Clear and Present Danger

  “Looks clear, Buck.”

  “Roger, PJ.” Zimmer left his gun on and headed aft. Sergeant Bean could jump to the opposite gun station if he had to, but it was Zimmer’s job to get a count on the last pickup. He did his best to avoid stepping on people as he moved, but the soldiers understood when his feet landed on several of them. Soldiers are typically quite forgiving toward those who lift them out of hostile territory.

  Chavez kept his strobe on until the helicopter touched down, then ran to join his squad. He found Captain Ramirez standing by the ramp, counting them off as they raced aboard. Ding waited his turn, then the captain’s hand thumped down on his shoulder.

  “Ten!” he heard as he leaped over several bodies on the ramp. He heard the number again from the big Air Force sergeant, then: “Eleven! Go-go-go!” as the captain came aboard.

  The helicopter lifted off immediately. Chavez fell hard onto the steel deck, where Vega grabbed him. Ramirez came down next to him, then rose and followed Zimmer forward.

  “What happened here?” PJ asked Ramirez a minute later. The infantry officer filled him in quickly. Colonel Johns increased power somewhat and kept low, which he would have done anyway. He ordered Zimmer to stay at the ramp for two minutes, watching for a possible aircraft, but it never appeared. Buck came forward, killed power to his gun, and resumed his vigil with the flight instruments. Within ten minutes they were “feet-wet,” over the water, looking for their tanker to top off for the flight back to Panama. In the back, the infantrymen buckled into place and promptly began dropping off to sleep.

  But not Chavez and Vega, who found themselves sitting next to six bodies, lying together on the ramp. Even for professional soldiers—one of whom had done some of the killing—it was a grisly sight. But not as bad as the explosions. Neither had ever seen pictures of people burning to death, and even for druggies, they agreed, it was a bad way out.

  The helicopter ride became rough as the Pave Low entered the propwash from the tanker, but it was soon over. A few minutes after that, Sergeant Bean—the little one, as Chavez thought of him—came aft, walking carefully over the soldiers. He clipped his safety belt to a fitting on the deck, then spoke into his helmet microphone. Nodding, he went aft to the ramp. Bean motioned to Chavez for a hand. Ding grabbed the man’s belt at the waist and watched him kick the bodies off the edge of the ramp. It seemed kind of cold, but then, the scout reflected, it no longer mattered to the druggies. He didn’t look aft to see them hit the water, but instead settled back down for a nap.

  A hundred miles behind them, a twin-engined private plane circled over where the landing strip—known to the flight crew simply as Number Six—was still marked by a vaguely circular array of flames. They could see where the clearing was, but the airstrip itself wasn’t marked with flares, and without that visual reference a landing attempt would have been madness. Frustrated, yet also relieved because they knew what had happened to a number of flights over the previous two weeks, they turned back for their regular airfield. On landing they made a telephone call.

  Cortez had risked a direct flight from Panama to Medellín, though he did place the charge on an as-yet unused credit card so that the name couldn’t be tracked. He drove his personal car to his home and immediately tried to contact Escobedo, only to discover that he was at his hilltop hacienda. Félix didn’t have the energy to drive that far this, late on a long day, nor would he entrust a substantive conversation to a cellular phone, despite all the assurances about how safe those channels were. Tired, angry, and frustrated for a dozen reasons, he poured himself a stiff drink and went off to bed. All that effort wasted, he swore at the darkness. He’d never be able to use Moira again. Would never call her, never talk to her, never see her. And the fact that his last “performance” with her had ended in failure, caused by his fears at what he’d thought—correctly!—his boss had done, merely put more genuine emotion into his profanities.

  Before dawn a half-dozen trucks visited a half-dozen different airfields. Two groups of men died fiery deaths. A third entered the airfield shack and found exactly what they’d expected to find: nothing. The other three found their airstrips entirely normal, the guards in place, content and bored with the monotony of their duties. When two of the trucks failed to return, others were sent out after them, and the necessary information quickly found its way to Medellin. Cortez was awakened by the phone and given new travel orders.

