Free Frank's Independence Day (The Night Stalkers) by M. L. Buchman Page A

circulate far from their parents. Protectees would latch onto their bodyguard’s metaphorical skirts and become a real pain.
    Technically, it was called a stage-two trauma response.
    Beatrice sighed. At least they were finally out of the stage-one denial. Now the am bassador had apparently opted for fear and confusion in stage two. She could do with the help from anger, but he hadn’t gone there. The Secret Service had trained her how to shift in mere seconds from precipitating event to stage three, new equilibrium. Only from equilibrium could the decision-making process accurately resume.
    If she could do a Vulcan mind-meld and shift Sam Green forward through the stages, she would. Though she seriously doubted she’d like what else she learned about him during the meld.
    Charlotte had moved on to anger. Apparently she and the now dead chargé d’affaires had been shopping buddies. That would be helpful, so she addressed Charlotte.
    “Look, if you want to get out of this alive so you can work on fixing this place so this never happens again…” Fat chance of that. Guinea-Bissau would be cycling through hell for decades to come just as it had for the last half century. These kinds of places always did. “… Then I need you to stay here and stay quiet. I’m going to get food and water. I’m also going to try and scout our way out of here.”
    Charlotte’s sharp nod of agreement confirmed that the woman’s brain had kicked back in. And that she was really looking forward to kicking some serious butt to revenge the chargé d’affaire’s death.
    Beatrice momentarily considered handing over her gun, but decided against it. The last thing she needed was for Sam Green to suddenly take it from his more rational assistant and decide he was G.I. Joe. Or, more likely, to go out and think that he could talk sense to these people at gunpoint.
    Instead, she told Charlotte. “Don’t let him leave. There’s half a million people here. If I lose you, you’re going to be dead.”
    “And if we stay with you?” She saw in his eyes that Ambassador Green was at least part way back.
    Beatrice shrugged. “Then I’ll see what I can do to improve our chances.”
    # # #
    For three hours Beatrice prowled the streets of Bissau. Starting her scouting in late evening, blending smoothly among what people there were along the street, darkness descended with that sudden slice-of-a-knife abruptness typical of tropical countries. The moonlight, and the warm glow of cooking fires lit her way. But between each calm cluster of families going about their dinner-time life, explosions racketed from the direction of the city center.
    Bissau was turbulent. It was a city at war. Which was odd. As she understood the political structure, it was the military and the politicians who were constantly struggling for control of the drug trade. And no one else cared. For some reason, this time the entire city had erupted into violence.
    It reminded her of the World Trade Organization riots she’d ridden out during the 1999 Battle of Seattle. America had managed to set a new low for international standards of supposedly peaceful protest. To quell the “peaceful” rioting and looting had required the activation of two units of the National Guard and the entire police force. Massive vandalism, tear gas, stun grenades, rubber bullets, and over five hundred arrests. Seattle had exported their new brand of peaceful-protest-gone-violent to every subsequent meeting of the WTO, the G-8, or anyone else trying to improve international relations. This had the same feel. The place had simply gone nuts.
    Out here on the periphery, near the airport but not too near, the houses had mostly emptied. Everyone had either run to join the fray at either end of the main road, or run to the countryside to get out of it.
    She slouched against a wall along the avenue between the airport and city center, the only four-lane road in the whole country. She heard it called the Fera di