Patrick looked at Hal Briggs but said nothing. Hal was wearing the new and improved Tin Man battle armor, and he looked as if he was thoroughly enjoying it.
The first version of the electronic armor was designed to protect the wearer from bullets or bombs—fast-moving blunt trauma or shock—but did nothing to enhance strength. The new suit added a fibersteel exoskeleton structure with microhydraulically operated joints at the shoulders, elbows, hips, knees, and ankles, with stress supports on the hands, fingers, and feet. The suit’s onboard computers read and analyzed all of the body’s normal muscle movements and amplified them through the exoskeleton, giving the wearer unbelievable physical strength, speed, and enhanced agility.
“Now, let’s see if it fits in its convenient carrying case.” Hal entered a code into a small panel on his left gauntlet, which powered down the exoskeleton and released the bindings. The exoskeleton remained standing like some sort of metal sculpture or futuristic scarecrow. He entered another code into a small control panel inside the frame on the spine, and the exoskeleton started to fold itself. In less than thirty seconds, it had collapsed down to the size and weight of a small suitcase. Hal placed the folded exoskeleton into a padded duffel bag and slung it over his shoulder—because of its composite construction, it was light and easy to carry, although the fibersteel components were many times stronger than steel. “Very cool. Every kid should have one.” Hal stepped over to Patrick, the duffel bag slung on his back, and clasped his longtime friend on the shoulder. “You okay, Muck?” he asked.
Patrick shrugged. “It just feels like one of those days when you know something’s not going to go right.”
“Well, Wendy did a good job getting this thing tuned up,” Hal said, motioning to the bag on his shoulder. “It’s very cool. I want to start putting it through its paces right away, before Masters decides to invest production money on something else.”
“That may be sooner than you think,” they heard a voice say. The voice belonged to Kevin Martindale. He was watching the demonstration from a comer of the test chamber. The young, handsome, energetic former president stepped over and greeted Patrick and Hal. Kevin Martin- dale, also a former vice president, had stayed only one term in the White House. He was a strong military advocate, but was voted out of office mostly because of actions he failed to take when the United States was threatened. What the public did not know was that Martindale preferred to use secret, unconventional forces to destroy an enemy’s ability to make war before the situation grew worse.
Now Martindale was head of a secret organization called the Night Stalkers, composed of former military men and women, who performed similar unconventional-warfare missions around the world. But these operations were neither ordered nor sanctioned by any government—Martindale and his senior staff decided which missions to perform and how to perform them. In addition, squeezing or outright stealing money, weapons, and equipment from their their defeated opponents usually funded these operations.
“Very impressive,” Martindale said, a fascinated gleam in his eye. These days, Kevin Martindale wore his hair much longer than he did in his days in the White House or Congress, and he had grown a goatee. He looked and acted quite a bit differently than his more conservative, buttoned-down government persona: Patrick hadn’t yet decided if he liked the new Kevin Martindale. “One of Jon Masters’s new toys?”
“An old toy with some new tricks,” Hal responded, handing the duffel bag over to Martindale.
He was surprised at how lightweight it was. “That’s it? Everything but the armor and backpack?”
“That doubles the weight—still very transportable.”
“Excellent. We should talk to Jon and see if he can make a few units available to the Night Stalkers.”
“I’m sure that can be arranged,” Patrick assured him.
“With the usual three-hundred-percent markup,” Hal chimed in with a broad smile as he finished removing the Tin Man battle armor and stowing it in the duffel bag.
“Fine with me—I’m not paying for it,” Martindale responded dryly.
The comment bugged Patrick—it summarized all of Patrick’s misgivings about being part of the Night Stalkers. Yes, they were doing important work—capturing international drug dealers and criminals like Pavel Kazakov, the Russian oilman and Russian Mafia chieftain, who had the incredible audacity to bribe generals in the Russian army to invade and occupy Balkan states so he could build a pipeline across those countries and make it more profitable for him to ship oil to the West. They had captured Kazakov and dozens of other terrorists, drug dealers, assassins, and international fugitives in less than a year.
