LITMIR.BIZ

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      The big Fed poured a large foam cup of Kurtzman’s infamous coffee, then dumped enough sugar in the black swill to make it go down a little easier. “Five days, as a matter of fact, since we put this one on the drawing board. I don’t mind saying I’m feeling the strain myself, people, and all the way to the hair on my toes,” Brognola told the key players, grabbing his seat, dumping himself down at the head of the table. “The Man’s as clued in like I was the burning bush to his Moses, all right, but he’s firmly stated his concerns about what could become a whopping and ugly international mess.”

      “Welcome to the Oval Office,” Kurtzman groused.

      “I damn near said that. At any rate, it’s why I’ve been at my office all day, waiting by the phone, lighting a few more fires around Wonderland.” He glowered at the red phone on the table within arm’s reach. “Looks like we’re all still going to have to wait—if and when—for the tough choice to get made.”

      The chopper ride from his office at the Justice Department to the Farm in Virginia was roughly ninety minutes. But with only a catnap on the office couch, here and there during the past few days Brognola felt as if he’d just crossed three time zones, jet lag and ten years older. Tired as King Solomon perhaps over the folly and insanity of humans chasing the wind, on edge admittedly, and leaning a little to the mean side.

      Brognola worked on the coffee, chomping his stogie, then said, “Okay, sitreps. I know we’ve run it down before, but maybe we missed something. A to Z. The basics and the particulars. Let’s start with Phoenix Force. Barbara?”

      The honey-haired blonde, who could have just walked off the pages of a fashion magazine and into the War Room, took up a remote-control box and snapped on one of the large monitors built into the wall. An enlarged grid map of Madagascar and the Indian Ocean to the east flared to life. “The hunter-killer submarine Seawolf SSN 21 is submerged and still holding its position, forty kilometers and change from where Phoenix will be inserted on the eastern central shore of Madagascar. Sat imagery shows it’s a remote area, with only two villages and a scattering of rice terraces, a solitary Catholic church along the march. It will be your basic grunt march—move fast and silent and avoid contact with the locals. According to our and the Seawolf’s depth gauges and X-ray sat imagery of the water, the inlet’s bottom is smooth enough, slanting evenly up to shore, no crags, no snags, to receive the unarmed torpedo that will carry their gear and weapons onto the beach. Something like an underwater surfboard, special delivery riding right up on the sand. Ready and waiting for them to finish out their swim.”

      Brognola grunted. “For some reason, I get damn nervous over the idea of inserting them by sea. I see twenty things going wrong all at once. Aren’t those shark-infested waters? As in great white?”

      “Actually,” Kurtzman said, “the eastern coastline of Madagascar is called Whale Highway. Most of the marine life traffic is made up primarily of the larger animals, at least, namely migrating humpback whales.”

      “I hear primarily and actually and namely, I don’t exactly get a warm fuzzy feeling, Bear. I’m not sure, but I don’t think they teach wanna-be SEALs in BUDs what the hell to do—other than pray—when they see a sixteen-foot torpedo-like shadow coming at them out of the murk with bared teeth the size of a butcher’s knife.”

      “Your white shark population sticks farther to the south, off the coastline of South Africa where there’s an abundant seal menu.”

      “Why couldn’t it have been an air drop instead of going out the hatch of a submersible?”

      “A minisub,” Price said. “Riding piggyback on the escape hatch of the Seawolf. A submersible requires a surface support vehicle at all times, often needs to be hooked by cable to the mother ship. The state-of-the-art Titan was designed by aerodynamic engineers for the specific intent of inserting soldiers by sea. It’s not a deep research vessel by any stretch. It’s built for speed and deployment of combat troops.”

      “I stand corrected. If I sounded like a grumpy old man, Barbara…”

      “I understand perfectly. Okay, Aaron and I ran down the logistics, worked out the timetable from start to finish. Jack Grimaldi and a blacksuit crew are parked on a military base, courtesy of our own State Department’s clout with a few government officials in Tanzania. Once Phoenix hits the beach, Jack will be contacted by us, hooked up on a three-way sat uplink with the ground troops. The AC-130 Spectre gunship will take off from Dar es Salaam, fly east by southeast, then due south, move in, westward, once it hits their insertion point. Sat imagery lines up the old French garrison, due west, approximately ten kilometers west of where they will come ashore.”

      “And if Jack gets there first?”

      “He’ll fly a holding pattern, and hope. However, we have this timed down to the minute, Hal.”

      “There was never any doubt.”

      “To answer your question,” Price said, “about an air insertion, we know the garrison has state-of-the-art radar, sold to the government in Antananarivo—or Tana for short—by France. We’ve picked up machine-gun nests, but no antiaircraft batteries and no fighter jets. However, if one of the terrorists is running around with a Stinger when this goes down, the Spectre would be history if it’s wielded by even semicapable hands. Besides,” she added, a trace of sarcasm in her tone, “the former French colony has been attempting to go democratic for about ten years.”

      “How? By giving safe haven to a small army of international murderers?”

      Price shrugged. “What can I say? All of us know graft and corruption don’t care about the difference between communism, iron-handed dictatorship or fledgling democracy.”

      “I hear you.”

      Brognola heaved a breath, told himself to drop it down a notch, aware his jacked-up mood was affecting and stretching taut nerves all around.

      Price rode out a moment of silence, then said, “The way I figured it, since Madagascar is an island four hundred kilometers from the east coast of Africa by the Mozambique Channel, and with what we have planned, an air drop sounded too risky. Too much open sea, to get them from point A to B. And the Seawolf was available. Going in by cover of the vast Indian Ocean, and at night, was the lesser of two evils. Once the dust settles and the smoke clears, an airfield about two hundred meters west of the garrison can accommodate Jack and company for a landing. Evacuation for our troops. And we assume, there will be some of the more notable terrorists left standing to be brought back to the States to stand trial for what we know is their involvement in just about every major terrorist attack around the world in the past ten years or more.”

      “We’re assuming an awful lot, all of us,” Kurtzman said. “We all know the President’s position on this. He wants a few live ones to hold up to the cameras. Whipping boys or trophies, I have to wonder.”

      “I told him up front and in no uncertain terms I wasn’t about to make that promise,” Brognola said. “Could be why I’m getting the silent treatment. No way in hell am I putting Phoenix into the fire, working under the assumption these fanatics are just going to throw their hands up and let our guys read them their Miranda rights, recite Geneva Convention nonsense, chapter and verse and all that crazy shit. Besides, I have to agree with the Man to some extent on one point. A few songbird fanatics could have the mother lode of intelligence. Give me a numbers crunch on bad guys.”

      “Bear?” Price said.

      “Two full squads of Madagascan soldiers. Thirty-four, now thirty-one Iranian fanatics.”

      Brognola raised a curious eyebrow over the smoke at the grim tone in Kurtzman’s voice. “I get the feeling you want to tell me something?”

      “I’ll do better. I’ll show you, live and in color.” Kurtzman palmed his own remote and flashed on a sat image that made Brognola freeze as the steaming brew was being raised to his lips. “We have an ONI-1 satellite, courtesy of the DIA, parked in space over Madagascar.”

      Kurtzman muttered a curse. “There’s our Butcher of

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