“Where to now?” he asked as the jet rolled onto the runway.
“Andrews, then Diego Garcia,” the general replied, referring to the U.S. military’s island base in the Indian Ocean
“Diego Garcia?” Monarch said. “So you want this done sooner than later.”
“No exact parameters yet,” Barrens admitted as the jet took off. “But I’d say we’re within days of launch.”
Monarch shifted with slight discomfort, wondered whether the six months in solitary confinement had dulled his skills, his instincts, whether he’d be up to this assignment. He didn’t have a choice, did he? This was literally a case of do or die, and he did not plan on dying anytime soon.
He heard Claudio’s voice say: “Rule number one: You have the right to survive.”
Monarch half nodded to affirm his belief in one of the rules by which he lived, and by the time they’d reached cruising altitude, he had begun the process of convincing himself that he could and would succeed and survive this mission. Monarch did this by closing his eyes, breathing deeply, and eliminating all other thoughts. Within moments, as far as he was concerned, there was no past, no future, just this one thing to do.
He was ready when the jet leveled off and he heard Barrens unbuckle his harness and say, “Let’s show you the latest intelligence. Ellen? Can you bring Monarch up to speed?”
Monarch opened his eyes to find Wolfe already free of her harness and moving toward the metal table. He pulled the buckles free and joined the CIA officer and the general, who were spreading out several large blueprints.
“This where you think it is?” Monarch asked, his eyes scanning the construction diagrams, which detailed the inner and outer workings of a massive building that featured two long, low wings jutting out to either side of a shorter but more multilevel space bordering a large swimming pool.
“Yes,” Wolfe said. “Among other places.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning we believe from NSA intercepts that there are copies, perhaps four,” the CIA officer replied. “We have rumored locations on all four, but this target is a lock and features penetrable security.”
“And you know that how?”
“From CIA Special Activities Division and Ranger teams that have been inside the city already,” Barrens said. “You’ll get their reports, see the video they shot.”
“They can’t handle this?”
“Not without a gunfight,” Wolfe said. “We came to you looking for finesse.”
Barrens nodded. “Obviously we’d much rather this go off without notice.”
Monarch responded skeptically, “From the chaos you expect at the time of launch, I don’t think anyone will be noticing a little light weapons fire.”
“Just the same,” Barrens said. “This is how the joint chiefs and the secretary want it run. No undue attention. Lives are at stake.”
“Mine more than most,” Monarch said.
“Get-out-of-jail-free card’s a costly thing,” Wolfe said.
For the next hour of the flight to Andrews Air Force Base, they showed Monarch satellite photos, more blueprints, and long-range raw video footage of the exterior of the facility. Monarch inherited perhaps his greatest gift from his father: an uncanny photographic memory that allowed him to recall virtually every line of every diagram, every shadow of every photograph, every nuance of every film frame. Organically, all these came together in his brain to form an almost three-dimensional understanding of the target facility and grounds. Seeing that model float in his mind, Monarch listened without comment as the general outlined a suggested plan leading up to the moment of entry.
“You’ll float inside the walls, and from there you’re on your own,” Barrens said. “You’re the expert here, we’ll leave the interior job to your designs and the circumstances at hand.”
Monarch chewed on all that he’d been shown, all that he’d been told.
“Extraction?” he asked.
“Your call as well,” the general replied.
For several moments Monarch said nothing, his left fingers rubbing at the tattoo on his forearm, one of the few things he ever did subconsciously.
Wolfe asked, “You think it will work?”
Monarch squinted, glanced at her. “Everything except the high-altitude jump. If deployed even at a low altitude, the parachute will be spotted with that kind of show going on.”
“You have a better idea, then?” Barrens asked.
Monarch nodded. “I’m going to need a squirrel suit.”
* * *
They landed at Andrews at eight that evening. A light rain fell as the jet was refueled and they got out to stretch their legs in a hangar. A courier, a female African-American Army sergeant, awaited them. She carried a large black duffel bag.
