Payback

Marte. Agent Grant recognized the famed CNN voice the general was sparring with. Maybe he’d let Marte Price’s name slip, thought Patricia, hoping that FBI agent Grant would be impressed. She was. And she could tell the blond newscaster was using flattery to pump the general for a scoop on what was being done behind closed White House doors about the MANPAD problem.

“I know,” Marte told the general, “that you’ve been summoned to Monterey’s FBI office. Which, I’d say, means your girlfriend at the White House wants to get you on scrambler-secure. Hush-hush. I’d guess they’re going for a counterstrike and they want an old four-star’s view on the proposed DA. Right?”

God, it was great to be in the game again, he thought. Well, all right, not exactly in the game, but at least advising the manager/owner in the box on the play.

The car stopped at another yellow light, and the general decided to have a little fun — an escape from the damn onions going around and around in his head like a song you’ve heard and just can’t evict. “Proposed DA?” he replied, affecting confusion. “I know nothing about district attorneys.”

“Very droll, Douglas.” She knew he knew she meant a Direct Action mission: to go in, cause maximum damage, and get out. Fast. “I know it won’t be for a month or two but—”

“I know nothing,” he said truthfully. “And quite frankly, I’m surprised you’re using a cell. Hardly secure, is it, given your eavesdropping competition, not to mention national security.” In fact, the general wasn’t at all surprised; an anchor with Marte’s clout hadn’t got where she was in the shark-infested waters of network and cable TV without taking risks, and the fact remained she had been able to help him in the past. And with the number of enemies he had in Washington, D.C., an IOU from the press was never a bad investment. Also, he knew she never broke her word.

“If I can,” was all he’d promise, “I’ll tell you.”

“Exclusively?” She paused. “Bamboo in the wind.” It wasn’t a question but a promise — the expression they had both learned during U.S. interventions in Southeast Asia, the phrase describing what the Italians called “fellatio.” Her brazenness took him aback. For all his sudden enjoyment with Margaret, he, like so many of the senior officer corps, was inherently conservative in discussing matters of sex. Marte must have sensed his shock at her openness. “Douglas?”

“I’m still here.”

“What do you call a man who likes sex?” she asked, then answered her own question. “Normal. Now, what’s a woman who likes sex? A slut, right?” Her old joke about the double standard between the sexes was lightheartedly delivered, but there was an edge to it nevertheless, the resentment of centuries of women.

His answer was from the heart. “I have never thought of you that way. And I never will.”

“Thank you,” she said. “You’re a very sweet man. I hope we see each other soon.”

He was about to say, “Me too,” but saw Patricia Grant smiling. “I’ll tell you whenever I’m cleared to do so,” he said, adopting a slightly censorious tone and flipping the mouthpiece shut.

As the car slid into its reserved spot, Patricia Grant exited with relief. It had been a simple pickup and delivery for her, its sheer uneventfulness a luxury in this war where “sleeper cells” were daily being ordered out of their hibernation to launch another murderous attack against innocent U.S. citizens, resulting in workloads for agents that pushed law enforcement personnel to the limits of endurance. On top of responding to ever-changing threat levels, they were required to keep tabs on illegal immigrants, which in itself was a full-time job.

On the way up to the regional DHS/FBI/CIA liaison conference room, Freeman was wondering first if he would be talking to one of Eleanor Prenty’s aides on a conference call, given that as National Security Advisor she must be exhausted, having been on her feet continuously since the attacks.

Before going in, he asked Patricia Grant whether he could use her PC to send an e-mail to Choir Williams, who, although he lived farther north in Washington State than Walla Walla, could do an IPS, intel profile search, about the place, vis-a-vis any possible connect between it and the terrorist attacks. The general knew little about the town in the wine-growing area in south-central Washington State other than that it was on the Walla Walla River near the Oregon border, and that it lay in the rain shadow east of the snow-crested Cascade mountain chain. He was aware that the latte legions in Seattle thought of Walla Walla as the back of beyond, like New York thought about the rest of the country.

