Hostile Contact

by Gordon Kent

  “Great!”

  “Good enough to run Sleeping Dog to earth?”

  “No problem. But he might not want it. He’s set in D.C. and wants to be with his family.”

  “He can take them. It’ll be a three-year job anyway, between catching the spy and writing the damage assessment, right?”

  Don waved his hands. They ignored him.

  The speakerphone gave a squawk. “Lieutenant-Commander Craik to see you, sir.”

  “Hold him a minute and then send him in.” Kasser never took his eyes off Dukas. “Mike, do you believe in this Chinese officer enough to walk away from Crystal Insight?”

  Dukas realized that this was hardball. Kasser was really saying, Do you believe the crap you just spouted enough to dump a brilliant case that will make your career to chase the possibility of a Chinese officer in Nairobi?

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Good. Don, give me a list of people eligible to take Crystal Insight minus Sleeping Dog.”

  “Sure, Ted.”

  “Right now, Don.”

  Don all but bowed on his way out, and Alan Craik came through the door, his hat under his arm, crisp and slim in his sparkling whites with short sleeves and shoulder-boards. He made Dukas feel rumpled, but Dukas shot up and grabbed his hand. Kasser came around his desk, the copy of the CNO daily report in his hand. “Well done, Commander.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Alan looked at the cover of the daily report and smiled. Kasser sat back down.

  “You going back to your detachment?”

  “I’m on the way!”

  “Had some downtime, I hope?” Suddenly, Kasser was treating Al Craik like one of his agents—which, in a way, he was. Kasser believed in downtime and families.

  Alan looked at Mike, who winked. Alan grinned. “I saw my wife for twenty-four hours on the way. She’s a Navy officer, too—on her way to Houston for astronaut training.”

  Kasser nodded. “You going to your boat via Bahrain?” He was at it again, but this time Dukas was with him.

  “Ye-e-e-s—”

  “You’re still on our dime, you know. Mike’s going to want you to run an errand in Bahrain.”

  “I want to get back to my boat as fast as I can, sir.”

  “Sure you do. But I’ll see that you get a concurrent fitrep on all this, Alan, and I guess it’s clear to you that Sleeping Dog isn’t really over. We need you to stay on a few things—even when you’re back at the boat.”

  “The Seattle office is all over Sleeping Dog, sir.”

  Kasser sucked his pipe again. He looked at Dukas. “Bring him up to date. Tell him about Nairobi. And get him to carry the contract out to your Mister O’Neill—who’s a personal friend, I think?”

  Dukas nodded. Alan looked worried.

  “I’m due to catch a plane to Bahrain in Philadelphia tonight.”

  Kasser stood up again. “Then I’ll save my paeans of praise for later. You two have a lot to discuss, and you better get moving.” He shook hands with both of them and gave Dukas a look that might have meant a lot of things. What he said was, “I need to know that Chen is dead.”

  Dukas nodded again. Alan looked blank.

  They were both talking as they moved out of Kasser’s office and down the hall.

  They went to lunch at a halfway-decent place near the fish market on the river. Alan’s delight at going back to the boat was plain, but he was also clearly guilty at leaving Rose. When he stopped beating himself up to eat some shrimp, Dukas told him about Sally Baranowski.

  “My God, Mike. I’m so sorry.”

  “I’m sorry for her. But her and me—” Dukas shook his head. “I was going to say something stupid like we were just friends. Jesus, I’d like to crucify the guy who did it.”

  “A professional killing?”

  “The cops say so. Menzes says it was aimed at Piat. Maybe Helmer hired somebody after you guys busted his operation in Seattle. I don’t know; it doesn’t make much sense. Anyway, the Agency’s throwing dirt over it with its back legs because they don’t want to be connected.”

  “I’m sorry, Mike.”

  Dukas looked at his plate. “She was a nice woman.” He pushed a piece of squid around. “What the hell kind of epitaph is that?” He looked at his friend. Anguished. “I wasn’t in love with her, but—shit, you can’t go to bed with a woman and have some-b-b-body—!” He heard himself stammering and realized that “in love” didn’t cover what she had been to him—his response to her vulnerability, his admiration for her skills, his distaste for her drinking—but whatever it had been, her death had left him emptied.