“You ordered a squirrel suit, General?” Sergeant Greene asked, as if that were an absolutely normal thing to say.
Barrens glanced at Monarch. “Against my better judgment. Where did you ever find it?”
The sergeant allowed herself the barest smile. “We at the Quartermaster’s Corps have deep and wide resources, sir.”
“I appreciate it,” Monarch said, taking the bag and shaking her hand.
“You gonna put that on for real?” Sergeant Greene asked.
“That’s the plan,” Monarch replied.
She looked at General Barrens. “Permission to speak frankly, sir?”
Barrens nodded, confused.
Greene looked back at Monarch and said, “Funny, but you don’t look like a damn fool.”
Monarch laughed. “Appearances can be deceiving, Sergeant.”
* * *
They took off for the Indian Ocean twenty minutes later. As they flew out over the Atlantic, Monarch stayed in his jump seat, the squirrel suit tucked away behind a cargo net. In his mind, however, he was inside that 3-D model of the building, trying to devise the most efficient and safe route to the target.
As he did, thoughts of Billy kept intruding, echoes of his father’s voice from long, long ago: “You want the surprise, Robin, the unexpected, of course, but you’re also looking for the path of least resistance. Think of how water gets into places, how it’ll seep into cracks and dribble down the walls. That’s how you have to be to get in and out of places unnoticed.”
Monarch examined the target facility using that filter again and again. But hours later, as exhaustion licked him into unconsciousness and vivid dreams again, he still had not figured out how to become like water in this case.
* * *
“Are you out of your mind?” Robin demanded, looking at Claudio in the gloaming light beneath the fragrant trees in Buenos Aires.
“Are you in your mind, or seeing things for what they are?” Claudio retorted. “Rule number—”
“I don’t care which of your goddamn rules applies,” Robin hissed. “How can you expect me to sneak in there and steal … I … I don’t even know what I’m supposed to steal!”
“A diamond bracelet and a painting,” Claudio said calmly. “The maid says there are many stones in the bracelet that we can sell. Enough to feed the Brothers for months. And the painting, this I read about in a book.” He handed Robin the torn page. “This is how you will know it is the right one.”
Robin took the paper, frowned. “In a book? That makes it like, famous?”
“Interesting,” Claudio corrected. “To me. I want to study it. The brushstrokes. The composition. When I am done, maybe I give it back. But not the bracelet. We keep that.”
“But…” Robin began, then saw the older boy was unwavering. He either had to steal the bracelet and the painting and become a full member of La Fraternidad, or he had to walk away, fend for himself again.
He started to resign himself to his fate. But what fate was that? A Buenos Aires jail? He flashed again on that image of police officers leaving an unmarked car with shotguns. He saw himself running hard away from a movie theater and the bloody bodies of his mother and father sprawled on a cold sid
ewalk.
No, he could not go to jail. He couldn’t chance an encounter with any police officer whatsoever, certainly not in this city, even now. They’d kill him if they caught him. No doubt.
“Well?” Claudio demanded.
Torn as he was, Robin realized that he only had one way to get where he really wanted to be—inside the Brotherhood with Claudio. Protected. Part of something bigger than himself.
“Okay,” Robin said at last. “I’m getting the bracelet and I’m getting the painting. I am not going to get caught. I’m going to steal them blind.”
Claudio grinned. “Just like any good little thief would.”
Diego Garcia
Central Indian Ocean
March 19, 2003
3:37 P.M.
Beneath an open-air hangar that shielded him from the sun but did little to cut the brutal tropical heat, Monarch buttoned an oversize green military fatigue top, hiding a chest harness beneath that held two Heckler & Koch USP .45 caliber pistols and four loaded clips for each. There was also a small but powerful handheld satellite radio, two Mag lights, and a GPS tracking device that he had just turned on.
Monarch could smell the sea, but was barely aware of the beck and call of men working around him. Wiping at the sweat already beading on his forehead, he picked up the bib-style bottom of the squirrel suit and struggled into it.
