Hal had warned them from the outset of a CIA involvement with the Nicaraguan scheme. It came as no surprise, therefore, to learn that grass-roots agents might be implicated, but it would be Katzenelenbogen's task to estimate the level of involvement on the part of station personnel, then decide on the appropriate response. In short, he would be forced to make a choice on who should live and who should die.
Before he could perform that function properly, Katz knew that he would need more information. He could hardly run a questionnaire past InterSec's executives, but there was always an alternative. Perhaps Brognola…
Hal had assured them of support and promised them cooperation at the highest levels. Someone must be able to obtain the names and mug shots of the staff at InterSec. The Phoenix warriors would then at least be able to identify their enemies on sight… assuming that the InterSec connection traced back to McNerney and his rogues.
Assumptions. Katz was sick and tired of playing mind games while the clock ran down to zero hour, when there was necessary action to be taken.
Soon.
But in the meantime he would have to play the waiting game and stretch their forces even thinner, covering Ruiz's contact while maintaining a constant vigil on the Contras. For the moment it would have to do. And if the whole damned thing blew up in Katzenelenbogen's face… well, he would make the best of it and take as many of the bastards with him as he could. But first things first. And at the top of Katzenelenbogen's new agenda was a rush communiqué to Wonderland.
18
"You say we have a problem. Spell it out."
"I said we might be looking at a problem, General. Nothing's been confirmed."
McNerney waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. "Never mind the confirmation. Give me what you've got."
Lane Travers cleared his throat and shifted in the straight-backed wooden chair. He looked uncomfortable, and McNerney hoped that looks were not deceiving. As a military officer, accustomed to the open battlefield, he was suspicious of the CIA in general, uneasy with Lane Travers in particular. McNerney was convinced that Travers lacked the nerve to make a first-class fighting man. He worried that the man from Langley might fold when things got rough, his weakness jeopardizing everything McNerney and the rest had worked for through the years. It would have suited Mike McNerney to dispense with the CIA entirely, but the damage had been done.
"I got a call from Anastasio Ruiz last night. At home, if you can picture that." The agent shook his head, as if disgusted with the Hispanic's inability to follow protocol. "We met this morning."
"So?" McNerney made no effort to conceal his irritation as the agent worked his way around to what was on his mind.
"Machado has a new boy on the team these days. Guy claims to be Nicaraguan. Calls himself Rosario Briones, but Ruiz thinks he's a phony."
"Why?"
"Too slick, for one thing. Like he knows the ropes before he's even in the game."
"Go on."
"Some of it's personal, I think. Briones and Ruiz have a hard-on for the same muchacha, and Ruiz is losing out."
"Goddamn it, Travers, if you're taking up my time with pussy talk, I swear I'll see you on a walking beat in the Aleutians."
"No, sir." Travers had gone pale. "There's more."
"Well, spit it out, for crissakes. I've got things to do."
"Ruiz was curious enough about the new boy to initiate a tail. The first night out Briones met with two men, one of them a definite American, the other probably. Ruiz took down the number of their rental car."
"Is there a point to this?" McNerney asked.
"Yes, sir. I ran the plate through local channels, and it came back registered to Avis. On their sheet they list the client's name as Eric Larsen from Los Angeles. He's booked into the Sheraton, room 415."
"I'm listening."
"Well, uh… that's it. I mean, they've never heard of him in California or at Langley. Nothing with LAPD, the FBI or DEA. We're digging for a tax return right now, but if the guy runs true to form, he's never filed with IRS."
"A cover?"
"Yes, sir. I believe it must be."
"Who?"
"Your guess would be as good as mine."
"My guess would be worth shit, goddamn it! You're supposed to know these things."
"We think he might be independent, sir. We're elbow-deep in mercenaries since the operation in Grenada. They've been dealing weapons to the Contras, running border operations on their own for private parties, offering their services to anyone with ready cash."
"That covers Larsen — maybe. What about his sidekick?"
"Zip. We've got no name, no clear description from Ruiz. He thought the second man looked Jewish, maybe Arab."
"Jesus Christ! You're telling me we've got Mossad on this? Or maybe it's the fucking PLO!"
Lane Travers shook his head, dejected. "We believe the second man is an American. We simply haven't pinned him down as yet."
"Forget him. What about Briones?"
"Once again, there's nothing in the files, but with an alias there wouldn't be."
"So what this all boils down to is you don't know shit."
"I wouldn't say that, sir. We have eliminated several possibilities."
"I don't care squat about your fucking possibles," McNerney snarled. "Your job is to eliminate the problem. Are we clear on that?"
"Yes, sir."
"I hope so, mister. We are set to roll in two days' time, and I will not be fucked out of this opportunity by some slob-ass incompetent civilian. Are you reading me?"
"Yes, sir."
"All right, then. Do your duty, and be quick about it. I don't want to know the details, but I want this thing cleaned up before it snowballs. Understood?"
"Yes, sir."
There was the faintest trace of insolence in Travers's voice, but Mike McNerney let it go. The boy was getting mad, and that was fine. It would require some righteous anger — or some fear — to get him off his ass and into action. If he feared McNerney, so much the better. Never much concerned with winning friends, McNerney needed soldiers now, combatants who weren't afraid to kill — or die — if called upon. They were so very close now, and he wouldn't let a sniveling civilian spoil the shining opportunity of any warrior's lifetime.
It was troublesome, this word out of the Contra camp, but it was nothing that couldn't be put to rights. If Eric Larsen and his friends were mercenaries, they wouldn't be missed in time to raise a hue and cry. If they were dealing on the wrong side of the law… well, they might not be missed at all.
And if they were employees of some federal agency, unknown to Travers and his slick computer system? If their deaths should sound some kind of general alarm? Then what?
No difference.
The operation would proceed no matter what might happen in the interim. McNerney was committed to success or absolute annihilation, as he had been on the slopes of Pork Chop Hill, and later, in the reeking swamps of Vietnam. He would succeed because his cause was just and honorable. He was standing for right against the evil minions of destruction, chaos and despair. No matter that the slob-ass pinko bastards up in Washington were all infatuated with detente. McNerney would prefer a slow and painful death to kissing Moscow's ass.
For over thirty years McNerney had been proud to stand up in America's defense. When others had burned their draft cards, run away to Canada or Paris, he'd been on the firing line with gallant boys who hadn't been afraid to pay the price. Sometimes at night he saw those trusting, boyish faces in his dreams and woke up bathed in sweat, his throat constricted in a silent scream. How many lives, and all for nothing? He would do the same tomorrow, if the goddamned politicians were restrained from meddling in military business, putting in their two cents worth without a vestige of the expertise or common sense required to run a battlefield campaign. Limp-wristed bastards that they were, you could have hanged them all and Mike McNerney wouldn't have missed them.
He would show them this time, though. When he was
finished here, the nutless wonders would be forced to recognize his insight into world affairs. How could they question him, his motives, when the evidence was laid at their feet? There would certainly be some dissent. He couldn't count on a unanimous ovation, not while spineless liberals were trumpeting the Kremlin's party line from San Francisco to Manhattan, but he would secure the majority that mattered in the end. And when the cleanup was completed… well, it might be time to think about retirement. Perhaps a fling at politics, while Mike McNerney's name was still a household word.
God knows that military victory had paved the way for other occupants of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. From Washington to Eisenhower, it had never hurt to have a war behind you, a defeated enemy beneath your heel. If Doug MacArthur hadn't been prohibited from winning in Korea, he would certainly have occupied the White House in his time, but slob-ass politicians had betrayed him. They wouldn't do the same to Mike McNerney.
He wasn't concerned about a few deaths within the Contra movement. They were volunteers who knew the score, and they were dying every day. His interests lay not in the people, or in Nicaragua, but in halting communism where it stood, containing it as a preliminary move toward rolling back the crimson tide of history, recapturing the sacred ground that Marx's bastard offspring had defiled. Nicaragua was as good a place to start as any, from McNerney's point of view. Next up, Havana, and from there…
Why not?
America had never really done its share in the support of freedom fighters who opposed the Communists. A great deal more could be accomplished for the bold mujahedeen in Afghanistan, for instance, and the nationalist Chinese could be encouraged in their righteous dream of taking back the mainland. Few Americans were even conscious of the small but vital White Russian movement, Narodno Trudovoy Soyuz, which had been a thorn in Moscow's side since 1917. For every revolution carried off by Communists and sympathizers, there were freedom fighters waiting to reclaim their birthright, their ancestral homes. In Vietnam. In North Korea. Laos. Cambodia. The fucking Ayatollah had his problems in Iran with freedom fighters, too, and one day soon a sniper might be looking at his turban through the cross hairs of a telescopic sight. There was a world to win, normality to be restored, a cancer to be ruthlessly excised, and no one used a scalpel quite like Mike McNerney.
"…right on it," Travers finished, his voice jarring McNerney back to reality. "If I have any problem with Ruiz…"
"You won't. He may be pussy-whipped, but he knows who his friends are."
Travers rose to leave. "I'll keep you posted, sir."
"You do that."
Travers would complete his task; McNerney had no doubt of that. The man believed in what they were about to do, but he was also frightened, and the combination should be adequate to keep him loyal for the duration. After they were finished… well, a witness to the inner workings of the operation might become a walking, talking liability. But there were ways to deal with liabilities.
The general rocked back in his reclining chair and dreamed about a world devoid of revolutionaries.
* * *
As always, Travers was relieved to have his meeting with McNerney finished. There was something in the old man's eyes these days, a kind of madness, that was terrifying. When McNerney leaned across his desk, eyes flashing, Travers would have sworn that he was a human time bomb, ready to explode.
Sometimes in his more optimistic moments, Travers thought the bastard might be working toward a coronary. It would have made the agent's life a great deal easier, but he had never been a lucky man. McNerney would outlive them all, and if the operation blew up in their faces, he would find a way to pass the buck. The old man wouldn't bat an eye at sacrificing soldiers in the field — or agents in the street, if it came down to that — but he would have a nice escape hatch all prepared for number one if things went sour.
Lane Travers didn't fancy himself as a human sacrifice. He still believed in what they were about to do, but lately he had harbored doubts about the operation's feasibility. The more he thought about it now, the more he was convinced that something would go wrong. The plan looked as slick as snot on paper, but they had already lost two men, and who knew what might happen in the next two days?
The man from Langley liked his operations safe and simple. Backing up the Contras was a case in point: the Agency could funnel guns and money to the Nicaraguan rebels for a hundred years and never lose an agent in the field. If they got lucky and the Sandinistas folded, great. If not, well, there would always be another load of guns, another suitcase full of money. They could run the Sandinista forces ragged, kicking ass until the cows came home, and it would never really cost the Company a thing.
As for McNerney's plan, well, once the cards were dealt this time, America would have to raise or fold. You couldn't cling to status quo with hostile forces on the wrong side of the border; failure to respond would be the same as defeat. And once the fighter jockeys started making border runs, you had to raise and raise again, continually beefing up the stakes to stay in play. The damnedest thing about it was you never knew who else might want to join the game.
The Cubans were already in, of course. "Advisors" now, but it wouldn't take long for Castro to supply an expeditionary force if things got tight. The Russians would be interested observers, but they might accept an active role if Sandinista leaders asked them nicely. And if Moscow bought a hand… well, Travers didn't even want to think about the ante in that case.
The Company was interested in Nicaragua as a test of strength, an exercise in feasibility. It had been years since Langley actually overthrew a government; their recent Third World efforts had been pitiful, and everyone, from the director down, would be encouraged by a victory. Of course, McNerney's game had never been proposed to the director or the top men in Clandestine Ops. It was strictly without official sanction, and heads would roll if word leaked out before the coup was an accomplished fact. Heads might roll anyway, but it was always easier to seek forgiveness than it was to get permission.
The logic was impeccable. Create a border incident that would destabilize the region, thereby forcing Washington to move decisively. Once U.S. troops had been committed, Sandinista forces would react accordingly, the violence escalating into full-blown war. Once in, the White House would be free to pull out all the stops, matching rhetoric to action for the first time since Grenada. And with friendly forces in control once more, there was no end to the intriguing possibilities.
It might be worth a second glance at Cuba. The Company had taken quite a drubbing at the Bay of Pigs and later, when the Kennedys had pulled the plug on operations aimed at Castro personally, but important people in the CIA were still concerned with the disposal of Fidel. With Nicaragua back in friendly hands, there just might be a way to pull it off, preserving some small measure of deniability. He could already picture the scenario: the Contras would be so ecstatic over liberation of their homeland from the Sandinistas that they would move against Havana voluntarily. Of course, it would require encouragement, material support, and they would have to take it slowly, building up a head of steam, but it was possible.
Lane Travers thought of Rosario Briones. Travers wouldn't have to lift a finger there; Ruiz had volunteered to take the new boy out already, and he was only waiting for the go-ahead. He might be wrong about Briones. Nothing in the files simply meant nothing; it certainly didn't mean conclusive evidence of guilt. As generally fucked up as Third World operations often were, there was an outside possibility Briones and his contacts might be working for the Company on something Travers didn't "need to know." He was assistant to the station chief, but he wasn't naive enough to think that he knew everything the Company was doing in Honduras, even in Tegucigalpa.
And the station chief was shrewd. In his darker moments Travers wondered why McNerney and the team at Langley had selected him instead of starting at the top. Someone had chosen Travers on the basis of his record. He had been flattered at the time, excited by the prospect of a major covert
operation, and he would have thanked the individuals who had picked his name. These days, however, Travers would have had to flip a coin first: heads, he would have thanked them; tails, he would have blown their fucking brains out and been done with it.
But Lane Travers had realized too late that he wasn't a soldier. He was a planner, fascinated by logistics, strategy, the why of operations that succeeded or went wrong. He wasn't meant to carry weapons in the trenches, spilling blood and having his blood spilled. Allowing for the fact that it had always been a dirty business with a fair amount of risk, he still believed that it was possible to reach retirement with his ass intact. It would require some skill, but Travers was a clever man. At least he'd seen himself that way until he'd been em-
broiled in the McNerney operation, strapped into his roller coaster seat with no alternative except to hang on for dear life. The best that he could hope for now would be to cover for himself and pray for victory.
After Ruiz took Briones out, there'd be two more assets left in the bush. His reference to a second man might be the truth, or simply an attempt to make the truth more interesting. Whatever, if he learned that Anastasio had lied to him, the man from Langley was entirely capable of taking sweet revenge. For now, his mind was occupied with the elimination of a man — or men — whom he had never seen.
There were assorted contract agents who would take the job, but Travers had to choose his gunners carefully. There was no telling how much "Eric Larsen" knew about the plan, but it was still imperative that he be silenced. While the team was at it, they could take out any partners or associates in the immediate vicinity, shooting for a clean sweep. And if someone wriggled through the net… well, by the time he spilled his gut, it would all be over. His announcement would be too damned late to change a thing.
Unless, of course, some outside force had known about McNerney's plan from the beginning. It wasn't impossible, the man from Langley knew. But would they let things go this far, allowing men to die when intervention might have saved those lives? Had the old man and his associates been cunningly manipulated all along? By whom? And to what end?
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