Damage Control (16 page)

“Or?”

“Or you can come with us and go through it all again—risk, the whole nine yards. Ambur’s a war zone.”

“You asking me to volunteer?”

“No. I mean it—you can stay here and run security on the plane and I’ll think to my dying day you did your duty and then some.”

Fidel looked at him, leaning forward in the airplane seat and turning, then looked out the small window and turned back. “You and I have some differences of viewpoint, Commander. I guess that came out yesterday.”

“I was wrong yesterday. You did what you had to do.”

“I want you to understand that I don’t get my kicks from it. I’ve seen a couple guys did—got so they killed for fun. They were nuts; I knew they were nuts, and they finally got
put away for being nuts. I’m not like that. But yesterday, that’s what I
do.
And it’s what you do, too, if you’re honest about it.”

“Not without a lot of guilt.”

Fidel stared at him. “Well, if you didn’t feel something, you’d be nuts, you see what I’m saying?”

“You feel it, too.”

“I don’t let it bend me out of shape, though. I don’t make a big thing out of it.”

Alan half-smiled. “You’re not the one in command.”

Fidel absorbed that, grunted. “Djalik says you’re okay, but a gunner. I’ll go.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I’ll
go!
Jesus, sir, I volunteer, okay?” He got up and made his way to the aisle. “You and me are never going to be asshole buddies, but I think we’re more alike than you maybe want to admit.”

He went down the aisle. Alan sat there. At that moment, if the plane had taken itself off and flown toward Bahrain, he would have cheered. But it wouldn’t, and he wouldn’t, so he hauled himself up and called down the plane, “Lieutenant Ong, could I see you for a minute, please?”

He moved so she wouldn’t have to climb over him. He wasn’t sure that close contact with Ong was a great idea. She sat next to him and said “Hi,” in a bright voice.

“Ah—Lieutenant, I want you to, mmm, back off a little from Petty Officer Benvenuto, okay?”

Her smile vanished. “What are you saying to me?”

“Benvenuto is twenty years old. He’s never been out of East Jesus, New York. He doesn’t understand people’s signals yet.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Her voice rose.

“Lieutenant, you’ve got him running around in circles. You were holding
hands
with him. That’s improper behavior; you’re an officer in the United States Navy!”

“I—was scared. I—needed to, um, depend—he’s strong.”

“Benvenuto is not a strong man. He’s a kid. You, on the other hand, are an officer. I’m sorry, you were out of line.”

She turned the big, teary lamps of her eyes on him. “Why don’t you like me?” she said.

Oh, shit.
“I like you well enough, Lieutenant. But military relationships—”

“I told you, I need a strong man! You won’t do it; I need somebody! My father is strong,
very
strong; I was raised to depend on him.”

“What does your father do?”

“He owns a chain of Chinese-language newspapers. He thought I was insane to go into the Navy, such little jobs, and now I think he was right!” She began to sob. Quietly.

Alan let her get through it. He didn’t have even a Kleenex to offer, so he simply sat there. When she was calm, he said, “You did join the Navy, is the trouble. You
are
an officer. There are things you do and things you don’t do. Please don’t touch Benvenuto anymore; please stop calling him ‘Benny’—he’s Petty Officer Benvenuto—and please stop using him as a personal flunkey.” He changed his position in the seat and lightened his voice. “Now, you’ll be in command while I’m gone.”

“I don’t want to command!”

“You’re the officer.”

“It’s an accident I’m an officer; I’m really a computer specialist!”

“Yeah, well, now we’re here, and you’re an officer, and I’m going away and you’re in command. If I don’t come back in three days, you take the aircraft and return to Bahrain; the pilot will know that’s the plan. If Mister O’Neill comes back and I don’t, you support him within the parameters of your own good judgment; consult with Fifth Fleet as you see fit. And remember that you have a responsibility to the people under you—most of all to get them home in one piece.”

“I don’t know anything about that stuff!” she cried.

