[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.More slowly and more casually than any fish ever did.Making sure his undersized mechanic’s overalls covered his composite-armor shin guards, Winfield moved to the edge of the wharf, miming an anxious search around the base of its pilings.Within seconds, down at the limit of his vision, a pair of dive goggles appeared, ghostlike in the oily water.He crouched closer, still acting as though he was searching, searching, searching, and thought, go ahead, check me out.But don’t take too long about it.The goggles disappeared.Winfield counted off four seconds before a man dressed as a deck hand swam up and broke the surface, gasping for air and sputtering, splashing his arms about in a frenzy of desperation.Winfield reached down, caught the upper sleeve of the man’s light denim shirt and dragged him up onto the wharf where he proceeded to cough and retch mightily.“Don’t overdo it,” Winfield muttered.The man kept his face toward the planking as he apparently coughed up bay water, but managed to say, “Are they watching?”“Hell, no.You’re about the two-hundredth semidrowned boater or sailor they’ve seen today.And they’re too busy worrying about the missiles coming from the ocean in front of them and the armed mobs in the city behind them.” Winfield stopped to look at the man again.“You Indonesian?”“No.Why?”“You look pretty…convincing.”The man looked directly up at Winfield.His face was broad, brown, round-cheeked.“What do you mean?”“Yeah.You know, you look like a local.”“Yeah? Well, mukha ng tae.”“Huh?”“He said ‘and you look like shit.’ In Tagalog,” added a new voice.Another face—this one spitting out a slimline rebreather and as distinctly Nordic as the other was Micronesian—appeared over the lip of the wharf.Winfield didn’t find the turn of phrase amusing.Mr.Blonde, Blue-eyed, and Square-Jawed detected the signs of disapproval and offered a sheepish rationalization.“Well, you don’t look like a local, anyhow.”Winfield pointed a dark coffee index finger straight at the second fellow’s ski-ramp nose.“And you do?”The man smiled as he hauled himself up onto the planks and crouched next to the other two.“You’ve got me there, sir.”“Sir? How’d you—?”Square-Jaw gave him a sidelong look.“Moment an officer starts talking, you know he’s an officer—sir.” He stuck out an immense, and equally squared-off hand.“Chief Edward Barkowski, Team Three.”“Lieutenant Jacob Winfield—” He stopped, remembering.“Well, retired—sort of.”The smaller man sat up, coughed one more time, nodded to Barkowski, who threw a child’s bath toy into the water.“I’m Alfredo Ayala, Lieutenant Commander, currently CO second stick, Joint SpecOpCom.I don’t remember your name on the contact lists, Mr.Winfield.” Another half-dozen men, all dressed as deck hands, surfaced near the floating toy and dragged themselves up onto the wharf.Dripping and coughing, they affected exhaustion: damn poor actors.“My name wouldn’t be on your pre-infil contact lists.We came in under separate authority.”“What the hell does that mean?”Winfield showed him the magic card that Trevor Corcoran had loaned him.Ayala stared at it, then at Winfield.“Your CO is Nolan Corcoran’s son? No shit?”“No shit.”Ayala’s voice was suddenly tight with ready resentment.“Is he commandeering my teams?”“No, sir.Unless my CO guesses wrong, we have the same objective.”Ayala’s eyes narrowed.“And how would you know about my objectives?”Winfield repressed a sigh of exasperation.“Look, Commander, I got the same ‘suspect collaborators’ training you did.But today, there are two kinds of humans out in the streets: live insurgents and dead insurgents.If there are any collaborators, they’re indoors and staying there.”Ayala nodded, smiled.A little sheepishly, Winfield thought.“Okay, Lieutenant, I’m just an FNG here, so cut me some slack.What’s your CO got for a target?”“The Roach motel.”“The what?”“Sorry.That’s what we call the Arat Kur HQ.The presidential compound at the northwest corner of Merdeka Square.They’ve put up curtain walls, paved over some gardens to make a half dozen vertipads.”Ayala nodded.“Yep.That’s where my team—and almost everyone else—is headed.I know the prewar layout, but have only seen a few recent photos.”Winfield smiled.“Whereas we’ve got prime intel: current floor plans, hardpoints, and duty rosters.Updated within the last forty-eight hours.”Ayala’s eyes were suddenly bright.“You have agents inside?”“Yeah.Domestic staff, delivery personnel.”“Outstanding.We’ll follow you to your CO.” Ayala waved the last members of his still-surfacing stick to join him in the lee of a smoking warehouse that fronted the bay.Once there, with Barkowski keeping watch, he huddled at their center.“Okay.Weapons out.” Each man reached behind and under his shirt
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]