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  France

  ( Joint Task Force - 3 )

  David E. Meadows

  When a secret mission to destroy an experimental weapon goes wrong, it leads to a covert battle along the coast of Africa that could bring the world to war.

  From the Author

  The Seabees are the unsong heroes of the United States Navy. They hit the ground running-tools in one hand and a weapon in the other, building the things needed to support those whose primary job is fighting. And, with all that, the Seabees find time to help the local population not only repair hospitals & schools, but doing charity work in the community. The legend and charity of the fighting Seabees lives in today's Navy.

  David E. Meadows

  France

  To my United States Navy Seabees

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  It is impossible to thank everyone who provided technical advice on and support of this and other novels. My thanks for those who visited http://www.sixthfleet.com and provided comments. I do read each email personally, and my goal is to respond to each of them.

  I do appreciate the encouragement from the authors and readers who honor me by reading and providing reviews on my books — such as Stephen Coonts, W.E.B. Griffin, Joe Buff, Robert Gandt, Victoria Taylor-Murray, and other fellow authors. I wish I could express my personal thanks to each one of you. Many of you offered good advice, all of which I considered. Many were kind enough to encourage, provide technical guidance, or many times just answer questions unique to their professional skills and qualifications. If I have inadvertently missed some of you, I apologize, but my individual thanks to LtCol Scott Heckert-USMC, ‘Storming’ Normand; retired reservist Seabee chief, Ms. Sharon Reinke, Mr. Art Horn, LtCol Randy Coats-USAF, LCDR Nancy Mendonca, CDR Scott Fish (helicopter warrior), Mr. Ed Brumit, Maj Howard Walton-USMC, and a Royal Navy supporter-Stephen Barnett. My continued thanks to Mr. Tom Colgan for his editorial support and to his able right-hand person, Ms. Samantha Mandor.

  While I have named a few for their technical advice, rest assured that any and all technical errors or mistakes in this novel are strictly those of the author who many times wanders in his own world.

  David E. Meadows

  CHAPTER 1

  “I know what you’re doing,” Bill Hampshire whispered into Kurt Vernigan’s ear.

  Kurt tried to push his chair away from the desk, but Hampshire had his leg against it, wedging him against the gray metal government desk. A bead of sweat broke out on his forehead. “What do—”

  “What do I mean?” Hampshire laughed and pushed his leg hard against the chair. “You know what I mean. You don’t think I haven’t been watching you, you fat, ugly piece of shit?”

  Kurt placed both hands on the edge of the desk and pushed. It was hard to breathe. The desk edge had caught under the bulk of his stomach and pushed it upward into his diaphragm, obstructing Kurt’s ability to take full breaths.

  Hampshire laughed. “I wouldn’t make too much noise, asshole,” he purred into Kurt’s ear. “These cubicles don’t hide noise too well, and you just might cause others to come over to see what in the hell is going on. When that happens, I’m going to be one hell of a hero, and you, my fine smelly, ugly, sweaty pig of a friend, are going to be hauled off in handcuffs. Even your mother will disown you.”

  Kurt felt the pressure against the chair ease, but his stomach was still pressing against his lungs. Little white spots danced around his vision.

  “What do you want?” he asked, thinking, How could he know? How could anyone know? I’ve been too careful. I’ve done everything I was told to do. What if I pass out—

  “What does any nice-looking, underpaid bachelor in Washington, D.C. want? I want money, and I don’t mean a check. I want cold hard cash, and I want it now.”

  Kurt started to turn his head. A slight slap against the back of his head stopped him. The number of lights dancing in front of his eyes increased.

  “Don’t turn around. Just hand me the cash.”

  “I can’t breathe.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “And, I don’t have any money.”

  Hampshire laughed and kicked the chair, pushing it tighter against the desk. “I was in the credit union in the basement today, asshole. I overheard the teller talking to her supervisor. I bet it surprised the shit out of you when you discovered the credit union has a cash limit of five thousand dollars a day. I was surprised. I was even more surprised when I heard the supervisor say some bullshit thing about you buying a house and that today was the last day you planned on withdrawing five thousand because you had withdrawn the same amount for four days in a row.”