“Yeah, well—” He exhaled loudly. “You do your best and take your lumps.” He put his hands on the seatback in front of him as a signal that he was going. “Remember what I said about Benvenuto.” She swung her knees out of the way, seeming to cringe into the seat so that she wouldn’t touch him. Tears made her eyes glisten.

Alan walked down to Clavers. “Lieutenant Ong will be in command while I’m gone. Any questions?”

Clavers blew out her lips. “You know any good prayers?”

The sun made heat mirages along the runway like pools of moving oil. Nothing else was moving out in the heat except Moad, his pilot, headed for the plane after making his peace with the tower.

Harry opened the antenna on his satellite phone and waited for a signal, sweat forming on his forehead and running down his sides. He was tired of this kind of work. He didn’t really believe in the causes anymore. Living in the Middle East made American policy difficult to accept.

Time to go.

Despite which, he dialed the number on the slip of paper in his left hand. The number rang twice and was answered automatically. There was no message, and a short beep. Harry pushed in a string of numbers. A simple code: date, meeting time, fallback, urgency.

His agent, Lottery Ticket, would know to meet today, and where, and that in the litany of urgency codes, this one rated the highest.

Harry stood in the sun, facing Mecca, and waited, praying. In time, the phone vibrated once and a string of digits appeared on the screen, accepting the meeting.

“The unrest that has gripped India increased overnight and
has spread to cyberspace and the financial sector. Although it’s increasingly hard to confirm reports here as mobiles go dead and the long-line telephone system breaks down, it appears that at least one virulent computer worm has been launched, and three major attacks have been made on computerized systems. The worm, called ‘Shakuntala’ after a word in its subject line, removes part of all Windows XP and 2000 operating systems. My sources say that it is spreading exponentially in India because of language links.

“In addition, both the computerized rail system and the air-traffic control system have been the targets of what one official has called ‘cyberterrorism.’ Both seem to have been launched about two a.m. New Delhi time; by the beginning of the working day, major airports in Delhi, Mumbai, and Calcutta were closed and international flights were reported to have been diverted out of country. Radio bulletins say that the rail system is operating at less than half capacity and very low speeds because of the loss of computerized signals control, with one wreck reported on the main Calcutta-Lucknow line.

“In the centers of India’s computer industry—New Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, and Hyderabad—high-tech companies that handle huge quantities of American and European outsourcing have gone down with computer failures. I heard an industry spokesperson promise a quick fix, but, in a country now teetering on the brink of chaos, with a government that is itself giving wildly conflicting statements about the situation, and the benchmark Mumbai stock index down twenty-one percent in the first hour of trading, many people here are hoarding food and petrol and preparing for what they fear will be a long ordeal. Nick LaHaye, Mumbai.”

“We need to get to Ambur.” Harry said it baldly, just like that. Alan could tell that he was already in a hurry. More quietly, he said, “I want to get this over with.”

Djalik grunted.

Harry gave Fidel a long look. “I don’t really like adding to the people on my need-to-know list. Just so you know, this is my last show for these folks.” He jerked his thumb out the window at America, Washington DC, Langley.

Alan shrugged. “We’re in this together. I want Fidel to know what’s going on.”

Harry was silent for a few seconds, his chin in his hand, looking out the window at the tarmac and the white stucco of the passenger building in the sun. Then he turned back to face Alan, opened his laptop and looked at the screen.

“I have two goals. I need to meet a source, an agent. And I want to look at the site, in particular, Buildings Thirty-seven and One-eighteen. That’s a lower priority, especially if I can meet this guy.”

Alan leaned over the table and looked at the map. “The facility is almost a mile square, Harry.”

“Yeah. They packed everything into one basket; hydro from the dam, a coal-fired plant here on the north side of the river, and a nuke plant here.” Harry pointed to a set of buildings on a photograph, laid the photograph on the map so
that it was oriented correctly. “WMD office at CIA says that Building Thirty-seven, that’s this low building here, is a quote possible nuclear weapons storage facility end quote.”

