“You’re on, Fred.”
Jackson could tell something was wrong, but he decided not to pursue it further. He nodded toward the televisions. “So what do you think we’ll do over in Egypt? Anything?”
Patrick shrugged as he readjusted the ice pack on his shoulder. “Move up the Kennedy battle group to the Red Sea to defend the Suez Canal, keep the two carrier groups on station in the Med, and try to keep the conflict from spreading to the Persian Gulf or Israel,” Patrick said. “Purely defensive moves—I don’t think the President wants to send in any military forces. If Libya stays on the move, destroys Salimah, takes the Suez Canal, and crosses over the Red Sea into Israel, then I think the President might make a move. But I think he’s really hoping Susan Salaam will pull the Arab countries together to fight off Libya.” He looked at Jackson. “So what do you think we’ll do?”
“What I think we’ll do! Same as you—nada,” Jackson replied. “What I think we should do? We should go pay President Zuwayy of Libya a little visit, blow up a few of his palaces just to get his attention, and then deprive him of his bombers, fighters, airstrips, and rockets—and that’s all for starters. My guys can do all that in one night. Two at the most.” Jackson was definitely not above a little hubris when it came to sending Navy SEALs into action. He looked carefully at Patrick. “Of course, scuttlebutt says someone or some group of someones might have been already mixing it up with the king. Wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, sir?”
“Not a thing. But if they did, they should have their heads examined.”
“Maybe they can show our commander-in-chief how it’s done,” Jackson said.
“President Salaam needs to fight for her country too. She’s got a military—she needs to use it to defend her people.”
“If anyone can do it, she can. Not bad for an Air Force puke, I guess.”
“No Air Force cracks—unless you want to lose those four stars I had planned for you.”
“Oops—sorry, sorry, sir, sorry,” Jackson said with a smile—he was one of the few Navy SEALs Patrick had ever met that actually seemed to like to smile. He shook Patrick’s hand warmly. “If there’s anything you need, sir, please don’t hesitate to ask. And I hope you don’t mind I have my spies out keeping an eye on you. You’re the biggest celebrity we’ve had hanging around the area since Dennis Conner. We’ll be sorry to see you and Wendy head back to Washington.” Before Patrick could protest again, Jackson added, “I know, I know, you’re not in the running. I’ll remember you said that when I see you at your confirmation party in Washington. You sure you don’t need a doctor to look at your shoulder?”
“I’m fine, Captain. And you can let your spies go home too.”
“Yes, sir. Take care of that shoulder—I want to beat you fair and square on the golf course.” Patrick noticed Jackson motion to a young sailor who had been standing near the entrance to the workout room with a cell phone, who departed with Jackson. The base commander was a good guy, Patrick decided, but there was no doubt that he played the political battles as well as he undoubtedly played the real-world military battles—and making friends with potentially influential persons was one way to get ahead in the Navy.
Too bad he was sucking up to the wrong guy.
Patrick toweled off, tossed the bag of ice, then experimentally flexed his left shoulder. It felt pretty good, so he decided to forgo the steam room and instead take his son Bradley to the pool. He checked Bradley out of the daycare center and took him back to the locker room.
He didn’t notice a janitor set a bucket of smelly water and a mop in front of the door to the locker room after Patrick entered, put up a sign that said, “DO NOT ENTER” on the door, and then lock the door after he entered.
Patrick put Bradley in a pair of swim trunks he kept in his gym bag for just this purpose, changed himself, and led his son to the pool. He found the door to the pool locked. He turned to ask someone why the door was locked when he noticed that the locker room was very quiet—unusually quiet. No one else was in there. The place usually had at least a dozen men in there all hours of the day, but it was empty now . ..
... except for an Arab-looking man who stepped out from behind a row of lockers—carrying an automatic pistol in one hand.
Patrick immediately grabbed Bradley and dodged behind a row of lockers. The man didn’t follow—that meant there were others in the room, waiting for him.
“Dad? Aren’t we going swimming?” Bradley asked. He was obviously more concerned about not going to the pool than he was about being carried protectively by his father like a slippery football through onrushing linebackers.
