“You gotta watch these monkeys,” said Gephardt when he reached the ground. “They’re pretty strong when they’re mad.”
“Yeah,” said Danny, trying not to make it too obvious that he was stretching his knee.
“That’s it, huh? That’s from the airplane? UAV, sorry. That’s the part they didn’t get?”
“Yeah,” said Danny, resisting the temptation to say something sarcastic.
“That’s what, from the fuselage? Where’s the motor?”
“Got me.”
Actually, he knew from the techies who’d been examining the UAV’s capabilities from afar that it was likely the motor had broken off, and recovered with the wings and rest of the aircraft by the rebels who were controlling it. But even though he was CIA, Gephardt wasn’t cleared to know anything about it. So Danny kept the details to himself.
“We’re gonna want to get moving,” said Gephardt, looking at the object as Danny picked it up. “Rebels are all over the place.”
“Coming.” Danny turned the long fuselage around, making sure the glasses were recording every inch. The visuals were being sent back to a situation room in a bunker at Langley, the CIA headquarters in suburban Virginia. When a barely audible beep told him the techies were satisfied that he had examined every conceivable angle, he lifted the slender fuselage onto his shoulder. “Let’s go.”
“How the hell did you see that thing through all the foliage?” asked Gephardt.
“I eat my carrots. Let’s get back.”
Gephardt continued his story about the snake as they started back down the hill. It was a story Danny had heard in many different guises over the years: a Green Beret or some other resident expert would come out, measure the victim’s other arm, then chop the snake about two inches deeper, releasing the victim. He was then medivacked out, his arm scarred with acid burns.
Anacondas were rare in Honduras and had their pick of much easier prey than sleeping soldiers. Still, the size of the snakes made it exactly the sort of tale suitable to be passed down from generation to generation, a kind of campfire ghost story that many of its tellers — Gephardt undoubtedly among them — told so often that they inevitably became convinced must have happened. While Danny had a relatively high opinion of the Agency as a whole — he worked with some of the best officers in the business — the little he knew of Gephardt made it clear that he swam in the shallow end of the pool. It was more indication of how low a priority Malaysia had to not just the Agency, but the U.S. in general. Ironically, upward of forty percent of the world’s commerce shipped through the nearby waters, a fact not lost on the pirates operating there.
“So, you flyin’ right outta here?” asked Gephardt as they turned off the scratch road onto a slightly wider one.
“Yeah. I gotta get back.”
“I’ll still stand you that beer when we get into town.”
“If there’s time,” said Danny, hoping there wouldn’t be.
“Shit!”
Danny looked up. There was a man with an assault rifle in the road ahead.
“I can deal with it,” said Gephardt. “Not to worry.”
“Two more on the side,” said Danny. He touched the right frame of his glasses, switching them into infrared mode.
“Yeah, I see ’em. You know what? We’re just gonna blow right by ’em. Screw the bribe. I don’t like the idea of stopping.”
“Guy with an RPG farther down. Twenty yards. On the right.”
“Shit. How are you seein’ that?”
The discovery of the man with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher changed the equation; running past would be too risky.
“Back up,” said Danny. “We can backtrack.”
“Too late. Just be cool,” added Gephardt. “It’s only going to cost us money. Agency money.”
Slowing the SUV’s pace to a bare walk, Gephardt rolled down the window and held up a small wad of cash, yelling something at the man in Malay. The man seemed unimpressed — he lifted the rifle in front of his chest with both hands and motioned for Gephardt to stop. Gephardt slowed to a stop by applying the brakes, but kept his right foot on the gas.
“Hello,” yelled Gephardt — the greeting sounded roughly the same in Malay as in English. “Apa yang anda mahu? What do you want? The tax?”
The man said something in return that Danny didn’t catch, then walked over to Gephardt. Meanwhile, the two men Danny had spotted on the side of the road trotted toward them. One went to Danny’s window, the other continued around to the back of the vehicle.
“Tidak, tidak,” said Gephardt. Danny recognized the word as “no”; the rest of the sentence was indecipherable. He was out of range for the microphone embedded in the frame of his glasses, or the computers at the Whiplash “Cube” could have interpreted for him.
That seemed unnecessary. The man who’d stopped them spoke in tones that suggested they were conducting normal business: he seemed to want more money. Danny glanced at the man standing near the passenger side. He was young, maybe fifteen, or even fourteen. The Chinese QBZ-95 bull-pup assault rifle he was clutching looked several years older than him, and surely had seen more action — the bull pup’s dull green surface was scratched and even dented; the box magazine was wrapped with tape in two places, and it looked like a small piece of the top handle grip was missing.
The hand-me-down Chinese weapon suggested that the man was a member of the 30 May Movement, one of the three rebel groups vying with the East Malaysian government in this part of the island. Not nearly as well funded as the others, 30 May was smaller than the others, though every bit as ruthless.
Gephardt continued to speak with the man on his side of the SUV as Danny scanned ahead. The man with the RPG was pointing it at the front fender. Another man had joined him. Two more figures were heading down a small hill in the distance, just at the very edge of his infrared range.
The man at the back of the SUV grabbed at the handle for the rear hatch.
“That’s no good,” said Danny loudly. “That’s mine.”
“I got it,” said Gephardt quickly. He turned back to the man at the door, his voice louder than before.
Something he said apparently angered the man, who raised his rifle.
“Easy,” said Gephardt. “Relax.”
Danny had seen enough. “Whiplash Rotor, command Danny Freah,” he said, alerting the system to accept direct commands. “Terminate all targets within one hundred yards of vehicles. All targets are hostile.”
In seconds the air began to percolate, as if the very molecules of nitrogen and oxygen were exploding. The men around the truck fell to the ground.
“Gephardt, go!” said Danny. “Go! Get us out of here.”
The CIA officer, not quite understanding what was going on, hesitated, though only for a moment. The SUV lurched forward, dirt spinning as it veered first left and then right.
“What the hell?” said Gephardt.
“Just stay on the road.”
He did, though barely. They careened through a dozen curves before the road straightened out.
“All right, slow down,” said Danny as they hit a wider, well-paved stretch of highway.
“What the hell just happened?” asked Gephardt.
“They were getting dangerous.”
“We were just arguing on a price—”
“No. They were too aggressive. I didn’t come all this way to lose my fuselage. I can’t afford to take chances.”
Danny tapped the side of the right temple tip at the back of his glasses, then studied the image that appeared.