Djalik nodded, and Fidel said “whoa” quietly.

Harry nodded back. “I’d like the four of us, armed. My source says the roads are clear, or at least they were last night when he left me a message.”

“Where exactly are we going?” Fidel asked.

Harry pulled out a map and put it on the table. He had a big orange marking pen and he drew a circle around a point on a ridge just south of the power facility. “There’s a gas station with a restaurant and a market right here. It services the trucks going down to Ambur. It’s high enough that we’ll be able to see the whole layout. If that doesn’t work, I need to go to Mohir. That’s over here.” Harry pointed at another spot on the ridge, closer, but farther west.

Fidel and Djalik put their heads down over the map and the photo so that Alan couldn’t see it. Djalik said, “It’s just about twenty klicks. If the roads are clear, we can be back before this evening.” The way he said it suggested that he didn’t really believe the roads were clear, but Harry nodded.

“Good. Let’s go.”

Fidel and Djalik exchanged a look. “Need more of a plan than that, Mister O’Neill. Ingress, egress, evasion. A rally point if we get split up. Stuff like that.”

Harry sighed. “If this was a commando raid, I’d do all that. We’re supposed to drive over there, you guys take some photos, I meet my guy. That’s it. And we need to move. My first meeting window is in an hour and thirty minutes.”

“Meeting window?” Fidel asked.

Djalik raised his eyebrows. “You ever do clandestine? The guy who’s waiting, he’ll only wait a set time, usually just a couple of minutes. That’s the window. If nobody shows in the window that looks right, he takes off, goes to a fallback meeting site.”

“Okay,” Fidel said. “And the fallback’s Mohir?”

Harry began to drum his fingers on the table. He was impatient to start, that much Alan could see. And he clearly hated this open discussion.

Fidel caught Harry’s mood too, but he wasn’t going to let up. “So if we get there late, we miss the guy, and then we have to hustle to the next place. Right?”

“Yes.”

“That’s another fifteen klicks.” Fidel turned to Alan as if appealing to him. “That’s a lot of driving around the countryside on a tight schedule. Mister O’Neill says the roads are clear. What if they ain’t? Do we shoot our way through?”

Alan thought about the day before, the fight just to get off the Indian navy base. “He’s got a point, Harry.”

Harry’s fingers drummed faster. “Yeah. Yeah, I can see all that, but every minute we sit here, we’re not driving. Anything could happen on the road. We take it one step at a time. I expect there will be troops, Indian Army troops, moving in this morning to retake the facility from the terrorists. Probably roadblocks. The longer we wait, the harder it will be to get there. All we can do is take things as they come.”

“Weapons?” Djalik asked.

Harry nodded, and Djalik led the way to the arms locker in the tail. Fidel followed him like a kid heading for a toy store. Alan waited until Fidel was through the cabin with Djalik and then grabbed Harry’s arm.

“You’re meeting your source at the gas station, right?”

Harry looked and gave him a very slight nod.

“How are we going to handle that?” Alan asked brusquely.

“I’ll wander off.”

Alan digested this. He might be nominally in charge, but Harry wasn’t going to tell him much. “Wander off?”

“You want your own copy of the comm plan?” Harry asked.

Alan was tempted for a moment to say,
Yes, I’m in charge,
I have the need to know.
“Fidel may be a little short on social graces, Harry, but his point is valid. We can’t support you if we don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Look, Alan, I have a comm plan. I activated by a signal to the guy’s computer about twenty minutes ago. I can’t take the signal back now, and I can’t change the meeting places. Right? You know how this stuff works. We go, we get to the truck stop, and I hope he’s sitting in the tea shop. If we can’t get to the truck stop, or he can’t, then four hours later in another tea shop in the village to the west.” Harry didn’t look at Alan while he spoke, as if he regretted passing even that much information. Then he pushed past. “If we’re going to do this, we have to move.”

