A Gentleman's Game

16

London-Vauxhall Cross, Operations Room 3 September 1555 GMT Chace beat Crocker to the Ops Room by a minute, was getting a light from Ronald Taylor at the Duty Operations Desk when he entered.

"D-Ops on the floor," Ron said.

Crocker made a beeline to them, dropped the folder in his hand into Taylor's lap, saying, "Designation is Tanglefoot, Minder One allocated."

"Operation: Tanglefoot," Ron echoed.

"Lex? Put it up."

At the MCO desk, Alexis tapped on her keyboard, and the plasma screen representation of the world redrew itself, now with a lime-green halo surrounding Yemen. The call-out appeared beside it on the map, and Chace watched as the letters, one by one, appeared.

"I hope that doesn't mean I'm liable to be tripped up," Chace said. "Tanglefoot."

"It was either that or Lemontree," Crocker said. "I hate that fucking computer."

Chace chuckled. Contrary to popular belief, mission names were chosen entirely at random, from a computer-generated list of suggestions. It was a mystery to her exactly for what criteria the computer searched, and she suspected-as did most of the Ops Room staff-that the nameless technician who had written the program in the first place had done so with a Pythonesque relish of the absurd. She had, in her time, been associated or instrumental in such operations as Shoebox, Tanlines, Eyefire, and, personal favorite, Laceboy.

Tanglefoot was positively tame in that light.

Crocker turned from the plasma wall, apparently only marginally satisfied by Lex's execution of the order, and glared at Ron. "Mission Planning's delivered the brief?"

"Right here, sir. Minder One departs Heathrow oh-seven-fifteen tomorrow the fourth, BA flight 902, arrives San'a' via Frankfurt twenty-three-twenty local, same day."

"Long flight," Chace observed.

"At least you're going first class."

"And coming back steerage."

Crocker's look was icy. "Continue, Ron."

"Arriving San'a', Minder One checks in to the Hotel Taj Sheba. It's on the outskirts of the old city, ten kilometers from the airport, but it places her centrally, and it's popular with the tourists, so she'll fit right in."

"Five star, is it?" Chace kept the sarcasm mild.

"Actually, yes."

Crocker snapped his lighter closed, jetted smoke from his nostrils. "Cover?"

"Given the nature of the mission and the possible length of stay in country, Mission Planning felt it would be best for Minder One to be working with fresh papers." Ron sorted through a briefing file on his desk, settled on a new sheet. "Diana Kelsey in Documents is doing the passport right now, going with the Italian romance-novel cover."

"I'll pack my most billowy blouses."

"You're traveling as Adriana Maribino, from Como, in the north. Should help explain your looks some."

"And I thought I'd have to dye my hair."

"That's enough," Crocker snapped. "You're as bad as Wallace ever was."

Chace doubted that. There had been times when Wallace so completely undermined the seriousness of a briefing, he'd reduced the room to stitches, leaving Crocker glaring at a sea of faces, all trying to stifle the giggles. It had earned Wallace a dressing-down by D-Ops on more than one occasion.

"Sorry, sir," she said, unrepentant.

Ron hesitated, glancing from Crocker to Chace, then back again, before resuming. "Miss Maribino is single and works as a waitress at one of Como's finer dining establishments, the Trattoria del Gesumin. Restaurant favorites are the salmon tagliatelle, saffron risotto, and osso buco. This is a big trip for Miss Maribino, and she's splurged, registered with FST Arabia for a fourteen-day 'Roads of Arabia' package. The first week is centered in and around San'a', with trips to Ar-Rawda and Wadi Dhahr, so it'll support your cover."

"Procedure," Crocker demanded.

"The Yemen Number Two, Andrew Hewitt, is the pointer. As soon as he can confirm that Faud has arrived and can provide a location, he'll contact Minder One by phoning her room at the Taj Sheba between oh-seven-ten and oh-seven-twenty."

"My wake-up call," Chace murmured.

"He'll only call once, and only after he has the information, so it's vital you be in the room at those times."

"Understood."

"Hewitt will ask how Minder One slept. If she replies that she slept well, he'll come around immediately and deliver the gun and what intelligence on the target he's been able to gather. If Minder One feels that she has been compromised in any way, either by local security or opposition forces, she will respond that she slept poorly and needs to go back to sleep.

"In that instance, fallback is three hours plus seven minutes from the time of call, at a teahouse on Az-Zubayri Street, just south of the medina wall and east of the Sa'ila." Ron checked another of the sheets arrayed before him on the DOO desk. "Incidentally, there's a chance of rain, so the Sa'ila may be running. Otherwise your weather is in the low twenties."

