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

Bandim. She thought that Fera translated as “Beast” in Portuguese, but that didn’t make much sense. Bandim was the central market, the anchor for the center of the city. Beast in the Market. Nope. Probably meant “road” in the local Kriol language, “road to market” worked. Or maybe it meant “market.” Market in Bandim? She preferred her translation. A street-corner sign, rusted and tipped badly, declared it as, Avenida Combatentes de Liberdade da Pátria. Avenue of the Patriotic Combatants of the Liberation? Avenue of the fighters to liberate some guy named Pátria?
    She was losing it. She knew from training and real-world experiences that her exhaustion was going to make her useless, beginning sometime within the next twenty-four hours. So, she set that as her timer and felt better for the focus. They had to get out within twenty-four hours or they were going to die here, and that wasn’t on her list of things to do in Guinea-Bissau.
    Beat was tempted to try the walk into town to see what was happening, perhaps she could make an international call.
    “Hello. Pentagon please. Could you please send a battalion to clean this place up?” Not likely. On an open line, sure to be monitored if it even worked, she’d be dead before she hung up the phone. Stupid idea. After just forty-two hours of being awake, she already wasn’t thinking straight.
    Here on the “Beast” the traffic remained light. In an hour she counted seven more tacticals, though three may have been repeats roaring from town to airport and back. That she wasn’t sure was another bad clue to her state of mind. She’d been awake too long already, twenty-four more might be a bad stretch, but she couldn’t think of how to rescue them sooner. Actually, she couldn’t think of how to rescue them at all, that’s what she was really out here looking for, wasn’t it? Though she couldn’t tell the ambassador that, he wouldn’t make it if she told him that.
    Three more tanks rolled through and one of the country’s six MiG-21MF fighter jets actually roared by close overhead in a display of… she had no idea what. No one had thought that any of the six were still flying.
    The MiG hadn’t had any bombs tucked under its wings, but it did have a very effective built-in 23mm cannon, if it was working and they had rounds. What was certain was that someone still controlled the tiny Guinea-Bissau air force and was making a statement. A statement which told her that even if she managed to sneak back to the airport, steal the embassy plane and figure out how to fly it, they’d be gunned out of the sky.
    That was it.
    Right there.
    Beat felt as if she’d been electro-shocked awake.
    They knew that there were Americans still alive on their soil. No one in the outside world would know, but someone in Guinea-Bissau did. Someone who’d counted bodies at the garage compared with the number they had called in to the custom’s office before they landed.
    And the Bissau-Guineans, at least whoever presently controlled their air force, didn’t want them leaving. She, Ambassador Green, and Charlotte were now being hunted.
    No one else in the country had access to airplanes, the airport had been empty except for the daily passenger jet out of Dakar, and even it wouldn’t come in while a coup was in progress. Only the Americans, unable to fit their schedule to the one daily commercial flight, had brought their own craft. The MiG clearly said, “We will kill you if we find you.”
    Time to get back to work.
    Beatrice found that sandals were commonly available, so she let herself drift several blocks before stealing any. That way the theft wouldn’t localize their whereabouts for any militia or angry locals that came prowling. By some miracle, they’d gotten away from the airport clean, and she didn’t want to risk that little sliver of security.
    Food and water didn’t prove hard either. Everyone was out and about with the city at war.
    She went back to