But no one in this group was independently wealthy. They had to do an old infantry soldier’s trick taken a few steps further: raid the land as they marched across it. Patrick himself had threatened Pavel Kazakov, one of the world’s most wealthy but most dangerous individuals, with taking his life in exchange for the tidy sum of half a billion dollars—he still made sure he was tossed into a Turkish prison, but he also threatened to kill him instead if he didn’t pay up. They had stolen guns, computer equipment and data, vehicles, aircraft, ships, and hacked into hundreds of bank accounts of known international criminals to raise money for their operations. The logic was simple: Not only did they arrest the bad guys, but they also substantially reduced their ability to carry on their criminal or terrorist enterprises.
Patrick tried to tell himself that it was all for the common good—but those words kept on ringing hollow.
“Good to see you came through your ‘test flight’ over Libya all right,” Martindale said to Patrick as they made their way out of the test lab. “But may I respectfully suggest you just get Dr. Masters to schedule some range time with the Air Force or Army on their ranges in North America to shoot down some missiles.”
“Unfortunately, we can’t blame that one on him, sir,” Patrick admitted. “The test flight idea was mine. Jon wanted to make a big splash to impress the Pentagon, and I picked the closest country I thought would take a shot at us without starting World War Three. It turned out to be one of the most successful test flights we’ve ever made in a Megafortress, and certainly the most successful one for the Dragon airborne laser.”
“Not too shabby for you either.”
“Sir?”
“I suppose you haven’t heard—I heard it from very back-channel sources,” Martindale said. “You know, of course, that President Thom has never chosen a national security adviser.”
“Yes, sir. He claims that the purpose of the President’s cabinet is to not only administer the government but to advise the President,” Patrick said. “He claims it’s the way our government was set up. He thinks bureaucrats like national security advisers distort and politicize the decisionmaking process.”
“What do you think of that?”
“I think any leader, especially the leader of the free world in the twenty-first century, needs all the advisers he can get,” Patrick replied. His eyes narrowed, and he looked at Martindale carefully. “Why?”
“Because your name was being bandied about as being on the President’s list for national security adviser.” Patrick stopped and looked at Martindale in complete surprise. “He’s putting together his reelection campaign, and the word is that folks would be more comfortable with him in a second term if he had a more identifiable, complete set of advisers—national security adviser being the number-one pick. That, it appears, is you”
“Me? That’s insane!” Patrick retorted.
“Why insane?” Martindale asked. “After you put together and then commanded that Air National Guard EB-1C Vampire unit over United Korea, you’re one of the most popular and well-known military guys out there. Some folks equate you with Jimmy Doolittle putting together the Tokyo air raids in World War Two, or with Colin Powell. The guys who have access can look at your record and just be amazed and awestruck at the stuff you’ve done. Plus, you have one more advantage.”
“Wh
at’s that?”
“You’re not Brad Elliott,” Martindale said with a smile. “They look at what you and your team did over Russia and Romania in the Kazakov incident, over Korea, over China, over Lithuania, and all the other secret missions you’ve been involved in over the years, and they realize that you were fighting for your people—that shows pride, determination, and tenacity. Brad Elliott didn’t fight for his people—Brad Elliott gladly sacrificed his people to do whatever he wanted. They know where you’re coming from. Thom likes that. I know you disagree with Thom on military policy. ..
“ ‘Disagree’? It goes way beyond ‘disagree,’ Mr. President! Thom was the one who had me involuntarily retired from the Air Force! Thom ordered my wife and son arrested by the FBI, and his Justice Department has got agents watching and listening in on Sky Masters Inc. night and day. Thom and I have absolutely nothing in common except loathing for each other.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, Thom likes surrounding himself with advisers that disagree with him,” Martindale said. “In fact, I can’t think of one person in his entire administration that thinks like him or is even remotely sim- patico with his throwback Jeffersonian ideology. Even his close friend Robert Goff and he constantly butt heads.” “I’d work with Goff, Kercheval, or even Busick any day,” Patrick said. “But there is no way in hell I’d ever serve under Thom.”
