“When did you know for sure the cell had made you?” Remington asked.
The agent took a deep, shuddering breath, then knuckled fresh blood from the corner of his mouth. Goose believed the young man might have a cracked rib. If it had punctured a lung, thankfully the arterial flow seemed minimal, only coloring his breath now and again.
“The minute the assassination started to go badly,” the agent said, “I was locked down by the three men your team rescued me from. After the sweep, they were the only ones left standing. They took a ship around Syria, sailing from Israel to Turkey so they wouldn’t draw attention to themselves. They knew the U.S. military was observing the coastal cities and didn’t want to take a chance on someone identifying me.”
“Why didn’t they kill you?”
“Killing me would have been simpler. But they wanted to use me to continue digging into military placements around the Turkish border. We sailed to Izmir, then took a car to Ankara to one of the safe houses they had set up. I suppose the agency picked me up there and told you.”
Goose watched the southern horizon. Tension knotted his stomach. If the Syrians had the information they needed to attack the border armies, and they knew the CIA agent they’d been waiting for was now in American hands, there was nothing holding them—
“Phoenix Leader,” Remington said.
“Go, Base,” Goose responded.
“I need you to delay your return to the front lines.”
Goose bridled at that. The last place he needed to be during the coming engagement—an engagement he had unknowingly triggered by rescuing this CIA agent—was away from the front line.
“But, sir—”
“That’s an order, Sergeant,” Remington barked. “I want you and your team to head to Glitter City. You’ll need to take control of the evacuation there.”
Goose glanced at his watch, thought of Megan, Joey, and Chris, and did the necessary math. He was three minutes from Glitter City and ten minutes from the front line.
Glitter City was basically a tent city built of Quonset huts and leftover buildings from small towns that had been bombed and shelled out of existence years ago during border hostilities. It was located halfway between the border and Sanliurfa. During the past few weeks, as armament on both the Turkish and Syrian sides had built up, reporters from FOX News and CNN had taken up transitory residence in the tent city, becoming media nomads reporting on soldiers in the field, weaponry, political and sociological issues, and the possibility of war or peace.
During the previous weeks, at Remington’s insistence, Goose had done two interviews. He hadn’t enjoyed doing them. So far, as near as he could tell, neither of the pieces had aired. Which was fine with him, though he considered the possibility that he wasn’t very interesting or very photogenic. Maybe he was just too boring for TV. Still, he and Megan had enjoyed a laugh about them. She had threatened to tape them and play them at family gatherings.
“Sir,” Goose said, curbing his impatience and his anger because he knew Remington maintained a no-fly zone for those emotions, “Sergeant Michaels can take care of the evacuation. His qualifications—”
“Make the adjustment now, Sergeant,” Remington said. “That’s an order.”
“Yes, sir.” Stung, Goose gave Tanaka the order, then reset the GPS heading himself while Tanaka made the course correction. “New course has been laid in, Captain.”
“Goose,” Remington said in a quieter voice, “I need you there. The Syrians launched a wave of short-range missiles eighteen seconds ago. Glitter City is one of their targets.” He paused. “Do what you can to save whatever’s left of them, Goose.”
United States of America
Fort Benning, Georgia
Local Time 11:57 P.M.
“Mommy, I don’t want you to go! I don’t want you to go!”
Megan’s heart shattered at the unhappiness in her five-year-old son’s plaintive cries. She wiped tears from Chris’s cheeks and looked into his china blue eyes that were so much like his father’s.
“It’s going to be all right, little guy,” Megan said as she carried Chris in through the double doors of the staff support building. She’d called ahead to arrange emergency baby-sitting. She’d also left messages on Joey’s pager and forwarded all incoming calls to her cell phone.
“Daddy calls me little guy,” Chris said petulantly. “Not you, Mommy.”
“I know. I just felt like calling you little guy. So you can be my little guy the way you are for Daddy. You’re just going to be here a little while. Then we’ll go home.”
Megan carried Chris on her hip, surprised at how big he’d gotten since the summer. The thought that Goose wouldn’t even recognize his son when he returned from his current tour swept into her mind and brought new pain.
Extended absences during active tours were a hazard of the kind of soldiering Goose did. He and Megan had talked long and hard about those absences, about how much they affected a marriage as well as any children of that marriage. That was the biggest fear Goose had had about getting married. He’d seen military careers destroy families, and he believed too much in what he was doing to back away until he had finished the career he’d promised himself to deliver.
And compromise was a hard thing for Goose. He loved his family as fiercely as he loved his country. Having to choose between them would have destroyed him, and Megan knew that. So she chose to be strong for him, to be the woman she had trained herself to be after her first husband had abandoned Joey and her, and to wait for the time that Goose would be home again.
God willing, she prayed softly. Please, God, be willing. She always kept Goose close in her prayers.
“No, Mommy! No!” Chris wailed. He butted his head against her shoulder in frustration.
“It’s going to be all right, Chris,” Megan said.
