Free Cobra Strike by J.B. Hadley Page B

“I want a look at everyone before we ship out, not after. You know how it’s done, Andre. Give me a call
     in three days time, I’ll give you the meeting place, and we’ll be ready to move out one week after that. Ten days. I can’t
     do better than that and you know it.”
    Andre knew it.
    Mike hung up and dug more quarters from the supply he had brought with him. He had left one other number to call from this
     public phone because he did not like the sound of it. A Mr. Lowell from the Nanticoke Institute in Washington, D.C.
    Lowell took some time to come to the phone. “Mr. Campbell? Good of you to return my call. Could you spare us one day of your
     time as a consultant? For a fee, of course.”
    “In about a month’s time I’d be pleased to, Mr. Lowell.”
    “I was thinking about tomorrow.”
    “Sorry.”
    “I forgot to mention the fee, Mr. Campbell. Five thousand dollars. Can any of us turn down that for a single day’s work?”
    “It’s tempting.”
    “You will have to leave this evening in order to join us for breakfast at eight tomorrow. Tonight you will find a room reserved
     in your name at the Hay-Adams Hotel, across from the White House on Lafayette Square. In the morning a car will be sent to
     fetch you at seven-fifteen sharp.”
    Mike guessed that everything about Lowell would be sharp. He replaced the receiver. His curiosity was aroused, and five thou
     was five thou. One thing sure, this Nanticoke Institude, whatever it was, was too much of a big spender to be federal government.
     He thought for a moment about bringing Tina with him for the trip, then realized that this thing could not be as clean, safe,
     and aboveboard as Lowell had made it sound. No one paid five thousand dollars for that.
    Campbell buttered his toast and let the distinguished-looking gents at the long table have a good look at him. There were
     thirteen of them nibbling toast, sipping coffee, and chatting the usual “in” talk of long-familiar colleagues in the workplace.
     Although there had been no introductions, Campbell recognized two of them from newspaper photos or TV. Plainly they were all
     “experts” of one sort or another, the kind never elected to anything but who seemed to runthe country all the same. Lowell, gaunt, skin like parchment, his hands trembling, sat beside him but never said a word to
     him. Mike worked on his toast, butter, and grape jelly and left it to them to get things going. He smiled a little to himself
     at the thought that these egghead professors might think they could intimidate him by ignoring him in the stately surroundings
     of this breakfast room. The ceiling high above the long table had plaster decorations, marble busts of grim-faced men stood
     in alcoves, the service was silver, and the waiters were formal, and at one end of the vast room hung a huge painting of someone
     in a cocked hat on a rearing white horse, holding his sword in the air, leading his troops into battle. Mike thought that
     the place should have been good for scrambled eggs at least, if not eggs Benedict, but all they were served was this well-done
     toast and very so-so coffee.
    Lowell began the presentation without warning in the form of a loud, one-sided conversation with Campbell. He referred to
     the three members of the Nanticoke Institute in Afghanistan as “fine young men who had gone there on a goodwill mission.”
    Lowell concluded his account by saying, “It is simply out of loyalty to these fine young men that the Institute is trying
     to organize a clandestine rescue party to get them out and, of course, for the good name of America.”
    Mike looked at his coffee cup and said slowly, “This stinks of a government mission gone sour. What’s your relationship with
     the CIA?”
    “Since this incident we’ve been on very cool terms with the gentlemen at Langley,” Lowell answered in his precise voice. “We
     did not consult them before sending our three men in, which they now regard as