Джанет Моррис - The 40-Minute War

“I’ve got a vibrator on my belt,” he grinned, showing her a metal clip, “that will let me know if you’ve activated the transmitter or if you’ve switched the homer on or off. So don’t fiddle with it unless you’re in trouble.”

“Right. Never cry wolf,” she nodded.

“Now, when we get out there, we’ll take off our masks and I’m going to give you a big goodbye kiss in front of Mac and the others, and you’re going to return it, okay? You’ve still got your job to do with those diplomats and we have to protect Beck’s cover.”

They were coming out onto the barracks steps and as they did, Slick finished settling his own mask on his head and checked hers, paying special attention to the filters below her jaw.

“Good enough, you’re getting the hang of it; great, considering that this is just a drill and you know it’s not much worse than Jerusalem out here. That’s what we want you to do—build up habitual reactions, even if the dips aren’t smart enough to follow your lead,” he said, his voice sounding odd because she was receiving it through her hood’s communication system as well as through the air.

“That’s nice to hear.” She let him take her hand, feeling detached, as if everything beyond the plastic in front of her eyes was happening on a video screen, as if none of it were dangerous, as if none of it could hurt her.

Beck loved her; she’d play her part. She shied away from thinking about his family—her woman’s intuition told her that they were dead and that she shouldn’t be happy about it, but she was. They were going to get through this and go back to the Middle East and live as normal a life as possible.

All the way to the chopper pad where the fact-finding tour was assembling, she kept seeing Beck’s face: his deep eyes with their inherent calm and soothing intelligence, his quick smile, the way he could make you pledge allegiance with a stare. Not only did he care about her as a woman, he respected her as a person—he’d brought her along because she could be useful, because she was capable, because he respected her.

She hadn’t been so optimistic since before she’d heard the first rumors of the war.

In front of the diplomats and their Delta bodyguards, she and Slick took off their masks and kissed fervently; she thought she even felt his penis stir against her and wondered just how far Ashmead’s deputy would go for operational verisimilitude. She liked Slick, she really did; he just wasn’t Beck.

Commander McGrath broke up their theatrical embrace: “That’s enough, you two. You don’t have to make the rest of us feel lonely. Save it for tomorrow night, when we get back here.”

Slick gave her a long, regretful look as he fitted his mask over his face and she let Mac lead her to the Black Hawk.

Once inside, strapped into a makeshift passenger seat between Zenko Tsutsumi and Dugard, her elation over the events of last evening quickly faded. Across from her sat five flinty-eyed bodyguards, Delta commandos of the same stripe as the Saiyeret she’d encountered on the dirt road north of Jericho when Beck had let her go with him to the interdiction site. All of that made better sense now, but the presence of these black-suited fighters, armed to the teeth and bulky with electronics and she-didn’t-know-what strapped to their chests and waists, made her nervous, especially because they had their masks hanging around their necks like horse collars as if to say: Who gives a shit what happens in twenty years; we don’t expect to be around long enough to worry about it .

Chris was incapable of not worrying about it: she wanted to have a baby, some day—soon, if she could. Beck’s baby, if he was willing. Hesitantly, when Commander McGrath came up to her and gently told her to take her mask off, saying, “It’s safe as a grave in here, Chris, you’ve got my word on it,” his eyes kind but teasing, she complied.

Only Mac was a friendly face; Bandar bin Faisal ignored her, nursing his injured pride: how, his eyes seemed to say, could she have chosen the attentions of such a person as Slick over his own? Such men, in his country, were bought by the kilogram, expended as Allah willed.

Once the Black Hawk lifted off with a shiver and an escalating whine of rotors and Mac, his mask dangling around his neck and his harness unbuckled, had convinced the dignitaries to do the same and relax while the pilots gave them a running commentary on points of interest over the intercom, he invited her “aft” with him.

Aft they went, crouching in the diminished headroom toward the chopper’s tail, where he assured her it was safe to smoke a cigarette and offered his calloused palm as their common ashtray.

Crouched on her haunches, the handgun Mac had chosen for her jabbed her hip; the holster which secured it to her belt was merely a strap of molded leather, unidentifiable as what it was when no weapon rested in it.

They talked about her “qualifying shoot” for a while, going over the procedures Ashmead had taught her while Mac had stood by.

“Just remember,” Mac said now, “that it’s got no grip safety and one up the spout, so if you squeeze that trigger while it’s cocked and your thumb safety’s not engaged, it’s going to go bang.”

“Bang?” she repeated, looking down at her side askance.

“That’s right, soldier. Bang. So let’s not have any accidents.”

He was still looking at the weapon on her hip and finally she realized why and engaged the thumb safety as she’d been taught.

“Thank you,” said the SEAL commander with equanimity. “I feel a lot better now. This may be none of my business, but if you and Slick aren’t a permanent item, I might be tempted to pull out all the stops myself.” He watched her as he spoke, his pale eyes cool and glinting with amusement and something more intimate.

“Sorry,” she said firmly. “I’m flattered, but I’m an old-fashioned girl.” She hadn’t been, not until Beck.

“Me, too. War makes people forward….”

“I bet you’ve got a girl in every port. Isn’t that the Navy way?”

“Yep. But on board this bird, I don’t. Just so you’ll know there’s no hard feelings, I’m going to appoint myself your personal bodyguard for the duration—you have any problems, you come directly to me with them. Rafic thinks very highly of you and that’s an automatic rating in my book.”

Just then one of the commandos came toward them, crouching as he got closer: “Sir, somebody on board’s using electronics that are fouling up the pilot’s instruments.” The commando was eyeing her steadily.

Her hand went to her watch, cradling it. She didn’t know whether to surreptitiously turn it off or explain.

Mac said, “Shit, I thought we searched that bunch,” rising into a crouch. Then she tugged at his sleeve and he looked at her over his shoulder and shook his head infinitesimally. “I’ll handle this, Lieutenant. You stay here with the lady.”

Uncertain as to what she was supposed to do, she tapped the winding stem which would silence her watch’s homing device and wriggled sideways so that the Delta commando would have room to sit without touching her.

He had longish hair and a short beard and through it he said, “Old Prick’s going to have our butts for breakfast tomorrow about this, lady. If you’re one of Rafic’s little girls, make my life easy—turn whatever you’ve got off before we crash into some damn tree or a mountain peak. This is no terrain for a three-day hike with a hot wind blowing.”

“I don’t know what you mean, Lieutenant,” she said and saw from his narrowing eyes that he didn’t believe her but that for some reason his esteem for her was increased.

Almost immediately, after talking quietly to each dignitary in turn, Mac came back and said: “All taken care of, Lieutenant. And it’s time all of us rejoined the others. Miss Patrick is from The New York Times and she’s got work to do that had better not include interviews with any of us.”