Everyone was staring at the blank TV monitor now, each of them bewitched by his imagination’s picture of what was happening.
“Okay,” the technician said, “cameras coming on line, attitude and tracking controls in automatic, programming telemetry received. Target acquisition in ninety seconds.”
The TV picture lit up. It showed a test pattern. Ryan hadn’t seen one of those in years.
“Getting a signal.”
Then the picture appeared. Disappointingly, it was in infrared again. Somehow Ryan had expected otherwise. The low angle showed very little of the camp. They could discern no movement at all. The technician frowned and increased the viewing field. Nothing more, not even the helicopters.
The viewing angle changed slowly, and it was hard to believe that the reconnaissance satellite was racing along at over eighteen thousand miles per hour. Finally they could see all of the huts. Ryan blinked. Only one was lit up on the infrared picture. Uh-oh. Only one hut — the guards’ one — had had its heater on. What did that mean? They’re gone — nobody’s home . . . and the assault force isn’t there either.
Ryan said what the others didn’t want to say: “Something’s gone wrong.”
“When can they tell us what happened?” Cantor asked.
“They cannot break silence for several hours.”
Two more hours followed. They were spent in Marty’s office. Food was sent up. Jean-Claude didn’t say anything, but he was clearly disappointed by it. Cantor didn’t touch his at all. The phone rang. The Frenchman took the call, and spoke in his native tongue. The conversation lasted four or five minutes. Jean-Claude hung up and turned.
“The assault force came upon a regular army unit a hundred kilometers from the camp, apparently a mechanized unit on an exercise. This was not expected. Coming in low, they encountered them quite suddenly. It opened fire on the helicopters. Surprise was lost, and they had to turn back.” Jean-Claude didn’t have to explain that, at best, operations like this were successful barely more than half the time.
“I was afraid of that.” Jack stared at the floor. He didn’t need to have anyone tell him that the mission could not be repeated. They had run a serious risk, trying a covert mission the same way twice. There would be no third attempt. “Are your people safe?”
“Yes, one helicopter was damaged, but managed to return to base. No casualties.”
“Please thank your people for trying, Colonel.” Cantor excused himself and walked to his private bathroom. Once in there, he threw up. His ulcers were bleeding again. Marty tried to stand, but found himself faint. He fell against the door with a hard rap on the head.
Jack heard the noise and went to see what it was. It was hard to open the door, but he finally saw Marty lying there. Ryan’s first instinct was to tell Jean-Claude to call for a doctor, but Jack himself didn’t know how to do that here. He helped Marty to his feet and led him back into his office, setting him in a chair.
“What’s the matter?”
“He just tossed up blood — how do you call . . . ” Ryan said the hell with it and dialed Admiral Greer’s line.
“Marty’s collapsed — we need a doctor here.”
“I’ll take care of it. Be there in two minutes,” the Admiral answered.
Jack went into the bathroom and got a glass of water and some toilet paper. He used this to wipe Cantor’s mouth, then held up the glass. “Wash your mouth out.”
“I’m okay,” the man protested.
“Bullshit,” Ryan replied. “You jerk. You’ve been working too damned late, trying to finish up all your stuff before you leave, right?”
“Got — got to.”
“What you got to do, Marty, is get the hell out of here before it eats you up.”
Cantor gagged again.
You weren’t bidding, Marty, Jack thought. The war is being fought here, too, and you’re one of the casualties. You wanted that mission to score as much as I did.
“What the hell!” Greer entered the room. He even looked a little disheveled.
“His ulcers let go,” Jack explained. “He’s been puking blood.”
“Aw, Jesus, Marty!” the Admiral said.
Ryan hadn’t known that there was a medical dispensary at Langley. Someone identifying himself as a paramedic arrived next. He examined Cantor quickly, then he and a security guard loaded the man on a wheelchair. They took him out, and the three men left behind stared at each other.
“How hard is it to die from ulcers?” Ryan asked his wife just before midnight.
“How old is he?” she asked. Jack told her. Cathy thought about it for a moment. “It can happen, but it’s fairly rare. Somebody at work?”
“My supervisor at Langley. He’s been on Tagamet, but he vomited blood tonight.”
“Maybe he tried going without it. That’s one of the problems. You give people medications, and as soon as they start feeling better, they stop taking the meds. Even smart people,” Cathy noted. “Is it that stressful over there?”
“I guess it was for him.”
“Super.” It was the kind of remark that should have been followed by a roll-over, but Cathy hadn’t been able to do that for some time. “He’ll probably be all right. You really have to work at it to be in serious trouble from ulcers nowadays. Are you sure you want to work there?”
“No. They want me, but I won’t decide until you lose a little weight.”
“You’d better not be that far away when I go into labor.”
“I’ll be there when you need me.”
“Almost got ’em,” Murray reported.
“The same mob who raided Action-Directe, eh? Yes, I’ve heard that was a nicely run mission. What happened?” Owens asked.
“The assault group was spotted seventy miles out and had to turn back. On reexamination of the photos, it may be that our friends were already gone anyway.”
“Marvelous. I see our luck is holding. Where did they go, you reckon?”
Murray grunted. “I’ve got to make the same assumption you have, Jimmy.”
“Quite.” He looked out the window. The sun would be rising soon. “Well, we’ve cleared the DPG man and told him the story.”
“How’d he take it?”
“He immediately offered his resignation, but the Commissioner and I prevailed upon him to withdraw it. We all have our little foibles,” Owens said generously. “He’s a very good chap at what he does. You’ll be pleased to learn that his reaction was precisely the same as yours. He said we should arrange for His Highness to fall off one of his polo ponies and break his leg. Please don’t quote either of us on that!”
“It’s a hell of a lot easier to protect cowards, isn’t it? It’s the brave ones who complicate our lives. You know something? He’s going to be a good king for you someday. If he lives long enough,” Murray added. It was impossible not to like the kid, he thought. And his wife was dynamite. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, the security on ’em in the States will be tight. Just like what we give the President. Even some of the same people are involved.”
That’s supposed to make me feel happy? Owens asked himself silently, remembering how close several American Presidents had come to death at the hands of madmen, not to mention John F. Kennedy. It could be, of course, that the ULA was back wherever it lived, but all his instincts told him otherwise. Murray was a close friend, and he also knew and respected the Secret Service agents who’d formed the security detail. But the security of Their Highnesses was properly the responsibility of the Yard, and he didn’t like the fact that it was now largely in others’ hands. Owens had been professionally offended the last time the American President had been in the U.K., when the Secret Service had made a big show of shoving the locals as far aside as they dared. Now he understood them a little better.
“How much is the rent?” Dobbens asked.
“Four-fifty a month,” the agent answered. “That’s furnished.”
“Uh-huh.” The furnishings weren’t exactly impressive, Alex saw. They didn’t have to be.
“When can my cousin move in?”
“It’s not for you?”
“No, it’s my cousin. He’s in the same business I am,” Alex explained. “He’s new to the area. I’ll be responsible for the rent, of course. A three-month deposit, you said?”
“Okay.” The agent had specified two months’ rent up-front.
“Cash all right?” Dobbens asked.
“Sure. Let’s go back to the office and get the paperwork done.”
“I’m running a little late. I’m afraid. Don’t you have the contract with you?”
The agent nodded. “Yeah, I can do it right here.” He walked out to his car and came back with a clipboard and a boilerplate rental contract. He didn’t know that he was condemning himself to death, that no one else from his office had seen this man’s face.