John Ringo: Ghost

“So that’s the way it is,” Mike said, breathing out. “In that case, I’m glad I came here.”

“As am I,” the colonel replied, turning to walk again. “With your diplomatic passport, Mr. ‘Duncan,’ the most that can be done to you is expulsion and making you persona non grata. And with the pressure the Cliff Administration exerted on your behalf, you have access to the full area. But I repeat; letting them know the van has been spotted, if it is here, will likely cause them to detonate the item.”

“It would have been nice if it had been stopped before it arrived in the middle of Paris,” Mike pointed out.

“Perhaps it will be,” the colonel said, shrugging. “Perhaps it is not here. Perhaps it will be found on some road somewhere else, and it will be their headache. And, then again, perhaps it is.”

“You have a suspicion?” Mike asked.

“No, simply the same deductive reasoning I assume you used,” the colonel said, stopping at the edge of the press area. “And here we must part, alas. I have many things to attend to, as do you. Feel free to stop by the van again; we have a superior coffee I would have you try.”

“Now you tell me,” Mike said, chuckling. “But onward and upward.” With that he passed through the security cordon around the press area.

The area set aside for parking the press vans was packed. Everyone in the news industry appeared to be there. There were vans for CNN and Skynews, all the major American networks, BBC and all the rest of the European networks. Most of them seemed to have more than one van. Mike quickly zoomed in on the larger ones, which were, he determined, mostly satellite uplink vans. All of them had dishes on top and he recognized that, if their van was there, they’d had to have been retrofitted somewhere. Most of the dishes were up and pointed at satellites, but not all.

He wandered around the area for about an hour, looking for anomalies and finding none. Part of that was the controlled chaos of the environment. People were moving around doing things about which he knew nothing. There were people arguing by the vans, people sitting around tapping at laptops, people eating breakfast.

He checked a couple of vans that were from networks he’d never heard of, and looked closely at the Al Jazeera van. That one had the usual collection of Middle Eastern types, including a woman, probably a reporter, who was a real looker. But he could hear the generator as he passed. He’d already determined that the generators were for providing power to the satellite links and all the rest of the equipment in the vans. But if they were running, they couldn’t contain a bomb.

After a while he got frustrated and headed back to the command center, cadging a cup of very good coffee and a couple of stale croissants. He hung around the command center for a bit, thinking, until he’d finished off the croissants, then headed back to the press area, sipping his coffee.

He was walking down the line of vans when he saw a lone person sitting outside of one from ABC. The guy looked like an American, blond hair cut short on the sides, American clothes, so Mike wandered over.

“How’s it going?” Mike asked, sitting down on a spool of cable.

“Purty good,” the guy replied in a thick Southern accent. “Gonna be a nice day.”

It was, too. There had apparently been a cold front through so the air was crisp and felt washed clean. The sky was clear and deep blue and the sun shone on Notre Dame perfectly.

“What’s your name?” Mike asked, continuing to look around. He saw a cluster of Middle Eastern types, probably drivers, and honed in on them for a second.

“Steve Edmonson,” the ABC guy said. “I’m from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. You?”

“Michael Duncan,” Mike replied. “Florida.”

“You don’t have a press badge,” the guy said.

“Nope,” Mike replied, turning back to look at him. He was eating a piece of pressed meat with a side of rice. In the Dari areas of Afghanistan, Mike had eaten the same thing. They called it chelo kebab, but it was what people in the U.S. put in gyros. Mike blinked for a second as something bothered him, but he mentally shoved it away. “I’m with the U.S. embassy. Just keeping an eye on things, you know. Making sure everyone has all the credentials they need and whatnot. You been over here long?”

“Nope,” Steve said, finishing off the last of the meat and rice. “Born and raised in Alabama. Went to UA. Roll Tide and all that. Got a degree in video tech and a job with ABC. Been all over the U.S., but this is my first overseas assignment. Sitting in Paris, nursemaiding a broken van.”

Mike watched as Steve set down his fork, and it hit him. Americans, almost invariably, will cut a piece of meat with the fork in their left hand and then change back to holding it in their right. Steve had been eating with the fork held, almost the whole time, in his left. It was the “Continental” style of eating. And he’d done it smoothly and flawlessly. It wasn’t just that he was trying to pick up local manners, it was his normal mode of doing things.

“What’s wrong with the van?” Mike asked disinterestedly.

“Generator’s broke,” “Steve” said. “We’ve got a call in to a tech, but I can’t get it running.”

“You got any other problems?” Mike asked, taking a sip of coffee.

“Other than the generator, nope,” Steve said.

“Well, if you do have any, call the embassy,” Mike said, standing up. “They’ll know how to get in touch with me.”

“Will do,” Steve said, smiling. “Good to hear American again.”

“Same here,” Mike replied, grinning back. “It’s gonna be a good day.”

He wandered back out of the press area, stopping from time to time to chat with the American crews, then over to the command post.

“Colonel Chateauneuf?” he asked one of the sergeants at the main van.

“He is around,” the sergeant said, shrugging.

“Call him,” Mike said in a command tone. “Now.”

“You, as they say, rang?” Colonel Chateauneuf said, strolling up.

“I hope like hell I didn’t hit pay dirt,” Mike said, pulling him over to where they could talk quietly. “But I think I did. There are three ABC vans. One of them has a ‘broken’ generator. The guy nursemaiding it says he’s American, and he’s got a good accent, but he’s not.”

“And you know this, how?” the colonel asked, carefully.

“The way he eats?” Mike said. “Word choice? He’s not.”

“Does he know that you suspect?” the colonel asked.

“I’m pretty sure not,” Mike replied.

“So… and so…” the colonel said, blowing out and grimacing. “How to do this?”

“I have an idea,” Mike said.

“Hey, Steve,” Mike said, walking over to the ABC van. “Your country needs you.”

“What?” the man said, standing up from where he’d been tapping on his laptop.

“I’ve got a situation I need help with,” Mike replied, closing the laptop and pulling on his arm. “Quick. CBS has managed to really piss off the French. Something about camera angles. I don’t know for camera angles so I need a third party to interpret.”

“I’ve got to watch the van,” Steve said desperately, his accent slipping.

“Look, this won’t take more than five minutes,” Mike replied, stuffing the laptop into the man’s case and hanging it over his shoulder. “It’s locked, right?”

“Yeah,” “Steve” said, allowing himself to be led away.

Mike led him out of the press area and over to an area that was near the command post and out of sight.

“So,” Mike said as they rounded a corner and “Steve” found himself confronted by three sub-gun wielding police and Colonel Chateauneuf, “care to tell me who you really are?”