computer as in John's CIA office-tempested here, too, so that people couldn't monitor it electronically. There was even a liquor cabinet in the far right corner, doubtless a British custom.
John took a breath before trying out the swivel chair and decided to doff his jacket first. Sitting in a chair with a suit coat on was something he'd never really learned to enjoy. That was something a 'suit' did, and being a 'suit' wasn't John's idea of fun. He waved Alistair to the seat opposite the desk.
'Where are we?'
'Two teams fully formed. Chavez will have one. The other will be commanded by Peter Covington-just got his majority. Father was colonel of the 22nd some years ago retired as a Brigadier. Marvelous lad. Ten men per team, as agreed. The technical staff is coming together nicely. We have an Israeli chap on that, David Peled - surprised they let us have him. He's a bloody genius with electronics and surveillance systems-'
'And he'll report back to Avi ben Jakob every day.'
A smile. 'Naturally.' Neither office was under any illusions about the ultimate loyalty of the troops assigned to Rainbow. But were they not capable of such loyalty, what good would they be? 'David's worked with SAS on and off for a decade. He's quite amazing, contacts with every electronics corporation from San Jose to Taiwan.'
'And the shooters?'
'Top drawer, John. As good as any I've ever worked with.' Which was saying something.
'Intel?'
'All excellent. The chief of that section is Bill Tawney, a `Six' man for thirty years, supported by Dr. Paul Bellow-Temple University, Philadelphia, was a professor there until your FBI seconded him. Bloody smart chap. Mind-reader, he's been all over the world. Your chaps lent him to the Italians for the Moro job, but he refused to take an assignment to Argentina the next year. Principled, also, or so it would seem. He flies in tomorrow.'Just then Mrs. Foorgate came in with a tray, tea for Stanley, coffee for Clark. 'Staff meeting starts in ten minutes, sir,' she told John.
'Thanks, Alice.' Sir, he thought. Clark wasn't used to being addressed like that. Yet another sign he was a 'suit.' Damn. He waited until the heavy soundproofed door closed to ask his next question. 'Al, what's my status here.
'General officer-brigadier at least, maybe a two-star. I seem to be a colonel-chief of staff, you see,' Stanley said, sipping his tea. 'John, you know that there must be protocol,' he went on reasonably.
'Al, you know what I really am - was, I mean?'
'You were a navy chief boatswain's mate, I believe, with the Navy Cross, Silver Star with a repeat cluster. Bronze star with Combat-V and three repeats, and three Purple Hearts. And all that's before the Agency took you in and gave you no less than four Intelligence Stars.' Stanley said all this from memory. 'Brigadier's the least we can do, old man. Rescuing Koga and taking Daryei out were bloody brilliant jobs, in case I never told you. We do know a little bit about you, and your young Chavez - the lad has enormous potential, if he's as good as I've heard. Of course, he'll need it. His team is composed of some real stars.'
'Yo, Ding!' a familiar voice called. Chavez looked to his left in genuine surprise.
'Oso! You son of a bitch! What the hell are you doing here?' Both men embraced.
'The Rangers were getting boring, so I shipped up to Bragg for a tour with Delta, and then this came up on the scope and I went after it. You're the boss for Team Two?' First Sergeant (E-8) Julio Vega asked.
'Sorta-kinda,' Ding replied, shaking the hand of an old friend and comrade. 'Ain't lost no weight, man, Jesu Christo, Oso, you eat barbells?'
'Gotta keep fit, sir,' replied a man for whom a hundred morning push-ups didn't generate a drop of sweat. His uniform blouse showed a Combat Infantryman's Badge and the silver 'ice-cream cone' of a master parachutist. 'You're looking good, man, keeping up your running, eh?'
'Yeah, well, running away is an ability I want to keep, if you know what I mean.'
'Roge-o.' Vega laughed. 'Come on, I'll intro you to the team. We got some good troops, Ding.'Team Two, Rainbow, had its own building-brick, single story, and fairly large, with a desk for every man. and a secretary named Katherine Moony they'd all share, young and pretty enough, Ding noticed, to attract the interest of any unattached member of his team. Team Two was composed exclusively of NCOs, mainly senior ones, four Americans, four Brits, a German, and a Frenchman. He only needed one look to see that all were fit as hell-enough so that Ding instantly worried about his own condition. He had to lead them, and that meant being as good as or better than all of them in every single thing the team would have to do.
