key from the padlock and put it in his pocket. A close examination would show the door had been forced and the door-handle lock broken, but the padlock would delay them for a few minutes. He picked up his gym bag and, with two of his men behind him, walked between the airplanes until he could look up at the man in the center hangar- deck fire station, CONFLAG 2. He smiled at him and walked toward the hatch immediately below the watch station. He glanced around. One of the red paint lockers stood against the bulkhead. As soon as he finished upstairs, while his men were visiting the other two CONFLAG stations, he would plant bombs on at least four or five of these paint lockers. He took a deep breath and began to climb the ladder.
21
She asked me not to tell.”
“She knew you would.”
Tarkington’s face was a study. Lines radiated from the corners of his eyes and his face seemed … older.
“She knew you had to tell,” Jake said.
“If she knew I was going to spill it, why did she ask me not to? How come she didn’t just shoot me?”
“Women are like that,” Jake Grafton muttered. “They ask you not to do something they know you’re gonna do, and they watch your face while they ask it.” He shrugged. “Maybe they’re just measuring the size of your heart.”
“I think they were Israelis. Mossad.”
“Any evidence?”
“They ragged on one guy who sounded like an American. They called him an ‘agency asshole.’ Apparently he shot the first guy when he wasn’t supposed to.” Toad looked around desperately. “They didn’t kill me,” he said, his voice rising. “The Mossad only kills terrorists.”
“Or so you’ve heard. And you’ve ratted on them when she asked you not to. Now you feel guilty as hell. Thank you, Judith Farrell.”
Jake picked up the phone and dialed Farnsworth. “Find the senior intelligence officer who’s aboard tonight and tell him to go to the intel center. I’m sending Mr. Tarkington over there now. I want them to wring out Tarkington like a sponge and draft up a Top Secret flash message. Then find out if Admiral Parker’s aboard, or the chief of staff.”
When he cradled the receiver, he said to Toad, “I want you to tell this tale to the Air Intelligence guys. Describe every one of those people. Including Judith. What they were wearing, height and weight, facial features, the works.” As Toad rose to go, Jake added, “Sooner or later, you may get curious about why I had everyone on this boat looking for you all afternoon. Judith Farrell is not a native speaker of English. She’s probably not an American.”
Toad looked dazed. “But she said she was!”
“Tarkington …,” Jake said, exasperation creeping into his voice, “you got yourself smack in the middle of somebody’s heavy operation. Farrell’s on someone’s team. You’re real fucking lucky you didn’t get zapped for just being in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Toad didn’t react, the sap. “Look at it this way, Toad: if you hadn’t meant anything to her, she wouldn’t have bothered to tell you to keep quiet.”
The younger man just stared, his mouth open slightly.
Jake came around the desk and sat on it. Maybe he shouldn’t go into this. But Toad … Why wait for the guy to figure all this out ten years from now? “You care about her, right? And she was telling you she cares about you. She told you the only way she could. The words weren’t the message; it was the way she said it.”
Toad nodded slowly.
“Now quit feeling like a shit and go tell the intel guys everything you know.” Jake pointed toward the door. “Beat it.”
As Toad left the room he glanced back at the captain, who was absently patting his pockets as he gazed at the telephone. Then the door closed.
Private Harold Porter hadn’t worn his slicker for this watch. The rain had soaked him and the wind was making him miserable. He huddled against the side of the ship, under the lip of the flight deck curb, and kept his hands tucked under his armpits. The ship’s red flight-deck floodlights illuminated the.50-caliber machine gun and the ammo feed box. The sound-powered telephone headset he wore kept his ears warm. At least that was something.
Porter elevated his head and watched the helicopter lift off the angle. Its flashing red anticollision light swept the numbers on the side of the island. The chopper rose several feet off the deck and the tail came up, then it accelerated forward off the angled portion of the flight deck. Porter watched it go, then lowered his head back below the curb of the deck.
Those poor bastards in the water were really in the soup. Too bad the action was on the other side of the ship, where he couldn’t see it. The scuttlebutt on the sound-powered circuit was that they were drunk. So if they don’t drown, they’re going to be shoveling shit when old man James gets through with them. Serves the bastards right, Porter decided. He hadn’t been ashore for the last two nights. Envy wrapped its slimy fingers around his heart.
The corporal should be around in a few minutes. Maybe he could get the corporal to go down to the berthing spaces and get his slicker for him. Naw, not Simons, that prick. But maybe Simons would relieve him for a few minutes and let him go get it. He sourly contemplated the odds of talking the corporal into that.
Simons was an asshole, no question. Two little red chevrons and he acted like he’d been promoted to disciple. Why in hell the corps ever promoted a cock-stroking butt-licker like him was a good question to contemplate on a bad night. Aagh, it’s enough to make you puke. You work your ass off spit-shining your fucking shoes and polishing your fucking brass and cleaning your fucking rifle, and then Hershey-bar lifer pricks like Simons …
Someone was coming down the catwalk. Damn! Couldn’t be Simons. Not five minutes early. Oh, it’s some dirt-bag sailor, probably drunk, out wandering around after a big night in town, out to give the corps some shit.
“Hey Dixie-cup, you—”
The first bullet from the silenced 9-millimeter hit Private Porter in the throat. The wind swallowed the muffled report. As the marine’s hands went to his throat, the pistol popped twice more, and the now-lifeless body slumped down into a sitting position.
The assassin opened the breech of the big fifty and the ammo feed box. He lifted out the belt of shells and fed it over the rail, between the big gray canisters that contained the fifty-man life rafts. The ammo belt fell into the blackness. The killer bent over the open breech. In a few seconds he snapped the weapon’s breech and the ammo- box lid closed, and walked forward toward the bow.
Lance Corporal James Van Housen was bored. And when he was bored, he entertained himself with isometric exercises. He strained at the top bar of the catwalk rail, trying to curl it. He counted the seconds: … fourteen, thousand, fifteen, thousand, sixteen, … When he got to twenty, he relaxed and counted his pulse while he examined the sweep second hand of his watch, just visible in the red lights of the ship’s island.
The rest of these guys, they just stand around and get fat while the sergeants kick their asses. Van Housen was staying in shape. He was taking advantage of every opportunity to exercise. That’s what the corps is all about, staying in shape, ready to fight. If they wanted to be marshmallows, they should have joined the fucking navy. The sailors all think exercise is what they do to their dicks in the shower.
Van Housen saw the chopper cross the fantail and make its approach to the helo spot on the angle. The sound-powered circuit talker said the angel had picked one guy up from the liberty boat, which had pulled him from the water. A damn bad night for a swim. The talker didn’t know about the other guy in the water. Van Housen watched a team of corpsmen with a litter run toward the chopper as soon as it touched down.
The lance corporal seized the top rail and lifted again, counting to himself. He finished this set and was flexing his arms, trying to pump out the fatigue toxins, when he saw a sailor come up a ladder from the O-3 level, fifty feet aft, and turn toward him. He first glimpsed the man from the corner of his eye, then turned to watch