“Why?”
“We don’t just disagree—I feel his views of the military and America’s role in the world suck,” Patrick said. “America has the moral wisdom to use its military forces to protect peace and freedom around the world. This ‘stick-your- head-in-the-sand’ attitude is causing widespread uncertainty in the world, and scumbags like Pavel Kazakov are crawling out of the woodwork and taking advantage of it.”
“Then why wouldn’t you go to the White House and tell Thom what you think?”
“Because you can’t talk to guys like Thom. He’s a fanatic, an extremist ideologue. I’d be arguing real-world situations and alternatives to crises that require fast responses, and he’d be quoting Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. No, thanks.”
“You would decline to accept the nomination?”
“Loudly and publicly,” Patrick said finally.
Martindale nodded. “Good. You’re the heart of this team, Patrick—I hope you know that,” he said sincerely. “We’d exist without you, but we wouldn’t be the same— not nearly as dedicated, not nearly as hard-charging. I’d move heaven and earth to keep you here.”
“Thank you, sir,” Patrick said. “That means a lot.” Patrick and Hal followed Martindale into a secure conference room in the main headquarters building of the Sky Masters Inc. campus, a large industrial and research center in what was the old Blytheville Air Force Base in Arkansas, now called the Arkansas International Jetport. They warmly greeted Patrick’s brother Paul, one of the first members of the Night Stalkers and the most experienced Tin Man battle armor user, along with Chris Wohl, a retired Marine Corps master sergeant and Hal Briggs’s longtime partner. Martindale took his place at the apex of the conference table while Patrick secured the room, then motioned for Chris Wohl to begin:
“We are closely monitoring developments on the border between Libya and Egypt,” Wohl began. “Libya has recently sent several thousand troops to the Sudan, on Egypt’s southern border, supposedly to support the president of the Sudan against rebel insurgents that are using Chad as a safe haven. However, the insurgency was crushed last year, and Libyan forces remain deployed in three Sudanese bases—all within a day’s armored vehicle march of five major Egyptian oil fields. Egypt has reinforced its armed forces in the region and maintains a rough parity with Libyan forces.”
“So Libya wants to take Egypt’s oil fields?”
“That’s nothing new,” Martindale said, “although they’ve preferred in the past to try to form a partnership with Egypt in developing its oil reserves. However, Egypt wants to form a consortium with some Western oil companies to tap its oil fields.”
“Lots more money that way, I’d guess,” Briggs offered.
“Exactly right—and ExxonMobil and Shell don’t bring troops with them to the contract-signing ceremonies,” Martindale said. “The consortium wants to build a four- hundred-and-sixty-mile-long pipeline from southern Egypt to the Mediterranean Sea capable of shipping two million barrels of crude per day, along with building refineries. It’s a three-billion-dollar project that Libya desperately wants to get involved with.”
“Doesn’t Libya already export oil?” Paul McLanahan asked.
“Yes, but with U.S. sanctions still in place, they don’t ship much to the West,” Martindale replied. “The new president of Libya, who calls himself King Idris the Second, is even worse than Muammar Qadhafi. Idris, whose real name is Zuwayy, has reorganized the Muslim Brotherhood, the group of Muslim fanatics that seeks to make every Arabic-speaking nation in the world a theocracy— governed and steered by strict fundamentalist doctrine. Libya, Sudan, and Yemen are solidly in his hip pocket; Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan are leaning toward him; Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Egypt so far oppose him.”
“And the Muslim Brotherhood has been linked with the assassination of President Salaam of Egypt and his wife,” Hal Briggs added. “Sounds like recruitment by intimidation to me. Join—or else.”
“It looks like Zuwayy’s going further than just assassination,” Martindale said. “Sergeant Wohl?”
