Greg Rucka - A gentleman_s game

"No. But I'm marginally less unhappy than I was when you came in here."

"And here I am, much more unhappy than I was when I came in here."

"I'll make copies," Crocker said.

"Hold it, hold on a second."

He stopped, halfway to his feet.

"She has to get our man out alive, Paul. That's my condition. I've given you what you want, now I want something, too. She needs to get him out alive and with cover intact."

"You don't ask for much, do you?"

"You've got a hell of a lot of gall, saying that."

Crocker thought about that, then nodded.

"Yes," he said. "I suppose I do." • It was past eleven by the time Crocker saw Cheng out of the building, and after leaving her he went straight to the Ops Room. The night staff was on duty, Gary Draper at Duty Ops, Max Fletcher at Coms.

"D-Ops on the floor," Draper announced as Crocker entered.

"Easy," Crocker said. "Max?"

"Sir?"

"We have a direct contact for Noah Landau at Mossad?"

"Checking, sir."

Crocker waited, hands in his pockets, looking at the plasma screen wall. There were two operations running currently, one in Singapore, the other in Accra, both of them run-of-the-mill jobs, missions named Lightbulb and Bookstore, respectively. There was nothing marking Saudi Arabia.

"We have a contact number, yes, sir," Max said. "Two in the morning there, I'm not sure we'll be able to reach him."

"Make the call, then run it through to my office."

"Very good, sir." Max hesitated, then added, "Shall I log it, sir?"

Crocker pretended not to hear him as he left the floor. • He caught the phone on the first ring. "D-Ops."

"Noah Landau on the line, sir," Max said.

"Patch him in." Crocker waited for the click, then the line noise to resolve, the slight whining in the background scrambling the conversation. "Mr. Landau?"

"Mr. Crocker." Landau's voice was distorted but understandable. "Very late to be calling."

"I need you to pass on a message to Chace and Wallace," Crocker said. "There's a friendly in the camp, he won't raise arms against them, that's how he'll identify. They need to get him out. Can you pass that along?"

The whining on the line grew louder, then faded before Landau spoke again.

"I'm afraid that won't be possible."

"Why the hell not?"

"Because, Mr. Crocker," Landau said, "they're already there."

Saudi Arabia-Tabuk Province, the Wadi-as-Sirhan 22 September 0121 Local (GMT+3.00)

The helicopter had flown in so low it hadn't actually descended to let Chace and Wallace jump out. As soon as their feet hit the ground, their hands shielding their eyes from the whirling sand spiraling around them, the helicopter banked swiftly away, and for a moment Chace thought the bird would end up nose down on the desert floor. But as she and Wallace ran for cover, dropped to their bellies, their submachine guns in their hands, she heard the sound of the rotors receding to an echo and then to silence.

It was warm, the earth beneath her still holding the heat from the day, but not unpleasantly so. Borovsky had said it would be in the low seventies Fahrenheit, "good weather for walking," he had told them.

"Want to come along, then?" Wallace had asked, and Borovsky had laughed that annoying laugh of his and shaken his head, saying that he thought the two of them would have more fun without him.

Later, as Chace and Wallace had been kitting up, Wallace had said, "He knows we're shagging."

"It's your fault," Chace said. "You're too loud."

"Right, and you're a churchmouse."

"Oh, so it's bestiality you're after now, is it?"

"I'd say 'moo,' but you might accuse me of calling you a cow."

They'd pulled on their camouflage fatigues, supplied, like all the rest of their kit, by the Israelis. The camo was dark gray, splotched with black, and wouldn't do a damn bit of good for them in daylight, but they weren't planning on spending daylight anywhere they might be spotted. They blacked their faces, checking each other for spots they had missed, and wore black watch caps to hide their hair. The boots Landau had supplied were comfortable and fit well, and he'd even presented them with an extra pair of socks, as requested.

"Anything to help," he'd told them. • She'd returned to Tel Aviv via bus, a ride that had taken almost fourteen hours, getting her back to the apartment at six of two in the morning to find Borovsky waiting with Wallace. They'd already heard the news, and Borovsky had once again offered a proposal of marriage.

"I drink, I smoke, I swear, I can't cook, I don't do laundry, I won't clean, and I don't like children," Chace told him. "Why marry me?"

"No woman is perfect."

"You've never met my mother," Wallace said.

Chace went to take a shower then, scrubbing the journey and the act from her skin as much as she could, examining her bruises. Her left arm was tender to the touch where she'd taken the baton, but the swelling had finally gone down, and her knee was apparently content for the time being to keep its silence.

She'd been under the spray when Wallace came in, taking a seat on the closed toilet, watching her behind the pebbled glass.

"Borovsky gone, then?" Chace asked.

"Just left."

"Then you should get in here."

So he did, and they made love in the shower, or at least tried to, but the stall was too cramped and the danger of slipping seemed to grow exponentially the more aroused they became. Ultimately, they retired to the bed, taking things slowly, Chace basking in Wallace's touch and attention.

Afterward, lying together, bodies idle but for their hands, Wallace said, "I have a plan."

"Does it include this bed?"

"For the Wadi."

"Oh, that."

"You seem uninterested."

"I'm easily distracted."

"Seems to me I should be the one who's distracted." He propped himself up on his elbow, brushing her hair with his fingers. "Landau's still saying they can't put anyone on the ground, but he's willing to arrange the infil by helicopter."

"Nice of him, considering the favor we're doing for him."

"They're making a drop tonight, equipment, they'll put it down about twelve kilometers west of the camp. Tomorrow night they'll drop us in, twenty kilometers west of the camp. We'll have GPS, move to the cache, load up, close on target."

"Why two drops?"

"Time over target," Wallace said. "We want to limit it as much as possible."

"And what are they dropping?"

Wallace's grin indicated the degree to which he was pleased with himself, and from it Chace concluded he was very pleased indeed.

"Claymores."

"The swords?"

Wallace put his head to her shoulder and nipped at her skin, and she yelped, pushed his head away.

"Mines," Wallace said. "Sixteen of them, four hundred feet of det cord, two timers, one for a backup."

"Daisy chain."

"Exactly."

"You're a clever man, Mr. Wallace."

"I do have my moments," he agreed. "They'll also cache food and water for the exfil."

"So we're going to mine the camp and let it fly?"

"Landau's giving us P90s, suppressed, and I asked for two hundred rounds apiece. We'll set the mines, pull back, wait for the detonation-"

"And shoot the survivors."

"Quick job. Brutal, efficient. Crocker would approve."

"Not of this, he wouldn't."

"Let go of that, that's not yours."

"I disagree. I have staked my claim."

He gently moved her hand away, then wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close, and stayed that way until he fell asleep. • Wallace got to his feet slowly, the P90 held ready, and he turned a slow circle in place, checking their immediate perimeter, while Chace used her GPS unit to get a bearing on the cache. The P90s were suppressed, which added roughly a pound to their weight but didn't appreciably affect their handling. The weapons were loaded with fifty rounds; the remaining 150 for each of them with the cache.