“How did you find me?” Coastie asked, irritated at being discovered. “My suit is pretty good.”
“I didn’t.” Nina pointed to the dog. “He’s never far from you. Hey, Nero,” she said, squatting and rubbing the big nose.
“He’s a lousy guard dog. Everybody around here can find me, and he doesn’t do a damn thing to stop them. He should be ripping your throat out, Blume.”
“He guards us all, girlfriend. Anyway, Get out of your leaves and branches and hustle up there. I’ll let him know you’re on the way.”
Coastie struggled to her feet. “What’s he want?”
“No idea,” the lieutenant answered, limping away.
Nero remained lying obediently in the dirt, grinning because everybody was okay.
Bruce Brandt and Ingmar Thompson wandered into the mess hall after a shower and a snooze. They were in a somber mood and took their trays of chow and coffee mugs to a table favored by special-ops types. Two other guys were about, though. The snipers sat. Said hello.
“Rough night?” asked a Navy SEAL.
“Might say that,” replied Brandt. He started on his steak and eggs.
“Classified?” the SEAL continued.
“The mission is all over the news now, so no, it’s no longer classified.” Thompson put two fried eggs and hash browns between two slices of Texas toast and smothered the sandwich with Tabasco and a handful of jalapeño peppers. “That drug place up in the Wakham Corridor. Not much there now but a lot of show-and-tell for the folks back home.”
The other man wiped his lips and settled with his coffee. He was a PJ, an Air Force parajumper. “So that’s where all the Rangers went in such a hurry. Good on them. So how is that bad?”
“Not the mission. Swanson.”
“Kyle?” the SEAL was suddenly attentive, as was the PJ. “He catch a bullet?”
“They have him up at Landstuhl. Took a hard knock to the back of his head and neck, and the docs think it may be a spinal break.”
“Good Lord,” said the PJ. “That’s gotta hurt.”
“Critical condition,” said Thompson, around chewing the giant sandwich and staring at the man. “Total coma.”
“Hard to imagine Kyle getting banged up like that,” said the SEAL, following with a burst of cursing.
“Shit happens,” Brandt said.
The PJ lifted his coffee cup. “To Kyle,” he toasted, and the others joined in clinking the ceramic mugs.
The SEAL and his PJ buddy moved to the bar, fell into serious conversation, and would point back toward the table as if for confirmation. Little salesmen making the rounds friend by friend, spreading the word that the great Kyle Swanson had been wounded and was hospitalized in a full traction rig because somebody or something broke his back. A gasoline-fueled fire couldn’t have spread faster than the news, which would soon spill beyond the special-ops community and out into the force in general, and then beyond.
Sir Geoffrey Cornwell summoned his personal physician, Sir Patrick Whyte, who rushed from his private surgery to attend to his richest client. He was relieved to find that the emergency didn’t involve Cornwell directly.
“Are you ill in any way, my friend? The leg is causing problems?” the doctor inquired, accepting a brandy from Lady Patricia in the sitting room of the town home.
“No, Patrick. I’m in excellent health, thank you, and I apologize for taking you away from your work. Please have your office bill me for the time.” The older man was seated in a firm, ergonomically correct chair.
“And you, Patricia?” Whyte asked. He was puzzled.
“Good.” She inhaled deeply from a seven-inch Lancero cigar and exhaled with slow pleasure.
“You must stop smoking those cigars, m’lady,” he chided.
“Maybe when I get through with this latest box from Nicaragua. Probably not.” Her smile was amused.
“So, now, why am I here?” asked the physician.
Cornwell had called Whyte because the surgeon, one of the best in the U.K., was also involved in helping servicemen and women who had been injured in the line of duty and, as such, he was covered by the required strict security demands. What he saw or heard around those patients would never be repeated.
“Patrick, we need your assistance on a very sensitive matter. I’m afraid it’s a D-Notice affair, and I want to let you choose whether to undertake it. There is no problem if you do not wish to do so.” The Defense Notice was technically used to keep state secrets from being reported by the media, but it had become slang for many circumstances that were bound by the nation’s need for security.
Whyte waved it away. “Of course. You didn’t need to ask. How can I help? One of your SAS boys need patching up, does he?”
Sir Jeff clicked a keyboard and a large screen on the wall came to brilliant colored life, then he changed it to brilliant fluorescent white and a series of X-rays slid into place.
“Our lad took a hard blow to the back of the head. The doctors in Germany say there are also some herniated disks at the top of his spine and cartilage is seeping out and pressing on the nerves in his neck. Based on these X-rays, would you agree?”
Patrick Whyte stood and moved closer to the screens, studying the pictures. He traced his forefinger around, put his hands on his hips, and laughed. “No, I most certainly would not.”
Lady Pat interrupted, her face reddening. “Why, Patrick? This is a serious injury.”
“And one that can be repaired with a single level anterior cervical fusion.”
“Speak the King’s English, for God’s sake, Patrick,” snapped Sir Jeff.
“Basically, I would slit the throat, go to the spine, and screw in metal plates that would strengthen the vertebrae. It’s not the injury, my dear, it’s that ludicrous cover story. You’re going to have to bring me in all the way if you want my help. This is a hoax. It isn’t even your patient.”
The Cornwells exchanged looks. “Tell us,” said the knight to the member of the Royal College of Surgeons.
Whyte resumed his seat and crossed his legs, becoming professorial. “You said several times that our wounded warrior was a man. That X-ray is the skull of a woman. Now, let’s start at the beginning. May I have another brandy?”
Coastie knocked on the solid door of Dawkins’s cabin, some fifty yards from the main building. She had never been to his private quarters before, because Double-Oh tried to maintain a distance between himself and the others. He called out, “Come on in, and close the door.”
It was as if she were stepping into another dimension. This was no sloppy man cave but an immaculate three-room suite. No beer cans or pizza boxes, and soothing instrumental music was playing. It was dark, but her eyes adjusted quickly.
“How good are you as a salesperson?” he asked in a gruff voice that had shriveled the testicles of many a marine.
“I worked retail during the summers in high school. It wasn’t much more than pushing buttons on a computer screen and asking if the customer wanted cheese on the burger.” She leaned against the door, not in the least wary of Double-Oh, who was almost twice her size. Another woman might have quailed before him because he gave such an overpowering sense of being larger than life.
“Too bad. You’re going to have to do the sales job of your life in about five minutes. Beer’s in the fridge if you want one.”
“I’m good. You keep a nice place, big guy. What’s up?”
He came into the light so that she could see him better. “Kyle’s got himself into some trouble and needs our help. You think you’re ready?”