  “I am buying a house,” Kurt said through clenched teeth. He put his hands against the desk and pushed. It moved an inch before Hampshire put his full weight against the back and pushed.

  “I’d quit that, my asshole friend, unless you want to find your body chopped in half.”

  “But, I can’t breathe.”

  “You may be buying a house, Kurt, but you and I both know it won’t be in the good old United States. I guess the question I have is, in how many banks or credit unions do you have access to such money? You know what I think, Kurt, and I’ve laid awake at night for two weeks thinking about it ever since—”

  “What do you want, Bill?”

  Smoker’s breath rolled across Kurt’s nostrils as Hampshire, close to his ear, breathed softly, “I want the five grand you took today and the five grand you’ll withdraw tomorrow.” The stale smoky breath of someone with years of the habit enveloped Kurt’s head. He thought, How can he know? He shook his head, trying to draw fresh air through his mouth, his breath coming in short, quick draughts.

  “Tomorrow’s Saturday,” Kurt gasped out.

  “Keep your voice down,” Hampshire ordered. He slapped Kurt lightly across the back of his neck and laughed. “ Tomorrow, Vernigan, I want ten thousand more on top of the five you’re going to give me now. When I get that, you’ll have no more problems with me. I will toddle back down to my dark little hole in System Administration, pull a chair out, and ignore the snoopers on the servers while I count this money. Ignore them when they beep to tell me that someone is downloading classified data. Ignore the flashing red light when someone has downloaded the same classified data to an unclassified disc several times. I may even do you a favor and erase the historical file over the weekend. That way you’d have no digital evidence of what you’re doing or what you’ve done. Just think of this small token payment as insurance.”

  The pressure against his chair back relaxed completely. He pushed away from the desk, opening up a few inches. Kurt took several deep breaths. His stomach settled back over his beltline, freeing his lungs. Air had never tasted better. Only a few seconds passed and the white lights dancing across his vision disappeared.

  The smoky envelope rolled across his nostrils again. His stomach turned at the horrid air he knew was filling his lungs. Kurt wanted to wash his hands, wash his face.

  “So, give me the money before your teammates up here on the third floor return from lunch or pounding the pavement or snatching a little fuck in some out-of-the-way closet.”

  Hampshire’s arm hit Kurt’s shoulder and his hand extended in front of Kurt, palm up and opened. “Just slap that money right there, my friend, and you’ve got a service you never expected to have.”

  His handler had warned Kurt something like this might happen. He had discounted it. Kurt was smart. Smart to the point of arrogance, and arrogance was the worse kind of stupidity. It never occurred to Kurt that someone as techno-geek as this Hampshire fellow would figure out what he was doing. If anything was good about this, it was the fact that by tonight Kurt would be on an aircraft for the Caribbean where he would pick up the reta
iner they had been stashing in a marked bank account only he knew about. But, he wasn’t going to leave his own money — money he had slaved and saved for over twenty years of faithful— well, maybe faithful was too strong a word—service to his country.

  “I’m waiting,” Hampshire said, wiggling his fingers several times and then snapping them once. “Give it up, Vernigan.”

  “Why are you doing this here? Don’t you think it’s a little dangerous to both of us?”

  The breath rolled down from above. This must be what hell is like, Kurt thought. Millions and millions of hardcore smokers blowing their breath in your face.

  “Yeah, I thought about following you home and doing this there, but this is my turf; at home you might feel a tinge of braveness that would usually be completely out of character for a milk-toast asshole such as yourself.”

  Think, Kurt told himself. If he handed over the five thousand he had on him, he could still take the forty-seven thousand he had drawn out. Think of it as a fee for a job well done. But, decades of scrimping and saving overrode the logic of giving the man the money, agreeing to meet him tomorrow with more, and forgetting about it. That other money waiting for him in Aruba was different from the money he had saved over the years. Maybe deep down inside of Kurt Vernigan, a moral dilemma was surfacing between the honest money earned through years of hard work and the easy tainted money given for betraying one’s country.

