Cutting Edge (2002)

by Clancy, Tom - Power Plays 06

  A ten-thousand-dollar deposit left on his lease had ensured that complete deference was given to his wishes.

  Now the van came jolting and bumping over the final few yards of the path. Kuhl wondered whether its rough trip up had agitated the occupants he assumed were riding in its cargo section. This was no bit of idle musing. He must have absolute confidence in their reliability. If they showed any sign of unrest he would notice it, apologize for the driver’s trouble, and send him back on his way.

  After several moments, Kuhl lowered his binoculars to the windowsill. The van had reached the cabin and pulled to a stop on the unmanicured grass beside his own Ford Explorer. The words ANAGKAZO BREEDING AND TRAINING painted on its flank were easily legible to his naked eye.

  As the driver got out, Kuhl rose and turned to the man who had been standing behind him near the window.

  “Stay out of sight, Ciras,” he said. “I’m going down.”

  Ciras nodded. He was slender, almost delicate looking, with shiny black mongoose eyes, dark curling hair, and olive skin. There was about him a keyed, alert stillness that was all contained energy. He rarely seemed to move unless necessary. When he did, it was in darting bursts. On a crowded Munich street once, Kuhl saw him turn on a Verfasungsschutz intelligence agent who had been trailing them, and slice open his belly with a sweep of the knife so quick its blade was never glimpsed in his hand.

  At the foot of the spiral stairs now, Kuhl heard the bell chime and crossed the main room to open the door.

  “Mr. Estes, hello,” his visitor said. Tall, bearded, and stocky, he wore a short-sleeved chambray shirt, denim trousers, and western boots. Under his arm was a black portfolio briefcase. “Sorry if I ran a little late, almost got stuck a couple times . . .”

  “The drive can be tedious. I saw your difficulty coming up.” Kuhl let him enter. “You must be Mr. Anagkazo.”

  The man stood inside the entrance and held out a hand.

  “John’s fine,” he said. “A lot of people maul the second name, and I’ve had more than a few of them tell me I should change it to something easier to remember. For business’s sake. But the line I always come back with is that we’ve had it in the family a while.”

  Kuhl slipped a smile onto his face.

  “It is Greek, yes?”

  “You got it. My great-grandparents came over from Corinth.”

  “A magnificent city.”

  “So I hear,” Anagkazo replied. “I’m kind of embarrassed to say I’ve never made the trip. All kinds of relatives there I’d love to meet, but it’s always one thing or another keeps me tied down.” He glanced into the living room. “You’re a professional photographer, right? Bet you get around some.”

  Kuhl looked at him. He had deliberately placed his camera on a mission bench against the wall—not the digital, but a 35-mm Nikon. Beside it in a deliberate clutter were accessory cases, a light meter, a folded tripod, and scattered rolls of Kodak film.

  “Some,” he said after a moment.

  The visitor angled his head back toward his parked van. A second man had exited and was striding around its right side.

  “That’s Greg Clayton, my best trial helper,” Anagkazo said. “It’ll take him about five, ten minutes to get suited and ready for the demo.” He hefted his portfolio case. “Meanwhile, we probably should sit down, go over a few things. I’ll show you the pedigrees and trial certifications, answer whatever questions you have about my program.”

  A pause. Then Kuhl said, “I’ve owned Schutzhund trained dogs before. My assistant made that clear in your conversations, did he not?”

  “He did. Well, generally—”

  Tired of the man, wishing him gone, Kuhl remembered these banalities of interaction were woven into the fabric of his camouflage veil. “A Rottweiler and a German shepherd—at different times,” he said. “Please, though, have a seat.”

  Anagkazo stepped through the room, lowered himself into a rustic oak couch, and regarded the camera gear again. He seemed intrigued.

  “Here to shoot anything special?” he said, unzipping his case. “If you don’t mind my being curious.”

  Kuhl looked at his visitor from an armchair opposite him.

  “No, not in the least.” He smiled. “I’m working on a book to be published in Europe. A pictorial record of my modern-day journey over the Royal Road.”

  “El Camino Reaàl, sure. Connects the old mission chain from San Diego to Frisco,” Anagkazo said. “I guess you’d find most of those settlements along Route one oh one. Or near it. There are maybe twenty altogether, that right?”

