Collateral Damage d-14

by Jim DeFelice

  “Pardon my skepticism,” said Zen. “But given the events of yesterday, and much of what has been happening over the past week, how do we know that we can trust you?”

  The minister began protesting, saying that he was a man of integrity and had not been involved with the leadership in the past. To Zen it seemed a clear case of someone protesting too much.

  “We do want to trust you, but trust is something that is earned,” Zen told him. “You should declare a cease-fire—”

  “If we stop, the rebels will continue,” said the new minister. “You have seen them. They are animals.”

  Not exactly the sort of opinion that was going to pave the way for peace.

  “Perhaps your government could begin with a very small gesture,” said Zongchen. “Perhaps you could begin with apologizing for the attack on the committee yesterday. That costs you nothing, yet is rich in symbolism.”

  Bouri didn’t answer.

  “You have already apologized to me,” said Zongchen.

  “Yes, but you are asking for something different. The president would have to apologize.”

  “Since the government has already fired the defense minister, it’s going to be clear that mistakes were made,” said Zen. “A public statement won’t cost you anything.”

  “And it will earn you a great deal,” added Zongchen.

  “It will cost much,” said the Libyan. “But I will see what I can do. In the meantime, let us establish a proper procedure for these conversations. The talks between your committee and I. They will be strictest confidence, yes?”

  “Of course,” said Zongchen.

  “We’ll have to talk to others in order for our work to mean anything,” added Zen. “We have to talk to the UN leaders, our government, and eventually the rebels.”

  “Carefully,” said Bouri.

  “Quietly, you mean?” asked Zen.

  “Yes, both. Carefully and quietly.”

  Zongchen agreed that would be wise. The two men spoke for a few moments more, deciding how they would contact each other, and establishing a routine of “regular” calls twice per day.

  After Bouri hung up, Zongchen turned to Zen. “This is an interesting development. Perhaps our being attacked has had a positive result.”

  “Maybe,” said Zen.

  “You don’t think this is genuine?”

  Zen wheeled himself back a few feet. His substitute wheelchair was powered, something he didn’t like. But it would do for now.

  “I suppose our best option is to treat it as if it is genuine,” he told Zongchen. “The question will be more the rest of government — does he speak for it? Hard to tell.”

  “Hmmm.” The general was silent for a few moments, thinking. “It is very late, and we have not eaten. Let us go and find something. Deep thought is better on a full stomach.”

  He spoke to his aide in quick Chinese, then led Zen out into the hall.

  “It is interesting,” said Zongchen as they waited for the elevator. “Two former men of war negotiating a peace.”

  “Interesting, yes.”

  “But peace was also our aim,” added the general, “even if not our profession.”

  8

  Sicily

  Turk fell asleep in Ginella’s bed after they made love, but only for an hour. He slipped off the side onto the floor, trying to be quiet and not entirely sure what he was doing here. He hadn’t forgotten what had happened; he just didn’t believe it. Sleeping with another officer was one thing; sleeping with a colonel who was at least temporarily his boss…

  Ginella lay with her head turned toward the wall, dozing peacefully. She had put on a T-shirt, but it was pulled halfway up her back, revealing her curved buttocks.

  It was a nice curve. She was good in bed — a little more assertive than he was used to, but definitely a woman who knew how to please and be pleased.

  But not quite his type. Older than he was.

  And his boss.

  What had he been thinking?

  He hadn’t been, was the answer. He grabbed his clothes and got dressed, then slipped out without waking her.

  The bright lights of the hotel hallway stung his eyes. Turk walked quickly to the elevator, but as he pressed the button he realized someone might come out and see him waiting, or worse, be in the car when the doors opened. He didn’t want to deal with any questions that might raise, so he used the stairs.

  Outside, he realized it was too late to get a car. He had to go back to the desk and ask them to call a taxi.

  By the time Turk got back to his own hotel, it was nearly three. He collapsed on the bed, even more tired than he had been the night before.

  The next thing he knew, his phone was ringing. He had left it on the desk opposite the bed, and by the time he got there, the call had gone to voice mail.

  It was Chahel Ratha.

  “Didn’t you get the text? We need you here by 0800. It’s five minutes past.”

  * * *

  Turk made it to the Sabre hangar a few minutes before nine.

  “Need some O2?” asked one of the guards at the hangar. Pure oxygen was a common cure for a hangover among flight crews.

  Turk shook his head and went inside. He found Ratha and one of the lead engineers fussing over a pot of coffee at the side bench.

  “Sorry I’m late,” he told them.

  Ratha shook his head. “It’s just static tests anyway.”

  Turk rushed to get into his gear. The Tigershark had been mostly placed back together. His job was to run the controls in a flight simulation mode while the technical people ran a bunch of tests on the interfaces with the Sabres. It was very routine, but it got his mind off the night before.

  Some two hours of tests later, the engineers decided they had enough data and helped Turk from the cockpit.

  “Figure it out?” he asked.