After the comfortable warmth of the car, the conference room, to which only Patricia Grant and Freeman were allowed entrance, felt like a sauna. Yet he noticed Patricia Grant didn’t remove her jacket, the redhead apparently in slavish obedience to the FBI’s attempt to reinstate a strict dress code.

A second later the general understood the real reason for her obvious tension. The President of the United States appeared on the teleconference screen.

Freeman, belying his own penchant for the more relaxed Special Forces style, immediately stood to attention, conveying such ramrod alertness, as well as his runner’s all-round fitness, that he looked no older than a man in his mid-forties. It was the kind of transformation into a younger self, Patricia Grant mused, that one achieves in the moment of pleasant surprise — meeting an old flame, high school reunion — especially when it involved the kind of ego boost that everyone experienced in the presence of the most powerful leader on earth. The FBI agent realized she too had unconsciously straightened up. Freeman saw a note, presumably slid in from off camera by an aide. Perhaps it was Eleanor, if she was still on her feet.

“Agent Grant,” said the Chief Executive, flashing a smile at the redhead.

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“Thank you for bringing in General Freeman. He’s on our most-wanted list.”

It was a nice comment, simultaneously putting everyone at ease and making the subsequent presidential request that Patricia Grant leave the room sound more like she would be doing him a favor than obeying an order.

“Take a seat,” the President invited Freeman. “Eleanor says you’ve been very helpful corroborating our security agencies’ identification of the types of weapons used in those three terrorist attacks.”

Corroborating, thought Freeman. He’d told the White House precisely, albeit through Eleanor, what two types of MANPADs had been used, the same types that would no doubt be used again if the U.S. didn’t go after the terrorist base from which they came.

“Well, Mr. President,” Freeman responded, at least trying to strike a middle ground between his ego and respect for the Chief Executive Officer of the United States, “we know they used a Vanguard 3D MANPAD and an Igla-2C, but I wouldn’t vouch for the third.”

“Ah,” interjected the Air Force Chief of Staff, Lesand, whom the teleconference cam now showed was sitting to the right of the President, “the third missile was a Stinger, Douglas. Launcher’s not in hand at the moment but we’re pretty sure its MID will be one of those missing from our Afghan Donation List.” Donation! Freeman could barely subdue his disdain for such euphemisms — donation! In the late eighties the U.S. had given the mujahideen scores of the missiles to kill Russians. Nor did Freeman like Lesand’s use of “Douglas.” The Air Force guy was a Johnny-come-lately, had seen one war — against the Iraqi Air Force, which wasn’t there — and now it was Douglas. To Freeman, the flyboy was sounding like one of those overly familiar teenaged doctor’s receptionists who start right off calling you by your first name — we’re all buddies. You could run a small Special Forces team like that. Indeed, he had done so in the past, but let Michael try running his Air Force on a first-name basis.

“Ah, how do you know the missing launcher belonged to a Stinger, Mike?” asked Freeman.

Eleanor Prenty, the fatigue bags under her eyes looking even worse on the TV screen, was still trying to appear calm — after thirty-six hours without sleep — but inside she was on the boil. Freeman, she knew, wanted, ached, to be recognized for his ability rather than being shunted aside, like so many, by mandatory retirement rules and regulations which all too often assumed you became brain-dead at an arbitrarily, bureaucratically imposed age. But his combatively delivered “Mike,” Eleanor knew, was precisely the kind of petulance that quickly shifted people’s attention away from the kind of respect Freeman had earned on the battlefield to his reputation as a diplomatic disaster.

“The videos we’ve seen, General,” the Chief of Naval Operations told Freeman, “and the several eyewitnesses we’ve spoken to so far would seem to indicate pretty conclusively that the missile in question was a Stinger. The twin rectangular flap-ears antenna and—”

“ ‘Seem to indicate’ is the operative phrase, Admiral,” cut in Freeman. “Now, I’m no flight engineer like Mikey here, and the flight angle on those videos may make it look