  Hours later, Dukas sent an e-mail:

  To: Rathunter

  From: greekgod

  Meet 5 days from this date at site 2 of plan you have

  PART

  THREE

  Nairobi

  25

  Bahrain.

  Alan had never landed at the international airport in Bahrain. Navy people did, when they joined their ships here, but he’d missed that step. He had always come in on one of the military fields or taken a helicopter from the boat or from Saudi Arabia, just a few miles over the strait. The international airport was modern but spartan, with a different mix of technology than he was used to and more people employed at every level—more porters, more security guards, and more kiosks changing money. He saw a few Palestinians, a handful of Filipinos, and a great many Pakistanis. Their numbers stood out because the airport itself was as empty as a set waiting for actors. There weren’t enough passengers to give the terminal any sense of life, and the handful of businessmen passed through the web of service personnel without appearing to need any of them.

  Customs was thorough but courteous. He wanted to compliment the young Pakistani man who checked his bags but suspected that it would put him on a profile and let the moment pass with nothing but a very small smile, which the man returned. Then he was through the bleak customs area and walking through engraved glass doors to find a second section of empty airport. Lounging in a chair sat onetime Petty Officer First Class David Djalik, now a very tanned and relaxed-looking man in a suit so good that it made Alan feel cheap.

  “Dave,” he said somewhat self-consciously, sticking out his hand. The military didn’t have a code for dealing with former subordinates who had saved your life and were now prosperous. It seemed better to go with first names, anyway. Djalik hadn’t been warm after their experience in Africa. After all, it had cost him part of his hand. And he hadn’t volunteered for it.

  “Mister Craik.” Simple and a little distant. But he smiled, and took one of Alan’s two suitcases. Djalik was still all muscle, a former Navy SEAL who looked the part even when expensively dressed.

  Djalik turned away and strode out to the next set of sliding glass doors and then out into the open, out of the air-conditioning and into the hammer blow of Bahrain’s desert day. Alan followed, angry that Djalik didn’t intend to talk. At the curb was a heavy luxury car, big—Mercedes. Alan didn’t know the type, but it looked bigger than anything he had seen in the States. Djalik placed the luggage in the trunk and gestured for Alan to climb in the passenger door, tipped a waiting security guard, and got in. The interior was cool and tinted; the car was running.

  “Gas is cheap here.” He sounded faintly guilty.

  Alan thought a few seconds and decided to risk rebuff.

  “You still don’t like the pollution?”

  “I got to run here. The stink is everywhere. Jesus, sir—Mister Craik. Bahrain would make anybody a believer in the environment.”

  “But you like it here?” Alan tried to keep his tone light. They were rocketing along a highway through packed ranks of new cars, all parked in shipping lots. They seemed to go on for miles.

  “My wife loves it. She gets to be a colonial lady with a big house and servants. My kids like it, too.”

  Djalik didn’t say anything about himself.

  “And Harry’s the best. Cool, professional, but always there for us. I
f I’d known more like him in the Nav—”

  That was a little below the belt, as Alan had also been his boss. The tone didn’t indicate that Djalik meant anything in particular, but Alan knew Djalik and knew that he was sharp enough to land a punch, under the guise of a passing remark, without fear of consequence.

  “Dave, do we have a problem here?”

  “Nope.” Smile from Djalik. “Nope. We did, but time gives me a new perspective. Harry told me some things, too. Changed my view a bit. And you got whacked in Pakistan.” Djalik nodded toward the remnants of Alan’s hand.

  Alan shook his head. “Does that make me less of a glory hound in your eyes?” There it was, right on the table. Because Djalik, the SEAL, had thought that Alan was a glory hound, not a real professional. What hurt was that he had a point, although Alan hadn’t seen it at the time.

  “Yep.”

  “May I ask why?”