Made of Kevlar and cable-reinforced parachute fabric, the squirrel suit was two-piece, jet black, and featured soft wings like a flying squirrel’s that hung down from the arms to the waist and between the legs of the suit from the crotch to ankle. An integrated hood fit him like a glove. Extreme sports base jumpers had invented the suits to fly off cliffs, but over the years Monarch had found them perfect for high-altitude jumps, giving him the ability to soar in virtually any direction and at varying speeds, all while plummeting toward Earth.
He checked the altimeter on his right wrist and then a second GPS device on his left. Two feet above sea level. Thirty-three hundred and fifty-two miles to target. He put a headlamp on over the hood, and then swung his arms into the straps of a lightweight parachute pack that he’d use at ultralow altitude.
Sweltering now, Monarch nevertheless picked up a helmet and a set of clear goggles and turned toward General Barrens and Ellen Wolfe. The general wore short sleeves and aviator sunglasses. The CIA officer wore a khaki top and shorts and Ray-Ban sunglasses sat on top of her head. For the first time, she looked genuinely concerned about Monarch’s safety.
He looked beyond Barrens and Wolfe at a black B-2 stealth bomber that was also inside the open-sided hangar. The stealth bomber featured special coatings that allowed it to slip past radar undetected and had a range of six thousand miles The pilot and navigator bombardier were making their final inspections. A team of U.S. Navy ordnance specialists were maneuvering the last of sixty-five five-hundred-pound Mark 82 bombs into the belly of the flying beast.
“You sure those are going to hold above me?” Monarch asked.
Barrens nodded. “There’s a foolproof rack system up in there; you’ll see it. The ride will be uncomfortable, but you’ll have plenty of room. Test your radio and headset once you get yourself situated.”
Monarch nodded. “Oxygen? Water? Pressure?”
“Four tanks of O2,” Wolfe replied. “More than enough. And two gallons of water, two bags of jerky, dried fruit, nuts, and a bar of dark chocolate.”
“They’ve rigged the bay so it will have about the same pressure dogs get when in transport on commercial jets,” Barrens said.
“What more could a man want?” Monarch said, and moved past them toward the bomber, irritated by the ungodly heat.
“Robin?” the CIA officer called.
Monarch glanced back over his shoulder at her.
“Be safe,” Wolfe said.
He smiled and said, “You too, Ellen,” and kept going.
The bomb bay doors were open. Monarch flipped on the headlamp. Bombs filled much of the bay above him, stacked and positioned on hydraulic racks linked to a retractable pin system that the bombardier alone controlled. But between the underbelly of the bomber and the first actual bomb, there was a gap of five feet. Strapped to the empty racks below the bombs were the four oxygen canisters, water jugs, and a nylon sack, which he guessed held his food.
Monarch donned leather gloves and the helmet, then climbed up inside. He got to his feet, got a firm grip on the empty bomb racks before looking down at one of the ordnance specialists, a thickly set Hispanic whose name tag identified him as Corporal Escobar.
“Dude, you out of your frickin’ skull, or what?” Escobar said.
“I’ve considered that more than a few times,” Monarch admitted, then gave the man a smile, and said into his mic, “Let’s button her up.”
He held tight to the rack above him and lifted his feet. The bomb doors hissed and slid shut, leaving him in a steel sauna lit only by his headlamp. He grabbed one of the water jugs and drank as much as he could stomach, hearing the B-2’s turbines start and gather power.
When the bomber began to move, Monarch removed the helmet. He took the mouthpiece and hose connected to the first oxygen tank and fit it over his nose and lips, then got the helmet back on.
Using the handle given to Monarch back in the Special Forces, the pilot, a Texan, drawled over the speaker in his helmet, “Rogue, you ready to get up close and personal with a little ‘Shock’ and ‘Awe’?”
