SOAR: A Black Ops Novel

And so, before putting Americans in harm’s way, Pete Forrest always took the time to consider the hard question of whether he was about to spend lives or squander them. If he determined it was going to be the latter, he found an alternative solution, no matter that it might be politically unpopular. But if it was the former, he never hesitated. Which was why, if the four CIA officers he’d put in jeopardy didn’t return from China, he’d be able to live with the fact that he had ordered them to their deaths. Their lives would not have been squandered, but spent in the pursuit of Duty, Honor, Country, just as so many other lives, snuffed out on Omaha Beach and Pointe du Hoc, on Mt. Suribachi, at A Shau and Plei Me and Mazār-e Sharif, had been spent, in the pursuit of Duty, Honor, Country.

* * *

Pete Forrest dropped onto one of the drawing room’s couches and stretched out his long legs, watching as his national security adviser did the caged-tiger thing. “Grab a seat, Monica, you’re making me itchy.”

Immediately, she dropped onto the couch opposite his. “I’m sorry, Mr. President.”

He eased up a bit. “One of the perks of this job is that people tend to do things when you ask ‘em to.” Then his face grew serious. “So, bottom line: we won’t know anything concrete until tomorrow.”

The national security adviser’s hands formed a steeple. “Well,” she said, “we’ll know when the sensors have been activated, because they’ve been programmed to transmit a baseline reading.”

“I want to be notified as soon as that happens.”

“I’ve already had the word passed to the operations center at Langley,” she said. “The duty officer knows she’s to give you a call immediately.”

“Good.” The president cracked another knuckle. “She knows not to be shy — no matter what time?”

“I made that abundantly clear, sir.”

He nodded affirmatively. “Good.” The president stood up and stretched. “Then get out of here, Monica. It’s past midnight. Go home. Get some rest. Like you said, nothing’s going to break until tomorrow.”

“I think I’ll just grab a combat nap in my office, sir. If you need me for anything—”

“I know the extension, Monica.” He gave her shoulder a gentle nudge toward the hallway. “Go.”

2

West of Yengisu, Xinjiang Autonomous Region, China.

1248 Hours Local Time.

It was finally show time. Using what appeared to be two audio cables, Kaz ganged the video camera’s spare batteries together. Then he uncoiled a ten-foot-long, double-male-ended video cable and plugged one end of it into the batteries.

As he did this, X-Man was pulling the zoom lens out of its case. He handed it gingerly to Dick Campbell: “Hold this.” Then he turned the two-foot case upside down, reached inside, released the false bottom, and withdrew a small, cylindrical motor about the size of a soup can.

He handed the motor to Sam, who cradled it in his arms as gently as if it were spun glass. Next, as the communicator replaced the zoom lens, X-Man slipped the tripod out of its case. Using a pair of Allen wrenches, he disassembled the tops of the three legs from their hinges, removed the three support straps from the bottom leg collets, and snapped the pieces together, forming a four-foot six-inch drill shaft. He tipped one of the tripod legs over and unscrewed its spiked foot, which he reversed, revealing a drill bit. The bit snapped into the bottom of the shaft and locked into place with an audible click.

With Sam holding the power unit, the shaft was quickly attached by using a second spiked foot and locked tight with a pair of Allen bolts. As X-Man completed the drill shaft, Kaz was unscrewing the angled pan and slide-tilt head locking handles from the camera platform head. These he screwed into tapped receivers on either side of the power unit.

Sam checked his watch. The drill had taken less than five minutes to assemble. He looked over Kaz and X-Man’s handiwork. It sure was ugly, looking like the illegitimate offspring of a Dremel tool on steroids and the core-sample drills used by NASA’s Apollo lunar landing teams back in the 1970s. But it was also cannily, intricately, wonderfully ingenious. Designed, no doubt, by an engineer who’d been well inculcated in Goldbergian rubric.

Kaz hefted the drill, tested to make sure the connections were secure, and then pronounced it acceptable. “Let’s test it.”

The communicator handed the male end of the video cable to Kaz. “Insert Tab A into Slot B,” Kaz said as he screwed the connector home. He manipulated the switch on the motor’s top side, and the drill began to turn. “All right!” Kaz gave a thumbs-up to the rest of them and looked in Sam’s direction. “If Pops here will be so good as to verify our position, we’ll set the first of these babies so we can start getting home.”