“Javid, you’re the one with the hangover, and you’re fatter than me. Moderate yourself, pal.” He took another sip of beer, glanced around and saw the area around their table was clear, and lowered his voice. “So, do we have this medical team thing buttoned up on your side?”
Bhatti nodded. “We think so. My contacts assure me that, contrary to local rumors, the Taliban slaughtered them—an act of pure banditry. What probably started as simple robbery escalated when a Bible was found in their belongings.”
“Escalated, you say? Escalated? They killed them all!”
Javid waved away the protest, as if brushing away a fly. “It’s over, Jimmy. Over and done. Our army tracked down the raiders and destroyed their camp, killing four of them. We took care of it. Wars have unintended consequences.”
Jimmy Doyle pushed away his plate and put his elbows on the table to lean in closer. “But this wasn’t war, Javid. It was a group of trained medical professionals trying to help your country’s flood refugees in the middle of a disaster situation. Our country is pouring in aid, and we don’t like our people shot for delivering it.”
“Save the moral outrage, Jimmy. My countrymen don’t enjoy having our people attacked by Predator drones, but it happens almost every day. You didn’t even give us advance warning on the Osama bin Laden raid, and that also was on our territory. Remember that?” Javid Bhatti folded his napkin and put it beside his plate of half-eaten salad. “Anyway, we don’t want this new incident to gain any more traction in the media. There is too much at stake.”
Doyle nodded. “That is exactly what my boss in the Bureau of American-Islamic Affairs thinks, so we are in agreement. We have sent word up and down the diplomatic food chain that this was a most regrettable incident and that our Pakistani allies have taken prompt and appropriate action.”
“No American military intervention?”
“No. The sooner this goes away, the better.”
Bhatti agreed. “As a gesture of thanks to the international community for all of their sacrifices and help, we have given permission to construct a new refugee center not far from the area of the ambush, and will provide army protection.”
“You mentioned local rumors. What about?”
“The usual. Evil spirits were responsible. Some villagers take comfort in quaint superstition instead of uncomfortable fact.”
“Evil spirits with AK-47s and sharp knives. Let’s leave that out of any report. It would just clutter up the findings.”
“Agreed.”
“We bullshit pretty good for a couple of minor functionaries,” said Jimmy Doyle.
“Indeed we do,” agreed Javid Bhatti. “Indeed we do. Are you going to the party at the Colombian ambassador’s residence tonight?”
Test pilot Buck Gardener and his astrophysicist wife, red-headed Erin Tyne-Gardener, had a wedding made in heaven and a marriage made in hell. The two attractive young people, who had met after they had been selected for astronaut training, had somehow found time for romance among the rockets. The wedding, which was widely publicized by the NASA public relations department, took place within a year, and the couple walked beneath crossed swords and into the cameras. Four years later, they hated each other but endured living together rather than ignite a divorce scandal that might jeopardize both careers. It had worked, to a point. Erin had been picked for the first Mars program shot, but Buck had been left behind in the wake of his superstar bitch wife. He wasn’t going to Mars, or to the moon, or even back to the rattletrap space station. Buck, once a hot jet jock, wasn’t going anywhere.
His current assignment was as a member of the support crew for the Mars shot, which was the backup for the backup crew and did the scut work for the real astronauts who were assigned to fly. This was his third time on a support crew, and would be his last, for three strikes meant you had been passed over, for reasons that were never explained. Worse, Buck knew that his wife was screwing around with Colonel Dan Merrill, the mission commander. During their continuing domestic arguments, Erin had recently told Buck she would file for divorce as soon as she got back to earth. He thought about pulling out the .38 revolver and shooting her right there and then, then driving over to Colonel Merrill’s house and blowing him away, too, but that would just send Buck to prison for the rest of his life. There had to be a better way.
Maybe he had gotten drunk one time too many, complained in public once too often, and gone too far outside the program for sympathy and understanding, because his sour attitude had drawn attention. NASA told him to get his shit together, or he would be canned. There was a mission to fly, he was told.
The United States space program had always been a target for intelligence agencies from other nations, because of the technical innovations that were constantly being developed. Even during the International Space Station years, spies hung around the Cape and Houston as thick as flies at a cookout. A nice-looking woman named Linda had found him and become very friendly, and they pillow-talked long into the nights.
In turn, she introduced Buck to another new friend, a man who said he had gone through something similar. He was from the Middle East, where women were not allowed to treat a man so shabbily; his own wife had an affair, and he had killed them both, and nothing was done about it, for it was proper. Just because Erin Tyne- Gardener was now a celebrity, she should not be allowed to make a fool of Buck. Suppose, the man said, just suppose that you could get rid of her and her lover without leaving a trace, get away with it, have the sympathy of a grateful nation—and earn five million dollars, to boot?
Buck thought it over for a couple of days and decided, why not? A rich future was much better than having to spend another minute with Erin.
5
THEY WERE LATE, AND she was early. After making her telephone call, Beth Ledford had ducked into a Washington Metro station, swiped her card through the turnstile, descended the smooth escalator, and reached the platform just as a Blue Line train whooshed to a stop. The doors slid open; a crowd got out, a sea of determined faces, important people hurrying to government offices. Another crowd with faces set with equal firmness got on, and the train eased forward and accelerated. No one spoke; a long tube filled with VIP strangers. In minutes, Beth got off at the Crystal City stop in Arlington.
She linked to Google on her iPhone, typed in the restaurant name, and received explicit directions through the busy and stylish underground grid of shops that lay below the glassy towers of government offices, apartment buildings, and private corporate headquarters. The pub was about half filled with customers, since it was after the lunch hour rush, so there was no waiting. The rusty decorations gave it the look of a working-class saloon in Pittsburgh rather than a trendy spot in the power orbits of Washington. She took a stool at the far end of the bar, facing the frosted glass door, and ordered an iced tea. A
They came in like a pair of cats, haughty and unapproachable, totally aware of their surroundings but not seeming to care. Beth had not even realized they were inside until the door closed behind them and they were walking her way. She immediately recognized Sybelle Summers: dark hair styled collar-length short, faded jeans over low-heeled soft black boots, and a dark blue summer top, with minimal makeup because she did not need much. Summers had made it big in the men’s club of special operations but retained her femininity. Beth Ledford raised her hand and gave a little wave.
She did not recognize the man only a step behind Summers. He moved with athletic smoothness, but was not really very big, about five foot ten and 175. The clothes looked expensive, a lightweight linen jacket over dark trousers with sharp creases. He was clean-shaven, with sun-bleached brown hair worn slightly long. A frown pulled
