Rogue Force

by Don Pendleton

  There was no end to questions, and he gave it up and dismissed the doubts as budding paranoia. In the Agency, you lived with an assumption that the world was out to get you, and if you were in Lane Travers's place, assumption might brush shoulders with reality. Sometimes the whole world — or at least the Eastern Bloc — was out to get your ass, and you could only save it by remaining one step in front of your pursuers. When the time was right, you would be running with the pack and snapping at their heels.

  Poetic justice, sure. It was the name of the clandestine game, and Travers was a junior master of the sport. Just now, however, he was wishing that the master might resign his post or seek a transfer to New York, Los Angeles — hell, Butte, Montana, would be preferable to his present situation. Travers knew that it was strictly fantasy; if he should bolt now, the old man's gunners would eventually track him down and close his file for good.

  The man from Langley had no options left. The only path lay straight ahead, to the end of the line.

  19

  "You'll like the CO, Frankie." Rafferty was driving, glancing frequently across his shoulder. "He's our kinda guy."

  "A real American," DiSalvo added from the shotgun seat.

  Wedged in between Steiner and Broderick, aware of the resentment radiating from the soldier on his right, Bolan asked, "Is he the man in charge?"

  "No way," DiSalvo answered. "Hell, we got ourselves a whole chain of command."

  "You talk too much, Vince." Broderick's voice was hard and unforgiving.

  "Off my case, man."

  "Can it, both of you," the sergeant ordered, glaring from the rearview mirror. "We've got enough enemies without you starting on each other."

  They were encroaching on Tegucigalpa's red-light district, narrow streets with garish advertisements for cantinas, tattoo parlors, pawnshops and cheap hotels. The main drag was alive with tourists and the creatures of the night, exchanging cash for company or chemicals in furtive hit-and-run transactions.

  "Funny place to meet the CO," Bolan offered.

  "Can't be too damned careful these days," Rafferty replied. "First whiff of anything peculiar, the friggin' CID would have us on the carpet, spoilin' everything."

  "You ever hear of undercover agents?" Broderick asked the sergeant, eyes fixed firmly on the Executioner.

  "Get of fa that for crissakes, willya? I been through his file."

  "I've seen files doctored up before."

  "You've seen? Who the hell are you, James Bond?"

  "I'm telling you…"

  "I'm tellin' you to let it rest, okay? The CO has his say, we live with it. If that's not good enough for you, I'll let you out right here."

  "Relax." The sudden hint of nervousness in Broderick's voice implied that backing out would carry consequences more severe than walking back to base alone.

  Unconsciously the soldier's words had come uncomfortably close to Bolan's secret. If the others had believed Tim Broderick, if Bolan hadn't found a friend in Rafferty, they might have turned on him here where he had no damned combat stretch at all. They still might, depending on the word from their mysterious CO, the man who was in charge but not in charge.

  He put the riddle out of mind and concentrated on the street signs as Rafferty left the main drag, negotiating side streets that were narrower and darker. Pallid, ghostlike faces watched them from the crypts of shadowed doorways, bony hands outstretched and beckoning them back to taste the pleasures — and the terrors — of Tegucigalpa's dark side. Bolan had already seen enough of urban misery since his arrival, and he focused on the landmarks, mapping out a mental route against the possibility that he might have to cut and run.

  He was unarmed, at Rafferty's insistence. Whether Broderick and the others carried weapons, Bolan couldn't say, but he had followed orders as a show of faith. If they were planning to surprise him with an ambush at the meeting site, he was as good as dead, but Bolan didn't read the team that way. Tim Broderick might have killed him cheerfully, but Rafferty and the others seemed to have accepted him, within established limits. If he passed the scrutiny of their commanding officer tonight, they might trust him with details of their operation — or enough, at any rate, to institute a counterstrike before it was too late.

