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Helms reached out to sling a comradely arm around Ferdinand Poe. The old man eluded him and stood aloof for his introduction. Helms uttered the bare minimum.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you a brave patriot: Acting President of Isle de Foree Ferdinand Poe.”
“Good evening,” said Poe. “Or night. It’s late. I know you all traveled a long, long way to our island nation and I will make two brief remarks. One, a splendid commercial oil discovery is being confirmed in Isle de Foreen waters by this drill ship on which we stand—good news for the people of Isle de Foree and good news for consuming nations dependent on Nigeria’s dwindling reserves.”
He stared past them as though collecting his thoughts, but he was looking into the shadow where Janson hid, waiting for news about Iboga. One of the reporters, a tall man in a white shirt, followed Poe’s gaze.
Tsk.
Janson had his earpiece plugged into his sat phone. He brought the phone to his lips. “Go ahead.”
“It’s over.” She sounded utterly wiped out.
“Good job.”
“Can we go home now?”
Paul Janson stood and flashed Poe the thumbs-up.
As he did, the reporter in the white shirt dropped his camera. Stooping as if to pick it up, the reporter slid a pistol from an ankle holster and charged straight at Janson, cocking the gun with the practiced grace of a trained professional. Janson barely had time to raise the MP5 and thumb the fire selector off AUTO. But the real reporters were directly behind the imposter, and he couldn’t fire—even on semiautomatic—without risking killing an i
Janson dropped his weapon and stepped forward, raising his hands.
“No prisoners,” the gunman said, and Janson could see in his eyes that he meant to kill him. A woman screamed. Men shouted and dove to the deck. But by then Janson’s step forward had brought the gunman within range of his combat boots. The sound of a knee breaking was almost as loud as the shot the gunman managed to squeeze off as he fell.
The bullet burned across Janson’s leg and pierced the online DP unit. An alarm shrilled and the backup cut in automatically.
Janson kicked his fallen attacker twice more and the man lay still. “Case!” Janson shouted. “Call your boys off. You’ve only got one DP left.”
Bruce Danforth raised his voice before Case could speak. “Security, stand down. No one move. No one.” With a tight smile, he added, “Excepting the masked operator with the gun. Your call, sir. What do you want?”
Paul Janson stepped back into the shadows. “I want President Poe to complete his remarks. I want the reporters to listen carefully. Continue, please, President Poe.”
“Two,” said Ferdinand Poe. “I am gratified to a
“Killed,” Janson interrupted.
“Killed,” Poe echoed. He stooped to lay his machine gun on the deck and stood displaying empty hands.
Janson smiled. He had backed a wi
“I say to my soldiers and their officers—all their officers—the brutal days of Iboga are done forever. Iboga is gone forever. I am also pleased to a
The reporters looked over their shoulders to where Janson had stood, looked at the fallen security man with one leg twisted at a terrible angle, and turned around again to look agape at Poe. The woman Janson remembered from Afghanistan recovered first.
“Would you call it a fortunate coincidence, or did you just happen to be aboard the Vulcan Queenwhen the coup was launched?”
“Fortunate, in that I was not present to be killed.”
The bridge rang with laugher.
“And a happy coincidence,” said Poe. “Because when the good news came of Iboga’s surrender we were already celebrating negotiating new terms of our royalty contract with the fine people of the American Synergy Corporation who have agreed to allow other oil companies to participate in developing Isle de Foree’s spectacular new reserves. A consortium will be formed. Its board of directors will include Isle de Foreen government ministers.”
Ferdinand Poe thrust his scarred hand at Kingsman Helms.
Helms shook it with a ghastly smile.
Janson watched Doug Case’s face as the journalists pushed past his wheelchair to get close to Poe and Helms. For the life of him, he could not read what Doug was thinking.
* * *
THE EMBRAER HELD too many ghosts. They flew commercial to Lisbon, slept round the clock in a fine hotel, then boarded a plane to New York. Janson read about Czar Alexander’s defeat of Napoléon. Kincaid watched movies, stared out the window, and paced the aisles. They caught a cab into Midtown and walked the sidewalks, working out the travel kinks.
“You still don’t believe in revenge?” Kincaid asked.
Janson hesitated. “Generally that is still true. I wish I could say never, but not this time.”
“But you didn’t kill them.”
“I don’t know which one to kill. I do not know which of them is the bad guy. One of them? Two of them? All of them? But at least I took away what they wanted.”
“You took away Isle de Foree.”
“And left them alive to live with their defeat.”
“What makes you think they won’t try again?”
Paul Janson gri
“Why do you have such an Achilles’ heel for Doug Case?”
Taken aback, Janson asked, “In what way? What do you mean?”
“You’re so quick to believe him. The story you told me about how he shot the operator who was torturing an asset? How do you know it’s true? Who knows what really happened and why he shot the guy?”
“Doug’s story is true.”
“How do you know for sure?”
“I was there.”
“You were there? You were there?I didn’t realize that.… I’m surprised you didn’t shoot the guy yourself.”
“It wasn’t an option.”
“Why not?”
“My hands were tied.”
Kincaid looked at him, her big eyes growing bigger. “ Youwere the asset being tortured by the agent Doug Case shot?”
“The agent was a sadistic lunatic—one of those people who look for an excuse to feel righteous causing pain. He convinced himself I was a traitor. I wasn’t. Doug intervened on my behalf. But it was traumatic. He knew the guy well, had been through the wars with him. It pretty much destroyed him.”
Kincaid nodded her head for a long time. At last, she said, “Wow.”
Janson said, “The experience left me with warm feelings toward Doug.”
They crossed Broadway and walked a half block through tourists and crowds of people getting out of the theaters. Somewhere a loudspeaker was blaring “Shake That Thing.”
Kincaid asked, “Can we agree on something?”
“Anything.”
“Can we agree that you are not entirely clearheaded on the subject of American Synergy Corporation’s president of security?”
“Agreed,” said Paul Janson.
They walked into the Hotel Edison and down a steep flight of stairs.
The Nighthawks were playing “Blue Skies.”
The curly-haired brunette knockout who took the cover charge never forgot a face. “Welcome back,” she said to Kincaid. “Good to see you, again.”
Paul Janson got the dazzling smile reserved for new customers.
Acknowledgments
I want to thank my old shipmate Hunt Hatch; my old schoolmate Mike Coligny; my generous cockpit host Ed Daugherty; and Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome “mechanician” Christopher Ford for helping me understand airplanes. And thank you Alasdair Lyon and Ken Pike for showing me what astonishing machines helicopters are.
Afterword