Before Colonel Sun could reprimand him, Pontowski said, “We need to get that information to the pilots. They’ve got to know what they’re going against.” Damn, he thought. I screwed that one up. A hard silence came down in the room, for they all knew it was his order that had placed the LOC off-limits to the A-10s. “They figured that one out fast enough,” he said, shouldering the responsibility for the pilots’ deaths. “So where are we?”
Bag was relentless as he summarized. “One Hog shot down, one pilot rescued. One Puma downed, two pilots KIA. Thirty-seven men still on the ground.”
The burden of command bore down on Pontowski, demanding its price. “Are we out of contact, or have they been captured?” he asked.
“The team has four radios,” Sun said. “At least one should be operational.”
“So we can assume they’ve been captured or overrun,” Pontowski said.
Tel shot Sun a look, begging to speak. Sun nodded. “I don’t think so,” Tel said. “He’ll contact us when he’s ready.”
“Why the delay?” Pontowski asked.
“Because vampires are silent,” Tel replied.
“That’s all I got,” Bag said, ending the debrief.
The room quickly emptied, leaving Pontowski and Sun alone to answer the unasked question. “Do we go after them?” Pontowski said, coming to the heart of the matter.
“No,” Sun said. “Without radio contact a full-scale rescue mission is premature.”
“We can reconnoiter the area,” Pontowski replied.
“That might draw unwanted attention,” Sun said. “Maybe one flight at first light tomorrow morning. But for now I recommend we wait.” He stood up. “Is there anything else, sir?”
Pontowski shook his head. “Thank you, Colonel.” Alone, he slumped down in his chair, his chin on his chest. He couldn’t avoid the issue. It was my ROE! Bag would have gone after those tanks in a heartbeat. He sat there, coming to grips with the deadly cost accounting of combat. But he knew the way the balance sheet worked, and there was more to come before it got better. Why would a rational person do this? The answer was obvious — he wasn’t a sane man. An image of Maddy Turner demanded his attention. It’s worse for you, he decided. “Time to go to work,” he muttered. He stood up and walked outside.
The rain had stopped, and Clark’s driver was waiting for him. “Command post,” Pontowski said. “And take it easy.” The driver grinned at him, banged the van into gear, and hit the accelerator. They raced down the taxi path and careened around a corner onto the main taxiway. The driver slammed on the brakes and pointed to a moving shadow in the trees, barely fifty meters away. “Good eyeballs,” Pontowski whispered. The shadow materialized into a man holding a submachine gun, and the two men bailed out of the van and ran for cover. Pontowski chanced a look back. The man was moving after them, darting from tree to tree. Pontowski put on a burst of speed. Ahead of him he saw the sandbags of a half-completed defensive fire position the security cops had been digging. He dove into it headfirst, with the driver right behind him. Pontowski came up, coughing and spitting dirt. For a moment he pressed his head against the sandbags, still clearing his mouth, as he grabbed his radio. “Chicken Coop,” he transmitted, “Bossman. I’m being chased by an unknown and am pinned down.” Clark answered, asking for his position. “Halfway down the west taxiway,” he replied. But he wasn’t sure. His head bobbed up as he chanced a look. “Fifty yards east of”—it took him a moment to remember how the hardened aircraft shelters were numbered—“West One-Two.”
“Help’s on the way,” Clark promised.
Pontowski drew his nine-millimeter Beretta and chambered a round. He held it at the ready, fully expecting an assault. Seconds passed, seeming like hours. He heard a dog bark once in the distance. A security cop leaped over the sandbags from behind and crashed down on him, his helmet banging into Pontowski’s face. “Oof,” a woman’s voice said. She rolled off him and brought her M-16 up to a firing position. She fired off a short burst. “That got his attention,” she said.
“Sergeant Maul, I presume,” Pontowski said. She nodded. “Lovely day for a stroll.” It was all he could think of to say.
“Indeed it is, General.” She squeezed off another burst, bobbed up for a look, and dropped down beside him. “The Chief’s flanking him.”
“Is there only one?”
“I hope so,” she said.
They heard a sharp “Get ’em!” off to their left, answered by the distinctive rattle of a Kalashnikov. Silence. Then, “Out!” They waited. “General,” Rockne called, “stay where you are while we secure the area.”
Jessica breathed easier and sat against the sandbags, holding her rifle upright between her legs. “Are we having fun yet?” she asked. She handed him her canteen. He took a grateful swallow and passed it back.
Boyca limped at Rockne’s side as he marched into the command post. He dumped a Kalashnikov-type assault rifle on the table in front of Pontowski and Clark. “It’s a knockoff of the AK-47 made in China,” he told them. “A Type 56 used by PLA Special Forces.”
“Where’s the prisoner?” Clark asked.
“I turned him over to the First SOS for interrogation—”
Clark interrupted him. “Is he still alive?”
“Alive and well,” Rockne replied. “He can’t talk fast enough, and we know he’s with the PLA Ninety-second Special Regiment. We’ll have all the details before too long. At least we know who we’re up against.”
“Was he alone?” Pontowski asked.
“He is now,” Rockne replied. “We flushed out three others who came across the fence with him. But they wanted to do it the hard way. No survivors.”
Clark nodded. “How’s Boyca?”
“A bit stiff.” He stroked her head, rubbing between her ears. “She’s not up to all this activity, but she’ll be okay.”
“You sent her in against an armed intruder?” Pontowski said.
“Yes, sir. He was preoccupied with you and Sergeant Maul, so he didn’t see me. I managed to get within thirty feet, but there was an open space and Boyca was there, sorta like an old fire horse responding to an alarm. I wanted the guy alive, and it seemed like the right thing to do.” Rockne allowed a tight smile. “You should have seen his face when he saw her coming at him. He fired wild, but Boyca was on him like shit on…” He paused, embarrassed. “He wet his pants.”
“What will it take to secure the base?” Clark asked.
“I need the rest of my cops for openers,” Rockne told her.
“We’ve got an aircraft arriving from the States tomorrow morning,” she said. “They may be on board.” She turned to Pontowski. “Sorry, sir. I hadn’t told you but a GAO investigation team is due in.”
“Lovely,” Pontowski mumbled. “Just what we need.” Another thought came to him. “I owe your driver big-time.”
Shaw leaned against the doorjamb, watching his dinner companion from Saturday night cook breakfast. She was standing barefoot in his kitchen, wearing only the shirt he had worn the night before. She seemed so young to be a communications analyst at the National Security Agency. But she was old enough to know how to use NSA’s sophisticated equipment to monitor domestic phone calls and get away with it. For a moment he couldn’t remember what he had done with the first cassette tape she had given him that recorded Senator Leland’s conversation with the French ambassador. Then he remembered. He had destroyed the tape after turning down the offer. “You are lovely,” he said, telling her the truth.