“Thank you for your time, both of you. I don’t need to remind you. I’m sure, that this entire conversation, this entire interaction, is of the highest secrecy …”
“General, tell him the rest,” Preston said. I think not.” What is this, some kind of game? A ‘good-cop-bad-cop’ routine?”
Patrick said, rising to his feet as well. “I said I’m not interested. That’s final.” ‘Tell him, General.” ‘No. “It’s about Madcap Magician,” Preston said quickly. Freeman whirled at the Marine, but she finished her sentence: “One of the ISA agents attached to Madcap Magician—”
“Colonel, that’s enough!”
“He wasn’t killed, but he’s going back in to look for Colonel White and anyone else who might have been captured.”
“Preston, what in hell is it?”
“Colonel Preston, no!”
“One of the Madcap Magician agents is Major Hal Briggs,” Preston said. “Hal Briggs is with ISA? With Madcap Magician?” Patrick exclaimed.
“At the risk of breaking a major rule of survival with ISA—yes,” Philip Freeman replied, after giving Marcia Preston one last warning glare. “Individual technical units aren’t supposed to know any members of other units— one captured agent can put hundreds of others at risk. But … yes, Hal Briggs was recruited for service by my predecessor shortly after the James spy incident. In fact, he’s going to be named its operations commander, if the unit survives and is reconstituted.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s … in-country,” Freeman admitted. “Major Briggs … er, has a valuable contact, an intelligence officer from the United Arab Emirates who assisted him in the raid on Abu Musa Island.
Major Briggs is awaiting clearance to go back in to make contact.”
“That agent’s gotta be a woman,” Wendy said with a smile.
“I must warn you again, Colonel and Dr. McLanahan,” Freeman said, pointing a finger at both of them, “that all this information is highly classified—I don’t need to tell you what would happen to the persons involved if word as to their identities of position was released.” Freeman nodded at the Secret Service agents in the room, and they headed for the door. He extended a big, rough hand. “It was a pleasure and an honor to meet you, Patrick McLanahan,” he said. “The country—maybe the entire world—already owes you a tremendous debt of gratitude. I’m sorry we couldn’t put your talents to work again. Dr. McLanahan, it was an honor to meet you as well. Good day to you both.”
But Patrick was looking into Wendy’s eyes—and she saw it, the sudden hot spark of energy, the old cock-sure hellfire-and-damnation blaze in his eyes that had attracted her to him ten years earlier, back at that bar in Bossier City, Louisiana. Briggs had tipped the scale, she knew—Briggs and White and the memories of their old friends and comrades-in-arms.
His gaze was also a question—he knew there was no time to converse, no time to talk it over as they always had before, but he was asking her opinion, asking her permission She knew—and she responded: Do it, Patrick, her eyes told him.
You want it, I want it for you, and men out there need you. Do it, but don’t do it their way—do it your way!
And Patrick understood, because when Freeman tried to release the handshake, Patrick held firm.
Freeman looked at McLanahan with a puzzled expression. “Colonel McLanahan, does this mean …?” Freeman started—but McLanahan’s grip suddenly tightened. Freeman couldn’t let go. “Yes, very well, Pat-“
“We use Disruptors,” McLanahan interrupted, still clutching Freeman’s hand tightly. “Non-lethal weapons only, unless there’s a declaration of war—then we go in with everything we’ve got, and I mean everything.”
“Ah …” McLanahan’s grip tightened suddenly; it surprised Freeman. “Agreed,” Freeman replied. “That was the plan all along, of course.”
“We operate overseas only, not over U.S. or allied territory unless there’s a declaration of war or an invasion.”
“Agreed,” Freeman said again, hiding the pain. “Now if we could, I’d like to have Colonel Preston give you-“
“We support ISA operations only—no CIA, no other agencies or operations. No DEA, no ATF, no FBI,” McLanahan continued. “Full disclosure, full verification, open access.”
“Colonel, there’s time to run down all the options …”
The grip suddenly doubled in strength—Freeman didn’t think it was possible. He was starting to sweat. “Agree to it, General!”
McLanahan said loudly. The Secret Service agents warily took a step toward McLanahan. McLanahan’s grip was crushing, making Freeman see stars. “Sweat it! Or is all of this some kind of bullshit agency snow job right from the top?”
“What in hell do you think you’re doing, dammit?”
The Secret Service agents started to rush over to Freeman’s side.
“If those sons of bitches touch me or Wendy, the whole deal’s off!” McLanahan shouted. Freeman held up his left hand, halting the agents. “Tell me the truth, Freeman, damn you, if you have the balls!”
Something was going to break—his hand, or the Secret Service agents’ patience All right!” Freeman cried out through gritted teeth, “I agree!”
“Agree to what?”
“No other agencies … ISA only … full disclosure, full access,” Freeman said. McLanahan released his grip, and Freeman jerked away, as if he had just been electrocuted. He gingerly rubbed the circulation back into his hand. McLanahan hadn’t even broken a sweat. “That was a childish and immature thing to do, McLanahan,” Freeman said. “What were you trying to prove—how tough you think you are?”
“I wanted to give you a little reminder, in case you’ve been in the Pentagon or the White House too long”, McLanahan said, “that good men, my friends and 1, are going to be counting on you keeping your promises. If you don’t, the pain you just felt will be nothing compared to theirs.”
Freeman knew he should be furious, but somehow he couldn’t fault McLanahan, not after all the man had seen and been through. He let the anger drain away with the pain in his right hand, then nodded. “I’ll keep my part of the bargain,” Freeman said, I not because of your little macho stunt, but because I goddamn do care about the men and women under my command. I don’t play games, Colonel McLanahan.”
McLanahan snatched up the wig and shook it in front of Freeman angrily. “We all play games—but not with the lives of fellow crewdogs. I learned a lot from Brad Elliott in almost ten years, sir, and I’ve got lots of ideas of my own. You play straight with me, and we’ll kick some ass and come home alive. If you don’t, I’ll make you wish you hired Brad Elliott and had never even heard of me.”
Freeman did not like being spoken to in this way, but he knew McLanahan was a truly dedicated man. Everything he had heard and read about this guy was true. “If you’re finished breaking my fingers and my ass, you’re on the government clock now, McLanahan.
Your plane leaves Travis Air Force Base in seven hours. Good luck.” By impulse, he held out a hand to him, then quickly retracted it. He smiled, nodded, and said, “Kiss your lovely wife good-bye, McLanahan. You’re in the ISA now.”
WHITEMAN AFB, MISSOURI 17 APRIL 1997, 0649 CT
“Who the hell is it, Tom?” Colonel Anthony Jamieson irritably asked the one-star general standing beside him. The two officers were standing in the cool, damp morning air outside the base operations building at Whiteman Air Force Base, Knob Noster, Missouri, waiting as ordered for the jet carrying the VIPs to arrive. “A Congressman? A Senator’s aide?”
“The boss says you don’t need to know the answer to that, Tony—yet.” Brigadier General Thomas Wright, the commander of the 509th Bomb Wing, Whiteman Air Force Base, and Jamieson’s boss, obviously disliked giving that kind of response to a senior officer, fellow pilot, and friend—but it was the only one allowable.
Jamieson could see his boss’s indecision and decided to keep on pressing: “Do you know who he is?” he asked.
“Not exactly,” Wright admitted, “and apparently I don’t need to know, either. Listen, Tiger, stop asking all these damned questions. You just have to fly him in the simulator. This is just one of Samson’s gee-whiz dog-and-
