Ding chuckled. “Quite a bit. But we’re the good guys. That’s the main thing you need to know.”
“CIA?”
“For a while,” Clark said. “Since we’re getting it all out in the open.”
JP looked down at his hands, folded on the wardroom table, and for just a moment Clark saw a bit of himself. “This is a lot to take in.” He locked eyes with his dad. “You’ve been doing whatever this is since you were in the Army?”
“In one way or another,” Ding said.
“Since you were about my age? Grandpa came to your unit and recruited you? So that could happen to me if it’s the family business. Right?”
“First of all,” Ding said, “I was a staff sergeant, not an E3.” He looked imploringly at Clark. “Help me out here, Grandpa.”
Clark put a hand on JP’s shoulder again. “Let’s just see where your career takes you. This kind of work has a way of finding the right person for the job. Let things happen in time.”
“I thought you were going to help,” Ding said. “That’s not helping.”
Clark gave his grandson a wink. “Like I said, it is the family business.” He put both hands on the table, and gave Ding a warning side-eye. “As much as it kills me to cut this reunion short, we need to talk more about that call from the boss’s boss.”
JP got to his feet. Both Ding and Clark drew him in for back-slapping hugs.
“I always thought you guys were pretty cool,” JP said. “But this is—”
“Between us,” Clark said. “That’s what it is. Secrecy is a burden, but it’s a big part of that family business we talked about.”
“Understood, sir,” JP said. “I should get back to my platoon.”
Clark gave him one more hug for the road, and then tousled what little hair there was on top of his regulation cut.
“Care to tell me how you got that broken nose?”
“Long story, sir,” JP said. “For another time.”
“But I should see the other guy. Right?”
JP laughed out loud. “You probably already have. He’s my best friend in the platoon.”
“Hmmm,” Ding said. “I guess that is a long story…”
Captain Jackson followed him out the wardroom door. “Lance Corporal Chavez and I will leave you two to discuss your secret phone call. Can you stay for dinner?”
“Wish we could,” Clark said. “But we’ll have to take a rain check.”
JP was shaking his head as he went out the door. “This is the most kickass thing I’ve ever even heard of…”
The Mi-17 pilot and Dom Caruso, who’d been sitting directly behind him, suffered burns from spilled fuel during the crash. The pilot went directly from the
“Patsy’s going to have my ass,” Chavez said.
“The boy looks sharp, though,” Clark said.
“I wonder about that fight,” Ding said. “He took some kind of beating… and the dude and he are friends now…”
“And he’s still standing,” Clark said.
“Still…” Ding said, his mouth set in a tight line.
Clark patted him on the back. “We all got our secrets, son.”
Clark got Foley back on the line as soon as he had the team convened in his hotel room.
Dom sat in a padded chair, his bad leg propped up on an ottoman under a bag of ice. Jack Junior barely contained his displeasure at having missed the action — even if that action was a helicopter crash. Frankly, Clark knew how he felt, but had seen enough action in his life that he didn’t feel cheated.
Vietnam had good relations with the United States at the moment, but Clark had still taken time to sweep the room for listening devices. They’d drawn the curtains and set up white-noise “chirpers” by the door and each window to defeat laser mics anyone might be bouncing off the glass. Even so, they spoke in vague terms and coded names.
“Thanks, Chief,” Clark said, when the DNI had finished her thumbnail brief. An enlisted sailor at heart, Clark used the title as a term of endearment, having generally reserved his top level of trust for the crusty old senior chiefs over most officers.
“So,” Ding said, once Clark disconnected the call. “Two targets. Mother and daughter. We’ll have to split up.”
Midas lay on his back on top of Clark’s bedspread, drawing imaginary circles in the air with the gimme hotel pen from the nightstand. “The kid should be a simple find. We’re going to need something else to go on to find her mama besides ‘hiding out with some terrorists somewhere in China.’”
