by Fritz Galt
“Team Two, this is Team One,” Mick radioed. “No sign of our quarry. How about you?”
“Team One, this is Team Two. Negative on the quarry. However, we’ve spotted the bait taking in the view.”
“Affirmative,” Mick said. “Over and out.”
He turned to Captain Savage.
“No sign of Abu Khan. However, Congressman Butler’s wandering around like a tourist up there.”
“He shouldn’t be on the ramparts. Khan could easily pick him off,” Savage said. “We should have told him to keep a low profile and sucker Abu into the fort.”
“The congressman thinks he’s playing James Bond. Get me someone to check on him,” Mick ordered.
Captain Savage whispered behind him. “Get me Squirrelhunter, front and center.”
The assistant weapons NCO crawled on his belly up to Mick.
“Reporting, sir.”
“Go quietly in after the congressman. Radio back what you see.”
He was left in a cloud of dust as the soldier headed down the moat toward the land bridge.
Soon the dust settled. Mick opened his eyes and saw the NCO jump to his feet and climb up onto the land bridge.
A moment later a gut-punishing explosion ripped through the walls of the moat.
There was a flash of light and an ear-splitting boom.
“Squirrelhunter,” someone shouted.
Mick covered his head as the ground trembled and stones pelting him like rain. The entrance where the NCO had stood suddenly crumbled under an avalanche of stone.
Mick didn’t have enough time to contemplate the boom before he heard another sound.
“Helicopter at four o’clock,” a soldier shouted.
Mick looked toward Panjim, the new capital of Goa.
A military chopper was streaking toward the fort. He could tell from the high pitch that it was not American. The bird’s engines weren’t well maintained.
The chopper would be over the fort within seconds.
“Keep down,” he yelled.
It passed overhead and seemed to hover over the center of the fort.
He lifted his head. The entrance was buried in rubble.
“What was that?” he asked. “A land mine? Was it detonated by hand?”
Captain Savage fell beside him and looked over the cloud of dust above the debris. “Probably one of them was watching the entrance and set it off.”
“Then they’ve shot their wad,” he whispered fiercely. “Quick, men. Follow me.”
He slung his L96 sniper rifle over a shoulder and scrambled up the smoking rocks. His feet churning, he slipped backward as much as he advanced up the pile. He bent down and used both hands to claw his way up the rubble.
Behind him, his team formed a perimeter, M4 assault rifles pointed outward to defend him.
At last he reached a point just over the former entrance to the fort. But he had four or five meters to go. Rocks shifted under his feet.
Debris was crumbling below him, spilling over the entrance. Those inside the fort were trapped, and the rocks he stood on were giving away fast.
“All of you,” he yelled. “Get me up there.”
The five remaining commandos lowered their guns and scrambled up to him. He had a way to go to reach the top of the rampart.
“Form a pyramid,” he instructed. “I’ll stand on your shoulders.”
Three men stood shoulder to shoulder, trying to establish a foothold near the wall. The pile of rocks they stood on was so narrow, they had to stand much closer together than he thought safe, but he had no choice.
They boosted the two remaining soldiers onto their knees, then from there up to their shoulders. The top of these men’s heads were still a meter below the top of the wall.
“Here I come,” Mick alerted them.
He grabbed a shirt. The muscles beneath were taut as a tree trunk. Clawing faces, inserting his toes in their belts and tugging on gun straps, he clambered up their backs. One soldier on top reached down and tugged him upward.
The second tier of soldiers leaned against the dark stones for support and hiked him up their backs.
He grabbed for the rampart and found it.
So he pulled a chin-up. His heels settled comfortably on their shoulders.
The helicopter was setting down in the center of the roof. The terrace was vast and empty, like an abandoned football field. Mick squinted into the setting sun. The congressman was approaching the bird from one side.
Careful not to lose his balance, Mick swung his rifle over his shoulder and set it on the uneven stones of the rampart.
Both eyes open, he peered down the rifle’s telescopic sight. He watched the door to the helicopter open and waited for a terrorist to appear.
There seemed to be some hesitation as the helicopter’s rotors maintained flying speed and the landing gear kept hovered a meter above the terrace.
“Jump off that thing, you bastard,” Mick said, squinting through his site.
Someone gestured from the chopper’s open door to the congressman.
Fred Butler shook his head, refusing to walk under the blades.
At last a silhouetted figure leapt from the open door, landing on all fours like a leopard.
“Okay, let me see your face,” Mick said. His rifle’s crosshairs climbed methodically up the sleek, black-garbed body.
He momentarily opened his other eye.
The congressman approached with the briefcase. A bound body fell out of the chopper and landed, kicking, on the stone surface.
The crosshairs found the shoulders and kept climbing steadily.
“Okay, smile for me, you bastard,” Mick said.
A hand reached for the briefcase stuffed with two million dollars. A head of auburn hair turned toward him.
It was Natalie.
She was collecting the goddamned ransom for Abu. He lowered the rifle and gaped.
She grabbed the money from the congressman as he ran past her to his daughter lying crumpled beside the roaring engines.