Which meant the nights would be colder, Chace told herself, and reminded herself to pack a sweater.

"Failing the first fallback, the Station Number Two will load a dead-drop in the Qat Suq, in which Minder One will find the weapon and a briefing on the target's location and movements. Details on the drop are still being worked out, but we'll have them before her departure."

"Is there a selection to be had, or has someone made the firearm decision for me?" Chace asked.

"Chester reports that you rated highest with the P99 and the TPH," Crocker said. "Assuming that you'll be working close, we're arming you with the TPH and a Gem-Tech Vortex suppressor."

"Twenty-five or twenty-two?"

"Twenty-two," Crocker said. "Quieter."

Chace nodded. The smaller round meant less noise, but it also meant even less damage, especially with the addition of the suppressor. Not only would she have to be close, she'd have to make each shot count and most likely need every one of them. With six in the clip and a seventh in the chamber, it wasn't a lot to work with if things went wrong.

"If it all goes off," Ron said, "Minder One will have no other contact with Hewitt or the Station after the meeting at the Taj Sheba. If there's trouble or if Minder One is blown, she's to make her way to the safehouse on Maydan al-Qa', running through the old Jewish Quarter. Clay house, basement access, there's a map to it in the briefing. Minder One goes to ground, waits for the Station to contact her. There's a waterpipe on the northern corner of the building, street-side, little bit of rope around it. She removes the rope to indicate the house is in use. If the rope isn't there when she arrives, Minder One is to avoid the safehouse altogether and take whatever action she then deems necessary to complete or abort the mission."

"The basement?" Crocker asked.

"Unlike the rest of San'a', homes in the Jewish Quarter have basements," Ron explained. "There was an imamic declaration forbidding them to build any structure taller than nine meters."

Crocker grunted.

Ron looked to Chace. "Any questions?"

"Think that covers it. I'll nip home and get my things sorted, start practicing my Italian."

"Be back here by oh-three hundred," Ron said. "Gibbons will be on the desk then, but he'll have your documentation and tickets."

"Go over it again." Crocker ground out his cigarette in the cracked ashtray on Ron's desk. "Make certain you have it cold. I want drop-loaded and drop-cleared signals for the Qat Suq, as well as two alternate escape plans for Minder One to get out of the country if for some reason it goes to hell."

"There aren't many places for her to go," Ron said. "North and she's in Saudi, west she's in the Red Sea, east she's in Oman, south she's in the Gulf of Aden-"

"I know the damn map. Two alternates."

"Yes, sir."

"When you're finished, come see me," Crocker told Chace, and then whirled and blew out of the Ops Room much as he had entered.

Both Chace and Ron watched him go without comment.

"Right, going over it again," Ron said. "You'll be traveling as Adriana Maribino, from Como…" • "Close it," Crocker said.

Chace did as ordered, then took one of the seats in front of the desk and helped herself to one of the cigarettes remaining in Crocker's pack, resting atop the red operations folder. He remained standing, staring out the window. Night had descended, and London's lights flowed past, much like the Thames itself.

"You've got it?" Crocker asked.

"Perfettamente," Chace answered. "Signorina Maribino e molto eccitata di visitare lo Yemen. Lei spera di essere rapita e stuprata fino allo sfinimento da uno stupendo indigeno."

"You won't have time."

Chace grinned, then said, "I noticed the briefing had no mention of el-Sayd."

"You did, did you?"

"I'm not all thick. Does that mean I don't pursue?"

"If the Mossad intel is correct, el-Sayd will be meeting with Faud. If, by chance, that's when you hit, then el-Sayd becomes collateral and an unavoidable secondary target." Crocker moved back to his chair, focused on Chace. "Am I clear?"

"Perfectly."

"The primary target is your concern. You take the secondary only if the opportunity presents itself. I don't want to burn Landau on this, but I want this blown even less. El-Sayd is a bonus, that's all. You take what you can get, and then you get the hell out of Yemen."

"Yes, sir."

Crocker leaned forward on his desk, and the stare he gave her now was as intense as any she could remember from him. "Understand something else. The security on Faud's going to be tighter than Weldon's wallet, and you're not going in armed for a gunfight with his bodyguards. If you can't get to target, if you see anything that makes you cranky, you abort. Don't be reckless, Tara, it'll get you killed, and I can't afford to lose another Minder, not right now."

"Understood."

Crocker scowled, as genuinely unhappy as Chace could ever remember having seen him.

"Go," he said.