I checked the compartment door to see that it was still locked, then walked over to stand in front of her. My voice was low, and the two other women in the compartment with us tried to look somewhere else when I spoke, only there was nowhere else to look.
“Ronnie, I don’t give a good god-damn if you’re the true descendant of the Queen of Sheba. When I tell you to do something, you do it. There is no room for compromise here. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”
She looked at me like I was insane.
“You obviously haven’t grasped the concept of our relationship yet, Jeffry. I do as I see fit, and you do what I want you to do. That’s the mission. That’s what you signed on for, so get a hold of yourself, and find the waiter while you’re at it. I need some mineral water. My mouth is dry, and I find it distracting.”
I reached over to the blind and pulled it all the way down, slowly, then leaned over until I was just inches from her face.
“The rules got changed while you weren’t looking, kid. You’ve got a lot to learn, and I don’t particularly want you to do it on my dime, but I’m in this deep now. The problem is, you have no idea how deep the water here really is, and your life preserver could spring a leak at any moment. I made a promise to a man in Toronto that I’d bring you back alive, despite your own actions. You seem to be the only one who doesn’t realize that you shouldn’t even be here in the first place. This part of the gig is under my control, and that includes you. Not only am I going to bring you back to Toronto alive, I won’t allow you to endanger the other members of this operation. That includes the people in this compartment, as well as my good friend and brother-in-law George Belnor. Your brain-child operation in Ottawa may have garnered you laurels for legitimate reasons, but it is not completely under your control, which is a thought that I doubt you would ever entertain for a second. Well I’m here to change all of that for you, and when I do bring you back alive, you may not like what’s going to be going on in your precious data acquisitions and covert ops department.
If I’d done what you told me to do this morning and nothing more, you’d be dead right now. And Evie too. Now I’m going to make sure that we get off to a safer start than this morning, and the song remains the same. We want Ted Dawson. But the game has changed, the bad guys know we’re here, and they know who you are. If we’re lucky, they don’t know who I am yet. They certainly know I’m here. You forced me to do just what you knew I could do if I was pushed hard enough. Well, I was pushed hard enough. Now it’s just a tad difficult to ‘unpush’ me. The rest of the day today will go the way I say it will. Just because I said so, and that’s all you need to know for now. Before you meet with Herr Schnorrer this evening I will brief you on some extremely important news from the home front. This news will snap your arrogance, and may even make you rethink your career choices. For now, I’m in charge. Period.
Anybody who has a problem with that had better speak up quick-like, because this is not a chess game, where the loser looks forward to the rematch. You win each one, or you die. That’s what covert ops are about, or had you forgotten?”
All the while, I’d stayed right in her face, and she seemed to finally give in a little, showing me a small nod of agreement. I stood again, and turned to Evie, sitting next to Therese. She nodded her ascent immediately. Therese was just sitting with her legs tucked up under her the way she did. She smiled a trusting smile that made me hope that I could pull this off. It had gotten heavy pretty quick.
I pulled my bag out of the overhead locker and dug out my palmtop PC, along with the fresh battery I’d packed for my cell phone. Then I sat down next to Godsen and set up my remote cell phone connection to the internet. I logged on and sure enough, Walter’s preliminary report was there waiting for me in my mailbox. I downloaded it right away to my Memory Card, and logged off the net, then disconnected the cell phone hookup, and turned off the phone, slipping it into my right inside jacket pocket.
I ran the decoding algorithm against the compressed file and within about a minute or so I had the message Walter had left for me. Right away I could see that this wasn’t something I would want to put into hardcopy. I gave it a quick once-over, and then re-encrypted the file. This was dangerous material. I would have to get some private time with Godsen to go over it. I removed the Flash Card, and slipping my hand underneath my shirt and t-shirt, placed it in the small suede carry-bag that I kept under my left arm. That was something I’d made for myself back in the sixties when I’d had different uses for it. I still put it on every once in a while finding it handy for just this sort of thing. I had always liked the feel of the suede against my skin. Back then I’d also had one for the right side, but with a different shape. I’d custom fitted it for the Italian switchblade I kept in it. It had been one of my most cherished knives. I had collected them back then, and I still do. I lost the Italian blade somewhere along the way in those early years, but had since replaced it with a French version. A much smaller blade though, only three and three quarter inches. A handy pocket knife for around the house. The Italian blade had been almost six inches long, and razor sharp on both sides, a different beast for sure. Basically, it had been a stiletto.
