Altered State

Speaking of Hal, where was he? They had five minutes before the ship set sail, and if the man from Justice had been stuck in traffic or distracted by some crisis, Bolan was about to waste two hours on the briny deep.

He spent the time remaining in a futile bid to read the big Fed’s mind. Brognola often presented mission briefings at Stony Man Farm, in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, or on walking tours of Arlington National Cemetery. The vast graveyard of heroes offered ample solitude, and with the exception of a single disastrous lapse, Bolan had never questioned the security at Stony Man.

“Too many ears around these days,” Brognola had explained, without really explaining anything. “A sail sounds good.”

And so it had. Bolan had no problem with seasickness, no fear of open water or the gliding predators that it concealed. A cruise had sounded fine…but he still wondered why the change in their routine was necessary.

Ears, of course, meant spies —but whose?

The Department of Homeland Security had risen from the 9/11 rubble, tasked with coordinating intelligence collection and defense against all manner of enemies, both domestic and foreign. It was supposed to end the age-old bickering and backstabbing that put the CIA at odds with FBI and NSA, and sparked unhealthy feuds among the several branches of the U.S. military.

Note the qualifying phrase supposed to.

In reality, no branch or bureau of the government had ever given one inch to a rival without bitter resistance, sometimes verging on mutiny. Bolan knew, as a matter of fact, that tension was rife throughout all of America’s intelligence and security agencies, each on tenterhooks from fear of another terrorist raid—and each determined to expose that plot, whatever it might be, before “the other guys” could vie for a share of the glory.

It was the same old story, made potentially more dangerous by the official mask of peaceable cooperation that concealed the dissidence and subterfuge within.

But was it what Brognola had in mind?

Or was there something— someone —else?

One minute left until the ship cast off, and Bolan had begun to think that the big Fed was cutting it too close for his own good. A panting sprint along the dock would only call attention to him—which, presumably, was the last thing Brognola wanted.

Bolan drifted to the dockside rail, shook hands in passing with the ship’s captain and settled into the countdown.

If Brognola did not appear, he had a choice: jump ship and eat the thirty-dollar ticket’s cost, or take the cruise alone and hope that his old friend was waiting for him when the skipjack berthed again. He had his cell phone, for a point of contact, but a ship-to-shore briefing made absolutely no sense to him, when a thousand different listeners could snatch their words out of thin air.

With forty seconds left, a black sedan appeared and coasted to a stop at the far end of the dock. Bolan saw Brognola exit the shotgun seat, dressed in a sport shirt, nylon windbreaker and jeans, surmounted by a shapeless fishing hat, with size-twelve deck shoes on his feet.

Compared to Brognola’s habitual dark suits, it might as well have been a clown costume, but Bolan realized that no one else aboard the ship would notice the discrepancy. Hal was a total stranger to them all, and dressing in his normal Brooks Brothers’ attire would have raised caution flags among his fellow travelers.

The big Fed didn’t sprint along the pier. Rather, he walked “with purpose,” as the drill instructors used to say in boot camp, and he reached the gangway just as crewmen were prepared to take it up. He muttered an aw-shucks apology for being late, which was dismissed with airy smiles.

Eye contact from the dock told Bolan that Brognola knew exactly where to find him. They would seem to meet by accident, fall into casual discussion of the ship, the bay, whatever, and conduct their business at a distance from the other passengers who jammed the rails or lingered near the loudspeakers to catch the captain’s commentary.

No unwanted ears aboard the skipjack, unless some demonic master of disguise had learned Brognola’s plan and come aboard with Bolan and the other passengers who’d paid their fares at dockside.

The big Fed waited for the lines to be cast off and let the vessel find its course before he drifted toward Bolan, walking with hands in pockets, still testing his sea legs.

“Nice day for it,” he said.

“Seems like,” Bolan agreed.

“I’d buy a round of drinks, but the sloop’s BYOB.”

“Skipjack,” Bolan corrected him.

“What’s the difference?”

“Sloops were warships, intermediate in size between a corvette and a frigate,” Bolan said.

“You live and learn.”

“With any luck.”

“I haven’t been out on a boat in years,” Brognola said. “I used to like it, but you own one, it’s a money pit. As far as friends go, I felt like a barnacle, you know? Just going along for the ride. Anyway, who’s got the time?”

“And yet…” Bolan replied.

“You’re wondering why this, instead of meeting at the Farm?”

“It crossed my mind,” Bolan admitted.

Brognola nodded, his shoulders slumping just a bit.

“I may be getting paranoid,” he said. “But you know what they say, right?”

“Just because you’re paranoid—” Bolan began the old slogan.

“It doesn’t mean nobody’s out to get you.”

“Right.”

“So, this is delicate ,” Brognola said. “I thought a little extra buffer couldn’t hurt. Hey, if I’m wrong, we’re only out a couple hours and sixty bucks.”

“Okay.”

Brognola scrutinized the other passengers, as far as possible, then said, “Let’s head back toward the stern.”

They made the shift, and no one followed them.

“Okay,” he said at last. “What do you know about a group called Vanguard International?”

“They do private security worldwide,” Bolan replied, “on top of various government contracts. They guard oilfields, corporate offices—anything, anywhere, from what I understand.”

“Assuming that the customer can pay their going rates,” Brognola said.

“I didn’t think it was a charity.”

“I guess you’ve heard about the controversy in Iraq?”

“Only what CNN reported,” Bolan said.

He was aware that three Vanguard employees had been kidnapped and executed on camera by Iraqi terrorists in 2005. A few weeks later, Vanguard commandos had raided an Iraqi village said to be hometown of the kidnap team’s ringleader, gunning down three dozen unarmed men, women and children. An FBI investigation found that the victims were slain “without cause,” but Iraqi officials and State Department spokesmen mutually ruled out any criminal charges.

Some people wondered why.

“Well, what they ran was the tip of the iceberg,” Brognola said. “We’ve got allegations of Third World gun-running, and half of the UN is up in arms over supposed violations of the Mercenary Convention.”