“You don’t know!”
Melissa grabbed her as she started to wave. But whoever they were, or whatever side they were on, the men didn’t stop, or even seem to notice; they kept running in the direction of the building. The mortars had ceased firing, but there was another ominous sound in the distance — the trucks were returning.
Suddenly, the woman Melissa was helping screamed in agony and stopped moving. She bent her head and shoulders down, caught in the midst of a convulsive contraction.
Melissa dropped to her knee and looked at her face. The woman gasped for air, closed her eyes, then moaned with a fresh contraction.
Less than thirty seconds had passed between them.
“Marie! Marie!” yelled Melissa. “She’s having the baby now! Right here! Help!”
Chapter 11
D.C. traffic was surprisingly light, and Zen managed to make it to the Intelligence Committee meeting a few minutes early. He quickly wished he hadn’t: Senator Uriah Ernst hailed him in the hallway outside the room and immediately began haranguing him.
“What exactly is the administration up to, Zen?” said Ernst. “What the hell is your President doing?”
“Probably nothing good,” laughed Zen.
“Don’t try and snow me. I know you’re on her side these days.”
“I don’t really know what we’re talking about,” said Zen.
“I’ll bet. You’ve never heard of Raven?”
Zen shook his head.
“It’s an assassination program — or so I understand.”
“New one on me.”
“I’m getting to the bottom of this,” said Ernst. He shook his head and went into the hearing room.
Ned Barrington, the committee chairman, met Zen just inside the door. “Got a moment?”
Zen nodded and wheeled himself over to the corner.
“Ernst says the CIA is running an assassination program outside of the oversight procedure,” said Barrington. “He thinks the President set it up to circumvent us and the law.”
“I don’t know anything about it,” said Zen. “This isn’t one of the 6–9 programs?”
“No. Not at all. Supposedly, anyway. I don’t even know if it exists,” admitted Barrington. “I wouldn’t believe anything based on Ernst’s rantings.”
The 6–9 programs were targeted “actions”—the word assassination was carefully avoided — directed at terrorists who were deemed a threat to the U.S. Similar to other programs conducted by earlier administrations, 6–9 was tightly controlled, with targets approved according to a strict set of standards. As it happened, Zen had argued that the standards were too restrictive; they required two different sets of legal review, and many inside the CIA, which administered the program, felt they were too time-consuming.
“Your wife’s not involved in any of this, is she?” Barrington asked.
“I haven’t a clue,” said Zen truthfully.
“I hope not, for her sake.”
A few minutes later Zen found himself trying to clamp his mouth shut as the meeting began with a blistering diatribe from Ernst. He claimed that the President had circumvented the constitution by authorizing assassinations of “who knows who.”
“She’s leading us into World War Three. That’s where we’re going,” declared Ernst.
“With all due respect, Senator,” said Zen finally, “how exactly do you see this leading to World War Three?”
“The government cannot have a policy of exterminating its enemies. Especially when they are heads of state.”
“This program is directed at heads of state?” said Zen.
“That’s what I’ve heard. Raven is a sign of an Agency and an administration run amok.”
Barrington tapped his gavel. Zen suspected that Ernst was simply ramping up the charges so the committee would vote to investigate. For all Ernst knew, there might not even be a Raven program — or a rumor. He’d used the tactic before.
Unfortunately, he was a senior member of the Senate, an important fund-raiser for the other side, and a frequent talk show guest. He couldn’t simply be ignored.
“The senator from Tennessee has a point,” said one of Ernst’s fellow party members, Ted Green. “We should get Edmund up here and find out what the hell is going on.”
“And the National Security director,” said Ernst.
“Why not ask the President herself?” said Zen sarcastically.
“If she’d take my phone calls, I would.”
“All right, all right,” said Barrington. “We’ll have Edmund come in.”
Chapter 12
Danny managed to keep the car on the road as both tires on the passenger side blew out. He rode the rims for a few hundred yards, wrangling it more or less into a straight line, before the back of the vehicle lifted with an explosion. Someone in the shacks behind them had fired a rocket-propelled grenade; fortunately, it hit the road far enough behind them that most of the blast and shrapnel scattered harmlessly. But the shock threw the car out of Danny’s control, pushing it into a ditch.
“Everybody out!” he yelled.
They flew through the doors a few seconds ahead of the next grenade, which turned the Mercedes into a fireball. Danny could feel the heat as he scrambled through the field, trying to find cover. Nuri was on his left, Boston and Flash somewhere behind them.
It took him a few moments to orient himself. He checked his rifle — locked and loaded — then reached for his ear set, which had fallen a few feet away.
Boston and Flash were calling for him.
“I’m here,” he told them. “Forty yards south of the car. Nuri’s near me,” he added. Nuri was hunched over the control unit for the MY-PID a few yards away.
“I see ya,” said Boston. “Ya got three tangos coming down the road on your right as you look back at the vehicle. We have shots. What do you want to do?”
Once slang for terrorist, “tango” had become a generic word for any hostile.
“You have them?” Danny asked. “Take ’em.”
Two quick bursts and all three fell dead.
Danny crawled over to Nuri.
“Our missing CIA officer and the women are in a field over that little ridge,” said Nuri, pointing. “On the other side of this farm building. MY-PID says one of the women is in labor.”
“Labor?”
“The trucks are moving up from that direction, and there are men on foot coming straight up this way. We’re in the middle of deep shit, Colonel.”
“You’re a master of the obvious, Nuri,” said Danny, starting down in Melissa’s direction.
The baby was definitely coming. Its mother squatted in the field, bent low but still on her feet. Melissa, on her knees, cradled the woman’s head as Bloom worked on the other end, clearing the brush down and rolling the
