“What kind of authority would you need to lend them to Uncle Sam?”
“High,” said the DSF, “way up there. My best guess, our Prime Minister. If he says go, it’s go. But everyone else would simply pass it upward.”
“And who could best persuade the PM?”
“Your President,” said the general.
“And if he could persuade the PM?”
“Then the order would come down the chain. To the defence secretary, to the chief of the defence staff, to the chief of the general staff, to the director of military operations, then to me. And I do the necessary.”
“That could take all day. I don’t have all day.”
The DSF thought for a while.
“Look, the boys are heading home anyway. Via Bahrain and Cyprus. I could divert them via Djibouti to Cyprus.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s about one p.m. in Somalia. If they take off in two hours, they could land in Djibouti around sundown. Can you fix for them to be made welcome and refueled?”
“Absolutely.”
“On the house?”
“Our tab.”
“Can you be there to brief them? Pictures and targets?”
“Personally. I have a company Grumman out at Northolt.”
General Chamney grinned.
“It’s the only way to fly.” Both men had spent many hours on rock-hard seats in the back of pitching transport planes. The Tracker rose.
“I must go. I have a lot of calls to make.”
“I’ll divert the Hercules,” said the DSF. “And I won’t leave the office. Good luck.”
The Tracker was back at the embassy thirty minutes later. He raced to his office and studied the screen showing the pictures being recorded at Tampa. The Preacher’s technical was still bucking and rolling over the ocher/brown desert. The five men still sat in the back, one with a scarlet baseball cap. He checked his watch. Eleven a.m. in London, two p.m. in Somalia, but only six a.m. in Washington. To hell with Gray Fox’s beauty sleep. He put through his call. A sleepy voice answered on the seventh ring.
“You want what?” he yelled when the morning’s events in London were explained.
“Please, just ask the President to ask the British Prime Minister for this little favor. And authorize our base in Djibouti to cooperate in full.”
“I’ll have to rouse the admiral,” said Gray Fox. He was referring to the commanding officer of J-SOC.
“He’s been roused before. It’ll soon be seven a.m. with you. The commander in chief rises early for his fitness regimen. He’ll take the call. Just ask him to speak with his friend in London and grant the favor. It’s what friends are for.”
The Tracker had more calls to make. He told the pilot of the Grumman at Northolt to draw up a flight plan for Djibouti. From the car pool in the embassy basement under Grosvenor Square, he required a car for Northolt within thirty minutes.
His last call was to Tampa, Florida. Though he was no master of electronics, he knew what he wanted and that it could be done. From the cabin of the Grumman, he wanted a patch through to the bunker controlling the Global Hawk over the Somali desert. He would not get a picture, but he needed constant updating on the passage of that pickup truck across the desert and its final stopping place.
In the communications center at Djibouti base, he wanted direct communication, sound and picture, with the Tampa bunker. And he wanted Djibouti’s complete cooperation with himself and the incoming British paratroopers. Thanks to the clout of J-SOC right across the U.S. armed forces, he got the lot.
• • •
The President of the United States took the call from the commander of J-SOC after he showered after his morning fitness session.
“Why do we need them?” was his query after listening to the request.
“The target is one you designated in the spring, sir. The one designated back then simply as the Preacher. He has inspired seven assassinations on U.S. soil, plus the slaughter of the CIA staff on the bus. We now know who he is and where he is. But he will probably light out at dawn.”