Wilco- Lone Wolf 22

by Geoff Wolak

  ‘You’d spend a year looking and not find any.’

  ‘Good to know. But you are involved?’

  ‘You might think that, I couldn’t possibly comment,’ I quipped. ‘Oh, while you’re on, ask the nice man in the White House for some money, to be sent to the President of Liberia for … road surveys, sewage surveys, electricity supply surveys, and social wellbeing studies.’

  ‘No one would suspect that as being a front for something. How much?’

  ‘Whatever he can spare for our project south of the border.’

  ‘How’s it progressing, in real terms?’

  ‘Well, very well, because we’re using proxies as well as our own people. And those proxies … well, they get paid through routes that no one could track back on, and those foot soldier proxies fully believe that they’re working for another cartel. And, more to the point, they don’t give a fuck who’s paying them so long as they get paid.’

  ‘Good jobs are hard to find down there. So yeah. And a raid against the Sinola leadership, those left alive?’

  ‘Would be a stunt for the cameras after my men shoot the guards in that valley.’

  ‘I can live with that,’ he firmly stated.

  ‘I’ll get people in place when we have a fix on the Sinola boss man. Loan me a Chinook or two, pilots with night sights.’

  ‘That we can do, yes, I’ll send a note to Colonel Mathews today.’

  ‘Are we likely to see a reaction from the Mexican Government?’

  ‘They condemn the breach of their sovereign territory, at least they do in public, but the back-channels say they’ve pulled out their people and hope we do all the work.’

  ‘Bloody typical.’

  I called Running Bear. ‘Listen, check up the line the availability of Chinooks, then land some men a hundred miles south, above a main arterial route, then make a damn nuisance of yourselves, hit armed men in convoys, look for labs.

  ‘Pick a nice spot, make camp, rotate it, radiate outwards and be brazen, Sinola are on the back foot.’

  ‘Someone shoved a car bomb or ten up their arses.’

  ‘So the rumour goes, yes. Make some plans. And also land men thirty miles south, same thing, make a camp and organise some denial of area patrols.’

  ‘I’ll get that sorted now.’

  ‘Make sure some of your Spanish speakers go along, always a local soldier.’

  ‘They do, yeah, to question people. Oh, that hippy weed dude we grabbed, he’s singing like a bird now. That distribution centre is linked to a splinter Lobos group.’

  ‘Ask him about other locations.’

  ‘I’ll check what they get from him via Khrushchev.’

  Lunchtime I called Moran at GL4. ‘How’re the Wolf officers?’

  ‘Some have an odd attitude, and swing from sticking to the rules to wanting some dangerous action behind the lines.’

  ‘American servicemen are not great at bending rules or breaking orders, it will take time,’ I told him.

  ‘There are a few as good as us, some with a good attitude and some seem to be a bit of a risk.’

  ‘Feel free to chop a few, because you may be in action with these men. If you have a doubt, drop them.’

  ‘I’ll give it some time, and work on them, shout at them maybe and get them back on track.’

  ‘Up to you.’

  ‘They’re fit, they can shoot straight, all expert on a variety of weapons, and the route planning is much better now; they’re starting to think.’

  ‘And Echo?’

  ‘Some are helping to train the Wolves, some are training in groups.’

  ‘Who took over from Rizzo?’

  ‘Henri for now, and he has a new French sergeant here, plus two Marine commandos.’

  ‘I might have suggested that all the French group together.’

  ‘We have discussed that yes, and make Dicky troop sergeant.’

  ‘What are the new French lads like?’ I asked.

  ‘Very fit, excellent with weapons. This new sergeant, Maurice, he’d give you a run for your money.’

  ‘Right now my own mother could give me a run for my money.’

  He laughed. ‘He’s as good as Tomo, and they compete fiercely. Tomo calls him “Garlic”, and Maurice calls Tomo “Kid”, which annoys Tomo greatly.’

  I laughed. ‘Competition is good. Oh, you think the French could handle being on a job?’

  ‘Yeah, they’re shit hot.’

  ‘I might take the Wolf officers to Mexico.’

  ‘That’ll wake them up.’