  In Panama, all of the infantrymen were still asleep. They’d be allowed to stand down for a full day, and sleep in air-conditioned comfort—under heavy blankets-after hot showers and meals which, if not especially tasty, were at least different from the MREs they’d had for the preceding week. The four officers, however, were awakened early and taken elsewhere for a new briefing. Operation SHOWBOAT, they learned, had taken a very serious turn. They also learned why, and the source of their new orders was as exhilarating as it was troubling.

  The new S-3, operations officer, for the 3rd Battalion of the 17th Infantry, which formed part of the First Brigade, 7th Infantry Division (Light), checked out his office while his wife struggled with the movers. Already sitting on his desk was a Mark-2 Kevlar helmet, called a Fritz for its resemblance to the headgear of the old German Wehrmacht. For the 7th LID, the camouflage cloth cover was further decorated with knotted shreds of the same material used for their battle-dress uniform fatigues. Most of the wives referred to it as the Cabbage Patch Hat, and like a cabbage, it broke up the regular outline of the helmet, making it harder to spot. The battalion commander was off at a briefing, along with the XO, and the new S-3 decided to meet with the S-1, or personnel officer. It turned out that they’d served together in Germany five years before, and they caught up on personal histories over coffee.

  “So how was Panama?”

  “Hot, miserable, and I don’t need to fill you in on the political side. Funny thing—just before I left I ran into one of your Ninjas.”

  “Oh, yeah? Which one?”

  “Chavez. Staff sergeant, I think. Bastard wasted me on an exercise.”

  “I remember him. He was a good one with, uh ... Sergeant Bascomb?”

  “Yes, Major?” A head appeared at the office door.

  “Staff Sergeant Chavez—who was he with?”

  “Bravo Company, sir. Lieutenant Jackson’s platoon ... second squad, I think. Yeah, Corporal Ozkanian took it over. Chavez transferred out to Fort Benning, he’s a basic-training instructor now,” Sergeant Bascomb remembered.

  “You sure about that?” the new S-3 asked.

  “Yes, sir. The paperwork got a little ruffled. He’s one of the guys who had to check out in a hurry. Remember, Major?”

  “Oh, yeah. That was a cluster-fuck, wasn’t it?”

  “Roge-o, Major,” the NCO agreed.

  “What the hell was he doing running an FTX in the Canal Zone?” the operations officer wondered.

  “Lieutenant Jackson might know, sir,” Bascomb offered.

  “You’ll meet him tomorrow,” the S-1 told the new S-3.

  “Any good?”

  “For a new kid fresh from the Hudson, yeah, he’s doing just fine. Good family. Preacher’s kid, got a brother flies fighter planes for the Navy—squadron commander, I think. Bumped into him at Monterey awhile back. Anyway, Tim’s got a good platoon sergeant to teach him the ropes.”

  “Well, that was one pretty good sergeant, that Chavez kid. I’m not used to having people sneak up on me!” The S-3 fingered the scab on his face. “Damn if he didn’t, though.”

  “We got a bunch of good ones, Ed. You’re gonna like it here. How ’bout lunch?”

  “Sounds good to me. When do we start PT in the morning?”

  “Zero-six-fifteen. The boss likes to run.”

  The new S-3 grunted on his way out the door. Welcome back to the real Army.

  “Looks like our friends down there are a little pissed,” Admiral Cutter observed. He held a telex form that had emanated from the CAPER side of the overall operation. “
Who was it came up with the idea of tapping into their communications?”

  “Mr. Clark,” the DDO replied.

  “The same one who—”

  “The same.”

  “What can you tell me about him?”

  “Ex-Navy SEAL, served nineteen months in Southeast Asia in one of those special operations groups that never officially existed. Got shot up a few times,” Ritter explained. “Left the service as a chief bosun’s mate, age twenty-eight. He was one of the best they ever had. He’s the guy who went in and saved Dutch Maxwell’s boy.”

