The Crisis (19 page)

A distant murmur became shouting. She stood and tried to see. The corporal focused binoculars. He spoke into the radio, then listened.

“Looters,” he said. “Don't seem armed.”

“Will we shoot unarmed people?”

“Anyone comes over this wall, we shoot,” the corporal said. “Ma'am.”

“Call me Aisha.” It seemed silly for him to call her “Special Agent,” and “ma'am” was what she'd called her grandmother in Detroit.

“Okay, Aisha. You can call me ‘Lance Corporal.' ”

The column came into view up the road. It looked like a procession of multicolored army ants. They came to a compound with high white walls and slowly sucked in through the gates. When the corporal handed her the binoculars she saw them in the second-story windows, then the third.

“Chinese embassy,” the Viet vet said. “They hauled ass last week.”

Things began arcing out through the windows, which weren't always opened first. She heard glass breaking, sharp thuds on concrete or asphalt, accompanied by shouting. Cascades of paper drifted like square white leaves through the heated air. Figures passed to and fro behind the windows. She lowered the field of view and saw them staggering out, heavily laden. Computer keyboards. Monitors. Whole filing cabinets, presumably empty—hence the shower of paper. Window air conditioners. A painted screen that must have been the delight of some bored bureaucrat.

“Water,” said the corporal, more order than offer. She accepted a tepid bottle and drank it down.

The radio crackled. “Intruders, south wall. Reaction One, respond.” The van gunned away, circled the roundabout past the chancery, and sped off.

She aimed the binoculars and saw, wavering magnified in the mirage, tiny figures silhouetted atop the wall before jumping down. The van stopped and a popping came. The figures hesitated, then vanished, either falling or jumping. She couldn't see, in the violent shimmer of hot air over dry ground, what exactly had happened.

Shouting and shoving at the outer gate. The marines had closed and locked it, a massive portcullis of chrome-plated steel. They stood back a few yards, weapons at port arms, stifflegged as guard dogs. Something flew between the bars and shattered.

“I'm going down there,” she said to the corporal.

“That's not a good idea,” he said. Then, as if recognizing his inability to actually order her to stay, held out another bottle of water.

The interior of the tower felt like the belly of an incinerator. Outside, in the open, was even hotter. The breeze burned her skin. Abayas and head-scarves weren't just for modesty. In a climate like this they made sense. She passed three employees in colorful local dress, squatting in the dust inside the wall. They glanced up fearfully. Then their gazes turned inward, but they never stopped speaking, engaged in what sounded like an agitated argument.

A gate guard turned as she approached. His gaze fastened on her rifle, then looked her up and down.
“You!”
he shouted. “What're you doing with that?”

“The gunny issued it to me,” she said, and handed it to him. The belated recognition on his face made her even more angry.

“Sorry. Didn't know you were one of . . . I mean, I thought you were—”

“Just shut up,” she said, and went around him, up to the gate.

Hands and arms were thrust through, groping like the tentacles of an anemone. The smell hit her like a slap. Children pleaded to come in. On impulse, she held out the water. It was snatched away, and instantly two dozen other hands waved for more.

She was about to speak when the crowd parted, revealing trucks braking in clouds of exhaust and dust. The troops who jumped down wore drab, threadbare fatigues like the Ashaaran military, but not one wore a helmet. Some were bareheaded; others had cloth tied in sweatbands; most wore garish headgear from various sources: stocking caps, ball caps, hats of woven grass, even a green Tyrolean with a red feather, incongruously stylish on one strutting bantam of a man. They carried other things, too. Radios. Shiny tape or CD players. As they formed a line she thought, Thank Allah. They'll protect us until the Marines arrive.

Then she saw the golf balls embedded in their cheeks, their saffron-yellow eyes.

A hulking apparition in starched camouflage strode to the gate, hurling aside civilians slow in moving away. Sweat glistened on his stubbly, broad visage, and with him wafted a sweet stink of whiskey. At first she thought he was white. Then saw the mottling of vitiligo, melanin deficiency. She'd known a barber in Harlem with the same condition, but not nearly so extreme. This man's neck and hands were black, but it looked as if a white man's face had been torn off and pasted over his countenance.

