“You can do that from the flight deck, Daddy,” said Breanna. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to say “Daddy,” Colonel,” she added in a tone of voice that left no doubt that she’d done it on purpose.
“Colonel Bastian, I need a word,” said Danny Freah, squeezing inside. “Has to be private, sir.”
“Well, I was just leaving,” said Jennifer.
Dog managed to sit down in the chair without stopping her.
“Have a good sleep?” asked Danny.
“Yes, Captain, I did,” said Colonel Bastian. “Go ahead.”
“The girl we picked up, from the village.”
“We still have her?”
Dog listened as Danny explained in detail what had happened, what the girl had told Stoner, and what Stoner’s team had discovered on the atoll stations.
“I should have told you she tried to shoot me,” said Danny when he was done. “I’m sorry, sir.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I — it’s a little hard to explain.”
“You better try, Captain.”
“Yes, sir. This isn’t an excuse.” Danny’s body seemed to deflate. “In Bosnia, there was an accident, an innocent woman trying to protect a kid.”
As Dog listened, he noticed Danny kept shifting his hands awkardly. He’d never seen the captain so ill at ease.
Dog rubbed his forehead, unsure exactly what to say, much less to do. conceivably, his captain could be charged with dereliction of duty for not taking the situation seriously.
On the other hand, if this woman was just a housewife in the village — hell.
“Search the village,” Dog told Freah. “Secure it.”
“What about the atoll? I’d like to check it out ASAP.”
“All right, I’ll talk to Woods. If you’re looking for force backup—”
“I have what I need,” said Danny. “We’ll use the Marines here.”
“Not without Woods’ okay.”
“They’re authorized to secure the island.”
“Not the atoll.”
“Right,” said Danny. “One other thing. I want us to move the people in that village when we’re done. If we just turn them over to the Filipinos, they’ll be slaughtered.”
“I doubt that’s true. I …”
“We can move them ourselves. I’ll scout a new spot for them on the south part of the island. We can have them there tonight,” Danny said firmly.
“Let’s find out what’s in the village,” said Dog. “Inspect it, then contact me.”
“Can we move them? I have to know what I’m going to do with them.”
“It’s not my decision,” Dog said. “It’s up to Admiral Woods, and probably Admiral Allen. They’ll deal with it.”
“But they’ll take your advice.”
“They may, they may not,” said Dog. “More likely the latter.”
“You don’t like her at all, do you,” said Zen, rolling alongside Breanna as she walked to the Navy’s mess tent.
“Please, Jeff, we’ve been over this a million times,” she said. “Let’s talk about something else, okay?”
“Green-eyed jealousy. Hell hath no fury like a jealous lady.”
“At least you know your clickés.” Breanna swung through the door without holding it for him. A fresh batch of pancakes was just being put out; she loaded a double-high stack on her plate.
“Packing it in, huh?” said Zen when she returned to the table. He was sipping a cup of black coffee.
“On a diet?” she asked, taking a bite of her pancakes.
“Trying to get back my girlish figure.”
“These are good,” she said. She tried changing the subject. “How’s FDR?”
“We’re fighting the Depression,” said Zen. “You know what’s amazing?”
“The fact that you’re actually reading?”
“I read all the time before I met you,” said Zen.
“Sports Illustrated and Penthouse don’t count.”
“Penthouse Letters,” he told her. “Big difference.”
“I was wondering where you picked up your technique.”
“Roosevelt never really gave up trying to walk, not until he was in the White House,” said Zen, suddenly serious. “I think he really thought he would walk again. He kept telling people, next year. Next year. You know the thing he did with his legs, leaning on people? I bet he really thought he was walking. I bet he did.
“Geez, Bree, you got to chew those things.”
She stopped mid-bite — half a pancake slipped form her mouth.
Zen laughed and took a sip of coffee.
“Me, I’m a realist. I know I’m not going to walk again.”
“Except when you were in ANTARES.”
“Yeah. Well, the drugs did that,” he said. He looked into his coffee cup, then put it down and picked up a spoon, fishing out a fly. It was a minute or so before he began speaking again. “I understand what Frank was thinking.”
“Frank?”
“Hey, all that reading gets me an’ old Franklin on a first-name basis,” said Zen. “Except only his enemies called him Frank. I think.” Another bug dive-bombed into his coffee. “These flies must love this coffee.”
Jeff held it out, laughed — then tapped the spoon at her as if tossing the bug.
“Hey!”
He’d actually slipped the bug off the spoon, which he delighted in pointing out.
“You shoulda seen your face.”
“Ho, ho,” said Bree.
“Finish eating and let’s go recreate. I have to practice the Piranha controls in an hour.”
“Oh, you’re suave,” she said.
“Comes from reading Penthouse Letters.”
They ran is as a classic encirclement, using four squads of Marines as well as Danny’s people. Two groups were dropped east of the village, each led by one of Danny’s Whiplash troopers, while two other groups came down from the ridge. Using so many people decreased the likelihood they would achieve surprise, but Danny reasoned the available resources made it the way to go. It was a conservative choice, one that couldn’t be faulted. As he boarded the Quick Bird helo to supervise the mission from the air, he realized he’d probably chosen to do things this way to compensate for screwing up earlier.
Not screwing up. Just not acting aggressively.
Danny had his helmet plugged into the helicopter’s com circuit, which allowed him to talk on the radio channels and the interphone. He wasn’t just observing — both Quick Birds were packing rockets and chain-guns. A Megafortress and a pair of Flighthawks pilots by Captain Fentress were also supporting the mission. The two teams coming in from the coast were aboard Marine Super Stallions, helicopters the size of Pave Lows, but with an additional engine.
Stoner sat in the back of the helo. He had suggested bringing the girl with them, but Danny wasn’t convinced she’d be much of a guide. Besides, she’d inadvertently see a lot of their technology.
Another conservative choice. Late.
“Squad One is down,” said Powder, who had the northeastern approach.
“Two is down,” said Liu, heading the southeastern team. As always, the Marine helos had made their deliveries precisely on time.
As the remaining teams reached the stream, Danny checked in. fentress’s bird’s-eye view of the area showed the swamp and the area surrounding the village looked quiet. The village itself was almost completely hidden; Fentress would have to get much lower and use the IR sensors to give them a meaningful view.
“No boats,” said Stoner as they circled off the coast of the island.
“Yeah,” said Danny. He switched the feeds on his helmet visor back and forth in quick succession, checking for any sign of movement. A small zigzag of smoke made its way up from the trees, most likely a cooking fire. Danny would have his men check the ashes, make sure the locals weren’t burning documents.