“Begging your pardon, sir, and no disrespect,” said Rosen, who unlike some of his men sounded as if she meant the words when she said them. “But it would make better sense if I flew with the helicopters the whole time. Something goes wrong, sir, I’m the only one who can fix them. I’m worried about Two. Slim Jim and me just curled the wires together in that harness. I mean, I can’t guarantee they’ll hold forever.”
“Too risky,” snapped Hawkins.
“Riskier than parachuting down here strapped to Captain Wong? Sir?”
Hawkins had to smile. Now that could have come from any of the troopers in his unit.
“You want to fly on every trip?” he asked her.
“I can work the weapons,” Rosen said.
“Rosen, I’m going to marry you someday,” he shouted as the helos came in.
CHAPTER 29
Wong had managed to ease about ten feet closer to the rifle on the ground before the Iraqi captain returned with one of his men. Apparently they had been unable to find the rest of the team, though that did not convince the Iraqis that Wong was telling him the truth about being there alone.
“You may sit,” the commander told him.
“I’d rather stand,” said Wong.
“A stoic spy,” laughed his captor. Then he said in Arabic that it would be wise for Wong to sit, or he would take out his pistol and shoot him without further warning.
Wong knew that it was another of the Iraqi captain’s tests, this one designed to see if he spoke Arabic. He decided he would gain more by letting his captor think he had won the round.
“Why is it so important that I sit?” Wong asked in English.
“It’s not important,” replied the captain in Arabic. “If you wish to stand, then you will stand. Forever. Your sergeant, too.”
Wong made no reply, but shifted his feet slightly, once again edging in the direction of his weapon. He was still a good five or six yards below the rocks where he’d put it.
The sun had gone behind the hill, and the ground where he’d left his weapon lay in the shadows. That made it less likely the Iraqis would spot it, but it might also cost him a second or two locating it.
Wong wondered how long they would stay here. Perhaps until they gave up looking for the rest of the team.
Then what would they do? The easiest thing would be to execute him, though a self-admitted American spy had enormous value, even if he offered no tactical or strategic information. If they did not kill him, they would either relocate him immediately or go to a place where the captain would contact superiors for directions.
Beyond that, their specific course was impossible to predict but easily outlined. Information extraction was likely to be primitive but relatively effective. Wong’s real value was not to the Iraqis but the Russians, who would be highly interested in knowing exactly what he, and thus the Pentagon, actually knew about their weapons. The captain had a cyanide implant in his leg near the groin; he would use it when and if appropriate. Until then, he would proceed with a hierarchical set of goals. Escape lay at the top of his grid, followed by destruction of the Scuds, and finally information-gathering about the Iraqi command and control structure, methods, and operations.
“So you see that you are checkmated,” said the Iraqi, speaking again in English.
“An interesting choice of vocabulary,” said Wong. “Do you play?”
“Chess? It happens that I do.”
Wong nodded.
“Why is that of interest to you?”
“I am always looking for worthy opponents,” said Wong.
The Iraqi captain made a snorting sound, then climbed back to the top of the hill, barely two feet from the rocks where the M-16 lay. Wong took the opportunity to sidle up another two steps. As he did, he glanced at the Delta trooper captured with him. The sergeant gave him a half wink, showing that he knew what Wong was up to.
“I am beginning to think that you were telling the truth about coming alone,” said the captain, turning around.
“There is little sense in lying,” said Wong. “When precisely do you plan on killing me?”
“Would I kill a fellow grandmaster?” The Iraqi’s clean-shaven lip was well suited to ironic grins, turning itself up and outwards at the corner. Wong wondered if the physical feature and personality preference were linked in the DNA.
“I am hardly a grandmaster,” said Wong. “My rating is merely 1900.”
“And I a mere hundred points higher,” said the Iraqi. The quickness of his response betrayed the fact that he was padding his rating— unlike Wong, who’d subtracted a thousand points.
“It’s a pity that we don’t have a board,” said Wong.
“Yes, since we will be here for some while.”
Why, Wong wondered. To prevent Wong from observing the Scuds? But that would mean they would be walking down the hillside in the dark, a time when it would be easier for the prisoners to escape.
What of that earlier reference to “who” rather than what? Surely the Iraqi knew English too well to confuse his pronouns. And what of the curious identity of his unit? The men were all obviously well-trained, but were clearly not Republican Guards. Perhaps the chemical-warhead Scuds had been given special units?
“You may sit, Sergeant,” the Iraqi told the com specialist.
“I will stand with my captain, sir.”
The Iraqi took out his pistol. Wong edged another step up the hill toward the M-16A.
He couldn’t see it, but the rock was at least four yards away. Two and a half steps, a full second and a half. Add another to pick up the rifle or even to kick it, get the grenade to go off.
Three seconds, optimistically. The sergeant would be dead and so would he.
“You may sit, Sergeant,” Wong told him.
“No! You sit, Captain,” said the Iraqi. “I’m not sure why you want to stand, but I want you to sit. Or your man will die.”
The Delta trooper straightened, a calm air rising with his spine. He intended to die enshrouded with honor.
No need for that now. Not yet.
“We will both sit then,” said Wong. He bent slowly and then, as if losing his balance, fell over into the dirt.
Another yard and a half.
The barrel of a pistol slammed hard into his cheekbone as he rose.
“You will stop flailing around,” said the captain, leaning so close Wong was nearly suffocated by the stale tobacco scent of his breath. “Or the next movement you make will be your last.”
As if to underline his statement, an automatic rifle began firing in the distance, somewhere down the hillside.
CHAPTER 30
As Dixon dove into the dirt, the woman in the doorway of the house began to spin. For a moment she was a ballerina, performing an unworldly dance. She was an angel, fluttering on a stage, a frenetic whirl.
Then she became a person again, then a body falling forward into the dirt.
By the time her face smashed into the ground, Dixon had lifted the barrel of his gun from the dirt and aimed at a figure coming around the left-hand corner of the building. He emptied the entire clip at the thick shadow, firing even as the shadow crumpled and fell off to the side. When his clip clicked empty, he grabbed for a fresh one and at the same time began sliding backwards toward the dilapidated plow, a few yards away.