Oath of Office

Zamil and the others were in the process of unloading the Mistrals and pulled the tarp a little farther, displaying the rest of the Toyota’s contents the instant before the Romeo turned them to a flaming ball of fire and dust. A secondary explosion — really a series of them that happened almost too fast to distinguish — touched off just after the initial splash.

Hyatt watched the wind blow away smoke and dust.

“Master Arm off,” Brian said. “Weapons safe.”

“Laser safe,” Deatherage said.

Brian sat still for a moment.

“Did you see that?” Captain Hyatt said.

“The secondaries.” Brian gave a low whistle. “I know, right.”

“That, too,” Hyatt said. “I’m going to rewind the video feed a little. I think he had some MICAs.”

“French MICAs?” Brian stood now, unplugging his headset and making way for Hyatt.

“Pretty sure,” the captain said.

“I call that a well-armed enemy,” Brian said. “French Mistrals, French MICAs. I’d like to know where they’re gettin’ their shit.”

“That’s your battle space,” Hyatt said. He set a course for Kandahar. The guys on the ground there would land the bird, perform any needed maintenance, and then do a refuel so she could jump up on station for another ten to twelve hours.

A few clicks of his keyboard later, the report and relevant video were on their way to Hyatt’s commanding officer at Creech. She’d run it up the chain, where it would be reviewed and discussed every step of the way, before being sent to encrypted servers at Langley, the Pentagon, and the director of national intelligence’s staff at Liberty Crossing, just to make sure all bases were covered.

Brian put a friendly hand on Hyatt’s shoulder. “Not to be a sociopath, Captain, but we did a good thing here. It needed to be done.”

Deatherage still had the cameras focused on the carnage of the kill site.

“Yep,” Hyatt said. He could get over the splashes, but he didn’t get off on talking about them. “Done deal,” he said.

Brian took the hint. “What’s that written on your hand?”

Hyatt gave an embarrassed shrug. “A note to myself so I don’t forget something for my kids’ birthday.” He took a final look at the smoldering crater that had once been Faisal al-Zamil before he turned his palm upright.

Balloons.

Some terrible god of war he was…

4

If Portugal was the westward-looking face on a map of the Iberian Peninsula, then the pinnacled rocks and secret grottoes of the Algarve coast made up the whiskers below a pointed and somewhat pensive chin. The coastal village of Benagil lay in a deep valley, equidistant from the coastal towns of Albufeira and Lagos to the east and west, respectively, one of countless whitewashed jewels on the limestone cliffs above a half-moon beach of honey-colored sand. The proximity to Africa made the Atlantic here seem almost — but not quite — like the Med.

While tourism had certainly come to this tiny village of fewer than three thousand, Benagil still had a robust fishing fleet and boasted a charm reminiscent of a quieter, more innocent Portugal. This naïveté made it an excellent location for Hugo Gaspard to conduct his business. There were enough tourists with money that the arms dealer did not have to go without the creature comforts to which he’d grown accustomed. The local gendarmerie, though intelligent enough, tended to attune themselves to car break-ins or burglaries at holiday villas. The mere idea of an international crime boss completely overwhelmed their radar.

Gaspard had been down to this same beach three days in a row, while he waited for the Russians to show up. He made the mistake of walking the hundred fifty meters down the hill from his Mercedes on the first day. There was parking along the narrow road on the cliffs overlooking the sea, but the corpulent Frenchman was much too fond of fine wine and rich pastries. Walking more than a few meters aggravated his gout — and his heart, and his lungs, and the bone spurs on his heels. Worse than that, walking made him feel poor.

Today, he’d ordered his driver to drop him off near the handicapped parking spot, as close to the trail to the beach as possible. The driver would stay with the car while the other three accompanied him to the beach. One could not be too careful these days.

Gaspard stripped off his loose shirt as soon as he got out of the Mercedes. He would have done it earlier, but his ponderous belly made much movement in the backseat problematic. He’d already changed into his swimsuit in the villa and stepped out of his trousers on the side of the road, throwing them into the car on top of his shirt. The suit, a small triangle of red spandex, would have been considered tiny even on a man of much smaller stature. Gaspard’s belly hung low enough that a casual observer could be excused for thinking he wore nothing at all. Gaspard didn’t care. He had little to prove — and enough money that he could even buy respect if anyone had a problem with the way he dressed.