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"You got all this from the State Department dispatch?" asked Cole.
"Well, that and emails from Sergeant John Seibt, the token soldier and lowest on the four-man totem pole in the embassy."
"He's a hostage, and they let him send out emails?"
"He told them that he was the only one who could contact the U.S. government, and since none of them reads English he can pretty much write what he wants to whomever he wants."
"Did you just use 'whomever' correctly?"
"Yes, sir," said Wills. "That's why it sounded so wrong to you."
"I guess the State Department wants us, at great risk to life and limb, to extract people they could have brought out peacefully last week."
"That is the gist of their communications. Seibt, however, says that it's going to be complicated because these clowns are so undisciplined they might be anywhere at any time doing anything. But whatever they do, they do it with weapons in hand, which are always going off, sometimes to their surprise and sometimes not."
"The embassy staff is kept where?"
"Wherever his royal highness, King Idi Amin Muhammad Jesus Buddha de Gaulle, happens to be at the moment."
"Oh, please," said Cole. "That's really his name?"
"He wanted to honor all his heroes. This is really funny stuff, General Coleman, sir, as long as you don't actually have to go in there and get them out."
"Which I have to do."
"You could send one of the other teams."
"No," said Cole. "As somebody pointed out, this is a job for the Tin Man."
"I said 'Iron Man.' Can't be the Tin Man, cause you got such a big heart, General Coleman, sir."
"Thank you for setting an example of respect toward a brevet general who is probably going to get killed in this operation."
"So take a look at the embassy on the Google-maps satellite view," said Wills.
"Are you kidding?" asked Cole.
"The Army has access to much better pictures," said Wills, "but this isn't the Pentagon and we're not picking bombing targets, we just want to know where the streets and buildings are. Our software is based on Google-maps anyway, so it's pretty much the same thing."
Cole hunkered down next to the computer screen and looked at the layout. "Can we zoom this image any closer?" he asked.
"Close as it gets," said Wills. "State is emailing us PDFs of the fioorplan and elevations of the embassy building. The Google satellite map lets you see how the town is laid out."
"Looks like it's a navigable river," said Cole. "I wonder if we should come in wet so we can make it, like, a surprise."
"Of course, sir. Having captured the U.S. embassy, they will certainly not be expecting a military foray by American troops."
"I'm not looking for strategic surprise, Wills, just tactical. The river?"
"The Ubangi. Or, since they spell in French there, the Ouban-gui." Wills gave the French version an Inspector Clouseau pronunciation. "But really, sir, if you just come in with a chopper up the river and set it down in any of these fields and parking lots along the river, it'll be surprise enough. The guys who have the embassy are surrounded now by everybody else, so anything that happens six blocks away, they don't know about it."
"This is such a Keystone Kops situation," said Cole. "Somebody's going to get killed."
"Yes, but probably not any of ours," said Wills. "If you're careful."
"How dangerous is this Idi de Gaulle guy?"
"Sort of medium dangerous, for Africa. Meaning he kills anybody he feels like killing, as long as they're unarmed or he has the drop on them."
