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“I better answer this,” Case said.
“Don’t roll off,” said the Buddha. “Stay right here.”
“Hello, Paul. How is su
“Bring the reporters up to the bridge to meet President Poe.”
“What bridge— What?Are you on this ship?”
“Bring the press up here to meet President Poe or I will disable the dynamic positioning units. Both of them. Do you understand what that means?”
Case had trouble catching his breath. “Yes.”
“Do you also understand what a blood-soaked catastrophe it would be if you brought your shooters?”
“Yes.”
“Do you understand that I feel betrayed?”
Case steadied himself. This situation could be dealt with. “Yeah,” he said. “I understand you feel betrayed, but you don’t know by whom.”
“No witness, no crime?”
“I’m not the villain.”
“Is Helms there?”
“Right here.”
“Put him on.”
Doug Case did not bother covering the phone as he whispered, “It’s Paul Janson. He’s here! On the Vulcan Queen, demanding we bring the press up to the bridge— of this ship—to meet Ferdinand Poe.”
“The bridge? The DP is up there.”
“He figured that out. Here!” He offered the phone. “Try not to piss him off.”
“Janson,” Helms said smoothly. “I hope you are in your right mind and not about to do anything rash.”
“I’m staying alive by threatening rash. I am not sure who is behind all this. I will find out. In the meantime, I have stopped you cold.”
“Surely we can work something out.”
“Is the Buddha there?”
Kingsman Helms pressed the phone into the CEO’s wrinkled hand.
* * *
BRUCE DANFORTH HAD heard a helicopter land a minute ago and had wondered who was on it. Now he knew. He put a smile on his face for the benefit of the reporters and executives and muttered so they could not hear, “Bruce Danforth here, Janson. You know I always wanted to shake your hand back in the day. But your old boss, Derek Collins, informed me that the lawyers said that we were better off never shaking hands in the event I had to deny your existence.”
“I learned to trust Derek,” Janson said coldly.
“I was Derek’s boss.”
“That’s news to me.”
“Way back in the day. By the time you came along I had retired into the private sector. But I keep up with the top people, the best. Perhaps I’ll get my wish tonight.”
“I can’t shake your hand. I’m holding a weapon.”
“You could put it down.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You could name a price to leave quietly.”
“You could name who murdered my pilots and Dr. Terry Fla
“I do not know what you are talking about.”
“You could also tell me who called in the Reaper attack on Pico Clarence.”
“Now I’m truly baffled,” the Buddha said smoothly.
* * *
PAUL JANSON KNEW that he was beaten, for the moment, in his desire to co
“Bring the media,” he told Danforth. “You, Helms, Case, and the reporters only. No one else.”
* * *
KINCAID RESTED HER cheek against the M110’s stock and searched for Iboga in the night scope’s circle of fire.
The commandos had crept within a hundred yards of the prison gates. Iboga was in the lead. She wondered why they were waiting so long to fire their rockets. Iboga signaled with his, waving them ahead, urging them even closer, and Kincaid realized that he wanted them so close that they could storm the gates the instant they blew them open.
Iboga commanded like a born leader. For what had to be a quickly thrown-together unit, their discipline was impressive. Only if they saw him dead would they give up the attack.
Iboga crouched behind a palm tree eighty yards from the gates.
He had finally stopped moving.
Nine hundred meters was a very long shot.
Kincaid aligned her rifle on him. She moved her heels to lie straight with the gun. She held her head upright. She peered with her right eye directly behind the night scope. She closed both eyes, took several measured breaths. She opened her eyes. The crosshairs were on the tree an inch from Iboga’s head. She moved her heels a quarter inch, lined up, and lay still. She found her point of aim three inches below the agalcord that tied his kaffiyeh to his skull.
She inhaled. She exhaled. She touched the trigger. The crosshairs drifted right. She released pressure on the trigger, inhaled, exhaled, and regained her point of aim. She touched the trigger and pulled it steadily back, back, back, back—
The clock tower bell pealed the first stroke of midnight. It clanged thunderously and shook the stone floor.
Miss!
She could hear her daddy laughing like he was sitting on her shoulder. Eight years old, practicing and practicing to show him she could shoot as good as any damned son he never had. Lookit, Didder.She hadn’t yet overcome the speech impediment that made her mispronounce certain words, so she made up words, “Didder” for “Daddy.” “Squirrel” was “skizzy.” Skizzy up a seventy-foot oak tree. Lookit, Didder!
The damn squirrel zigged when it should have zagged.
Miss. Didder laughed.
She’d practiced loading, too—loading quick and firing fast till her shoulder ached from the recoils. Bolt-action .22. She popped a fresh round in the chamber faster than that little sucker could climb and at least on that one day won her father’s heart. “The second shot,” he told her proudly that night, scrambling eggs and squirrel brains for their supper, “the shot after you missed, that shotseparated the men from the boys.”
Iboga must have felt the bullet pass. But he didn’t know from where, assumed it came from the prison instead of half a mile in back of him, and stayed behind his tree while the parliament clock boomed twelve strokes and Kincaid lined up her second shot.
* * *
PAUL JANSON CROUCHED in shadow at the front of the bridge with his back to a steel bulkhead and his eyes raking the doors and windows in case someone in ASC security pla
Kingsman Helms came first, bounding up the stairs. The captain intercepted him, as Janson had instructed, and kept him by the elevators. Both elevator doors opened simultaneously and an old man who had to be Bruce Danforth stepped out of the first one, followed by Doug Case in his wheelchair, which he immediately raised to full height. The other elevator delivered the reporters. Janson counted three men and two women, one of whom he recognized as a brave and beautiful NPR correspondent he had slept with years ago in Afghanistan.
Those wielding mini video cameras for their Web sites suddenly focused on Ferdinand Poe, who walked slowly in from the bridge wing. He looked tired and weary and too old to be cradling an FN P90 personal defense weapon.
“There you are, Mr. Acting President. Everyone wants to meet you, sir.”