09 Mission of Honor by Jeff Rovin

Author:Jeff Rovin [Rovin, Jeff]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

THIRTY-TWO

South African Airways Flight 7003 Friday, 12:03 P.M.

Something was bothering David Battat, something he could not pin down nor put from his mind.

Battat and Aideen Marley were sitting in the wide, soft seats of the 747 first-class cabin. They were in the first row along the port-side bulkhead. Battat had the aisle seat. There was nothing in front of them but upholstered wall. There was nothing to Battat’s right but a permanent serving table. The flight deck was located one flight up. They did not fly first class for comfort. It was a matter of security. They were reviewing sensitive material on their laptops. The seats were far apart in first class, and Battat kept the back upright. It would be difficult for anyone to see what they were doing. He kept the overhead fan turned off so he would hear if anyone approached from behind. If they did, he had to make sure he closed the file in a slow, natural manner. He would not want to alarm a flight attendant with sudden, suspicious gestures.

The jet engines created a pleasant white noise, making it easy for Battat to concentrate on the files. He went through the 400 pages of material in just over three hours. Battat reviewed the thin case files on Father Bradbury, Edgar Kline, and the Madrid Accords. He was surprised. Not so much by the pact between the Vatican and Spain but by the fact that other nations had not joined. Or perhaps, wisely, the Church did not want other allies. That might tweak the temptation to build an international coalition. The world community might not react favorably to the prospect of another Crusade.

Battat had also studied the general intelligence files on Botswana as well as the personal dossiers of Maria Corneja and Aideen Marley. Maria was a top Interpol agent. She had been involved in everything from surveillance to infiltration. He was glad to have her on the team. As for Aideen, he was encouraged to read that she had not been trained in field work. Aideen had been thrust into it by the assassination of Martha McCall, when the two of them were on a mission in Madrid. The fact that a junior political officer had helped to stop a civil war showed that she had superb instincts.

When Battat was finished with the other files, he came to a diskette labeled IP. That stood for Information Pool. It was provided to everyone who was working on a particular operation. The file consisted of odds and ends that might pertain to the operation at hand. It was updated twice a day and was filled with names, places, and institutions that had been mentioned in passing or details that had come up in background searches. Opening the file one looked for possible connections, coincidences, or anomalies to follow up on. Often, a seemingly incidental fact might trigger a link in the operative’s mind, something others had missed.

That had happened when Battat opened the IP file. And now it was bothering him.

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