Whiplash d-11

by Dale Brown

  “We have to find them first,” said Secretary of State Alistair Newhaven. “And what do we do to the ones in another country? Like here, in Sudan. Do we just attack Sudan?”

  “Sudan is not one of our allies,” said Lovel. “By any stretch of the imagination. And they’d be thankful we took out the rebels.”

  “We’re not at the stage where we can plan a strike,” said the President, ending the discussion. “If we attack one plant, all of the others will be hidden. Clearly, we need to flesh this out. We can discuss the ethics and practicalities at a later date.”

  “Preferably before the president of Iran gets here,” said Dr. Bacon.

  The President looked across the table at Breanna and Reid. “Good work. Keep it up, please.”

  “Mrs. President, I did want to point out one thing,” said CIA Director Edmund. “The operation started with a very small group.” Edmund chose his words carefully, trying to find a diplomatic way of suggesting that Whiplash be pushed aside. “Time being of the essence, I would suggest that we’re now at a point where the operation has exceeded their ability to handle it.”

  “Is that so?” President Todd looked directly at Breanna.

  “I think we can continue to coordinate things under the present arrangement,” said Breanna. “Jonathon has a great deal of expertise. We have excellent people in the field. They should remain in the lead.”

  “This is going to be too big for the Whiplash unit to handle,” said Edmund. He turned to Reid. “Don’t you agree, Jonathon?”

  The tone in Edmund’s voice would have intimidated many people. But if Reid had been one of them, he never would have been invited back to the CIA in the first place.

  “There is difficulty in changing horses in midstream,” he said. “I would suggest that the CIA work on fleshing out the larger network, while Whiplash concentrates on the implications of what it has discovered. The situation is still developing. The team should be allowed to continue following it to its logical extreme — if only for expediency’s sake.”

  Edmund frowned, but part of him couldn’t help admiring the art of Reid’s reply. “Who’s in charge?” he asked.

  “The President,” said Reid.

  It was a dodge — Edmund meant of the overall operation, and Reid knew it — but mention of the President stopped any further discussion.

  “Continue as we were,” she said. “Whiplash follows the trail it has discovered. Mr. Edmund — your agency will coordinate a broader search and intelligence operation. I want an update on the situation every twelve hours. Now please, Breanna, Jonathon — we have some other items on our agenda, and I’m afraid we’re going to have to ask you to leave.”

  * * *

  “Thank you for supporting me,” Breanna said as they walked back to his car.

  “Supporting us both, I believe.”

  “You stood up to your boss.”

  “That’s my job, really. He doesn’t mind, too much…but…” Reid let the word hang there for a moment. “…if this thing does get too big, then we hand it off.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “No ego.”

  “None. Well, maybe a little.”

  Reid laughed. So did Breanna.

  Their laughter was short-lived. Breanna’s secure satellite phone rang as she got into the car. It was Danny, who used the Voice’s communication module to call her.

  “Yes?”

  “We have a situation,” he told her. “And an opportunity.”

  Danny explained where Tarid was and what they hoped to do.

  “Are you sure you can get him out?” Breanna asked when he finished.

  “I can’t be giving out guarantees like that. I think I can, or I wouldn’t have called. I may be able to do it without the Sudanese army taking any casualties, if luck runs with us. But that’s a big if. I can’t guarantee anything. There’s a village nearby — again, I’m not guaranteeing anything. Once things start happening, a lot of their soldiers may die.”

  Breanna turned to Reid. “They found the subject. He’s being held in camp about fifty miles from the battle site. They want to follow him.”

  “That’s what they should be doing,” said Reid.

  “The Sudanese army is guarding him,” Breanna said. “Do you think we could get them to release him?”

  “Given the state of relations between our countries, I’d say there’s no chance at all.”

  Breanna covered the phone. “They have a plan to get him out, but Danny’s concerned that some of the Sudanese soldiers will be killed if things go wrong.”

  “We have to be ruthless in this game.”

