Eyes of the Hammer

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Alexander looked up in surprise. Four hundred meters downslope from his location, the dark night sky was split as arc lights clicked on at the lab site. He glanced over at Vaughn, who returned his puzzled look. They watched for a few minutes as activity burgeoned in the camp, then Alexander edged away from the recon site and slid into some bushes where the radio was set up. Colden was there watching over Paulson. The sliding ride down the mountainside from the drop zone to the recon site had entailed a few spills for the unfortunate weapons man, and Colden was monitoring Paulson to make sure shock didn't set in.

Vaughn slid in behind Alexander, having left Atwaters and Haley continuing the surveillance. The captain looked uncertain. "What do you think is going on down there?"

Alexander looked at the young team leader in the darkness. "I think they're either moving or getting a shipment ready to go."

"What do you think we should do?"

Alexander picked up the handset for the SATCOM. "Let's see if we can get the Hammer down here a little earlier. Not much else we can do by ourselves."

Suarez swore to himself as the jeep lurched along the unpaved mountain road. The lights from the truck following him wavered crazily in the cool night air as the truck negotiated the trail. Suarez was tired and hungover, but he was also very angry. Angry that he had received word so late.

Only an hour ago one of his informers had reported receiving the warning phone call. The caller claimed that Ramirez's people were going to raid Suarez's main lab in the mountains outside Medellin the next morning.

Unable to confirm the report with his own sources, Suarez had reacted. He couldn't afford not to. He had quickly gathered together all the guards he could find and, after radioing the camp to warn it, had led them out on the narrow trail through the mountains to where the lab was located. Suarez had a well-earned reputation as a man who led his men by example, always putting himself in the middle of any activity.

Suarez blinked as a figure stepped out of the dark in front of him onto the dirt road. He relaxed as he recognized one of the lab's guards. The man waved at him.

"Buenos dias, Senor Suarez."

Suarez ignored the greeting. "Is the camp prepared?"

"Si, senor. We have two machine guns here guarding the road. It is the only way someone can get in. We have mountains on all other sides. If someone comes we will kill them before they realize the mistake they have made."

Suarez looked around. It was a good location for an ambush. Good fields of fire on a narrow bend of the road. The camp was another three kilometers away, higher up on the mountainside. But the guard was right. The road was the only way someone could come and attack. Unless of course they used helicopters, but Suarez knew that The Shark didn't have access to enough helicopters to get a sizable force up here, unless he used the military's — in which case Suarez's informants in the air force would have given him ample warning. Besides, the military wouldn't dare. Furthermore, there was still more than enough firepower up at the lab to beat off an airmobile assault. There was only one cleared place flat enough for a helicopter to land within two kilometers of the lab, and that was the lab's own pad. A helicopter attempting to land there would be easily destroyed by ground fire.

"Good. I will leave the men in the truck here. I am going up to the main camp." Suarez signaled his driver to keep going.

In fifteen minutes, they pulled into the lab cut into the side of the mountain. Arc lights blazed as men labored to load processed cocaine into three panel vans. Cocaine worth over $800 million in street value was presently in this camp. Enough to keep Suarez's operation going for the next four months. He also had his best lab equipment and technicians at this site. If the location of this lab was no longer secret, as the anonymous phone call had clearly indicated, then it was time to move everything.

Alexander glanced up as Atwaters squirmed into their little base camp.

"There's a jeep pulling into the camp. Looks like they're done loading all that stuff into the vans."

Alexander looked at his watch and swore. All they needed was a little more time.

Suarez glanced at his watch. Another five minutes and they'd be ready to roll.

One of the men came out of the barracks. "Senor Suarez! A radio call for you."

Suarez swaggered across the clearing to the shack, where the radio operator handed him the mike.

"Suarez here."

"This is Jesus. We found your pilot. He just took off and should be there in five minutes."

"Good. I will meet him at the landing field."

Suarez smiled for the first time that evening. He'd been furious when they couldn't track down the pilot for the brand-new helicopter he had bought last month. With the helicopter now en route, things were changed. Suarez wouldn't have to entrust all his wealth to the vans. He'd take some of the cocaine to the landing zone next to the lab and fly it out with him. Saved time and trouble. The chances of the convoy getting ambushed and all the cocaine lost had now disappeared. In a better mood, Suarez walked out of the shack to give the new orders.

"We've got a lot of activity here. Definitely looks like they're packing up to move out. Over."

