Black Ops

“How do we do that?” Svetlana asked.

“We get us an expert,” McNab said.

“Fort Dietrich,” Delchamps said.

“Fort Dietrich,” McNab confirmed. “Corporal Bradley, I presume you have the AFC up and running?”

“Yes, sir,” Bradley said. He walked to General McNab and gave him the handset.

“Pay attention, please,” McNab said. “We are about to take the irreversible step. Cross the Rubicon, so to speak. This is everybody’s absolutely final last chance to bail out. And I have to say that I really wish I wasn’t running this circus, because I would be the first one out the door.”

He looked around the room one final time, then picked up the handset.

“Bruce J. McNab. Encryption Level One. Get me the White House switchboard.”

“White House. Good evening, General McNab. How can we help you?”

“Get me the commanding general of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute at Fort Dietrich, Maryland, on a secure line, please.”

“The what?” Berezovsky asked, confused.

McNab put his hand over the mouthpiece. “They used to call it the Chemical Warfare Lab. That was before political correctness took over.”

XV

[ONE]

The Malaga Suite

Portofino Island Resort & Spa

Pensacola Beach, Florida

2359:30 6 January 2006

One of the many things then—Second Lieutenant Castillo had learned during his tenure as aide-de-camp to then-Brigadier General McNab was that McNab believed that no matter how noble one’s intentions, working when fatigued usually produced little that was useful and too often what was produced was sloppy or in error—or both.

He began a meeting like this one by judging the participants and himself and deciding how long it could profitably last.

Castillo, therefore, was not surprised when Lieutenant Colonel Peter Woods interrupted McNab in the middle of a sentence to announce, “Midnight in thirty seconds, General.”

When they had walked into the suite after their dinner at McGuire’s, McNab had caught Woods’s eye and said, “Midnight.” Colonel Woods had nodded his understanding.

One thing all the participants had learned tonight was that General McNab did not like to be interrupted. Everybody but Woods and Castillo therefore waited for the explosion when Woods announced the time.

Instead, McNab turned to Svetlana and smiled. “As your boyfriend—I would say ‘gentleman friend,’ Susan, but that would not be accurate—may have told you, at the stroke of midnight I change from being a kindly friend of man and mentor to the world into an ogre.”

“Oh, I can’t believe that,” Svetlana said.

This earned her another smile.

She had become one of the four people in the room who could talk back to McNab—even interrupt him— without triggering a scathing response, the others being her brother and Phineas DeWitt.

“We’ll resume at oh-nine-hundred,” McNab then announced. “Brief recapitulation: As is often the case, our major problem is ignorance. We don’t know exactly what the evil Iranians and their Russian mentors are cooking up for us in the Congo—only that they’re doing it.

“We won’t even know precisely what to look for until Colonel . . .” He stopped and looked at Woods.

“Hamilton, sir. Colonel J. Porter Hamilton,” Woods furnished.

“. . . J. Porter Hamilton of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute at Fort Dietrich arrives . . .” He looked at Woods again.

“At oh-eight-fifteen. Delta flight 616 from Atlanta,” Woods furnished.

“. . . and having been met by . . .”

“Colonel Richardson, sir.”

“. . . comes here to share with us what the CG of Fort Dietrich says is Colonel Hamilton’s encyclopedic knowledge of the subject.

“Meanwhile, rushing ahead blindly in our overwhelming ignorance, it is tentatively planned for our people to enter the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the ground via Rwanda, as Phineas tells us that’s our only option except by HALO insertion, and that’s not much of an option, because we wouldn’t know where to drop them, which would leave us with between twelve and twenty-four of our people in the middle of we-know-not-where and without wheels.

“Our people being defined as ‘as black as possible’ Delta Force operators to be selected by Mr. Leverette, who will go to Bragg as quickly and as quietly as possible to do so.

“And, speaking of black people, inasmuch as Brother Britton feels that (a) those he insists on calling the Afro-American Lunatics may be in possession of useful information and (b) that he may able to obtain it from them, we have to get him—”

“And his lovely wife,” Sandra interjected.

McNab looked irritated at the interruption but did not flare up.

“—and his lovely wife to Philadelphia as soon as possible, and quietly, which may be difficult, as he is what is known as a ‘person of interest’ to the Secret Service.

“Presuming all this can somehow be accomplished, our people will be transported to . . .” He looked to Castillo.

“Gregoire Kayibanda International in Rwanda, or Bujumbura International in Burundi,” Castillo furnished.

“Depending on which looks like the better place to Phineas, who will reconnoiter both on the ground, having entered both countries surreptitiously from Uganda, presuming he can persuade the Ugandan embassy in Washington to give him a visa. A little cash may help in this regard.

“Phineas, equipped with large amounts of currency, will also purchase a fleet of vehicles that will be waiting for our people at either . . .”

“Bujumbura International or Gregoire Kayibanda,” Castillo furnished again.

“. . . when they arrive aboard our 727 . . .”

“Or are HALO’d in,” Leverette said.

“Thank you, Uncle Remus. May I continue?”

“Sorry, sir.”

“The vehicles will be waiting for our people when we somehow get them in, either in our 727—dressed in the color scheme of some ragtag African freight hauler, to be determined by Colonel Jake Torine—or, as Uncle Remus was so kind to point out, are HALO’d in.

“Once they have the vehicles, Phineas will bribe their way across the bridge at the southern end of Lake Kivu, from which they will proceed up Congo National Route Three.

“How far they proceed up Route Three depends on our finding out just where the laboratory is. It is to be hoped that Brother Britton, after eluding his former associates in the Secret Service, will be able to get from the AALs at least a hint about the location of the lab.

“Once that little detail is out of the way and we can tell them where to go, they will infiltrate the plant area in search of whatever . . .” He looked at Colonel Woods.

“Colonel J. Porter Hamilton.”

“. . . Colonel J. Porter Hamilton—why does someone ashamed of his first name worry me?—tells them to look for. Once they have done that, they will bring whatever it is they have found—and themselves—out of the Congo to a yet-to-be-determined location by means yet to be determined.