Feet and knees together, toes pointed down, Vaughn stared straight ahead at the horizon. The voices of the "Black Hat" instructors bellowing that command through bullhorns as he did his first jumps at Fort Benning many years ago echoed in his head. Like most Army training, airborne school had been designed to build instincts, not develop deep intellectual discussion about the training. His toes hit, and in quick succession his calves, thighs, hips, and side, and he slammed into the ground.
He lay still for about two seconds, as he always did after a jump, savoring life. He could smell the tall grass he lay in, and layered on top of that, the nearby ocean. Adrenaline made all the senses more acute. Then he was up, unbuckling his harness before gathering in his parachute. He grabbed the opening loop in the top center and pulled it out to extend it fully, then began figure-eighting the material, looping it around both arms extended out to the sides. As he did so he noted that the Land Rover with tinted windows was already at the bundle. Whoever it was moved fast, because by the time he had the parachute stuffed in the kit bag, the Rover was coming toward him. It skidded to a halt and the driver's door opened.
Vaughn recognized the man who stepped out.
"Mr. Royce."
"Just Royce will do."
He jerked a thumb toward the rear of the Rover.
"Throw the chute in. I got the bundle."
Vaughn did as instructed, then got in the passenger side. Royce threw the truck into gear and took off.
"Why am I here?" Vaughn asked.
"I've got a good battery for the designator," Royce said.
Hawaii
At the designated time, Professor Foster checked the "dead drop," as he'd been instructed upon receiving those two code words. There was a practically unnoticeable chalk mark in the right place on the side of the old loading platform in an obscure corner of Fort Shafter where antiquated military vehicles rusted away. Foster had half hoped the sign wouldn't be there, but he was a logical man and knew that action B would follow action A. And now he had to do C.
He got on his knees and reached under the rotting wood platform. His hand groped for the package that he had been told would be there. But there appeared to be a logic breakdown. He retrieved nothing but a couple of splinters that drew blood and curses.
He continued the fruitless search for several more minutes, to no avail. Why would someone put the mark but not the package? Reluctantly, he got to his feet and blinked at the figure standing less than ten feet behind him, wearing shorts, a Bermuda shirt, and sandals. The man's face was in the shadow of his broad-brimmed straw hat, but he had a fringe of white hair along the edge of the hat. There was a small backpack slung over his shoulder. Foster had neither seen nor heard him approach.
"I've got what you need right here," the man said, pointing at his head and then at the pack.
"Who are you?" Foster demanded, looking past the man, searching the area for anyone else. They were alone as far as he could tell.
"I'm David. I'm here to brief you on what you are to do."
He gestured.
"Come, walk with me."
Foster came alongside as the old man began to walk through the abandoned vehicles, planes, and assorted equipment.
David began: "Needless to say, this is top secret, Q classification and completely compartmentalized. The only one you will ever speak of this to, when needed, is myself and my replacement."
"Your replacement?"
"Don't worry about that right now," David said.
"You complete this task and there will be a promotion and reassignment in it for you."
Foster picked up the pace without even realizing it.
"Reassignment to where?"
"The National Security Agency Headquarters at Fort Meade."
David put out a hand, slowing Foster back to his pace.
"The big show. Running simulations for the National Command Authority. Doesn't get any bigger than that."
Foster contemplated the offer, trying not to show his enthusiasm for something he had yearned for.
David gave him an appropriate amount of time, then removed the carrot and showed the stick.
"You screw up, of course, and the little situation from your last year in college will have to come up. You remember. The bowl game. The trip to Tijuana two nights before? You did much more than break curfew."
Foster froze. No one knew of that. No one.
David dipped into his pocket and pulled out a couple of photographs. He fanned them like a short deck of cards in front of Foster's face, confirming his worst nightmare: the event had been recorded on film. But that was almost two decades ago.
"How did you get those? Who took them?"
"Come come," David said.
"Let's be in the real world."
He held up a hand as Foster started to say something.