  And if the CO turned thumbs down? Then he would have to play the rest on nerve alone until he could secure a weapon or make contact with his backup. If the meet went sour, Bolan's chances of survival ranged from slim to none, but he wasn't a pessimist. The Executioner had walked away from traps before, and he was none the worse for wear. If he was forced to fight his way out, he would do his best and take as many of the bastards with him, depleting their forces to the point that D-Day might be necessarily postponed.

  The sergeant nosed his car into an alleyway beside a small hotel, so dark and dingy that it lacked the usual complement of whores out front. They locked the car, and Rafferty flagged down a passing youth, informing him in broken Spanish that he needed someone to protect his vehicle. The sergeant tore a couple of lempira notes in half and passed them to the boy, explaining that the other halves would be forthcoming if the car survived an hour free from damage.

  When they entered the hotel, they strode past a greasy-looking night clerk glued to a girlie magazine. Instead of using the ancient elevator, they took the stairs. A rank, pervasive stench of sweat and urine wrinkled Bolan's nostrils. From appearances the place hadn't been painted since construction, and he didn't even want to think about the linen, or what might be dwelling there.

  Third floor, room 305. The sergeant knocked, a simple coded signal. Bolan didn't bother memorizing it; if they were smart, the signal would be changed from one meet to the next.

  The door swung open, and he recognized the CO instantly as Captain Fletcher Crane. So much for all the pointed warnings in his new-post interview with "Frank Lambretta." Crane was Rafferty's connection with the high command. McNerney wouldn't waste his time — or risk himself — by dealing with the grunts directly, not with so much hanging in the balance. If the deal went off the rails somehow, Crane could be eliminated to preserve deniability, allowing officers of higher rank to evade the blame. DiSalvo had implied a wider knowledge of the hierarchy, but he might be engaged in speculation leading nowhere.

  Bolan let it slide. He needed names, and never mind the sort of evidence required by courts of law. His chief concern was that the net should cover everyone, with no odd stragglers running free to strike up operations on another front. The Executioner was shooting for a clean sweep. Annihilation. And there was no room for hit-or-miss in his game plan.

  When they were seated, sipping beers provided by DiSalvo at the captain's order, Crane looked long and hard at Bolan. "You've decided to come in with us, I understand."

  "Yes, sir."

  "I trust the nature of our mission was explained to you?"

  "I got the gist of it. No details."

  "And the 'gist,' as you interpret it?"

  The soldier shrugged and spread his hands. "We give Ortega back a taste of what his troops are dishing out to peasants in the countryside. We kick some ass, and if the government gets shaky, that's a bonus."

  "Simply put, but basically correct. You have no qualms about covert activity?"

  "I'm here. You've seen my file."

  "Of course. You were selected on the basis of that file… but sometimes people change."

  "If I could change that easy, I'd be riding desk at Benning."

  "Fine. If the alternatives have been explained to you…"

  "I told your boy I'm in." He caught a glimpse of color rising in the sergeant's face. "I don't need threats to make it stick."

  "That's fair enough. I have to tell you that your mission may be rather different from the one you had in mind."

  "Oh? Different how?"

  "Your target won't be Nicaragua, not directly." Bolan waited, let the captain give it to him in his own words and his own good time. "In covert operations things are rarely what they seem to be. In this case we
intend to stage a border incident that'll create a negative reaction toward the Sandinista Front and bring about concerted action to eliminate the threat."

  "What kind of border incident?"

  "A mercenary force has been recruited from the local population and fitted out with Sandinista arms and uniforms. On D-Day they'll cross the Honduras border at a preselected point in choppers that'll pass for Soviet ones if no one gets too close. They'll raise some hell, withdraw and any casualties they leave behind will be identified as Sandinistas. Washington will have its first-time-ever confirmation of a border crossing, and a punitive reaction will be indicated. Any questions?"

  "Yes, sir. Where do we come in?"

  The captain smiled. "I thought that would be obvious. Our mercenary team will be in need of expert guidance. Timing, target options, all that sort of thing. You'll be going in with the assault force."

  "And if one of us checks out? Are we supposed to pass for Nicaraguan natives?"

