
“And why not?” Farrar asked, his face freezing in an unreadable mask.
“It seems the Americans are blocking our transmissions with some scrambling devices we were not aware they had,” Kareem answered slowly.
Farrar slammed his hand down on the table, spilling his carafe of fruit juice and making the remains of his dinner jump into the air.
“It is that damned Ben Raines again,” he snarled. “Our intelligence was sure the Americans had no such technology. Raines must have brought his experts in to aid the Osterman government.”
“Why wasn’t this eventuality foreseen?” Araman asked in a nasty tone, glaring at Farrar.
Farrar returned his stare, his face flushing at the implied insult. “We had no idea the SUSA would join forces with a country they were just at war with months ago,” he said firmly.
“This is an unforgivable oversight,” Araman said, crossing his arms.
“Do you dare to dispute my leadership?” Farrar asked dangerously, his hand going to the hilt of the ceremonial dagger in his belt.
Araman’s eyes saw the movement and his face blanched. He knew the Desert Fox was not a man to take an insult lightly, no matter the justice of it.
“No . . . no, of course not,” he stammered, sweat now breaking out on his face. He knew he was moments away from a nasty death if he didn’t speak just the right words.
“I meant no insult to your leadership, my friend,” he said slowly. “It is the intelligence men who gave you bad advice and who should be punished.”
Farrar nodded slowly, his lips turning up in an evil grin. “And so they shall be, Osama,” he said in a hoarse voice.
He turned to Kareem. “Is there any way you can see to warn the airplanes off?” he asked.
Kareem shook his head. “No, I’m afraid not. We should have the scrambler code broken within hours, but by then it will be too late.”
“Then let us pray to Allah that it is the scrambling that is keeping us out of touch with Boise, and that the Scouts of Ben Raines are not in control of the airport,” Farrar said.
Thirty
President Claire Osterman called a staff meeting, to include Ben Raines, for eight o’clock in the morning.
When Ben walked in, the rest of Claire’s staff was already present. He noticed she had her arm out of its sling for the first time and that her bodyguard, Herb Knoff, looked less pale and more fit than he had at their last meeting.
Ben nodded to those present: Wallace W Cox of Finance; Gerald Boykin of Defense; Clifford Ainsworth of Propaganda; Josh Currey, the Chief of Intel; General Maxwell Goddard; and Herb Knoff.
Ben turned his attention to Claire. “I’m glad to see both you and Mr. Knoff are looking better this morning,” he said.
Clair unconsciously flexed her arm and looked over at Herb, her eyes softening as she did so. “Me too,” she said.
Herb just gave a small smile of thanks, and continued to drink his coffee from his corner position.
Ben noticed the look in Claire’s eyes when she glanced at Herb and thought, There’s more there than an employer/employee relationship. He considered the implications of Claire getting her ashes hauled on a regular basis, and came to the conclusion it was probably the best for everyone concerned—especially as it seemed to have mellowed her once-fiery disposition a great deal.
“Well, let’s get started,” Claire said, smiling. Evidently she was in an exceptionally good mood this morning. “What do you have for us today, Josh,” she asked the Intel chief.
Josh actually smiled for the first time since Ben had met him. “The news is pretty good this morning,” he said, looking down at a sheaf of papers and radiograms on his lap. “It seems General Raines’s Scouts have done an excellent job of stopping the invaders in their tracks. From what I can gather from our reports, many of the terrorist gangs have been completely obliterated, while a number of others have been stopped and are currently bottled up where they are, unable to move forward.”
Claire grinned at the good news and looked over at Ben. “That is excellent news, Ben. How did so few of your Scouts manage to halt the progress of so many of the terrorists?” she asked.
General Goddard scowled in Ben’s direction and cleared his throat. “I can tell you, Madam President, and I don’t think you’re gonna like it,” he growled.
Claire frowned as she looked from one man to the other. “What’s on your mind, Max?” she asked. “You seem particularly testy this morning.”
“I am, Claire, and I’ll tell you why. His Scouts took the unauthorized action of passing out military arms and munitions to our citizens over the past few days. Now we’ve got a bunch of untrained civilians running around armed to the teeth, shooting up neighborhoods and cities and doing no telling what with these very powerful weapons.”
Claire chewed on her lip as she considered this latest information. Finally, she asked, “Is this true, Ben?”
Ben shrugged. “Yeah, it is.”
“Weren’t you aware that this country has a law against citizens owning or being in possession of firearms of any kind?” she asked.
“Claire, you asked for the help of me and my forces to rid your country of these invading terrorists,” Ben said evenly, trying to keep his temper. “To do that job, I brought in our finest teams of Scouts and sent them up against an enemy who outnumbered them twenty to one.”
“I’m aware of that, Ben,” Claire said.
He shrugged. “Arming the citizens was the only possible way we were going to successfully halt the spread of the terrorists throughout your country.”