I had about fifteen knives in my collection nowadays, and most were very good blades, made to last longer than the lifetime of the original purchaser. I kept them in a glass-top box made of oiled oak. I had room for maybe two or three more in the box, then I’d either be satisfied with what I had, or I’d have to make another display box. Two of the ones that were working knives, I had with me. One was the throwing knife, one-piece steel construction, six inches overall, half-handle, half blade, perfectly balanced. The other was a knife for cutting, not throwing. It was made of carbon, not just the blade, but the whole knife. It was a one-piece job too. You had to be careful with carbon blades. They were very brittle, and easy to break if you used them for anything other than slicing. Which included slashing. The carbon never lost its edge, and it was better than a hand razor when it came to a slash. That was the one in the steel edged super-slim scabbard that fit just below my t-shirt collar, down the back of my neck.
A quick frisk would normally miss it, as it had this morning when the Swiss police had gone over me for weapons coming up with everything except the one-piece carbon knife. Godsen’s Mr. Smith had been the first person to play with me and my carbon blade on this trip. I’d acquired it at an excellent knife shop, along the Niederdorf, just across the bridge next to the Bahnhof, that spanned the Limmat river commencing at the outfall of Lake Zurich.
The Niederdorf was my favourite place in Zurich. It was foot traffic only on the Niederdorf. A cobblestone street that ran for about a kilometer, with jazz clubs, blues clubs, strip clubs, an old-fashioned English pub or two, and some nice restaurants, as well as quick-eat joints, serving knackwurst on a bun, hot sauerkrautandrösti, stuff like that. The Swiss generally abhorred the idea of fast-food as conceptualized by the Americans, like McDonalds. They had a couple of them, but they weren’t on the Niederdorf. I had been hoping to get in one night of club-hopping and people watching when I’d first been told of the trip. That was becoming increasingly remote in my mind the way it was playing out.
We’d been en route for about fifteen minutes now, and I expected a contact at any moment, so I put the PC back in my bag and pushed the bag under my seat with the heels of my shoes. I didn’t want to have to go lunging into a closed compartment for it if I needed it in a hurry.
All of a sudden, there was a knock on the door. Three slow, solid knocks. I got up to take care of business. Opening the door about half way, and blocking any further opening by holding my foot there, I eyeballed two guys in the corridor. The door opened to the right, and I had my Colt in my right hand behind the shade of the door window. Never take chances unless you have no other alternative. The glass and plywood of the door wouldn’t have stopped, or even slowed my slugs much. At close range you risk getting blood on you, but, better safe than sorry.
Neither one of them were bor
n in Switzerland. Mark Benson was the older of the two, and had been in charge of the Zurich Branch for about three years now. I still had my contacts, and I’d sent a personal note of ‘congrats’ on the occasion.
The last time I’d seen him he’d still been a Field Operative, albeit a very senior one. I’d had occasion to save his butt when the ‘Special Ops Mission’ that he was on crossed paths with mine. It had been down at the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, not too far inside the Yemen border, which was something that was hotly disputed around the area of the Rub’ al Khali, more commonly known as the ‘Empty Quarter’. Being the world’s largest unbroken expanse of sand, it was difficult at best, and impossible at worst to identify any particular point in that vast region of dunes and valleys except by GPS, Global Positioning System. This was a year or two before everybody and their dog too, had access to the GPS system. At that time, they were mainly military, with some professional engineering projects having been granted access as well.
