Apocalypse Crucible (37 page)

“Danielle,” Cezar protested, “you can’t be serious. I mean, c’mon. You’re throwing out some of my best stuff here.” He peered anxiously at the video monitor in front of him.

Since leaving Goose, Danielle had returned to the Winnebago Adventurer OneWorld NewsNet had provided the team two days ago to use as a rolling news department. At thirty-seven and a half feet long, the recreational vehicle painted a huge target for the Syrian aircraft that routinely flew strike missions into the city.

In addition to providing dish access to the OneWorld NewsNet geosynchronous satellite 23,500 miles out in space, the Adventurer also served as a photo-and video-processing lab, a cutting room, and—with the addition of a small blue screen and news desk on the other side of the computer equipment along the slide-out portion of the wall that replaced the lounger/bed—a compact studio for interviews as well as tactical breakdowns of what was happening in the city.

When she’d first seen the vehicle, Danielle’s breath had caught in her throat. She’d heard of the comfort levels OneWorld provided their employees and news teams in the field, but she’d had no clue to the lengths the corporation was prepared to go.

Though space was cramped, the Adventurer had a bedroom, a bath, and a galley as added comforts. The powerful 8.1-liter Vortec V-8 engine had powered the vehicle all through the city over the last two days as the news team pursued breaking stories. The recreational vehicle was also covered in bulletproof armor plating and fitted with bulletproof glass just like an executive limousine.

That bit of foresight had saved their lives more than once. Still, Danielle wasn’t sure how long their luck would hold. The armor showed scars from numerous bullets and shrapnel, but Danielle had yet to see if the Adventurer could survive a direct hit from a rocket launcher. Radu Stolojan assured her it would. Personally, she was quite content to leave the OneWorld NewsNet liaison’s claim untested.

Air-conditioning chugged through the big vehicle, distancing the crew from the dry heat that lay over the city, heat that would only grow worse with dawn already rising in the east. The smell of spiced meat from the galley reminded Danielle she hadn’t eaten since the day before.

“Danielle,” Cezar pleaded.

“Later,” Danielle replied, turning away from him and clapping her free hand over her ear as she leaned her head against the satphone and waited for the connection to go through.

Cezar cursed as petulantly as a foulmouthed child.

The strident double ring of the European phone line echoed in Danielle’s ear. She hoped Stolojan didn’t answer the phone. As her liaison with the network, he remained steadfast and conservative in his approach to the news. Stolojan didn’t like going off on tangents, which, as every good investigative reporter knew, was the only way to go if he or she wanted a shot at an exclusive story. Hidden secrets didn’t just jump out at a reporter and yell for attention.

Danielle had learned in short order to follow her instincts, and with the presence of the CIA man she’d encountered in Romania, her instincts for a hot news story had practically gone off the measuring scale.

“Hello,” a woman answered.

Thank You, God,
Danielle thought as she recognized Lizuca Carutasu’s soft voice. Lizuca held down the OneWorld liaison desk from 11 P.M. to 7 A.M., but Stolojan seemed like he never slept. Occasionally, when working on human-interest pieces that she knew Stolojan might object to, Danielle had intentionally called during those hours because Lizuca helped her get the information she needed.

Getting information about a CIA agent who liked to play mystery guy was a lot different than lining up interviews with clergymen and former high school teachers of the young United States military men serving in Sanliurfa.

But I don’t plan on telling her this guy’s CIA, do I?
Danielle felt a little guilty about that. However, like any successful reporter, she’d learned to turn her guilty conscience off and on a long time ago.

“Lizuca,” Danielle said.

“Ah, Danielle,” the young woman replied. “You are safe, yes?” Her English was somewhat accented, but her youth and enthusiasm came through perfectly.

“Yes,” Danielle said. “For the moment.”

“Things over there, they look very bad. I am very much worried for you, yes? I am praying every hour for your safety.”

“Thank you,” Danielle said. “Your prayers must be working. I’m still in one piece.”

“Good. Because I think you being in many pieces would not be a good thing.” Lizuca paused. “Is joke, yes?”

“Yes,” Danielle said, unable to tell the young woman she didn’t much feel like joking.

“I have not gotten through to Mrs. Samuel Adams Gander,”

Lizuca said. “I have been trying very hard. I seem unable to find her close to a phone when I call.”

“That’s okay. Stay with it and let me know if she’ll consent to do an interview.” Danielle wanted the interview as a human-interest piece to flesh out the viewers’ awareness of First Sergeant Goose Gander. The man was a hero even before the media had made him out as one, and Danielle wanted to know what he was like at home.

“
Danielle,
” Cezar called again. “You need to watch what these … these …
butchers
are doing to my beautiful work.”

Danielle held a hand up to the cameraman. Finding a quiet place to work inside the RV was almost impossible. Noise from the passing military vehicles outside the Adventurer still invaded.

“Lizuca, I want to send you a digital photograph.” Danielle reached into the pack she carried. In addition to the spare headset microphones, handheld microphones, and makeup, she also carried a micro-digital camera that had seriously set her finances back but had also proven worth its weight in gold since she’d had it.

“Of course, Danielle. Is this part of a news story?”

“Not yet.” Danielle made her way around Cezar, who mewled at her with a pleading face and looked as though he were about to cry, to one of the notebook computers the news staff kept charged and online at all times. “I want you to do some research on this guy.”