  “Twenty-one.”

  Anagkazo nodded, his brow creasing with interest.

  “You know, I’ve heard San Antonio de Padua’s something else,” he said. “It’s way out past my breeding farm in the middle of nowhere. A hassle to reach because you’ve got to take a twisty local road, G-sixteen, leads you through the mountains. But seeing it must give you an idea how rough life must’ve been for those original Spanish priests.”

  “Yes,” Kuhl said. “I’d planned on making the drive.”

  “Just don’t forget to pack lunch and a coffee Thermos,” Anagkazo said. “Also better make sure you have loads of identification. There’s an army base, Fort Hunter Liggett, in the Ventana backcountry. Government land covers maybe a hundred seventy thousand acres, believe it or not. Most of it’s plain wild. The base itself was deactivated almost ten years ago, but they still use it for military reserve and National Guard drills. There are tanks, choppers, fire ranges, ammo dumps. I hear they conduct some special-op training, too, though they keep that part sort of hush-hush.” He produced a pocket folder embossed with his company’s name from the briefcase on his lap. “The reason I say to bring your ID is that the mission happens to be smack in the middle of a valley on the base’s land. You actually need to drive through a checkpoint to visit it, and security’s gotten tighter nowadays. Like I told you, it can be a challenge.”

  Kuhl had reason to be amused.

  “But worthwhile, I think,” he said. He took the pocket folder from Anagkazo, opened it, and hastily riffled through the thin stacks of clipped-together documents in its sleeve. “All the paperwork is in here?”

  “Pedigree records, award certificates, and point breakdowns for every phase of training. Everything signed and sealed by Schutzhund master officials,” Anagkazo said. “I included our owner’s information packet and guarantees of course—”

  “The dogs have Level-Three titles?”

  “And other special ones besides,” Anagkazo said. “You’re getting really terrific animals. Lido, Sorge, and Arek. They’re littermates, pure-black shepherd males from west German working lines. The dogs have to be a minimum of twenty months old to qualify for Level-Three certification, and I spent an extra four months training them for advanced titles in protection and tracking. You won’t find too many around that have earned the trial scores they did.” He shrugged. “But I should show and not tell. Greg must be set by now, and you’re probably anxious to meet your new best friends for yourself.”

  Kuhl looked at him.

  “Yes,” he said. “Very much so.”

  They rose and went toward the door.

  On the grass about thirty feet from the cabin, Anagkazo’s helper had gotten the three coal-black German shepherds out through the van’s side panel. A broad, hulking man who stood well over six feet tall, he waited beside it holding them on a leather multiple-dog leash clipped to their steel choke collars. Motionless, they sat side by side at his heel.

  Kuhl studied Clayton’s oversize flannel shirt and baggy coveralls, noted the odd bunching over his arms, legs and chest, and realized his huge appearance was due in some measure to concealed body padding.

  Anagkazo turned to Kuhl outside the cabin door. “Your assistant told me you’d be interested in protection,” he said. “Alone up here on the mountain, that’s a sensible requirement. Having owned Schutzhunds before, you’re probably familiar with what I’
m about to say, but some people don’t appreciate that effective guard work goes with obedience and control”—he interlocked two fingers—“like this. You can’t separate them. Over-aggressiveness is considered a flaw either in a dog’s inbred disposition or trained behavior. It shouldn’t display any aggression unless ordered. They’re protection dogs, not guard dogs in the ordinary sense . . . they only do what their owner tells them, won’t attack anyone without his direct command.”

  Kuhl gave him a silent nod.

  “We’re going to demonstrate how those important qualities I mentioned combine in a simulated protective engagement,” Anagkazo said. “The reason Greg’s wearing a hidden bite suit, and not the ordinary kind that would fit outside his regular clothes, is because an intruder ’s going to be dressed in regular clothes. We want to be sure our dogs will perform under realistic conditions. It’s part of the extra training I mentioned before, and not even necessary for Level-Three certification.” He paused. “Don’t be disturbed when Greg brings out his pistol. It’s a Bruni practice gun . . . looks and sounds like the real thing, but chambered for firing blanks.”