“Intelligence experts suspect that Libya has imported surface-to-surface missiles from someone—China, Pakistan, Russia, we don’t know for sure yet—and has set up several bases from which to stage attacks into Egypt to destroy their military forces,” Wohl went on. “The rumor is, the missiles have chemical, biological, and nuclear warheads, as well as conventional high-explosives. We have been tasked to find those missiles, identify them, and destroy them if possible.”
“‘Intelligence experts’?” Patrick asked suspiciously. “Who might they be, sir? I know we’re not getting any cooperation from U.S. agencies.”
Kevin Martindale looked at Patrick with a mixture of irritation and surprise in his features. “A group hired by the Central African Petroleum Partners,” Martindale replied uneasily.
“You mean the oil consortium with a stake in the Egyptian oil fields?”
“Do you have a problem working for them, General?” Martindale asked.
“Sir, I want to head off trouble as much as anyone,” Patrick said. “And I certainly don’t like Zuwayy any more than I liked Qadhafi and the terrorist organizations they sponsor. But I don’t like the idea of being a hired gun for an oil cartel, either.”
“Would you like them better if I told you we would be getting our first paychecks out of this?” Martindale asked. “That’s the difference between this mission and all the others—we are given a target, but we’re also well compensated for our services.”
Patrick fell silent, but the eagerness was evident in Hal Briggs’s and Paul McLanahan’s eyes. The reason was clear: They had the most to lose and the most to gain out of this. Martindale, Patrick, and Chris Wohl all had government pensions waiting for them; in addition, Patrick was a vice president of Sky Masters Inc., for which he was very well paid. But Hal Briggs resigned his Air Force commission well before retirement age, and Paul McLanahan had only a small disability check from the Sacramento Police Department, where he was a sworn officer for only a few weeks before being retired with a one-hundred-percent disability. Neither of them had earned any money in many months, and had been relying on gifts from Martindale and Patrick.
“How much are we talkin’ about here, Mr. President?” Hal asked.
“I accepted a twenty-million-dollar contract for our services, plus a bonus for complete destruction of all known missile installations,” Martindale replied. “I will pay every man in this room twenty-five thousand dollars a day, beginning as soon as you accept this mission.”
“Pe
r ...day...?”
“Our support team members will earn ten thousand dollars . .. and yes, that’s per day, tax free,” Martindale went on. “The Night Stalkers will pay Sky Masters Inc. full retail price for the equipment and supplies we use. Sound okay with you, gentlemen?” Hal slapped his hands together excitedly, and Paul looked jubilant—even Chris Wohl nodded in approval, even though he wore his same expressionless warrior’s mask. Martindale studied their faces, then settled on Patrick’s. “All right with you, General?” he asked.
Patrick looked at Paul and Hal’s happy faces. Paul gave his brother an excited slap on the back—it had been a long time since he had seen him smile like that. “Yes, sir,” Patrick finally responded. “It’s okay with me.”
“Outstanding,” Martindale said. He punched up instructions into a computer, and the results were projected onto a large flat-panel monitor on the conference-room wall. “The intelligence we’ve received indicates several new Libyan missile bases scattered around the country. I’ll leave it up to you and your support team to figure out the best way to proceed, but after speaking with Master Sergeant Wohl here, he suggests a soft probe of the most likely bases, followed by an unmanned aircraft strike to soften up the base’s defenses, followed by a hard-target penetration. It’s up to you—but I hasten to remind you of a substantial performance bonus for each one of you if the danger to the consortium’s pipeline is eliminated. Enough said. Good luck, and good hunting.”
As was his custom, Martindale never stuck around for the details—the planning, training, organization, logistics, or movement of the Night Stalkers was never something he was concerned about. He gave marching orders, then left it to the teams to carry out the plan. Within minutes, they heard his helicopter depart, on its way to his next meeting. Patrick had little idea what he did, where he went, or whom he spoke to as the former president of the United States.
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