Part 33 (1/2)
He had gotten kind of turned around, so he pulled over to check the map. And it was a lucky thing too. While the hot engine ticked, he heard another vehicle. He got out of the Land Rover and moved down the trail.
Ahead was a beat-up pickup, painted jungle green, with four soldiers in it, two inside, two in the back. They had AKs like his, and they were cruising along slow, looking.
Platt realized that if he hadn't stopped, he might have run right into them, and with four guns against his one, that could have been real bad-especially if they had seen him first, which they would have probably done, since they were looking and he wasn't.
He hadn't figured on a border patrol. He revised his opinion up a little. Maybe these jungle bunnies were sharper than he'd thought. Bad idea to underestimate the other side.
After the truck had time to get a couple of miles away, he went back to the Rover. Better take it slow and careful from here on in.
He figured he needed to get fairly close to the city, then find himself a place to hide the Rover, 'cause he'd need it to leave. And he'd have to hole up for a day, until tomorrow night, because he definitely didn't want to be moving around during the day, disguise or not. Tuesday night, good and dark, he'd mosey on in and do his business.
As he drove through a field of high gra.s.s, the damp and heavy air rumbled with distant thunder. He could smell the approaching rain.
Oh, good. A storm, just what he needed to slow him down even more.
On the other hand, a thunderstorm would probably keep the local militia inside drinking bull pee or whatever it was they drank, and that would be good. He wasn't lookin' to get shot if he could help it.
He wiped sweat away from his forehead with the back of his right hand. d.a.m.n, but it was muggy here.
He saw a cloud of mosquitoes or flies or something buzzing in the air ahead of him, and he reached for the bug dope spray in the bag on the pa.s.senger seat. Be another good thing the rain would do, keep the bugs down. All he needed was to catch sleeping sickness or malaria or elephant.i.tis from all this c.r.a.p.
No two ways about it, he was gonna take a little more than the twenty million when he talked to Hughes. He sure had it coming.
Monday, January 1 7th, 9 p.m. In the air over the Atlantic Ocean p.m. In the air over the Atlantic Ocean ”Banjul, huh?” Joanna said.
Seated next to her in the seat of the team's 747, Fernandez said, ”Yep. It's in The Gambia, kind of an insert around the Gambia River, runs right into the lower half of Senegal. A little farther away than we wanted, right on the coast, but it's the only airport south of Dakar where we can put this bird down and not be noticed. The Company has a store there-we're switching to a couple of Hueys for the rest of the trip. So we'll go in at treetop level Tuesday night, land, do our thing, then come out. It worked great on that Chechnya caper, it sure ought to work out here in darkest Guinea-Bissau. I don't think their radar is exactly state-of-the-art. Even if they see us, they don't have much to throw at us or chase us with.”
”Heads up, here comes the colonel,” Joanna whispered.
”Sir,” Fernandez said as John Howard stopped next to their seats.
”Sergeant, Lieutenant.” Howard looked at them for a couple of seconds, then smiled.
”Something funny, sir?” Fernandez said.
”Not really. You know that joke you were remembering when I called you on the way back from Was.h.i.+ngton State? The one you laughed at?”
”I remember.”
”I do believe I get it now, Sergeant. Carry on.”
After the colonel left, Joanna looked at Fernandez. ”What was that all about?”
Fernandez grinned widely. ”I expect the colonel knows that you and I have been, ah... intimate.”
”How would he know that? You bragging?”
”No, ma'am, as proud as I am of it, I didn't say a word. But I've been working for the man for a long time. He doesn't have a dull edge, and he knows me too well. Any time a man feels as good as I do, it shows. And I expect that it shows more when you're around, seeing as how you're the reason. Is this a problem?”
”Not for me. In fact, I'm going to take a run to the head. You want to come along?” She waggled her eyebrows like Groucho Marx in an old black-and-white movie.
”You know, you are an evil evil woman, Lieutenant Winthrop, teasing a man that way.” woman, Lieutenant Winthrop, teasing a man that way.”
”You don't know the half of it, Sergeant. I'm just getting vanned up with you. Besides, who said I was teasing?”
”Brought your wavy knife, I see,” Alex said.
Toni looked up and nodded. She had the kris kris in its wooden scabbard on her lap. ”Guru is convinced the in its wooden scabbard on her lap. ”Guru is convinced the kris kris is magic. I figured it wouldn't hurt.” is magic. I figured it wouldn't hurt.”
He nodded, then said, ”I'm just going to have a few words with the colonel. Looks like everything is on schedule. We'll be at the airport in a few more hours. We'll transfer stuff to helicopters there, then on to the target.”
”You couldn't talk the colonel into letting you go into the city on the mission, could you?”
He smiled, shook his head. ”No. And the truth is, I'm not unhappy with us staying with the pilots at the copters until they get back. My recent success as a soldier in the field was more luck than skill. This is what Howard and his team do. I don't want to get in the way.”
”We could stay in Banjul,” she said.
”Do that, and we might as well have stayed in Was.h.i.+ngton.”
”Didn't I say that in the first place?”
”Yep. But look, we came this far, we might as well go along for the ride.”
”As long as we both go along for the ride,” she said.
He smiled at her.
So far, he hadn't said anything to her about that other thing she had said. The ”I love you” part. It had seemed the right thing to her at the time, but after she had done it, she'd been almost sick with fear. They had kissed each other for a few minutes in the front seat of a very small car, that was all. It was maybe too early to be hitting him with something that heavy. What if he didn't feel anything for her other than l.u.s.t? She knew that was there, there wasn't any way to hide the evidence of that. And she wanted it, s.e.x with him, and she would settle for that, for now, but she also wanted a lot more.
Then again, he hadn't said anything about it, and that meant he hadn't refuted it either. Or maybe he hadn't even heard it.
No news was good news-or at least it wasn't bad news.
She wouldn't push it. She would see what happened. The magic in the kris kris had gotten her this far. Maybe it would help take her the rest of the way... had gotten her this far. Maybe it would help take her the rest of the way...
Chapter Thirty-Nine.
Tuesday, January 18th, 6 p.m. Bissau, Guinea-Bissau Domingos had some pressing state business he had to attend to-probably a ribbon cutting at a new bodega or something-so Hughes enjoyed his cigar and brandy in solitude. Well, save for the brief appearance of a messenger who informed him that the five o'clock plane had come, and that once again Platt was not on it.