  Ratha just shook his head. He didn’t look particularly pleased.

  “Just the man I’m looking for,” said Danny Freah, coming into the hangar. “How are you, Turk?”

  “I’m good, Colonel. Yourself?”

  “Fine. Step into my office here a second.” Freah motioned him to the side. Turk followed, bracing himself for questions about Ginella.

  Deny, deny, deny, whispered a little voice.

  Why? He’d done nothing wrong. It was Ginella who would get in trouble, if anyone was going to get in trouble.

  Right.

  “I heard you did really well yesterday with the A–10s,” said Danny.

  “Um, yeah.”

  “You really made an impression on Colonel Ginella,” said Danny. “She was singing your praises this morning.”

  Turk felt himself flush.

  “It was good of you to step up,” said Danny.

  “Thanks, I—”

  “Colonel Ginella says you rate higher than most if not her whole squadron. She wants as much of you as she can get.”

  Turk struggled to find his tongue.

  “Hard getting used to the Warthog after flying the Tigershark?” asked Danny.

  “Just about night and day,” said Turk.

  Danny nodded. “You look like you had a rough night. You all right?”

  “Oh, just a little… pilot stuff.”

  “All done here?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “All right. Don’t get in any trouble, you hear?” Danny chucked his shoulder, then walked away.

  * * *

  The engineers told Turk he wouldn’t be needed now for several days. He got changed and caught the bus over to the cafeteria to get some lunch. But once inside the serving area, he decided he wasn’t particularly hungry, a decision reinforced by hearing laughter in the seating area that sounded very much like some members of Shooter Squadron. He grabbed two large bottles of water and went back out the way he came.

  A small field sat across the road at the back of the building. There were some picnic tables there. He walked over and sat on the top of a table — the benches themselves ha
d inexplicably disappeared. He took a long pull from the water bottle, then leaned back, arms behind him, inhaling and exhaling in long, deep breaths.

  A flight of Eurofighters took off with a loud rush, roaring into the air. Turk watched their bodies glow silver as they climbed, melting into a white light as they turned in the sky. Rising into the mid-morning sun, they turned black, vanishing into tiny daggers as they turned once more, this time toward Africa.

  As the sound of the jet engines faded, he gradually became aware of the shouts of children. Remembering his soccer game the other day, he got up off the table, hopped the short fence, and walked in that direction.

  The day care building was on the other side of the road, just beyond a low-slung barracks type building that was temporarily unused. The shouts were coming from a small group playing tag in the corner of the yard. Turk watched them for a few seconds, deciphering the rules, which seemed unusually free-flowing.

  “You have children yourself?”

  The woman’s voice startled him. Turk turned abruptly and saw Captain Li Pike, the Warthog pilot from Shooter Squadron. In her arms was a cardboard box so big her chin barely rose above it.

  “No, I don’t have any kids,” said Turk. “You?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Oh.”

  He took that to mean that she was married, but when he glanced at her hand, she didn’t have a ring.

  “When my career gets under control,” Li added. “Then maybe we’ll see.”

  “What’s your husband think?”

  “I’m not married.”

  “Boyfriend?”

  “I don’t have a boyfriend. No time yet. Like I said, when my career gets under control.”

  “Makes sense.”

  She smiled, and he felt like a fool — it was the sort of indulgent smile you gave a simpleton.

  “What’s with the box?” he asked.

  “Oh, we took up a little collection and got the kids a few puzzles and games,” said Li. “It was the colonel’s suggestion. They’re on a limited budget.”

  “Really?”

  “The shelves are kind of bare. They gave us a tour the first day — I think they saw women in the squadron and thought that’s what we would be interested in. Italians.”

  Her smile was so beautiful it was almost a weapon.

  “Let me help you with the box,” he told her.

  “Oh, it’s not heavy.”

  Turk took it anyway, then followed her around to the side of the building. There was no one at the door or in the hallway; they went along to the first classroom. Li knocked tentatively, then inched in.

  Some of the children spotted her peeking in and began to laugh. She pushed the door open wide, greeting the teacher and explaining, in English, that they had brought the things they had promised the other day. The colonel, she added, was sorry that she couldn’t come herself.

  The teacher’s English was limited and heavily accented, but she greeted Li warmly, and told the children in Italian that the American pilots had brought them some presents. Turk, meanwhile, went over to a table near the front and put the box down.

  “Il Americano!” said one of the children, running over. Within seconds Turk found himself surrounded by the soccer players, who were chattering in Italian.

  “I don’t understand a word you’re saying,” he told the boys.

  “We will play,” said one of the children. “Football.”

  “Soccer,” said Turk.

  “They were playing football with you the day two ago,” said the teacher. “You are good, no?”

  “No,” said Turk. “They are very good.”

  “They want to play with you now. It is almost time for their, how do you say?”

  “Game?”

  “Yes, game. That is a good word.”

  Turk glanced at Li, who stood with her arms folded, a bemused expression on her face.

  “You gonna play?” he asked her.