“But Ben, the law plainly states . . .” she began.
“Would you rather have El Farrar and his terrorists sitting here in your office dictating new laws to you, Claire?” Ben asked testily. “ ’Cause that’s what you were staring dead in the face forty-eight hours ago.”
He glanced at General Goddard. “And if you don’t believe me, just ask the general over there.”
Goddard’s face flamed red as Claire turned to stare at him. “Is that true, Max?” she asked. “Could you have halted the advance of these invaders short of arming our citizens?”
Goddard hemmed and hawed for a few moments, and then he looked down at his hands clenched into fists in his lap. “No, ma’am, I don’t believe so,” he admitted.
“Well, then,” Claire said, her face lightening up and her previous good mood reappearing. “No harm done. Once these terrorists are driven out of our lands, we’ll just ask the civilians to turn in their weapons and all will be just as it was before.”
Ben suppressed the smile that threatened to form
on his lips at this naive idea, even as Clifford Ainsworth snorted loudly through his nose.
Claire stared at the Minister of Propaganda as if he were going crazy. “You had something to say, Cliff?” she asked with an edge to her voice.
Ainsworth took a deep breath. “With all due respect, Madam President, I’m afraid that will never happen.”
Claire narrowed her eyes, noticed Ben’s expression, and turned to him. “You agree with that, Ben?” she asked.
He nodded. “Yes, Claire, I do,” he answered.
“Why, pray tell?”
“Freedom, and the ability to defend oneself and one’s country, is a heady drug, Claire,” Ben said, wondering how he could explain this to a woman who’d built her empire on the very fact of depriving her people of such a commodity. “Giving people a taste of freedom, a taste of self-respect and self-autonomy, and then asking them to give it up is kinda like giving a child a taste of candy and then saying ‘no more.’ ”
“I don’t believe it,” Claire said stubbornly. “When I first took office and passed the laws about private ownership of weapons, the people were only too happy to give them up and let the government take care of defending them.”
“Not to put too fine a point on it, Claire,” Ben said gently, “but that was also when you lost almost half your population to the SUSA—the half that refused to give up their arms and live under the government’s thumb.”
She shook her head. “But that’s just it, Ben. All of those barbaric malcontents left and moved to your country. The people who elected to stay here believe in a gun-free society.”
Ben shrugged. “Maybe so, Claire, and maybe I’m wrong, but remember, that was before they found out that the government might not be able to defend them in all circumstances.”
“If I may,” Wallace Cox interrupted.
“Yes, Wally,” Claire said.
“Why don’t we table this argument until we get to the point we’re discussing; then we’ll know who’s right and who’s wrong.”
“A good idea, I think,” Claire said, though she still had a worried look on her face as if she thought Ben might be right after all.
She glanced at Josh Currey. “Anything else from Intel, Josh?”
“Yes,” he answered, again referring to his notes. “We have information that several transport ships headed toward San Francisco turned and headed back to Vancouver Island after the Scouts destroyed the docks there.”
Goddard nodded slowly, a smile on his face. “Now there was a good piece of work. We may’ve dodged a large bullet by preventing those ships from landing.”
“Count on it,” Ben said. “My Intel was in contact with Canada, and they said those ships were loaded with heavy equipment and thousands of troops.”
“Also,” Currey added, “Ben informed me of a development near Boise, Idaho.”
Claire looked at Ben. “Go on.”
“My Scouts that took control of the airport there sent me word they had information several planes are due to land that are somehow connected to the terrorists.”
“What kind of planes?” Goddard asked.
“C-130 transport planes,” Ben answered. “It is their theory that these planes are also supposed to unload heavy equipment and troop reinforcements.”
“Couldn’t our Air Force shoot them down?” Claire asked the general.
He shrugged. “We could if we knew where they were coming from or when they were due to arrive. As it is, they could cross down from Canadian airspace and be on the ground before we could scramble a squadron to intercept them.”
She turned back to Ben. “So what’s going on?” she asked, frowning.
Ben smiled. “So far, my team is using a scrambling device to keep the terrorists from contacting the planes and warning them we have control of the airport. If we’re lucky, the planes will come on in thinking the terrorists are still in control and we’ll have them in our crosshairs.”
“So,” Claire said, stroking her chin thoughtfully, “you plan to let the planes land and then take the troops prisoner?”
Ben laughed. “Not hardly, Claire. Remember, I only have a few people there. They couldn’t possibly take a large number of troops prisoner and contain them safely.”
“But what do you plan to do?” she asked.
“Have a surprise party for the planes when they try to land,” he said quickly, a nasty grin on his face.
“You don’t mean you’d deliberately crash them, do you?” Ainsworth asked incredulously. “Why, you’d kill all those poor men on the planes.”
