The men were stalling. Wit had noticed the security cameras mounted above the gatehouse when he had pulled up. The computers were no doubt running their facial-recognition software to determine if Wit was in fact who he said he was. Wit only hoped the cameras had gotten a clear enough shot through the rain-splattered windshield or this could take a while.
The passport showed his full name: DeWitt Clinton O'Toole, named for the governor of New York who was the driving force behind the actual building of the Erie Canal, a distant ancestor of his mother. There were stamps and visas from a dozen countries, though these were by no means a complete record of Wit's travels. Those represented his "official" visits to foreign soil. Far more numerous were his undocumented insertions into countries all over the world as he and his team struck hard and fast at whomever was harming civilians. The Middle East, Indonesia, Micronesia, Africa, Eastern Europe, Central and South America.
The soldier with the passport touched his finger to the communicator in his ear and listened a moment. He then handed Wit back the passport. "You're free to go through, Mr. O'Toole."
Wit thanked the
man and sat back as the vehicle drove him into the parking lot and pulled into a slot. Wit picked up the envelope off the seat beside him, exited the vehicle, and walked toward the wall that encircled the inner campus. The regimental sergeant major was waiting at the gate with an extra umbrella. He wore fatigues and a tan beret with the crest of the NZSAS embroidered on it: a winged dagger with the words WHO DARES WINS.
Wit was in his civvies, but he saluted anyway.
"Welcome, Captain O'Toole. I'm Sergeant Major Manaware." He handed Wit the extra umbrella. "Bummer your first visit to Auckland's a wet one."
"Not at all, Sergeant Major. I am a fan of the rain. It convinces the enemy to stay inside and not come out and kill us."
Manaware laughed. "Spoken like a true SEAL. Always happy to avoid a fight."
Wit smiled back. Military trash talk. Our Special Forces can beat up your Special Forces. You guys are bumbling idiots. We're the real hardened warriors. Soldiers had been talking this way to one another ever since cavemen had picked up a club. Yet Manaware was saying something else as well: The kiwis had done their homework. They had studied Wit's military record, and, more to the point, they were letting him know it. They were saying, "We're watching you as closely as you're watching us, mate." Which was fine with Wit. He preferred it that way. He hated conversations in which everyone pretended not to know what the others knew. Yet such was the military, especially as you rose up the ranks. There was nothing more cat and mouse than a conversation between two generals in the same army, both of them withholding intel for personal profit. It drove Wit insane. And it was the primary reason why he didn't hold a place among them. Wit didn't play that game.
Manaware led Wit into the compound. It was like every other military base Wit had ever seen. Hangars, training facilities, barracks, office buildings. They made their way into a building to the right and shook out their umbrellas in the anteroom. Inside, two SAS soldiers were sweeping the lobby floor with large utility brooms. They snapped to attention when Manaware entered.
"As you were," said the sergeant major, continuing to the stairs.
The men immediately returned to sweeping. It had always impressed Wit that the SAS instilled in their men the idea that no job was beneath them; no chore was too low for a man serving his country. The running joke was that at the graduation ceremony following their nine months of training, SAS graduates received the coveted tan beret in one hand and a broom in the other.
Manaware led Wit to a door and gave a light tap.
A voice inside bid them enter.
Colonel Napatu's office was a small space with few adornments. Napatu greeted Wit with a handshake stronger than Wit had expected for a man of Napatu's age and invited Wit to take a chair beside a coffee table.
"May I offer you any refreshment, Captain O'Toole?" asked Manaware. "Perhaps a fruity tea with lemon?" Manaware smiled. It was one last jab of military trash talk. Isn't that what you Navy women drink? Fruity tea with lemon?
Wit smiled, conceding defeat. "No thank you, Sergeant Major. You've been very kind."
Manaware gave a wink and left.
Colonel Napatu took a chair opposite Wit. "I heard you lost three men in Mauritania."
"Yes, sir," said Wit. "Good men. Our convoy was hit by on IED. The point vehicle took the brunt of it. I was in the second vehicle and thus unharmed."
"The world is a dangerous place, Captain O'Toole."
"Improvised exploding device," said Napatu. "A coward's weapon. I heard you carried one of the wounded four kilometers to the extraction site."
"He was a dear friend, sir. He died later in surgery."
Napatu nodded gravely.
"That is why MOPs exist, sir. War always inflicts its greatest casualties on the innocent. Our job is to put a stop to chaos before more innocent lives are lost."
"That sounds like textbook talk, O'Toole. You recite that for all the commanding officers?"
"No, sir. It's simply who we are."
"At least you're not like the damn United Nations, who send their boys in only after a war has ended."
Wit said nothing. He wasn't here to express political views or criticize other forces. He was here for men.