Clear and Present Danger

“Fuckin’ A!” Chavez pulled out his night scope and replaced the batteries at once. “Who’s in the house?”

  “Two people we especially want. Number One is Félix Cortez,” Clark said, giving some background. “He’s the guy running the operation against the SHOWBOAT teams—that’s the code name for this operation, in case nobody bothered to tell you. He also had a hand in the murder of the ambassador. I want his ass and I want it alive. Number Two is one Señor Escobedo. He’s one of the big shots in the Cartel. A lot of people want his ass.”

  “Yeah,” León said. “We ain’t got no big shots yet.”

  “So far we’ve gotten five or six of the bastards. That was my end of the operation.” Clark turned to look at Chavez. He had to say that to establish his credibility.

  “But how, when—”

  “We’re not supposed to talk all that much, children,” Clark told them. “You don’t go around advertising about killing folks no matter who told you it was okay.”

  “Are you really that good?”

  Clark just shook his head. “Sometimes. Sometimes not. If you guys weren’t damned good, you wouldn’t be here. And there are times when it’s just pure dumb luck.”

  “We just walked into one,” León said. “I don’t even know what went wrong, but Captain Rojas just—”

  “I know. I saw some pricks load his body into the back of a truck—”

  León went rigid. “And what—”

  “Did I do?” Clark asked. “There were three of them. I put them in the truck, too. Then I torched the truck. I’m not real proud of that, but I think I took some of the heat off you BANNER guys when I did. Wasn’t much, but it was all I could do at the time.”

  “So who pulled the chopper back on us?”

  “Same guy who chopped off the radio. I know who it is. After this is all over, I want his ass, too. You don’t send people out in the field and then pull this crap on ’em.”

  “So what are you going to do?” Vega wanted to know.

  “I’ll slap him firmly on both wrists. Now listen, people, you worry about tonight. One job at a time. You’re soldiers, not a bunch of teenage broads. Less talkin’ and more thinkin’.”

  Chavez, Vega, and León took the cue. They started checking their gear. There was enough room in the van to strip and clean weapons. Clark pulled into Anserma at sundown. He found a quiet spot about a mile from the house and left the van. Clark took Vega’s night goggles, and then he and Chavez went out to take a walk.

  There had been farming here recently. Clark wondered what it had been, but that and the fact that it was close to the village meant that the trees had been thinned out for cooking fires. They were able to move fast. Half an hour later they could see the house, separated from the woods by two hundred meters of open ground.

  “Not good,” Clark observed from his place on the ground.

  “I count six, all with AKs.”

  “Company,” the CIA officer said, turning to see where the noise was coming from. It was a Mercedes, and therefore could have belonged to anyone in the Cartel. Two more cars came with it, one ahead and one behind. A total of six guards got out to check the area.

  “Escobedo and LaTorre,” Clark said from behind the binoculars. “Two big shots to see Colonel Cortez. I wonder why ...”

  “Too many, man,” Chavez said.

  “You notice there wasn’t any password or anything?”

  “So?”

  “It’s possible, if we play it right.”

  “But how ...”

  “Think creatively,” Clark told him. “Back to the car.” That took another twenty minutes. When they got there, Clark adjusted one of his radios.

  “CAESAR, this is SNAKE, over.”

  The second refueling was accomplished within sight of the beach. They’d have to tank at least once more before heading back to Panama. The other alternative didn’t seem especially likely at the moment. The good news was that Francie Montaigne was driving her Combat Talon with her usual aplomb, its four big propellers turning in a steady rhythm. Its radio operators were already talking to the surviving ground teams, taking that strain off the helicopter crew. For the first time in the mission, the air team was allowed to function as it had been trained. The MC-130E would coordinate the various pieces, coaching the Pave Low into the proper areas and away from possible threats in addition to keeping PJ’s chopper filled up with gas.

  In back, the ride had settled down. Ryan was up and walking around. Fear became boring after a while, and he even managed to use the Port-A-Pot without missing. The flight crew had accepted him at least as an approved interloper, and for some reason that meant a lot to him.

