Brenner replied, “What Chet said makes perfect tactical and operational sense.”
“Indeed, it does, which is why my paranoia wasn’t supposed to kick in. And you know what? I’m only, let’s say, seventy-three percent sure I’m right about Chet wanting to get me and Kate whacked.”
Kate said, “If we sit here all day, we could get killed. We need to get to the airstrip.”
Brenner asked me the next logical question. “What does this—if it’s true—have to do with me, or with Zamo?”
I replied, “You are just in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s logical that you would be ordered to leave with Kate and me, and if you weren’t, that would look suspicious. As for Zamo, he was never going to stay behind. That was all bullshit to make this look like a tactically sound plan.” I informed Mr. Brenner, “Buck knew exactly what you were going to say about Zamo staying here, and one way or the other, Zamo was not going to stay with Buck and Chet.” I added, “And if he did, Chet would kill him with an AK-47, take his sniper rifle, and make it look like the Bedouin did it.”
Both men remained silent, then Brenner said, “I’m just not buying that Zamo and I are going to get wasted by our own people just because we happen to be with you.”
“You should believe it, but here’s another reason you’re not in a good place—for all Chet knows, I or Kate have confided in you about my suspicions, and you are therefore a person like us who knows too much.” I reminded him and everyone, “And in this business, when you know what you’re not supposed to know, you become a worry to the Company.” I added, “The Company chose well when they chose Chet Morgan for this job.” I explained, in case no one noticed, “He’s crazy.”
Brenner, Kate, and Zamo thought about all that, and I could imagine them concluding that John didn’t need a Kevlar vest as much as he needed a strait-jacket.
But Brenner, either avoiding the topic of my paranoia, or maybe testing it, asked, “So do you think Buck is in on this?”
That was a tough call. The answer was that Buckminster Harris had been in the deception business so long, he really didn’t know what was real and what he was making up. Right and wrong was a little blurry, too. Plus, he just enjoyed the game. I was sure he liked me, Kate, and all of us, but if Chet presented him with a national security problem and a solution, then Buck would work with Chet on both. Nothing personal.
Finally, I replied, “Buck has to be in on it.”
Well, by now, Paul Brenner was waiting for me to announce that I’d been abducted by space aliens. But he was smart enough to be concerned, and he was still enough of a cop to want all the info. He said to me, “Even if you’re right… I mean, you’re giving Chet a lot of credit for being some kind of genius…”
“He’s out of his fucking mind,” I assured everyone. “But he’s smart. I, however, am smarter.” I asked my seatmate, “Right?”
She didn’t reply. Clearly Kate was upset, and she was obviously worried that I’d slipped over the edge.
Brenner, in fact, said, “Look, we’ve all been under a lot of stress—”
“All right,” I said, “drive on.” I promised everyone, “We’ll see what happens.”
But Brenner didn’t drive. He asked me, “What do you think is going to happen?”
I replied, “I think that a Predator drone, under the command of the Central Intelligence Agency, and under the operational control of Chet Morgan in his fish van, is going to launch a Hellfire missile at this vehicle and kill everyone inside it.” I added, “The Predator pilot, wherever he is, will be clueless, or at least unsure, but he’ll do what the operational control guy on the scene—Chet—tells him to do.”
It was Zamo who spoke first. “Yeah. That could happen.”
It sure could. I also said, “The Company has picked this method of a friendly fire accident to send a clear message that it wasn’t friendly and it wasn’t an accident.”
Brenner stayed quiet awhile, then said to me, “Okay… what are we supposed to do?”
“What we’re not going to do is drive down that slope and head cross-country toward the Marib road, because if we do, we’re not going to get to the Marib road.”