Carol Tattinger and DeGrante, the usually silent man from Homeland Security, came in.
Samuelson said, “All right, instant input?”
Tattinger folded her arms across her chest and nodded. “When you negotiate with Middle Easterners, oftentimes they won’t reach for what’s on the table until you go to take it off. And doing it in the way that causes maximum hassle and inconvenience is very much in character. So this very well could be legit.”
Reeve said, “It’s up to you, sir.”
Usually DeGrante would just nod or say “Concur,” but this time he said, “I don’t like it. When I was a bodyguard, anything that moved suddenly in my peripheral vision was bad. That’s what this feels like. Maybe it’s just what Ms. Tattinger says, negotiating the way they do in their culture. But I want to say ‘Don’t.’”
“Noted,” Samuelson said, “and thank you for your candor. I’ll count that as a two-to-one vote unless you want to exercise your veto?”
“Not on just a hunch, sir. But since we couldn’t do a pat-down at the gate, would you let me frisk them at the door?”
“Yeah. There should be some penalty for this dumb last-second stunt. Frisk them at the door, and be thorough, and not excessively gentle. If you piss them off, I’ll square it up. Just let me change pants, and we’ll get this thing going.”
“I’ll cue you when we’re ready,” Tattinger said. She and DeGrante went forward to talk to the pilot.
In his private compartment, Samuelson appreciated the last streaks of deep red sun over the rugged mountains to the west, then shuttered his windows; mustn’t have any maintenance workers catching a glimpse of the Second Most Important Boxer Shorts In The Free World. Red sky at night, supposed to be a good omen.
He sighed happily as he stripped from his sneakers and jeans and pulled out slacks and wingtips. He felt it—this would work out.
Just like old times. As a mayor, John Samuelson had walked into a Crips and Bloods summit, armed with nothing but his confidence, and worn them down with round-the-clock talking and listening. As a governor, he’d hung on for five nearly sleepless days for a peaceful end to a prison hostage situation; just this June, he’d brokered a deal between UFCW and hotels to save the DNC.
Give Samuelson space to improvise, and you got a deal. This time—
Bang.
Sharp, flat, loud.
Two more bangs. Shouting. A cascade of bangs, thumps, screams—
Not bangs. Shots.
Samuelson froze, his fresh pants draped over his hand.
The door broke inward at him.
Man with a sledgehammer.
Two men beside him. Not Samuelson’s people. Not the other side’s negotiators. They pointed guns at him. For a stupefied instant, he thought of asking them to let him finish dressing.
One of them lunged, throwing something over Samuelson’s head. They pinned his arms behind him, punched him, kicked him, and grabbed his genitals and twisted. He puked.
His screams made no difference. Even with his head in a vomit-soaked coffee sack, sobbing for breath, he still understood the implications when he felt the big jet begin to move.
ABOUT THE SAME TIME. JAYAPURA, INDONESIA. 6:30 P.M. MONDAY, OCTOBER 28.
Armand Cooper was reflecting that if people actually make their own luck, he would give himself about a B- for what he was making. That was something to taste with an icy rum and Coke from his personal fridge in his office; as the American consul in Jayapura, he was the highest ranking, as well as the only, State Department official stationed here. And anyway it was out of regular hours—Abang and the other Indonesian clerks were never in here.
In a smallish city in the backwoods of one of the biggest Muslim countries in the world, you really appreciate your liquor. And your ice.
He’d had the tight-beam microwave antenna up, synched in, and checked out for an hour; he liked to be ready early for everything. One of those areas where making your own luck gets you an A.
Pointing the soles of the feet toward anyone was disrespectful, even through a third-floor window, so when he dragged his office chair around to give him a view of the street, he carefully placed the hassock to hide his feet from view. Good thing they can’t see what’s in my glass, the old hands say it wasn’t always this way, but this country has gotten pretty tight about everything.
Pluses, he thought, and savored the rum on his tongue: one of the youngest consuls in the Foreign Service. Especially hard when the younger ranks are so dominated nowadays by Asian-Americans; an African-American male rising so fast, well, hell that it’s a cliché, I sure did give Moms some bragging material.
Minuses, boondocky town in a Muslim country, near the equator.
Pluses, nothing to do except try to keep American tourists and businessmen out of trouble, or rescue them from it, and this far into the back of beyond, most of the people who get here are pretty savvy.
Minuses, social life consists of the Australian consul (nice old guy who likes to play chess), French consul (middle-aged lesbian couple), and the aging drunk that runs the Amex office downstairs.
More minuses, ever since they expanded the consular corps so much, consulates aren’t the dignified old Gothic or Victorian fortresses they used to be—I’m in an office over a bank, and security is the bank guard downstairs.
Come to think of it, the crowd outside—streets in Jayapura were crowded except during prayer—looked kind of odd, like they were waiting for something; maybe a popular preacher or an outdoor concert in the park nearby? All right, bigger minus, as hard as I work at it, I never really feel like I know what’s going on.
Biggest minus, being in charge this early in the career meant being in charge of something so small he had to be here all by himself after hours. He tasted the sourness and bite of his drink before he laughed at himself.
Armand, you are going to whine yourself to death someday, his mother had said to him, more than once, and his father had called him Mr. Glass Half Empty. And now not only was he grumbling about being in a tropical paradise with virtually no supervision, he was also on the fast track for promotion, he’d been doing well here, and the simple, easy task he had to do was part of a vital mission at the highest security level; all he had to do was not screw up and there was a great big plum of cred on his resumé.
He swirled the rum and Coke to make sure the ice was doing its job, and swallowed the rest. Maybe his next post—
His cell buzzed in his pocket. “Cooper, US Consul.”
“Cooper, it’s Seagull. Routine op in ten seconds, are you ready?”
He glanced at the computer screen, which said his antenna was aligned. “Ready… send the test…”
“Sending.”
The screen said confirmed clear.
“Good here.”
“And good here. Sending one main message.”
The screen said msg rec’d 48 mgb, relaying.
“Just the one this time?” Cooper asked.
“Just the one.”
Successful realay, wiping msg.
“Relayed and erased,” he said.
“That’s it for tonight. Unofficially, thanks for everything and bye.”
“Bye.”
So they were leaving. He’d thought they would be, soon; he’d been fielding more and more odd requests from the big white plane that he could just see through binoculars, across the bay at Sentani airport.