“Of course. Do you have his name? It would be easiest, I think, to begin there.”

“I don’t have a name.” Danielle hooked a USB cable to the digital camera, opened the appropriate program on the computer, downloaded the picture from the camera, then shot the digital image into cyberspace as an encrypted burst. “That’s one of the things I want.”

“I see.” Lizuca sounded doubtful. “This task you put before me, it is quite difficult, yes?”

“Yes,” Danielle answered. “Difficult, but not impossible. OneWorld has huge video archives, and they’ve got search programs espionage agencies around the world would give their eyeteeth for.”

“Yes, but those things are necessary to doing good business. We are not spies.”

Cezar made wild gestures toward the monitor where the video editors worked on the footage of the night’s attack. The cameraman bit his knuckles in frustration, then clapped his open hands together in obvious supplication.

“I know we’re not spies,” Danielle said to ease the woman’s mind. Half-dozen countries around the world had claimed at one time or another that OneWorld NewsNet was an espionage unit working for Western powers. The news corporation’s reporters had broken several big stories about biological weapons and terrorist movements that had sent United Nations and United States troops into the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Africa during the past few years.

UPLOAD COMPLETE printed across the notebook computer’s LCD screen.

“Do you have the picture?” Danielle asked.

“It is coming through now.”

Danielle covered the satphone’s mouthpiece and glared at Cezar. “Calm down. The piece they’re editing is for the midnight updates for CNN and FOX News. We’re saving your brilliance for OneWorld.”

Cezar looked relieved as he glanced back at the computer monitors. “Those are for CNN and FOX?”

“Yes. You don’t think we’re going to give them all your hard work, do you?”

“Oh.” Cezar crossed his hands over his chest. “That is all right then.”

“I thought it would be.”

“Danielle,” Lizuca said, “I have the picture now. He is a very evillooking man, yes?”

Danielle didn’t exactly get
evil
when she looked at the CIA agent. Conniving, maybe, and certainly self-serving. She studied the image on the digital camera’s view screen.

“Run that image through the search programs,” Danielle said. “Let me know the minute you find anything out.”

“My shift here, unfortunately, is almost over. It is possible that I won’t be able to finish this before it is time for me to go home.”

“Want overtime?” One of the first things Danielle had negotiated for herself was the ability to pass out overtime to research assistants.

“Of course. Money is money, Danielle, and though Mr. Carpathia’s corporate policies are very generous, I find I can always use a little more. I am supporting my mother and three sisters, yes? And there is a dress I saw just last week in a shopwindow that is—how do you say?—to die for, yes?”

An artillery round exploded in the distance, causing everyone in the RV to look up apprehensively.

Not exactly the way I would have put it,
Danielle thought as fear drew a chill across the back of her neck. She tried to blame the air-conditioning, but she knew what had caused the feeling.

“I will find out who this man is,” Lizuca promised. “If he is in OneWorld’s digital archives, yes?”

“Yes,” Danielle replied. “The minute you find out—”

“I will call you. I give you my promise, yes?”

“Thanks.”

“It is—how you say?—no problem. Stay safe. I will be praying for you, yes?”

“Yes,” Danielle said. She broke the connection, took a final look at the mystery man’s picture, and thought,
Whoever you are, I’ll have you. It won’t be long. Not with OneWorld’s resources.
She felt good about that, confident. She clicked off the camera, keeping the picture stored.

She thought about the man Captain Remington was questioning, and she wished she were a fly on the wall for that. Secrets were no doubt popping loose in that room. From what she’d seen of the Ranger captain, he was an unstoppable force once he got started.

The problem with secrets, Danielle knew from her career as a journalist, was that once they started coming out, usually they couldn’t be stopped. And secrets had a tendency to change everything.

United States 75th Army Rangers Temporary Post
Sanliurfa, Turkey
Local Time 0612 Hours

“Only a fool would believe he could pull something like that off.” The response was the only one Remington could think of as he considered the possibility that President Fitzhugh had entered into an agreement with Israel to lash out in a concerted effort against major terrorist organizations in exchange for Chaim Rosenzweig’s chemical wonder.

Believing that Israel would want to do that was no problem. Ever since 1948, when the nation had been forged from the ashes of the Second World War and been placed like a dagger in the heart of the Middle East, Israel had cried out for security and prayed for death to her enemies. Her enemies’ prayers ran along the same lines, of course.

“The State Department convinced Fitzhugh he could get it done, sir,” Winters insisted. “At least, that was what I heard. Plans have been in the making to continue American police action throughout the Middle East.”

“To protect the oil concerns.”

Winters nodded. “China has been growing, Captain Remington. So has their need for petroleum products. Studies indicate that in a few years, they’ll need and use as much crude as the United States currently does. Our usage is probably going to grow. We’re not slowing down our energy use or finding alternate energy sources the way analysts have suggested since the early 1970s.”

Remington was aware of the growing energy-crunch situation. Besides being informed through military connections, similar concerns were voiced in the international media, though not much attention was paid in the United States to the fact that the Chinese were about to become a major competitor for that oil. No one much wanted to rattle Joe U.S. Citizen about the coming petroleum wars with China. In time, Remington figured, the United States government would lobby for an increased military presence in the Middle East on behalf of big business, and the votes would get counted at the gas pump as U.S. consumers felt the bite.