“Can you get somebody to watch for her in Athens?” Nuri asked.
“I don’t think that will be necessary,” said Reid.
“Why not?”
“She’s a freelancer, Nuri. She works for the highest bidder.”
“So you do know her.”
“Not personally. But you’ll be wasting your time in Athens.”
“Not if I can figure out who hired her.”
“Do you think you can do that by following her?”
Nuri leaned back against the thin airport lounge seat and thought about it. Someone like Leary was unlikely to lead him to an employer; she might not even know who had hired her in the first place.
“We didn’t hire her?” he asked Reid.
“Of course not.”
“You’re sure?”
“Reasonably sure.”
“Who? A competitor? The Sudanese? The Egyptians?”
“Unfortunately, your guess is as good as mine. When will you be able to return home?”
“Home?”
“Here. We have some new arrangements to acquaint you with. It will make starting over with Jasmine considerably easier.”
Months of work, down the drain.
“Get me a flight, and tell me when it leaves,” Nuri told Reid. “I’m already at the airport.”
4
Pentagon
DANNY FREAH’S INITIAL REACTION TO GENERAL MAGNUS’S offer was thanks, but no thanks.
Magnus’s limited description made the assignment sound a lot like his job at Dreamland, without the security component. Eventually, the unit would be bigger than Whiplash, which at Dreamland had never numbered more than a dozen people, at least not while he was assigned to it. “Wing size, potentially,” Magnus said, though he added that it would start out much smaller.
Commanding a unit that large would be a definite plus in his plan to advance to general. But Magnus had made it clear that the job was outside the normal Air Force structure, and that wasn’t going to help him at all.
The detour on the road to general wasn’t the only thing bothering him. Magnus was undoubtedly right about how limited the opportunities in the near future were, so taking this job might not hurt at all. But Danny couldn’t articulate, not even to himself, the other reasons that made him hesitate.
Everything had bored him after Whiplash and Dreamland. There was no way it couldn’t. He’d traveled across the world, saving people, at times even saving entire countries, or at least good portions of them. No assignment that followed could ever come close in terms of excitement or gratification.
Yet, he didn’t want to go back.
He was…afraid.
The word came at him like a train in a tunnel exploding in a sudden rush.
Afraid.
Was he?
Yes.
Afraid of what? he wondered.
Not death. Danny had learned that when you were in danger—when it was actually a possibility—death was not something you tended to think about. There was too much else to do. It was only later that it hit you, if it hit you at all.
His fear was of something else: Not being able to measure up to what he had done before. Of proving unworthy of the Medal of Honor he’d been awarded. Of disgracing himself and everyone who believed in him or looked up to him, like the sergeant at the gate that morning and the others who had applauded.
Danny realized this on the way back to his hotel, as the Metro came to his stop. He got out of the car and walked slowly toward the exit. Outside, he took out his cell phone and called a cab to take him to the hotel. He was annoyed with himself, unnerved at the waves of introspection that consumed him.
This wasn’t what a leader did, Danny thought. And he was a leader. There was no question about that.
The taxi was just arriving when his cell phone rang. The number didn’t look familiar, but he decided to answer it anyway as the cab pulled to the curb.
“Freah.”
“Colonel Freah?”
“Yeah?”
“Please hold for the senator.”
“Danny, what the hell are you doing in town without calling?” said Zen Stockard, his voice booming out of the clamshell speaker on Danny’s phone.
“Hey, Zen. I just came in for a quick meeting.”
“That’s no excuse, Colonel.”
“Hey, hold on a second, OK?” Danny got into the cab and told the driver to take him to his hotel. “Still there?”
“What the hell are you doing staying at the Alexandria Suites?” asked Zen, who’d heard the destination.
“It’s nice and not too expensive.”
“I don’t care—you should be with us. Teri loves your bedtime stories.”
Danny laughed. The last time he’d stayed with them—a year before—he’d told her fairy tales for half the night, all variations of things his grandmother had told him when he was little.
“What are you doing for dinner?” asked Zen.
“There’s a nice restaurant about two blocks away. I figured I’d walk on down.”
“Forget it. The Yankees are in town to play the Nationals. You and I are going to the game.”
“Uh—”
“Listen, buddy, I’m not taking no for an answer,” said Zen. “A senator outranks a colonel by a hell of a lot.”
“Sir, yes, sir,” laughed Danny.
When he’d been in the Air Force, Zen played down the fact that his family was wealthy. He’d banked nearly all of his trust proceeds, never took money from his father or uncles, and with one exception had never called on them for help. That exception had been during his fight to get reinstated on active duty after the crash that cost him the use of his legs.
Now that he was older, however, and had clearly set his own path in the world, he took advantage of the conveniences his family’s money provided. A driver and a van specially adapted to his wheelchair were the most obvious. There were others, though—like open invitation to use the owner’s suite at the Nationals.
Zen arranged to pick up Danny at his hotel an hour before the game. He grinned as his old friend spotted him and trotted out to the van.
“Danny,” he said, as Freah pulled open the sliding door at the rear. “How the hell are you?”
“Is a U.S. senator allowed to use profanity?”
“Only if his daughter isn’t in the car. Jeez, man, you’re looking good.”
“You don’t look too bad yourself. You put on a little weight.”
“Too many fat cat lunches,” said Zen.
It was a joke. Among his strictest rules was that he always paid for lunch.
“So how’s Bree?” Danny asked.
“Good.”
“Teri?”
“Ready to run for princess. She’s taking tap dancing lesson now, besides the ballerina stuff. She’s amazing. Must get it from her mom.”
Zen rocked back and forth in the wheelchair, which was fitted with a special brace holding it in place in the van. The brace was similar to the one he had used in the Megafortress years before. The driver’s side had a similar arrangement, so he could push the regular seat back and use hand controls to drive himself if he wanted.
Too much beer drinking at a baseball game for that, though.
“Hear much from your father-in-law?” asked Danny.
Zen felt himself flinch. “No one hears much from Dog these days,” he said. “Not even Bree.”
Danny nodded.
“So don’t tell me that you’re rooting for the Yankees tonight,” said Zen, anxious to keep things cheery.
“I am from New York.”
“Buffalo is not in New York. It’s Canada, isn’t it?”
Danny did, in fact, root for the Yankees, though very discreetly. Zen was anything but discreet as the Nationals took a 6–0 lead into the sixth inning. But then the Nationals’ pitching crumbled and the Yankees mounted a comeback, tying it at 6–6 in the eighth. The visitors went on top by a run in the ninth, the home team scored one, and the game went into extra innings.