Frank's Independence Day Page 6

  # # #

  “Is the Guinea-Bissau ambassador to the U.N. here today? Ambassador Anselmo?”

  Frank looked at the President in shock. Why the hell hadn’t he thought of that? And how had the President remembered the guy’s name? He was always doing that, as if his brain operated on a whole different level.

  Frank hadn’t thought of it because they barely have a government was his answer. But anything was worth a shot.

  One of the techs rattled her keyboard, “Yes.”

  “Extension?” Hank called out and dialed it on the central table’s speaker phone even as she dictated it.

  In minutes they had an appointment.

  Frank could definitely appreciate traveling with the President. The man got things done.

  Chapter 13

  Frank: 1988

  No way in hell that this is done.” Three months they’d been sleeping together on the sly. Three months and the heat, smell, taste of Beatrice Ann Belfour was burned right into Frank’s nerve endings.

  They sat on the bench where they’d perched a lifetime and six months ago. This time it was late morning rather than two a.m. And it was frickin’ January-butt-clench cold. But everything else was much the same.

  The Brooklyn Bridge soared above them, the restaurant and its lousy fake security cameras was doing a lively business despite the frigid winter morning. The East River Ferry slid into DUMBO dock. He kept meaning to look up why they called it that, but never had. A glance over his shoulder and he could see by the giant clock atop the Watchtower building that the boat was running ten minutes late as usual.

  They were sitting right where the old man had howled at the moon along with his dogs in Moonstruck. He almost smiled at the memory of the frantic love they’d made after watching it, right down to the full moonlight streaming into his Brooklyn studio apartment window. Still a third-floor walkup, but the tiny apartment in the brownstone owned by a couple of artists was a hell of a lot better than the Morningside Heights projects.

  He finally forced himself to look down at Agent Beatrice Ann Belfour sitting beside him on the cold metal. Her dark hair was tucked under a knit hat of blue and green stripes. Her red parka was zipped so far up her neck that her face almost disappeared into it. It made her appear about twice her true size. He could appreciate that, as his sweatshirt and jacket were not up to the task of keeping him warm even with the hoodie up. But her words had sent a much greater chill coursing down his spine.

  “We have to be done. We’re fraternizing.”

  “I’m not the goddamn enemy.” He knew his anger wasn’t helping, but he was way past being able to control that.

  “I’m a full agent, you’re a trainee. I can’t keep putting that at risk for me and I can’t put that at risk for you.”

  “Like I could give a rat’s ass.” Though he actually did, which was kinda weird. He wanted this to work, a whole life beyond the projects that he’d never imagined. But he wanted her more.

  She wasn’t looking at him.

  That’s what was killing him. Those dark, fathomless eyes were glazed over and facing off somewhere in the direction of Manhattan, not at him. Not making him feel warm inside. Instead, they froze him out.

  “My next assignment arrived this morning.”

  “And you didn’t tell me?” His shout was loud enough that some of the passengers debarking from the East River ferry stumbled on the gangplank in the hurry to look in his direction and just as quickly away.

  “I’m telling you now.”

  She was. Damn it! He bit his tongue.

  “I’m telling you first.”

  Double damn! For six months he’d kept his temper in check. Once the trainers had learned he could control that, they’d pounded on him, trying to get a rise, trying to find out just how deep his control ran. It had gotten so deep that some of the other trainees had gotten mad on his behalf and stepped in the way of the obvious hazing. He’d kept his cool, except around Beat.

  He couldn’t do it now when he needed it. Not with Beatrice telling him they were done. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath.

  “Okay.” Another. “What is it?”

  “I’m going to be working Africa for the next six months. Traveling station to station, verifying and standardizing Secret Service security operations and interface with local agencies. It’s a great oppor—”

  “And now you’re telling me that you’re going to take it no matter what I say.” Frank had been prepared to ride out whatever she’d be doing. But not this. Not six months of it. That he couldn’t figure how to swallow.

  She didn’t look at him, not even after the ferry reloaded and moved on across the shining water.

  Finally she nodded, then hung her head.

  Beatrice Belfour never hung her head.

  Think, Frank. You’ve always let her do the thinking. Time you tried some of that. She’s the one who pulled you out of the shit projects and the hard-time future. She risked her career and shared her body. She was the one he was totally gone on. What have you risked?

  Nothing!

  And she never mentioned her family. He’d only met them once, totally by accident when they spotted her car and flagged her down. New York was weird like that. You could be way out of your normal ’hood and you’d run into a friend on the street you hadn’t seen in six months, despite knowin’ you lived just three blocks apart.

  Family wasn’t a place he bothered to think of much. But it had been real damn clear that her folks weren’t expecting no Frank Adams.

  That must hurt like hell too. She’d given everything and he’d just been cruisin’ along for the ride, not giving it any thought.

  Well, it was time to start doing that.

  “Okay,” he breathed deep until the cold air pierced his insides like frozen needles. “Okay.” He turned to face her.

  She didn’t look up.

  Thinking it better not to cup her chin and turn her face, he pressed a finger against her hunched shoulder, slowly turning her toward him and forcing her shoulder back until she looked up.