“Shh,” Patrick whispered. He crouched as low as he could, almost duckwalking through the locker room.
He saw the second guy’s knees before he saw the rest of him, and he prayed it wasn’t an innocent sailor—because Patrick lashed out with his right foot, snapping out in a driving thrust against the stranger’s left knee. The knee buckled outward at an unnatural angle.
“Dad? Why did you kick that guy?” Bradley asked amid the stranger’s animal-like howling. “Is he a bad guy?”
Patrick wasn’t sure how to answer—until another automatic pistol clattered to the tiled floor. “Yes, he’s a bad guy,” Patrick replied as he picked up the gun. “We’re getting out of here.”
“Good job,” Bradley said.
Patrick decided not to go to the front door but try for the equipment manager’s office, which had an exit into the gymnasium. He heard footsteps sliding around the tile floor behind him. He kicked a chair over toward the front door to try to make it sound as if he was headed in that direction, then ran as hard as he could to the equipment manager’s office. Good—no one around. He tried the door—even better, it was unlocked. Patrick dashed in ...
... and immediately a fist rapped him on the side of his head. He went sprawling. Bradley screamed. Patrick raised the gun, but he couldn’t make his eyes focus, and he didn’t dare try to aim at any shape he saw in front of him, fearful it would be his son. “Get the hell away from me!” he shouted over Bradley’s screaming. “Get away or I’ll shoot!” But at that instant a large blur raced across his eyes, and the gun was knocked from his hand. “Bradley!” he shouted. He curled himself over his son, pressing him into a comer up against a file cabinet, shielding him as best he could. “Stay down!”
“It’s all right, General, it’s all right,” he heard a familiar voice say. ‘Tell your son to calm down. You are in no danger.”
“Who . . . who is it?”
“Just relax, my friend. Relax.” His vision did clear a few moments later .. .
... and when it did, he saw the smiling, boyish face of King Idris the Second of Libya, Muhammad as-Sanusi, hovering over him. “You ... Your Majesty, what in hell are you doing here?” Patrick said. He got Bradley up and calmed him down.
“Whatever I’m doing, I don’t think I’m doing it very gracefully,” Sanusi said. He gave commands in Arabic, and his two men disappeared. “I need to speak with you immediately, General McLanahan. It is most urgent. Where can we meet?”
“For Pete’s sake, Your Majesty, a phone call would’ve been better,” Patrick said. He couldn’t help but smile at Sanusi’s wry grin.
“I apologize, my friend,” Sanusi said, “but my men went about their task too enthusiastically, and you reacted most unexpectedly. But I need to speak with you. It is very important.”
“How did you get on base?” Patrick asked. “The security on this base has never been tighter. How . . . ?”
“It is about your wife, Wendy McLanahan,” Sanusi said.
Patrick’s mouth dropped open in surprise. Bradley stopped whimpering and broke out in a wide, teary-eyed smile. “Mommy . .. ?”
“Fifteen minutes. Silver Strand State Park, east side, near the boat rental shop.”
“I know where it is.”
“Then be there in ten minutes,” Patrick said. Sanusi disappeared—Patrick had no idea how he expected to
get out of the gym after the commotion they started, but somehow he knew he would. “Let’s go, Bradley.”
“Are we going to see Mommy?” he asked excitedly. Patrick did not—could not—answer.
It took longer than ten minutes for Patrick to explain to Fred Jackson and his security police units what all the yelling and screaming was about. But Patrick explained everything to Jackson, including where and when he was going to meet with Sanusi. Jackson offered to have a few of his men tag along, but Patrick declined.
He already had someone on the way prepared to do that.
It was thirty minutes later when Patrick arrived at the rendezvous point, a small glass-and-concrete white building between the base and the Loews Coronado Resort where folks could rent sailboats during the summer. Sanusi and his men didn’t arrive for another twenty minutes. Patrick was somewhat dismayed to see them—he had thought security at the naval base was tighter than that.