Chief Warrant Officer Straker curled his finger over the front of his cyclic and pressed his send button. "Roger. I've got your laser designator on the screen. Wait one while I check with upstairs. Break." The last word indicated that Straker was going to talk to another station on the net. "Moonbeam, this is Viper One. Over."

"This is Moonbeam. You've got a slow-mover inbound your location out of Medellin. Looks like it might be a helicopter by the way it's flying. ETA two minutes. Over."

Damn! Straker thought rapidly. They weren't paying him enough to make these decisions. The orders had said blast everything. If that was so, then the helicopter was fair game, too. Whoever was flying at two in the morning wasn't on a mission of mercy. Probably coming in to help outload the lab below.

The entire mission time sequence had been rushed ever since the ground surveillance had initially reported the activity at the lab. They were already forty-five minutes ahead of planned schedule.

"Eyes Two, this is Viper One. We've got an unknown helicopter inbound. I'm going to let it touch down and then start the Hammer. Over."

"This is Eyes Two. We copied Moonbeam. Roger."

Straker had a headache. That wasn't unusual. He had a headache every time he flew the Apache. The advanced attack helicopter was almost too much machine for the pilot to handle. The main source of his headache was flying with his right eye and simultaneously reading the essential telemetry off the tiny display flipped down over his left eye. The need to focus each eye independently caused a spike of pain to bisect his forehead.

Straker occupied the rear seat of the two-seat helicopter. From that position, he flew the bird. Directly in front of and offset below him, the gunner, Martin, controlled the gunship's firepower: eight Hellfire missiles, a 30mm chain gun, and thirty-eight 2.5-inch rockets. Martin wore a helmet that had the sighting system for the 30mm gun built in; wherever Martin turned his head, the barrel of the gun, nestled under the nose of the helicopter, followed.

The Hellfires and rockets were mounted on pods that hung below pylons protruding from the side of the aircraft. The rockets were aimed by maneuvering the entire aircraft. The Hellfire was a fire-and-forget weapon designed to destroy tanks. Fire-and-forget meant that the missile was locked onto the target with a laser designator by the gunner. He then transferred the lock-on to the missile's own internal guidance system and fired it. The missile's computer kept it on track with the target and guided it in, even if the target was moving. This was a tremendous advantage over the old TOW system, which had required the gunner to keep the target in his sights the entire flight time of the missile.

Straker keyed his external radio. "Viper Two, Three, and Four, this is One. Move when I do. Remember to stick to your fields of fire. I'll take out the helicopter. Also remember that those friendly grunts are upslope when you open up. You should have their location on IR. Over."

"Two here. Roger. Over."

"Three here. Roger. Over."

"Four here. Why do you get all the fun? Over."

Straker smiled briefly at the gibe. He could see the inbound helicopter now through his night-vision equipment. It was also displayed on his forward-looking infrared radar, coming out of the northwest, to his left front. The Apaches were hovering in a valley five kilometers to the south of the target. Straker's was peaking just over the edge; the other three were below the crest of the ridgeline. Not that anyone from the camp could see or hear them at this distance, but it didn't pay to be careless.

He watched the collision lights of the inbound helicopter settle down into the lit landing field. They could have easily spotted this camp without the aid of the ground surveillance. But it was a good thing the surveillance had been there or else they would have hit the camp too late.

The four attack helicopters had lifted off on schedule from the Raleigh thirty kilometers off the west coast of Colombia. But when the ground surveillance had called Moonbeam — the AWACS surveillance plane circling off the coast — with the report of unusual activity, they had opened their throttles wide. Straker had pushed the Apaches in his strike force to almost maximum speed, arriving only three minutes ago. Just in time it now appeared.

Whatever and whomever the Colombians were going to load onto the helicopter were probably on board, Straker decided. Time to party. He pulled in collective and leaned the cyclic forward. The other three Apaches spread out on either side of him.

Straker talked over his intercom to his gunner in the front seat. "Like I told the other guys, Martin: You take out the chopper first, then our designated sector."

"Roger that. This is working out real well. That bird will cover up the noise of us approaching."

Straker nodded to himself and concentrated on flying. They were less than three kilometers away. He keyed the mike. "Open up on my firing. I'm waiting till one klick."

The formation spread farther apart as each gunship gave itself room to fire and maneuver. At a thousand meters from the camp, Straker flared his aircraft into a hover just over the treetops. The helicopter from the camp was just lifting off. "Now," he hissed over the intercom.

