meditation lasted almost exactly twenty minutes, as it should have. So why did he feel so odd?
He knew why he felt that way-he felt it for a long time now, ever since the Turkey-Ukraine-Russia conflict over the Black Sea, ever since die raid against Pavel Kazakov's base in Romania. He knew what was happening.
'Patrick,' he spoke.
The gas had run out, both in their vehicles and in the men themselves. Patrick and the rest of the Night Stalkers had taken shelter in yet another complex of oil wells-these appeared to be bombed out rather than run dry. They provided minimal cover: Chris Wohl had the men dig foxholes in the burning sand to conceal themselves as much as possible and wait for rescue.
They were all exhausted, physically, mentally, and emotionally. Patrick told them about the detonation over Mersa Matruh. They had received no other reports from anyonethe electromagnetic pulse from the nuclear device had electrified the atmosphere so badly that no satellite transmissions could get in or out…
'Patrick.'
Or so he thought-apparently now the satellite transceivers implanted in then' bodies were up and running again.
He recognized the voice immediately, of course-and his next move was also immediate: 'Cancel Thorn to Patrick.' And the voice went silent.
It was the one thing that kept Patrick and the other Night Stalkers out of prison after their first series of raids the year before: They were still tied into the subcutaneous microtransceiver system they had received while working at the Air Force's High Technology Aerospace Weapons Center in Nevada-and the President of the United States got one too, a tiny rivet-sized wireless biotransceiver injected into a shoulder, powered by a radioisotope power supply worn as an anklet. The satellite transceiver allowed global communications, tracking, biofunction monitoring, and data transmission, although the user could selectively cut off individual functions.
This was the first time the President of the United States had activated his transceiver-and it startled Patrick completely. But what surprised him even more was to hear: 'Patrick. Talk to me.' Even though Patrick had instructed the transceiver satellite server to cut out the President, he was still coming through!
'What is it, Mr. President?' Patrick finally responded.
'I'm sorry about Paul,' Thorn said. The transmission was scratchy, but the emotion in the President's voice was still evident, still genuine. 'I know you loved him, and that it hurt you to have him go into battle with you.'
Patrick immediately recognized the subtle query-he was hunting for information-but Patrick didn't have the energy to try to resist an interrogation right now. 'Someone had to go in and stop the Libyans,' he responded. 'You won't do it.'
'What else happened, Patrick?' Thorn asked. 'Why didn't you come home with your brother?' No reply. The President's eyes narrowed, thinking hard-and then they widened in absolute horror. 'My God, not Wendy. Was she caught in the attack on your ship? Was she… oh, no… was she one of the prisoners sent to Mersa Matruh? Oh God, Patrick…'
'Mr. President, soldiers are resting here, preparing for battle,' Patrick said woodenly. 'You know the old saying-lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way.'
'And you think Kevin Martindale is your leader?'
Patrick had to close his eyes against the pain of the dart thrust through his heart. 'Damn you, Thorn!' he cried against clenched teeth. The other Night Stalkers turned toward him, but no one approached-they seemed to instantly know whom he was talking with. Patrick knew that, again, Thomas Thorn the hippie-dippie president had cut right to the heart of the matter.
Patrick didn't believe in this fight. They were fighting for money, and that was not a reason to kill and die. Worse, he had accepted the assignment, even though he had not only the power but the responsibility to refuse it. Even worse than that-he had allowed his wife and his younger brother to follow him. Now one was dead, and the other was missing and probably dead in the nuclear explosion at Mersa Matruh. He would burn in hell for all eternity for what he had done-and he knew it, and Thorn knew it too.
'I'm sorry, Patrick.'
'You have access to the same information we do!' Patrick cried out. 'You know what's going on out here! And yet you decided to do nothing! I did it because there's a battle that needs to be fought over here, Thorn! What are you waiting for?'
'I hope one day you'll understand why,' Thorn replied. 'I'm still not going to do anything, not unless the people of Egypt want our help.'
'What about leadership, Thorn?' Patrick retorted angrily. 'What about justice and freedom and the strong protecting the weak? Basic stuff we both learned in kindergarten! How about believing in something and standing up for it?'
'That's exactly what I'm doing, Patrick,' Thorn said gently. 'Tell me: What do you believe in? You are out there in' Egypt or Israel planning more death and destructiontell me, General, what is it you believe in now?'
'Go to hell, Thorn!'
'General, I want you to come home-right now.'
'Why do you keep on calling me 'General,' Thorn? You fired me, remember? You involuntarily retired me.'
'Take care of the proper things first,' Thorn patiently went on. 'Bring your soldiers home-they're tired, you're tired, and the situation there is far too desperate for you to continue. Hold your son, bury your brother, mourn your wife, console your mother and your sisters, and try to explain to them what's going on. Then come to the White House, and we'll talk.'
'Trouble, Patrick,' Hal Briggs called out.
Patrick turned and saw a rising cloud of dust on the horizon to the east-heavy vehicles, quickly heading their way. The Egyptian border patrols had finally caught up to them. 'We're pressing on,' Patrick said aloud, not to Briggs but to Thorn, and he cut the connection. This time Thorn did not override it.
What were they doing here? Patrick asked himself for at least the hundredth time in the past three days. What was the objective? Spy on the Libyans, find out if they had any designs against the Egyptian oil fields-well, that question was answered now, wasn't it? Did Paul sacrifice his life for nothing? So what if they found out that Libya had chemical, biological, or even nuclear surface-to-surface missiles ready to launch? Any smart defense planner in Egypt, Israel, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Algeria, Greece, or Italy would already assume that and be planning a counterstrike or retaliatory strike.
Just closing his eyes seemed to take away some of the pain. Paul was dead-and he was not even buried yet, still on his way back home to Sacramento for burial beside their father. Wendy was missing, probably dead. How was he going to tell her family? How in hell was he supposed to explain it to their son? Your mother won't be coming home, son. Should he tell her she was in heaven watching over him? Should he tell him about war, about fighting, about death? How do you tell a four-year-old about something like that?
He watched a vision of his life with Wendy Tork play in his mind's eye, from the time he first met her at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana during the U.S. Air Force's Strategic Air Command Bomb Competition Symposium over twenty years earlier. She was a young and talented electronics engineer; he was a young hotshot B-52G Stratofortress bombardier who had just helped his unit win the coveted Fairchild Trophy for the second year in a row, along with a long string of other trophies and awards. The old saying 'opposites attract' was true only with magnets-Patrick and Wendy were as alike as could be, and they became almost inseparable from that moment on.
They had been shot at, shot up, shot down, and they did their fair share of shooting. They had flown all over the world together, sharing adventures as well as themselves. Of all the dangers they had faced together, having a baby was their most dangerous-and most joyous-moment. But even after young Bradley James McLanahan arrived in the world and Patrick was unceremoniously, involuntarily retired from the U.S. Air Force, Wendy would notcould not-leave her husband's side when he went off to battle.
Now, that dedication may have destroyed her.