  “I have work, Captain. I’m the maintenance officer. I’ll see you later.”

  “Sure.”

  The boys had retrieved three soccer balls and were already urging him toward the door.

  “Just a little while,” he told them. “Five minutes.”

  “Cinque minuti,” said the teacher. “Cinque. Solamente.”

  “What she said,” Turk told them. “Exactly.”

  9

  Sicily

  The pilot Kharon normally used to get back and forth in Libya didn’t respond to his messages, and not wanting to wait, he booked on a commercial flight to Sicily, flying on Tunis Air, which was doing a booming business ferrying people in and out of the country. Kharon’s final destination was on the east coast, near Catania, but getting a flight there involved no less than three transfers. Renting a car and driving from Palermo made more sense and gave him greater flexibility. It also meant he would be able to arrive armed.

  He had determined that Rubeo was at the base by following the movements of his private company plane, whose registration was public. He wasn’t yet sure where the scientist was staying — there were a half-dozen likely possibilities — but that was a solvable problem.

  The more important question was how he would kill him.

  Ironically, he had not planned the actual event. He had been so focused on the other aspects that he failed to map it out.

  But murder was best executed on the spur of the moment. To plan that too carefully — certainly, he would leave clues that would be discovered and trip him up.

  And after all, what had his planning otherwise gotten him? Rubeo so far had not been touched by the disaster of his prideful invention.

  Kharon was more than a little out of his element in the tough precincts of Palermo, and he knew that no amount of intellect could substitute for street savvy. But he wanted to obtain a gun, and he knew that this was the easiest place to do it, as long as he was willing to overpay.

  He stopped first at a legitimate gun shop, where he had no luck; the owner told him that since he was not an Italian citizen, he could not obtain a license at the local police station, and therefore he could not buy the weapon. But at least Kharon learned what the actual procedure was.

  It was not particularly onerous — one was required to register the gun at the local police station, a practice the gun dealer hinted was not always strictly followed. But it was impossible to register if you were a foreigner. Anyone even suspected of being from outside Italy — as Kharon’s poor accent undoubtedly made clear — would be immediately asked for identification.

  Armed with the information, he decided that the easiest approach would be to simply claim he was an Italian citizen, back to the country after spending many years in America. All he needed were documents that would prove he was Italian.

  Such documents were valuable not only to new immigrants, but to legitimate citizens who wanted to avoid the hassle of getting official records from city hall. A web search of news sources showed that two years before there had been a raid on several tobacconists accused of selling these papers; the list was an obvious pointer on where he should go.

  The first was closed. The second was in the lobby of an expensive looking hotel. The only clerk Kharon could find was a young man who gave him a befuddled look when he mentioned that he needed new documents. Kharon told him a story about having lost his driver’s license — the story he had seen indicated that many of the customers of the phony docs bought them to escape the bureaucracy and fees involved in getting replacements. But the young man seemed indifferent.

  Outside, Kharon was looking up the address of the next place on his smart phone when a man yelled to him.

  “Signor—you need help, yes?”

  The man had been in the shop, standing near the magazines. He was in his early twenties, dressed in new jeans and well-tailored sport coat. The odor of his cologne was strong enough to fight its way through the cloud of diesel smoke nearby.

  “I need documents,” said Kharon.

  “Why
?” asked the man.

  He seemed too young to be a policeman. But Kharon hesitated. The man’s English was very good, the accent more American than British.

  Just the sort of slick operator he needed. If he trusted him.

  Am I doing this?

  Yes, finally. I am moving ahead after all these years of planning. It is time.

  “I need to buy a gun,” Kharon said.

  “That’s a very expensive problem,” said the man.

  “Not from what I’ve heard.”

  “Come on and have a coffee,” said the man, pointing to an espresso bar across the street. “We will talk.”

  * * *

  In the end, Kharon purchased a Glock 17. The pistol was an older version, the type before the accessory rail was added, but the gun itself was in excellent shape. Kharon field-stripped it for inspection in a small room at the back of the coffee shop the man had taken him to. Before he had it back together, his “friend” appeared with a driver’s license and an EU passport. He took a photo, and within ten minutes Kharon was an Italian citizen.

  Amazing what five thousand euros could do.

  The gun didn’t come with a holster, and Kharon knew better than to try and carry it bare in his belt. He went back to the legitimate gun store and purchased a holster. The whole time, he expected the clerk to say something, perhaps even refuse to deal with him, but the man didn’t even indicate he knew him, or glance suspiciously at the wrapped-up bag Kharon carried with him.

  He stopped at another store and bought himself a jacket for two hundred euros. It was a little big, and the shop owner gave him a hard time, insisting that he have it altered, a process that would take a few days. Kharon had to practically shout at the man to get him to sell it as it was.

  It was easier to buy illegal documents and a gun in Italy than an ill-fitting jacket.

  Better equipped, he filled the tank on the rental car, then set out on the autostrada for the eastern end of the island.

  Soon, he thought to himself, he would see Rubeo.