A flame exploded on the right side of the gunship as a Hellfire missile leapt forward. Martin had locked in the Apache's laser target designator, and the beam of invisible light was automatically tracking the helicopter, aiming the Hellfire. As the missile roared away, the 30mm cannon under the nose of the helicopter started spitting death into the camp.

The Hellfire impacted on the hapless helicopter, tearing halfway through the aircraft's turbine engine before exploding. The charge, designed to penetrate a tank's armor, devastated the fragile helicopter. Flaming pieces littered the trees below.

Straker rocked in his seat as the aircraft shuddered with the recoil of the automatic cannon. Pencils of light streaked from the pods on the side of the helicopter. Martin had started firing the 2.5-inch rockets.

Flanking Viper One, the other three Apaches were releasing their loads. Through his optics, Straker could see bodies littering the camp, and the buildings in ruin. An explosion sent a tongue of flame curling into the night sky. That explosion initiated a rapid sequence of smaller, secondary detonations. Straker blinked for a second as his night-vision equipment strained to adjust to the light differences.

Death reigned in the camp. Straker knew that the Special Forces team was somewhere off to the east watching this destruction. He heard the radio crackle. "Viper One, this is Eyes Two. Over."

"Viper One. Over."

"You've got everything in the camp as far as we can see. One of the vans made it to the road and is heading south. We think it's carrying some of the cocaine. We're ready to move forward and verify the kill and get picked up. Over."

"Roger that, Eyes Two. Break. Viper Three and Four, go after that van and take it out. Two, move forward with me and cover the pickup zone. Break. Moonbeam, did you copy Eyes Two? Over."

"This is Moonbeam. Roger that." The voice continued. "Stork is two minutes out coming in from the west, to your left front."

Straker edged his aircraft forward as he watched Three and Four break off his right and head for the trail out of the camp. Straker took up a position covering the camp from the northwest, while Two covered it from the northeast. He watched as an infrared strobe light started flashing in his night sight.

"One, you got Eyes Two in sight? Over."

"Roger that. Over."

"Eyes Two, this is Viper One. We have you in sight." Straker could see five men moving through the wreckage of the camp. They appeared to be carrying a sixth man on some sort of stretcher. As Straker watched, one man turned and fired into a body lying on the ground. Straker spotted a seventh figure skulking toward the tree line. Apparently, Martin spotted the target at the same time: The 30mm cannon erupted and the figure was obliterated. A burst of light to the immediate south caught Straker's attention.

"This is Three. Scratch one van full of scum. Over."

Straker reoriented as the HH-53 Pave Low passed between his aircraft and Viper Two, settling into the landing zone. The five men ran on board the ramp with their stretcher. The Pave Low lifted.

Straker pulled in cyclic and keyed his mike. "Let's circle round the wagon, guys."

With the lift helicopter safely in the center, the five aircraft sped northwest just a hundred feet above the terrain at 130 knots.

Stevens put down the headset. The helicopters were long gone out of Colombian airspace, heading north over the Pacific Ocean toward Panama. The night's mission was complete. Stevens rolled his head back and let out a deep breath. He was exhausted. The thought of Maria waiting back at the room failed to excite him for the first time. She had worn him out before he'd come on duty tonight. He'd almost been late coming up on the radio net. Stevens had reluctantly pried himself out of her arms in order to get here to monitor Eyes Two's activities only an hour and forty-five minutes prior to the actual attack.

"I don't like it one bit." Riley shook his head. Eyes Two's debriefing had just finished, and Stevens had called up with the latest information from his informants regarding the events of the early morning. Paulson was still on the Raleigh in the ship's infirmary. The rest of Eyes Two had just left to go upstairs and catch some sleep after their long night. Riley and Pike had gotten together with Westland in Pike's office and were now reviewing the information that had come out in the debrief.

Riley explained his concern. "I don't think Suarez would have tried to move his lab that quickly based on the fact that one of Ramirez's labs had been hit the night before. How the hell did Suarez find out about the first hit? Ramirez has kept it real quiet. Or at least that's what Stevens tells us. And second, why the rush to move it in the middle of the night, almost as if he was expecting to be hit right then?"

Westland shook her head. "I agree it doesn't make sense. If there's a leak, then why didn't Eyes One's target get warned?"

General Pike swung his head around. "Let's look at it logically. Let's also worst case it and assume a leak, although most likely it was just a coincidence.

"The where of Eyes One and Two was known to several people. People here in the Eyes teams, people in the Hammer task forces, those people across the river in Washington whom I had to brief. Also, it was known by the CIA contact who took the information, and, backing up from him, by the person who gave that contact the information in the first place. If there is a leak that's the place I think we should look."

