section took mug shots. Bingo! For every one of the pricks there was a match either on Interpol’s or our Homeland Security’s wanted-terrorist list.”
Freeman sat down hard at the kitchen table, holding the phone in a peculiarly disembodied way, as if he’d had the wind punched out of him. By now Margaret had the gist of Aussie’s call, and whereas her husband seemed undone by the news of the terrorists’ demise, Margaret struggled to contain her delight. He wouldn’t have to leave her, or put himself in harm’s way, now, if she had heard correctly, that the DARPA ALPHA murderers were dead. She heard her husband’s urgent, almost desperate, tone as he pressed Aussie Lewis, “Are you positive that they’re all dead? Did your buddy, Mike, actually see them in the ravine?”
For the first time Margaret thought she detected a hesitancy in Aussie’s voice and strained to hear, helped by the fact that Aussie’s voice was loud to begin with. “Well, General, I’m not sure whether he personally saw the scumbags, but he’s a trustworthy bloke. Doesn’t bullshit. Anyway, the jackals’ll soon know, I guess. Marte Price and her wannabes in the press will be in a race to get it on the air. Big story. I reckon they’ll be coming to you for your reaction anytime now.”
“Thanks for the heads-up, Aussie. I ’preciate it.”
Freeman gently returned the phone to its cradle, and sat in silence. He could hear the kitchen clock. He dropped a lump of sugar into his black coffee, stirring it for what to Margaret seemed like an inordinately long time until she couldn’t bear it any longer. “What are you worrying about now?”
“Have you ever heard or read a news story that got all the facts straight? I haven’t. They always get something wrong, particularly body counts.” He sipped the coffee while looking through the living room at the drapes. It seemed as if the glare had abated. He turned to Margaret. “Do you remember 9/11? How the number of dead was always wrong? Incomplete? And that big mine disaster in ’06, down in West Virginia? CNN said all the church bells were ringing, all the miners safe. Then we heard, no, there had been a mix-up in communications. They were all dead except one man who survived.”
“Douglas, you seem disappointed they were found. I mean, I would have thought that grisly as it all is, you must be—” She stopped, unsure of what word she should use.
“Happy,” he said, “that they’ve been found? I suppose so, but that note the creeps left for me makes it personal. Besides, Aussie’s information isn’t something I’d take to the bank. It’s secondhand info that Aussie’s buddy in the Mountain Division got from somebody else, and where did they get it from? First thing you learn in this trade, Margaret, is that the first reports are invariably wrong.”
“I take it then that you think there’s a possibility that not all of those horrible people are dead?”
“Yes, and what irks me—” He was interrupted by the guttural sound of trucks and vans starting up outside, headlight beams lighting up the kitchen blinds.
Margaret walked over to her husband. “Douglas, I don’t want you to be irked by anyone. The disk those people stole has been destroyed, hasn’t it? I mean CNN is saying what you said, that the terrorists must have transmitted the information via hilltop modem, or whatever those things are called, and then the disk was smashed.”
“So?” he asked sharply.
“Then they’ve won, haven’t they?” She regretted her words the moment she’d uttered them. “I mean,” she added quickly, “you did your best, darling, and it’s over.”
“That, Margaret, is what sticks in my craw. Can’t you understand?”
“So it’s a matter of hubris,” she retorted.
“And murder,” he shot back. “Cold, premeditated murder of Americans. Civilians.”
“My point is, Douglas, what can you do? The damage has already been—”
The phone rang and the CNO, having no way of knowing that General Freeman had been informally briefed by Aussie Lewis, informed Freeman that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had retrieved bodies thought to be those of the terrorists from a ravine not far from the U.S.-Canadian border.
Douglas now understood why all the media vans and satellite dish trucks were leaving. For the media it
“There’s some confusion about that,” the CNO replied. “As there often is in these kinds of situations, General. If it’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s to be circumspect about giving out precise numbers. Mounties inform me the snow was deep, some of the bodies almost entirely buried in the drifts. I think it’ll take a day or two to know for certain. They were all in U.S. Army uniforms, though, and no dog tags, so there’s no doubt about them being the terrorists. I’d say it was a lucky break for us except that I think we have to assume the DARPA ALPHA data have been transmitted. I’ve forwarded the information you got up there from your interview with Dr.—”
Freeman heard the rustle of paper, then the clack of computer keys on the other end, and guessed that the CNO was trying to retrieve the head scientist’s name.
“Moffat,” Freeman suggested. “Richard Moffat.”
“Yes, that’s it. I’ve sent the information to the DI.” He meant the director of intelligence. “Meanwhile the bodies are being flown to Vancouver to see whether we can get any leads from them: Who they were, where they were from, et cetera. I’ll let you know. I apologize for calling you at such an ungodly hour, but I wanted to thank you for your—” There was an awkward pause. “Ah — for your getting right onto it.”
Freeman thanked him for his courtesy.
“You did your best,” Margaret told him. Her comfort did nothing to assuage his feeling that he’d failed. If only he and the team had caught the bastards before they had a chance to burst-transmit the data. If only the prick’s vehicle had plunged into a ravine before they’d had a chance to transmit the information that would change the world. If only. Ah, he was thinking too much about himself. By way of an antidote for his futile brooding, he e-mailed Choir Williams about Prince. That beloved spaniel was the best damn tracker dog in America. In the world!
At dawn his computer signaled he had mail. Prince was dead.
That was the most savage, the single most demoralizing hit he’d taken in the whole business. It wasn’t that he was uncaring about Tony Ruth’s death. The decapitation of anyone was as grim a sight as any combat soldier has to look at, but human beings bore their own responsibility, and in this case Tony had gone willingly, like his team members, following the general as they had before into what Freeman’s soldiers knew, despite what the relativist moralists of academe might say, were crucial battles against evil. A job for which they volunteered. Not so the likes of Prince, Freeman mused, an animal that had no choice but that was nevertheless with them in harm’s way. And anyone who thought a canine wasn’t conscious of fear was a fool. And while there was no animal-human bond stronger than that between Choir and Prince, it would affect the whole team. In a moment of self-doubt, Douglas Freeman wondered whether they would ever volunteer to follow him again. Of course they would, and he jettisoned the doubt almost as quickly as it had assailed him, kicked it out in disgust, for it was nothing more than self-pity in disguise. There was no room for self-pity in a world in which hundreds of thousands of children perished each year of starvation and preventable diseases, and where there were breeding grounds for teenagers who would blow themselves up in the insane terrorism waged against the West.
He recalled what Margaret had said regarding the futility of worrying about the possibility that one of the terrorists might still be on the loose. The data — she was right — were almost certainly in the hands of whoever had paid enough to get them who had financed the attack.
The phone rang. “Hello,” said Margaret in her usual courteous manner, then suddenly her tone turned icy. Covering the mouthpiece, she hissed, “It’s that tart of yours.”
Marte wanted to know if the general had any comments vis-a-vis the discovery of the bodies in the ravine.
“No comment,” he told her.
“Huh, that’s unlike you, General. I’ve never found you lost for words.”
“I’m not lost. There’s nothing to say.”
“There are a lot of people in Washington questioning Eleanor Prenty giving you the assignment.”
“I was ready,” he told her. “That’s all. My intention was to get into the area quickly, hopefully to slow them down while our regular forces had time to get in there. With so many of our SpecForces in the Middle East I had one reserve team ready to go. It’s as simple as that.”
“Hmm. What would you advise the president to do now — if your opinion was sought?”
“I haven’t been asked, and besides, it’s not my place to advise the White House.”
“Oh crap, Douglas. You were trying to run this thing from Day One. Don’t go all humble on me. What would
