"Do you have a problem working for them, General?" Martindale asked.
"Sir, I want to head off trouble as much as anyone," Patrick said. "And I certainly don't like Zuwayy any more than I liked Qadhafi and the terrorist organizations they sponsor. But I don't like the idea of being a hired gun for an oil cartel, either."
"Would you like them better if I told you we would be getting our first paychecks out of this?" Martindale asked. "That's the difference between this mission and all the others-we are given a target, but we're also well compensated for our services."
Patrick fell silent, but the eagerness was evident in Hal Briggs's and Paul McLanahan's eyes. The reason was clear: They had the most to lose and the most to gain out of this. Martindale, Patrick, and Chris Wohl all had government pensions waiting for them; in addition, Patrick was a vice president of Sky Masters Inc., for which he was very well paid. But Hal Briggs resigned his Air Force commission well before retirement age, and Paul McLanahan had only a small disability check from the Sacramento Police Department, where he was a sworn officer for only a few weeks before being retired with a one-hundred-percent disability. Neither of them had earned any money in many months, and had been relying on gifts from Martindale and Patrick.
"How much are we talkin' about here, Mr. President?" Hal asked.
"I accepted a twenty-million-dollar contract for our services, plus a bonus for complete destruction of all known missile installations," Martindale replied. "I will pay every man in this room twenty-five thousand dollars a day, beginning as soon as you accept this mission."
"Per…day…"
"Our support team members will earn ten thousand dollars… and yes, that's per day, tax free," Martindale went on. "The Night Stalkers will pay Sky Masters Inc. full retail price for the equipment and supplies we use. Sound okay with you, gentlemen?" Hal slapped his hands together excitedly, and Paul looked jubilant-even Chris Wohl nodded in approval, even though he wore his same expressionless warrior's mask. Martindale studied their faces, then settled on Patrick's. "All right with you, General?" he asked.
Patrick looked at Paul and Hal's happy faces. Paul gave his brother an excited slap on the back-it had been a long time since he had seen him smile like that. "Yes, sir," Patrick finally responded. "It's okay with me."
"Outstanding," Martindale said. He punched up instructions into a computer, and the results were projected onto a large flat-panel monitor on the conference-room wall. "The intelligence we've received indicates several new Libyan missile bases scattered around the country. I'll leave it up to you and your support team to figure out the best way to proceed, but after speaking with Master Sergeant Wohl here, he suggests a soft probe of the most likely bases, followed by an unmanned aircraft strike to soften up the base's defenses, followed by a hard-target penetration. It's up to you-bui I hasten to remind you of a substantial performance bonus for each one of you if the danger to the consortium's pipeline is eliminated. Enough said. Good luck, and good hunting."
As was his custom, Martindale never stuck around for the details-the planning, training, organization, logistics, or movement of the Night Stalkers was never something he was concerned about. He gave marching orders, then left it to the teams to carry out the plan. Within minutes, they heard his helicopter depart, on its way to his next meeting. Patrick had little idea what he did, where he went, or whom he spoke to as the former president of the United States.
"Now we're talking serious bucks!" Briggs exclaimed happily. "Man, I was hoping we'd get into jobs like this-I was thinking I'd have to go back to Georgia and help my granddad in his kennels and get a real job."
"I'm not happy about accepting this job," Patrick admitted. "Some big oil cartel is asking us to put our asses on the firing line to help them keep their profits safe. We don't know anything about the cartel; and since the assassination of President Salaam, we don't know which way the Egyptian government is going to go. And I don't trust any intelligence info we get from private sources. They answer to investors and bosses, not to the grunts."
Hal fell silent, looking at the ground. Chris Wohl nodded. "All good points, sir," he said. "Our first priority would be to get our own intel-a few overflights from some NIRTSats should do it." NIRTSats, or Need It Right This Second Satellites, were small, low-Earth orbit photo and radar reconnaissance satellites designed for a specific mission. They were extremely valuable in passing detailed intelligence information to tactical units; but because they were in very low orbits, their duration was usually only a few days or a couple weeks, and they carried only small positioning thrusters and very little fuel, so their orbits could not be changed or even fine-tuned to any great extent. He looked at Patrick evenly, then added, "If you agree to do it with us."
"You don't need my approval, Chris."
"Pardon me, sir, but I do… we do," Wohl said.
" 'Fraid so, Muck," Hal said. "The Night Stalkers may be a private nonmilitary unconventional action team, but the bottom line is: We're a team." "
"We don't do anything unless we all agree to do it," Paul chimed in. "One person has veto power. One 'no,' even one Tm not sure,' and we scrub the mission."
"That's the SOP, sir," Wohl agreed. "We all do it, or no one does it."
Patrick hesitated. Something deep within him still maintained that this was wrong. He was trained to fight, trained to use his brains and his training and experience to fight and win battles-but this was not one of the battles he had in mind. He wasn't defending his home or his country or his family. This mission was to destroy one country's supposed threat to disrupt commerce in order to help a multinational corporation earn more money. This was a job for a private security company-or a mercenary force.
The obvious question: Was Patrick turning into a mercenary? Was he going to start fighting not for home or country or family, but for money?
Maybe he was, at least for the moment. If his own military didn't want him, maybe it was time to fight for what he felt was right-and accept a little money to do it.
"I'm in," Patrick heard himself say. "I'll get a NIRTSat constellation up right away, and get a few FlightHawks ready for air support." The FlightHawks were Sky Masters's unmanned combat aircraft, capable of ground, air, or ship launch, and equipped to carry a wide variety of sensors, cameras, radio gear-or munitions. They were stealthy, accurate, and very effective.
"We're gone}" Paul McLanahan shouted excitedly, his electronically synthesized voice amplifying his happiness. "Let's go kick some Libyan rocket-launching ass!"
"Nike, say status," Patrick McLanahan whispered into the secure satellite link. A warning indicator on his electronic visor had just advised him that one of his men had already engaged the enemy. Just a few minutes into what was sup-
posed to be a quick, silent recon, they were made.
"Bad guy came out of nowhere, and this damned suit blasted him before I could stop it," retired U.S. Marine Corps master sergeant Chris Wohl explained. "I'm secure, and I'm moving in."
"This is supposed to be a soft probe, Nike, not an assault. We can come back."
"If they're alerted, they might move all their assets, and then we'd have to locate them all over again," Wohl protested. "I think only one guy saw me, and I don't think he's a sentry, so we still might have time. Besides, you made this suit, not me. If you wanted a soft probe, you should've showed me how to shut off the auto-bugzapper feature. I'm secure, and I'm moving in."
Once a flamethrowing kick-ass Marine, always a kickass Marine, Patrick thought as he checked the God's-eye view display on his helmet-mounted electronic visor. Patrick McLanahan was kneeling in a shallow gully just a few yards inside the perimeter fence surrounding a newly discovered Libyan military base near Samah, about two hundred miles south of Benghazi. The mission was to sneak in from three different points, doing a soft probe on this remote desert base. Initial intelligence reports said Samah was a terrorist training camp, but a few unconfirmed reports received from the private intelligence sources said Samah was a rocket base set up recently to secretly attack targets in Egypt, Chad, Europe, or in the Mediterranean Sea, possibly with medium-range Russianor Chinese-made rockets with chemical or biological warheads.