Westland shook her head. "Even if the source told other people what it told our contact, there's no way the source could know on which nights we were going to hit."

Pike considered that. "We're also getting extremely paranoid here. The odds are it was just a coincidence. But I don't like coincidences, so from here on out we're going to be more secure. No one other than the people in this building will know the exact day or time of the hit."

Riley concurred. "Sounds good to me, sir."

They both turned and looked at Westland. The unspoken question was whether she would go against her instructions from the CIA and not report back to her supervisor the timing of the hits. She didn't hesitate. "I agree. The timing stays with us."

Pike glanced at Riley. Riley nodded to his boss. He felt they could trust her.

Pike continued. "I'm going to have the Hammer task forces on alert status starting now, and they go only on the radio call from the team on the ground. That way if the leak came out of the Hammer force, we can prevent them knowing which night the hit actually goes down until they're on their way to the target. I'm sure they'll bitch about that at the Pentagon, but I'll brief the chairman personally on why we're doing it. I'm sure he'll agree and support us."

Riley nodded. "That'll help, sir, but I think the leak, if there is one, is elsewhere." He turned to Westland. "You need to do some hard checking on the contact agent down there and the source. From the beginning I thought it was screwed up getting intelligence from an unknown source. You need to find out as much as you can about the source."

If Westland resented being told what to do by Riley, she didn't show it. "I'll see what I can find out."

Alegre watched as the chief of his presidential bodyguard sat down across from him. Pasquel Montez was his closest adviser and friend. They had grown up in the same suburb of Bogota and attended the university together. Montez was the only man in Bogota that Alegre would trust totally. He was also the only man in Bogota who knew the complete extent of the plan Alegre had implemented. "What is the report from Medellin?"

Montez smiled. "Most interesting. The raid, of course, was a success. There is nothing left up there. The interesting part, my President, is that Suarez was killed in the raid."

Alegre looked up in surprise. "What was Suarez doing at his laboratory in the middle of the night?"

"I don't know yet. I have some people making discreet inquiries."

Alegre digested this new information. "Certainly I am not going to cry over the death of that pig. With Suarez out of the way, the Medellin gang will be out of circulation for a while. I imagine the Ring Man and Ramirez will fight like wolves over what's left."

Montez seemed noncommittal. "Certainly Suarez's death furthers your cause, but I am worried about why he was there in the middle of the night. Could he have been set up? And if he was set up, by whom? The answer to the last question would seem to be quite obvious. There is only one other man in the country besides you and I who knows about the attacks."

Alegre shook his head. "The Ring Man may know where, since he was the one feeding the information to us, but he doesn't know when. Even we don't know the when until the DEA man at the embassy calls me after it's already completed. How could the Ring Man know what time the attack would go last night in order to set up Suarez? Besides, it doesn't matter. If they want to kill each other off, then so much the better. Less for us to do."

Montez appeared disturbed. "I have to again warn you, my President, that this is a dangerous course you are charting. If you fail to completely break the back of the drug cartel, they will come and break your back when they find out what you have done."

Alegre was bothered by his friend's lack of conviction and sought to reassure him. "We already have won several major victories. The United Nations' vote has gone our way. Suarez is dead and his organization on the verge of destruction. Ramirez has been badly hurt. The power of the cartel has been significantly reduced."

Montez disagreed. "I don't think so, my friend. Rather I would say that the balance of power has shifted. Ring Man will be moving in to take over the power vacuum these attacks have opened. He is well prepared."

Alegre held up his hand to forestall the doomsaying. "Then we will have to have the Ring Man taken care of."

Montez stared at Alegre in disbelief. "We have no one who would be foolish enough to try that."

"I know we don't." Alegre smiled grimly. "But maybe the Americans do. They are too committed now to back out of the present course of action. We can always claim that we didn't know anything about these attacks and put the heat on Washington by threatening to disclose what has happened. After the Panama invasion they couldn't afford that. It would destroy whatever diplomatic relations they have down here in Latin America."

Riley watched as Pike considered his proposal. The two were seated in the general's office, where Riley had laid out his idea in five minutes. Pike was obviously sorting out the pieces in his mind. When they clicked in place the senior officer looked up. "It's a good idea. Even before you came in, I had decided we weren't going to send both teams concurrently on the next mission. If there is a leak, then I want only one team to be compromised. Your idea does that and also reduces the chance of someone knowing when the mission will go."