  “Kurt! I’m waiting.”

  “I can’t give it to you here.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s in a money belt around my waist, and to get to it, I have to unbuckle my pants.”

  “Unbuckle them here and get the money,” Hampshire snarled.

  “It’s not that simple. The zipper is against my skin, under my t-shirt,” he lied, his mind searching for a way out. Kurt had no intention to give the man money. His handler had also told him what he would have to do if someone discovered what was going on. It was another thing Kurt had dismissed, but here it was, wrapping its evil breath around his head.

  “Then, I think we’ll have to go somewhere more discreet.”

  Kurt licked his lips. They were awfully dry.

  Hampshire pulled the chair back. Kurt’s hands rested on the desk drawer, unintentionally opening it a few inches when Hampshire had pulled. Without thinking, he grabbed the letter opener in his pudgy hand.

  “Get up,” Hampshire said.

  Kurt turned his head. The man had moved a couple of feet back. He glanced down at the letter opener, grabbed it with two fingers, and slid the silver instrument up his sleeve. Then he stood.

  Vernigan was a foot shorter than the information professional who stood in front of him, but he easily outweighed the man. The arms emerging from the short-sleeve shirt were wiry, and a lone tattoo on the upper left arm was faded such that Kurt couldn’t make out what it was. In that instant, Kurt knew Hampshire saw him as a cash cow to be milked forever. If he knew Kurt had no intention of being around after tonight, there was no telling what he would do. Like men did all the time when they saw a rainbow they had slip away into the clouds, Hampshire would rant and rave and then turn him in because there were always fame and glory for those who ratted out a traitor. The feel of the letter opener pressed against the naked skin of his wrist gave Kurt a confidence he lacked while trapped against his desk.

  “There’s no one left on the floor above,” Hampshire said. “They’re done for today. The contractor sends them home before noon on Friday — part of his cost-saving measures.”

  “Okay,” Kurt said, nodding his head. “Lead the way.”

  Hampshire grinned. “No, I don’t think so. We’ll walk together with you slightly ahead. While I know you’re a coward and a fat slob, I’d hate for you to try something stupid.” He leaned down slightly, his face only a couple of inches from Kurt’s. It was almost as if Kurt could see the roiling gases of age-old smoke shooting out from the man’s lips as he said, “And, with your good luck, my friend, you’ll be back at your desk in minutes.”

  * * *

  Kurt hated stairs. Going down wasn’t so bad, but going up brought shortness of breath, causing him to rest after each floor. Of course, the first two floors he could always make, but the third brought aching muscles screaming from his legs, and by the fourth, between the leg pain and shortness of breath, Kurt always had to stop for a few minutes. Thankfully, the cleaning closet where this Hampshire fellow was taking him was only one floor above. The fourth floor was nearly empty in the old Navy Annex of Arlington. There were no permanent people assigned to the floor. The only ones who moved through the empty corridors of this floor were the cleaning people and the small cadre of contractors who had been working for years to remove asbestos from the World War II walls and ceilings. If the man’s breath didn’t kill him, the small fibers floating in the air would. Kurt covered his mouth with his left hand as he opened the door to the unoccupied floor. Faint muscle pain from hurrying up the stairs throbbed slightly, but he had more important things on which to focus his attention.

  Kurt stopped inside the corridor. Hampshire walked up beside him, the man’s head turning back and forth, looking up and down the corridor, making sure they were alone. He had a long neck with a sharp Adam’s apple a couple of inches beneath an even sharper chin. I’m being robbed by the Ichabod Crane of techno-geeks, Kurt thought. Hampshire pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket. Kurt noticed the green and brown stains on the rumpled piece of cloth and cringed when the man wiped his face with it. Yes, I’m in hell.