  Tiny came back at 4pm with a man in prison orange. ‘This little shit was hiding from me. From the time they arrested him to now he’s not spoken a word to any guards or the police, but another prisoner put me onto him. He’s Russian, but from Chechnya, so darker skinned.’

  I stepped to the man and studied him. He was short and fat, bald almost but with a greying beard. In Russian I began, ‘I’m Petrov. If you have something useful for me you get out of prison. If not, we bury you in the trees.’ I waited.

  He looked up at me through tired eyes. ‘What kind of deal would I get?’ he asked in Russian, but accented.

  ‘Depends on the quality of the information.’

  He considered that. ‘I can give you the Cyprus/Turkish drugs pipeline if you get my family out first.’

  ‘How long you been inside?’

  ‘Almost a year.’

  ‘And they never knew you were Russian?’

  ‘Chechen. And no.’

  ‘Then you are a good agent, or … you were protecting someone.’ I waited.

  ‘The gang, they are probably watching my family.’

  ‘Where is your family?’

  ‘Northern Cyprus.’

  ‘I’ll have them out in a day.’ His eyes widened. ‘Write down the names and the address, and we’ll move them south then out.’ I led him inside, and despite being cuffed he wrote down the detail.

  I stepped out and called Bob Staines. ‘It’s me. I need a woman and two kids moved from Northern Cyprus to the south and then out, safely, we have the husband here and he’s cooperating. He thinks the gang he used to work for will be watching them, but he’s been in prison a year.’ I gave him the detail.

  ‘Libintov can help.’

  ‘I haven’t spoken to him for a while.’

  ‘Malon Ubel chats to him often. And thanks to you, Libintov has very few rivals these days.’

  ‘That airline..?’

  ‘With Tomsk, yes, regular flights along the coast, from Monrovia and Freetown, Guinea, Ivory Coast and Nigeria. And there’s now a weekly flight to Freetown from Paris, not a military flight. And they have three S61 helos running around the mine and oil areas.

  ‘The offshore rigs used to be serviced by boats, now by those helos, some of the pilots from Scotland. How’s it going there?’

  ‘We have a proxy army on the march, no track back.’

  ‘Best way yes, and I’m guessing that everyone in Mexico has their price.’

  ‘They’re all informants, and some are shooters on their day off from being informants – and those are just the kids. The parents are even worse.’

  ‘I spoke to Moran a few times, and he’s had some cat and mouse in London with Ginger and Doc Willy.’

  ‘Doc Willy fancies being a spy, does he?’ I asked with a smile.

  ‘He can pose as a genuine doctor, so London is interested in him. He has a perfect back-story – he could take your appendix out.’

  ‘When do you get here?’

  ‘I’m in the Caribbean, in a nice hotel, so soon.’

  Back inside, I told our man to get cleaned up, but that he would be held till his family was out and on the phone.

  ‘If you can keep me out of prison, I cooperate anyhow.’

  In the morning our prisoner was back, but now cleaned up, and I had some bad news.

  ‘You know a man called Paul Farkas?’

  ‘Yes..?’

  ‘Your wife marr
ied him, legally it seems because she declared you dead, and she’s happy to stay with him, the kids happy.’ I waited as his face and shoulders fell.

  ‘What did I expect? That she waited?’ he finally said. He angered quickly, ‘But to marry that piece of shit.’ He looked away, and tried to control himself. ‘I give you what you want, you get me to Cyprus. I get even.’

  ‘It’s your life to throw away,’ I told him.

  He sat down with a Russian manager, and he soon detailed the pipeline – as he remembered it. So far, I was not sure what I was going to do with that knowledge.

  I called Bob Staines. ‘You sat on a beach?’

  ‘A hotel pool.’

  ‘Listen, our man just got the news about his family in Cyprus, but he’s giving us the pipeline anyhow – keen to get back to her, or back at her.’

  ‘I guess he’s a bit mad at her.’

  ‘He wants us to drop him in Cyprus.’

  ‘Ah. One family murder coming up.’

  ‘Listen, he knows the pipeline, but … what do we do with it?’

  ‘I have people in Interpol, careers to be made, favours to ask later on.’