My team had been doing strictly reconnaissance, when we spotted a small troop of jeeps, maybe three or four, hightailing it across the top solid section of the dune one over from ours. About two kilometres south of our position. There was one out in front by about a half-kilometre, and after checking with my Farvision night scope, I realized that the chasers were South Yemen troops, and the chasee was flying the United Nations flag. The chasers were also doing their best to fill the chasee full of holes. The echo of the rapid fire from Kalashnikov AK-47’s was flying around on the wind, mostly headed away from our position, and the jeep engines were barely audible.
Our team leader, a Major Natison, came over and I filled him in. He took a chance that night. The U.N. jeep could have been anybody, but it was obvious that he wouldn’t make it on his own. Natison coordinated a simultaneous single file firing of our flare guns. There were seven of us, so it was fairly impressive. We aimed towards the chasers, putting them under some illumination, but it also pinpointed our location.
The most important factor was the psychological one. Saying that the U.N. jeep had friends in the night, out here in the middle of nowhere. That slowed the chasers down somewhat, while they pondered the situation. The U.N. jeep had started down the rising side of the dune, towards our position as soon as the flares went up. It took a few minutes, but finally the Yemeni’s took up the chase again. The Major had been watching through his night monocular the whole time. Apparently, he felt sure enough about what was going down to get directly involved.
He had set our Second Lieutenant, a good recon man, named Harvey Furston to follow the action with a laser guided shoulder launcher. When the chase started up again, he turned slightly towards Harvey’s position and said quietly, “The lead vehicle, take it out.”
Now you can put a lot of different kinds of rounds into one of those baby’s. This wasn’t the disposable type. Harvey had loaded the launcher with one of our high-explosive-incendiary rounds. There was a clear line of sight to the target, and they were only about a kilometer plus a bit as far as range went. The backwash from the launch was considerable, with everyone looking away, or closing their eyes tight, so as not to lose their night vision. The micro-missile was fast, and the lead chase jeep went up in a ball of fire almost instantly. The other two jeeps pulled U-turns so fast it looked like it had been choreographed.
The jeep that had been chased was still trying to get down the rising side of the dune next to ours without rolling over. It was doing more sliding than it was driving. We held position until the jeep got to the valley floor between our dune and the one he’d just come down. Then Natison sent me down to get him. I secured myself with a nylon line, using two of our guys as anchors, and dropped down the leeward side of the dune. There’s no way you can get up the leeward side of one of those dunes with a jeep. Even climbing one by foot was dicey. One step forward, two steps back, like that.
I got to the bottom, and met the man we’d just saved. Mark Benson, Special Ops, Canadian Embassy, Jeddah, by the Red Sea. Needless to say, he’d been grateful for the help. He’d been inserted from a fishing dhow, done what he’d been told to do, and then his extraction didn’t happen. It was supposed to have been a chopper along the edge of the Empty Quarter. They just never showed up. He was spotted by a routine patrol, and apparently, they didn’t care for the U.N., or the jeep’s driver. Then the chase was on. He stayed with us for another few hours while we waited for our extraction, which eventually came. We’d ended up shaving a whole day off our mission time, but the brass seemed pleased enough with our results, and the fact that we’d saved a Canadian operative. It’s always nice to have a favour in your pocket. I made a collection of my own in those days. It seems that one of those favours was coming up out of the mist of time still carrying enough weight to get the top man interested.
I nodded to Mark, and he nodded back. No change in expression at all. No introduction to his escort, and none was necessary. When the top dog went out for a walk, there was always a defender trailing along behind with the fire plug in case the top dog decided to take a whiz.
“Come on in Mark, I think we’ve room for one more.” He nodded again. Mark made his way into the compartment, which actually had room for six, but I knew Mark, I didn’t know the sidekick. The one who had now taken up position in front of our door. I looked at Mark, “McGill, or the Airborne?”
He laughed a small chuckle as we shook hands. “It’s good to see you old friend.”