Natalie whirled about and lugged the briefcase toward the helicopter. She grasped a door handle, hefted the briefcase up onto a seat and leveraged herself up into the cockpit.
Within a second, the chopper door was shut and the green aircraft had pulled straight off the ground. It turned sharply and headed toward Panjim, leaving two huddled forms below.
Stunned, Mick barely felt the men’s arms grabbing him and lowering him to the pile of crushed rocks. He skittered down to the road, threw down his helmet, slumped to the ground and sat there running a hand through his dripping wet hair.
The radio operator started setting up his equipment.
Captain Savage looked him in the eye. “What do we tell Washington?”
“The congressman is safe,” Mick said. “His daughter is here, too.”
“How about Abu Khan? Did you get a good angle?”
He wasn’t sure how to say it, other than to tell the truth.
“That wasn’t Abu Khan collecting the loot. It was my wife.”
He could tell that Savage didn’t comprehend him.
He watched the helicopter disappear over the sprawling, colonial city. “Tell them we failed,” he said. “Tell Washington, the terrorist is still at large and that we have not recovered the vaccine.”
Captain Savage returned the radio operator’s querying look with a shake of his head. Negative.
“This is radio operator Alpha. The needle has missed its mark. The patient is still on his feet and expects full recovery. The potion has not, repeat not, been recovered.”
The helicopter could hold a pilot and five passengers. There were only two passengers onboard. One was the bodyguard who had dropped a bound Keri Butler onto the fort compound. The other was Natalie Pierce.
She watched the large, red evening sun reflect off the wide river as they skimmed low toward town.
Her hands still trembled as she held the briefcase between her knees. She hoped the bodyguard di
dn’t notice. After all, she was the professional.
“Where are we going now?” she shouted above the irritating shriek of the helicopter’s engines.
“The bungalow,” the bodyguard said.
“Who’s there?”
“Abu,” the bodyguard said, turning to her for the first time. He wore a red turban and a beard. Chances were his family name was Singh.
He took the briefcase and opened the latches. Then he ran his fingers over the greenbacks inside. “We’ll give this to him.”
“What are you doing in Abu’s organization?” she asked him, trying the brazen approach. “Isn’t Abu trying to wipe your people out?”
“On the contrary, Sikhs and Muslims will fill the vacuum.”
“I see,” she said. “It doesn’t matter to me. I’m just along for the ride.”
“You’ve done a good job, so far,” he complimented her. “You’re a professional. You didn’t panic.”
“Why should I have panicked?”
“Surely you saw the guns pointed at you from the fort wall or sticking up in your face from inside the fort.”
“Oh, those guns,” she said. She hadn’t seen any guns while focusing on grabbing the money from Butler and trying not to be recognized by him from the Taj Mahal Hotel.
She decided to take advantage of the bodyguard’s good mood.
“Where is this bungalow?”
“It’s Abu’s house in Panjim. It’s called Casa do Rio. Lots of foreigners from the Gulf and Europe build very nice mansions in Goa, but Casa do Rio is the largest. They’ve had British royalty stay with them.”
“No kidding. It would be an honor for me.”
The pilot circled over a generously apportioned compound protected on three sides by walls, and by a river on the other. Heavily armed guards were posted on all four corners.
Some bungalow.
At the apex of a circular drive sat a sprawling, two-story colonial mansion overlooking the river. A white, wooden veranda on the ground floor supported screened porches on the next level. From there, the windows looked over a spreading Banyan tree, outlying servants’ quarters and gardens that graced both sides of the house.
Hashmimi had done very well for himself, the old coot.
Then she kicked herself. She had nearly forgotten why she was there.
“You’ll introduce me to Abu, won’t you?” she asked the bodyguard.
“Certainly. What’s your name?”
Should she create a name on the spot? She smiled and tried to buy time.
“I don’t use a name,” she said at last. “I’m known by what I do.”
“Of course. I understand.” He patted the briefcase.
Natalie had left the beach in Portugal’s Algarve by motorboat. From a small airport, a private jet had flown her to Oman, refueled there and hopped the Arabian Sea to Goa. The military helicopter had awaited her in Goa’s airport, and it was there that she finally learned her ultimate mission.
She nearly burst out laughing when the Sikh bodyguard told her she would collect the ransom for Keri Butler. She had come full circle, from starting the police probe into her disappearance in Bombay to collecting the ransom from her father.
Once in the helicopter, she had stared eye to eye at the distraught, gagged girl. Keri’s eyes had grown wide with recognition as Natalie had strapped into the seat beside her.
If she had accomplished nothing else during this ordeal, she had freed the congressman’s daughter.
The helicopter sent out waves of grass across the lawn.
Next step, the vial.
Chapter 40
Vic Padesco entered the Oval Office and gently shut the door behind him. The blue-carpeted room was unlit and his footsteps sounded like those of a man marching into a church, carrying a coffin.
President Charles Damon was staring out of his Mylar-protected window at the South Lawn of the White House. Vic only saw the tall man’s elbows resting on the armrests of his high-backed, armor-plated executive chair.