“Roger,” Monarch said, then sat on the bomb doors and braced himself, the heels of his boots pressed against two nubs of steel on the doors, his back against the rear wall of the bomb bay, holding tight to the empty racks again.
Given the sheer tonnage of the bombs above him, he was surprised at the power of the B-2’s engines, which roared and hurled the stealth down the Navy airstrip toward the ocean. The force of the acceleration pinned him against the fuselage, and they climbed steeply.
Two minutes into the climb, Monarch became agitated. His muscles began to throb and his teeth began to ache.
“This is Rogue, are you pressurizing the bay?” he asked as the heat around Monarch became overwhelming, smothering, swiftly robbing him of consciousness.
“That’s a negative,” came the Texan’s response as Monarch plunged into darkness. “We are having problems with initiation. Rogue? Rogue, do you copy?”
* * *
His face blackened with dirt, Robin stood in the alley shadows beside the rear wall of the compound immediately north of the one where the party was taking place. Claudio had pointed out that several stout limbs from the ancient live oak tree in the darkened compound hung over into the shadows behind the revelers. The older boy had also pointed out that the alley wall of the dark compound doglegged slightly, a corner that could be climbed. That would be his route in. How he got out was his own problem.
Robin felt in his pants pocket for the pocketknife and the three thin picks Claudio had given him as his only tools. Satisfied, he bowed his head and pleaded with the spirit of his late father to watch over him. The teen remembered when he was much younger, perhaps six, and Billy was coaching him as he climbed through a jungle gym at a playground in Germany. His father showed Robin how he could hang from things as well as a monkey if he just allowed his fingers, arms, and shoulders to rotate effectively. With that in mind, Robin began to ascend the alley wall, his fingers and rubber-sole shoes finding niches in the brickwork and mortar that he clung to or pressured against to inch his way ever upward.
As Claudio had warned, there were glass shards embedded along the top of the wall, except in one small section, up at the top of the jog he now climbed. Claudio had been on the wall three nights before. He’d broken off the shards there and filed them down smooth.
Still, Robin had to kip his way up onto the ledge with care lest he slice his feet and hands. He perched up there for three short breaths and then somersaulted forward off the wall and into a splayed position. He landed with an oomph in a freshly tilled flowerbed, jus
t as Claudio had said he would.
It took several seconds for Robin to catch his breath and another several to get to his feet, but then he was running across the interior of the darkened compound, praying that the older boy was right, that there were no dogs patrolling the yard.
He reached the base of the live oak without incident and saw to his surprise that a children’s swing hung off one of the bigger limbs, one that could not be seen from that high spot in the flowering trees across the alley. Without hesitation, he grabbed the chains, twisted them together, and began to haul himself up into the tree hand over fist.
Soon he was twenty feet up in the tree. Foliage surrounded him, blocking anyone’s ability to see him, certainly anyone attending the party, which was now less than one hundred and fifty feet over the wall and down from him.
Amid the music and the happy din echoing over to Robin, a man’s deep, boastful voice boomed something about the wonders of the Perón family. Anger flooded through Robin with such hot intensity that he wanted to fling himself over the wall and find and attack the man. What did he know? How could he know?
Robin flashed on images of his parents leaving that movie theater and uniformed policemen exiting a dark unmarked sedan, seeing the entire scene as he had from far up the sidewalk. For a moment, there in the oak tree, he relived those terrible memories as if they were unfolding right in front of him. Echoes of shotgun blasts pounded inside his head.
* * *
“Rogue? Rogue, do you copy?” came the pilot’s Texas drawl.
Monarch roused in the bomb bay, gasping for air, aware that it was cold and that the terrible pressure and heat that had built inside his body was gone.
“Copy,” Monarch managed.
“Sorry ’bout that, partner,” the pilot said with a sigh. “Pressurizing system kind of locked up on us there for a minute. You feeling all right?”
It felt as if every muscle in his body had been worked hard, but nothing was broken. “Just tell me if that’s going to happen again.”
Brotherhood and Others Page 2