John Ringo - Cally's War

The toughest part of this situation was that he couldn’t let himself get involved, no matter how much he might like to. He was living a lie, and there was no telling how her reaction to him would change when she found out the truth. Would she see him as just another opportunist? Would she see him as being like the asshole? Just another predatory juv general? Or could she possibly understand why he’d had to do this?

Bobby Mitchell was good at surveillance, and his skills had only improved since leaving law enforcement. A throwback to a touch of Sioux on his daddy’s side and a hint of Mex on his momma’s, he was a small, slightly nervous man with dark hair, dark eyes, skin that tanned easily, and a talent for blending in with his surroundings, whether people or environmental.

Bobby maintained his tan very carefully, having noticed early on how disinclined people were to notice a swarthy, average to short man engaged in manual labor.

Today, he was sweeping a sidewalk across from a park. Bobby’s natural vision hadn’t been all that good, but the damned aliens had some doctors that weren’t too shabby. As he progressed along the sidewalk, he was from twenty to eighty yards from the park bench that allegedly was the enemy dead drop, yet he could clearly make out the features of anyone on or approaching the bench.

He could have used electronics, of course. And he did have them, as a backup. Still, after seeing just a few of the things his damned alien bosses could do with recorded data, Bobby was a firm believer in the personal touch. He’d never been one to assume the enemy was incompetent or stupid.

Besides, the mission here was purely confirmation of a tip in advance of a raid.

He was halfway down the sidewalk sweeping, the second time, when the very average black man with conservative scalp patterns, dressed in a dirty sky blue windbreaker and jeans, sat down on the bench. The face was a dead ringer for one of the four in the tip file, and he admired the smoothness of the man brushing a hand under the edge of the bench under cover of tossing crumbs to the pigeons. You had to admire the artistry. He didn’t even see him read it, and only knew it was probably a note on flashpaper from the slight excess flare as the man lit a cigarette, standing and strolling casually back the way he had come.

Tip confirmed, mission accomplished. Bobby continued his sweeping all around the square, palming his back-up cameras as he passed them.

The Fleet Strike puke who picked up their cameras from within the park itself half an hour later was clumsy, wearing civilian clothes that were too carefully sloppy and too new and overacting his casualness, although his sleight of hand was acceptable. Still, it was obvious Fleet Strike hadn’t faced a serious threat from an opposing intelligence force in a long time.

Too bad he couldn’t count on all their people being that inexperienced. It was probably overkill, but he’d still plan the raid as if they were going to be competent competitors for the prizes.

After cleaning up the last camera, he disappeared down an alley to his ten-year-old gray sedan, throwing the broom in his back seat. His AID looked like a cheap discount-store brand PDA. He took a moment to call his cousin, “Hey, Johnny. Yeah, it’s me. We’re on for beer and pizza Tuesday. My place.”

Tip confirmed, raid on schedule, set the wheels in motion. And may we all get nice bonuses out of this.

As he got off the bus, Levon Martin took out the baggy where he’d saved a bit of bread from his sandwich. He tore the bread into crumbs as he walked from the stop to the park.

It was a beautiful day but a trifle windy. His clothes had the well worn look of the comfortable clothes that a man might wear for a walk on his day off. The air today smelled fresh and green, and he couldn’t help but be cheered a bit by the profusion of dandelions that pushed up between the cracks of the crumbling sidewalks, giving way suddenly to solid concrete and well-tended flower boxes as he turned onto the square.

In the park in the middle of the square, he found a spot on the left end of the bench that was mostly clear of pigeon droppings and sat, playing out the crumbs to the fat, iridescent birds as they waddled and pecked at the bits of bread and sometimes at each other.

Somewhere in the middle he managed to palm the flash paper sticky-note stuck to the bottom of the bench. Under cover of crumbling a bit more bread, he tore off the corner of the paper that held a few tiny dots of film that would yield up their data later, under magnification. The rest of the note simply said, “Plus one hour for Joe.”

He kept it palmed while he finished feeding the birds and disposed of it before he left by the simple expedient of burning it as he lit a cigarette, covered by the flare of his lighter. The baggy with the data dots went into his pocket. Wonder what in the hell Barry has going on that necessitates pushing back the mid-cycle meeting? Not that it matters.

There were various people in the square or on the walkways this Sunday afternoon, but none of them stood out. There was nothing to distinguish the sidewalk sweeper from any of a couple of dozen other people going about their business in plain sight.

Martin walked back out to his bus stop, arriving five minutes before the next scheduled pickup at that stop. After a short wait, he boarded his bus and was gone.

Peter Vanderberg contemplated the young major in front of him, from the slightly long for regulation hair to the precise fit of his silks and liked what he saw. What he primarily liked about David Morrison couldn’t be seen on the surface. Alert, competent, smart. Attentive to detail without getting bogged down and overcome by trivialities. Good delegating authority. All these were reasons for the man to have obtained the exalted rank of major at the unusually young age of thirty-six.

His 201 file was virtually perfect, as was true of almost all of the new breed of young Fleet Strike officers.

“So. Now that our intel is confirmed, I expect a finalized operational plan for capture of the targets ready to brief in the participants by eleven hundred tomorrow. You can use my briefing room, since I’ll want to be there. Look at me, David.” He caught the major’s eyes as they dropped slightly to meet his own. “I can’t emphasize enough how important this mission is. Use whatever you need to get it done.”

“Yes, sir.” He nodded. “My preliminary plan is for a solid team in civilian clothes backed up by a substantial number of uniformed MPs who can be thoroughly concealed and held under radio silence until and unless needed.”

“Reasonable. Get on it. I’ll see you tomorrow. Dismissed.”

“Yes, sir.” The about face was clean, but relaxed, confident. Good man. As soon as Stewart was out in the open, he was definitely sending him a mixed case of Havanas and good scotch, and damn the cost.

“So he didn’t notice that you had your buckley do all those time-wasting reports he wanted?” Stewart had doubled back to the office, since Sinda didn’t have to be at the asshole’s quarters until his wife left at nineteen hundred.

“Well, he did comment that they were a bit pessimistic.” She trailed a finger down his chest, grinning conspiratorially. “I blamed it on PMS.

“So,” she took a finger and tapped him on the chest, “we’ve just about exhausted the possibilities of the regular office but you ,” she tapped him again, “have access to the locked room off of Beed’s office. Is there any… interesting furniture or anything in there?”