"Hey, man," Hal Briggs said softly, "let me and the sergeant take a look through those images. You go take a nap." Patrick ignored him. "You hearing me okay, Muck?"
"I heard you," Patrick said, rubbing his eyes wearily. "But I want to go over the last batch of images, the ones of daybreak over that Libyan naval base where Wendy was probably taken…."
"There's at least three bases she could have been taken to in the past twelve hours, Muck," Briggs pointed out. "Or she could still be on one of the ships." Left unsaid was the other obvious possibility-Wendy was not in Libyan custody at all. "We've got trained guys waiting to look at those pictures. Why not let them do their jobs?"
"I gave them a job to do-plan a nighttime infiltration of those three military medical facilities," Patrick said irritably. "But we need to target the most likely one, because once we go in, the Libyans will be alerted." He looked angrily at Hal and added, "And I asked you to check on the aircraft and the weapons, Hal."
"The sergeant is on it," Briggs responded. "But he asked me to talk to you…."
"I'm not stopping this, Hal," Patrick said, his irritation quickly growing into anger. "We've got eight hours until sunset. We need a target in that amount of time so we have enough time to brief the infiltration, extraction, and exfiltration, then launch and-"
"Obviously the entire Libyan armed forces are on full alert."
"I know that, Hal."
"If you did, Muck, you'd be suspending plans to go in until the situation stabilizes," Hal said seriously. "C'mon, man, think about it."
"Hal, just do what I ask you to do, all right? Get the team and the aircraft ready to go."
Briggs finally relented-arguing with him was not doing any good. "All right, Patrick, we'll press on-fot now." He ignored Patrick's warning glare. "But listen to me, man-it won't do anyone any good if you're dead on your feet. Take sixty minutes, Muck. Get some rest. I'll look at the imagery myself, and I'll have one of the guys doublecheck it. If there's any evidence that Wendy was taken to any of those facilities, we'll plan an entry to take a look. You might be overlooking something if you're too tired to check each image carefully."
"I'm not too tired, Hal," Patrick told him. But he again rubbed his eyes wearily, and he found he had to fight to keep them open. He nodded and got to his feet. "Okay, buddy. I'll go take a nap. Wake me if you find anything." "Just get some rest. We'll handle everything." Patrick, David, and Hal shared a room right beside the mission planning room, but this was the first time Patrick had been there since the Egyptian military made room for them. Someone had laid out his gear on a small shelf beside the bed, and Patrick found himself eager to shave, brush his teeth, and scrub his body for the first time in what seemed like weeks. After he was done, he felt a hundred percent better. He told himself to be sure to take at least five minutes out to do this every day-it wouldn't look good for the other team members to see the team leader looking like crap. It was a quick and simple thing to do, but it-
And that's when he noticed Paul's gear, stacked in the corner of the room-a lone green duffel bag with a yellow tag on the canvas handles that read, "P.McL."-Paul McLanahan.
Dammit, Paul, why were you here? Why are any of us here? Just to fight a battle for some oil executives? Was it worth the pain, the suffering, and the death? Who would understand? Anyone? No one?
His head was a jumble of thoughts and emotions, all fighting for attention, analysis. But somehow, through it all, a woman's voice told him to lie still, to put all violent thoughts out of his head. There would be plenty of time for planning the next battle, the voice said-now was the time for sleep. Rest was as much a part of fighting a war as the bomb run, the voice wisely said, and she was right.
Patrick didn't know how long he had been asleep, but he awoke gently and felt completely rested. He felt as if he could take on the entire world. The room was quiet, and even the adjacent planning rooms had only routine noises. There were things to do, he thought, and now he felt as if he could do them. He opened his eyes…
… and found Susan Bailey Salaam sitting on the bed beside him. She smiled at him, her eyes sparkling, her hair shimmering in the dim light. Patrick immediately sat up. Susan placed a hand on his chest as if to tell him to stay put, but he got up anyway. "Mrs. Salaam, what are you doing here?"
"She's been here for the last hour and a half, Muck," David Luger said. He was standing casually in the doorway of their room, but with a look of concern on his face.
"An hour and a half?" Patrick asked incredulously. He could scarcely believe he could sleep that long with everything that was going on. "Everything all right?"
"Mrs. Salaam wants to talk with you," Luger said. "I'll be in the command post." He turned and departed, but not before giving Susan an inquisitive, concerned look.
"Your officers have been standing guard over us the entire time," Susan said to Patrick. "They are very loyal to you."
"You should have waited outside."
"You looked restless. I thought I could help."
"That was your voice I heard?"
Susan nodded. "Feeling better?"
"Yes." He sat up and swung his legs around to the floor, expecting her to stand to let him get up. But she didn't move, and he found himself face-to-face with her. She glanced at his lips invitingly, looked deeply into his eyes, then averted her eyes and let them roam across his broad chest and thick shoulders. The only sport Patrick ever excelled at was weight lifting, a sport that was solitary, much like the man himself. He had been doing it for many years,
and it showed. He lingered there for a moment, trying to decide what she was doing, then got up and pulled a clean T-shirt from his duffel bag and pulled it on. "Let's go outside to the command center where we can talk, Susan."
"I need to talk with you in private first," she said. He nodded, deciding to stand right there, but after a short, awkward silence, he returned and sat beside her on the bed. "I spoke with your officers outside while I was waiting. I still don't know Taurus's real name; it's obvious you and Mr. Luger are very close." Patrick did not respond. "I gave them the very latest information we have on both the Libyan naval vessels that searched the site where your ship was sunk."
"Thank you. I'm sure it'll all be very useful."
"Judging by the information they requested and the information they reviewed after I arrived, I'd guess you were planning a soft probe on either the Tobruk joint operations center or the Darnah naval base," Susan said.
"I must be sure to remind my team members that you used to be an intelligence officer," Patrick said with a wry smile.
"And you have obviously been trained to not offer any information to anyone, even in casual conversation."
"We're eight thousand miles from home, at a strange military base-there's nothing casual about this situation."
"Are you ever going to trust me, Patrick?" Susan asked.
"Would it upset you if I said 'no'?"
"Yes, it would," Susan replied. It was obvious to her that he didn't care if it upset her or not. She paused for a moment, then said, "Going in to either Darnah or Tobruk even in normal day-to-day circumstances would be very, very dangerous. Both bases are massively armed fortresses, especially for Anglos but even for Arabs. But our intelligence information tells us both bases are at the absolute highest readiness stages, just short of all-out wartime conditions. I strongly advise you not to plan to go in there unless you have your target-I'm sorry, I should say, your wife-located first. Or unless you have some massive firepower lining up behind you to support a soft probe that could turn hot in a matter of moments."