Clear and Present Danger

  “Come left to three-four-seven. I will be following you in. You got some big-league explaining to do, Carib. You picked a bad place to be flying without lights. I hope you got a good story, ’cause the colonel is not pleased with you. Bring that fat-assed bird left—now!”

  Nothing happened for a moment. Bronco was a little bit peeved that they were not taking him seriously enough. He eased his fighter over to the right and triggered off another burst to encourage the target.

  And it came left to a heading of three-four-seven. And the anticollision lights came on.

  “Okay, Carib, maintain course and altitude. Stay off your radio. I repeat, maintain radio silence until instructed otherwise. Don’t make it any worse than it already is. I’ll be back here to keep an eye on you. Out.”

  It took nearly an hour—each second like driving a Ferrari in Manhattan rush-hour traffic. Clouds were rolling in from the north, he saw as they approached the coast, and there was lightning in them. They’d land first, Winters thought. On cue, a set of runway lights came on.

  “Carib, I want you to land on that strip right in front of you. You do exactly what they tell you. Out.” Bronco checked his fuel state. Enough for several more hours. He indulged himself by throttling up and rocketing to twenty thousand as he watched the DC-7’s strobe lights enter the blue rectangle of the old airstrip.

  “Okay, he’s ours,” the radio told the fighter pilot.

  Bronco did not acknowledge. He brought the Eagle around for Eglin AFB, and figured that he’d beat the weather in. Another night’s work.

  The DC-7B rolled to a stop at the end of the runway. As it halted, a number of lights came on. A jeep rolled to within fifty yards of the aircraft’s nose. On the back of the jeep was an M-2 .50-caliber machine gun, on the left side of which hung a large box of ammunition. The gun was pointed right at the cockpit.

  “Out of the fuckin’ airplane, amigo!” an angry voice commanded over some loudspeakers.

  The forward door opened on the left side of the aircraft. The man who looked down was white and in his forties. Blinded by the lights that were aimed at his face, he was still disoriented. Which was part of the plan, of course.

  “Down on the pavement, amigo,” a voice said from behind a light.

  “What’s gives? I—”

  “Down on the fuckin’ pavement—right the fuck now!”

  There were no stairs. The pilot was joined by another man, and one at a time they sat down on the doorsill, and stretched down to hang from their hands, then dropped the four feet or so to the cracked concrete. They were met by strong arms in rolled-up camouflage fatigues.

  “Face on the cement, you fuckin’ commie spy!” a young voice screamed at them.

  “Hot diggity damn, we finally bagged one!” another voice called. “We got us a fuckin’ Cuban spy plane!”

  “What the hell—” one of the men on the cement started to say. He stopped talking when the three-pronged flash suppressor on an M-16 rifle came to rest on the back of his neck. Then he felt a hot breath on the side of his face.

  “I want any shit out of you, amigo, I’ll fuckin’ blow it outa ya!” said the other voice. It sounded older than the first one. “Anybody else on the airplane, amigo?”

  “No. Look, we’re—”

  “Check it out! And watch your ass!” the gunnery sergeant added.

  “Aye aye, Gunny,” answered the Marine corporal. “Give me some cover on the door.”

  “You got a name?” the gunnery sergeant asked. He punctuated the question by pressing his muzzle into the pilot’s neck.

  “Bert Russo. I’m—”

  “You picked a bad time to spy on the exercise, Roberto. We was ready for y’all this time, boy! I wonder if Fidel’ll want your ass back ... ?”

  “He don’t look Cuban to me, Gunny,” a young voice observed. “You s’pose he’s a Russian?”

  “Hey, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Russo objected.

  “Sure, Roberto. I—over here, Cap’n!” Footsteps approached. And a new voice started talking.

  “Sorry I’m late, Gunny Black.”

  “We got it under control, sir. Putting people into the plane now. Finally bagged that Cuban snooper, we did. This here’s Roberto. Ain’t talked to the other one yet.”

  “Roll him over.”

  A rough hand flipped the pilot faceup like a rag doll, and he saw what the hot breath came from. The biggest German Shepherd dog he’d ever seen in his life was staring at him from a distance of three inches. When he looked at it, it started growling.