“I believe Park Bunker already phoned you, sir,” Vic said in a hushed tone. “Fatal Sting failed. They didn’t capture Abu Khan, nor did they recover the vaccine.”
The president’s chair didn’t move. Nor did Vic hear a response.
“On the good news front,” Vic continued, “India has issued a new policy on nuclear weapons. Unilaterally, it decided that, in light of recent ‘public health concerns,’ they are prepared to sign the CTBT immediately. They will stop developing nuclear weapons.”
“Looks like the terrorists have gotten their way,” Charles Damon said at last. “Influence over New Delhi.”
“No, sir. I’m afraid they want more than that. They want more than gestures. The terrorists want total physical control of the government and military.”
“Then what should we do? I want to encourage New Delhi to sign the treaty.”
“Exactly, sir. If they sign, then Congress will make Pakistan sign. The only catch is the timing. If India learns that we’re in Goa, or involved in any other way in trying to assist her, she’ll assume that we’ll provide whatever conventional forces and scientific know-how she needs to resist the terrorists and fight the disease. As you know, we can’t commit to such assistance. So we’ve got to bury our involvement while we encourage her to sign the treaty.”
“You’re telling me to abandon our men in India?”
“If need be. They failed on their first effort. If they’ve succeeded in getting Abu Khan in the past hour, so be it, but we’ve got to extract them or, if that fails, abandon them. Remember, we have no knowledge of their actions. Otherwise, India will not sign the CTBT.”
“But I want the terrorist. I want the vaccine.”
“Charles, listen. Millions will die in the plague. But millions more, including Americans, will die in the fallout of a nuclear war. That’s our main objective. Keep the nukes out of South Asia.”
“I suppose you’re right,” the president said, his tone morose and distant. “We’ll have to deny everything to Congress. You know what that means.”
“No. Congress will never get to committee on this. They won’t investigate us, and they won’t impeach you. I’ll brief the leaders of the joint committees and Washington won’t hear a word of it.”
“You’re sure,” the president said, holding up and studying a portrait of the first lady.
“It’s my responsibility, sir. The buck stops here.”
As Vic Padesco left the Oval Office, his jaw was set. He had no intention of calling together any senators or congressmen. He’d tell them what they wanted to know after India signed and ratified the CTBT treaty. Capitol Hill leaked classified information worse than a sieve. He’d call Adam and Park instead.
At his office, several doors from the president on the West Wing of the White House, Vic dialed Adam Trimble down the street at the State Department. It was a direct line to Adam’s office.
“I’ve just gotten a presidential decision,” Vic began. “With the operation bungled and India’s new nuclear stand, we’re going to cancel the operation, let India sweat out the plague and insist that Pakistan follow and sign, too.”
“Sounds like a wise choice to me,” Adam said. “Only—”
“Only what?”
“Only how deniable is our military action in Goa?”
“Don’t worry. The Congress will never question us. You’re off the hook, Adam.”
“You’ve arranged it with the Hill?”
“Just got off the phone,” Vic lied. “We’re in the clear.”
“Fine. Do you want to call Park, or should I?”
“Not to worry,” Vic said. “I’ll give him the news.”
He hung up and paused only a moment and then picked up the phone again. He pushed a button and dialed the secretary of defense’s office directly.
“Park,” he said, adding a tone of urgency in his voice. “I just finished talking with the president. He’s ordered us to pull the plug on backup assistance to Fa
tal Sting. We’ll have to deny the entire operation.”
“I’ll order the men out.”
“No, Park. We can’t risk any more involvement. No radios. No planes. No ships. As of now, we never were there.”
“Why this sudden change of heart? So they failed on the first go around. They just arrived. Give them a chance to get adapted and they’ll pull it off next time around.” Park sounded remarkably restrained.
“India has a new nuclear policy. They’ll sign the CTBT unilaterally, forcing Pakistan to do the same. This is our chance to eliminate the proliferation of nuclear weapons on the subcontinent.”
“They’ll sign the treaty?” Park repeated, sounding stunned. “I guess we don’t want to infuriate them,” he said slowly. “But how about the millions dying of the disease? We’ve got to capture the terrorist and recover his vaccine.”
“Park, the president is willing to accept responsibility for any of our actions, or lack thereof.”
“He wants the lives of hundreds of millions on his head?”
“We’ve got a brave commander-in-chief.”
Park Bunker summoned General Wolf Kessler, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to his stately office.
“Wolf, we’re burying Operation Fatal Sting immediately.”
“What does that mean exactly, sir?”
“I want you to pass the orders on down at once. There will be no backup assistance to the commandos on the ground. There will be no pullout. They will have to leave using their own resources. And lastly, there will be no knowledge of the operation anywhere in the United States Armed Forces. It never happened. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, sir,” Wolf said, clearing his throat. “The mission is over. I’ll radio them to cease and desist.”
“The hell you will,” Park said, his jaw jutting out and his shoulders square. “There will be no further radio transmissions into India.”
“Sir, what if they succeed in their mission?”
“Let’s hope to God they don’t.”
The general shook his head as he left the room.
“Wolf, you understand my orders? They’re direct from the president.”