  ‘Fine, if you think it’s worth it.’

  ‘It all helps, yes, because we keep our contacts happy.’

  ‘We’ll stick him on a ship, he can swim in to shore.’

  An hour later and our Russian manager came and found me. ‘He details the pipeline men, but also the paymaster, a Russian-Turk called Aleg Cego, a big fish. Tomsk knows him.’

  We went and found Tomsk.

  ‘Yes, I know him, had some dealings, but I don’t ship through him. He now does Afghan heroin.’

  ‘Any value in taking him down?’

  He pulled a face. ‘None that I can see. But rumour is he works with Moscow.’

  I called Steffan. ‘It’s Petrov.’

  ‘How are you, my friend?’

  ‘Good. Listen, Aleg Cego in Northern Cyprus. You want him alive and well?’

  ‘We do, yes. Why, is he in danger?’

  ‘Interpol was sniffing around,’ I lied. ‘Some of his people were indiscrete.’

  ‘I would appreciate him left alone.’

  ‘As you wish.’ Call ended, I studied my phone for a few seconds and re-joined Tomsk and his manager. ‘I think our prison man needs to go away.’

  After a moment’s thought Tomsk nodded at his manager, and our prison inmate would get a bullet to the back of his head, never the chance to kill his ex-wife and her new man.

  I found Tiny, nudged her outside and gave her the story.

  ‘Oh. Well … bollocks.’ She sighed theatrically. ‘Back to the drawing board.’

  ‘Good work anyway, but … he would have killed his family.’ I shrugged. With Tiny gone, my bed partner sulking a bit, I called back Bob Staines. ‘It’s a no-go with our Cyprus man, because my Moscow contact wants the pipeline and its boss left in place.’

  ‘Well he’s a very valuable contact, and it’s not worth burning the relationship.’

  ‘And our man wanted to go murder his family.’

  ‘Best all round that he doesn’t go home then,’ Bob agreed.

  ‘Bob, are we ignoring the good of the individual here and looking at the big picture?’

  ‘It needs to be that way, because we save more in the long run. Starting with his family.’

  I sat on the patio and stared at the pool, having chosen the “great game” over the life of one angry little man. And I felt sorry for that angry little man.

  I had the list from Thomas in Mexicali, and after staring at it for a while, quite a while, I had it faxed to our hitman boss. I stopped to wonder how many men on that list had families, but had taken up arms as a way to feed them in a shithole like Mexicali; no other choices available.

  David Finch called late. ‘Had a few gentle nudges, some complaints, and some loud calls. Your man Rizzo has been photographed in Panama City, at the good parties.’

  ‘Well, that’s terrible, because I don’t get invites to the good parties.’

  I could hear the sigh. ‘It’s terrible … because the powers are not impressed with his escape from justice.’

  ‘Have charges been filed?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Then he never escaped justice, he quit, and is taking a holiday in a place where they find him amusing.’

  ‘The JIC are not amused.’

  ‘I’ll talk to them when I get back.’

  ‘Perhaps he could keep a lower profile.’

  ‘I’ll ask him.’

  ‘Could you not tell him?’

  ‘He’s a civilian, remember. But I’ll have a word.’

  In the morning, Khrushchev called. ‘We inserted two big groups last night, and now this place is almost empty. One group is on the main road south, say thirty miles or so, and one is way down, right near the Sinola heartland. And they already shot-up a few jeeps.’

  ‘Maybe the cartel men do their dirty work early,’ I suggested.

  ‘Seems that way, because our boys were shooting them at 5am.’

  Tinker called at 10am. ‘The phone traffic around Sinola spiked. Seems that the main roads are all cut.’

  ‘We inserted teams in two places and cut the roads, yes.’

  ‘Well they’re miffed alright, talk of police commandos coming in to deal with whoever is blocking the roads.’

  ‘I gotta go.’ I called Khrushchev. ‘Sinola are pissed-off about our roadblocks, police commandos bribed and on their way apparently. Get Washington to call Mexico City fast, and get those police turned around, or we end up killing them.’

  ‘If these boys are on the make, do we give a fuck?’