Riley nodded. The proposal to mount Eyes Three the next evening rather than on Monday night made sense to him. Right now, everyone involved believed that the next mission would occur in two nights. If they moved it up and ran it tomorrow night the chances of compromise were greatly reduced. Then they would delay Four until Tuesday night. That would give the other half of the team more time to prepare and also give them an edge if their old date had been compromised.

Pike considered the ramifications out loud. "I like your idea for infiltration. Should be no problem getting a regular slick UH-60 in Panama. I very much doubt that there's any leak in the Special Ops aircrews or that they are being watched, but if there is, this will circumvent that. I can get everything rolling tonight without tipping off anyone.

"As far as the Hammer is concerned, we can go either way. The Apaches are on alert status off the coast and in Panama, and I'm going to have 1st SOW forward deploy an AC-130 to Panama for quicker reaction. Whichever one we use won't have to know what's happening until you give the go from on the ground. The only person I have to brief here is the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and I don't think that will be a problem." Pike paused. "What about Stevens?"

Riley shook his head. "We don't tell him either until we're on the ground."

"All right. You brief your people and I'll get a hold of the chairman and get his blessing."

"… and that's why we believe there is a leak." Westland paused and waited for Strom's reaction. The senior agent was dressed in his golfing clothes and did not appear thrilled with being called in on a weekend to meet with her. There were important people out on the course that he needed to rub elbows with.

Strom shook his head. "That's pretty flimsy. There's a lot of reasons why the camp may have been moving. Hell, they could just have been reacting to the first attack. If there had been a leak, don't you think they would have been better prepared for an attack or have moved earlier? I don't buy it."

Strom looked at her condescendingly. "My dear girl, you have to understand that sometimes in these field operations the unexpected occurs, and the reason it occurs is not due to some dark, monstrous plot but rather just simply the fates weaving their web."

Westland tried hard not to roll her eyes or get angry. She didn't need the patronizing bullshit and she also didn't like being treated like an idiot. She felt she had come here with a legitimate concern and she knew she was getting blown off. "Can you at least give me an idea of how the intelligence on the target sites is getting to us?"

Strom inspected his manicured hands. "My dear girl, you really don't have a need to know that. There's nothing you can do about it anyway. That's my responsibility, and I can assure you there isn't a problem on that end."

Westland decided to push things. If he called her "my dear girl" one more time she didn't think she could control herself. "How can you be sure there isn't a leak on that end? How can you be sure the Colombian source is legitimate?"

He looked up at her in anger, and she was afraid for a second that she'd gone too far. But she really didn't care. She was doing her job, and she had an obligation to the men doing the mission to check on things as much as she could.

Strom had obviously decided enough was enough. "You can be sure because I'm bloody well sure, that's why!" He took a few seconds to gain visible control of himself. "When you've been in this business as long as I, then you will understand."

Strom stood up. Discussion over, thought Westland. He escorted her to the door. "I appreciate your concerns, but I really think you and your Special Forces friends are overreacting. The task force has been a success so far. I think it will continue. However, if you do come across any solid evidence you think points to a leak, let me know right away."

Westland fumed as she watched the door shut in her face. As she walked to her car she considered what she'd just been told. And not told. And where the hell did Strom get that stupid British accent? she wondered illogically to herself.

Westland shook her head angrily as she drove her white Camaro out the gates and headed toward Fort Belvoir. There were obviously a lot of things going on that she didn't have knowledge of. Games within games. She'd seen it at Langley during the past seven years. She wasn't foolish enough to believe that Task Force Hammer was the only operation going on in Colombia, but she had thought that at least she would be informed of any others that might affect her mission, and that she would have high enough clearance to be told about the source of her intelligence. She slammed her fist into the steering wheel in frustration. Maybe she was just overreacting, but a small knot in the pit of her stomach refused to untie.

There'd been no audience for the Eyes Three briefback other than Westland and General Pike. Apparently the powers-that-be had been satisfied with the results of the first two missions and didn't feel the need to keep a cautious eye on the actual proceedings. Besides, Riley knew, it would be Pike's ass on the line if anything went wrong. Pike would be the one recommending to the chairman that the plan was good and the mission should be approved. By distancing himself, General Macksey was placing the entire responsibility on Pike's shoulders.

As with the previous two missions, the plan for Eyes Three was straightforward. The means of infiltration was a little different, but other than that it was business as usual.

Riley wondered whether it would be the same. His bad feeling about the intelligence was still there. Westland's angry recounting of how she had been treated by Strom did little to reassure him. Some CIA bureaucrat says don't worry and I'm supposed to buy off on that, Riley thought. Right.