Patrick’s concern was assuaged after he met up with Sanusi and greeted him. “I am sorry to be late, my friend— the naval security forces detained us momentarily,” the king said. “I am grateful you explained who we were. They agreed to release us under your supervision—after they took away our ID cards.”
“You had false ID cards?”
“Real ID cards with false photos on them,” Sanusi said. “It is laughably easy to take IDs from lockers in your recreation facilities. We had no trouble crossing the Mexican border with false Israeli passports, and getting on base was simplicity itself—does no one patrol the shores at your seaside bases?”
“What about my wife, Your Highness?” Patrick asked.
“Ah yes—enough of the security lecture,” Sanusi said. “I believe your wife is alive, my friend. She and several Americans are still held by the pretender Zuwayy in Tripoli, in one of his underground bunkers south of the city.”
Patrick knelt down and put an arm around his son, hugging him with joy. Bradley was more interested in Sanusi’s men, one of whom now had a splint around his left knee. “Have your men seen her? Are you certain?”
“We have not seen her,” Sanusi replied. “But the guards have reported to my men that the woman spoke her name, and that name was McLanahan. When this was told to me, I ordered my agents inside Tripoli to try to stay in contact with her, and I made arrangements to travel here to tell you myself. Because of you, my men and I are still patrolling the desert, probing for weaknesses in the Libyan army. We will help you all we can.”
“I’m grateful, Your Highness,” Patrick said. “I just hope we can reach her in time.” He turned away and spoke: “Patrick to Luger, Briggs, and Wohl.”
“Luger’s up.”
“Wohl’s up, in sight, your four o’clock.” Patrick turned, and Sanusi looked in the same direction—just as Chris Wohl peeked his head above the low concrete rim of an adjacent rest room building about a hundred yards away. Patrick had called and asked that he cover him and Bradley during this meeting—just in case.
“Very wise precaution, General McLanahan,” Muhammad as-Sanusi commented, his smile beaming. He waved at Wohl; his wave was not returned. None of them could see what weapon Wohl was carrying, but there were no doubts in anyone’s mind that he was more than proficient with it at this close range.
“Just a heads-up, Muck—Naval Intelligence has just initiated a foreign-contact log on you,” David Luger reported. “They’ll start setting up surveillance on you, probably tap your phones, all that stuff. The contact log said that Muhammad as-Sanusi made contact with you right there in Coronado?”
“He and his men are with me right now,” Patrick said. “So I should assume we’re under surveillance right now, correct?”
“I think that would be a safe assumption. What’s happening?”
“The king says Wendy and the Americans are alive.”
“Holy shit! That’s great! Can we confirm it? Do we have a location?”
“No, and no,” Patrick said. “But I want to get the force loaded up and headed back to Jaghbub right away.”
“You got it, Muck,” Briggs said. “But just to let you know, the feds have really cracked down on Sky Masters. They’ve got us in virtual lockdown as we speak, and Jon has received notice of an FBI security inspection team that wants unlimited access to inspect the base tomorrow morning. My guess is that they’re not there to do a security audit—they’ll shut down the facility. I’m sure we’ve got Defense Intelligence Agency guys on our butts, and now we’ll have to contend with Naval Intelligence.”
“Which means we start immediately,” Patrick said. “I’ll go with the king and Dave to Libya and get the base set up; you and Chris will split up and help Jon get our planes airborne with as many weapons and as much fuel as we can carry.”
TONOPAH TEST RANGE, NEVADA
A SHORT TIME LATER
The Suburban screeched to a halt in front of the security gate, and six men in plain dark business suits hopped out and assembled at the electric gate. The man from the front passenger seat picked up the phone mounted on the fence beside the gate. “Special Agent Willison, FBI, Los Angeles. My office called this morning.” The gate was buzzed open by the guards inside, and the agents rushed in.
They were met inside the guardhouse by a young man who extended his hand to welcome them but was greeted instead by upraised ID cards and stem, intimidating expressions. “I’m Special Agent Larry Willison, FBI,” the lead agent said. “And you are?”