  Breanna wondered if it was really that easy for him. There were, of course, many arguments in favor of getting Tarid out, even if it did mean casualties among the Sudanese regulars. An atomic bomb would threaten millions. But somehow she felt the calculus should take more time.

  “If they think they can get him out and follow him to the other elements in this chain,” Reid added, “we should urge them to do so.”

  Breanna put the phone back to her head.

  “Do it.”

  * * *

  Breanna checked with Zen on the way back to her office, making sure that Teri was all right. Zen’s report was filled with his usual optimism and humor; according to him, Teri had charmed the staff and would no doubt have been running the place if he’d let her. Since it was too late to return to school by the time the X rays—“very negative,” said the doctor — were done and read, Zen had taken her back to his office, where Teri did a little homework and research on the Web before heading home with him.

  “Research meaning sending text messages to her friends?” Breanna asked.

  “We have a rule in the Senate,” replied Zen. “We only text enemies.”

  “Har-har.”

  “When are you coming home?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “No sweat. Teri and I have dinner covered. I’m thinking spaghetti and meatballs.”

  “Again?”

  “It’s the chef’s favorite dinner. And I don’t mind it, either.”

  “All right.” Breanna glanced to the left, suddenly conscious of Reid. “I’ll probably be home around six. Maybe seven.”

  “Which means nine, right?”

  “Close to seven.”

  “Love you.”

  “Love you, too.”

  Breanna clicked off the call and returned her cell phone to her pocketbook.

  “Tough job with a family,” said Reid.

  “It can be,” she admitted.

  “When I was younger — it is a very difficult balance. But you seem to get a lot of support from your husband.”

  “He tries. He’s very busy.”

  “You don’t have a nanny?” Reid asked.

  “No.”

  Breanna suddenly felt uncomfortable, not so much because of the content of the conversation, but because of whom she was having it with. While she and Reid had worked well together over the past few months, they’d never discussed personal matters — hers or his. She didn’t even know if he had any children.

  “We’ve had various helpers,” Breanna said. “But we’ve always felt — we feel very strongly that, if we can, we’d prefer to raise Teri ourselves.”

  “Don’t want her calling someone else ‘Mom.’ I completely agree,” said Reid. “Raising them yourself — there’s no substitute. As hard as it is, I’m sure she’ll be better off in the long run.”

  “I hope so,” said Breanna.

  * * *

  Breanna returned to a whirlwind of tasks at the Pentagon. Most of them had nothing to do directly with Whiplash, but she interrupted her schedule when her secretary, Ms. Bennett, finally managed to get hold of the man she wanted to run the group’s support team: her father’s former right-hand man, Terence “Ax” Gibbs.

  “I’m having a fantastic time down here,” Ax told her over the video phone. He looked it, too — he was on a porch on an island in the Flor
ida Keys. “How are you all enjoying the snow?”

  “It hasn’t snowed all winter up here,” said Breanna. “And now it’s almost spring.”

  “Too bad.” Ax winked. The former Air Force chief master sergeant had retired when Dog was assigned out of Dreamland. Up until then, Ax wasn’t just the epitome of a chief master sergeant, he was a chief’s chief, a candidate for sainthood or the devil incarnate, depending on your perspective.

  Most people would have said he was a little of both.

  “I need your help, Ax,” said Breanna. “I have a new command. It’s a joint operation involving intelligence and the military. I need someone who can get things done, who can work with the military side lining up support for different missions, who’s not afraid of getting his hands dirty.”

  “Sounds like it would be right up my alley,” said Ax. “If I were looking for a job.”

  “Now before you say no—”

  “You’re just like your father, you know that?”

  “Ax—”

  “Fortunately for you, my sources indicated that this call might be coming. And I was able to do a little research into the subject.”

  “How—”

  “Once a chief, always a chief.” Ax raised his glass of home-brewed ale as a toast. “There are some things I can’t tell, even when retired. Don’t worry, no state secrets have been betrayed. Who would be, well, not better than me, but nearly as good?”