  “Ryan, you hear me?” Johns asked.

  Jack reached down to the mike button. “Yeah, Colonel.”

  “Your guy on the ground wants us to do something different.”

  “Like what?”

  PJ told him. “It means another tanking, but otherwise we can hack it. Your call.”

  “You sure?”

  “Special ops is what they pay us for.”

  “Okay, then. We want that bastard.”

  “Roger. Sergeant Zimmer, we’ll be feet-dry in one minute. Systems check.”

  The flight engineer looked down his panel. “Roger that, PJ. Everything looks pretty solid to me, sir. Everything’s green.”

  “Okay. First stop is Team OMEN. ETA is two-zero minutes. Ryan, you’d better grab hold of something. We’re going to start nap-of-the-earth. I have to talk to our backup.”

  Jack didn’t know what that meant. He found out as soon as they crossed the first range of coastal mountains. The Pave Low leapt up like a mad elevator, then the bottom dropped out as it cleared the summit. The helicopter was on computer-assisted-flight mode, taking a six-degree slope—it felt much worse than that—up and down the terrain features, and skimmed over the ground with bare feet of clearance. The aircraft was made to be safe, not comfortable. Ryan didn’t feel much of either.

  “First LZ in three minutes,” Colonel Johns announced half an eternity later. “Let’s go hot, Buck.”

  “Roger.” Zimmer reached down on his console and flipped a toggle switch. “Switches hot. Guns are hot.”

  “Gunners, stand to. That means you, Ryan,” PJ added.

  “Thanks.” Jack gasped without toggling his mike. He took position on the left side of the aircraft and hit the activation switch for the minigun, which started turning at once.

  “ETA one minute,” the copilot said. “I got a good strobe at eleven o’clock. Okay. OMEN, this is CAESAR, do you copy, over?”

  Jack heard only one side of the conversation, but mentally thanked the flight crew for letting the guys in back know something.

  “Roger, OMEN, say again your situation.... Roger that, we’re coming in. Good strobe light. Thirty seconds. Get ready in back,” Captain Willis told Ryan and the rest. “Safe guns, safe guns.”

  Jack held his thumbs clear of the switch and elevated the minigun at the sky. The helicopter took a big nose-up attitude as it came down. It stopped and hovered a foot off the ground, not quite touching.

  “Buck, tell the captain to come forward immediately.”

  “Roger, PJ.” Behind him, Ryan heard Zimmer run aft, then, through the soles of his feet, felt the troops race aboard. He kept his eyes outboard, looking over the rotating barrels of his gun until the helicopter took off, and even then he trained the mini down at the ground.

  “Well, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Colonel Johns observed as he brought the aircraft back to a southerly heading. “Hell, I don’t even know why they pay us for this. Where’s that ground-pounder?”

  “Hooking him up now, sir,” Zimmer replied. “Got ’em all aboard. All clean, no casualties.”

  “Captain ... ?”

  “Yes, Colonel?”

  “We got a job for your team if you think you’re up to it.”

  “Let’s hear it, sir.”

  The MC-130E Combat Talon was orbiting over Colombian te
rritory, which made the crew a little nervous, since they didn’t have permission. The main job now was to relay communications, and even with the sophisticated gear aboard the four-engine support aircraft, they couldn’t handle it from over the ocean.

  What they really needed was a good radar. The Pave Low/Combat Talon team was supposed to operate under supervision of an AWACS which, however, they hadn’t brought along. Instead a lieutenant and a few NCOs were writing on maps and talking over secure radio circuits at the same time.

  “CAESAR, say your fuel state,” Captain Montaigne called.

  “Looking good, CLAW. We’re staying down in the valleys. Estimate we’ll tank again in eight-zero minutes.”

  “Roger eight-zero minutes. Be advised negative hostile radio traffic at this time.”

  “Acknowledged.” That was one possible problem. What if the Cartel had somebody in the Colombian Air Force? Sophisticated as both American aircraft were, a P-51 left over from the Second World War could easily kill both of them.