  Kuhl smiled at him. “Thank you for the warning,” he said.

  Anagkazo waved to his helper as a signal to get started. Let off the leash, the dogs remained heeled in position at Clayton’s side until Anagkazo called out to them. Then they sprang onto all fours and came rushing over to him at once like a midnight wind.

  “Sit,” he said in a firm voice.

  The shepherds obeyed without hesitation. Kuhl studied them. They were truly impressive: wide-boned, thick-furred, and muscular, with triangular ears erect above the domes of their large shaggy heads.

  Anagkazo signaled again.

  “Okay, Greg!” he shouted. “Roll it!”

  Clayton reached into a pocket of his coveralls for the training handgun. Kuhl noted it was indeed an accurate replica of a Colt 9-mm semiautomatic.

  Both hands around its grip, tilting its barrel slightly upward, the helper raised his gun, pulled the trigger. A shot cracked into the air, loud, its echoes bounding off and away into the nearby trees.

  Kuhl’s eyes went to the dogs. They were still. Perfectly still beside their trainer, facing Clayton across the grass.

  In this way, and perhaps others, Kuhl thought, their attitude was reminiscent of Ciras.

  Clayton gave the high-country silence scarcely a moment’s chance to settle back down around the cabin, and then shattered it with a second round of gunfire, a third, a fourth.

  More echoes reverberated through the treetops, scaring up birds everywhere on the ridge.

  Kuhl watched the dogs.

  None of them had shown any sign of startlement or so much as flinched. They just sat there staring at the man with the gun, their bright brown eyes fixed on him.

  Kuhl looked at Anagkazo. “They are in complete control of their natural impulses,” he said.

  The breeder nodded.

  “And without fear,” he said. “You’ll see what I mean.”

  Anagkazo waved a hand above his head yet another time. Clayton stepped toward the cabin, his pistol thrust out before him, the uptilt of its snout now barely perceptible even to Kuhl.

  Two shots crashed from it.

  “Attack!” Anagkazo commanded.

  The dogs hurtled forward, racing straight at Clayton, making no sound, midnight wind. The pistol was fired again, a series of rapid bursts, but they did not stop, kept on charging in his direction.

  He lowered his gun as the dogs reached him, aimed it at them.

  They lunged. One of them drove high, rose onto its hind legs, and Kuhl saw the flash of bared white fangs as its massive black jaws clamped over Clayton’s gun arm below the elbow. Another shepherd went for his right thigh. The third, his left ankle. Clayton twisted his body, shouting loud threats at the dogs, pulling them around with him, dragging them around with him, but they hung on, silent, silent, throwing their combined weight against him, finally making him lose his balance, forcing him off his feet. As he dropped hard onto his side, the pistol flew out of Clayton’s grasp, landed several feet away in a patch of grass.

  From Anagkazo now: “Hold!”

  The three German shepherds released his helper, backed off, and got onto their haunches without turning away from him, staying within a yard of the spot where Clayton had fallen, forming up in a close ring around him. They were still silent, their thick wooly tails whipping back and forth over the ground.

  Anagkazo turned to Kuhl.

  “Fearless, as promised,” he said. “They won’t budge until I call them down.”

  “And if the intruder were to run into the woods?” Kuhl was watching the dogs. “Try to escape rather than press ahead toward a confrontation?”

  “As long as you give the command, they’d track and find him no matter where he hides,” Anagkazo said. “Bear in mind you don’t have to be in danger or any extraordinary circumstances to get the same level of obedience from them. It extends to their routine behavior. Whether it’s walking beside you on the street, retrieving a Frisbee at a picnic, whatever. With these dogs there’s no negotiation.”

  Appreciating that last phrase, savoring it, Kuhl waited a long moment before he offered the breeder his reply.

  “Excellent, Mr. Anagkazo,” he said, then. “Truly excellent. That is just what I’d wanted to hear.”

  Steve DeMarco was one of nine members of Sword’s advance team to have met the plane out at the landing field.

