When his face hit the covers of Time and Newsweek, the ball game changed. The public gasped. The President choked. And the Pentagon went into severe reverse mission creep.
Even a year later Winston Smith had a hard time believing how chicken-shit Washington had turned.
Anin was small potatoes. A grinning thug. One lucky shot, and he was dubbed The Strongman Who Made The US. Back Down.
The US. had never backed down. Just the wusses in Washington. Word came down from on high. A deal was struck, and the hostage was freed. The wanted posters on Anin came down, too. Within months the relief-mission-turned-nation-building operation fizzled out, and Mahout Feroze Anin, labeled victorious over the rest of civilization, became de facto ruler of Stomique, which promptly reverted to anarchy.
Winston Smith's blood boiled every day for a month as it all played out.
After that he suggested the UN motto become You Lose Some And You Don't Win Others.
His XO told him to shut up. "Six's time will come."
A year later it did.
"Winner, you're the man for this job."
He didn't know the job. But he was twenty and full of confidence so he said, "I'm the man for every job."
"Maybe. But you're really the man for this job. Word from on high is to take out Anin. "
"I'm definitely the man for this job. How many men involved?"
"Just one. You."
"Hey, Six is a team. You can't send me on a lonewolf mission."
"Those are the orders. As far as the team goes, you're on leave. And they'd better not hear different."
Even when they airlifted him aboard the USS Darter, contrary to any mission logic, he was pumped. SEAL Team Six was set up to take out the bad guys. They trained and trained and trained, and never got used except for training missions or to run war-game scenarios.
This time it was different.
The Fucking Ugly Gun shouldn't have been part of the bargain, but Smith had no choice. In his cubicle, he ditched his gear and strapped it on. It hung off his shoulder rig like a water main.
After he'd spent five minutes breathing pure oxygen, they shot him out of the blow tube under pressure. He exhaled all the way up to the surface so his lungs didn't rupture and his bloodstream carbonate from excess nitrogen.
His Draeger bubbleless underwater breathing apparatus got him to shore undetected.
After that things got hairy. His plastic foldout map didn't exactly jibe with the terrain. And then there was the manual that came with the gun. It wasn't as thick as the Yellow Pages, but it came damn close. Since the pages were waterproof plastic, it weighed more than the BEM itself.
After a futile twenty minutes of wandering, Smith growled, "Where the fuck am I?"
A very near voice said, "Thirty klicks southsoutheast of North Nogongog. "
Smith dragged his gun out of its nylon holster and hissed, "Who's there?"
The thing in his hand hissed, "Who's there?"
"Damn. That was you."
"Damn. That was you."
"Shut up."
"Shut up," said the Fucking Ugly Gun.
Smith gave the thing a hard whack, and the gun shut up.
He went back to his map and saw that according to the BEM gun's telemetry readout, he was a solid mile north of the landing zone.
"No wonder I'm fucking lost."
This time the gun didn't say anything.
Smith pressed on. Okay, it was a fuck nuts mission. He could accept that. Just so long as at the end of it Warlord Mahout Feroze Anin ended up in a shallow grave.
Chapter 19
It was the best news DEA Agent Wayne Tardo had had in a day.
A full thirty-five hours had passed since the IRS had booted him and his team off the Folcroft grounds. It was humiliating. IRS even made them carry their wounded off in stretchers.
"But this is a hospital," Tardo had protested.
"This is our hospital," Special Agent Jack Koldstad had told him. "And this is IRS property. Until we secure it, it's off-limits to DEA personnel."
"You can't do this."
"It's done. Unless you want to shoot more IRS agents in the line of duty," he added sarcastically.
Tardo had consulted with his superior by cellular phone.
"We can't let this get out to the press," the DEA honcho had told him. "Pull back."
"But the IRS stands to lose as much face as we do."
"The IRS is essential to the smooth working of government and the national defense. We're fighting a war on drugs everyone knows is a holding action at best. They have the high ground. Pull back. But keep that building staked out, just in case I can work something on this end."
"Roger," Wayne Tardo had said, and ordered the most humiliating retreat in the history of the Drug Enforcement Administration.
They took the boats out into the sound and dropped anchor. From there it had been a dull routine of close surveillance and stale fast-food cheeseburgers.
It was the strangest thing. Cars came and went from Folcroft-mostly they went. Staff being sent home, according to the license plates they read by binoculars. Not much activity otherwise except for the damn buzzards that kept circling like a film loop.
Then came the word by secure cellular phone.
"I just got a call from a Richard Brull over at IRS," the DEA commander said.
"Yeah?"
"He threatened to audit me if DEA doesn't stand down on the Folcroft matter."
"The bastard."
"I can stand up to an audit. How about you?"
"My returns are clean."
"Poll your men. Anyone with an audit problem, send them away. The rest of you go in."
"They claimed the place is clean of turkey drugs," Tardo pointed out.
"They can claim that all they want. You're seizing Folcroft. Every damn brick of it."
"What if they resist?"
"What are they going to do, shoot you dead?"
"Understood, sir. I'll report back when the operation is over."
"You do that."
Wayne Tardo snicked shut the antenna to his secure cellular phone and said to his men, "Word from on high is we seize Folcroft.'
A cheer went up. Half-eaten cheeseburgers went over the side.
"Only those of you who are audit-proof can go along."
Two agents groaned and cursed under their breaths.
"Get word to the other boats. All who aren't clean, assemble in the relief boat. The rest of you, lock and fucking load."
In the end only three agents had to transfer to the backup boat. Tardo himself was surprised. He was sure he was going to lose half his team.
When everyone was organized, they donned their assault hoods and readied their weapons, and Wayne Tardo gave the order.
"Hit the beach!"
The engines kicked into life, and they hunched low to the decks just in case the IRS decided to defend their seizure.
"I don't think this has ever been done before," a grinning agent muttered.
"We're making interagency history here," Tardo said. "And guess who's going to lose?"
HAROLD SMITH did not believe his eyes or his ears.
The Master of Sinanju had returned to his hospital bed. "I bring tidings both glad and dire," intoned Chiun.
Smith blinked his gray eyes rapidly.
"I have come to release you from this unhappy state. But only if you promise to me that you will refrain from causing harm to yourself. Blink your kingly eyes twice if you agree to this, and you will be set free."
Smith blinked his eyes twice.
And a fingernail whose touch was as light as a moth's feelers grazed his forehead.
Smith felt life return to his limbs. He sat up. Immediately he felt the heavy load in the seat of his pants.
"I must change clothes," he said weakly.