Countdown: H Hour by Tom Kratman Page B

probably little that cannot be traced to him. What he will get from us will not be traceable, I think, and so he can use it for whatever purposes he has that he may think good, but that others would not.
    “And, too,” Mahmood added, “he is in his own way a pious man, like ourselves. I think he thinks to serve Allah, even if by another name.
    “But I still don’t trust him.”

    Valentin glanced up at the knock on his seaborne lounge’s entrance. Automatically, he looked up to see a guard wearing the white tropical uniform he’d had issued to the company he kept aboard.
    “Your guests are here, sir,” the guard corporal announced.
    Valentin’s eyes glanced over the uniform, inspecting it from the shako, with its double-eagle and reversed swastika insignia, down to the shoes. He, himself, had never served. Family connections had seen him well out of the Soviet Union’s draft. But, like other Russian boys, and girls, he’d had a healthy chunk of what the West would have called, “Basic Training,” while still in elementary through high school. Thus, though never a soldier, he could hum the tune well enough to maintain the respect of the ex-soldiers he employed for security. He hummed an even better tune for the old orthodox priest he kept on retainer, half for the benefit of his guards and half for public image. And that was sheer hypocrisy.
    “Very good, Corporal,” Prokopchenko answered. “See that they’re searched and brought down.”

CHAPTER SIX

    In war, the real enemy is always behind the lines. Never in front of you, never among you. Always at your back.
    —Jean Raspail, The Camp of the Saints

    Safe House Alpha, Hagonoy, Bulacan, Luzon,
    Republic of the Philippines

    “Search the house for bugs,” Terry ordered Lox, a scant three minutes after Pedro had left for the airport to pick up a few more members of the advance party. He gave the order as far from the house or any manmade feature as possible. One just never knew.
    Lox raised an eyebrow. “And if, rather when, I find some?”
    “Leave them for now. Put up standard markers to warn off the rest. I just want to know where we can and can’t speak freely.”
    Lox turned to get his baggage, sitting on a concrete pad just outside the entrance to the main house. He turned and said, “I don’t like having a single safe house and that provided by an employer I am by no means sure we can trust.”
    Welch nodded. “As soon as Semmerlin, Graft, and Franceschi get here, you and one of them are going to go find us our own, along with a car that won’t have a watcher attached.” Then he changed his voice to just above a whisper. “Because, pleasantries aside, I don’t trust the bitch, either.”

    “There’s three more waiting at the airport,” Pedro announced, half in, half out of his “taxi.” Behind it, clustered at the open trunk, three more of Terry’s advance party unloaded their limited baggage. These were Master Sergeant Graft, the team leader, medium height, stocky, and rather more than half gray; Semmerlin, maybe early thirties, tall, slender, and blond; and a new troop, Ferd Franceschi, who looked vaguely Balkan, if anything. Franceschi was fairly new, though his background had seemed to the regiment most promising.
    “They’ll probably be the last until the main force gets here,” Welch answered. To one of the three newcomers, Graft, he said, “Let Semmerlin and Franceschi worry about the bags. I want you and Lox to go back to the airport with Pedro. Your escort. He has a lead he needs to check out in a not so good spot. You’ll be gone two to three days. Stop at a tailor and get some suits made.
    “Speaking of which, Pedro? Guns? Permits?”
    “Guns tomorrow,” the Filipino answered. “Permits . . . maybe three days. Criminals efficient, but even with bribery, bureaucrat only works so fast, ya know?”

    Once the tail of Pedro’s taxi had turned behind the main gate, Terry held up his hands to stop the remaining two in