“I thought you’d, you know, hold it against me I didn’t come with you when you left,” Redstone said, settling himself in the swivel chair bolted down in front of the desk. Light gleamed from his bald scalp, and the older man had gained at least twenty pounds since he had last toured the training camp outside Diyarbakir in a set of khaki desert fatigues.
“Hell, I’d rather have a friend in court than somebody to hold my hand,” said the agent.
He hadn’t left Redstone behind as a friend, exactly. Red was the sort of guy who would sacrifice his firstborn if God in the guise of the US government demanded it. Not that he wouldn’t argue about the decision.
But Kelly also knew that Redstone wasn’t going to let one of his boys be fucked over just because that seemed like a good policy to somebody in a suit. He would spend Kelly or spend himself; but, like Kelly, only if that were required to accomplish the task.
“Well, what they going to go with, Red?” the agent asked as he spilled the cartridges onto the bunk and began to clean the revolver. “Me or nothing?”
“We’ve got a preliminary report from Istanbul,” Redstone said, looking toward the windows instead of the nude, scarred body of the man who had once served under him. “About Blakeley.”
“That mean I’m out, then?” Kelly asked in a bantering tone. His hands concentrated on feeding a corner of the towel into each of the chambers. He hadn’t had a chance to clean the weapon properly since he’d used it on Doug. . . .
“Funny world,” said Redstone idly. He looked at Kelly. “Convinced some folks you meant what you said. God knows I’d tried. Means you’re on, on your terms. Nobody had a better plan that didn’t include you, and nobody seemed to think you were going to mellow out any time soon.”
“Jesus,” said Kelly. He sat down on the bed, still holding the towel-wrapped gun but without pretending any longer that it had his attention. The cartridges rolled down the bedspread and against his right thigh. “Well, at least they got that’n right.”
“Now,” said the older man, leaning forward with his hands clasped above his knees, “are you going off and do it your way, or are you willing to listen to reason on the hardware?”
Kelly pursed his lips. “I’m willing,” he said slowly, “to talk things over with somebody who knows which end of a gun the bang comes out of … which” – he grinned – “is you and nobody else within about seven vertical miles.”
“Then take an Ultimax 100 instead,” the general said earnestly. “Twelve and a half pounds with the hundred-round drum, rate of fire low enough to be controllable even in light gravity, and absolutely reliable in or out of an atmosphere.”
“Sure, nice gun, Red,” said Kelly, the individual words agreeable but the implication a refusal. He resumed the task of cleaning the Smith and Wesson while the air and bedspread got on with the business of drying his body. “But all thumbs’d be mild for the way I’ll be, rigged out in a space suit. A machinegun won’t cut it.”
“Well, there’s been some talk about that …” said Redstone. Both men were relaxing now that the conversation had lapsed into routine and minutiae. The general locked his fingers behind his neck and stretched out his legs, demonstrating in the process that the chair back reclined. “If you blow each segment as you go through, then everybody’s on the same footing. You say they terminated the Kurds, right?”
“Sure.” Kelly held the revolver with the cylinder open so that light was reflected from the recoil plate through the barrel to his eye. “I’m probably on better’n even terms with each one of the maybe twenty Germans. Not great odds, buddy, and I can’t watch both directions at once. I need something that’ll take ’em out section by section – fast, because it’s me that’s gotta move to get to the control room. If I wait to blow doors instead of just opening them, they’ll sure as shit get around behind and scrag me.”