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  He rested his forehead on the table. He was the one who wasn’t going to survive this.

  Chapter 21

  Beat: H-Hour, December 19th, 1989, 11:45p.m.

  The information started fast, then got faster. Navy divers had been attacked in Panama Harbor. To get beneath the range of grenades dropped into the water, they’d dived well below the limits of their breathing gear, then come up directly under Noriega’s gunboat to attach the scuttling charges.

  A SEAL team had taken out Noriega’s private jet, cutting off that line of escape, but at a terrible loss of life. The Pineapple wasn’t there, nor in his palace.

  Beatrice had been allowed a corner of the 160th’s control center. When the first helicopter was shot down over the marshes near the mouth of the Canal, the shock wave had rippled once around the room and been gone. She’d had lunch with “Sonny” Owen and John Hunter just last week. The guys in this room had trained with them for years. Now they were dead.

  The 160th’s air mission commanders were in active combat, too busy to grieve now. That would have to come later. But with little to do until the hunt for the Pineapple became a primary focus, all she could do was sit and think how Frank would feel if she died. Snuffed out in seconds, shot out of the sky. Especially with how they’d left things back on July 3rd.

  It had been weeks before she’d discovered the pendant. Her key ring always had too many keys. Her place, her parent’s, her sister’s, the car, Frank’s old place… they were always accumulating faster than she could shed them.

  At some point, on that single San Antonio day, while he’d had her keys, he’d slipped a small pendant onto the ring. It was a tiny, silvered firework explosion, no bigger than her thumbnail. He’d purchased and given her an anniversary present. A thoughtful, funny one. The anniversary of his final carjacking attempt. And she hadn’t even remembered the date.

  She listened to the next report coming in. They’d rescued an American from nine months’ solitary confinement in a maximum-security prison. It had taken four small helicopters transporting a lot of Delta Force operators and a couple more attack versions of the Little Birds flying as armed guards. On the way out, the commanding officer had taken a round that shattered his arm and lodged deep inside his right lung. She knew him best of all. She saw them land right outside the command and control center.

  One of the Delta Operators jumped off his narrow bench where he’d ridden on the outside of the helicopter. They all bristled with weapons: pistols, rifles, knives, bolt cutters, explosive packs. The D-boy had slapped the commander on the arm in celebration of the mission. The commander screamed and cursed. The medics finally realized what had happened and rushed forward.

  Beat wasn’t in harm’s way. She was a back-of-the-line consultant. But what if she weren’t.

  She took the little firework pendant off her key ring and hung it from the thin gold chain her sister had given her the day she’d become a Secret Service agent. The only jewelry she ever wore, until now. Now if she were killed and they found her personal effects, Frank would know she’d accepted the gift.

  The rest of it she’d have to think about after they took down the Noriega.

  Chapter 22

  Frank: Now

  I have an idea.”

  General Rogers returned to his chair in the Situation Room so that Frank could see his face. He had a fresh cup of coffee and red-rimmed eyes.

  Frank expected he looked far worse. Even the unflappable tech was drooping in her chair. Fourteen hours since the first report that something was wrong, now barely two hours remained until daybreak in Guinea-Bissau. The fighting in the city center had peaked an hour ago and was tapering off.

  Still no word from inside the country. The Guinea-Bissau ambassador had holed up in his office and refused to answer his locked door, though they knew he was in there. It was hard to blame him. He had family there who might not survive the night. And if things went the wrong way, it was possible that he could never even go home to be sure.

  Based on the pattern of destruction of selected high-value homes, it appeared that the faction presently winning was not friendly to the U.S. in general. If they finished their task before darkness fell tomorrow night, they’d go hunting three Americans lost in a strange city with no resources but Beatrice Belfour’s brains and stamina.

  That meant they needed a solution within the remaining two hours of darkness.

  How many movies had Beat dragged him to over the years where all they needed was two hours? The end of the world, just give me two hours and I can save humanity. Can’t find true love, in two hours I’ll make her see what true love really is. Need to save some woman’s ass from the center of an African coup…

  “Go ahead, Frank. What’s the idea?”

  “How close is the carrier group?”

  “Two hundred miles. About eight minutes with an F-18 Hornet.”

  “They won’t do me any good. Anything that lands at that airport is going to get itself shot up. Anyone around from SOAR?”

  “Two DAP Hawks and three Little Birds,” the Special Operations Forces captain along the left wall chimed in. “They’ve been assisting on the anti-Nigerian piracy force, Operation Sure Seas. We have another company of them off Somali on the same Operation.”

  Two DAP Hawks? The Direct Action Penetrators were exceptionally rare birds, the nastiest Black Hawk helicopters ever put into the night sky. There were barely a dozen of them flying anywhere in the world, all flown by the Night Stalkers. What were the chances?

  “Henderson and Beale?”

  “It’s them.” General Rogers knew them well also, he’d once threatened Beale’s father with fisticuffs, only half-jokingly, for the right to give away the bride at her wedding. Beale was the sort of person you’d do that for.