Alan wished that he knew Harry’s whole plan. He wished Harry’s shorts fit him. As he passed through the main cabin, he snatched up his cold coffee and drained it and then went back aft to get a weapon.

Fidel had a semiautomatic shotgun and a pistol. Djalik, whose missing fingers mirrored Alan’s, was limited to things he could handle with one hand. He took an Uzi machine pistol. Whatever Harry had chosen was already stuffed in a long zipped bag with a big Canadian flag. Alan looked over the limited selection and pointed to an M-16-clone carbine with a short barrel and a folding stock.

“Is that thing accurate?” he asked.

“Not bad,” Fidel said.

“Pretty sharp,” Djalik said at the same time. They both laughed.

“Can I manage it?” Alan asked Fidel, holding up his maimed left hand.

“Sure, sir. Doesn’t weigh anything.”

Harry leaned over him and picked up a green holster. “Rose sent this.” Alan’s Belgian Browning. He smiled, more at the thought of Rose than the sight of the gun.

Under the gun was a grubby green nylon helmet bag and
a backpack. Alan grabbed them—no clothes, but his spare toilet kit and some underwear and his flight gear.

Moad leaned in from the front. “I have a car.”

Harry hoisted the Canadian bag. “Let’s go.”

“Admiral Rafehausen’s requesting permission to put a recce flight up near the Indians.” Captain Lurgwitz waved a message sheet as she came into Pilchard’s office.

Pilchard grabbed it, pulled it close to his eyes and then looked up at her. “Rafehausen? Sent a message? He’s doped to his eyeballs and strapped to a rack, according to Captain Lash.”

Lurgwitz shrugged. “That’s why I brought it in person, sir. Something’s going on out there.”

Pilchard read the message again. He started writing on the bottom of the sheet, his printing nearly illegible. “Doesn’t matter. That recce needs to go down anyway; Lash is being too goddam cautious and he’s blind. But get somebody on the
Jefferson
and find out who the—blazes put out a message over Rafehausen’s name.” He kept writing. He showed her his note. “Okay? One plane out of Trin, okay? That’s all we have, and it can’t look like a strike. Try for some distance work first. No closer than five-zero miles to any hostile. Got it?”

“Aye, aye, sir.” Captain Lurgwitz took the proffered sheet. “Washington could call that a provocation.” She waved a hand. “My job to point this shit out, sir.”

The admiral shrugged, as if accepting the weight of the decision on his bony shoulders. “Yeah. Thanks. But losing the
Jefferson
‘s more of a worry than provoking the mutineers.” His eyes were already down on another message. “Get that out.”

“Yessir.”

“This is insane,” Alan said almost to himself. His words were drowned by the noise of the Land Rover as Djalik shifted gears rounding a sharp bend and slowing for a mass of people on the road.

“Refugees,” Djalik said. He shifted into reverse, but they were all around the car, a few young men beating on the hood with their fists, more standing still or shuffling along under heavy loads of plastic bowls, furniture, and bags of rice.

“Look sharp,” Fidel said. “I see guns.”

“Fuck,” Djalik said. In the front seat, both suddenly had guns; Fidel had the automatic shotgun across his legs, and Djalik had the machine pistol in his lap. He kept both hands on the wheel.

Alan and Harry were in the back. Harry frowned. “My guy said the roads were clear.”

A burst of firing came clear over the engine noise, loud whams all together from a big automatic rifle followed by a scream from the crowd. The crowd vanished as fast as it had appeared, leaving two old women trampled next to the wreck of a plywood tea shop and two twitching bodies that Alan took to be recent gunshot victims on his side of the car.

Djalik didn’t wait for orders. He clashed the gears and the Land Rover shot forward, going over something with a soft bump and swaying as he shifted again and took a curve at high speed. According to the map, they should have been in open country, but this was India, and the road out of the town was lined with small shacks, tea shops, cabins; only behind them could the rows of sugar fields be glimpsed, interspersed with dense clumps of bamboo and lush trees.

