just fine.”
Jeff agreed. “The biggest hurdle is the first one, hanging up the uniform. You know it’s going to happen sooner or later.”
“The time isn’t right. I’ll know when. Not yet.”
“Don’t wait too long,” said Gladden. “Thanks to this grumpy old man, I found a new and worthwhile career. I used to think a hundred thousand dollars was a lot of money, but with the patents and proprietary interests the company has developed, there is much, much more available. And we desperately need your help on new projects.”
Jeff emptied his beer, tossed the bottle overboard, and uncapped a new one. “You and Tim and I are the only people who know everything about the Excalibur project. We had the engineers work only on specific sections. Once we finish the field trials, those guns are gold, Kyle. After that show you put on yesterday, those investors couldn’t write checks fast enough. You have more than earned a share.”
“I worked on it as part of my job, guys,” Swanson replied. “The Marine Crotch would throw my ass in the brig if I got paid extra for it.” The sideways offer had caught him off guard. They were willing to put up part of the action on the future licensing and sales of Excalibur. A fortune.
“We only bribe politicians,” Gladden said. “We are just pointing out that you would be an extremely valuable asset to our company, and also that we could make it worth your while financially.”
Jeff looked at Swanson like a priest at a sinner and abruptly changed the subject. “Damn it all, man, why don’t you and Shari
“Been talking to her, have you? And you can’t have a grandson by us because we’re not related.”
“I was speaking in general terms. A granddaughter would be just as welcome. No, we haven’t spoken with her about it, although Pat has been planning the wedding for some time, something terribly romantic and worthy of a pop diva. You may not have reached the point yet where you want to make the change to private enterprise, but you will, my friend. When you do, I promise you a soft landing. We just want you to hurry up.”
“You’ll be the first to know.”
Tim gave him his unsmiling commando look. “Maybe we have a competitor for your highly marketable skill? Has one of those dreadful PSCs come a-knocking on your door, offering some big money to the super sniper?” He was talking about private security companies, the modern mercenaries.
“Oh, hell, no. I would never be a merc. There are a ton of those jobs out there, but you can never trust them because you don’t know where their loyalties really lie. They’re like Doctor Frankenstein’s monster, and could just as easily spin out of control. Anyway, if I kill somebody while I wear the uniform, it’s okay. I don’t know how that would play out if the mercs take part in combat ops.”
Gladden laughed. “Oh, Kyle, you are so naive. They’re already running combat missions. Have been for years. Some PSCs have armored vehicles, choppers, and even some old jet fighters now. Bleedin’ private armies, they are, for sale to the highest bidder. And with the U.S. military heading toward privatization, it’s only a matter of time before they are authorized and paid to fight an entire war by themselves. It just plays better to the public if some South African merc is lost in action for a noble cause rather than the boy next door.”
“If it’s so great, why aren’t you two in on it?” It wasn’t like Jeff to pass up a good business opportunity. There were hundreds of millions of dollars in the PSC game.
Jeff shrugged. “Like you, chum. We were professional soldiers for much too long. I’m more than satisfied with my company and its products, and I’m old-fashioned enough to enjoy being in the service of my queen and country.”
“So, as you Marines would say, ‘Fuck the Frankensteins,’” said Tim Gladden, holding his beer aloft.
Jeff raised his bottle, too. “Fuck the Frankensteins.”
Kyle Swanson touched theirs with his own. “Fuck the Frankensteins.”
CHAPTER 6
THE IMMACULATE PILATES, a Swiss single-engine private aircraft painted midnight blue with gold trim, lifted smoothly away from a dry riverbed, its powerful turboprop engine leaving a triangle of sand hovering momentarily in the air behind it. By the time the dust settled back onto the desert, the beautiful plane was gone, building to a cruising speed of two hundred knots while skimming no more than two hundred feet above the sand to avoid radar. In the two and a half hours since taking off from a crude airstrip, it had flown northeast from Dhahran, and then dashed out of Saudi Arabia and into Jordanian airspace without being spotted by the air defense commands of either country. It was just another private executive plane in a region that had fleets of them belonging to rich and powerful princes and sheikhs. Even if it had been seen, no one would have questioned it, nor paid it any mind. The color scheme was recognized as that of a powerful Iraqi, Ali Shalal Rassad, the Rebel Sheikh of Basra, and it was best not to be too curious about him.
A dirty truck was waiting when the Pilates landed on a macadam road outside a village, and the unconscious General Bradley Middleton was carried off the plane by his two American captors and stuffed into the rear seat of a waiting car for a ten-minute drive to a specific address. Vic Logan pulled another hypodermic needle from his kit and injected Middleton to start bringing him up from the blackness.
Dull colors, garbled words, and a sense of awkward, jerking motions blended in Middleton’s drug-muddled mind. His brain could not separate the individual things happening around him, nor grasp any meaning. The only thing he felt was a pounding headache. Pain got through. Strong hands held his arms and propelled him forward. His feet would not respond; his legs were rubbery. The dragging stopped, and he was forced to sit in a chair. More words he did not understand, and a sensation of something wet cooling his face. Scrubbing hard. Words. He shook his head to clear the cobwebs of scrambled thought, with no result. Laughter. Hands worked with his clothing, tucking in his khaki shirt, smoothing his collar, straightening his tie, and adjusting the shining single star on each collar point, half-inch and centered.
Pinpoint flashes of shifting light danced at the edge of his consciousness, blinking like a field of fireflies. Then they were gone. The fireflies had flown. A smell of something rotten rose in his nostrils. Camels or goats close by.
A soothing female voice spoke English words with a lilting accent, and a gentle hand tilted his chin back. “
His arms were tied around the back of a small chair to keep him from falling. He sensed other people.
A moment of total silence was followed by the blazing lights of a dozen suns, strong enough to make him wince. He began to breathe fast, and unreasoning panic set in, bringing a childhood nightmare of a monster, frothing at the mouth, that chased him. He struggled momentarily, and then settled.
When he was calm, a soft command was given and a video camera began to record the image of the Marine general bound to the chair, the shining single star of his rank leaving no doubt as to his identity. A man’s voice read a statement in Arabic. The camera caught it all the first time, but the statement was repeated just in case. The lights went out.
Middleton felt a tiny prick in his arm as another needle went in to return him to the dark world, then strong hands lifted him. A fist slammed into his stomach, doubling him over. He gasped for air, then vomited. Another blow, and he was on his knees, being kicked to the floor. Laughter, fading. Blackness. Pain still got through.
The cameraman reviewed the scene to be sure his Panasonic PV-GS250 had done its job, and nodded in approval. The low-light problem had been solved by stealing a rack of huge bulbs that a road crew had been using for night work. He plugged a USB cord between the camera and a Dell computer and downloaded the images and soundtrack onto a small disc, which he slid into a protective hard plastic case and handed to the woman. She folded a written copy of the statement and dropped it and the videodisc into a common brown envelope that she taped closed. Licking it would have left traces of her DNA. In an hour, she was in Amman, Jordan, where she handed the package to the front desk clerk of the hotel that was the residence of the local correspondent for the al Jazeera