  "Hardly. We expect you to survive, but just in case, you'll be carrying the normal ID tags and papers of a spetsnaz trooper. If you buy it, it'll be at the expense of Mother Russia."

  The plan was clever, Bolan had to give them that. It almost seemed a shame to waste the slickest part of their production, and he wondered if some member of the team had been selected in advance to buy the farm, deliberately leaving "evidence" of Russia's special shock troops on Honduran soil.

  "The ID might be solid, sir, but what about our faces? Fingerprints? We're all on file with Special Forces and in Washington?"

  "You were on file, Lambretta. As of this time yesterday, your prints and dental records have been substituted with a casualty from Nam. Your prints and records don't exist. Not here, and not in Washington."

  "That's pretty slick."

  "We've thought of everything," the captain told him, with a touch of pride.

  "I do have one more question."

  "Certainly."

  "When do we move?"

  "The day after tomorrow," Fletcher Crane replied. "At 0500 hours on Sunday."

  Bolan's narrow smile concealed a multitude of doubts. So soon. Would he be able to touch base with Able Team or Phoenix Force? If not, he would be on his own against a force of unknown strength and capability, embarked upon a suicidal mission in the jungle. It was obvious from Crane's synopsis that the plan demanded casualties; without the evidence of corpses, uniforms and weapons taken from the dead, there would be nothing to connect the Sandinistas with the raid. Without a body count, the exercise would be a waste of time. He wondered whether Rafferty or someone else had been detailed to guarantee the body count, to add a bogus spetsnaz corpse or two along the way. The odds in favor of betrayal were substantial, but the Executioner would have to take it in his stride.

  There could be no turning back from this point on. The Executioner wasn't intimidated by the thought of fighting on his own. His everlasting war was calling him.

  * * *

  "It's cleared," Lane Travers said. "You're free to tag Briones at your own convenience."

  Ruiz sat back and sipped his beer, amazed that it could be so simple. Obviously Travers or the members of his network had discovered something serious about Machado's new recruit. But it didn't matter to Anastasio. He wasn't concerned with details. The elimination of his rival was enough, on any pretext, and he would be happy to oblige.

  A sudden problem crossed his mind. "The others?"

  "Taken care of," Travers told him. "That's not your concern."

  "There may be questions," Anastasio replied, and cursed his hands for threatening to tremble as he raised his glass. Why was his nerve deserting him just now, when everything was going as he wished it to?

  "I'll handle the PR," his contact said. "Your problem is Luis and the reaction of his people when you pop Briones."

  "They are not his people."

  "Suit yourself. I don't care how you handle it, as long as there's no backlash on the Company. You lead the dogs to me, I'll have to cut you loose."

  There was no question in Ruiz's mind that Travers meant precisely what he said. And termination, in the parlance of the Agency, meant more than two weeks' notice with a severance check. When you were terminated by the likes of Travers, there were no second chances. You might disappear, or suffer any one of several lethal accidents, but the results would be the same. You were no more. A cipher. Gone.

  Ruiz wasn't afraid of Travers personally, but he feared the shadow government that Travers represented in Honduras. They were capable of anything, it seemed, except perhaps for the expulsion of Ortega's Sandinistas from his homeland. Soon, however, even that might be accomplished, barring interference from a traitor like Rosario Briones, a pig who wooed Esperanza for selfish ends and conspired with gringo agents to betray Machado and the rest. It was Ruiz's patriotic duty to eliminate the Judas before it was too late. In another day they were scheduled to begin their final move against the Sandinista Front and maintain their rendezvous with destiny. No man — no traitor — must be given opportunity to interfere.

  "I've gotta run," the man from CIA informed him, rising as he spoke. "A busy day tomorrow."

  "Sí, señor," Ruiz agreed. "A very busy day."