Sergeant Louis Loiselle was the nearest- Short and darkhaired, he was a former member of French parachute forces and had been detailed to DGSE some years before. Loiselle was vanilla, a utility infielder, good in everything but a nonspecialist specialist-like all of the men, a weapons expert, and, his file said, a brilliant marksman with pistol and rifle. He had an easy, relaxed smile with a good deal of confidence behind it.
Feldwebel Dieter Weber was next, also a paratrooper and a graduate of the German army's Bergfuhrer or Mountain Leader school,one of the physically toughest schools in any army in the world. He looked it. Blondhaired and fairskinned, he might have been on an SS recruiting poster sixty years earlier. His English, Ding learned at once, was better than his own. He could have passed for American-or English. Weber had come to Rainbow from the German GSG9 team, which was part of the former Border Guards, the Federal Republic's counterterror team.
'Major, we have heard much about you,' Weber said from his six-three height. A little tall, Ding thought. Too large a target. He shook hands like a German. One quick grab, vertical jerk, and let go, with a nice squeeze in the middle. His blue eyes were interesting, cold as ice, interrogating Ding from the first. The eyes were usually found behind a rifle. Weber was one of the team's two longriflemen.
SFC Homer Johnston was the other. A mountaineer from Idaho, he'd taken his first deer at the age of nine. He;rod Weber were friendly competitors. Average-looking in;ill respects, Johnston was clearly a runner rather than an iron-pumper at his six-feet-nothing, one-sixty. He'd started off in the 101st AirMobile at Fort Campbell, Kentucky,in d rapidly worked his way into the Army's black world. ' Major, nice to meet you, sir.' He was a former Green Beret and Delta member, like Chavez's friend, Oso Vega.
The shooters, as Ding thought of them, the guys who went into the buildings to do business, were Americans and Brits. Steve Lincoln, Paddy Connolly, Scotty McTyler, and Eddie Price were from the SAS. They'd all been there and done that in Northern Ireland and a few ether places. Mike Pierce, Hank Patterson, and George Tomlinson mainly had not, because the American Delta force didn't have the experience of the SAS. It was also true, Ding reminded himself, that Delta, SAS, GSG-9, And other crack international teams cross-trained to the point that they might as well have married one another's sisters. Every one of them was taller than 'Major' Chavez. Every one was tough. Every one was smart, and with this realization came an oddly deflating feeling that, despite his own field experience, he'd have to earn the respect of his team and earn it fast.
'Who's senior?'
'That's me, sir,' Eddie Price said. He was the oldest of the team, forty-one, and a former color sergeant in the 22nd Special Air Service Regiment, since spot-promoted to sergeant major. Like the rest in the bullpen, he was wearing nonuniform clothes, though they were all wearing the same nonuniform things, without badges of rank.
'Okay, Price, have we done our PT today?'
'No, Major, we waited for you to lead us out,' Sergeant Major Price replied, with a smile that was ten percent manners and ninety percent challenge.
Chavez smiled back. 'Yeah, well, I'm a little stiff from the flight, but maybe we can loosen that up for me. Where do I change?' Ding asked, hoping his last two weeks of five-mile daily runs would prove to be enough-and he was slightly wasted by the flight.
'Follow me, sir.'
'My name's Clark, and I suppose I'm the boss here,' John said from the head of the conference table. 'You all know the mission, and you've all asked to be part of Rainbow. Questions?'
That startled them, John saw. Good. Some continued to stare at him. Most looked down at the scratch pads in front of them.
'Okay, to answer some of the obvious ones, our operational doctrine ought to be little different from the organizations you came from. We will establish that intraining, which commences tomorrow. We are supposed to be operational right now,' John warned them. 'That means the phone could ring in a minute, and we will have to respond. Are we able to?'
'No,' Alistair Stanley responded for the rest of the senior staff. 'That's unrealistic, John. We need, I would