  Frank smiled. It was the first good news he’d had since finding out Beat was alive. Her life expectancy had just jumped by a significant factor.

  “Get them airborne. And one of those Stratotankers you have parked out at Cape Verde. They’ll need refueling.”

  “Roger that. They can be on site in about an hour.”

  “Have them burn it hard. We’re running out of darkness.”

  Frank thought quickly about how to make this work. Since the helicopters wouldn’t know Beat’s location, he needed a way for Beat to come to the helicopters.

  “And General, there’s one thing we need to make sure the DAP Hawks are fitted with before they start out.”

  # # #

  Beat still lay against the stones of the goat pen wall. She was tapped. For an hour since the plane exploded she’d tried to come up some alternate plan. Charlotte had recovered enough to sit up and lean her head against Sam’s chest and weep quietly.

  The ambassador had the decency to assure her they were going to get married as soon as they got back stateside, even if he had to roust a judge out of bed. Beat and Sam Green both knew their chances were not good and diminishing with every passing minute.

  She’d try hiding them again. Would find the energy in another few minutes to give it one last effort, but she’d now been awake for two days, running, hiding, and battered. Her ears were still ringing, in fact ringing was all her left ear was giving her. Her directional hearing didn’t exist at the moment.

  Hearing.

  There was a sound in the night. It was an odd sound. Like an oversized washing machine or a…

  “Sam, where’s that sound coming from?”

  “What sound?” But he was turning his head one way and another hunting for it, so she kept quiet. He glanced up more than once, but couldn’t seem to locate it.

  Then she knew.

  “Okay, everyone this is it. Get ready for one last effort.”

  “This is what?”

  Beat blessed her association with the 160th SOAR that had started all the way back in Panama in 1989. Sh
e’d kept up with them, made sure she was a contact point when they needed a liaison for a diplomatic security mission. She hadn’t ridden with them but once, and that hadn’t been combat, real or simulated. Damn but she’d been envious when Frank got that training ride last winter. Well, maybe this was her chance.

  Please let it be her chance.

  “That’s a stealth U.S. Special Operations Forces Black Hawk helicopter. The same kind that went into Osama bin Laden’s compound. That’s why you hear them, but you can’t tell where the sound is coming from. Now all we have to do is figure out where they’re expecting to find us and get there.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Damned if I know.”

  Then she heard the sound, blaring out of the sky. She watched which way Sam and Charlotte’s heads turned, the helicopters were to the south of them, deeper into the city than she’d dared go. It was music. Unlike the odd sound of the stealth helicopters rotors, that often sounded as if they were flying away when they were actually coming right at you, the music would be intensely directional. It would blast from a loudspeaker attached to the helicopter and tell bad guys exactly where to aim.

  It was music she knew well. It informed her that Frank Adams was involved and looking out for her. The sudden relief so sharp she wanted to cry.

  He’d absolutely known what to play. It was the only movie series where she’d dragged him to the opening night of every sequel. She had a weak spot for Tom Cruise. And the Mission Impossible theme echoing through the pre-dawn darkness of Bissau city, told her that the message was for her and she’d better listen and listen hard.

  # # #

  “But that doesn’t make any sense.” The President was back in the U.S. Security Center in the U.N.’s basement. Hank was still at the table and General Rogers was still on the screen. The President was looking at the script John had just recorded and sent to the helicopters for playback.

  “Trust me, Mr. President, it makes perfect sense. It’s at least a triple letter score, and I’m prayin’ plenty hard that it’s a triple word score.” Frank knew it would work. It just had to. If Beat Belfour was still alive in the city, she’d get there.

  He just hoped to god she was still mobile. Because they had no way to go find her, she had to find them.

  “Major Beale?”

  “Here Frank.” The right-hand screen was now showing a four-segment feed from the DAP Hawk helicopter as she now circled over the city. The screen was cut up into quarters and showed what Beale saw as she turned her helmet, the ghostly gray images of the ADAS cameras they’d installed six months earlier that showed the nighttime city in the stark imagery of a black-and-white movie as bright as daylight. The other three segments on the screen were views from the belly of the helicopter, ahead, and to either side. Bissau was laid out before them.

  “I think we’ve played the music long enough to get her attention. I need you to circle slowly enough that she can hear a full set of instructions.”

  “Just reminding you that these people have surface-to-air missiles. Slow wouldn’t be my first choice.”

  “Okay, uh,” Frank thought quickly. Thought about how Beat had attacked him at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center—fast repeated attack of his body.

  “How about multiple faster passes? Let her pick up the segments as she needs them.”

  “Roger that.”

  Typical Major Beale and typical SOAR. A two word acknowledge before flying into a hot battle zone.

  “Switch over to message broadcast.”

  “Switching.”

  Frank heard his own voice, picked up faintly through Beale’s microphone.

  “Beat your ass. Start where…”

  # # #

  Beatrice laughed and had to muffle her mouth in her dashiki to hide it. She almost missed the first instruction.

  “Beat, your ass.” Was one of the compliments that Frank had paid her the very first time they’d made love in the woods on that Georgia night at FLETC. It had been in an awed, breathy whisper, the memory of which could heat her blood even now. He’d made a real thing about cupping her behind in those powerful hands of his to pull her against him. No question about the authenticity of this message.