  The handkerchief still in his hand, Hampshire grabbed Kurt’s arm. “Come on, you flabby piece of shit.”

  Kurt jerked his arm away, not in a fit of bravery, but in a heightened state of dread at the thought of the handkerchief touching the sleeve of his shirt.

  Hampshire’s mouth dropped and his eyes narrowed. “What the—”

  “I’m coming,” Kurt said quickly. He glanced at his shirt, imagining month-old stains from the man’s filthy rag of a handkerchief jumping onto his clean shirt. He washed and pressed his shirts daily. There was no cause for any person to be dirty, to be untidy.

  Hampshire relaxed. He motioned to Kurt. “Then, come on. I want to get this over with as much as you.”

  Halfway down the corridor, Hampshire stopped in front of a solid door, green flakes of old paint warped along the sides, and near the bottom of the door a small hole had been chewed, probably by the multitudes of mice that inherited the building when the lights went out each night. Here on the fourth floor, they had more time for their destruction.

  Hampshire twisted the doorknob. The door swung open easily. A set of three glazed windows on the far side provided light to the room. A set of unshielded fluorescent lights hung in the center of the room by a single chain, the electric cord weaved in and out through each link. Kurt reached for the light switch on the wall.

  “Don’t touch that!” Hampshire demanded.

  Kurt quickly removed his hand.

  “I don’t want to see any more of your body than I have to.”

  Kurt shuffled toward the man.

  “And no need to get too close either.”

  I need to get closer, my evil friend.

  “Unbutton those pants and get me my money.”

  Your money! It’s my money. Money I’ve earned and I intend to keep, Kurt thought. Anger welled up inside of him. He reached for his belt and pulled the end out from the buckle. He placed his right foot forward. Hampshire was two feet from him. Kurt nearly smiled as the man shifted several inches to the right — Kurt’s movement hid the belt buckle, and Hampshire didn’t want to miss a thing.

  Kurt’s stomach rolled when he saw Hampshire lick his lips.

  Kurt pulled the belt back, letting the latch clear the hole.

  Hampshire leaned closer.

  The letter opener slid down, the tip touching the end of Kurt’s middle finger. His handler had spent a few minutes with Kurt teaching him how do this with a knife. The knife had
already been firmly clasped in his hand at the time, and Kurt had only done the exercise because the man was paying him mega bucks for the information he was providing.

  He dropped his right hand, his left hand pushed his stomach up away from the waistline, and he unbuttoned the top of his dark trousers. Hampshire was watching Kurt’s waistline. Kurt had numerous sets of work trousers, as he called them, but they were all either dark blue or black. Dark blue and black were the colors of a successful government employee, he had always thought.

  Hampshire watched Kurt’s waistline, waiting for the sight of a money belt that didn’t exist, licking his lips lightly like an expectant grammar school kid waiting for candy to be pushed across the counter to him.

  The letter opener slid further down until it was in his palm. Kurt gripped the handle, taking a deep breath at the same time.

  Hampshire looked up at his face. “What’s the matter, asshole. Scared? Don’t be. I’m not interested in killing someone who’s going to meet me tomorrow with another fifteen thousand dollars.”

  “You said ten,” Kurt blurted, his eyes wide.

  Hampshire laughed, tilting his head back.

  Kurt shoved the letter opener up, toward the exposed neck of the laughing devil. He shifted his entire two hundred and eighty pounds onto his right leg, putting every bit of energy that fear could produce behind the flashing letter opener.

  The silver tip entered Hampshire’s neck just above his Adam’s apple. It traveled through the skin and into the throat, stopping a half-inch shy of the spine.

  Kurt dropped his hand. The flat end, with a small hole for hanging it up in your cubicle that only Mary Smith ever used, protruded from Hampshire’s neck, blood spurting around it. Kurt took a few steps back as Hampshire stumbled around the small office, his hands flailing at the letter opener, a gurgling sound—probably blood filling his throat, thought Kurt, surprised at his own lack of emotion and impressed with his ability to observe scientifically the man drowning in his own blood.