  “Don’t you go scarin’ my dog, Roberto,” Gunnery Sergeant Black warned him unnecessarily.

  “You have a name?”

  Bert Russo couldn’t see any faces. Everyone was backlit by the perimeter lights. He could see the guns, and the dogs, one of which stood next to his copilot. When he started to speak, the dog over his face moved, and that froze the breath in his throat.

  “You Cubans ought to know better. We warned you not to come snooping into our exercise last time, but you had to come bother us again, didn’t you?” the captain observed.

  “I’m not a Cuban—I’m an American. And I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the pilot finally managed to say.

  “You got some ID?” the captain asked.

  Bert Russo started moving his hand toward his wallet, but then the dog really let loose a snarl.

  “Don’t scare the dog,” the captain warned. “They’re a little high-strung, y’know?”

  “Fuckin’ Cuban spies,” Gunny Black observed. “We could just waste them, sir. I mean, who really gives a damn?”

  “Hey, Gunny!” a voice called from the airplane. “This ain’t no spy-bird. It’s full of drugs! We got us a drug runner!”

  “Son of a bitch!” The gunny sounded disappointed for a moment. “Fuckin’ druggie is all? Shit!”

  The captain just laughed. “Mister, you really picked the wrong place to drive that airplane tonight. How much, Corp?”

  “A whole goddamned pisspot full, sir. Grass and coke both. Plane’s like full of it, sir.”

  “Fuckin’ druggie,” the gunny observed. He was quiet for a moment. “Cap’n?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Sir, all the time, sir, these planes land, and the crew just bugs the hell out, and nobody ever finds ’em, sir.”

  As though on cue, they all heard a guttural sound from the swamp that surrounded the old airstrip. Albert Russo came from Florida and knew what the sound was.

  “I mean, sir, who’d ever know the difference? Plane landed, and the crew ran off‘fore we could catch up, and they got into the swamp over yonder, and like we heard some screams, y’know ... ?” A pause. “I mean, they’re just druggies. Who’s really gonna care, sir? Make the world a better place, y‘know? Hell, it even feeds them ’gators. They sound right hungry to me, sir.”

  “No evidence ...” the captain mused.

  “Ain’t nobody gonna give a good goddamn, sir,” the sergeant persisted. “Just us be out here, sir.”

  “No!” the copilot screamed, speaking for the first time and startling the dog at the back of his neck.

  “Y’all be quiet now, we be talking business here,” the gunny observed.

  “Gentlemen, I find that the sergeant makes a pretty good case,” the captain said after a moment’s contemplation. “And the ‘gators do sound hungry. Kill ’em first, Sergeant. No sense being cruel about it, and the ’gators don’t care one way or the other. Be sure you take all their IDs, though.”

  “Aye aye, skipper,” the gunnery sergeant replied. He and the remainder of the duty section—there were only eight of them—came from the Special Operations Center at MacDill. They were Recon Marines, for whom unusual activities were the rule rather than the exception. Their helicopter was half a mile away.

  “Okay, sport,” Black said as he bent down. He hoisted Russo to his feet with one brutal jerk. “You sure did pick the wrong time to run drugs, boy.”


  “Wait a minute!” the other one screamed. “We didn’t—I mean, we can tell you—”

  “You talk all you want, boy. I got my orders. Come on, now. Y’all want to pray or something, now be the time.”

  “We came in from Colombia—”

  “That’s a real surprise, ain’t it?” Black observed as he frog-marched the man toward the trees. “You best be doing your talking to the Lord, boy. He might listen. Then again, He might not....”

  “I can tell you everything,” Russo said.

  “I ain’t int’rested!”

  “But you can’t—”

  “Sure I can. What do you think I do for a livin’, boy?” Black said with amusement. “Don’t worry. It’ll be quick and clean. I don’t make people suffer like your kind does with drugs. I just do it.”

  “I have a family ...” Russo was whimpering now.

  “Most people do,” Black agreed. “They’ll get along. You got insurance, I ’spect. Lookie there!”

