glass was gone. Patrick reached for the glass: “I’ll get you a fresh Samuel A,” he said.
“Thanks, young man,” the gent said. “Guess I’m paying more attention to the news than to the beer.”
“Me too,” Patrick offered. “Can I get you anything else? We have some great hot appetizers. Would you like to see a menu?” The woman sitting at the guy’s table tittered a bit, covering her mouth. The black guy scowled at her; Patrick ignored it, but inside he was turning, asking himself, Why the hell am I here?
What the hell am I doing? This bitch is laughing at me because I’m taking food orders … but I’m not happy doing this. Wendy’s right, I’m not happy doing this.
“I heard what you told the bartender about Iran,” the black guy said, in a bit of a booming, authoritative voice that made Patrick think perhaps he was a little drunk or distraught. “It’s pretty unbelievable when you think about the historical memories of America’s young people.”
“Not everyone,” Patrick said. “Hank’s main concern right now is paying the rent, not world affairs. He’s a pretty smart guy.”
“What makes you think the Iranians are just scaring everybody?”
“Iran’s got enough domestic problems without worrying about picking fights with any of its neighbors, or with the United States,” Patrick said, not really wanting to get into another inane discussion about the Middle East but unconsciously blowing off a little steam from interacting with ol’ Hank. “But the GCC attack on Abu Musa Island stirred up the military. Soon they’ll mobilize the Pasdaran-“
“The what?” the guy asked. “The who?”
“The Pasdaran, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Iranian elite troops. The Pasdaran are the Iranian storm troopers, the SS of the Middle East. They’re the best of the best, the pointy end of the spear. They have about the same size, speed, and equipment as the U.S. Marine Corps—maybe even better.” Patrick pointed to the TV set over the right side of the bar just as a map of Iran was being shown for the hundredth time that hour on CNN.
“What will they do?”
“If the military gets the ear of the clerics in charge of the country, the first thing they might do is close off the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf. They’ll use the Khomeini carrier group, backed up by their new fleet of land- based bombers.”
“You’ve lost me, son,” the gent said. “Iran’s going to do all this? Why?”
“They’ll do it if anyone, especially the U.S. or Israel, gets in their way,” Patrick said. “If Iran closes off the Gulf and maybe then the Red Sea, all the oil-rich countries lose billions a day.
The Gulf states won’t risk that—they’ll deal with Iran rather than risk losing oil revenues.”
“So why don’t we just get a Steve Canyon aviator hero-type and bomb the crap out of Iran, like we did in Iraq?” the woman chimed in, her voice slightly sarcastic, as if a mere bartender had any answers she would find useful or informative. Aha, Patrick thought, not a hooker—or at least a very highly educated one.
These two were together, and probably with the other three guys surrounding the bar. What in hell was going on?
“We could, but we risk starting a huge Middle East war,” Patrick said. “We’d need a pretty thick scorecard to keep track of all the alliances, cooperatives, economic unions, and religious factors in this region.” Patrick began wiping a nearby table so he’d be better able to slip away and avoid a prolonged conversation with these two. “We couldn’t count on our old friends for help, because Iran is a pretty tough adversary, far stronger than Iraq was. This time, both Russia and China are involved—on Iran’s side, not ours. And we’ve got fewer bombers, tanks, ships, and men to fight a war. We’re pretty well on the backside of the power curve on this one.” Patrick paused, then added, “Besides, Steve Canyon types are just fiction.”
“Too bad,” the blonde said.
“That sounds like a fighter pilot talking,” the black gent observed. “You a flier?”
“I was in the Air Force once,” Patrick said. “Didn’t do anything special. Put in my years and punched out.” His blue am, and he half turned to the man and told him, “I’ll bring that beer right away.”
“Sure. Thanks,” the guy said. As Patrick was walking back to the bar, the guy raised his voice and added, “When you get back, maybe you can explain how a single B-2A equipped like a Megafortress could slow down the Iranian advances without triggering a Middle East war.”
Patrick tried hard to make no outward reaction to the word Megafortress, but inside his guts turned upside down. The Megafortress had been one of his top-secret projects back when he was in the Air Force—a highly modified B-52 bomber, what they referred to as a “flying battleship,” designed for long-range heavy-precision strikes and to escort other, less sophisticated bombers, such as unmodified B-52s, into the target area. Several other Megafortresses had been built and flown—even flown in combat, over Lithuania and Belarus—but they had all been dismantled and placed in storage or destroyed when HAWC was disbanded. This guy knew about it, knew about him, about his past. All that information was highly classified. Was he a reporter? A foreign agent? An industrial spy?
Remaining calm, pretending he hadn’t heard the guy, Patrick nonchalantly set the man’s beer mug on the bar. “Hank, pour him another Adams,” Patrick said, then headed immediately into the office.
“Sure, boss. Hey, I’m gonna need …” But Patrick was already through the office door, practically at a dead run.
As soon as he closed the door behind him, he said, “Wendy, head out the back, take the cell phone, and call OSI.” OSI, the Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations, was their point of contact should anyone try to contact them regarding any classified information. Their nearest office was at Beale Air Force Base up in Marysville, about an hour away, but if they had any agents in the area, someone could be by there right away to intercept. Or maybe they’d call the FBI or U.S. Marshal’s office in Sacramento for help …
“I think it’s too late for that, dear,” Wendy said. There, standing next to Wendy, was a stranger in a black trench coat and wearing black gloves.
Patrick didn’t hesitate. He quickly stepped forward until he reached the desk, then shoved the computer monitor off its stand at the stranger. The guy instinctively grabbed at the monitor flying toward him, which distracted him and brought his face down to the perfect level—so Patrick swung his right fist, putting his entire two hundred pounds behind it, connecting squarely in the middle of the stranger’s left temple. He went down with a muffled grunt and lay still, knocked cold.
“God,” Wendy gasped as she stared at the unconscious stranger.
“Patrick, wait.”
Without stopping, Patrick stepped on and over the stranger, grabbed Wendy’s left arm, and steered her toward the back of the office to the back door. “Head toward the coffee shop down the street—they’ll be open, and the cops hang out there,” Patrick told Wendy. “Tell them there’s five out front, one black male, three white males, one white-“
“What in hell is going on back here!” a voice thundered behind him. Patrick whirled around and saw the black gent and the woman standing at the office door. The black guy was bug-eyed as he looked first at Patrick, then at the unconscious guy on the floor with the computer monitor lying on his chest, then back at Patrick. The woman studied the scene the same way, but her face registered immense glee. “What do you think you’re doing, McLanahan?”
“Wendy, go!” Patrick tried to pull her toward the door, but she was not moving. “Wendy, what’s wrong?”
“Patrick, sweetie, you just knocked a Secret Service agent out cold,” Wendy said with a smile.
“A what?”
“He’s a ‘who,’ dear,” Wendy repeated, grinning broadly. “Special Agent Frank Zanatti, from Washington, D.C. He’s already showed me his ID. I tried to tell you, before you knocked my monitor over.”
“Secret Service?” Patrick looked at the unconscious guy in total confusion, then pointed an angry finger at the large black guy standing in his office door. “Then who the hell are you?”
“I am Philip Freeman, U.S. Army, retired, National Security Advisor to the President of the United States,” Philip Freeman bellowed.
“Fr … Freeman? General Freeman?”
“Don’t just stand there gaping, Colonel,” Freeman shouted, “help Agent Zanatti up.” He half turned to the woman beside him and ordered, “Colonel, give him a hand. I swear, McLanahan, if you’ve killed him, we’ll all be skinned alive.”
