dreamed it up himself to draw the bastard out of his hole.
'Well, yes, we are concerned with the political stability of the region,' John allowed, with an insider's smile to show that he knew the score. Americans were known for doing business all over the world, after all, or so Corp and others believed.
Chavez was fiddling with the GPS device, watching the LCD display. At the upper-right corner, a block went from clear to black. Ding coughed from the dust in the air and scratched his nose.
'Okay,' Clark said. 'You're a serious man, and we understand that. The fifty million can be paid up-front. Swiss account?'
'That is somewhat better,' Corp allowed, taking his time. He walked around to the back of the Rover and pointed into the open cargo area. 'These are your rock samples?'
'Yes, sir,' Clark replied with a nod. He handed over a three-pound piece of stone with very high-grade Molly- be-damned ore, though it was from Colorado, not Africa. 'Want to show it to your people?'
'What is this?' Corp pointed at two objects in the Rover.
'Our lights, sir.' Clark smiled as he took one out. Ding did the same.
'You have a gun in there,' Corp saw with amusement, pointing to a bolt-action rifle. Two of his bodyguards drew closer.
'This is Africa, sir. I was worried about—'
'Lions?' Corp thought that one pretty good. He turned and spoke to his 'policemen,' who started laughing amiably at the stupidity of the Americans. 'We kill the lions,' Corp told them after the laughter settled down. 'Nothing lives out here.'
Clark, the General thought, took it like a man, standing there, holding his light. It seemed a big light. 'What is that for?'
'Well, I don't like the dark very much, and when we camp out, I like to take pictures at night.'
'Yeah,' Ding confirmed. 'These things are really great.' He turned and scanned the positions of the General's security detail. There were two groups, one of four, the other of six, plus the two nearby and Corp himself.
'Want me to take pictures of your people for you?' Clark asked without reaching for his camera.
On cue, Chavez flipped his light on and played it toward the larger of the two distant groups. Clark handled the three men close to the Rover. The 'lights' worked like a charm. It took only about three seconds before both CIA officers could turn them off and go to work securing the men's hands.
'Did you think we forgot?' the CIA field officer asked Corp as the roar of rotary-wing aircraft became audible fifteen minutes later. By this time all twelve of Corp's security people were facedown in the dust, their hands bound behind them with the sort of plastic ties policemen use when they run out of cuffs. All the General could do was moan and writhe on the ground in pain. Ding cracked a handful of chemical lights and tossed them around in a circle downwind of the Rover. The first UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter circled carefully, illuminating the ground with lights.
'BIRD-DOG ONE, this is BAG MAN.'
'Good evening, BAG MAN, BIRD-DOG ONE has the situation under control. Come on down!' Clark chuckled into the radio.
The first chopper down was well outside the lighted area. The Rangers appeared out of the shadows like ghosts, spaced out five meters apart, weapons low and ready.
'Clark?' a loud, very tense voice called.
'Yo!' John called back with a wave. 'We got 'im.'
A captain of Rangers came in. A young Latino face, smeared with camouflage paint and dressed in desert cammies. He'd been a lieutenant the last time he'd been on the African mainland, and remembered the memorial service for those he'd lost from his platoon. Bringing the Rangers back had been Clark's idea, and it had been easy to arrange. Four more men came in behind Captain Diego Checa. The rest of the squad dispersed to check out the 'policemen.'
'What about these two?' one asked, pointing to Corp's two personal bodyguards.
'Leave 'em,' Ding replied.
'You got it, sir,' a spec-4 replied, taking out steel cuffs and securing both pairs of wrists in addition to the plastic ties. Captain Checa cuffed Corp himself. He and a sergeant lifted the man off the ground while Clark and Chavez retrieved their personal gear from the Rover and followed the soldiers to the Blackhawk. One of the Rangers handed Chavez a canteen.
'Oso sends his regards,' the staff sergeant said. Ding's head came around.
'What's he doing now?'
'First Sergeants' school. He's pissed that he missed this one. I'm Gomez, Foxtrot, Second of the One- Seventy-Fifth. I was here back then, too.'
'You made that look pretty easy,' Checa was telling Clark, a few feet away.
'Six weeks,' the senior field officer replied in a studiously casual voice. The rules required such a demeanor. 'Four weeks to bum around in the boonies, two weeks to set the meet up, six hours waiting for it to happen, and about ten seconds to take him down.'
'Just the way it's supposed to be,' Checa observed. He handed over a canteen filled with Gatorade. The Captain's eyes locked on the senior man. Whoever he was, Checa thought at first, he was far too old to play games in the boonies with the gomers. Then he gave Clark's eyes a closer look.
'How the fuck you do this, man?' Gomez demanded of Chavez at the door to the chopper. The other Rangers leaned in close to get the reply.
Ding glanced over at his gear and laughed. ' Magic!'
Gomez was annoyed that his question hadn't been answered. 'Leaving all these guys out here?'
'Yeah, they're just gomers.' Chavez turned to look one last time. Sooner or later one would get his hands free—probably—retrieve a knife, and cut his fellow 'policemen' free; then they could worry about the two with steel bracelets. 'It's the boss we were after.'
Gomez turned to scan the horizon. 'Any lions or hyenas out here?'
Ding shook his head.
The Rangers were shaking their heads as they strapped into their seats on the helicopter. As soon as they were airborne, Clark donned a headset and waited for the crew chief to set up the radio patch.
'CAPSTONE, this is BIRD DOG,' he began.
The eight-hour time difference made it early afternoon in Washington. The UHF radio from the helicopter went to USS Tripoli, and then it was uplinked to a satellite. The Signals Office routed the call right into Ryan's desk phone.
'Yes, BIRD DOG, this is CAPSTONE.'
Ryan couldn't quite recognize Clark's voice, but the words were readable through the static: 'In the bag, no friendlies hurt. Repeat, the duck is in the bag and there are zero friendly casualties.'
'I understand, BIRD DOG. Make your delivery as planned.'
It was an outrage, really, Jack told himself as he set the phone back. Such operations were better left in the field, but the President had insisted this time. He rose from his desk and headed toward the Oval Office.
'Get'm?' D'Agustino asked as Jack hustled down the corridor.
'You weren't supposed to know.'
'The Boss was worried about it,' Helen explained quietly.
'Well, he doesn't have to worry anymore.'
'That's one score that needed settling. Welcome back, Dr. Ryan.'
The past would haunt one other man that day.
'Go on,' the psychologist said.
'It was awful,' the woman said, staring down at the floor. 'It was the only time in my life it ever happened, and…' Though her voice droned on in a level, emotionless monotone, it was her appearance that disturbed the elderly woman most of all. Her patient was thirty-five, and should have been slim, petite, and blonde, but instead her face showed the puffiness of compulsive eating and drinking, and her hair was barely presentable. What ought to have been fair skin was merely pale, and reflected light like chalk, in a flat grainy way that even makeup would not have helped very much. Only her diction indicated what the patient once had been, and her voice recounted the events of three years before as though her mind was operating on two levels, one the victim, and the other an
