"All right, we can evacuate them on a Huey," Eric Nichols was saying. “They'll take care of them on the Kennedy, courtesy of the U.S. government. But just who the hell are you?"
He was in the upper level of the SatCom living quarters, talking to a man in a black pullover who was packing a pile of Greek balaclavas into a crate. What in blazes had gone on? He had arrived in the lead Huey, to find one of the Apaches crash-landed, only one SatCom space vehicle left, and the Deltas on the ground, futilely searching for terrorists. But instead of terrorists, they had only come across this group of men in black pullovers, who had surrendered en masse. Turned out they were friendlies. And now this guy had just asked for a Huey to take out a couple of their ranks who had been shot up, one pretty badly.
"My name is Pierre Armont," replied the man. He seemed to be the one in charge, and he had a French accent.
"I mean, who the hell are you? And all these guys? CIA?" Nichols couldn't figure any of it. Two minutes after he landed, a shock wave pounded the island. Then when he tried to radio the Kennedy, to find out what in good Christ had happened, he couldn't get through. There was no radio traffic, anywhere. He had a sinking feeling he knew what that meant. And now, these clowns. They didn't look like regular military, but there was something about the way they moved…
"We're civilians," Armont said cryptically. "And we're not here. You don't see us."
'The hell I don't. What in blazes do you mean?" Nichols didn't like wiseacres who played games. The problem was, these guys clearly weren't desk jockeys, the one type he really despised. No, they seemed more like a private antiterrorist unit, and he didn't have a ready-made emotion for that.
"As far as you and the U.S. government are concerned, we don't exist," Armont continued. "It's better if we keep things that way."
Nichols looked around and examined their gear, trying to figure it. The stuff was from all over the place-German, British, French, Greek, even U.S. And not only was it from all over the globe, it was all top notch, much of it supposedly not available to civilians. Where… and then it hit. "You're the jokers we were trying to keep from coming in."
"You did a pretty good job of slowing us down." Armont nodded.
"Not good enough, it would seem." He laughed, a mirthless grunt. "You're a crafty bunch of fuckers. I'll grant you one thing, though. At least you knew enough not to put up with micromanaging from the other side of the globe. You ended up doing exactly what we would have if anybody had let us. Vietnam all over again." He was reaching into his pocket for a Montecristo. He pulled out two. "Care to join me? Castro may not be able to run a country for shit, but he can still make a half-decent cigar."
"Thank you," Armont said, taking it. He hated cigars.
"By the way, I'm Eric Nichols."
"I know," Armont said. "JSOC." He had followed Nichols's career for years, always with an idea in the back of his mind. "I also know you've got one more year till retirement, but you don't seem like the retiring type."
Nichols stared over the lighted match he was holding out and smiled. "Tell me about it." Then he looked around at the men of ARM, the pile of balaclavas and MP5s, vests of grenades. And discipline, plenty of discipline. It was a sight that did his heart good. "Your boys look like they've been around."
"In a manner of speaking." Whereupon Pierre Armont proceeded to give Major General Eric Nichols an overview of the private club known as the Association of Retired Mercenaries. Including the financial dimension.
Nichols nodded slowly, taking deep, thoughtful puffs on his Montecristo. He was already way ahead of the conversation. "I think we might need to have a talk when all this is over. A look into the future."
"It would be my pleasure," Armont said. "Dinner in Paris, perhaps. I know the perfect restaurant." He did. Les Ambassadeurs, in the Hotel Crillon. French, though not too French. Rough-hewn Americans like Nichols always got slightly uneasy when there was more than one fork on the table and the salad came last.
"Sounds good to me," Nichols said. "Just as long as I won't be getting any asshole phone calls from the Pentagon while we talk."
"I can virtually guarantee it," Armont replied. "But in the meantime, we do need a favor or two from you. For starters, we would much prefer to just be numbered among the civilians here." He smiled. “That is, after all, what we are. Civilians with toys."
"And some pretty state-of-the-art ones at that," Nichols said, looking around again. "But I sometimes have problems with my vision, can't always be sure what I'm seeing. Like right now, for instance. I can't seem to see a damned thing."
"Oh, and one other favor," Armont continued, nodding in silent appreciation. "We took one of the terrorists alive, a certain Jean-Paul Moreau, who is wanted in a string of bank robberies all over France. It's Action Directe's idea of fund-raising. We'd like to remove him back to Paris. There're some… parties there who will pony up enough bounty to cover the costs of this operation and make us whole. How about it? For purposes of your mission debriefing, can you just say the precise number of hostiles remains to be fully established? When we get back to Paris, he's going to fall out of a bus on the rue de Rivoli and be captured." He paused, hoping. The Americans might not go for this one. "We would be particularly grateful. And so would several financial institutions I could name."
Nichols drew again on his Cuban cigar, starting to like this Frog a lot. "Why the hell not? If you're not here, then I can't very well know who you take out, can I? Never heard of the guy."
"Thank you very much," Armont said, and he meant it. This was indeed a man he could work with. "I'm glad we see the situation eye to eye."
"Somebody at least ought to come out of this cluster-fuck whole," Nichols reflected wistfully. "Jesus, what a disaster."
Armont had turned to watch as the Deltas began easing Dimitri onto a metal stretcher. He seemed alert, and he even tried to lift a hand and wave. Armont waved back and shouted for him to take it easy. "By the way, that Greek civilian over there is named Spiros. He runs a security business out of Athens and never leaves town, which is why he wasn't here."
"Got it." Nichols nodded. "Guess a lot of things didn't happen today." He looked around. "But I've still got one question. We've already counted about half a dozen dead hostiles. So if nobody was here, then who exactly took down all these terrorist motherfuckers?"
"Well," Armont explained, "we both know Delta Force doesn't exist either. So maybe this Greek sunshine gave them terminal heatstroke and they all just shot themselves."
"Yeah," Nichols concurred with a smile, "damnedest thing."