Flannigan turned to Janson. “I’ll stay with him until we get some specialists in.”
“From where?”
“Lisbon seems to be their connection to European medicine. Listen, I know you’re supposed to deliver me to ASC, but it’s going to have to wait. You can tell them for me, thanks for the rescue. And obviously I thank you, too, both of you.”
* * *
TERRY FLANNIGAN OFFERED his hand, desperately trying to conceal his belief that not knowing who to trust, he would be wise to run for his life.
It worked, Flannigan saw. The commandos exchanged a look. Then each shook his hand and they left, Janson punching numbers into a miniature satellite telephone.
TEN
Mario Margarido, Ferdinand Poe’s chief of staff, whom Janson had seen that morning in a flak vest bulging with AK-47 magazines, was waiting in the hall in a suit and tie. “We are grateful for all you did for Minister Poe.”
“You’re welcome,” said Janson. “I wonder if you could arrange clearance for my plane to come in from Libreville? We want very much to go home.”
“Please be our guest in Porto Clarence.”
“Thank you. You are very kind, but it’s been a long trip and we would like to sleep in our own beds.”
Janson watched Mario Margarido ponder his request as it dawned on the man that the sudden acquisition of a nation gave him powers large and small. As the president’s chief of staff, he could allow an airplane the right to land or he could close the skies. Heady stuff, the right to grant people permission to come and go.
“I wonder whether your airplane would have room for several of our agents stationed there to come join our celebration.”
“It would be our pleasure.” Janson smiled.
“Of course your plane is welcome to fly in from Libreville.”
Janson raised Mike and Ed on the sat phone, and three hours later the Embraer touched down at the newly renamed Isle de Foree International Airport, where celebrants had pulled down every enormous letter that had spelled “President for Life Iboga.”
“Leave your motors running,” Janson called. “We’re out of here, now.”
They boarded and pulled the door shut and Janson said, “Go!”
“Seat belts, sir.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. What’s for dinner?”
“What do you think? Lobster.”
“And?…”
Ed grinned proudly. “Texas dry-aged porterhouse steak, Angolan arugula, Gabon tomatoes, French bread, and Italian pastry. We traded lobsters with every charter pilot in Libreville. Even got champagne.”
“We’ll start on it as soon as we get a shower. I’m going first, Jesse. I’ll be quick.” He knew if he stopped moving he would fall asleep standing there. He shaved and showered quickly, luxuriating only briefly in soap and water, and stepped out to dress in slacks and an open shirt. “All yours.”
Janson grabbed a phone and paced the small space. He called Zurich, Cape Town, and Tel Aviv and left succinct messages: “How can I get my hands on a jump jet?”
Trevor Suzman called back instantly from Cape Town, asking with a self-satisfied chuckle, “A two-seat trainer, perhaps?”
“I’m not surprised you already heard,” Janson answered, smoothly flattering the deputy national commissioner of the South African Police Service, who was very proud of the fact that his duties overlapped, deeply, into foreign intelligence. “Did you happen to hear where it came from?”
“Only rumors.”
“Care to share them with me?”
“No. For the simple reason that they are all nonsense. But I would remind you that the Harriers have a very short range. He couldn’t have come from far.”
“Nine coastal nations and a small ship are all within range,” said Janson. “Tell me about those rumors.”
“I’ll know more tomorrow,” said Suzman.
“I will call you back, tomorrow.”
Janson kept pacing—wide awake now—driven by the bigger question: Who sent the Reaper? But he had no idea who in the world to telephone to ask how to get his hands on an attack drone. There were people he could try, of course, but the question itself would bring down all sorts of unwanted scrutiny.
The U.S. Air Force had fighting drones. The CIA had them. The Army and the Navy had them. Could one of those American services hire itself out to secretly intervene in the Isle de Foree war? He shivered at a sudden terrible thought. Did Cons Ops have the Reaper? What an unholy alliance that would be—spymasters with the hubris of gods made strong as gods.
