Convertino nodded. “And three?”
“Three? You’re busting out of here.”
NCIS temporary office, Sangin Base
“NO, NO, NO, and no.” Keller looked about to explode. Farkas stared out the window at the rain with a very unhappy “Don’t know, don’t have an opinion” look on his face. At that time of year Helmand Province averaged about two inches of rain. Right now they were getting three and on the tail of the dust storm it turned the world from a Martian landscape to gray floods and muck.
“Oh, come on, Keller,” Bolan cajoled, “What could happen?”
Agent Keller’s eyes flew wide in outrage. “He fragged a goddamn Marine Corps medical station! He killed a Navy doctor, and my suspect, and I’m personally going to see to it that the Navy reinstitutes death by firing squad! And if they don’t, I’m going to shoot Corporal Convertino myself!”
Bolan shrugged. “Give him to me.”
“No!”
“You can shoot him later.”
“What if he escapes?” Keller asked. Bolan smiled.
“Okay,” Keller acknowledged. “Maybe he can’t escape you, but what if you get your head blown off?”
“Where’ll he go? A Puerto Rican Marine in Afghanistan? He’s dead meat wherever he runs.”
“Yeah, and our boy is borderline suicidal.”
“And he wants redemption. Let him fall going forward,” Bolan said.
“Damn it! You know my orders were to extend you every courtesy! Every courtesy! This? This is pushing it!”
“Give him to me.”
“No!” Keller replied.
“What? You don’t trust me?”
“I don’t know! And stop smiling at me!”
“Give him to me,” Bolan pressed.
“God have mercy on us all…”
“Good.” Bolan nodded. “I’m glad we have that settled.”
“What!”
Bolan switched gears. “What did the sketch artist in D.C. come up with?”
Farkas opened a laptop and clicked an icon. Bolan could almost sympathize with the corporal. “Reema” was something right out of an old Arabian Nights movie: huge dark eyes, sensuous lips, perfect cheekbones and chin. All she was missing was a see-through pink veil and a ruby in her belly button. Bolan flicked through the multiple sketches he had ordered. Reema in Western-style clothes, Reema in the traditional long pants and tunic, Reema naked, Reema with just her eyes and the bridge of her nose peering out of a veil. Bolan downloaded the sketches into his highly modified tablet computer.
“Assuming I agree to go along with this,” Keller said, “which I haven’t, how do you want to play it?”
“Close to the vest. Convertino is on suicide watch. He makes an attempt, and busts out on the way to the infirmary. He steals a Humvee, crashes the gate and tries to contact his woman or whoever has her.”
“Or whoever has her, if anyone has her, takes him out.”
“That’s about it,” Bolan said.
“That’s just about a death sentence, not to mention that during the manhunt, not many of our guys are going to try to bring him back alive.”
“He’s looking at life in prison or the death penalty anyway. He wants redemption, he wants his woman safe, and if his woman was in on it, he wants payback. And he’s volunteered. He’s already sworn he won’t resist if captured.”
“You know how many things can go wrong on this?” Keller asked.
“He’s being implanted with a tracking device as we speak. I had to slap him around a bit to get him intimidated, so he has enough bruises on him no one should notice. The damage should help make his case.”
“You know, even if they bite, the only reason will be to kill him,” Keller said.
“I know.”
“How big a team do you want?”
“Just me, and I’ll take Ous along in case I need to talk to any locals,” Bolan replied.
“No backup? No surveillance?”
“I’ll have my own surveillance, but I’d take it as a favor if you were to pick me a crack team and keep a chopper hot on the pad in case I call. If things get hot, they’re going to get hot fast.”
Keller gave Bolan a very frank look. “I hope to God you’ve got some kind of pull with the Attorney General, or we are looking to get seriously rat-screwed on this one.”
“Never met the man,” Bolan admitted.
Keller just stared.
“But I know his boss,” Bolan stated.
Keller opened her mouth and closed it. The Attorney General of the United States served at the pleasure of the President. “Can I ask you a question?”
“You can ask.”
“Who are you?”
Bolan shrugged. “I’m Batman.”
“I’m not surprised at all.”
He gazed at Keller speculatively. “You speak Arabic?”
“Yeah, that’s why I’m here.” The NCIS agent’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“How’d you like to be a caped crusader, too?”
CHAPTER FOUR
Sangin
“Yeah, nice cape, buddy!” Agent Keller sat in the battered Toyota pickup, mildly outraged, swathed in a full burka and sandwiched between Ous and Bolan. “It suits you,” the soldier said.
“Indeed, you look most fetching,” Ous agreed.
“No woman looks fetching in a pup tent,” Keller muttered.
Ous sighed. “You have no idea how much time and energy we men spend, our eyes attempting to burn through the burka. We gasp at the accidental flash of an ankle, but much more can be told by a moment’s fall or fold of cloth, the change in drape as a woman sits or stands, the sway of it as she moves, and we yearn, burning, to catch a heartbeat’s glance of approval from a pair of shining eyes. I assure you, Agent Keller, our eyes are well practiced, and were you to walk across the bazaar, garbed as you are, all eyes would be upon you.”
Keller turned to Bolan. “You know you could take some charm lessons from him.”
“Actually, I may be the first man in Afghanistan to have charmed a woman into a burka rather than out of one,” Bolan replied.
The radio link crackled with Farkas’s voice. “Batman, this is Control, do you copy?”
“Loud and clear, over.”
“Mission is go.”
Bolan mentally counted down the seconds. Ous sat behind the wheel looking at his watch.
“Batman!” Farkas’s voice rose slightly with excitement across the link, “The rabbit has run!”
“Right on the mark,” Ous observed.
Bolan could hear gunfire on the other side of the link. “Understood. Control, maintain radio silence