  “I’ll wait.”

  “But—”

  “I’ll wait!” He cut her off harshly. Knew he was being a jerk, not letting her finish her thoughts. But he had to make the point so she heard it.

  She stared at him for a long time, those dark eyes boring into him, seeking some truth he’d never find.

  Finally, that single nod.

  What the hell was that anyway? Frank Adams didn’t wait for any woman.

  Beatrice got up and walked back toward her car to head into the New York office of the United States freaking Secret Service.

  Frank stayed and blinked against the cold sunlight burning his eyes.

  For Beatrice Ann Belfour, he’d damn sure wait.

  Chapter 14

  Frank: Now

  No, we need answers right now, Ambassador Anselmo.” The President was not in one of his patient moods. “What is happening in your country, in Guinea-Bissau, right now?”

  “Nothing is bad happening in my country. Can assure your nation of that, President Matthews.”

  Frank wanted to pound his fist into the man’s dark face and then his ever so bright diplomat’s smile wouldn’t look so pretty. And by the time he was done, the man’s Brooks Brothers’ pinstripe would also be seriously mussed.

  They sat in the Guinea-Bissau ambassador’s office in the U.N. Secretariat Tower. It had none of the grandeur of the U.N. Secretary-General’s. A lone receptionist, a pretty woman in a traditional red blouse, sarong, and sandaled feet, had greeted them kindly. Clearly one of the highlights of her day, not just meeting the American President, but meeting anyone in this quiet corner of the floor where the West African nations were clustered together. Her desk had been clearly devoid of any work, despite the ambassador’s presence.

  Anselm
o’s office bore little of the traditional African décor. Instead he had drawn deeply on the designs, colors, and motifs of his country’s heritage as a former Portuguese colony. Frank felt like he’d been trapped in an Iberian version of a Pottery Barn store. Nothing felt authentic.

  “Then perhaps you can explain the attack on my embassy aircraft,” the President’s voice was calm. Matter of fact.

  Hank Henson set down the photo of the massive bloodstain by the airplane’s exit stairs as the President spoke.

  Frank had heard the President angry before, but this wasn’t angry. This was something new. He’d gone very quiet, so soft-spoken that Frank could barely hear him though he stood only two steps behind his chair. This was dangerous. In two years of serving with him, and six months on the campaign trail before that, he’d never heard that tone from Peter Matthews.

  “After that would you care to explain the deaths of my embassy personnel?”

  The photo of the exploded garage landed on the ambassador’s broad and empty desk, next to a gruesome close-up of the body parts, still there thirty-two hours later.

  “The torching of my liaison office.”

  A photo of the smoke still smoldering around the remains of the U.S. Liaison office building in downtown Bissau.

  “These are acts of war, Mr. Ambassador. You have one hour to produce answers. After that, I will make any decisions I deem appropriate to determine the security of my remaining personnel on the ground.”

  The President stood and moved from the room so quickly that Frank was hard pressed to stay in front of him. Hank brought up the rear.

  As soon as they were in the elevator, the President began speaking quickly.

  “You saw his face. He doesn’t know anything is wrong. Completely out of the loop, he’s playing the game with a tray full of vowels. I’ll wager he can’t even communicate with anyone in G-B at this time, though I’m sure he is only at this very instant discovering that.”

  Frank blinked, it took him only that long to catch up with the President’s thoughts.

  “Then why did you give him an hour?” Frank wouldn’t have given him thirty seconds.

  The President didn’t answer, instead he turned to Hank as the elevator continued downward.

  “Hank, what’s our closest asset? The Harry S. Truman where they launched the Raptor drone?”

  “Good memory, yes sir. Operation Sure Seas off Nigeria. Nigeria’s trying to outdo Somalia on being the terror of ocean-shipping channels. The Truman’s leading a task group to fight them back.”

  “Find out how fast they can have assets into Guinea-Bissau. Get the Joint Chiefs involved. We aren’t waiting an hour, we aren’t waiting a minute, I just wanted to give their ambassador some motivation. I do wish I hadn’t mentioned surviving U.S. citizens on the ground.”

  In retrospect, Frank agreed. If the ambassador could get through to whatever was the government of the moment, he would tell them there was someone they needed to find. The question was whether it would be to find and save, or find and silence.

  At the basement floor Hank got off the elevator, but the President remained, so Frank stayed with him. The President held the door as he finished passing instructions to Hank.

  “I have a luncheon with Russia, a meeting with Pakistan that isn’t going to be any fun at all, and a dinner with Great Britain and France. After dinner there’s an informal but essential meeting with Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam about a combined trade agreement. I can’t delay any of those, but I’ll run things through Frank. Keep him posted. Call Daniel at the White House. Tell my Chief of Staff to get his wife on this and to get everyone in the Sit Room. I’ll deal with the attacks on U.S. property and personnel later. I want our people in Guinea-Bissau found and found now.”

  He let the elevator door close without completing the statement to Hank, which Frank appreciated. He didn’t need to hear the President of the United States say about Beatrice Belfour, “if there is anyone still alive to be found.”

