He’d had to learn the strengths and the weaknesses of the city, and know the strengths and weaknesses of his men. Then he had to be able to convert those things on a sliding scale on the fly as ground was lost or gained, as men were moved forward or brought back.
Goose was the one who had thought of the way to get Mystic’s information through a satellite burst transmission. Looking back on it now, Danielle guessed that the first sergeant had known how he was going to do it—how they were going to do it, Danielle corrected herself—the instant she had told him of the information packet.
Getting the packet through OneWorld NewsNet’s satellites was suicide. Getting it through another news service’s satellite link wasn’t secure and probably not very likely, given the troubles they were still having. Danielle had hoped Goose would tell her that he could get access to the army’s computers, but he’d shot that down when she’d finally asked him about the possibility.
The option she hadn’t thought of, the possibility that had brought them here now, was the existence of the CIA’s computers. If Alexander Cody was running a covert operation within the CIA, he had to have satellite access. As it turned out, Goose had known he was being spied on, and he’d tracked the CIA back to their hiding holes in the city. He’d admitted he might not know where they all were, but he knew where three of them were, and this one had a communications link to a satellite.
Goose hadn’t wanted to bring Danielle here tonight. But she hadn’t given him a choice. She knew the Web address where Mystic could be reached. She had refused to give it to him when he’d pointed out calmly how dangerous it was for her to come, or when he’d gotten irritated and told her that her presence was going to be a danger to him as well.
That had almost gotten her. Knowing that she might be responsible for his death had almost been too much. But she wouldn’t have the story she needed if she wasn’t there to get it firsthand.
And if push came to shove, no one would know how First Sergeant Goose Gander had truly died in the back alleys of a doomed city.
She breathed through her mouth, trying to be as quiet as she could. She stared through the darkness so hard that her eyes hurt. With the distance and the rain, she barely saw the satellite dish mounted on the building.
On the second floor a door opened, and light from inside the room spilled out over the covered patio area. Some of the light touched the first few steps of the stairs that led up to the patio from the ground. Beyond the small roof, the light turned gray in the rain and created a misty bubble, vanishing before it reached another surface.
The man was tall and medium built, dressed in khaki pants and a dark golf shirt. He wore a pistol in a shoulder holster under his left arm.
Danielle drew back a little farther into the night. Looks like Goose’s information was correct. Then she caught herself. Intel. Military guys call it intel.
The man cupped his hands in front of his face and lit a cigarette. The lighter’s flame illuminated his hard features and blond hair, but it also brought out the fact that Goose stood behind the man with his back against the wall. The first sergeant’s face was tiger striped in green and black combat cosmetics. Then the lighter snapped off and darkness covered the patio area.
The man’s cigarette glowed like a red ember. A moment later, the cigarette dropped to the patio floor and exploded in a small flurry of orange sparks before extinguishing.
Danielle could barely make out the two struggling shadows on the patio. Panic set in, urging her into flight, but she was too afraid to move, too afraid that someone would see her.
Then Goose was in motion, stepping into the light from the doorway and going through it.
United States of America
Fort Benning, Georgia
Local Time 2222 Hours
Megan watched the end of her interview with Penny Gillespie, feeling less hopeful this time than she did the time before.
“Now I come to you,” Penny said on the screen, “as I so often have since this show began airing, in the service of the Lord our God, and ask that you make time in your hectic and troubled days to pray for Mrs. Megan Gander.”
Megan sat in an almost comfortable office chair at the small metal desk in Lieutenant Benbow’s office. The television set had a nine-inch screen but the picture was clear and in color. She’d been an hour late to the meeting to review for the start of the trial tomorrow, but the young lieutenant hadn’t been surprised.
Benbow sat on the other side of the desk with his elbows propped on his chair arms and his chin resting on his thumbs while his forefingers tapped lightly against his nose. His uniform was crisp, looking like he’d gone home and changed just before their meeting.
The story had aired more or less constantly on one channel or another since it had first broken on Penny for Your Prayers on the Dove TV channel. Since that time, several other local channels had aired sound bites of the broadcast. Too many of them seemed like they were taken out of context.
“Well?” Megan said.
Benbow looked at her, but there was a bit of reluctance in that look. “I don’t know what to say.” He picked up a pencil from the desk, turned to face her, and drummed the pencil against the legal pad in front of him. Notes covered the lined yellow page.
“Do you think I shouldn’t have agreed to the interview?”
“I wish you had talked with me first.”
“Would it have changed anything?”
“Would I
