Rainbow Six

"Nearly thirty years, sir. I enlisted as a boy soldier age fifteen, you see. Parachute Regiment," he went on, just to avoid the next question. "Came over to SAS when I was twenty-four, been here ever since."

"Well, Sar Major, I'm glad to have you with me." Chavez said, getting in the car for the drive to the Headquarters Building.

"Thank you, sir," the sergeant major replied. A decent chap, this Chavez, he thought, perhaps even a good commander, though that remained to be seen. He could have asked his own questions, but, no, that wasn't done, was it? Good as he was, Price didn't know much about the American military yet.

You oughta be an officer, Eddie, Ding didn't say. In America this guy would have been ripped from his unit, kicking and screaming or not, and shipped off to OCS, probably with a college degree purchased by the Army along the way. Different culture, different rules, Chavez told himself. Well, it gave him a damned good squad sergeant to back him up. Ten minutes later, he parked in the back lot and walked into the building, following directions up to Communications.

"Hey, Mr. C, what gives?"

"Domingo, there's a chance we may have a job for you and your team. Bern, Switzerland. Bank robbery gone bad, hostage situation. All we know now." Clark pointed both of them at the TV screens. Chavez and Price stole swivel chairs and moved them close.

If 'nothing else, it was good as a practice alert. The preplanned mechanisms were now moving. On the first floor, tickets had already been arranged on no fewer than four flights from Gatwick to Switzerland, and two helicopters were on the way to Hereford to ferry his men to the airport with their equipment. British Airways had been alerted to accept sealed cargo-inspecting it for the international flight would just have gotten people excited. If the alert went further, Team-2 members would change into civilian clothes, complete with ties and suit jackets. Clark thought that a little excessive. Making soldiers look like bankers was no easy task, was it?"Not much happening now," Tawney said. "Sam, can you roll the tapes from earlier?"

"Yes, sir." Major Bennett keyed one up and hit the play button on the remote.

"Czech 58," Price said immediately. "No faces?"

"Nope, that's the only thing we have on the subjects," Bennett replied.

"Odd weapon for robbers," the sergeant major noted. Chavez turned his head. That was one of the things he had yet to learn about Europe. Okay, hoods here didn't use assault rifles.

"That's what I thought," Tawney said.

"Terrorist weapon?" Chavez asked his squad XO.

"Yes, sir. The Czechs gave away a lot of them. Quite compact, you see. Only twenty-five inches long, manufactured by the Uhersky Broad works. Seven-point-si-two/thirty-nine Soviet cartridge. Fully automatic, selector switch. Odd thing for a Swiss bandit to use," Price said once more for emphasis.

"Why?" Clark asked.

"They make far better weapons in Switzerland, sir, for their territorials - their citizen soldiers stow them in their closets, you see. Should not be all that difficult to steel several."The building shook then with the sound of helicopters landing not too far away. Clark checked his watch and nodded approval at the timing.

"What do we know about the neighborhood?" Chavez asked.

"Working on that now, old boy," Tawney answered. "So far, just what the TV feed shows."

The TV screen showed an ordinary street, devoid of vehicular traffic at the moment because the local police had diverted cars and buses away from the bank. Otherwise, they saw ordinary masonry buildings bordering an ordinary city street. Chavez looked over at Price, whose eyes were locked on the pictures they were getting two now, because another Swiss TV station had dispatched a camera team there, and both signals were being pirated off the satellite. The translator continued to relay the remarks of the camera crews and reporters on the scene to their respective stations. They said very little, about half of it small-talk that could have been spoken from one desk to another in an office setting. One camera or the other occasionally caught the movement of a curtain, but that was all."The police are probably trying to establish communications with our friends on a telephone, talk to them, reason with them, the usual drill," Price said, realizing that he had more practical experience with this sort of thing than anyone else in the room. They knew the theory, but theory wasn't always enough. "We shall know in half an hour if this is a mission for us or not."

"How good are the Swiss cops?" Chavez asked Price.

"Very good indeed, sir, but not a great deal of experience with a serious hostage event-"

"That's why we have an understanding with them," Tawney put in.

"Yes, sir." Price leaned back, reached into his pocket, and took out his pipe. "Anyone object?"

Clark shook his head. "No health Nazis here, Sergeant Major. What do you mean by a `serious' hostage event?"