He tightened a strap on his ruck and threw it on the floor, then took its place on his bunk. Powers glanced up from his bunk, where he was perusing a superspy, international espionage novel someone on the team had lent him. "Hey, partner, what's the matter? You still ain't worried about the intel stuff, are you?"

"Hell, yeah, compadre, I'm still worried about that. We could get our asses shot off if there is a leak."

Powers shook his head. "Listen, bud. Let me tell you a few rules I've learned in the college of hard knocks. First off, don't worry about things you can't control. Second, you can't trust them CIA dinks as far as you can throw them, but you also can't do nothing about them either. Third, if you was as good as the hero in this novel I'm reading, you'd be able to use your ninja sixth sense and figure everything out. Did you miss the class on being able to read the future in all those martial arts courses you took? The guy in this book has an inner sense that tells him when danger is near."

Riley laughed. "Yeah, I must have missed that day."

Powers turned serious for a moment. "Listen. This mission tomorrow night is a good one. We'll be coming in a direction they won't expect, and that no one except the people in this building know about. Even if there is a leak, we still have that on our side. I feel pretty good about it. Let it go and relax. Whatever's going to happen is going to happen. All we can do is make sure we got our shit in one tight little bag."

Riley nodded. "Yeah, you're right. You know me, though. I'm not happy unless I'm worrying. The more worrying—" He paused as he heard a knock on the door. "Come in."

He sat up on his bunk as he saw Westland edge her way into the room. "What's up? Some new intel?"

Westland shook her head. "No. Just thought I'd stop by. Say hello."

Riley smiled. She seemed a little nervous, and he wasn't sure how to put her at ease. He wasn't very experienced at small talk. His philosophy was that either you had something to say or you didn't, and he wasted little time talking about things he didn't think were important. It didn't help that Powers was sitting on his bunk watching the two of them, his eyeballs flicking back and forth, as though he was watching a tennis match.

Riley gestured at the small army-issue desk near the window. "Grab a seat. We were just talking about the mission tomorrow."

Powers groaned. "I don't want to talk about the mission tomorrow. I'm tired of talking about army crap."

Riley snorted. "For you that sure doesn't leave much to talk about, other than guns and beer drinking."

Powers put on his hurt expression. "Hey, I'm a cultured person. I can talk about a lot of other things." He stood up. "But seeing as you two don't quite make it up to my high standards of the art of conversation, I think I'll seek company elsewhere." Powers started easing the door shut behind him. "I'll knock before I come back in." He made a great show of looking at his watch. "Say in about a half hour. That ought to give you enough time." Riley threw a pillow at the door with a yell.

Westland looked at him and grinned. "I think he likes you."

Riley crossed his legs and sat in a yoga position on the bed. "Yeah, we get along pretty good. In the last year we've spent more time together than most married couples." He turned serious. "Dan's wife left him just after I got to the team, and he went through a rough time. He didn't miss his wife too much, but not having his two kids around tore him up. He started—"

Riley paused. He had just been about to tell Westland things that he had kept between Powers and him. It wasn't his place to disclose something told in friendship. Why had he been so ready to tell Westland, especially after knowing her for only about a week?

"Anyway, if you have a good team all the guys tend to get kind of tight. But it's funny in a way, too. You spend most of your time bullshitting with each other and not being serious too often, and you definitely don't get into someone's personal life. Not unless they want you to."

Riley decided to change the subject. "What about you? How do you find life over at Langley?"

Westland put her feet up on the desk. "I'm not really close to anyone over there. There's a weird mentality in the air. Everything you do is pretty much classified so you can never talk about work, and most like leaving the place behind when they go home at the end of the day. And those who don't I really don't like being around." Westland laughed self-consciously. "I guess I never thought about it much."

Riley contemplated her words. "Sometimes I think we end up living a life-style that we really don't think about too much. Kind of just flow with the stream and never do much steering."

"Are you a soldier-philosopher?"

Riley shrugged. "Sometimes. Sometimes when you're out in the woods in the middle of the night, waiting, your mind can really travel."

He smiled. "I'm good at asking questions but I don't have too many answers."

"Neither do I."

Riley's thoughts flickered back to the upcoming mission. "Hopefully we won't get any bad answers to our questions about the security of the mission when we go in tomorrow night."

"I don't think there's anything to worry about. At least I hope there isn't," Westland amended.

"Well, as Powers was just telling me before you came in, we'll find out soon enough."