  Cutter’s eyes went active at that. “I knew Dutch Maxwell, spent some time on his staff when I was a j.g. So, he’s the guy who saved Sonny’s ass? I never did hear the whole story on that.”

  “Admiral Maxwell made him a chief on the spot. That’s when he was COMAIRPAC. Anyway, he left the service and got married, went into the commercial diving business—the demolitions side; he’s an expert with explosives, too. But his wife got killed in a car accident down in Mississippi. That’s when things started going bad for him. Met a new girl, but she was kidnapped and murdered by a local drug ring—seems she was a mule for them before they met. Our former SEAL decided to go big-game hunting on his own hook. Did pretty well, but the police got a line on him. Anyway, Admiral Maxwell was OP-03 by then. He caught a rumble, too. He knew James Greer from the old days, and one thing led to another. We decided that Mr. Clark had some talents we needed. So the Agency helped stage his ‘death’ in a boating accident. We changed his name—new identity, the whole thing, and now he works for us.”

  “How—”

  “It’s not hard. His service records are just gone. Same thing we did with the SHOWBOAT people. His fingerprints in the FBI file were changed—that was back when Hoover still ran things and, well, there were ways. He died and got himself reborn as John Clark.”

  “What’s he done since?” Cutter asked, enjoying the conspiratorial aspects of this.

  “Mainly he’s an instructor down at The Farm. Every so often we have a special job that requires his special talents,” Ritter explained. “He’s the guy who went on the beach to get Gerasimov’s wife and daughter, for example.”

  “Oh. And this all started because of a drug thing?”

  “That’s right. He has a special, dark place in his heart for druggies. Hates the bastards. It’s about the only thing he’s not professional about.”

  “Not pro—”

  “I don’t mean it that way. He’ll enjoy doing this job. It won’t affect how he does it, but he will enjoy it. I don’t want you to misunderstand me. Clark is a very capable field officer. He’s got great instincts, and he’s got brains. He knows how to plan it, and he knows how to run it.”

  “So what’s his plan?”

  “You’ll love it.” Ritter opened his portfolio and started taking papers out. Most of them, Cutter saw, were “overhead imagery” —satellite photographs.

  “Lieutenant Jackson?”

  “Good morning, sir,” Tim said to the new battalion operations officer after cracking off a book-perfect salute. The S-3 was walking the battalion area, getting himself introduced.

  “I’ve heard some pretty good things about you.” That was always something that a new second lieutenant wanted to hear. “And I met one of your squad leaders.”

  “Which one, sir?”

  “Chavez, I think.”

  “Oh, you just in from Fort Benning, Major?”

  “No, I was an instructor at the Jungle Warfare School, down in Panama.”

  “What was Chavez doing down there?” Lieutenant Jackson wondered.

  “Killing me,” the major replied with a grin. “All your people that good?”

  “He was my best squad leader. That’s funny, they were supposed to send him off to be a drill sergeant.”

  “That’s the Army for you. I’m going out with Bravo Company tomorrow night for the exercise down at Hunter-Liggett. Just thought I’d let you know.”

  “Glad to have you along, sir,” Tim Jackson told the Major. It wasn’t strictly true, of course. He was still learning how to be a leader of men, and oversight made him uncomfortable, though he knew that it was something he’d have to learn to live with. He was also puzzled by the news on Chavez, and made a mental note to have Sergeant Mitchell check that out. After all, Ding was still one of “his” men.

  “Clark.” That was how he answered the phone. And this one came in on his “business” line.

  “It’s a Go. Be here at ten tomorrow morning.”

  “Right.” Clark replaced the phone.

  “When?” Sandy asked.

  “Tomorrow.”

  “How long?”

  “A couple of weeks. Not as long as a month.” Probably, he didn’t add.

  “Is it—”

  “Dangerous?” John Clark smiled at his wife. “Honey, if I do my job right, no, it’s not dangerous.”

  “Why is it,” Sandra Burns Clark wondered, “that I’m the one with gray hair?”

