He settled onto Ibrahim’s wooden stool. He felt suddenly fatigued, deprived of sleep. He knew he would go many more hours, a day perhaps, before he could sleep again.
He slid his right hand into his jacket pocket and wrapped it around the Beretta. It was odd that he felt no remorse about killing the Bazrum man. Maybe that would come later. He’d never killed before, but he’d always wondered how it would make him feel. Idly, he wondered what Claire would think—
Ibrahim came back. The pantry door swung closed behind him. In his hand was the Cyfonika satchel. “Come with me,” he said.
Tyrwhitt rose from the stool, about to follow. Then he stopped. Something, a nagging sensation, warned him.
Ibrahim’s eyes. Gone were the narrow, cynical eyes. Ibrahim’s eyes were wide open, darting about like those of a frightened animal.
“Where are we going?” Tyrwhitt asked.
“To safety. You will see.” The eyes avoided making contact.
Tyrwhitt withdrew the Beretta. Ibrahim’s eyes widened even further. “Who is out there?” Tyrwhitt demanded. “How many?”
Ibrahim’s eyes looked toward the pantry door just as it flew open.
A Bazrum agent, dressed in a dark safari suit, burst inside. His pistol was already raised. A split second elapsed while he fastened his eyes on Tyrwhitt.
It was too long. Kaploom! The first round from Tyrwhitt’s Beretta struck him in the chest. The shot sounded like a cannon firing in the closed room.
The man staggered backward, trying to aim his weapon.
Tyrwhitt fired again — Kaploom! — opening a purple hole in the man’s forehead.
As the man dropped, Tyrwhitt saw the second agent, directly behind him. The man was retreating through the door.
Tyrwhitt fired once, missing him. The agent turned and bolted through the door. Kaploom! Tyrwhitt fired again, hitting him in the temple. The man went down, caroming into the opposite wall.
The spring-loaded pantry door slammed shut.
Tyrwhitt dropped to a crouch and scuttled away from the door. Ibrahim was flattened against the wall, trying his best to be invisible. His eyes had expanded to the size of saucers.
Tyrwhitt listened for noises outside the door. He could hear only the raspy sound of Ibrahim’s breathing. He aimed the pistol at the porter. “How many, goddammit?”
“Only those two.”
You lying asshole, thought Tyrwhitt. Then why are you trying to become part of the wallpaper?
“Where was the satchel?”
Ibrahim nodded toward the door. “They had it.”
Tyrwhitt tried to think. They had been expecting him. And they would not be in a hurry to storm the room again. First they had to close off the escape routes. And probably get reinforcements.
The Volkswagen was parked a hundred yards from the back entrance. Or at least he hoped the damned thing was still there.
He had to run for it.
He looked again at the sprawled body of the Bazrum agent. Blood was oozing from the hole in his forehead. On the other side of the door lay the second agent. That raised the score to three.
Then he looked at Ibrahim, and anger swept over him. I can make it four.
Still crouched, he shuffled over to where Ibrahim was pressed against the wall. Ibrahim’s eyes filled with terror. Tyrwhitt jammed the muzzle hard against his temple. Ibrahim began to tremble.
Tyrwhitt shoved his hand inside the porter’s vest. He felt around, then came up with the five twenty-dollar bills. Ibrahim’s eyes followed the departing currency like a dog watching a piece of meat.
“No baksheesh today,” said Tyrwhitt, stuffing the money into his trousers. “Manyouk.” It was his favorite Arabic expression. It meant “fuck you.”
He gathered up the Cyfonika satchel. Opening the back door, he peeked around, then darted outside.
At 0545, the phone rang in Boyce’s stateroom aboard the Reagan. “It’s a go,” said the watch officer. “The strike is on.”
“It is now T-minus ninety-eight minutes,” said Spook Morse, the wing intelligence officer, peering out at his audience of flight-suited pilots. “The Reagan is presently 200 miles southeast of Basra, heading north. By launch time we’ll be 180 miles, and be in the same position for recovery.”
Morse aimed his laser pointer at the map. “Tanking for the strike force will be from KC-10s on these four stations.” Two of the stations were over Saudi airspace, two over the Persian Gulf. “Because of the tankers’ vulnerability, they will not be permitted to go closer than fifty miles from Iraqi airspace. If you come out of Indian country needing fuel, you’re gonna have to make it to the tanker station.
“Our current weather is some high cirrus over the target area, with scattered cumulus between five and ten thousand en route. Right now we have some ground fog along the Tigris River and over the lake region in the northwest, but that’s expected to burn off by your target time. Visibility is forecast to be unrestricted. Looks like excellent bombing weather.”
“More like excellent anti-aircraft weather,” added an anonymous voice.
Morse ignored him and continued. “Combat Search and Rescue will be provided by a force of Marine helos holding offshore —” he pointed to a spot below the Iraqi shoreline “— here. They will be escorted by Marine F-model Hornets coming out of Bahrain.”
Morse’s briefing covered the rest of the mission details: transponder squawks, bingo fuel requirements, bulls-eye navigation reference points, code words, weapon loads, maintenance problems, avoidance of collateral damage.
When Morse was finished, CAG Boyce walked up to the podium. “I know that for most of you, this is your first shooting war. Put your trust in your strike leaders, stick with the plan. Remember, this is not just another punitive exercise. This is for real, and the placement of your bombs will determine whether the enemy will be able to strike back at us and our allies.”
In his seat in the third row, Maxwell listened to Boyce’s briefing. As he jotted notes on his kneeboard, he thought about the strike. He would be leading a four-ship division of Hornets armed with laser-guided GBU-24 bombs. His second section, on whom he would depend to protect his flank, was led by Craze Manson, with Hozer Miller flying as his wingman. Maxwell’s own wingman was B.J. Johnson.
Some line up, he thought. Two guys who hated his guts and a nugget wingman who had never seen combat.
He glanced across the row of seats. B.J. looked nervous, he thought. She was clutching something in her right fist, squeezing it, unsqueezing. Well, he thought, that was normal. Anybody who wasn’t nervous before they launched on a combat mission ought to have their brain examined.
B. J. saw him looking her way. She opened her right hand and showed him what she had been squeezing: two shiny steel balls. Her gift from Cheever and Miller.
Maxwell almost laughed out loud. He nodded and flashed her a thumbs up.
At the podium Boyce finished his briefing. He pulled a fresh cigar from his flight suit vest pocket. “Okay, folks, that’s it. Let’s go rip ‘em a new one.”
But the briefing wasn’t over. Before anyone could leave, Whitney Babcock stepped to the front of the room.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, taking the microphone, “the forty-eight hour grace period the United Nations issued has now expired, and Iraq has been officially notified that its weapons facilities are subject to immediate destruction.”
“Why don’t we just send ‘em our battle plan?” said someone.