“John Landow, assistant security director of Sky Masters Inc., the prime contractor in this facility.”
“I asked to meet directly with Dr. Masters or General McLanahan. Where are they?”
“They’re both in the lab right now,” Landow said, “but they can meet you as soon as you clear security.”
“I happen to know that General McLanahan is in San Diego,” Willison said angrily, “and Dr. Masters was told to meet us here. Now I want you to call him and have him meet us right outside. I’ve been ordered to consider any more delays as obstructing a federal investigation, and I am authorized to take him, and anyone else who doesn't cooperate fully, into custody.”
“Agent Willison, I assure you, no one is trying to hamper any investigation,” Landow said. Landow was tall, in his early sixties, with bright blue eyes and a ready smile—but when the smile vanished, he looked very mean and serious. “I was informed the general was here—if I’m mistaken, then I apologize. And I promise you, Dr. Masters will be right outside by the time you clear security.”
“What do you mean, ‘clear security’?” one of the other agents asked. “We submitted all of our credentials yesterday. We’re demanding immediate access. That means right now”
“Agent, if you knew anything at all about this facility, you know that no one gets immediate access,” Landow said. “The security requirements in this facility are established by folks very much higher than our pay grades or even our boss’s pay grade, and I’m not allowed to violate them. I faxed your office a copy of the entry procedures—I trust you received them?” The FBI agents nodded. “That is exactly what we’ll do. My time estimate is accurate—no more than fifteen minutes to clear security. Shall we get started?” Willison and the others had no choice but to agree. “But I want no one else to enter or leave this facility,” he said. “That outer gate remains locked. All aircraft movement will cease immediately, all aircraft engines will be shut down, and all external power carts will be detached from all aircraft. If we see one aircraft with even so much as a courtesy light on, we’ll arrest each and every individual in this facility.”
“Your cease-and-desist order and the search warrant spelled out everything, Special Agent,” Landow said, “and our attorneys have told us it’s in our best interest to cooperate. I’ve advised all the labs to comply one hundred percent. Your IDs and firearms go in the turntable there.” Landow had moved a weapon-clearing barrel into the guardhouse, and the agents went about unloading and clearing their weapons by pointing them at the sand inside the ba
rrel, then placing them on a turntable surrounded with bulletproof glass. The guard inside the secure room collected the weapons and placed them in lockers, then turned the locker keys back over to the agents. Meanwhile, another guard began checking IDs and taking digital photos.
As they were waiting for their IDs to be checked and their clearances issued, they were surprised to see a young girl step into the guardhouse, escorted by a security officer. The girl was wearing what looked like the proper identification badges—but it certainly looked strange to see a youngster inside one of the most secure compounds in the United States of America. It was even more surprising when the officer dropped the girl off in the guardhouse without anyone else appearing to be supervising her. The biggest, leanest, most menacing Doberman pinscher that any of them had ever seen accompanied the girl.
The girl walked over to Willison; the Doberman sat right beside her and stared at the FBI agent, “Hi. I’m Kelsey.” She motioned to the dog. “This is my friend Sasha. Who are you?”
“My name is Mr. Willison.”
“Pleased to meet you,” she said politely. Willison turned when the officer checking their IDs offered them back. “Oooo,” the girl said when she noticed the badge holders. “Are you a police officer?”
“Yes, we are.”
“How exciting,” she said. She reached for his ID as he was putting it back in his jacket. “Can I see?”
“Not now,” Willison said curtly. The girl looked perturbed. Willison went over to the guard window. “Hey, what’s the story with the kid?”
“That’s Kelsey.”
“So I heard. W'hat’s she doing here?”
“Her mom is one of the owners. She comes here every now and then. The dog is her bodyguard.”
“A bodyguard? Inside the compound?”
“Everywhere she goes, I guess. She has class-C access.”
“How in hell did a little kid—?”
“Hey, mister?” the girl asked. She was back again, a look of determination in her eyes. “Can I please see your badge?”
Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 10 Page 44