"The bags stink,' Billy had said. 'Like dead bodies, like the stuff they use.'
What the hell did that mean? Kelly wondered, going through town one last time. He saw police cars operating. They couldn't all be driven by corrupt cops, could they?
'Shit,' Kelly snarled at the traffic. 'Clear your mind, sailor. There's a job waiting, a real job.'
But that had said it all. boxwood green was a real job, and the realization came as clear and bright as the headlights of approaching cars. If someone like Sandy didn't understand - it was one thing to do it alone, just with your own thoughts and rage and loneliness, but when others saw and knew, even people who liked you, and knew exactly what it was all about... When even they asked you to stop...
Where was right? Where was wrong? Where was the line between them? It was easy on the highway. Some crew painted the lines, and you had to stay in the proper lane, but in real life it wasn't so clear.
Forty minutes later he was on 1-495, the Washington Beltway. What was more important, killing Henry or getting those other women out of there?
Another forty and he was across the river into Virginia. Seeing Doris - what a dumb name - alive, after the first time when she'd been almost as dead as Rick. The more he thought about it, the better that seemed.
boxwood green wasn't about killing the enemy. It was about rescuing people.
He turned south on Interstate 95, and a final forty-five or so delivered him to Quantico. It was eleven-thirty when he drove into the training site.
'Glad you made it,' Marty Young observed sourly. He was dressed in utilities for once instead of his khaki shirt.
Kelly looked hard into the General's eyes. 'Sir, I've had a bad enough night. Be a pal and stow it, all right?'
Young took it like the man he was. 'Mr Clark, you sound like you're ready.'
That isn't what it's about, sir. Those guys in sender green are ready.'
'Fair enough, tough guy.'
'Can I leave the car here?'
'With all these clunkers?'
Kelly paused, but the decision came quickly enough. 'I think it's served its purpose. Junk it with the rest of 'em.
'Come on, the bus is down the hill a ways.' Kelly collected his personal gear and carried them to the staff car. The same corporal was driving as he sat in the back with the Marine aviator who wouldn't be going.
'What do you think, Clark?'
'Sir, I think we have a really good chance.'
'You know, I wish just once, just one goddamned time, we could say, yeah, this one's going to work.'
'Was it ever that way for you?' Kelly asked.
'No,' Young admitted. 'But you don't stop wishing.'
'How was England, Peter?'
'Pretty nice. It rained in Paris, though. Brussels was pretty decent, my first time there,' Henderson said.
Their apartments were only two blocks apart, comfortable places in Georgetown built during the late thirties to accommodate the influx of bureaucrats serving a growing government. Built of solid cinder-arch construction, they were more structurally sound than more recent buildings. Hicks had a two-bedroom unit, which compensated for the smallish living-dining room.
'So what's happening that you wanted to tell me about?' the Senate aide asked, still recovering from jet lag.
'We're invading the North again,' the White House aide answered.
'What? Hey, I was at the peace talks, okay? I observed some of the chitchat. Things are moving along. The other side just caved in on a big one.'
'Well, you can kiss that goodbye for a while,' Hicks said morosely. On the coffee table was a plastic bag of marijuana, and he started putting a smoke together.
'You should lay off that shit, Wally.'
'Doesn't give me a hangover like beer does. Shit, Peter, what's the difference?'
'The difference is your fucking security clearance!' Henderson said pointedly.
'Like that matters? Peter, they don't listen. You talk and talk and talk to them, and they just don't listen.' Hicks lit up and took a long pull. 'I'm going to leave soon anyway. Dad wants me to come and join the family business. Maybe after I make a few mill', maybe then somebody'll listen once in a while.'.
'You shouldn't let it get to you, Wally. It takes time. Everything takes time. You think we can fix things overnight?'
'I don't think we can fix things at all! You know what this all is? It's like Sophocles. We have our fatal flaw, and they have their fatal flaw, and when the fucking deus comes ex the fucking???hin?, the deus is going to be a cloud of ICBMs, and it's all going to be over, Peter. Just like we thought a few years ago up in New Hampshire.' It wasn't Hicks's first smoke of the evening, Henderson realized. Intoxication always made his friend morose.
'Wally, tell me what the problem is.'
'There's supposedly this camp...' Hicks began, his eyes down, not looking at his friend at all now as he related what he knew.
'That is bad news.'
'They think there's a bunch of people there, but it's just supposition. We only know about one. What if we're fucking over the peace talks for one guy, Peter?'
'Put that damned thing out,' Henderson said, sipping his beer. He just didn't like the smell of the stuff.
'No.' Wally took another big hit.
'When is it going?'
'Not sure. Roger didn't say exactly.'
'Wally, you have to stay with it. We need people like you in the system. Sometimes they will listen.'
Hicks looked up. 'When will that be, do you think?'
'What if this mission fails? What if it turns out that you're right? Roger will listen to you then, and Henry listens to Roger, doesn't he?'
'Well, yeah, sometimes.'
What a remarkable chance this was, Henderson thought.
The chartered bus drove to Andrews Air Force Base, duplicating, Kelly saw, more than half of his drive. There was a new C-141 on the ramp, painted white on the top and gray on the bottom, its strobe lights already rotating. The Marines got out of the bus, finding Maxwell and Greer waiting for them.
'Good luck,' Greer said to each man.
'Good hunting,' was what Dutch Maxwell told them.
Built to hold more than double their number, the Lockheed Starlifter was outfitted for litter patients, with a total of eighty beds bolted to the side of the aircraft and room for twenty or so attendants. That gave every Marine a place to lie down and sleep, plus room for all the prisoners they expected to rescue. The time of night made it easy for everyone, and the Starlifter started turning engines as soon as the cargo hatch was shut.
'Jesus, I hope this works,' Maxwell said, watching the aircraft taxi into the darkness.
'You've trained them well, Admiral,' Bob Ritter observed. 'When do we go out?'
'Three days. Bob,' James Greer answered. 'Got your calendar clear?'
'For this? You bet.'
CHAPTER 26
Transit
A new aircraft, the Starlifter was also a disappointingly slow one. Its cruising speed was a mere 478 miles per hour, and their first stop was Elmendorf Air Force base in Alaska, 3,350 miles and eight hours away. It never ceased to amaze Kelly that the shortest distance to any place on Earth was a curve, but that was because he was used to flat maps, and the world was a sphere. The great-circle route from Washington to Danang would actually have taken them over Siberia, and that, the navigator said, just wouldn't do. By the time of their arrival at Elmendorf, the Marines were up and rested. They departed the aircraft to look at snow on not-so-distant mountains, having only a few hours before left a place where heat and humidity were in a daily race for 100. But here in Alaska they found mosquitoes sufficiently large that a few might have carried one of their number off. Most took the opportunity to jog a couple of miles, to the amusement of the Air Force personnel, who typically had little contact with Marines. Servicing the C-141 took a programmed time of two and a quarter hours. After refueling and one minor instrument replacement, the Marines were just as happy to reboard the aircraft for the second leg of the journey, for Yakoda, in Japan. Three hours after that, Kelly walked onto the flight deck, growing bored with the noise and confinement.