few moments.
Then she said: “I’m guessing in your business you have to make a lot of deals? Come to terms with unsavory people?”
“What’s your point?”
“OK then,” she said, dropping the whole wealthy Valley Girl affectation. “You asked what the catch was? Well, here it is. I may be queen of the ball now, but I have three coke-sniffing whores nipping at my heels back in LA. One of them went to Afghanistan last month and was lucky enough to be there when they bombed her air base. Another one just bought her sixth AIDS baby. The third got grazed by a bullet in a shoot-out at a hip-hop club last week. And then, some asshole told People magazine that I was the little damsel in distress while those Somali apes had me tied up, after I wanted to tell them I fought back.
“There’s a script making the rounds about a female CIA agent from the future who kicks ass. I want that script, but I also want a lot of money to do it. Which means I’ll do anything to make those two things happen, and going on a real CIA mission will ace it for me.
“Now, you got to use my yacht. And now you’re using my seaplanes. You’re getting to use my people, and anything else that goes along with my name. So in return for all that, I get to go with you to this Banging Beach place. And you’re going to take pictures of me there, helping you out on this mission thing, whatever you’re doing. And if you say no, then I’ll tell my pilots to turn around—in both planes. Or did you forget they serve at my pleasure, not yours.”
Nolan was frozen to the spot, stunned by her arrogance.
“You realize that this isn’t a movie, don’t you?” he said. “This is real life. Can you understand that?”
She looked up at him and smiled. “Listen, my very dopey one-eyed friend. When you’re in my business, everything is a movie…”
She painted one more fingernail, then said: “So … is that guy coming back with my water or not?”
Nolan just shook his head.
“What a bitch…” he said.
* * *
NOLAN RETREATED TO the rear of the plane and explained the situation to Gunner and the Senegals. They already knew Emma Simms had stowed aboard. But now she was demanding to go with them to Gottabang and wouldn’t take no for an answer.
The Africans were more astonished that she’d somehow made it through the harrowing descent and landing without making a peep.
“Elle est probablement tres médicamenteux,” one of them said. “She is probably heavily medicated.…”
“I’ll have what she’s taking then,” Gunner commented.
They agreed they had to think of a way to dissuade her from coming with them. The mission was going to be dangerous enough as it was. Having her along could turn it into a disaster.
But it was a short discussion. In all their years of special ops work, they’d never faced a situation like this. She held all the cards. It was her airplane, her pilots.
So, they were stuck with her.
She finally emerged from the cabin, designer jeans, silk blouse and thousand-dollar sneakers—everything she’d been wearing before, including her bling. She was also carrying a digital camera.
Nolan, Gunner and the Senegals were putting on their battle-wear when she appeared. Big helmets, flak jackets, elbow and knee pads, combat boots, ammo belt, trouble light and weapons.
She didn’t say a word to them. She just looked at Nolan, expecting him to wait on her. He threw a rucksack in front of her. Inside was an extra battle suit.
“Hurry up,” Nolan told her. “We’re on a timetable.”
She took one look at the bulky combat gear and said: “I’m not wearing this stuff.”
“You are untrained, unarmed and unwelcome,” Nolan shot back at her. “There’s no way you’re going out there with us unless you’re protected to the max. End of discussion.”
She stalked off—not back to her cabin, but up to the flight deck. A heated conversation ensued, half English, half Italian, between her and the Stormos. Nolan guessed she believed the pilots were her only allies and needed their support. But the Stormos told her quite clearly only one of two things could happen: either she wore the armored suit to Gottabang or she stayed on board with them. If she refused either, they would simply turn around, take off and fly away on their own call as commanders of the airplane. Then no one would go.
She was wearing the mother