Free Ghost Watch by David Rollins Page B

who weren’t, looked male. Black jeans and old t-shirts predominated, as did dreadlocks, tattoos, and piercings. The dancers among them were easy to pick out, being the ones wearing deodorant. I totaled twenty-three persons, the right number. Then I went through the cabin checking seats, galleys, and lavatories. All clear.
    Cassidy, Rutherford, and I escorted this second group into the terminal, getting them inside just as the clouds above us burst open with a flash of lightning and a crash of thunder. Blinding rain came down like buckets of six-inch nails. Inside the hut, the downpour was deafening. As the Boeing was towed to a far corner of the parking area, a tractor pulled up outside the front door with the luggage in a covered trailer.
    There was plenty of tension in the room. Twenny and his buddies occupied one side of the terminal, while Leila and her girls took the other. Were we about to have a dance-off?
    ‘If I could have everyone’s attention,’ I called out. The room settled down. ‘My name’s Vin Cooper. I’ll be managing the security arrangements. We don’t think there’ll be any need for special precautions, but the Pentagon does a lot of unnecessary things, right?’
    I grinned at a sea of blank faces that remained blank.
    ‘Yo, Mister Army. Head of security for Mister Fo is me,’ said Boink, folding his arms, head on a tilt. ‘I say who does what, dig?’
    I blinked a couple of times.
    ‘Don’t think for a moment I’m getting on no helicopter with that,’ Leila said.
    By ‘that’, she meant Twenny Fo, because she was pointing at him.
    Ayesha and Shaquand stood behind her defiantly, chins jutting.
    ‘Well, you know, the feeling is mutual, bitch,’ said Boink.
    ‘You wanna piece a this?’ said Shaquand, flicking Twenny and his cohorts the bird.
    ‘I wouldn’t touch you bitches with rubbers on my fingers, yo,’ said Snatch.
    I glanced at Travis, who again mouthed the word ‘interesting’.
    Weren’t Twenny Fo and Leila supposed to be slurping each other’s juices? The room was suddenly full of shouting. I found Cassidy in the crowd, and he shrugged at me. I whistled hard, the piercing note cutting through the squabbling like an oxy torch through ice.
    ‘Okay, then we’ll go with plan B,’ I said in the sullen silence and with a hand gesture drew an invisible line down the middle of the room. ‘We’ve got two choppers inbound. Everyone on this half goes in one, the rest of you go in the other. Twenny Fo and Leila – either myself or one of my team will be accompanying you at all times. Apologies if that inconveniences you at all, but we have our rules.’
    Boink shook his head and turned away, either not happy with the arrangements or displeased that I hadn’t consulted him. Twenny Fo sidled up to him and had a quiet word, a hand reaching up and resting on the big man’s shoulder.
    ‘Can we just go and get this shit over with?’ said Leila, addressing me, a hand on her hip.
    I went across to her. She avoided eye contact. ‘Ma’am, we’ll be lifting off as soon as we can,’ I said. ‘We haven’t had an opportunity for personal introductions – Vin Cooper.’ Still no eye contact from the woman. I held out my hand to shake and she left it in midair. I let my hand drop. ‘It’s a pleasure to be working with you.’
    ‘I’m sure it is,’ she said as she walked off.
    Twenny Fo sauntered over. ‘I was right ’bout choo, man. Choo one bad motherfucker,’ he grinned. ‘That’s why y’all here – keep that bitch an’ her bitches in line, you feel me?’
    I missed the Taliban. I could shoot them.

 
Cyangugu

 
    C hanged into full battle rattle, I rejoined Travis watching two United Nations SA 330 Pumas hovering a dozen feet off the ground on pillows of water thrown up by their main rotors’ downwash. They were maneuvering into the space vacated by the Boeing. The lieutenant colonel glanced at a sheaf of paperwork in his hand and said, ‘Our contact is a French