He was forced to concede that tackling the Reaper question would take some careful thinking. No one who had acquired its power to destroy would give it up without a fight.
* * *
JESSE JOINED HIM at the table as Ed laid out the first course, cold lobster mayonnaise. “Thanks, Ed. I’ll get the wine.” Janson popped the cork and filled their glasses.
“Before we toast victory, a quick mea culpa.”
Janson and Kincaid’s mea culpa review of what went right and what went wrong was an operator’s custom. Their Delta Force friends called it a hot wash, others called it a debriefing, or a wrap, but whatever the name, it was a way of rehashing an action in hopes of not making the same mistakes twice.
As was their custom, Kincaid went first: “We already know I stayed too long in the tree. Should have obeyed orders, because you were in a position to see what I couldn’t.”
Janson was still shaken by that and not in a forgiving mood. “You made me a promise when we hooked up. Remember?”
“I remember.”
“What did you promise me?”
Kincaid glared back and answered between gritted teeth, “Quote: ‘Teach me. I’ll be the best student you ever had.’ ”
“And what did I say?”
“You said, ‘Paul Janson’s protégés have a nasty habit of getting killed.’ ”
“It’s dangerous work. If I tell you to move, I mean move now.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Anything else?” Janson asked.
“That’s it for now—Wait!” Her eyes widened. “Jesus, Paul, Iboga’s shooter who dove off the pier? I missed it at the time—but he wasn’t wearing a yellow scarf like the other presidential guards.”
Janson pictured the two shooters swapping magazines. “I missed it, too. Wonder who he was? It was like he delivered Iboga to the Harrier and said, ‘Okay, my job’s done.’ ”
“Brass-balled dude diving into the enemy’s harbor.”
“Five’ll get you ten he had a guy waiting with scuba gear.”
“How about you, sir? Did The Machine make any screwups?”
Janson looked her in the eye. “Big one. My decision to push toward the FFM camp in daylight was a near-fatal mistake. We should have waited to take advantage of our night gear. The only reason we didn’t get shot by the sentry was that you spotted him and didn’t let him spot you.”
“Anything else?”
“I’m sure plenty will come to me in the morning—but for tonight, victory. The doctor rescued and, incidentally, a righteous revolution won.”
Jessica Kincaid raised her glass and locked eyes with him. “To free doctors and free Foree!”
They touched glasses and sipped champagne.
“Nice. What is this?”
Janson unwound the towel around the bottle and showed her the label. “Mumm.”
“Excellent.”
They ate a little bit of the lobster, some salad, some bread, and a little bit of steak, a few sips of an Argentine Malbec, and every pastry on the plate. Ed cleared the dishes and closed the door to the front of the plane.
“Tired?” Jessica asked.
“Body yes, brain no. You?”
“Not right now. I’ll probably crash for two days starting tomorrow.… Any bruises?”
“A few,” said Janson. “… You?”
“Want to see them?”
“Oh, yes.”
ELEVEN
; The red-light district of Porto Clarence was near the cruise ship pier, a well-lit walk guarded by smiling policemen.
Terry Flannigan noticed that the only ship docked was a sea-beaten Bulgarian rust bucket with a big neon name board that read: “Varna Fantasy,” Varna being the Black Sea port from where she sailed, Fantasy being Bulgaria’s cruise line. So the Bulgarian tourists had had front-row seats to an African war and now were probably crowding the massage parlors. He had inquired of Minister Poe’s new security chief where a gentleman might go for “some fun,” and Patrice da Costa, who had spent the war spying in the city, had telephoned a warm introduction to a brothel the Bulgarians couldn’t afford.
Flannigan was welcomed royally, told the night was on “Chief da Costa,” and treated to a glass of wine while he watched a demonstration video of the staff hard at work. The HD preview was new in his experience but circumvented nicely the problem of choosing in front of all, which meant rejecting some to their faces. He chose a stocky blond Ukranian who looked a little bit like Janet Hatfield.