  “I—”

  “Greasy Hands Parsons. And he has far too much time on his hands now that his grandson Robert has started school. Even better, he lives not ten miles from the Pentagon, so he wouldn’t have to relocate.”

  “Greasy Hands? He has to be pushing eighty by now.”

  Ax laughed. “Everyone at Dreamland thought he was about sixty when he was there, right?”

  “Seventy.”

  “Greasy Hands was younger than most of the sergeants he had working for him. You can’t fool another chief. Especially one with access to personnel records. I think if you called him up, he’d jump at the chance to get back to doing something useful.”

  “Could he work at something where he wasn’t going to get his hands dirty?”

  “Who says that’s not part of the job?”

  Few nicknames had ever been as appropriate as “Greasy Hands.” Parsons not only had incredible mechanical skills; he couldn’t resist putting them to use. Breanne knew that his military background and association with Dreamland would be definite pluses. He got along with Ray Rubeo — not an easy task — and of course already knew Danny and would be respected by him. If she couldn’t have Ax, Greasy Hands would be an excellent choice.

  “Maybe I will talk to him,” she said. “You wouldn’t happen to know what his phone number is these days, would you?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do.”

  * * *

  Fifteen minutes later Al Parsons felt his cell phone rattling his pocket, vibrating before it rang. He considered not answering it, since he was under his car examining a ball joint that had, in technical terms, gone all hell out of whack. But technically he wasn’t actually working on the car — the mechanic at the auto shop where he’d stopped was being paid to do that. And since the young man seemed to have a rough idea of the trouble now that Greasy Hands had pointed it out, he decided he’d step outside and take the call.

  “Just clunk it with the fork one time and it’ll come right off,” he told the mechanic. “I gotta take this call.”

  “Is this Al Parsons?” said a woman’s voice when he hit the Call button.

  “Depends on who’s calling,” he answered.

  “Please hold the line for Ms. Stockard.”

  “Who?”

  Breanna came on the line. “Chief Parsons?”

  “Breanna, is that you? Holy God, girl — how are you?”

  “I’m good, Greasy Hands, how are you?”

  “Bored out of my mind. What can I do for you?”

  Breanna described as much of the job as she could over the phone. Before she was done, Greasy Hands had all but volunteered to do it for free. They arranged for him to come in the following day for an interview and to meet some of the other key people in the organization, including Reid. Greasy Hands hung up practically singing — a skill Breanna hadn’t known he possessed.

  The mechanic working on his car might have said he didn’t possess it. But he was a fairly discreet fellow and wouldn’t have said anything bad about his customer, especially since his customer’s good mood led to a twenty dollar tip.

  * * *

  Breanna’s work, along with updates on the Sudan and Iranian situation, kept her in her office until a few minutes after eight; in truth, she could have easily stayed several more hours and still not finished everything. By the time she finally reached home, not only was dinner done, but Teri had finished her homework and was getting ready for bed.

  Breanna popped her head into the bathroom while Teri was brushing her teeth. She studied her daughter’s face. It was soft and relaxed, innocent.

  She’d held that face close to hers forever, it seemed; at times it was impossible to even imagine not seeing it.

  Teri glanced up and caught a glimpse of her mother behind her in the mirror. Instantly, her expression changed to a scowl. She put her head down, concentrating on her brush.

  “How’s your leg, honey?” Breanna asked.

  Teri didn’t say anything.

  “Teri?”

  The girl leaned forward to spit out the toothpaste. She was determined not to talk to her mother. She took a paper cup from the holder and rinsed.

  “The doctor told me the X rays were negative,” said Breanna. “I called to check.”

  Mouth rinsed, Teri dropped her toothbrush on the sink and spun around to leave. Breanna put her hand out and grabbed her.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, though she knew exactly why Teri was angry.

  “It’s time for bed.”