Another burst of fire and simultaneously a single neat perforation appeared in the left rear side panel, just a few inches beyond Alan’s shoulder. The bullet vanished into his seatback.

Alan leaned against the side as the vehicle swung around a pothole and accelerated. Over the seatback, he could see another bend in the road, the middle distance screened by a big stand of bamboo.

“I’ve got a crossroads coming up, no vehicles, and more refugees beyond. Could be a checkpoint.” Djalik put on the brakes, and Alan raised his head. Around the bend, a glint of metal showed for a moment. Alan could see a heavy log across the road.

Harry leaned forward over the seats for a look. “That a regular army checkpoint?”

“Kinda too late to decide now.”

Two soldiers in dirty uniforms stepped out from the bamboo in front of them and took aim at the windshield.

Alan saw their turbans. “Sikhs. Probably loyalists,” he said quietly, although there was no way the men on the road could hear him.

Djalik and Fidel had their weapons out of sight. The Land Rover came to a stop. The first soldier yelled and motioned with the barrel of his rifle. The second kept his on target.

“How you want to play this, Harry?” Djalik asked quietly. He kept both hands on the wheel.

“Me first. You guys stay in until I talk, or tell you.”

He opened the door slowly and put his feet on the road, keeping the door between him and the rifles as long as he could. The two soldiers didn’t move. Harry closed the door and raised his hands.

“Speak English?” he asked as he climbed out.

The man who had shouted raised his rifle and motioned Harry forward. The nearer man shouted again. The other soldier yelled at Harry.

“We’re American. American!” Harry shouted.

“Hemiriken?” said the soldier nearest to Alan’s door. His head rose from behind the sights of his rifle. He turned his
head and shouted behind him at the roadblock. Alan thought they were speaking Hindi.

The other soldier shouted at Harry and he tried to respond in different languages—first French, and then another that had to be Arabic, and then a third. The word “American” came up in each. Neither of the soldiers seemed to understand. The one outside Alan’s window waved his rifle at the men in the car and spoke again, apparently to his partner.

A third soldier approached them at a run, his rifle held in both hands, his eyes moving to the landscape to their right. He had three broad stripes on his left shoulder. He came up to the soldiers and they had a rapid exchange, the soldiers both speaking at once, their eyes never leaving the vehicle and Harry.

Harry waited and then cleared his throat. “Sergeant?” he asked.

“Yez. I speak English, thank you. Please state your business?” His uniform was covered in dust and his armpits were black with sweat. He’d been in it a while. He sounded calm and professional, even courteous, except that his men had their assault rifles aimed and ready.

“We’re trying to get to Mohir, near Ambur. Can you tell me what’s going on, Sergeant?”

“Past this post is war,” the sergeant said.

Well ahead of them to the south, where the ground started to rise toward the mountains, a big gun fired. Alan saw the flash first, then heard a dull crump as the sound carried over the five or six miles. Before he could remark on it, a missile rose from a position to his right and crossed the intervening miles in seconds, detonating in roughly the position of the original firer. There was a sudden burst of fire beyond the bamboo, big guns like howitzers that made speech impossible and threw a line of dust eruptions from exploding shells up the ridge. All three soldiers were off the road and in the ditch to Alan’s left before the last explosion sounded.
Answering fire from beyond the ridge struck somewhere in front of them, again screened by the bamboo, raising geysers of earth over the tops of the highest plants.

More shooting off to the right. The sergeant said something and crawled out on the road. His men stayed in the ditch, but their rifles were back on the car.

Harry climbed to his feet, no longer a picture of groomed safari wear. “How long have you been fighting here?” Harry asked. He sat back against the fender of the Land Rover. A pack of cigarettes, only slightly banged about, appeared in his hand. He looked more relaxed than anyone there.