  Clark was waiting for them. With two vehicles. Vega had stolen a farm truck big enough for their needs. It turned out that he was quite adept at rewiring ignition systems, a skill about whose acquisition he was vague. The helicopter touched down and the men ran out toward the strobe light that Chavez still had. Clark got their officer and briefed him quickly. The helicopter took off and headed north, helped by the twenty-knot wind blowing down the valley. Then it looped west, heading for the MC-130 and another midair refueling.

  The Microvan and the truck drove back toward the farmhouse. Clark’s mind was still racing. A really smart guy would have run the operation from inside the village, which would have been far tougher to approach. Cortez wanted to be far from anyone’s view, but failed to consider his physical security requirements in military terms. Cortez was thinking like a spy, for whom security was secrecy, and not a line-animal, for whom security was a lot of guns and a clear field of fire. Everyone, he figured, had his limitations. Clark rode the back of the farm truck with the OMEN team group around him and his hand-drawn diagram of the objective. It was just like the old days, Clark thought, running missions on zero-minute notice. He hoped that these young light-fighters were as good as the animals in 3rd SOG. Even Clark, however, had limitations. The animals of 3rd SOG had been young then, too.

  “Ten minutes, then,” he concluded.

  “All right,” the captain agreed. “We haven’t had much contact. We have all the weapons and ammo we need.”

  “So?” Escobedo asked.

  “So we killed ten norteamericanos last night and we will kill ten more tonight.”

  “But the losses!” LaTorre objected.

  “We are fighting highly skilled professional soldiers. Our men wiped them out, but the enemy fought bravely and well. Only one survived,” Cortez said. “I have his body in the next room. He died here soon after they brought him in.”

  “How do you know that they are not close by?” Escobedo demanded. The idea of physical danger was something he’d allowed himself to forget.

  “I know the location of every enemy group. They are waiting to be extracted by their helicopter support. They do not know that their helicopter has been withdrawn.”

  “How did you manage that?” LaTorre wondered aloud.

  “Please permit me my methods. You hired me for my expertise. You should not be surprised when I demonstrate it.”

  “And now?”

  “Our assault group—nearly two hundred men this time—should now be approaching the second American group. This one’s code name is Team FEATURE,” Félix added. “Our next question, of course, is which elements of the Cartel leadership are taking advantage of this—or perhaps I should say, which members are working with the Americans, using them for their own ends. As is often the case in such operations, both sides appear to be using the other.”

  “Oh?” It was Escobedo this time.

  “Sí, jefe. And it should not surprise either of you that I have been able to identify those who have betrayed their comrades.” He looked at both men, a thin smile on his lips.

  There were only two road guards. Clark was back in the VW Microvan while OMEN raced through the woods to get to the objective. Vega and León had removed a side window, and now Vega, also in back, held it in place with his hand.

  “Everybody ready?” Clark asked.

  “Go!” Chavez replied.

  “Here we go.” Clark took the last turn in the road and slowed, taking the car right up to the two guards. They took their weapons off sling and assumed a more aggressive stance as he slowed the vehicle. “Excuse me, I am lost.”

  That was Vega’s cue to let go of the glass. As it dropped, Chavez and León came up to their knees and aimed their MP-5s at the guards. Both took bursts in the head without warning, and both fell without a sound. Strangely, the submachine guns sounded awfully loud within the confines of the vehicle.

  “Nicely done,” Clark said. Before proceeding, he lifted his radio.

  “This is SNAKE. OMEN, report in.”

  “SNAKE, this is OMEN Six. In position. Say again, we are in position.”

  “Roger, stand by. CAESAR, this is SNAKE.”

  “SNAKE, this is CAESAR, ready to copy.”

  “Position check.”

  “We are holding at five miles out.”

  “Roger that, CAESAR, continue to hold at five miles. Be advised we are moving in.”

  Clark killed the lights and drove the van a hundred yards down the driveway. He selected a spot where the road twisted. Here he stopped the van and maneuvered it to block the road.

