Cain couldn’t see movement so grunted a strategic snore then sat up, thankful for dark skin and blue sheets. He moved to the foot of the bunk, cautiously slid off. Unrelieved blackness. No pale oval of face. Had whoever it was blacked up?
Then he saw — thought he saw — the blackness of the bed intensify. Something lightly brushed his motionless leg.
In an instant he’d fired, repositioned at the crouch.
He heard a gasp.
He was squatting by the door now — hand forward at the high diagonal, gun facing forward from the waist in the touch-and-fire position. Get it wrong and you lost fingers. He’d give it 30 seconds and…
Another gasp. Christ. It sounded like a woman.
Pat?
Jesus. No!
Jesus bleeding Christ!
He stood up. He’d have to risk the light.
He threw the switch, ducked, aiming at the bed.
He needn’t have bothered.
Blood had pooled on the floor and she was almost dead. She’d been shot in the back then had slid off the bed face down. He turned her over, exposing the mess at the front. Through her open mouth bubbled blood. She hadn’t needed to blacken her face.
She stared at him wide-eyed.
He said, ‘You bloody fool.’
13
LAST HURRAH
Rhonda in a nightdress seemed more physical than Rhonda naked. Her huge boobs hung as if cling-wrapped and from beneath the uneven hem her massive calves ended in feet splayed like tree roots. She scratched her rump, surveying the body on the floor. ‘We were grooming her for Nigeria. She was one of our best code-breakers. The door keypad wouldn’t stop her. She worked out the sequence.’
He looked at the black woman’s gaping face. ‘Friend or foe?’
Rhonda shrugged. ‘There’s no weapon. From what you’ve said, I’d say it was your fatal charm. She wanted your body and thought you were condition blue. They don’t get much fun, after all. She read this as a muck-up time.’
He banged his fist on the bulkhead. ‘Shit.’
‘I put you on alert. It’s just unfortunate.’
‘Now I have to face the others and play hero.’
‘I’ll tell them she’s ill — been transferred to the ship’s hospital. Zuiden can clean this tomorrow when they’re all in the lecture room.’
‘Shit, what a stuff-up.’
‘You don’t mind sleeping with a corpse in the room?’
‘It’s not that. I feel sorry for her, damn it.’
‘Fortunes of war, love. Sweet dreams.’
Spencer prefaced Cain’s presentation using rear-projected maps, beginning with a view of the Indian Ocean.
‘Most of the Arabian Peninsula’s oil bases and population are littoral — within 100 miles of the coast. Before Afghanistan, the Soviets were 700 miles from the Gulf. Now, they’re 235. A direct Soviet move on Iran and things get sticky. But right now it’s manipulate, not march.’
Cain was grateful for the introduction although it had little to do with what he intended to say. He could still see the dead woman, staring at him from the floor that morning as he’d dressed. He tried to tune the picture out, concerned about yesterday’s fracas at lunch and the impression it had given the cadets.
He glanced at Rhonda. Her sober face revealed how important it was to pull things together.
‘The North Arabian Sea,’ Spencer continued, ‘is within range of Soviet aircraft, so our carriers are deployed there to cover any air-strike on the Gulf. Both fleets are in the Indian Ocean projecting forward presence and forward pressure. It’s political, vastly expensive and supply lines are long.’
Cain glanced around the room but couldn’t see Zuiden. Had Vanqua grounded him or was he cleaning?
Spencer was winding up. ‘There’s a CentCom stockpile at Oman and they allow recce flights to operate from Masirah. But Diego Garcia’s the nearest US base. It can handle carriers but it’s a three-and-a-half-day steam from the Gulf. That’s the strategic outline. Now let’s hear it from the coalface.’ He stepped down and Cain mounted the podium.
He surveyed the expectant audience. He had to go for the gut.
‘I’ve just finished my assignment so this is off the cuff. For most of you here, I’m your future. And Rhonda makes that sound impressive. But she’s also told you I’m through.’
He looked at the worried faces, the young ones in his ‘family’. He took them through his years of training and told them he’d worked for an aim — had suffered the punishing schedule because he believed EXIT’s credo to be true.
He moved on to his time in the field, the complexity and detail needed to convince scores of people that an impostor was the person they knew. The need to act a part and probe into the target’s life. The need to replace friends with facsimiles, to pay off others. He then gave specifics about the replacement of Zia ul-Haq, the stress, the dangers. The cadets sat enthralled.
He finished with an appeal. A rock was needed to stand against the waves of national selfishness. He believed in EXIT and its credo because he believed in humanity and the attempt to be impartial. As he concluded, several cadets were close to tears. Allah be praised, he’d done it, got the thing back on track. He felt emotional himself. He turned to Rhonda, shrugged. ‘Enough?’
She stood up, ‘Thank you, Ray,’ came forward and hugged him.
The cadets were up. A storm of fervent clapping.
She smiled and gestured for quiet. ‘Well, we intended to have questions but we’re now over time, so you can talk to him individually later.’
Although the cadets were sitting again, a score of hands waved in the air.
‘All right. Three questions?’ She looked at him.
He nodded and pointed to an intense-looking Chinese girl. ‘Yes?’
‘You’re at the top. A Grade Four. Now you have to leave. Isn’t that an enormous waste of training?’
‘It’s not restricted to us. It’s a typical situation in the services. Consider the captain of this ship. He may have trained all his life for the job and he might hold it… how long, Commander?’ He glanced at the sailor.
Spencer piped up. ‘Two years.’
He turned back to the girl. ‘And remember, when you’re my age, you won’t have the physical drive you feel now.’
‘But won’t you miss this?’
He laughed. ‘I’ve slaved nonstop for thirty years. Constant stress. You burn out. Yes…?’
A Malaysian-looking youth with a punk haircut. ‘The thought of killing people still grosses me out. How do you cope when you actually have to do it?’
‘Yes.’ He paused, last night raw in his gut. ‘I’ve been taught how to kill but it still sickens me. You could say I’ve absorbed the techniques but not the attitude. The short answer is that combat readiness requires compassion fatigue. But it’s a long conversation with many aspects. I’ll be glad to discuss it with you privately. Yes…?’
A thoughtful-looking cadet with a beard. ‘One hears rumours that several of our projects aren’t quite as impartial as you paint them. There have been instances that don’t stack up lately. Has Tigon’s vision been subverted?’
A murmur went around the room. Vanqua was standing up quickly.
‘Do you have any comment?’ the cadet persisted. ‘For instance, why are we on a participating vessel?’
Cain locked eyes with him, ‘I’m trying to find out.’
His reply wasn’t the evasion they expected but a deliberate affirmation. The cadets looked at each other.
‘Already too many questions,’ Vanqua cut in. ‘Enough.’
Zuiden appeared at lunch. After the meal he brushed by Cain and drawled almost admiringly, ‘You’re some messy sleeper.’