  And he’d also told her to that they had to “beat their asses” if this was going to work. Time to move fast.

  Start where Bruce fought the second time, the time after the tower.

  Sam Green started to ask her what that meant, but she shushed him so that she could listen. She started to translate to him in whispers as she waited for that message to repeat several times.

  “Bruce Willis, Die Hard 2, the second movie. The first time he fought in a tower, a skyscraper, the Nakatomi Plaza. Otherwise it might have been Bruce Lee, who fought in a temple. The second time Bruce Willis fought, it was in an airport. That’s our starting frame of reference.” It was perfect. No one, who didn’t have their common ground of going to so many movies, would be able to follow these directions.

  Go the direction Cary and Eva Marie didn’t go.

  “They’re fading away,” Charlotte’s whisper was panicked.

  It was true. The helicopter circling out toward the airport, too far away to hear the next instruction.

  “It doesn’t matter, they’ll be back.”

  “But what did it mean?” Sam helped Charlotte to her feet as Beatrice rose. Her side had stiffened badly and she had definitely sprained her right knee when she dove out of the plane. She just hoped she hadn’t torn anything. She ran a quick hand over her leg down the outside of the dashiki. Definitely swollen. Swollen badly, but it still took her weight.

  “It means that we’re in the wrong neighborhood.” She led them off into the night. Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint had been chased all over the landscape of Mount Rushmore in North by Northwest. “Go the way they didn’t go.” She needed to be south-southeast of the airport.

  One hour to first light. She ignored her knee and got them moving. They had to hurry.

  # # #

  “We’re starting to pick up some fire,” Major Mark Henderson’s voice remained absolutely calm. “Request permission to engage.” It even sounded as if he was looking forward to it. As pilot of the second DAP Hawk, he’d be flying as backup wingman to his wife commanding the primary rescue bird.

  The President and Frank looked at each other. The situation was escalating. G-B military forces had finally noticed that there were helicopters circling overhead. Hard to miss, even if they would have trouble locating them. The airport’s radar should be useless against the stealth modifications. They would appear as flickers no bigger than a large bird, and never quite in the location where they actually were.

  The problem was that most of the anti-electronic warfare defenses they carried, the ones that scrambled sophisticated tracking-and-homing equipment, were useless. The G-B army didn’t have the high-end detection gear or automated aim and fire anti-aircraft. They had fifty-year-old Russian cannons that were aimed by hand and fired one inch shells. Rifles, rocket-propelled-grenade launchers produced in Brazil and left behind by the Portuguese when they left in the 1970s, five-inch howitzers. The weapons were so unsophisticated that they actually posed a considerable threat.

  “Major Henderson. This is President Matthews.”

  “Hello, sir. How’s the poker coming along?”

  “Smart enough to not play you the next time you’re in town.”

  That got a laugh. They all knew that the President would play anyway and didn’t really care that he rarely won. It had also given him the moment to make sure his thoughts were clear.

  “Yes. You are hereby authorized to use limited force, only as necessary, to ensure the security of this operation. Discretion is yours.”

  “Roger that, sir.”

  Even as Henderson spoke, a sharp hiss sounded in the background. Frank recognize
d it as one of the FFAR rockets mounted in pods on the sides of the DAP Hawk. Through Major Beale’s view, they could see the rocket streak downward from her husband’s otherwise invisible helicopter.

  It impacted an armored vehicle with a multi-rocket launcher mounted on its roof. It was visible for just an instant before it disappeared in a massive fireball when all of the unfired rockets exploded simultaneously sending a huge ball of fire skyward.

  “I guess they know we’re here now.” Mark didn’t sound the least contrite.

  They went back to their circling, Major Beale continued her broadcast.

  Chapter 23

  Beat: H-Hour plus three days, 1989

  Beat flew with SOAR. They had her in the back of one of the big twin-rotor Chinook helicopters. It was filled with the roar of the massive twin turbines and the sharp, stinging scent of kerosene from the Jet A fuel. Other than the red, night-time lights in the long cargo bay, there was little to see. Even pressing her face to the glass of the small round windows only revealed the stars.

  She spent most of the trip sitting on a giant rubber bladder filled with fuel. Cases of rockets and ammunition were stacked at the front of the cargo bay.

  She was sitting in a flying bomb.

  All of this was part of a FARP, a Forward Arming and Refueling Point. Their destination was too far away for the Little Birds and Black Hawks to make the round trip. They were flying from Panama City down to the Colombian border as part of the Hunt for Elvis. That’s what the Special Operations Forces operators, showing a little more imagination, had renamed the hunt for the Pineapple. Noriega had remained elusive right into day three of the taking of Panama, three days without a single sighting, as rare as Elvis.

  They’d gotten a report of a jungle hideaway he often used down near the Colombian border. It was expected to be a dry hole, no one home, or they probably wouldn’t have let her come along. But they’d wanted her expertise on hidden security systems and possible hideaways.