  ‘We can’t be seen to be shooting police, crooked or otherwise. And warn the teams, have them pull back a bit. Wound the police, shoot up jeeps, avoid a massacre of cops here.

  ‘Get on it fast, because we don’t want the newspapers in Mexico attacking us, grieving families seen on the nightly news. Those cops have families.’

  That evening at 8pm, as many of us sat around the patio table, Running Bear called. ‘I’m down in Sinola territory with a team, but we’re being as careful as we can; it’s a long way back to the border. Having said that, the shit is flying, and these boys are mad as hell at us.

  ‘The leadership must have rallied the men, because we got all sorts out looking for us, most in white hats and blue jeans, a hunting rifle over their shoulders.’

  ‘Any wounded on our side?’

  ‘Got some ricochet from random fire, a few sore men that can fight on for now, but look – we’ve dropped two hundred of these fellas.’

  ‘A good tally. Keep going. What’s your concern here?’

  ‘Well, these idiots look anything other than hardened gunmen-’

  ‘Don’t be fooled here. You wear a green uniform, they wear jeans, but they kill for fun and set people alight. They’re armed, they’re working for Sinola, they accepted the pay and they know the risks. And some of those men have done things that would turn your stomach.’

  ‘Just odd, shooting a guy dressed like my father at a frickin Sunday barbeque.’

  ‘You’re a soldier, and you’d like them in green, well trained and coming at you like soldiers. Tough shit, ain’t gunna find any of those around here unless they pay police to come at you, and then you’re killing cops with families.’

  ‘Do we hold off engaging the cops?’

  ‘Not if they pose a threat; you wound them, damage jeeps. But, if they get to the point where you think you’ll lose a man killed, you start to shoot to kill.’

  ‘We can hit these men 600yards off, they won’t get close, and we have good positions, men camouflaged.’

  ‘I have Washington shouting at Mexico City to get the cops pulled back, and not on the take here.’

  ‘And if a hundred police turn up?’

  ‘You leave as best you can, you don’t kill them. But I want some wounded - so that they have to explain the wounds later on. And if they do
turn up, you call me and I get you a ride.’

  ‘Wait.’ I waited. ‘Got some guy with a mounted fifty cal. He can’t see us, but it makes life interesting.’

  ‘Shoot the fucker,’ I encouraged.

  ‘He’s a thousand yards out.’

  ‘So lay a bet, see which man gets him. Wilco out.’

  I gave my table guests the detail.

  Rizzo asked, ‘They got Elephant Guns?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Get some in, and our snipers,’ he encouraged. ‘They’ll get the jeep.’

  ‘Might take the new batch of American Wolf officers there, plus Echo. Depends if this escalates, or if we can keep it tight and controlled. We have Mexican gunmen shooting for pay, and that means no track back, and no wounded men in the newspapers.’

  Half an hour later my phone trilled, Thomas in Mexicali. ‘Hey Thomas.’

  ‘There have been some shootings, all people on my list.’

  ‘Yes, we paid middle men to assist you. Let me know who gets taken off your list, and an approximate time of the shooting.’

  Off the phone, I faced Tomsk. ‘The gunmen in Mexicali City we hired are keen to earn some money, already busy.’

  ‘Carlos called me, two Sinola men captured, and he two Tijuana men who want to come over to his side.’

  I called Khrushchev. ‘You have some company?’

  ‘Two Tijuana boys. They want an amnesty and a Green Card and we can sort that. They’ll be across the border soon.’

  ‘Family?’

  ‘Yeah, but the family knows the people trafficking route, so they’re making their way over independently, our people looking for them. We know the meet point.’

  ‘You’re being generous here…’

  ‘We’ll shove their faces in front on a TV camera when the families are safe, make a big splash of it. Oh, Mexicali City is getting lively, as we speak.’

  ‘The left hand is shooting the right hand. Get me a report in the morning.’

  ‘Our sources there say it’s a bloodbath so far.’

  ‘Buy some shares in the local undertakers business,’ I quipped.

  ‘It’s a business full of life,’ he laughed.

  ‘Uh … I think it’s full of death. Wilco out.’ I faced Tomsk as people listened in. ‘Mexicali City, a bloodbath they report.’