Countdown: The Liberators-ARC by Tom Kratman

frying bacon, for her and Wes, and frying bologna, for Wahab. Having to use two separate frying pans had been a little odd.
    "You know or can reliably find out where those people are?"
    "No problem, Wes."
    "It's going to be a minimum ten million for personnel costs, several times that-many times that-for facilities, equipment, transportation, and supply."
    "No problem, Wes. My chief will transfer to an account I'll set up and give me permission to disburse as needed. There'll have to be an accounting."
    "Sure. To be expected. I'll need a bunch of your people-"
    "Bad idea, Wes. The reason I know or can find out where those people you want are is that we have low level informers, slaves and outlying septs, in the Habar Afaan. They've got them among us, too. We can maybe use a few really close kin. No more than that though."
    "Then add fifteen-no, twenty-million to the personnel costs."
    "No problem. How much to get started? And can you take me to set up an account my chief can make a transfer to?"
    "Phillie will take you," Stauer had answered. "At least we can set up a local account until we can have one of the people I'll invite set up something more discreet." Phillie found it also a little odd that he didn't even ask if she would, but just assumed it.
    Because I'm part of the team? she wondered. Because he's just taking me for granted? That can wait; no sense taking offense until I know it's really been offered.
    While Phillie had taken Wahab downtown to make arrangements, Wes had gone shopping. He'd come home just after she and Wahab returned. He had with him half a dozen high-end laptops, plus a dozen and a half each sleeping bags and air mattresses, a big coffee maker, several cases of Lone Star, a case of mixed hard liquor with mixers, paper plates, plastic utensils . . .
    Phillie guessed that Stauer must have been making phone calls on the way because the door knocking had begun before noon and hadn't apparently ended yet. Oddly, every man at the door had asked the same question as soon as it opened: "Free beer?"
    As if the chaos weren't enough already, Wahab had taken Wes' car to the airport to pick up a few more people. He wasn't due back for a couple of hours. And still the pizza boxes had begun building up in the kitchen.
    She heard Stauer shout from the dining room, in which room the table had disappeared under maps, printed off by sections on the color printer and carefully taped together, "Gordo, you got a line on a ship yet?"
    From the living room came the shout back, "I've got five possibilities. And two small subs . . . well, three, but one of those is a little big. And a fast patrol boat up in Finland but it would need to be re-armed. But I need a decision on the assembly area. We've got a line on eighty-five plus square kilometers in South Africa, but it's only near, not on, the sea. Natal, don't you know. It's a safari lodge so does have some buildings-five of 'em suitable for barracks, I think-and the firing of weapons would be unremarkable. Six million bucks. I've also found two parcels in Brazil, deep in the Amazon, no facilities whatsoever but along a navigable river leading to the Amazon and then the Atlantic. One of the Brazilian pieces is five million acres-think ‘Massachusetts'-for twenty-five million; the other's about one point two million-think ‘Rhode Island, plus'-for about half that. The second one's closer to Manaus, which has its good points and its bad. The realtor's being cagey; both are really old royal grants and may have some unusual attributes.
    "Whichever parcel we go with," Harry Gordon continued, "we'll probably need something to navigate the river for supply purposes. I'm working on that, too. I've got a handle on something that maybe would do for a forward assembly area, if we need it; anything up to sixty thousand acres, fifty-five acres abutting Nairobi National Park, for four hundred and seventeen K, USD. Also, if you're willing to stay in the U.S., I can get you forty-five