The Oval Office, Washington, D.C.
November 12, 2:24 A.M.
Sitting in his office, the door closed, Matt Berry was a tired but caffeine-jittery man who wondered whether his boots on the ground would start or avert an international conflagration.
President Midkiff was asleep and National Security Advisor Harward had gone home. Both had received updates from the CIA about the latest “kill zone” in East London. The president had called to ask Berry what he knew.
“Williams and Breen are in the middle of that,” Berry had answered truthfully. “I’m awaiting an update.”
That was also true, as far as it went. What he was waiting for were results. So far, both teams were naggingly silent.
Reports were coming in from European and American intelligence services that Russia and China were both converging on parts of South Africa with tactical support or confrontational military assets. Some reports said that Pretoria had invited the Russians in. Other reports said that South African Naval jets had been seen in the skies over Marion Island, buzzing a Chinese corvette that was—according to Beijing—“on a legitimate regional patrol and prepared-to-assist status” regarding the South African airline crash.
In the middle of that was Black Wasp, and on their agenda—as far as Berry knew—was a request for information about police movements in the smallish beach resort city of East London. Hopefully, one of the two teams was in a position to collect samples of what everyone seemed to want.
The National Reconnaissance Office had the answer for Chase Williams about his curious interest in East London police activities. Berry texted the information to him in the form of a map, complete with patrol car numbers where applicable. Berry had texted a question at the end:
What is this going to get us?
Williams had replied:
The stuff that nightmares are made of.
Berry did not know if Williams had intended to pervert either The Tempest or The Maltese Falcon. In any case, the deputy national security advisor took it as a grimly hopeful sign that they were closing in on the target ahead of Moscow or Beijing.
And there was still the playing field to the south. The Department of Naval Intelligence and the NRO jointly reported that the Chinese corvette and patrol boat were still in their off-shore and near-shore positions, that a helicopter was still down in the ground zero quadrant, and that one of the civilian rescue planes had traveled from the crash site to Prince Edward following a communication from the SAN outpost on Marion Island.
“It is not clear whether Chinese or South African naval personnel are in control of the SAN station, or what the deployment status is,” the report concluded.
Those two organizations knew nothing about Black Wasp. Yet even with that knowledge, he could not begin to theorize what Lieutenant Lee and Lance Corporal Rivette were up to.
That concerned him, but not as much as the idea that he might have overestimated their abilities and that the two were dead, captured, or floundering. Yemen had been all four Black Wasps together, each drawing on the strengths and abilities of the others.
Not this time.
He hoped the president got back to sleep. Berry would be getting none till this was over.
Williams was off, Berry thought as he drained the last of his coffee and turned to a sandwich that had been sitting on his desk for three hours. What was unfolding in South Africa was more than a nightmare. It was a fast-evolving, quick-burning flashpoint for a global confrontation.