The Red Cell by André Gallo (the top 100 crime novels of all time TXT) 📕

now that you have kissed the ring,” Kate said, after they returned to the Church home in McLean, “you can relax and continue your honeymoon. By the way, Marshall said Hunter Templeton and Matt McCabe wanted to see you. So I invited them to dinner tonight. Hunter will probably bring a date.”

A gray cat sauntered into the room and rubbed against Kella’s leg. “My little Pascal,” Kella said, picking him up. “You’re not a kitten anymore. You’re more of a teenager.” She stroked the purring feline. “I hope Pascal was not too much of a problem, Kate. Thanks very much for taking care of him.” Without releasing Pascal, she said, “Dinner guests? Do I have time to change?”

Remembering, she said to Kate, “You know, Thérèse LaFont is not like that—kissing the ring.” Then turning to Steve, she said, “But I didn’t get the impression she knew very much about the kidnapping and counter kidnapping.”

“Maybe I was too busy to give headquarters a full account,” Steve admitted.

“That was my call, more than Steve’s,” Marshall said. “Telling LaFont that Steve had kidnapped Yosemani’s son without prior approval would have put Steve in a tough spot. The agency is funny that way. It demands strict command and control, like the military.”

“Well, Kella is back with us, and that’s what matters,” Kate said. “But now that you two are married, isn’t it time to live a more normal life?”

“After we were married,” Marshall said, “Kate said I had to stop jumping out of perfectly good planes. I have not jumped ‘a round’ since. “‘A round,’” he added, in answer to everyone’s puzzled faces, “is a T-30, the standard round parachute everyone was using at the time. Now, of course, parachutes are shaped like mattresses and much more directional.”

“Okay, enough,” Kate said. “Well, here they are. And Hunter did bring a date,” she said, glancing out the window, as her three guests emerged from the car, with Hunter and his date holding hands as they walked to the front door.

“Her name is Kristen,” Kella said to Kate after looking out the window behind her. “She is with the agency, a trainee.”

Kella remembered Kristen from the breakfast at Kristen’s apartment the day after Steve rescued her. Although too weak to focus on her at the time, she now vividly remembered her as much too sexy to be working closely with Steve, a topic she had not yet raised with her new husband.

***

“This must be the first time,” Steve said as they sat around the dinner table, “that we we’ve had a chance to sit and break bread together.”

“Except for the morning I made my world-famous omelet for breakfast,” Hunter said.

“I’ll let you do the cooking next time,” Kate said. “But tonight, Steve grilled us some steaks.”

“I thought,” Kella said, sizing up Kristen and her low-neck black dress, pleased Kristen’s attention was mostly on Hunter, “you were supposed to go back in training after a short stint in Brussels. Did they let you out for good behavior?”

“I’ll be back at the Farm Sunday night, and the training module begins Monday. It’s all going to seem very tame—locks and picks, flaps and seals. It seems outdated. Who uses letters to communicate anymore? Or cylinder locks? I hope we get into hacking and electronics soon.” Kristen smiled.

“I’m surprised,” Kella said, “you have anything left to learn.”

“I know you’re both airborne qualified,” Marshall said to Hunter and McCabe, as he sliced into his steak somewhat awkwardly. “But I don’t think the parachute is a very useful means of getting the soldier to the battle anymore. Am I wrong?”

“You’re right,” McCabe said. “The helicopter is king. In Vietnam, in Iraq, and in Afghanistan, the helicopter has been the vehicle of choice to bring infantrymen close to the enemy.”

“Yeah,” Hunter said. “In the old days, the raid to kill or capture Osama bin Laden would have used parachutists.”

“And it would have taken time for them to find each other in the dark and walk to their objectives without being seen,” McCabe added.

Steve had not yet broached the topic of Marshall’s health with either of his parents, but he had been watching. He noticed his father’s strength was ebbing away. He was sitting at the table in his power chair, which enabled him to sit forward and back, up and down, as well as navigate from room to room as long as there were no steps in the way. Steve could also see Marshall was starting to handle his silverware with a bit of difficulty. It would not be too long, he thought, until he would not be able to feed himself.

Steve took a sip of his Châteauneuf du Pâpe, as Kella looked on approvingly.

“What would you say will be the technical advances from Iraq and Afghanistan?” Steve asked.

“No question about it,” McCabe answered, “the use of the drone has been a game changer. There has also been much closer coordination between the agency and the combat commands. In fact, there has been considerable overlap between the agency’s Special Activities Division and the Special Ops units.”

“There’s also been a contest between IED’s and counter-IED technology,” Hunter said. “Iran produced most of the IEDs used in Iraq. We would study their devices and come up with either better armor, such as the Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, or better counter technology, such as Ultra-Wide-Band High-Powered Electro-Magnetics,” he continued, looking at Kristen with a self-satisfied grin. “But the bad guys would immediately improve their techniques. The competition escalated through the war.”

“And down at company level,” Hunter added, “is the model-airplane-sized Micro Air Vehicle. The model I’ve seen is the Skylark, first developed by the Israelis. But we added some bells and whistles, because that’s what we do.”

“Much more than I want to know,” Kate interjected. “What about some coffee? And we can move to the living room.”

Kella and