  After Travers left, he flagged the waitress and was about to have another beer when he decided something stronger was in order. Opting for a bottle of tequila, Anastasio Ruiz sat back to ponder the elimination of Briones. It would be foolish to initiate an action that he couldn't follow through. If he was going to eliminate his rival, he must do it swiftly and without arousing the suspicions of Luis Machado. He was confident Luis would go along with his decision once the facts were laid before him, but there was no time for a debate just now. If the intruder was allowed to have his way with Esperanza, worm his way into the inner councils of the movement, he could do irreparable damage by the time Luis was made to see his treachery. Immediate elimination was the answer, and Ruiz would have to take the weight of that responsibility upon himself.

  In time, he knew, the other members of the movement would be thankful for his courage and determination. They would praise him as a hero when they finally knew the truth about Rosario Briones.

  It disturbed Ruiz a little that he didn't know the truth himself. Perhaps Briones was working with some faction of the CIA, but would Lane Travers not be conscious of the fact? Some other agency might be involved — Ruiz was well aware of how clandestine services waged war on one another in America — but he couldn't begin to guess which group might seek to undermine the Contra movement. If Briones and his friends were mercenaries, they might have a wide variety of motives, but Ruiz wasn't prepared to waste his time on all the various considerations. The moment Briones made his move on Esperanza, he had crossed the line of no return. It might be unprofessional to let emotion overrule his mind, but there was no alternative. Ruiz was blind where Esperanza was concerned.

  He recognized the weakness in himself, this pitiful dependence on a woman, but the Contra second-in-command couldn't deny his heart. For better than a year now he had pined in silence, waiting for the moment when his true love's eyes would open and recognize his devotion. He refused to give up hope despite the absence of encouragement from any source outside his own imagination. When Briones had interfered, Ruiz had known it was time to act.

  Approval from the Agency was helpful, but he would eventually have gone ahead without it. Travers had supplied the necessary shout of courage that Ruiz required to make his move… although some more tequila would not do him any harm. A soldier on the brink of an irrevocable action needed all the courage he could find.

  He checked his watch and decided it was too late to eliminate Briones tonight. But the tequila would console him, and tomorrow would offer endless opportunities. Ruiz would call in sick, avoiding an appearance at the office that Machado had rented from an ally of the movement. Anastasio would have all day to weigh his options, choose his weapons and prepare himself for the eradication of his enemy.

  Ruiz ha
d killed three men of whom he was aware. The first had been a beggar in Managua, in the days before Ortega and his Sandinistas had seized control. The man had been all rags and running sores, trailing Anastasio and his companions down a lonely street, one hand outstretched, demanding alms. Instead, Anastasio had hurled a brick that had cracked the beggar's skull and left him dying on the pavement. His comrades had congratulated him, but he had spent the night hunched over a commode, his stomach rolling at the mental image of a body crumpled on the sidewalk. Sometimes, in his nightmares, he still saw the beggar's face.

  The other two were Sandinista pigs, encountered on a border crossing with Machado and a dozen other Contras. Anastasio had found them sleeping at their post outside an enemy encampment in the forest. He had stood above them, trembling, with his rifle pointed at the forest floor, until he had heard the crack of small arms fire around him, signifying that the battle had been joined. The sentries had stirred, and only then had he been startled into swinging up his AK-47, holding down the trigger, hosing them with eyes shut tight until his magazine had been empty and the two of them had lain deathly still in the grass.

  The Sandinistas didn't come to Anastasio in dreams, but he had managed to avoid participation in any other combat missions up to now. He played the role of master strategist, more valuable to Machado and the others at his drawing board, preparing plans for future raids against the traitors who had captured Nicaragua. No one had suspected that he feared to face the enemy in open battle. No one, save perhaps for Esperanza. If she recognized his cowardice, she gave no sign… but might it not account for her aloof behavior in his presence? Might the smell of fear repulse her?

  Perhaps. But all of that would change when he had dealt with the traitor in their midst. Elimination of Briones would reveal Ruiz to Esperanza in another light. When he was able to display his evidence before her, she would see him as the hero that he was. And she might love him just a little.