Force Protection. Gordon Kent

using English as if he was closing a door.

      Alan didn’t give up. ‘Rafiki yangu, nitaka saidi yako.’ It was pretty bad Swahili, actually – he never could get those agreements of the prefixes – but it got across his plea for help. ‘Tafadhali.’ That meant ‘please.’ In Arabic, sucked into Swahili by the force of convenience on this coast that had been trading with Arabs for two thousand years.

      Ngiri gave a flicker of a smile, held up a long, thin hand like an Ethiopian saint. ‘I will try.’

      Alan started for the superstructure at a trot. He passed the wounded men sprawled in the shadows. The man who had been bleeding was dead.

      

       Bahrain.

      Harry O’Neill tried to ignore the knock on his office door. His house staff knew better than to trouble him when he was on the phone in his home office. He shuffled his slippered feet in annoyance.

      The caller, a rich Saudi with a lucrative security contract to give, required careful handling, and any interruption of the conversation would almost certainly be taken as an insult. O’Neill, a black American with a security business in the Middle East, had learned to be careful with every nuance of courtesy.

      ‘Harry?’ Dave Djalik, ex-SEAL and Harry O’Neill’s best contract operative, was leaning in the door to his office.

      ‘Busy, Dave.’ Harry waved his hand and hardened his voice to convey the seriousness of the situation and went back to his telephone call.

      ‘Harry, you’re going to want to see this.’

      ‘I’m on the phone with an influential –’ Harry looked up and caught the expression on Djalik’s face. He leaned down to the phone and murmured an apology in Arabic. The response made him wince, and then he hung up. Djalik was already gone, and Harry followed him out of the office space in his house and through the foyer where a fountain played on ornamental rocks under a clear dome, and down a short hallway to the one room in Harry’s compound that held a television.

      ‘I’ve already watched it twice,’ Djalik said. He laughed.

      On the screen, a slender man in shorts was climbing out on what appeared to be the derrick of a dockside crane. The yellow lettering at the base of the image said ‘CNN Mombasa, Kenya.’ The camera panned across wreckage and then back to the crane.

      ‘The man on the crane is unidentified, but CNN sources suggest that he is a member of the US Navy,’ a hushed voice from the television said. Djalik laughed again.

      ‘A member of the US Navy! Wait till you see who it is, Harry –’

      One of the cranes was moving, the man on the derrick a passenger, the tension of his grasp on the supports around him clear even at a distance. The crane swung until its arm neared another crane, and the passenger was up and moving, jumping from one to another. A circle appeared around the man.

      ‘We think he’s firing here, Jean,’ one of the reporters said. In the background, Harry could hear somebody talking in French. The camera zoomed in, and he could see the man firing one-handed. Moments later, there was a close-up of the man as he walked along the dock, and Harry saw the man’s maimed hand and it all came together for him.

      ‘Alan Craik,’ he said aloud.

      ‘Bingo,’ Djalik said.

      

      USS Thomas Jefferson.

      Captain Beluscio stood in the Tactical Flag Command Center with his left hand on his hip, his eyes on a television screen that showed the CNN tape, right forefinger pressing a miniaturized headset to his ear. Listening intently to the headset, he was nonetheless giving orders to subordinates with his hands and eyes. Standing in front of him now was the Marine detachment commander, a wiry, muscled man whose short-sleeved shirt already revealed goose bumps on his arms from the frigid air-conditioning. Crew cut, scowling, the Marine looked like a boxer waiting for the bell. Beluscio held up a finger of his free hand to tell the Marine to hang on one more second.

      Beluscio listened. ‘But –’ he said into the headset. ‘But –’ Then, ‘Goddamit, no, but –’

      He threw his head back and rolled his eyes; clearly, somebody was really giving him an earful. He looked up at a wall clock. Reaching a hand forward as if he was going to touch the Marine captain’s cheek, he said softly, ‘Okay, suit up and join your boys. But nobody goes until I give the word!’

      The Marine was gone as soon as he stopped speaking.

      Beluscio glanced at the TV screen, now back to a talking head, and turned his attention again to the headset. ‘I know that, sir –’

      He waved over an aide and murmured into his ear. ‘I want to know how fast Yellowjacket can put her Marines into Kilindini Harbor – at least a company.’ USS Yellowjacket was a Wasp-class gator freighter – a small aircraft carrier with VSTOL aircraft, choppers, and nine hundred Marines. Beluscio had decided to send the Jefferson’s Marines to Kilindini; the idea was that the helos could stay off the coast for at least an hour if need be, then divert to Mombasa airport if the landing zone was still hot. The chief of staff held the man from running off. ‘Tell them my Marines are on the way as advance guard; Yellowjacket is a lot farther away, and what I want to know is how fast they can be there in force, with logistics for at least a week. Go!’ He locked eyes with a female officer across the room and, eyes open in a question, mouthed the name: Craik? The woman shook her head, shrugged, palms up.

      The captain swung around and pressed his whole hand against his ear and all but shouted, ‘No!’ He listened, eyes wide, mouth open. ‘I don’t care who you are, you’re not giving me that order! No!’

      He gestured savagely at a lieutenant-commander a few feet down the space. He made equally savage writing motions; somebody pushed a message pad into his left hand. He was so angry that his handwriting became a tangle of points and edges as he wrote: Message to CNO URGENT. Get these assholes off my back! CIA – FBI – whoever!

      He pushed the pad at the lieutenant-commander and returned to the headphone. ‘Sir, you do that! Go right to the White House! You tell them you’re going to override Navy authority in this area! I hope they ream your ass good. Until then, I’m in charge here, and I’m in charge of the situation at Kilindini! The Harker is Navy responsibility, and the Navy will investigate, and the Navy is in charge! Now get off my comm channel so I can do some real work!’

      A sailor materialized in front of him. ‘Comm has a secure link with Lieutenant-Commander Craik on the Harker, sir.’

      ‘Well, thank God, finally –’

      ‘And, uh, sir, Captain Rafehausen is on channel four for you.’

      Beluscio had an instant realization that everybody, even this sailor, knew of his and Rafehausen’s rivalry, and then he was on channel four and trying to sound neutral. ‘Captain Beluscio.’

      ‘Hey, Pete, Rafe. What’s the situation?’

      ‘I’m up to my ass in alligators, but everything’s under control, okay? We’re on top of it up here.’

      ‘What’s the word on the admiral?’

      Beluscio hesitated. They were both thinking the same thing, he knew: if the admiral had been badly injured, the BG would need a new commander, and Rafehausen had the seniority. ‘Nothing as yet. We’re assuming that he’s alive and well until we hear otherwise.’

      Then it was Rafehausen’s turn to hesitate. ‘Keep me posted, will you?’

      Beluscio repressed a bitter answer and said something neutral. Switching channels, he snarled, ‘Get me this Craik – now!’

      

      Washington.

      Mike Dukas strode up the corridor toward his boss’s boss’s office, his face