  “That’s because I can’t go into the hair parlor and have it fixed. You can.”

  “It’s about the drug people, isn’t it?”

  “You know I can’t talk about that. It would just get you worried anyway, and there’s no real reason to worry,” he lied to his wife. Clark did a lot of that. She knew it, of course, and for the most part she wanted to be lied to. But not this time.

  Clark returned his attention to the television. Inwardly he smiled. He hadn’t gone after druggies for a long, long time, and he’d never tried to go this far up the ladder—back then he hadn’t known how, hadn’t had the right information. Now he had everything he needed for the job. Including presidential authorization. There were advantages to working for the Agency.

  Cortez surveyed the airfield—what was left of it—with a mixture of satisfaction and anger. Neither the police nor the army had come to visit yet, though eventually they would. Whoever had been here, he saw, had done a thorough, professional job.

  So what am I supposed to think? he asked himself. Did the Americans send some of their Green Berets in? This was the last of five airstrips that he’d examined today, moved about by a helicopter. Though not a forensic detective by training, he had been thoroughly schooled in booby traps and knew exactly what to look for. Exactly what he would have done.

  The two guards who’d been here, as at the other sites, were simply gone. That surely meant that they were dead, of course, but the only real knowledge he had was that they were gone. Perhaps he was supposed to think that they had set the explosives, but they were simple peasants in the pay of the Cartel, untrained ruffians who probably hadn’t even patrolled around the area to make certain that ...

  “Follow me.” He left the helicopter with one of his assistants in trail. This one was a former police officer who did have some rudimentary intelligence; at least he knew how to follow simple orders.

  If I wanted to keep watch of a place like this ... I’d think about cover, and I’d think about the wind, and I’d think about a quick escape....

  One thing about military people was that they were predictable.

  They’d want a place from which they could watch the length of the airstrip, and also keep an eye on the refueling shack. That meant one of two corners, Cortez judged, and he walked off toward the northwest one. He spent a half hour prowling the bushes in silence with a confused man behind him.

  “Here is where they were,” Félix said to himself. The dirt just behind the mound of dirt was smoothed down. Men had lain there. There was also the imprint from the bipod of a machine gun.

  He couldn’t tell how long they’d watched the strip, but he suspected that here was the explanation for the disappearing aircraft. Americans? If so, what agency did they work for? CIA? DEA? Some special-operations group from the military, perhaps?

  And why were they pulled out?

  And why had they made their departure so obvious?

  What if the guards were not dead? What if the Ame
ricans had bought them off?

  Cortez stood and brushed the mud off his trousers. They were sending a message. Of course. After the murder of their FBI Director—he hadn’t had time to talk to el jefe about that act of lunacy yet—they wanted to send a message so that such things were not to be repeated.

  That the Americans had done anything at all was unusual, of course. After all, kidnapping and/or killing American citizens was about the safest thing any international terrorist could do. The CIA had allowed one of their station chiefs to be tortured to death in Lebanon—and done nothing. All those Marines blown up—and the Americans had done nothing. Except for the occasional attempt at sending a message. The Americans were fools. They’d tried to send messages to the North Vietnamese for nearly ten years, and failed, and still they hadn’t learned better. So this time, instead of doing nothing at all, they’d done something that was less useful than nothing. To have so much power and have so little appreciation of it, Cortez thought. Not like the Russians. When some of their people had been kidnapped in Lebanon, the KGB’s First Directorate men had snatched their own hostages off the street and returned them—one version said headless, another with more intimate parts removed—immediately after which the missing Russians had been returned with something akin to an apology. For all their crudeness, the Russians understood how the game was played. They were predictable, and played by all the classic rules of clandestine behavior so that their enemies knew what would not be tolerated. They were serious. And they were taken seriously.

  Unlike the Americans. As much as he warned his employer to be wary of them, Cortez was sure that they wouldn’t answer even something as outrageous as the murder of senior officials of their government.

  That was too bad, Cortez told himself. He could have made it work for him.