  “Give me one of your frags,” he said, stepping out and leaving the keys in the ignition. First he loosened the cotter pin on the grenade. Next he wired the body of the grenade to the door handle and ran another wire from the pin to the accelerator pedal. It took under a minute. The next person who opened that door was in for a nasty surprise. “Okay, come on.”

  “Tricky, Mr. Clark,” Chavez observed.

  “Kid, I was a Ninja before it became fashionable. Now shut up and do your jobs.” No smile now, no time for banter. It was like the return of his youth, but while that feeling was a welcome one, it would have been more so if his youth had not been spent doing things best unremembered. The pure exhilaration of leading men into battle, however, was something that his memory had not lied about. It was terrible. It was dangerous. It was also something at which he excelled, and knew it. For the moment he was not Mr. Clark. He was, again, The Snake, the man whose footsteps no one had ever heard. It took five minutes to get to their jump-off point.

  The NVA were smarter opponents than these. All the security troops were near the house. He took Vega’s night scope and counted them, sweeping the grounds to check for strays, but there were none.

  “OMEN Six, this is SNAKE. Say your position.”

  “We are in the treeline north of the objective.”

  “Toss your strobe to mark your position.”

  “Okay, done.”

  Clark turned his head and the goggles showed the infrared strobe blinking on the open ground, thirty feet from the treeline. Chavez, listening on the same radio circuit, did the same.

  “Okay, stand by. CAESAR, this is SNAKE. We are in position on the east side of the objective where the driveway comes through the trees. OMEN is on the north side. We have two good strobes to mark friendly positions. Acknowledge.”

  “Roger, copy, you are in the treeline at the road, east side of the objective. Say again, east of the objective, with OMEN to the north. Copy strobes to mark friendly positions. We are standing by at five miles,” PJ replied in his best computer voice.

  “Roger, come on in. It’s show time. I repeat, come on in.”

  “Roger, copy, CAESAR is turning in with hot guns.”

  “OMEN, this is SNAKE. Commence firing, commence firing.”

  Cortez had them both at a disadvantage, though neither knew the whole reason for it. LaTorre, after all, had talked to Félix the pre
vious day and been told that Escobedo was the traitor in their midst. Because of that, he had his pistol out first.

  “What is this?” Escobedo demanded.

  “The ambush was very clever, jefe, but I saw through your ploy,” Cortez said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Before Cortez could give his preplanned answer, several rifles started firing north of the house. Félix wasn’t a total fool. His first reaction was to extinguish the lights in the house. LaTorre still had his gun aimed at Escobedo, and Cortez dashed to the window, a pistol in his hand, to see what was happening. Just as he got there, he realized that he was being foolish, and dropped to his knees, peering around the frame. The house was of block construction and should stop a bullet, he told himself, though the windows certainly would not.

  The fire was light and sporadic, just a few people, just an annoyance, and he had people to deal with that. Cortez’s own men, assisted by the bodyguards for Escobedo and LaTorre, returned fire at once. Félix watched his men move like soldiers, spreading out into two fire teams, dropping at once into the usual infantry drill of fire and movement. Whatever annoyance this was, they’d soon take care of things. The Cartel bodyguards, as usual, were brave but oafish. Two of them were already down.

  Yes, he saw, it was already working. The gunfire from the trees was diminishing. Some bandits, perhaps, who’d been late realizing that they’d bitten off more than—

  The sound was like nothing he’d ever heard.

  “Target in sight,” Jack heard over the intercom phones. Ryan was looking the wrong way, of course. Though he was standing at a gun, Colonel Johns had not mistaken him for a gunner, not a real one. Sergeant Zimmer was on the right-side gun, the one that corresponded to the pilot’s seat. They’d come skimming in so low that Ryan felt—knew that he could reach out and touch some treetops. Then the aircraft pivoted. The sound and vibration assaulted Jack through all the protective gear, and the flash that accompanied the sound cast a shadow of the aircraft before Jack’s eyes as he looked for other targets.