Savage Son (James Reece #3) - Jack Carr Page 0,105
and he still hadn’t taken a sip, his thoughts lost on Hanna, Raife, Ivan Zharkov, Aleksandr, Oliver Grey, and Medny Island. He didn’t even look up when the looming figure of Andy Danreb took the seat next to him.
“How’s the whiskey?” Andy asked. “Looks a little watery.”
Reece picked his head up and looked around. “Are we the last ones here?”
“Brilliant observation. You should come to work for the CIA.”
“Guess I lost track of time.”
“Bars will do that.”
“That water?” Reece asked motioning to Andy’s drink.
“Vodka. It’s like water, only better. I am from the Russian Desk.”
“Makes sense.”
“What are you doing, Reece?”
“Just thinking.”
“Ah,” Andy said, taking a swig of his vodka. “In the Cold War days, we used to do a lot of that.”
“What?”
“Figuring out how to get the job done when senior intelligence officials or politicians told us we couldn’t.”
“How did you handle it?”
“We out-thought them,” Andy said, tapping his temple with his finger. “We used to call it plausible deniability. Sexy term for giving your superiors the ability to say they had no idea what you were up to and ‘yes, sir, I’ll rein those cowboys in right away and this will never happen again, sir.’ ” Andy chuckled. “Your old man did it more than once.”
“You knew my old man? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Everyone knew your old man, Reece. If not in person, then by reputation. And I didn’t tell you because it wasn’t pertinent the last time we met.”
“And it is now?”
“It is,” Andy said taking another sip of his drink.
“How?”
“Once, your dad was ordered to stand down and hang a certain doctor he was running in Czechoslovakia out to dry. Do you know what happened next?”
Reece nodded.
“Good. What do you need to pull it off?”
“Take a breath, look around, make a call,” Reece muttered.
“What was that?” Andy asked. “I’m a bit hard of hearing these days.”
“It’s something an old troop commander of mine used to say. ‘Take a breath, look around, make a call.’ ”
“Well, you’ve taken your breath. Now look around.”
Reece picked his head up, his eyes slowly taking in the plaques and mementos that adorned the walls commemorating the exploits of one of the best special operations units the world had ever known. He smiled.
“Thanks, Andy,” Reece said, moving off his stool, leaving his Woodford untouched on the bar.
CHAPTER 60
REECE STEPPED INTO THE early morning light, stopping briefly to shield his eyes from the sun as he fished out his Gatorz sunglasses and slid them into place.
Running toward one of the hangars used as a staging area for gear, he could see the [XXX] operators already inventorying gear and packing up for the journey back to Bragg.
“Christian,” Reece called, seeing Sergeant Major Holloway checking on his troops.
“Hey, buddy, hope you don’t mind us sliding out on you this morning. You looked like you didn’t need anyone disturbing you.”
“No worries. Listen, I just got a call from Vic at the Agency. He’s working some other options on this Russia mission. He wanted me to see if we could 1149 some equipment?” Reece said, mentioning the form that serves as a requisition and invoice document anytime something of value trades hands in the military.
“Really?” Christian said.
“Yeah, just want to make sure it’s all official. I’ll sign the 1149s and take custody of the gear. Should get it back to you in a couple weeks.”
“Reece, has anyone ever told you that you are the worst liar on the planet?”
Reece shrugged and raised his eyebrows.
“What, exactly, do you have in mind?”
“Just some parachutes, NODs, radios, and 416s?” Reece asked. “Oh, and to go with the chutes we’d need CPS thermal suits, heated Wilcox nav-boards, oxygen kits, basically anything necessary for a high-altitude parachute insertion in arctic conditions.”
Sergeant Major Holloway folded his arms and dropped his head in thought.
“Well, I guess that’s more reasonable than trying to 1149 one of the helos. How many?”
“Five should do.”
Holloway rubbed a hand through his heavily stubbled face as if calculating the possibilities.
“I think I can probably part with five kits like that in the name of interagency cooperation. Post-9/11 we are all supposed to share our information and our toys. As you know, we always travel with extra gear, especially when we are not sure of the mission ahead of time.”
Reece took a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it. I’ll get Marcus to put together the 1149s for you to sign and the boys will help load everything up.”
“And, Christian, just curious, how long would we have before these would come up in