  “That’s a nice phrase, ‘May I ask.’ Carries a lot of content. But, yeah.” He swung the wheel as they entered a roundabout with six other cars. The roundabout had stoplights, an insane arrangement that Alan thought must have represented the collision of British and American road engineering. All six cars ignored the traffic light as it turned red. Djalik accelerated so hard that Alan was pushed back in his seat as if by a cat shot from a carrier. They had left the rows of cars and were passing shacks on both sides of the road, many selling tea and Cokes. In the distance, housing developments rose above more shacks. Djalik saw Alan’s eyes move.

  “Shia. All the folks who live here are Shia, except the rulers. They’re Sunni.”

  “I know.”

  “Recipe for disaster, if you ask me.”

  Alan just shook his head.

  “But to get back to the matter at hand. Yeah, my view changed when you lost your fingers, because you’ve paid the price, and you’re still here, still in the Nav, still in the game. That’s okay. I can deal with that. You aren’t a glory hound, Mister Craik, you’re a different breed of bastard altogether—an adrenaline junkie.”

  “And you think that’s better.” Alan was ready to be angry, because Djalik was, knowingly or unknowingly, parroting Harry O’Neill, his best friend and Djalik’s boss. And Alan resented it. He didn’t like to think of himself that way. It detracted from his image of himself, and it hit him hard enough that he had to suspect that it was probably true. Truer than glory hound, and even that had some truth in it.

  Glory had a different taste since his moment of decision on the Chinese sub.

  Djalik laughed and turned to look full at Alan, the car roaring along a straight stretch at more than one hundred miles an hour.

  “Fuck, yes. My wife sleeps with one every night; I see one in the mirror every morning. Much better.”

  He laughed again, and it was a true laugh; the kind that makes other men laugh, too. Alan finally had to give in. It was all true.

  They were still laughing when they passed through Manama and headed out to the country, where Harry had his house.

  Harry met them in an elegant Islamic foyer decorated with hanging rugs, a silvered censer that Alan thought he recognized as Byzantine, and a small marble fountain in the center. The foyer was the size of Alan’s house.

  Harry O’Neill was Alan’s best friend. They went back to his early days in the Navy, when Harry had been a junior intelligence officer in the same air wing as Alan. Harry had never flown, but he had a remarkable mind for facts, and they had developed a friendship that started as a working relationship and just kept on. Alan had rescued Harry in Africa, but this served only to strengthen their friendship. That Harry was prosperous was obvious. That he was very popular at the Crystal Palace in Langley was less so, but equally true. He was now a Muslim. He was black. He was a complex, fascinating, brilliant man, and he didn’t meet any stereotype of race or education.

  Tall, heavily built without fat, handsome, with aristocratic manners and all the grooming money could buy, Harry looked like a poster for success. If he had troubles with his identity, his parents, his adoptive religion, or his friendship with Alan, a lifetime of racial dissimulation and six months at the CIA charm school kept them well hidden.

  “Good to see you, bud,” said Harry, grasping his hand.

  “And you, Harry,” said Alan. They beamed at each other.

  “Glad you came. Glad Mike Dukas sent you. Whatever—we get some time together.”

  “I thought the same when Mike suggested it.”

  “How’s Rose?”

  “She’s great. Sends her love.”

  “Dave, anything at the airport?”

  “The usual. Mister Craik came off alone and came here alone.”

  “You two talk on the way here, or just hiss like cats?” Harry was smiling, using his size to make disagreement impossible.

  Alan looked at Djalik and smiled.

  “We’re halfway there.”

  “That’s fair,” said Djalik.

  “Okay,” said Harry. “This is my house, and I ordain that to celebrate being ‘halfway there,’ Dave is going to call you ‘Al’ and Al is going to call you ‘Dave.’ Right. Let’s have a meal and look at this contract. I assume Mike sent you with a contract?”

  Alan smiled up at him. “I’m all for the meal, but I’ve been up for hours and I’m jet-lagged.”

  Harry turned away, walking through the foyer toward a hallway that seemed to run on forever. “Bud, in this business, you’re always coming off a plane, you’re always jet-lagged, and the bastards never seem to care.”

  “But this ain’t my business, Harry.”

  Harry stopped and gave him an odd look. He grimaced a little, a very unusual expression from Harry O’Neill.