With his huge size and the gangster-style shortened Kalashnikov he carried like a pistol, the effect was disorienting and terrifying. He stomped up to the gate, and for a moment she feared he might tear it apart with his bare hands. She gripped her pistol underneath her clothing. Even the marines took a step back.

The man shouted something long, involved, and angry. He shook his rifle at her. She tried to make sense of his words, but failed. She tried Arabic. He waited till she finished, then commenced roaring again.

“Get a translator,” she told the marine still awkwardly holding her rifle. He hesitated, then trotted off.

Nuura came, looking as if she was about to faint. Watching her walk, Aisha realized for the first time that her roommate was pregnant. The huge man roared again. Nuura falteringly came out with English. “He wants the ones inside. Demands you give them to him.”

“Who? Americans?”

“Us,” Nuura whispered. When Aisha frowned, puzzled, she added, “Those who work for the foreigners.”

Aisha caught her breath, remembering the frightened women arguing in the dust. When she looked back they were gone.

“They were made rich in place of those more deserving,” shouted a fierce-faced young woman in a man's shirt. “Look at me! I speak English! Am I employed? My brother was shot. Give them to us! We'll decide which are traitors.”

The translator shrank back. Aisha caught her arm and pushed her forward again. It felt light as a wren's wing, her bones thinner than a human's should be. Aisha smelled urine and swallowed, suddenly sick of the heat, the smells, the fear. “We're
not
giving you up,” she told her. “Or anybody else. Right, everybody?”

“Fuckin' ay,” said one of the marines. He lifted his radio. “Post One, I say again: need the Big Bird down here,
right now
. Main gate.”

Aisha squeezed the thin arm again. “Now, ask his name.”

“He says he is Sergeant Major Olowe.”

“Sergeant Major Olowe. All right. Now ask if he knows Major Assad. Of the Interior Ministry.”

The man thrust out his lips, glaring at Aisha. She went on, “Tell him the major will not be happy to see him annoying us, instead of providing protection as agreed. Does he know your troops are out here looting? Threatening people?”

Ridbout said, behind her, “Get away from the gate. Don't get so close to them.”

“I'm talking to—”

“I'll do the talking. Get back.” She watched, arms akimbo, as Kaszyk and two other marines set up a machine gun. The crowd murmured. “That one officer, or whatever he is. Sergeant major? Fine. Let him in.”

Olowe had to lower his head to fit through. The marines aimed at the woman, who tried to come in too. She backed away, scowling, as they relocked the gate. Olowe didn't object as a marine took his AK. He expanded his chest, looking around the compound. “Very pretty,” he said in heavily accented English. “Nice cars. Pretty.”

“I'm Colonel Ridbout, military attaché to the People's Government of Ashaara,” Ridbout told him. “What can we do for you, Sergeant Major?”

Olowe spoke rapidly; Nuura tried to keep up. “He says . . . there is no more People's Government. Open these gates and let his friends in.”

“This is the U.S. embassy,” Ridbout said. “Anyone who enters without permission, we have the right to kill. Tell him that.”

Nuura's voice shook; she clutched her stomach. “He says, give up Ashaarans and he will not kill Americans.”

“No deal.” Ridbout nodded to a civilian who'd come quietly up from the chancery, a young man in a light gray suit and open-collared shirt, carrying a briefcase, whom up to now Aisha had not seen. “You may want to speak to our RSO, though.”

The giant eyed her narrowly, then stalked toward the State employee. “What's going on, Jolene?” Aisha murmured to Ridbout.

“We're making him an offer. Hopefully, one he can't refuse.”

Taking him out of sight of the gate, the regional security officer opened the briefcase. Olowe stiffened, as if insulted. Then bent to examine what lay within.

 

THE streets were quiet for a few hours after Olowe left. Those who'd clamored for admittance trickled away, though a few, hunted-looking families of local employees, were admitted after lengthy checks. Gradually the shadows lengthened, but the air didn't cool. She was called down several times to carry out body searches. She did them in a restroom behind the gate shack, seating the women on the toilet and asking them to lift their dresses while she ran her hands over them. She felt ashamed, but couldn't
help washing her hands after each search. She was climbing the tower again when shouts came from above.