  Once again, he was stuck with waiting.

  # # #

  “What we need at the moment is patience. You have to stay here.”

  Ambassador Sam Green and Charlotte looked at Beatrice as if she’d gone mad. Well, that wouldn’t surprise her much at the moment. Trapped with the two of them in a narco-state undergoing a coup wasn’t exactly a rational experience. Guinea-Bissau didn’t have a large number of motor vehicles, and most of those were ancient motor scooters.

  Yet, through the cracks in the wall of the hut they were hiding in, the roads were far from empty. They were hiding in a warren of ramshackle huts southeast of the airport, but one that afforded her a narrow view of the one main street in the whole city. In the last few hours squatting here, she’d seen a dozen tacticals, the white Toyota pickups just bristling with armed and angry militia, and two tanks that looked to be left over from when the place had gained independence in the ’70s. She knew they had about thirty tanks, but intelligence had been unsure how many actually worked and how many of those had shells for their main cannon. She could hear something pounding away in the city center, clearly someone had some ammunition. The place was really coming apart. Again. She even spotted one of their two known helicopters.

  “You have to stay put here,” she pointed emphatically at the hut’s dirt floor.

  “Not alone. We can’t.”

  Beatrice was never prepared for this stage of working protection jobs. The moment when the protectee turned into, what the department carefully didn’t call, “the sniveling child” phase. Young children never dared circulate far from their parents. Protectees would latch onto their bodyguard’s metaphorical skirts and become a real pain.

  Technically, it was called a stage-two trauma response.

  Beatrice sighed. At least they were finally out of the stage-one denial. Now the ambassador had apparently opted for fear and confusion in stage two. She could do with the help from anger, but he hadn’t gone there. The Secret Service had trained her how to shift in mere seconds from precipitating event to stage three, new equilibrium. Only from equilibrium could the decision-making process accurately resume.

  If she could do a Vulcan mind-meld and shift Sam Green forward through the stages, she would. Though she seriously doubted she’d like what else she learned about him during the meld.

  Charlotte had moved on to anger. Apparently she and the now dead chargé d’affaires had been shopping buddies. That would be helpful, so she addressed Charlotte.

  “Look, if you want to get out of this alive so you can work on fixing this place so this never happens again…” Fat chance of that. Guinea-Bissau would be cycling through hell for decades to come just as it had for the last half century. These kinds of places always did. “… Then I need you to stay here and stay quiet. I’m going to get food and water. I’m also going to try and scout our way out of here.”

  Charlotte’s sharp nod of agreement confirmed that the woman’s brain had kicked back in. And that she was really looking forward to kicking some serious butt to revenge the chargé d’affaire’s death.

  Beatrice momentarily considered handing over her gun, but decided against it. The last thing she needed was for Sam Green to suddenly take it from his more rational assistant and decide he was G.I. Joe. Or, more likely, to go out and think that he could talk sense to these people at gunpoint.

  Instead, she told Charlotte. “Don’t let him leave. There’s half a million people here. If I lose you, you’re going to be dead.”

  “And if we stay with you?” She saw in his eyes that Ambassador Green was at least part way back.

  Beatrice shrugged. “Then I’ll see what I can do to improve our chances.”

  # # #

  For three hours Beatrice prowled the streets of Bissau. Starting her scouting in late evening, blending smoothly among what people there were along the street, darkness descended with t
hat sudden slice-of-a-knife abruptness typical of tropical countries. The moonlight, and the warm glow of cooking fires lit her way. But between each calm cluster of families going about their dinner-time life, explosions racketed from the direction of the city center.

  Bissau was turbulent. It was a city at war. Which was odd. As she understood the political structure, it was the military and the politicians who were constantly struggling for control of the drug trade. And no one else cared. For some reason, this time the entire city had erupted into violence.

  It reminded her of the World Trade Organization riots she’d ridden out during the 1999 Battle of Seattle. America had managed to set a new low for international standards of supposedly peaceful protest. To quell the “peaceful” rioting and looting had required the activation of two units of the National Guard and the entire police force. Massive vandalism, tear gas, stun grenades, rubber bullets, and over five hundred arrests. Seattle had exported their new brand of peaceful-protest-gone-violent to every subsequent meeting of the WTO, the G-8, or anyone else trying to improve international relations. This had the same feel. The place had simply gone nuts.

  Out here on the periphery, near the airport but not too near, the houses had mostly emptied. Everyone had either run to join the fray at either end of the main road, or run to the countryside to get out of it.

  She slouched against a wall along the avenue between the airport and city center, the only four-lane road in the whole country. She heard it called the Fera di Bandim. She thought that Fera translated as “Beast” in Portuguese, but that didn’t make much sense. Bandim was the central market, the anchor for the center of the city. Beast in the Market. Nope. Probably meant “road” in the local Kriol language, “road to market” worked. Or maybe it meant “market.” Market in Bandim? She preferred her translation. A street-corner sign, rusted and tipped badly, declared it as, Avenida Combatentes de Liberdade da Pátria. Avenue of the Patriotic Combatants of the Liberation? Avenue of the fighters to liberate some guy named Pátria?