When I sat up, I was a little relieved and a lot disappointed Jasmine was not there and, from the topography of the pillows and bed linens, had not been there. An instant later, I remembered kissing her good-night at the door to a bedroom down an impressively long hall and falling asleep with my arms and heart empty.
Under me, the mattress resonated to the deep, familiar bass from the vintage rock and roll. I sat up. The shattered mirror over the bed told part of the story, as did a pair of women's shiny gold, six-inch spiked heels embedded in the drywall. Empty Chivas and Crown Royal bottles littered a polished cherrywood bureau. Half-empty rocks glasses sat near the bottles; three of them had lipstick imprints, one in hot pink, another in cherry red, and the third a deep Goth black with a used condom draped over its rim.
I didn't want to think about the provenance of the bedsheets, but I was grateful to have fallen asleep fully clothed.
Downstairs, the 'Rock and Roll Band' cut ended, and in the momentary silence Rex yelled that lunch was getting cold. I detoured through a luxurious shower before dressing in another pair of cargo shorts and a plain gray T-shirt.
I padded down the curved, Tara-like stairs in my bare feet. A massive chandelier hung from the ceiling and dominated the thirty-foot-high cylindrical space within the staircase. Six pairs of thong panties in various Day-Glo shades dangled from one of the chandelier's hand-cut, oak-leaf crystal fobs along with a pair of large, striped boxers.
At the landing at the foot of the stairs, paper bags, milk crates, and cardboard boxes of gear covered the floor, save for a narrow path from the front door to a set of French doors to the left. Voices murmured against the French-door panes.
I paused to scan the piles of gear and recognized most of it from the list we had drawn up hours earlier on the drive down from the Delta.
Hanks of half-inch, high-vee, sixteen-stranded braided rope with the New England Ropes Safety Blue labels still on it were piled next to Miller shock-absorbing lanyards with locking snaps, full-body safety harnesses, webbed lineman's belts, and half a dozen bright red Petzl Ecrin Roc helmets, great for the head, bad for camouflage, but undoubtedly the only thing quickly available wherever the hell he'd found it. I walked over to a bag full of carabiners and pulled one out. Petzl again, four-and-an-eighth-inch balllock models. The tag said they tested out at over sixty- two hundred pounds.
I tossed the carabiner back in the bag and bent over another one, filled with StrikeTeam goggles with thick ballistic-rated polycarbonate lenses, and below those, leather gloves, a pile of Garmin GPS receivers, Motorola Spirit XTN two-watt, heavyduty walkie-talkies with earbuds and talk-to-speak microphones.
A pile of boot boxes was stacked up to my armpits, all full of brand-new Thorogood ten-inch wildland firefighting boots in a range of sizes. Next to them was a case of Counter Assault Bear Deterrent pepper spray. I bent over and cracked the cardboard box and pulled out a container the size of a spray-paint can. We had all agreed to minimize injuries to police and military personnel, who, after all, were only doing their jobs.
I read the label of the can to myself: 'Strong enough to stop a bear in its tracks… range to thirty feet.' I made a quiet, low whistle to myself. I had put pepper spray on the list, but had the smaller canisters in mind. I replaced the can in its case box and looked around the cluttered entryway.
There were bolt cutters, backpacks, black coveralls sprouting pockets and pouches on every surface, flashlights, and headlights of every description, including two huge twelve-volt, 250,000 candlepower SuperNova spotlights.
There was even stuff I did not remember asking for. Like a dozen sticks of construction-grade dynamite cut in half, and a thick, clear-polyethylene Ziploc containing detonators, about evenly split between electric and regular fuses that could be lit with a match.
The dynamite and detonators were of the type and age usually found in a petroleum exploration logging unit's 'doghouse.' There was paint thinner, a ten-pound hand sledge, two packs of road flares, and a roll of wide nylon webbing.
A big clear-plastic bag full of dark cotton sweatshirts, pants, T-shirts, underpants, and dark athletic shoes slumped in a far corner with a Ziploc full of handcuffs and, next to it, a hefty steel wedge for splitting firewood. There was also lots and lots of duct tape and cable ties of every imaginable size and color.
I shook my head at the collection of gear and at Rex's ability and resourcefulness to assemble it all between dawn and noon while the rest of us slept.
I followed the muffled voices through the French doors and into a grand dining room, where Jasmine, Tyrone, Rex and his wife, Anita-still in hospital scrubs-sat around the far end of a polished mahogany table long enough to fill Lehman Brothers' boardroom. Little square Krystal hamburger boxes and greasy french-fry envelopes carpeted their end of the table. My heart filled with light when I laid eyes on Jasmine.
'Good morning, sleepyhead.' Jasmines eyes were bright and reflected the light coming in through the window. It chased the shadows from my heart.
I headed for the empty chair between Jasmine and Anita. On the table sat a half dozen little Krystal hamburgers and a line of Styrofoam coffee cups. Tyrone gave me a nod as he chewed on his food.
'Brad!' Anita gave me a smile that was part concern and part welcome. 'So good to see you.'
''Bout damn time you hauled your lazy butt down.' Rex smiled. 'Here we are with twelve or fifteen hours to showtime and you play Rip Van freaking Winkle.'
'Rex…' Anita frowned at him.
'It's okay, Anita,' I said as I walked toward her. 'The commander's right.' She got up and gave me a sisterly hug, then looked at me. 'Just look at those bags under your eyes: She tsked at me, then looked at Jasmine and said, 'You've got a long row to hoe to keep this man healthy.'
Anita's matter-of-fact acceptance of Jasmine and me worked wonders for my attitude. I leaned over to kiss Jasmine, and she gave me a Mona Lisa smile, which reached deeper inside me than ever before.
Then I sat down, pulled the lid off one of the foam cups of coffee, took a sip, and managed not to frown.
CHAPTER 77
Brigadier General Jack Kilgore stood in his glass-sided corner office and took in the desks and maps and consoles and displays filling the vast operations room beyond. Troops in the operations room avoided looking at him and focused on their mission. When their commanding officer refused to sit it meant his pitifully anorexic tolerance for BS had gone AWOL.
Kilgore held a cell phone to his ear and listened to the endless ringing of Dan Gabriel not picking up. The longer Kilgore listened, the more it sounded like a siren. He stopped at his door and followed the thick multicolored skeins of Cat-5 cabling, coax, wave guides, power cords, and assorted wires neatly bundled with cable ties and harnesses, which made only precise ninety-degree turns as they parceled out data, radio waves, and electricity from origin to destination.
There were times he preferred the old days when God, guts, and guns were all you needed to win a battle, provided you had enough intelligence to apply them in the proper proportions at the correct times.
But this new technology, Xantaeus, held only horror, not hope. It dehumanized, removed choice, deprived the individual soldier of his free will and ripped out the very thing that made him human. Gabriel's notion that some soldiers would go where the drug took them and never return haunted Kilgore and made him entertain seditious thoughts.
In the far corner of the operations room, Kilgore's second-in-command, Colonel Bill Lewis, talked with the mapping officer, who accessed the same data that guided cruise missiles and allowed pilots-and Kilgore's troops-to rehearse simulated missions by 'seeing' the actual terrain overlaid by aerial and satellite photos with better quality and resolution than the average scrapbook snapshot.
Kilgore pulled the phone from his ear, stared at it for a moment, then pressed the 'end' button and let his hand fall to his side. A moment later, Colonel Lewis stood up, took several sheets of paper from the console operator and gave Kilgore a nod. Then he made his way to Kilgore's door and entered.
'Any idea?' Kilgore asked.
Lewis shook his head. 'General Gabriel's phone works fine.'