  Another Marine pointed his flashlight into the bushes. It was as large an alligator as Russo had ever seen, over twelve feet long. The large eyes blazed yellow in the darkness, while the rest of the reptile’s body looked like a green log. With a mouth.

  “This is far enough,” Black judged. “Keep them dogs back, goddammit!”

  The alligator—they called him Nicodemus—opened his mouth and hissed. It was a thoroughly evil sound.

  “Please ...” Russo said.

  “I can tell you everything!” the copilot offered again.

  “Like what?” the captain asked disgustedly. Why can’t you just die like a man? he seemed to ask instead.

  “Where we came from. Who gave us the load. Where we’re going. Radio codes. Who’s supposed to meet us. Everything!”

  “Sure,” the captain noted. “Get their IDs. Pocket change, car keys, everything. As a matter of fact, just strip ‘em naked before you shoot ’em. Let’s try to be neat.”

  “I know everything!” Russo screamed.

  “He knows everything,” Gunny Black said. “Isn’t that nice? Take off your clothes, boy.”

  “Hold it a minute, Gunny.” The captain came forward and shined his light right in Russo’s face.

  “What do you know that would interest us?” It was a voice they hadn’t heard before. Though dressed in fatigues, he was not a Marine.

  Ten minutes later it was all on tape. They already knew most of the names, of course. The location of the airstrip was new information, however, as were the radio codes.

  “Do you waive the right to counsel?” the civilian asked.

  “Yes!”

  “You willing to cooperate?”

  “Yes!”

  “Good.” Russo and the copilot, whose name was Bennett, were blindfolded and led to a helicopter. By noon the next day they’d be taken before a U.S. Magistrate, then a judge of the Federal District Court; by sundown to a remote part of Eglin Air Force Base, a newly built structure with a high fence. It was guarded by serious-looking men in uniform.

  They didn’t know that they were the lucky ones. Five downed planes qualified a pilot as an ace. Bronco was well on his way there.

  10.

  Dry Feet

  MARK BRIGHT CHECKED in with Deputy Assistant

  Director Murray, just as a matter of courtesy, before going in to see the Director.

  “You must have caught the first bird out. How’s the case coming?”

  “The Pirates Case—that’s how the papers are treating it—is just fine. I’m up here because of what spun off of it. The victim was dirtier than we thought.” Bright explained on for several minutes, pulling one of the ring binders from his briefcase.

  “How much?”

  “We’re not sure. This one’s going to take some careful analysis by people with expertise in the world of high finance, but ... well, probably on the order of seven hundred million dollars.”

  Murray managed to set down his coffee without spilling any. “Say that again?”

  “You heard right. I didn’t know that until day before yesterday, and I didn’t finish reading this until about twenty-four hours ago. Christ, Dan, I just skimmed it. If I’m wrong, I’m off on the low side. Anyway, I figured the Director needed to see this PDQ.”

  “Not to mention the AG and the President. What time you going in to see Emil?”

  “Half an hour. Want to tag along? You know this international shuffle better than I do.”

  The Bureau had a lot of deputy assistant directors, and Murray’s post had a vague definition that he jokingly called “utility outfielder.” The Bureau’s leading authority on terrorism, Murray was also the agency’s in-house expert on how various international groups moved people, arms, and money from point to point. That, added to his wide experience as a street agent, gave him the brief of overseeing certain important cases for the Director or for Bill Shaw, the executive assistant director (Investigations). Bright hadn’t walked into this office entirely by accident.

  “How solid is your information?”

  “Like I said, it’s not all collated yet, but I got a bunch of account numbers, transaction dates, amounts, and a solid trail all the way back to the point of origin.”

  “And all of this because that Coast Guard—”

  “No, sir.” Bright hesitated. “Well, maybe. Knowing the victim was dirty made us search his background a little more thoroughly. We probably would have gotten this stuff eventually anyway. As it was, I kept going back to the house. You know how it is.”

  “Yeah.” Murray nodded. One mark of a good agent was tenacity. Another was instinct. Bright had returned to the home of the victims for as long as his mind kept telling him that something else had to be there. “How’d you find the safe?”