Face-to-face, he had to admit the resemblance was minimal, but he wasn’t really going to be looking at her face, was he? In fact, he was probably going to keep his eyes closed. Or turn out the light. He did both. Then the damnedest thing happened. He couldn’t get it up.
“This has never, ever happened to me before,” he told the girl, who didn’t seem to speak English but was very kind, so he felt a little less like a complete schmuck. It was good that she didn’t understand English. In the dark he felt free to say, “This friend of mine got killed. And she was a good person. A lot better than me. But she was fun, too, sure of herself, and very, very steady. A girl to ride the river with, which is an admiring expression from where I come from. Funny thing was, it fit her doubly since she was a boat captain.”
Funny thing, too, he felt tears streaming down his face.
Someone knocked at the door.
“It’s paid for the night,” he said, his voice cracking. “Go away.”
But the girl turned on the light and pressed her ear to the door, then beckoned urgently. The old woman who ran the joint, who had sat with him while he watched the video, was whispering frantically. Flannigan opened the door.
“Dangerous man. Dangerous man. He’s looking for you. I sent him away, but he didn’t believe me that you weren’t here. You must go.”
Flannigan did not bother asking who the dangerous man was. This cinched what he had feared earlier. The soldier running with Iboga had indeed been Van Pelt, the rabid South African who had led the massacre on Amber Dawn.
Flannigan dressed, pressed money in the girl’s hand, and let the madam guide him out a side door into a reeking alley. “Where will you go?” she whispered.
“Where I’ll be welcomed with open arms.”
He glanced into the street, saw the way was clear, and broke into a run toward the waterfront, sprinting as fast as he could, around a corner and onto the cruise ship pier. The Varna Fantasy had singled up her mooring lines in preparation to sail. The last lines were going slack as a tugboat pressed her against the pier and stevedores awaited the order to cast off.
A ship’s officer stopped Flannigan at the top of the gangway.
Flannigan said, “Get the purser.”
“He’s sleeping.”
“I guarantee you he’ll be glad you woke him. He’ll even thank you. If you don’t, he’ll fucking keelhaul you.”
The purser appeared sleep lined and rumpled in a white jacket over his pajamas.
Flannigan said, “Good evening, sir. If your ship’s doctor didn’t jump ship here, he’s probably disembarking at your next port of call, or the one after that. Correct?”
“What is it to you?” the purser asked warily.
“I am a physician. A trauma surgeon. I have additional specialties in coddling cruise ship passengers, healing crew of sexually transmitted diseases, and ensuring that your dining rooms don’t serve dysentery. I have served on ships like yours for many years.” He opened the waterproof wallet that never left his person, not in a world where paperwork was everything, and chose carefully from the contents. “Here is my passport and certificates and licenses to practice. Show me to my cabin.”
Terry Flannigan knew that he did not have to advise the purser to leave his name off the manifest until the ship had left Isle de Foree waters. The purser, whose responsibilities included the health of two thousand passengers crammed into a small space, was not about to blow this unexpected stroke of luck by alerting the local authorities that a last-minute crew member was anxious to leave town secretly. Whatever the stranger might have done ashore, a qualified doctor was a priceless commodity.
PART TWO
Right from Wrong
Night
3°11′ S, 14°13′ W
Forty thousand feet above the South Atlantic Ocean
TWELVE
Why don’t we do this more often?” Jessica Kincaid whispered.
They always started slowly, like swimmers wading toward deep water in starlight. And they celebrated rituals: Inspection of Bruises. Healing Hands. Kiss to Make It Better. Now she lay on top of Paul Janson with her breasts pressed to his muscled chest, their lips brushing, legs intertwining, breath growing short, hearts racing.
The Embraer growled through the night sky. She thought Janson hadn’t heard her over the drone of the engines. “Why—”
“Because my entire carcass would implode from an excess of pleasure?”
“No lies.”
“What is the penalty for lying?”
“No evasions. Answer the question, Paul. Why don’t we do this more often?”
