It grew quickly, though, and Court caught himself hoping it would develop into the shape of a Huey. He had an affinity for the old helicopters; his dad had flown around in them in Vietnam, and Court himself trained in them almost exclusively with the CIA’s Autonomous Asset Development Program, simply because they were smaller and cheaper to operate than the Black Hawks that all but replaced them, and since he trained alone and the U.S. government still had lots of old Hueys at their disposal, that had been his principal ride.
And now that he was here in Southeast Asia, looking to the sky for a savior, he thought it would be appropriate to have a Huey sweep in and pick him up.
He got his wish. Court recognized the UH-1Y, called the Yankee, though everyone in the U.S. military referred to it as a Skid if it carried a weapon or a Slick if it was unarmed.
He’d expected the aircraft to be unmarked; back when he was in the CIA as a paramilitary operations officer he sometimes worked with members of the military, but they were always black-side types: Delta Force, SEAL Team 6, special operations communications and electronic intelligence personnel, or deep-cover spooks from the Defense Intelligence Agency. He never flew on marked military aircraft.
But as the Huey got closer, Court saw the unmistakable markings of the United States Marine Corps. And as the aircraft hovered over the LZ he saw it was a Skid; a crew chief sat in the open door with a big .50 caliber machine gun poking out of the side.
It occurred to him that this meant the U.S. Marine Corps was conducting an armed invasion into Cambodia on his behalf.
Awkward, Court thought. How did Brewer manage this?
The Huey touched down on the grass of the clearing next to the sweet potato field; by now a few locals stood on a nearby levee and looked on. Court hoped these farmers didn’t have a cell phone on them, but he had bigger things to worry about.
He ran under the spinning rotors and climbed aboard. The crew chief directed him to a bench along the bulkhead, strapped him in as if Court had never ridden in a helicopter in his life, and then put a headset microphone on Court’s head.
The crew chief wore the rank of corporal on his flight suit. Under the big flight helmet and the blacked-out visor and the microphone covering his face, Court figured the Marine was no more than twenty-one years old. Still, Court let the kid run the show; this was his aircraft, and the filthy unshaved American hanging out in the flatlands of Cambodia was just a passenger.
The young man spoke into his mic, and it came through Court’s earphones. He could hear the excitement in the Marine’s voice about conducting such an odd operation. “Sir, can I have your name, please?”
Court followed the instructions given to him by Brewer just three hours earlier. “I’m Tom.”
“Then we’re your chariot, sir. We’ll get you out of here and take you wherever you want to go.” He added, “As long as we have the fuel.”
The crew chief clearly knew nothing about what was going on other than his aircraft’s orders to get to a particular grid and pick up a man named Tom, then to follow the man’s subsequent orders.
“What are my options?” Court asked.
The aircraft took off immediately, rising straight up into the sky. “We’ve got fuel to get you to Phnom Penh or Saigon. Which do you prefer?”
“How did you work that out with the governments of Cambodia and Vietnam?”
The crew chief stared back at Court; he looked like a big insect with his black visor covering his eyes. “No idea, sir. I think something is arranged; we were told we could go wherever, but that’s a little bit above my pay grade.”
Court just nodded. He wondered if CIA had asked permission for this flight, or if they were going to just ask forgiveness after the fact. He decided it was above his pay grade, as well, so he didn’t stress about it.
Court asked, “Did you guys come off a ship?”
A nod of the big helmet. “Yes, sir. We’re on the Boxer. It’s an LHD. Uh… that’s an assault ship. We’re just leaving exercises in the South China Sea.”
“And where are you heading?”
The kid couldn’t hide a little grin. “Bangkok. Forty-eight hours liberty.”
Court nodded thoughtfully, looking down at the sweet potato farm rolling away below. “You think the navy would mind giving me a ride?”
“Don’t see why not, sir. They give us Marines a ride, and we can be a handful. I doubt you’d be much trouble at all.”
Court nodded. “Bangkok works for me.”
“Roger that, sir.” The crew chief switched channels on his radio and told the pilot to return to the ship. Back on Court’s channel, he said, “About fifty mikes flying time. Make yourself comfortable. You look like you could do with some chow.”
“You buying?”
“Sure am.” The corporal handed Court a huge bottle of water and an MRE. Court drank half the bottle without stopping, then looked at the bag holding the prepackaged meal. Chicken stew. Court smiled, took a knife from the crew chief, cut the package open, and began wolfing it down cold.
The crew chief split his time between looking out the open door — close enough to the fifty cal to where he could slide over and operate it if trouble arose — and trying to steal glances at the man sitting across from him. Court let it go for a minute, then looked up at the young man and shook his head once.
The crew chief turned away and focused his attention completely on the river and jungle racing by below.
Court’s mind went back to his mission. He’d been forced to leave Fan with the Thai river pirates because there was no way he was getting the young man off that boat without both of them getting killed. It had been a hard choice to make, but Fan himself had given him a lead as to what group had kidnapped him.
A Thai criminal organization had Fan now, and it was up to Brewer and Colonel Dai, each working alone, to figure out exactly where they would take Fan Jiang.
Court had gone nearly twenty-four hours without checking in with Dai. He’d have to call him after he got settled on the Boxer, so for now he just rode in the back of the Skid and tried to work on some story that Dai would believe.
He knew he’d have to spin one hell of an epic tale of bullshit to keep Dai from putting a bullet in Don Fitzroy’s head.
And, speaking of tales of epic bullshit, there was Suzanne Brewer. He would call her first, and he would find out what the fuck was really going on. There was more to this mission than he understood, and he worried he wasn’t going to like what he found out about it.
Suzanne Brewer had spent the evening hours moving mountains to arrange for an agent to be picked up in the wilds of Southeast Asia and ferried out to a passing U.S. Navy vessel. When everything was settled she’d lain down on the sofa in her office, elevated her leg to reduce the lingering pain in the weeks-old injury, and fallen quickly asleep.
The trilling of the phone on her desk woke her at four a.m., sending her rocking up slowly, where she grabbed her crutches, not bothering with her knee scooter to get across the room.
Ten minutes later she was halfway through Violator’s after-action report of the events near the Cambodian border the evening before. He was on the USS Boxer in a secluded area and able to talk unrestricted over the secure line. He told his story chronologically; he seemed to include all the important details, and Brewer took notes on a pad while he spoke. She wanted him to jump ahead to tell her what the hell happened to Fan Jiang, but she knew better than to interrupt his train of thought as long as he was providing relevant information.
But when he said, matter-of-factly, “I feel sure the attacking paramilitary force was Russian,” she interrupted, because this was an especially important development.