Force Protection. Gordon Kent

dock.’

      ‘Do what you gotta do.’

      ‘What’re we looking at – Arab mobs?’

      ‘More like a few real badasses and maybe some street action, demonstrations, like that. This isn’t Palestine, Geelin, and it isn’t Somalia. We’re not at war.’

      Geelin looked down at the damage. ‘Somebody is.’

      ‘Yeah, well, that’s what we’re here to find out. You with me, Geelin?’

      ‘Call me Jack. I’ll get a man down below – sorry, I didn’t understand before, the way it came to me –’

      Alan was starting to speak when Geelin whirled about and leaned over the rail and shouted, ‘What’s that goddam woman doing down there! Bring that woman up here! On the double! On the double –!’

      Woman? His thoughts jerked to Laura Sweigert, as if she might still be alive –

      Alan looked down at the dock and saw that there was a woman down there. But not Laura. Foreshortened by the angle from the bridge, she still looked too tall, too pale, too – what? Sort of limp, as if her bones were made of something softer, like plastic. His respect for Geelin went up: he had never known anybody before who had eyes in the back of his head.

      A Marine began half-dragging, half-coaxing the woman up the ladder.

      She was white, red-haired, a little overweight, and she was, surprisingly, laughing her ass off.

      She raised one white arm and reached across her own head to pull some hair out of her eyes. ‘Hi!’ she said.

      Geelin was all but gritting his teeth. He thrust his helmeted head at hers, ‘What the hell are you doing inside a goddam military perimeter –?’

      Alan put out a hand. ‘Hey, hey –’

      ‘She could get killed! She could get my men killed!’

      ‘Hey, Geelin – easy –’

      ‘I haven’t got the men to nursemaid women!’ He whirled on the woman. ‘Are you a goddam journalist?’

      ‘Belay that, Captain Geelin.’ Their eyes met. Geelin’s shifted away, as if he had remembered rank and discipline. Alan said, ‘I’ll take care of the lady.’

      Geelin’s eyes swung back. ‘I’ll do my job, then, sir.’ He nodded – a substitute for a salute? – and went around the woman without acknowledging her and started down the ladder, calling over his shoulder for the Marine to follow him.

      The woman was again laughing her ass off. Alan wondered if it was nervous laughter, maybe even something near hysteria. In the movies, you always slapped the woman at this point, and she broke into tears and fell in love with you. Bad move.

      ‘ID, please?’ he said.

      She used that same gesture, the raised arm reaching across to mess with her hair, the arm a frame around her head, her armpit bare and dead white, and she said, ‘I’m Sandy Cole?’ Squinting at him from slightly pop-eyes as the last of the sun splashed golden light on her from behind him. Then she was scrambling in a huge shoulder bag that was full of junk – he saw address books, checkbooks, lipsticks, tampons, maybe a pair of panty hose, pens, coins, combs, lists, keys – and tossing out phrases, half-finished sentences. She gave him an embassy ID badge. Her passport. A State Department card.

      ‘Uh, Miz Cole – what are you doing here?’

      ‘Oh, I came as soon as I saw it on TV. To investigate? I’m the Legat!’

      Legat, legal attaché – from the Nairobi embassy, must be. Okay. Meaning that she was also FBI. Not so okay. He studied the documents, which looked authentic enough. ‘Were you ordered here, Miz Cole?’

      ‘Oh, no, God –’ She started laughing again. ‘I just got into my car and drove.’ She held a hand over her eyes and squinted. ‘You want me to look at the body or the engine first?’

      He hesitated. ‘What engine?’

      ‘The boat engine. There’s a V-8 –’ She made a sweeping gesture toward the dock with an arm; the other was over her head again, the hand in her frizzy hair, head tipped. That way, she looked like a dancer or a model, her flexible bones bending and willowy despite her size. ‘An old car engine with a propeller shaft, I think from the dhow.’

      He felt stupid but wary. ‘What dhow?’

      ‘The dhow that carried the bomb.’ She looked back at him quickly. ‘It came in from over there –’ Pointing with one hand, pulling hair off her face with the other. The hair business was getting to him, driving him a little nuts. ‘It looked like it was going to the other dock, but it came very wide and then –’

      ‘How do you know this?’

      ‘There’s an eyewitness? They have him over at the Kenyan Navy base? They also have somebody, he’s totally in shock and really out of it, but I think he’s either from the crew here or maybe he was even on the dhow, although they would have been suicide bombers and, you know –’ She shrugged, gave a smile with her mouth closed. Played with her hair. ‘The eyewitness says he thought somebody jumped off the dhow before it hit, so maybe he’s a bomber? And he was in the water when the bomb went off, and he’s suffered concussion or whatever?’

      ‘You interviewed an eyewitness?’

      ‘No, the Kenyans are being real selfish. They told me that’s what he said.’

      Alan was thinking that they hadn’t told him any of this, but maybe Lieutenant Ngiri hadn’t known any of it. Or maybe he had, and that’s the way the ball was bouncing. He remembered the Kenyan sailors who had been searching the ships on the opposite dock. Of course they’d found eyewitnesses. He looked again at her documents. ‘How’d you get in here?’ he said. He looked up the dock at the blocked gate.

      ‘Oh, I came in through the tank farm.’ Pointing again with one of those white arms. ‘I got an embassy shield on my car. Special plates. You know, they’re very hierarchical here – special plates make a big difference.’ She scrabbled in the big bag again and came up with the sort of leather case that cops carry shield and ID in. She was laughing. ‘And I used this.’ It had a courtesy card from the National Association of Sheriffs, unimpressive except for the big embossed eagle, and a shield that said ‘Special Police’ and ‘007.’ ‘I got it on the Internet,’ she said, laughing and playing with her goddam hair and showing him her armpit.

      ‘You’re lucky you didn’t get shot.’

      She shrugged. ‘You want me to look at the body or the engine first? They say you shot a sniper. Wow.’ She waved toward the crane. ‘I better look at the body first. He’ll be pretty ripe in this heat. It is a he, isn’t it? I’d hate it if it was a woman.’

      ‘What do you want to look at the body for?’

      ‘I’m trained to look at bodies. I took an extra twelve hours in forensics. After law school?’ She wrinkled her nose and looked at the sky. ‘I don’t want to do it in the dark. But I brought a flashlight? So maybe I could. I don’t know –’ She laughed. ‘Or I could look at that engine. Engines have numbers, you know.’

      It was just what he needed, he thought – a pale woman in a long dress. A perfect target. Well, nobody was shooting. And dusk was falling. And Rafe had told him to investigate, and she said she knew how to investigate. Oh, he believed her credentials well enough, and he believed her story about using the patently fake police stuff. He’d been tempted to get himself just such crap, in fact – a badge, any old badge, went a long way in some parts of the world. ‘I think I’d like you to start with the body,’ he said. He smiled, not entirely pleasantly. If she worked inside the crane, at least she’d be protected, and the smell was her problem. ‘You can examine the engine with your flashlight later.’

      ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘cool!’