by Donn Taylor
“I hope he doesn’t end up in jail,” Sledge said.
“I don’t think he will,” Ramón said. “When he wishes, he can be very invisible.”
They laughed together and hung up, and Sledge laughed again as he poured a third cup of coffee. He was alive, and he had a small fortune in the bank. Today was what every day should be for New Sledge.
He was still laughing when the doorbell rang.
Three unanswered rings usually discouraged salesmen who violated the apartment complex’s no-soliciting rule. But on the fourth ring Sledge decided to dismiss the salesman personally.
The door opened to reveal a middle-aged man who wore the insignia of a full colonel on his U.S. Army uniform and an impatient expression on his face. He was Colonel Lionel Burkhalter, the commanding officer of Sledge’s reserve unit.
Sledge found himself gaping. “Since when do we have drill on a weekday?”
“We don’t, but you do.” The colonel handed Sledge a packet of papers. “Someone in the Pentagon either likes you or hates you.” He stood there grinning as Sledge read the orders.
“But…” Sledge’s euphoria fizzled away like air out of a punctured football. “But that’s tomorrow.”
“Correct.” The colonel kept grinning. “And it’s tomorrow at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina. You’d better get on your bicycle.”
****
New Orleans, Louisiana
Palpable relief flowed through Kristin as she flew back to her job with Panorama Weekly in New York. She had spent the previous evening with her laptop, drafting a self-censored version of the Chozadolor massacre. Even with the part about chemical agents left out, it was shocking and powerful—everything she’d ever hoped for in a story.
She had slept uneasily, waking often in fear that Steve Spinner would prevent her departure. Fully awake at 5:00 AM, she packed and checked out. At the hotel desk she ordered a taxi to the Lake Pontchartrain lakefront but, once on board, she changed her destination to the airport. She might be fleeing from shadows, but she knew Spinner would make trouble when her story violated his personal taboos.
She’d deliberately not checked the flight schedule for fear of alerting Spinner to her plans. But luck favored her, and she boarded an eight o’clock flight to New York with one intermediate stop in Washington, DC. She didn’t mind the stop in Washington. The main thing was to get out of New Orleans before Spinner could stop her.
When the aircraft leveled out at cruising altitude, she revised her story on her laptop. It wasn’t enough that she had all the information right. She had to polish it until it looked professional. That meant practicing all she knew about getting the right words in the right places and paying attention to little things like transitions. By the time they landed at LaGuardia, she knew her story could compete with the best.
In the terminal, she phoned Panorama Weekly to say she was coming. Remarkably, her call was referred to the editor-in-chief, Victor DeRaud. He welcomed her with his usual booming voice and invited her to come directly to his office. That brought her first suspicion that something wasn’t right. DeRaud never invited junior journalists into his office. But she wouldn’t let herself worry about that. She had the story of a lifetime. It would sell itself.
Yet she did worry as she hailed a cab and rode downtown to the Panorama building. She couldn’t think of anything that might be wrong, yet she had the inescapable feeling that something was.
She paid and tipped the cabdriver and carried her luggage to the elevators. As always, the sudden ascent made her feel like she’d left her stomach on the ground floor. The familiar hallway of the thirty-fourth floor looked the same as it always had. Maybe her apprehension was baseless. In any case, it was good to be home.
In DeRaud’s office, the secretary told her to leave the luggage beside her desk. “Go right in,” she said. “They’re waiting for you.”
They? What on earth does that mean?
Carrying her laptop, Kristin opened the door and entered. She started to speak, then stopped.
DeRaud leaned forward with his forearms on his desk. Seated on either side were her immediate supervisor and the next editor above him.
She didn’t have to ask what the meeting was about.
The expression on their faces said her story was dead.
20
Denver, Colorado
On the morning after his meeting with Brian Novak, Roger Brinkman found a mountain of reports waiting on his desk. As he shuffled through them, one of his people entered from the outer room.
“About that ship out of New Orleans,” the man said, “the Preening Peacock. The GPS trackers say it didn’t set course for the Panama Canal like we expected. It turned east. Right now it’s passing north of Cuba. I thought you’d like to know.”
“Thank you,” Brinkman said. “Please keep tracking it.”
When the man departed, Brinkman leaned back in his chair and smiled. “I don’t know where it’s going,” he said to himself, “but that’s not the way to Panama.”
This could be most informative. Unless some of the crew found the two tracking devices and disabled them.
****
Fayetteville, North Carolina
At 5:20 that afternoon, Sledge deplaned at the Fayetteville airport. The previous day had been a mad scramble to book his flight and get his uniforms ready. The orders authorized civilian clothing, so he dressed that way and tried to look like a businessman. His itinerary gave him minimum-time transfers at Dallas-Ft. Worth and Charlotte. It also led to arguments in both places about excessive carry-on luggage. He’d won, but hadn’t made any friends doing it.
So what now?
Catch a cab for the twenty-minute ride to Bragg, he guessed, and report to the post adjutant. His orders didn’t name any other place to report, and he couldn’t decipher the jumble of code numbers that presumably gave that information.
He need not have worried.
“Major Sledge?” The deep voice belonged to a sharp-featured individual whose close-cropped hair belied the civilian clothes he wore.
“That’s me,” Sledge said.
“I’m Major Hanlon,” said the other. “First name is Ray.” He put out his hand.
“Mine is Jeb.” He exchanged a firm handshake and took a closer look at Hanlon. In his mid-thirties, Sledge guessed, with steely blue eyes in a wind-burned face. “How did you know to meet me? I didn’t send an itinerary.”
“Someone did. And a picture to go with it.”
He showed a photo of Sledge and Kristin entering the room in Miami where Brinkman and Novak had been waiting. That meant Novak was as sneaky as Sledge suspected. At least he was thorough.
Hanlon shook his head in mock chagrin. “I hoped you’d bring the blonde.”
For a fleeting second Sledge wished he had, but he said only, “She was busy.”
Hanlon led him to an MH-6 helicopter on a nearby ramp. The chopper’s five rotor blades began turning as soon as Sledge and Hanlon came into sight. After strapping in, Sledge saw that the helicopter was equipped with forward-looking infrared and a GPS inertial navigation system. If he’d ever doubted he was involved with a Special Ops unit, this helicopter would have dissuaded him. Its primary mission was to insert and extract small Special Ops teams. Sledge wondered what he’d gotten himself into.
Hanlon said nothing as the helicopter headed west over the Ft. Bragg reservation and over the main built-up area of the post. Instead of landing at the airfield, they flew to a remote area seemingly populated only by a thick forest of pine. As the pilot circled, Sledge glimpsed a WWII type wooden building half hidden among the trees. At the door stood an armed guard dressed in the Army Combat Uniform, known familiarly as ACU. The helicopter touched down in a small clearing nearby.
Hanlon helped Sledge with the baggage and led him toward the building’s wooden porch. The guard impassively eyed their approach. Behind them, the helicopter lifted off.
“The pilot must be late for supper,” Sledge said.
“His u
sual mission is insertion or extraction of Special Ops teams,” Hanlon said. “For their sake, he doesn’t hang around.”
The boards of the porch rang hollow under their footsteps. The guard stepped in front of the door and brought his M-16 to port.
Hanlon reached cautiously into his pocket and brought out a photo ID, which he hung around his neck. “This is Major Sledge,” he told the guard. “He has one of these waiting inside.”
“Yes, sir.” The guard came to present arms and back to port, then stepped aside.
Sharp, Sledge thought. This must be a good outfit.
Inside, five men dressed in ACUs stood around a table cluttered with maps and photographs. The eldest was a gray-haired colonel whose face would lose a beauty contest with the average moose. But his presence radiated command. Sledge began to feel better about this assignment. Whatever it was.
“Colonel Kwasek,” Hanlon said, “this is Major Sledge.”
The colonel shook Sledge’s hand and met his eyes with an appraising glance. “Glad to have you with us. Tomorrow you’ll go through airborne refresher training, but right now we need your help in planning.”
“Planning what, sir? All my orders say is to report.”
“They didn’t tell you?” Colonel Kwasek looked like he wanted to spit. “Can’t trust those CIA types with anything.”
He speared Sledge with a glance. “We’re going to take out that weapons factory you found in Colombia.” His face showed distaste. “At least we’re planning for it. We don’t execute ’til we get the word. Washington is supposed to be ironing out the diplomatic complications.”
Sledge could have kicked himself. He should have guessed as soon as Hanlon showed him the photograph from Miami.
The colonel shuffled some aerial photographs scattered on the table. “Tell us where you were and what you saw. Get the locations as exact as you can.”
Sledge studied the photos for a few minutes. He found one that showed the airstrip by the factory. He placed his finger on the spot from which he and Kristin had watched. “We were here,” he said. He moved his finger across the strip. “And the factory was here.”
Next, someone showed him a greatly enlarged photo he guessed to be the foliage hiding the factory’s roof. A rectangle drawn on it with pen showed the approximate outlines of the factory.
“The report says you saw men wearing protective gear,” the colonel said. “Where were they, and where were the doors to the building?”
“Both were here.” Sledge indicated a spot a quarter of the way down the long side of the rectangle.
The questioning continued along those lines until Colonel Kwasek finally called a halt. “Thank you, Major Sledge. That’s all for now.” He turned to Hanlon. “He’s all yours, Major.”
Hanlon picked up one of Sledge’s bags and walked toward a door at the back of the room.
Sledge picked up the other and followed. He wasn’t surprised that the windows showed night had fallen. “I don’t suppose I should ask where I eat and sleep?”
Hanlon showed a sympathetic grin. “We’re already locked down for the operation, so we sleep in the back room. We eat there, too. They truck the food in. It’s probably cold by now.”
It was cold, but Sledge and Hanlon ate it anyway. Hanlon then returned to the main room. Sledge sat on his assigned bunk among the ten in the room and prepared his uniforms for the following day. Then he checked the field gear someone had placed there for him. No weapons were in sight, but he’d no doubt learn about them soon enough.
Afterwards, lying on his bunk, he wondered about the planned operation. The diplomatic complexities weren’t his problem. Most of the planning concepts weren’t either. It occurred to him that no one had told him what his part of the operation would be. All he knew was that he and others would parachute into hostile territory to seize a factory known to house deadly chemicals that could kill them in seconds.
He might not live to enjoy the four hundred thousand Steve Spinner had paid him.
But for the next week or two, he wouldn’t have time to worry about the problem of values in an empty world.
21
Above the Caribbean en route Colombia
Shortly before dawn on the fourth day after his arrival at Ft. Bragg, Sledge rode with twenty equipment-laden airborne troops in a C-17 Globemaster III jet. The great aircraft would normally carry five times that many, but the present underload was appropriate for this mission.
Sledge’s brief time at Ft. Bragg had been the busiest he could remember. First, they turned him over to a gray-haired jumpmaster for his airborne refresher training. That brought the usual jibes about needing a cargo chute because of his weight. He responded by showing a level of professionalism that left no room for complaint. By noon, the jumpmaster was apologizing for having to put him through the mandatory procedures. The final requirement was a high-altitude, low-opening jump—called HALO—that required iron nerve and precision timing. Sledge brought it off perfectly, and the jumpmaster signed him off as combat ready.
Fortunately, he’d kept his weapons qualifications current, but he took his newly issued M4 carbine to the firing range for zeroing and test firing. They’d offered him some of the new whiz-bang weapons Special Ops was using, but he chose to stay with the familiar M4.
Colonel Kwasek, after several late-night sessions with Sledge and the operations staff, completed his plan for the raid on the weapons factory—subject to presidential approval, of course. The objective was to seize the factory and its records intact and capture as many of its workers and management as possible. The requirement for surprise precluded using a ground base in Colombia. That also argued against staging from an intermediate base like MacDill or Blanding in Florida. Consequently, the raid would be mounted directly from Ft. Bragg. One day before the operation, Special Ops teams would be inserted using the HALO technique. They would conduct covert reconnaissance and report any guerrilla positions in the area. The main force, an airborne battalion, would drop onto the airfield at dawn in three successive waves, with the mission of securing the field and the factory. Sledge and a group of twenty chemical warfare specialists would jump forty minutes later and, they hoped, proceed directly to the factory and begin the investigative process. That group also had the mission of decontamination if the guerrillas used chemical munitions.
Presidential approval had come at noon on the third day. Word received said the Colombian president had consented to the U.S. operation. He had been deeply shocked by Kristin’s photographs and conceded that his country lacked the capability to deal with that kind of chemical warfare. He also agreed to complete secrecy. When the U.S. operation was in progress, he would go on television to explain the situation, then alert Colombian Army units to relieve the U.S. forces after the chemical hazards had been neutralized. Sledge was glad the complicated diplomacy worked out so quickly. And that responsibility for it rested on someone else.
Sledge thought the tactical plan was good, but he knew too well that even the best plans could fail in execution. All it took was one factor that hadn’t been foreseen. Now, jetting across the Caribbean, he grimly reviewed the cliché known as Murphy’s Law: if anything can go wrong, it will go wrong. To that he added the lesser-known O’Toole’s Law, which stated that Murphy was an optimist.
Something else also nagged at Sledge’s mind: Diego Contreras. The prospect of revenge tasted delicious. He had passed up one chance because it was more important to report the factory’s existence. And maybe because he couldn’t stomach being a paid assassin. Now no such restraint existed. For a few moments he relished the picture of automatic weapons fire ripping into Contreras’s body the same way his guerrillas’ bullets had mutilated the bodies of Alita and her family. Then discipline asserted itself. His mission was to seize and interpret documents from the weapons factory. He would carry out those orders. But if, while doing that, he happened to come across Contreras…
Across from him on the other side of the aircraft, Major Han
lon caught Sledge’s eye and they exchanged a sardonic wink. No words were needed. Within the hour, they would parachute into hazardous conditions as yet unknown, but which they were expected to master and control. Within that hour they might be dead without knowing what killed them.
****
Diego Contreras established his forward command post in a cabin one hundred yards east of the weapons factory. Earlier in the night, his guerrilla units had already begun infiltrating toward Bogotá, though one company remained in position across the airstrip at its eastern end. In another day that company would join his headquarters and move the chemical weapons into striking positions near Bogotá. Outposts farther down the valley assured him that no Colombian army units were near enough to threaten his operation. In three days, his coup would become a historical fact.
Privately, Contreras enjoyed picturing the chemical terror he would rain on the capital city. He hoped his political enemies would die as horrible a death as the men he’d killed in the test of his weapons. Those weapons made him more powerful than anyone who had ever ruled in Colombia, and they would make him feared throughout the world.
He was relishing these thoughts when Tomás told him his guerrillas had captured a prisoner. Contreras ordered him brought in immediately for questioning. Soon the man stood before him, returning Contreras’s stare with defiant eyes. He was a tall Latino, several inches taller than Contreras, and his status as prisoner did not diminish his arrogance. Behind the prisoner and his two guards, Tomás dumped the man’s equipment in a corner.
As the guards twisted the prisoner’s arms behind him, Contreras slapped him twice across the cheeks. “Who are you?” he demanded.
The prisoner grinned at him through bloody lips. “My name is Alfredo Gonzalez. I am with the army at Bucaramanga.” He spoke Spanish with an accent Contreras did not recognize.