I made introductions all around, starting with Godsen, of course. Turned out that Mark had been awarded a full Colonel’s rank himself since we’d last met. That was great, it irritated the hell out of Godsen.
We all sat down and I went over the last two days’ action report for him. I was trusting a man I hadn’t seen in years, but he owed me. When I’d finished, I indicated that this was to be considered a covert communique. Nobody else was to be briefed. Verbally or otherwise.
He looked me in the eye and said, “Why in hell didn’t you call me when you hit town? I got the report on that thing this morning outside the hotel in Dietikon. It was obvious you were back after I’d been given the details. What bothers me is that the Modus Operandi of the driver and enforcer is the same as one in an ongoing case we’re working on right now. If it had been anyone except you going up hard against these guys, you would have gotten killed for your trouble.”
I shook my head to the side inquisitively. “How so? They didn’t seem that heavy. I mean, I knew we were in trouble, but I didn’t think much past that. You know how it goes. Action first, etcetera, and so on ad infinitum.”
“Would it may interest you to know that both of your protagonists were wearing body armour? I don’t mean the kind the Toronto Tactical Response Team wears, either.”
The girls had been keeping well out of this talk so far, but at that point Godsen spoke up quickly.
“Are you referring to the U.S. Military Special Service Unit equipment?”
Mark gave her a look of tolerance combined with respect for an equal. Little did he know.
“Yes Colonel, that’s it precisely. How you even know about that, I’m not going to ask, I’m sure you have your resources. It was only experience, and the speed and technique of Jeffry’s response that saved you all. These guys had all the confidence in the world that even if you shot them, they would weather the hits, and take you out without batting an eyelash.” He directed that last comment my way, with a look to go with it. It looked like my automatic response had come through for us more than I’d realized.
“Is this the body armour that even the Pentagon can’t requisition for special projects, unless they hand it over to the Special Service Unit, which reports through Brigadier General Hartley, who sits two chairs down from the head of the table at Pentagon meetings, directly to the Commander-In-Chief, El Presidente his own self?”
“Shit, Jeffry, I don’t want to be here discussing classified material with you. Yes! It is. Okay?” He raised his finger to emphasize the next c
omment. I’d always hated being pointed at. “If this gets back to me from a source that’s not cleared for it, do I call you first, or what? And don’t try to feather me off on this.”
I put my hand on his shoulder. “Mark, it won’t come from me, and I can vouch for everyone in this compartment, including the civvies.” He’d held eye contact with me while I’d said that. Apparently, it had been enough to satisfy him.
“Okay, then. Yes, they had very exotic gear. The body armour would have stopped a gun even bigger than the ones you carry. Normally, they’re protected from the tops of their heads down to their shoes.” He paused for a minute. “It was your forty fives that took them out, right?”
I nodded.
“I knew it! Nobody can do that the way you do. After all these years, you just fall into the mode, don’t you?” He didn’t pause for affirmation from me. “Well, here’s a bit of info for you. If you’d tried for anything other than your personal kill shot, it wouldn’t have worked, and when the heist team is assembled for a bank job, even their necks are wrapped. The arms they use then are also ratcheted up a few notches. The automatic weapons these guys have access to are all military and top line. The same thing goes for the ammo they carry. There’s just no way in hell that a regular police force can fight back against that kind of materiel. Which brought up an interesting question. Maybe you can shed some light on it for me. The deceased who was in front of the Sommerau Hotel actually had been shot through the knee prior to his death. That was one of the weak spots in his body armour, granted, but we dug the bullet out of the granite fascia of the Sommerau Hotel, where it had embedded itself, one and three quarters of an inch deep. And that was from the ricochet. That’s some kind of shell you were carrying there old pal. I’d be careful with that kind of ammunition while you’re visiting this lovely Alpine-Getaway of a nation. You might want to file that away for future reference.”
Again, I nodded.
The Diamond Dust on Dragonfly Wings: A Jeffry Claxton Mystery Novel Page 37