Ben looked at him as if he had a screw loose. “All those innocent men you’re so worried about are on the way to your country to bury you, bub,” he said sarcastically. “What do you want my people to do? Invite them in for tea?”
Claire held up her hands, trying to hide a smile. She too thought her Minister of Propaganda was a bit of a wimp, and was glad Ben had put him in his place.
“I’m sure Ben’s Scouts will not do any unnecessary killing, will they, Ben?” she asked.
He shook his head, his face hard. “No, they won’t kill a soul that doesn’t deserve it,” he said, leaving no mistake about what he meant.
Thirty-one
Harley Reno had the air traffic controllers help Jim Short, the captured FFA man, haul the mangled bodies of the dead guards down the stairs from the control tower and lay them on the ground.
Once that was done, he asked Anna and Beth and Corrie to assist the controllers in checking out the tower’s equipment and making sure it was still in working order. Some of the machines had bullet holes in them, while others were dark, with none of their lights coming on.
“You think you can get it up and running?” Harley asked the lead controller, a man named Butch Gottlieb.
Butch scratched his balding head and gave a half grin. “Damned if I know, partner, but I’ll see what we can do.”
Harley smiled back. “That’s all we can ask, Butch,” he said as he prodded Jim Short in the back with his Beretta side arm.
“Come on, traitor, let’s go on over to the main terminal and see how things are going,” he said to the FFA man.
As they drove over to the terminal in Harley’s HumVee, they could see flames inside the building and shattered glass where most of the windows used to be.
“Looks like they had a helluva party over here,” Harley observed, more to himself than to Short.
When he and Short entered through the front doorway, Harley felt a funny feeling in his stomach when he saw his best friend, Hammer Hammerlick, lying on the floor in a large pool of blood, with Jersey and Coop working over him.
Harley gestured with his pistol to a nearby chair. “Sit down over there and don’t even think about moving,” he said to his captive.
Short nodded and sat in the chair, glancing around at all the dead FFA men he’d planned and worked with over the years, now thinking what fools they’d been.
Harley rushed to squat next to Hammer, who gave him a lopsided grin. “Howdy, podna,” Hammer said, his voice croaking through a dry throat.
Harley shook his head, trying to look severe. “Hammer, goddamnit, how many times have I told you, when they shoot at you, duck! ”
Hammer squinted his eyes against the pain as Jersey increased the pressure on his combat field dressing. “I must’ve slept through that lecture,” he said through clenched, gritted teeth.
Harley glanced at Coop. “He gonna be all right?” he asked, his face neutral.
Coop nodded. “Yeah. He lost some muscle and lots of blood, but Jersey got to him pretty fast and got the leaking stopped, so it should do okay.”
“Any other casualties?”
Coop shook his head. “Nope. We were pretty lucky. Guess they weren’t expecting any trouble or they would’ve been ready for us.”
“You save any, or did you kill ’em all?” Harley asked, glancing over his shoulder at Short to make sure he hadn’t moved anywhere.
“We got two still
alive, but they’re pretty badly shot up. Doubt if they’ll make it unless they get to a hospital pretty soon.”
“You doin’ all right?” Harley said to Hammer, putting a hand on his uninjured shoulder.
Hammer nodded without opening his eyes. “Sure thing, Boss. You go on and take care of business.”
Harley stood up, motioning Coop to follow him. They walked over to stand in front of Short.
“Come on, Short,” Harley said. Then to Coop: “Show us the wounded men.”
Coop led them down a corridor to an office where two men were lying on couches, covered with bloodstained blankets.
“You know these two?” Harley asked Short.
The captive nodded. “Yeah. That one’s Sammy Sousa and he’s Billy Wesson.”
“Either one of them the man in charge here tonight?” Harley asked.
Short’s lips firmed up in a tight line. “Under the rules of the Geneva Convention, I only have to tell you my name and rank . . .” he started to say.
“Hold on there, compadre,” Harley said, stepping up until his face was inches from Short’s.
“I’ll bet you’ve never even read the Articles of the Geneva Convention, have you?”
“Uh ... well, no, but . . .” Short said, an uncertain look on his face.
“First of all, when your country used germ and chemical warfare in the last war, they violated the articles and thus are no longer subject to their rules. Secondly, you’re not a soldier in uniform. You’re in civilian clothes, which technically makes you a spy.”
“But . . .” Short stuttered.
“No buts, bub,” Harley said, his voice hard as nails. “Under the Articles, I’m perfectly justified in shooting you on sight. Understand?”
Short dropped his eyes and stared at the floor, defeated. “Yes.”
“Now, is either of these men your commanding officer?” Harley asked again.
Short inclined his head toward one of the men on the couch. “That one. Billy Wesson. He was in charge.”
Harley nodded. “Good. Now we’re getting somewhere. Now, all I see when I look around the airport here is white faces. I thought all you FFA guys were working in conjunction with Arab terrorist teams.”
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