“Somebody doesn’t think so,” she’d replied, still thinking mostly about Lisa’s death and Don’s perfidy.
“If they didn’t they wouldn’t be so desperate to stop you,” Landsberg said. “Think about it.”
And next for her was convincing Krantz that she had to be allowed to continue despite the deaths. And he was the last hurdle because her team was raring to go now, ready to meet Vanessa off Hutchinson Island as soon as she was repaired and towed the rest of the way. This time the Coast Guard was providing the security, and that fact alone gave them all the assurance they needed to get back aboard the platform and finish their work. The real beginning.
“We can be on Hutchinson Island the day after tomorrow,” she told Gail.
“I’ll let Kirk know,” Gail said.
“Where is he?”
Gail spread her hands. “Around somewhere. Watching us.”
And Eve felt a warm sense of comfort. They were not out of the woods yet, not by a long shot, but McGarvey was close and it was enough for her.
SEVENTY-FIVE
At Abu Dhabi’s International Airport, DeCamp, dressed in a plain light business suit and traveling under the work name Howard Beckwith, presented his passport to the immigration official who compared the photograph to his face. “The purpose of your visit to the United Arab Emirates?”
“Business.”
The officer looked up. “What business would that be, sir?”
“Oil futures trading.”
“Ah,” the officer said, smiling as he stamped the passport and handed it back. Oil was something everyone in the UAE understood and approved of. “I hope that your stay will be a profitable one.”
In the customs hall he retrieved his single bag, and brought it to one of the officers serving the Etihad flight that had just arrived from Geneva. The man checked the passport and declarations slip DeCamp had filled out just before landing, placed an invisible check mark on the leather bag that would show up on scanners on the way out to the departure area, and waved him on.
It was a little after eight in the evening, and heading across to the exits he thought how nice it would be to finish here and then return home to have a dinner and a good bottle of wine on the veranda with Martine. A simple pleasure he’d enjoyed for a number of years that had been taken from him.
For no reason. It was merely business, and could have been handled equitably between them. He would even have been willing to return all the money, less expenses, if Wolfhardt had talked to him.
But even that sort of a possibility had been made impossible on the day Wolfhardt had shown up in Nice. They had known where he lived, and they had known Martine made him vulnerable.
“If we should have to leave our bleached bones on the desert sands in vain, then beware the anger of the legions!”
Outside, George Marks, one of his top sergeants from the Buffalo Battalion, was waiting for him with a Land Rover, and he had to do a double take before he recognized DeCamp. Short and stocky, with arms like a gorilla’s and the speed of a gazelle, Marks had ended his career in the Batallion as the chief hand-to-hand combat instructor. Afterwards he’d moved to Capetown where he opened a mercenary consulting business with his nineteen-year-old son Kevin, who was a computer whiz. Together they helped clients find contractors and do the logistical planning for operations, something DeCamp had preferred to do on his own until now.
“You’re looking fit, Colonel,” he said.
“You, too, Sergeant,” DeCamp said. “When did you get here?”
“Yesterday, early. I had a few things to check out on the ground before I could be completely sure you wouldn’t be running into a buzz saw, if you know what I mean.”
They got into the Land Rover, Marks behind the wheel, and headed away from the airport. “I’ve booked you a suite in the InterContintenal for three days, though I expect you’ll be gone before that.”
“I’m heading up tonight, and taking the morning flight to Geneva if all goes well,” DeCamp said. “What about weapons?”
“You specified the 9mm Steyr GB for your handgun. It’s in your kit along with four eighteen-round mags, and a suppressor. But I also brought a Knight PDW with four thirty-round mags. It’s been modified to pull down the muzzle velocity to subsonic so it can be silenced as well. It’s short, lightweight, and capable of putting up to seven hundred rounds per minute on target.”
“I know the weapon,” DeCamp said. “It’s a good choice.”
“I didn’t know if breaking and entering or shock-and-awe tactics might be a consideration, but I brought a mixed bag of small Semtex packets and the appropriate fuses, plus a pair of Haley and Weller multiburst stun grenades that make no sound as the cap fires, a K-BAR knife and a night-vision ocular. All of it is untraceable of course, so when your op is completed you can drop it in place.”
“The pistol and perhaps the knife may be all I’ll need,” DeCamp said. “Clothing?”
“Nothing military, of course. But knowing your sizes helped. Dark jeans, a black polo shirt, and a reversible Windbreaker. White on the outside so you won’t attract attention on the drive up, and black on the inside. Dark Nikes.”
“Transportation?”
“You’ll take this machine. It’s a bit less than five hundred klicks round-trip, so you’ll have plenty of petrol, and the registration is also untraceable, so if the need should arise, you can simply park it and walk away. Otherwise bring it back to the hotel and leave it with the valet.”
“Coms?
“An encrypted Nokia, my number programmed in. After twenty-four hours its memory will be erased. And soon as you’re gone I’ll sterilize your track.”
They were coming into the capital city and traffic on Highway 33, Airport Road, was heavy with Mercedes and BMWs plus a smattering of Rolls and Bentleys. The UAE, despite Dubai’s financial meltdown a couple of years before, was in very good shape. And as long as oil continued at seventy dollars per barrel or higher, life there was good.
“I could have used you on my last op,” DeCamp said. “Wouldn’t have to be wasting my time here.”
Marks glanced at him. “When you called for backup, I figured it might have been you involved in that dustup in the Gulf of Mexico. Was it a double-cross?”
DeCamp had debated how deeply to involve Marks beyond the logistics, and yet other than Martine and before her Colonel Frazer, he’d never had anyone to talk to. And he was already missing it.
“It didn’t go exactly as planned, but instead of coming after me they hit someone very close. Someone defenseless.”
Marks drove the rest of the way in silence until they were within sight of the hotel. “Revenge is not always the best course, Colonel.”
“I agree, Sergeant, but this time it’s necessary,” DeCamp said. “Now tell me where you got your intel.”
And Marks did. Both sources.
SEVENTY-SIX
It was already four in the afternoon when Gail walked back across A1A from the South Service Building, the containment wall that blocked reactor one looming ominously into the clear blue Florida sky, and she felt the deepest sense of failure in her entire life since her father’s death. She hadn’t been there for him, just as she hadn’t been there for her partner. And coming back now brought everything into her mind in living color, and it wasn’t pleasant.
Most of the work was being done on the north side of the facility, where power from Vanessa, when and if it