  A Boeing 737 freighter, it had flown in with about twenty thousand tons of cargo for the satcom ground station and fiber network head-end center going up near the Sette Cama Forest thirty miles south of Port-Gentil. The bulk of its load consisted of parts ordered by the horde of engineers, plumbers, and other specialized utility systems experts at work in the compound’s buildings. There were pallets of everyday office fixtures, including desks, chairs, computers, LAN modems, phones, fax machines, copiers, paper, toner cartridges, and so on. And there was an initial shipment of expensive upgrade and replacement components for the Planétaire optical communications infrastructure, such as long-haul light amplifiers, wavelength division multiplexers, demultiplexers, and routing devices. The telecom equipment alone was worth upward of a couple million dollars, which would have been reason enough for fully three-quarters of Nimec’s security contingent to be on hand for the Boeing’s reception.

  And they had another.

  A comparatively smaller portion of the valuable cargo transshipped to Gabon via UpLink Europe had been requisitioned by the Sword boys. This ranged from electrified perimeter fencing, ballistic glass panels, and concrete Jersey barricades for vehicle entry points to fancier hardware like fixed intruder-alert systems, countersurveillance sweep units, mobile robotic guards (dubbed “hedgehogs” by Rollie Thibodeau), and many of the same weapons and chembio threat detectors Thibodeau had described to Tom Ricci during their brief, strained catch-up session at UpLink San Jose. Also arriving with the Sword req were the first three of what would eventually grow into an entire fleet of armored-and-modified-to-order Land Rovers, and a delivery of weapons and gear Nimec’s team had been licensed to use for personal and facility defense under special agreement with Gabonese authorities. Among these were several crates of conventional firearms, third-generation “Big Daddy” variable-velocity rifle-system submachine guns, and other lethal and less-than-lethal munitions.

  Once the goods had been unloaded they were expedited to temporary warehouses, checked in, sorted, and prepped for final transport—and that was where Steve DeMarco and his teammates entered the picture. Everything was eventually headed out to the Sette Cama for on-site storage and distribution, begging careful supervision as the first loads were transferred onto off-road trucks and heavy lift choppers by airport personnel. Four of the Sword ops had ridden with the wheeled convoy along remote jungle roads, which might present tempting ambush points to thieves and hijackers. Each of the two birds making the initial air run had swept off wi
th a guard of its own. As agent in charge, DeMarco had also assigned three men to the warehouse beat until the rest of the freight was cleared out of them, a process expected to take seventy-two hours at the very least.

  With things well under control at the airport, DeMarco had gotten into his company vehicle and driven back to the Rio de Gabao. His plan was to freshen up in his room, then grab a bite to eat at the hotel restaurant before giving Pete Nimec the lowdown on the successful transit operation.

  He would wind up with a whole lot more to tell him.

  As he got out of the elevator, DeMarco’s curiosity had nudged him to give one of the new pieces of equipment that had arrived with the 737 a quick test. Though far from the most expensive or important item in the shipment, it was nonetheless a nifty little gadget . . . assuming it worked as touted. At a glance it appeared to be a long, thin silver cigarette lighter. Another version of the same device, designed to look like a key chain fob, had been chosen by some of the ops. To each his own.

  Whichever outer configuration was preferred, the miniature guts of the thing remained the same. Its true function was neither to fire up a smoke nor to help a person locate keys buried in a trouser pocket—although the latter was something the fob did quite handily because of its shape, perhaps accounting for its favored status in contrast to the fuel-less, wickless, single-purpose mock-cigarette lighter version. The device’s true function, at any rate, was to snoop out hidden surveillance cameras. Inside the case was a very low frequency directional receiver sensitive to electromagnetic emissions in the fifteen- to twenty-kilohertz range, corresponding to VLF levels radiated by the horizontal oscillators that typically allowed remote-operated cameras their side-to-side movement. The detector had two switchable modes of alert. At the touch of a button, it could signal the presence of a hidden camera with a discreet pulse similar to that given off by a cell phone set to silently vibrate, or sound a series of beeps through an attached headset. The closer it got to the source of the low-band radio emission, the faster a tiny red LED on the case would blink, allowing pinpoint location of the camera . . . in theory, insofar as DeMarco was concerned for the present. His trust in any gadget or weapon had to meet the same standard he applied to women: He would reserve judgment until he saw how well it treated him.