  “Teri—”

  Breanna looked into her daughter’s eyes. Anger, fear, and disappointment mingled in equal parts. Breanna wanted to say something, but wasn’t sure what. She couldn’t apologize for not going to the hospital — there was nothing to apologize for. Zen had been there, and there was no reason both of them always had to be by Teri’s side. And yet she felt as if she had let her daughter down.

  Teri certainly thought so, even though, if asked, she would not have been able to put her feelings precisely into words.

  “I’m fine,” said Teri.

  Her angry tone annoyed Breanna, who snapped back. “Then put your toothbrush back where it belongs.”

  Teri grabbed it, practically flinging it into the holder. Breanna closed her eyes as her daughter stomped to bed — she hadn’t meant to be a scold.

  “Hey listen,” she told her daughter when she caught up to her in the bedroom. “I’m sorry I couldn’t go to the hospital for you. Dad said he could.”

  “You had to talk to the President.”

  “That’s right.”

  Teri frowned.

  Part of her thought she was making too much of this, but another part of her was just angry and didn’t care. “Listen, Teri, what I do is very important for a lot of people.”

  “I know that.”

  “Well…good.”

  Breanna couldn’t help thinking back to her own childhood. Her mother had been on her own, and had to work full-time. They were not poor — her mother had just become a doctor — but there were many, many nights when Breanna tucked herself into bed…after having come home, made dinner, studied, and cleaned up, all without having anyone home or telling her what to do.

  She didn’t want Teri to repeat that childhood, but at the same time, Breanna wanted her daughter to realize how good she had things.

  There seemed to be no magic formula to make that happen.

  “All right,” said Breanna. “Good night, then.”

  “Good night.”

  Breanna leaned down and kissed her.


  “Send dad in,” said Teri sharply as Breanna turned off the light.

  * * *

  “Oh, she’s fine,” Zen told Breanna after tucking Teri in. “Just a little spoiled.”

  “Are you saying I spoil her?”

  “Hell, no—I spoil her.” Zen rolled his wheelchair to the refrigerator and got out a beer. “But it’s not fatal. She’ll get over it.”

  “I don’t think she’s spoiled,” said Breanna.

  “And I don’t think you have to be there for her every second of every day,” said Zen.

  “She does.”

  “She’ll get over it.” He wheeled over to the cabinet for a bottle opener. “Believe me. Another couple of years, she’ll be saying we never leave her alone.”

  “I can’t wait.”

  “Me, neither.”

  35

  Al-Quazi

  Even the dirt in Africa was different than in America.

  It had the texture of pulverized rocks, even in a light rain. It didn’t so much meld together in the rain as dissipate; the mud was more slimy than sticky. If you were crawling through it, as Danny Freah was, you noticed how it slipped into your clothes, and how it seemed to swim onto your face. You felt the rocks curl around you as you moved across the minefield, and the sting of blotches of mud as the drops splashed.

  The ground had a specific smell to it, too, a scent unlike others you’d ever crawled through, either as a child or a soldier. Many times, dirt smelled like death, or the precursor to death, hot sulfur and electrified metal. Sometimes it smelled of chemicals, and other times of rot and refuse. This dirt smelled like impervious stone, absorbing nothing, and obscuring the senses, just as the rain made it difficult for the night glasses to work properly.

  “Turn twenty degrees to the right and proceed forward ten yards,” said the Voice.

  Danny altered his course. Flash, Hera, and McGowan were behind in the minefield, moving forward slowly, not so much because they were afraid of the mines — though a healthy fear was always in order — but because they didn’t want to do anything to attract the attention of the guards in the post about forty yards away. The guard was sitting in the machine-gun nest under a poncho, trying to keep dry, and not paying particular attention to the minefield alongside him. Still, the four Whiplashers were in an extremely vulnerable position, surrounded by mines on both sides, with their guns tucked up over their shoulders and secured by Velcro straps against their rucksacks. If for some reason the guard decided to get up from his post and take a walk around in the rain, he might easily see them.