"They're turning everybody out. There must be fifty guys stirring everybody up, telling them their country's in danger and they'd better fight. There's a mob coming your way."
MacFarland looked across the plain to the city. He could see thousands of hand lights and a dark shape sprawled across the plain. The sound of the crowd was so faint he decided it was still a couple of miles away.
His hands tingled with excitement. This was only his third raid. He still hadn't lost his zest for modern warfare. War was a contest played for high stakes, the fortunes of nations, and it used every aptitude a man could have. Moving into battle under an African sky, he felt glad he didn't live in an earlier age. War was so interesting it would be a shame to spoil it with the agony and guilt of killing.
His objective was the airport. He was supposed to put Doctor Warren's team of biochemists on the midnight plane to Israel. An agent of the Department of Commerce, he had been sent to Belderkan to talk Doctor Warren into becoming a US citizen. It had been a tricky job. Doctor Warren hadn't been anxious to change countries. Only the offer of a lab on the star ship being built by the United States had tempted him. "I'll accept your offer, Mr. MacFarland—if the other members of my team accept it. Talk to them. I won't leave without them."
Harassed by the Belderkan Department of Trade using every weapon in the Twenty-First Century arsenal of persuasion, MacFarland had wrested a grudging decision from the other four scientists. Now all he had to do was get them out of the country. But Doctor Warren's wife had warned the Belderkan government her husband was switching his allegiance.
MacFarland studied the crowd through his glasses. They must have half the city out there. He knew the scientists weren't deeply committed to leaving. If the Belderkans managed to keep them off the plane, they would probably change their minds.
"We're in for a night's work," Crawford Bell said.
To reach the airport, they had to make a half circle around the city. "We haven't lost yet," MacFarland said. "We're going fast enough to cut in front of them before they get between us and the airport."
Standing up in the moving car, he comforted himself by looking at his troops. Crawford Bell was a first-rate technician. His psych team was one of the best in the world. Sabo's mercenary "Regiment" had a global reputation, too. So did the band of mercenaries hiding in ambush. If the quality of an army counted for anything, they had a fighting chance. The position was bad but the men were superb.