“We’re afraid,” Janson whispered into her mouth. He cupped the back of her head with one hand and ran the other slowly down her spine.
“Of what?” she demanded, departing from his lips with a flick of her tongue to string kisses down his neck.
“We’re afraid that one day one of us will come home from a job alone.”
He had stolen a march on her. The hand behind her head had materialized between her thighs. “I’m not afraid,” she whispered.
“Good. I wish I could say the same.”
She crouched on her knees and straddled him. He rose to join her.
“Give me your hands,” she said.
He held up both hands. With them balanced palm to palm she planted her feet on the bed and began to move. “I cannot believe we will ever be alone.”
“At this moment,” Janson gasped, “I’m inclined to agree with you.”
“Boss?” Mike, the pilot, spoke on the intercom. “Awful sorry to bother you.”
“What?” The cabin microphones were voice activated.
“Quintisha is calling on the sat phone. She says it’s major.”
* * *
QUINTISHA UPCHURCH WAS general operations manager for both CatsPaw Associates and the Phoenix Foundation. She was the only person in the world who could find Paul Janson anywhere, day or night.
“Switch it here, Mike, and turn off your end.”
Breasts heaving, eyes blurring, Jessica stared down at Janson. “What the hell time is it? Doesn’t that woman ever sleep?”
Janson said, “Hello, Quintisha.”
“You didn’t answer your sat phone, Mr. Janson.” It occurred to Janson, not for the first time, that her honeyed, resonant voice combined the primness of a deacon’s daughter with the steely resolve of a night court magistrate.
“Yes.”
“Jessica didn’t answer, either.”
“I am under the impression that Ms. Kincaid is taking the evening off. What’s up?”
“Douglas Case of American Synergy is in a state. He said to tell you, quote: ‘The doctor flew the coop.’ ”
“What?”
“Mr. Case used extreme language demanding your private numbers. I hung up on him, of course, but as we’re expecting five million dollars from ASC I thought it best to telephone the airplane.”
Janson thought
hard.
Quintisha Upchurch said, “We could use the five million, Mr. Janson. That airplane does not come cheaply.”
“Tell Mr. Case I will deal with it.” He spoke Mike’s name. The voice recognition system routed him back to the cockpit. “Mike, have you passed your point of no return?”
The point of no return was not the middle of the ocean. Whether the Embraer could return to Africa or had to keep moving ahead to South America depended as much upon weight and wind resistance as distance already flown. It weighed less, thanks to burning off fuel, so it needed less power to maintain speed. Turning westerly headwinds into tailwinds would also allow Mike to fly with throttles pulled back. The math was complicated. Pilots like Mike did their “PNR” in their heads, minute by minute, as automatically as breathing.
“Twenty-nine minutes to point of no return.”
“Hang a one-eighty. Back to Porto Clarence.”
“One-eighty back to Porto Clarence—soon as I get clearance.”
Jessica spoke up. “Mike? When you get clearance, be gentle.”
“Say again?”
“Take it easy turning the airplane,” said Janson. “We don’t want anything falling off back here— Over and out.”
They were still holding hands, palm to palm, and steadied each other when the Embraer banked.
“Don’t you want to call your friend Doug?”
“Not before we know what happened.”
“Which we won’t know until we get to Porto Clarence.”
“Which won’t be for three hours.”
“Time to reach a point of no return?”
“Time to reach several points of no return.”
THIRTEEN
I’m afraid I was a bit short the other day with your Ms. Upchurch,” Doug Case apologized on the sat phone.
“She understood you were under pressure,” Janson said.
From the windows of the front room of Ferdinand Poe’s hospital suite he could see the Presidential Palace across the Porto Clarence harbor and a broad gray-blue swath of the Atlantic Ocean to the east and north. Isle de Foree’s flag—a gold, green, and black horizontal tricolor slashed by a diagonal band of red—had been raised in place of Iboga’s yellow banner. It stirred spasmodically in the intermittent breeze.
Robert Ludlum’s The Janson Command Page 10