  “The guy had one of those Rubbermaid sheets for his swivel chair to ride on. You know how they tend to drift away when you move your chair back and forth? I must have sat at that desk for an hour, all told, and I noticed that it had moved. I rolled the chair away, so I could slide the mat back, and then it hit me—what a perfect hiding place. I was right.” Bright grinned. He had every right to do so.

  “You should write that one up for The Investigator”—that was the Justice Department’s in-house newsletter—“so everybody’ ll know to look for it.”

  “We have a good safe-man in the office. After that, it was just a matter of cracking the code on the disks. We have a guy in Mobile who helps us out on that—and, no, he doesn’t know what’s on the disks. He knows not to pay close attention, and he’s not all that interested anyway. I figure we’ll want to keep this one pretty tight until we move to seize the funds.”

  “You know, I don’t think we’ve ever owned a shopping mall. I remember when we seized that topless bar, though.” Murray laughed as he lifted his phone and tapped in the number for the Director’s office. “Morning, Moira, this is Dan Murray. Tell the boss that we have something really hot for him. Bill Shaw will want to come in for this, too. Be there in two minutes.” Murray hung up. “Come on, Agent Bright. It’s not often that you hit a grand slam on your first major-league at-bat. You ever meet the Director?”

  “Just to say hi to him twice at receptions.”

  “He’s good people,” Murray assured him on the way out the door. It was a short walk down the carpeted corridor. Bill Shaw met them on the way.

  “Hi, Mark. How’s your dad?”

  “Catching a lot of fish.”

  “Living down in the Keys now, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You’re going to love this one, Bill,” Murray observed as he opened the door. He led them in and stopped cold when he saw the Director’s secretary. “My God, Moira, you’re beautiful!”

  “You watch that, Mr. Murray, or I’ll tell your wife!” But there was no denying it. Her suit was lovely, her makeup was perfect, and her face positively glowed with what could only be new love.

  “I most humbly beg your pardon, ma’am,” Murray said gallantly. “This hand
some young man is Mark Bright.”

  “You’re five minutes early, Agent Bright,” Mrs. Wolfe noted without checking the appointment calendar. “Coffee?”

  “No, thank you, ma’am.”

  “Very well.” She checked to see that the Director wasn’t on the phone. “You can go right in.”

  The Director’s office was large enough for conferences. Emil Jacobs had come to the Bureau after a distinguished career as a United States Attorney in Chicago, and to take this job he’d declined a seat on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals there. It went without saying that he could have held a partner’s chair in any criminal-law firm in America, but from the day he’d passed the bar exam, Emil Jacobs had dedicated his life to putting criminals in jail. Part of that resulted from the fact that his father had suffered during the beer wars of Prohibition. Jacobs never forgot the scars his father bore for once having talked back to a South Side Gang enforcer. A small man, like his father, Emil Jacobs viewed his mission in life as protecting the weak from the evil. He pursued that mission with a religious fervor that hid behind a brilliant analytical mind. A rare Jew in a largely Irish-Catholic agency, he’d been made an honorary member of seventeen Hibernian lodges. While J. Edgar Hoover had been known in the field as “Director Hoover,” to the current crop of agents, Director Jacobs was “Emil.”

  “Your dad worked for me once,” Jacobs said as he extended his hand to Agent Bright. “He’s down on Marathon Key, isn’t he? Still fishing for tarpon?”

  “Yes, sir. How’d you know?”

  “Every year he sends me a Chanukah card.” Jacobs laughed. “It’s a long story. I’m surprised he hasn’t told you that one. So what’s the story?”

  Bright sat down and opened his briefcase, handing out the bound copies of his documents. He started talking, awkwardly at first, but in ten minutes he was fully warmed to the subject. Jacobs was flipping rapidly through the binder, but didn’t miss a spoken word.

  “We’re talking over half a billion dollars,” Bright concluded.

  “More than that from what I see here, son.”

  “I haven’t had time to give it a detailed analysis, sir. I figured you’d want to see this right quick.”