  “Yes, it is. Don’t kid yourself, Alan. Don’t hide in jet-jock land. This is your business. You aren’t a little pregnant, you don’t lose a little of your virginity, and you can’t be a little bit of a spy.”

  Dar es Salaam.

  Lao was getting together the team that would back him in the Nairobi meeting with Greekgod. They would be locals; the embassy had only five resident agents, and they weren’t his to command. He had two men scouting a countersurveillance route in Nairobi, another seeing about weapons. Suddenly, he didn’t like the comm plan and wished they were meeting in a place he really knew—Hong Kong, perhaps. Something like home ground.

  Jiang put his head in, grinned. “News!”

  “You have found him?”

  “Craik has flown to Bahrain.”

  Not the ordinary route to Nairobi. “Half the American Navy passes through Bahrain.”

  “Do you think he’s going to meet with Chen?”

  “Anything is possible, Captain.” Lao didn’t say that he thought it unlikely that Chen, if alive, would be in a place like Bahrain. “Tell the station in Dubai to put a team out in Bahrain. Tell them to take care, you understand me? The Americans own Bahrain, and the Bahraini Service itself is nothing to sneer at. And they play rough. Take care, but do the legwork. Find out where he went, when he landed, and see if we can track him to anything. If he’s going to Nairobi, maybe we can surveil him all the way—gain an advantage.”

  Bahrain.

  “You look better, bud. Sleep well?” Harry was a morning person, and the magnificent smell of really good coffee floated from the cup he had in his big hand.

  “Damn it, Harry, if I looked like hell, perhaps it’s because I had to work a fourteen-hour day with Mike before I flew here.”

  “Sucks to be you, bud.”

  “But, yeah, I’m better. Slept like a log. Great bed. Great house. I should’ve said that before. The carpets are beautiful, the water is a nice contrast to the outdoors, and the colors are—”

  “Vivid?”

  “Not what you see at home.”

  “Ready to travel?” Harry was brisk, bouncing with energy.

  “Travel? Uh, I just got here.”

  “Mike says I have to get you to Chen. Says it is the most important part of this contract right n
ow. I’ve talked to him twice while you slept like a log. We have to go. I have a whole operation to build in Dar es Salaam and I can’t start it until you and I go to Tajikistan.”

  “Tajikistan?” Alan gulped some coffee and wondered if he was still asleep. “What’s in Tajikistan?”

  “Chen.”

  26

  200 NM ENE of Lamu Island.

  Soleck’s crew had red eyes and twitchy hands after seven and a half hours aloft. Soleck had hit a KA-6 tanker midway through the flight, and then they had gone back to watching the cigarette boats as they drove over the heavy swells that had formed in the last hours. Soleck wanted to drive in close and let the boats see that they had been seen, but so far the admiral had forbidden such an action.

  Soleck hit the tanker with élan, but, as the moment for the landing approached, his flying got stiffer and he began to find his mind drifting from details. His right-seater kept him reminded of the fuel, but he was so far gone in worry that he had to be reminded of course corrections.

  Just after noon, local time, the carrier got a second S-3 off the deck with a snuffling, bleary-eyed crew, and Soleck turned for home. The cigarette boats, after quartering the seas around yesterday’s carrier location, had turned for the coast of Africa and were now plowing through heavy seas toward Lamu Island off the northern coast of Kenya.

  The carrier deck was pitching through a remarkable distance, given that the sky was still clear. The wind across the deck was rising but wasn’t more than fifteen knots. But as Soleck flew into the break, a sudden gust rocked his wings and moved the plane sideways in the sky, the gust cutting directly across the path of his flight. He steadied up and flew into the break, his worry about landing now overlaid by concern about the conditions.

  His break wasn’t shit hot but it was good, and he flew down the side of the carrier just right, calling his numbers softly to himself and his hands moving almost unconsciously through the pre-landing checklist. The wheels went down with a satisfactory thud, and the flaps were set, tabs trimmed, engine good to go, and then he was turning into his lineup. Even a mile out, the boat was really moving, her stern rising twenty feet and then falling.