Jack Coughlin: Running the Maze

Swanson was the sharp point of the Trident spear. “No, sir.” His eyes drifted to the window, and the memory of September 11 came back. “No questions at all.”

The general closed a briefing folder. “Right. Get to work. I want a plan within a week, and to have Swanson on the ground over there in two. Figure out what and who you need, and pull whatever resources are required. Keep it simple, because we’re not planning an invasion of Yemen, just a cleanup job on a stupid asshole terrorist. Send any questions to me.”

The Lizard shut down the security measures, the big dead bolts slid back to unlock the doors, and the five members of Task Force Trident drifted away. As soon as Sybelle Summers returned to her desk, her cell phone buzzed. She looked at the screen with a small frown, not recognizing the number of the caller. “Summers,” she answered with no inflection in her voice.

“Lieutenant Colonel Summers? This is Petty Officer Second Class Beth Ledford, the Coast Guard sniper?” The voice was hesitant and carried an undercurrent of worry. “When you lectured our special ops class about a year ago, you gave me this number to call if I needed some extra help?”

Sybelle remembered the meeting. She had felt an immediate affinity for Ledford, the lone little blonde trying to fit in among a classroom filled with tough-guy warriors from all branches of the armed forces. Everybody in the room had seemed at least a foot taller than Beth Ledford, who stood five-six and weighed about 115 pounds soaking wet, but the records revealed the young woman had the best shooting scores in the entire class. Summers had taken her out for a coffee afterward, and a sister-to-sister talk about succeeding in careers dominated by men.

“Well, hello there, Petty Officer Ledford. Sure I remember you,” Summers said, changing her tone from distant to neutral. “This is a surprise. What’s going on? You quit the military and joined the circus yet? Little Sure Shot?”

The offhand compliment did not bring the laugh that Summers expected. “I have a problem, Major. It’s not a glass ceiling thing, I would never call you for something like that, and I can’t discuss it over the phone, so can we meet up for lunch today? Please? It’s important.” The briefest of pauses. “National security kind of important.”

Sybelle sat up straight and snapped her fingers a couple of times, and Kyle Swanson looked over. “Lunch, then, Beth. Since we will be in public, drop the rank thing and come in casual civvies. I’m bringing someone else along.” She gave the name of a pub in Crystal City. “See you there in forty-five minutes.”

Swanson had wandered over to her desk by the time she finished the conversation and hung up. “Go put on some real-people clothes, Gunny. I’m taking you out to lunch with somebody I want you to meet, another sniper.”

“Who?”

“You’ll see.” While Kyle went to change, Summers briefed General Middleton on the conversation and the planned meeting. His eyes twitched when she said the words “national security,” and he nodded silent permission to meet the source.

THE CLATTER OF SILVERWARE against good china was drowned out by the polyglot of voices in the Delegates’ Dining Room on the fourth floor of the United Nations Headquarters in Manhattan. Men and women in business attire that would be acceptable back in their home countries helped themselves to the cuisine served at the long buffet, which today featured a mildly spicy menu from the lower Pacific Islands. Sunlight bathed the huge room where the administrative staff workers from the 192 member states that made up the United Nations frequently had their lunches. Although the dining room was open to the public, the dress code of no jeans, shorts, or sneakers usually frightened away American tourists.

There was normally a steady flow of people during the lunch hour, and the volume of the conversation, although subdued, was enough to cover the private talk being carried on by two men seated at a table beside the glass wall that reached from the floor to the high ceiling and overlooked New York’s East River.

“You don’t enjoy the hot food?” James Doyle shoveled another fork of lamb curry and rice into his mouth, chewed thoughtfully, and felt a bead of sweat pop out on his forehead. He smiled. Bliss. The lanky and nondescript midlevel diplomat was enjoying the trip to New York, getting away from Washington for a day.

“Not today. I drank too much at the Danish ambassador’s party last night,” responded the heavyset Mohammed Javid Bhatti, a cultural attaché of the Pakistani Foreign Office. “In about a half hour, you’ll be sorry for eating that stuff.”

Jimmy Doyle knocked back a deep draft of cold beer. “No way, Javid. Next to a Nathan’s hot dog, this is my favorite food.”

“You should learn moderation in all things.”

“Javid, you’re the one with the hangover, and you’re fatter than me. Moderate yourself, pal.” He took another sip of beer, glanced around and saw the area around their table was clear, and lowered his voice. “So, do we have this medical team thing buttoned up on your side?”

Bhatti nodded. “We think so. My contacts assure me that, contrary to local rumors, the Taliban slaughtered them—an act of pure banditry. What probably started as simple robbery escalated when a Bible was found in their belongings.”

“Escalated, you say? Escalated? They killed them all!”

Javid waved away the protest, as if brushing away a fly. “It’s over, Jimmy. Over and done. Our army tracked down the raiders and destroyed their camp, killing four of them. We took care of it. Wars have unintended consequences.”

Jimmy Doyle pushed away his plate and put his elbows on the table to lean in closer. “But this wasn’t war, Javid. It was a group of trained medical professionals trying to help your country’s flood refugees in the middle of a disaster situation. Our country is pouring in aid, and we don’t like our people shot for delivering it.”

“Save the moral outrage, Jimmy. My countrymen don’t enjoy having our people attacked by Predator drones, but it happens almost every day. You didn’t even give us advance warning on the Osama bin Laden raid, and that also was on our territory. Remember that?” Javid Bhatti folded his napkin and put it beside his plate of half-eaten salad. “Anyway, we don’t want this new incident to gain any more traction in the media. There is too much at stake.”

Doyle nodded. “That is exactly what my boss in the Bureau of American-Islamic Affairs thinks, so we are in agreement. We have sent word up and down the diplomatic food chain that this was a most regrettable incident and that our Pakistani allies have taken prompt and appropriate action.”

“No American military intervention?”

“No. The sooner this goes away, the better.”

Bhatti agreed. “As a gesture of thanks to the international community for all of their sacrifices and help, we have given permission to construct a new refugee center not far from the area of the ambush, and will provide army protection.”

“You mentioned local rumors. What about?”

“The usual. Evil spirits were responsible. Some villagers take comfort in quaint superstition instead of uncomfortable fact.”

“Evil spirits with AK-47s and sharp knives. Let’s leave that out of any report. It would just clutter up the findings.”

“Agreed.”

“We bullshit pretty good for a couple of minor functionaries,” said Jimmy Doyle.

“Indeed we do,” agreed Javid Bhatti. “Indeed we do. Are you going to the party at the Colombian ambassador’s residence tonight?”

Test pilot Buck Gardener and his astrophysicist wife, red-headed Erin Tyne-Gardener, had a wedding made in heaven and a marriage made in hell. The two attractive young people, who had met after they had been selected for astronaut training, had somehow found time for romance among the rockets. The wedding, which was widely publicized by the NASA public relations department, took place within a year, and the couple walked beneath crossed swords and into the cameras. Four years later, they hated each other but endured living together rather than ignite a divorce scandal that might jeopardize both careers. It had worked, to a point. Erin had been picked for the first Mars program shot, but Buck had been left behind in the wake of his superstar bitch wife. He wasn’t going to Mars, or to the moon, or even back to the rattletrap space station. Buck, once a hot jet jock, wasn’t going anywhere.