“They're coming over the walls,” the corporal yelled as she emerged from the stairwell. He charged his weapon and aimed over the parapet.

“Troops? Or more looters?” she panted, trying to catch her breath. Maybe she'd lose weight on this assignment, for a change.

“Looters, I guess, but armed. Some of them.”

Someone handed her her rifle. A flashback to Glynco, where they'd told her she had to name “her” rifle, and it had to be female. She felt doomed. Twice in her career she'd had to kill, but both times she'd been facing an armed and dangerous criminal.

And both times, white men. She wasn't shooting any women. Not unless they fired first.

“Miz Rahim,” the corporal said. “Your magazine. It was on the deck?”

“Sorry. Thank you.”

“We'll fire over their heads first. A warning.”

She wanted to ask how, if they were firing downward, but only nodded.

The first face showed above the wall. A young man, but not the angelic one. A narrow-faced, pinch-jawed individual with wild eyes and cheek bulging with the local herb. He threw a carpet scrap over the jagged glass, then followed with a leg. He held a machete, rusty, but no doubt sharp enough to kill.

“Off the wall, man!” the corporal yelled.

The Ashaaran looked up. His eyes met hers as the corporal's rifle cracked and brick split and flew. The man's hands flew up to protect his eyes. He lost his balance and tumbled backward.

“That'll make 'em think twice,” said the Gulf War vet.

She lowered her weapon, wondering how much longer it would keep them pondering.

 

TWO miles offshore, Teddy Oberg crouched in the RHIB. The others were crowded around him, all four men exposed in the waning afternoon light. SEALs hated going in in daylight. In fact, this was the first time he'd done it, other than in exercises. But
Firebolt
hadn't gotten to Ashaara till noon, and then there'd been disagreement about whether they should go in over the beach to the embassy, as planned, or secure the port area instead. For three hours they'd sat in the boats, until finally word had come to execute the original plan; looters were coming over the walls. Now they crouched in two inflatables as the PCs turned as one and ran at flank speed toward the beach.

“Stand by to launch,” the petty office yelled. Teddy braced. The POIC's
hand chopped down, the bowhook yanked the line, and they slid back and down in the dizzying release the SEALs referred to as being shit out of the boat. Behind him one man yee-haa'd, others gave rebel yells, as the engine gunned and the boat spun into a turn so hard she nearly went over, then headed for putty-colored dunes below the ruby ball of the setting sun.

Geller had taken them in until his keel had scraped sand. Teddy fingered the night vision goggles pushed up under his helmet. He didn't like the sun in his face, but couldn't object to the insertion. The PCs had roared over the horizon on diverging courses, to confuse any radar, before suddenly echeloning and spitting out the RHIBs. Even a well-honed coastal defense would find it hard to get a reaction force to the landing point before the team would be dug so deep into those dunes it would cost heavy casualties to dig them out. Especially with the direct fire of the PCs' guns on call.

The hard spot would be if they got stuck short of the embassy. It'd be only eight men and their rifles, grenades, and a single light antitank weapon. If they met determined resistance, they'd just have to haul ass back and try to swim out before they got rolled up.

He checked the men. They were goggled and black-uniformed, strapped with gear, fins lashed over their shoulders. Their eyes met his, then slid back to the beach. They'd all made insertions before. The one thing you could count on, it wouldn't be what you expected.

Smoke off to their right. Black, which probably meant either vehicles or fuel. Two hundred more yards, no time to change the plan now. The surf lifted the boat, the motor changing pitch as they planed. Two-foot seas a mile out, but bulging now as the bottom climbed to three-, four-foot waves. RHIBs weren't great surf boats, not great beaching boats either, but they were a hell of a lot faster than swimming.

The boat lifted again, coasted forward, and the coxswain yelled something. The motor whirred as it pivoted up. Teddy gave the signal and bailed out over the side. His boots hit bottom four feet down. The water was warmer than blood, the bottom hard sand and pebbles.

He glanced up, and his heart slammed to a stop.