"We will not discuss it at all. Just be aware that your life is never as private as you think it is and that there are reasons why people are chosen for certain positions – good reasons and bad reasons, but reasons nonetheless. Which brings us to here and now."
He slapped Foster lightly on the shoulder.
"Look at this as a good thing. The glass is half full and you now have the opportunity to top it off."
David held out the backpack.
"There's a laptop in there. Coded only for you. You'll see. It will only work when your palms rest on the pads below the keyboard. It has the information on what you are to do and links to data sources that will help you in accomplishing your goal. Do not let anyone use it, because if someone other than you tries to access the keyboard, the hard drive will be destroyed.
"Essentially," David went on as they continued to walk through the graveyard of rusting military gear, "you are going to run a simulation involving a covert strike onto Jolo Island in the Philippines to destroy the Abu Sayef."
"But – " Foster began.
"There are no buts," David said.
"It will be a simulation to those who you bring in to do it, but in reality the mission will actually be going on. I think you understand how you would work such a scenario."
Foster blinked as the implications sunk in. And right away he did understand. It would be a delicate balancing act, but it could be done. But why? His thoughts were interrupted as David halted in front of a rusting hulk of an old UH-1 helicopter.
"Did you know that when President Nixon ordered the halt to bombing raids during the Vietnam War, the order was so broad, it stated that there would not be any flights into North Vietnamese or Cambodian airspace? And that reconnaissance teams that had already been inserted across the border and were counting on helicopter exfiltration were abandoned? Simply abandoned."
"I'd never heard that," Foster said.
"It's in plenty of books," David said.
"But most people do not care for the lessons of histories, especially those that killed people for political expediency."
He put his hand on the nose of the helicopter.
"You can go now."
Foster was confused. David pointed.
"Go."
Foster turned and walked quickly away, as if by distancing himself from the messenger, he was distancing himself from the message, even though he had the pack holding the computer on his shoulder now. After taking a dozen steps, he paused and turned, a question forming on his lips.
But there was no one there.
Okinawa
"Isn't the definition of insanity doing the same thing twice and expecting different results?" Vaughn asked as Royce drove them down a road winding along the Okinawan coast.
"Stupidity is failing and accepting it," Royce replied.
"Your job this time isn't to rescue hostages. There aren't any to be rescued."
Vaughn's face flushed red, but he didn't say anything.
"We want to make sure no more hostages are taken by the Abu Sayef. Ever."
"And how are we going to do that? It's a large organization."
"We cut off
the head and the body dies."
Royce glanced over at Vaughn.
"Your task – your new team's task – will be to kill Rogelio Abayon, the leader of the Abu Sayef."
"What new team?" Vaughn asked as he absorbed this mission.
"And isn't assassination against U.S. law?"
"This isn't an official mission," Royce said, emphasizing the word, "which also answers the question of legality since it will never have occurred. Your new unit is called Section Eight. Drawn from various organizations to fight terrorism on its own terms. No rules except don't get caught, and if caught you are denied by our government."
Vaughn considered this.
Royce continued.
"Remember, although you blame yourself for what happened on Jolo Island, it was an Abu Sayef terrorist who fired the RPG that killed your brother-in-law."
"I was in command and I was the one with the laser designator," Vaughn said.
"You think a lot of yourself," Royce noted.
"So all those missions you went on where everything worked and the team was successful – those were all your doing? You kept your brother-in-law alive on all those missions? All by yourself?"
"That's bullshit logic and you know it," Vaughn snapped.
"Yeah, it is," Royce agreed.
"But you're denigrating your brother-in-law's sacrifice by beating yourself up. He signed up, he volunteered again and again – hell, you don't get into Delta Force without volunteering, what, how many times?" Royce ticked them off on his fingers.
"Once to get in the Army. Then Airborne. Then Rangers. Then Special Forces. Then Delta. That's five."
His voice turned harsh.
"So who the fuck do you think you are to be so important, more important than the sacrifice he made in his willingness to serve his country? Get your head out of your ass, Vaughn, and take the opportunity I'm giving you. Direct your anger outward and not inward."
Vaughn didn't reply as the Land Rover bounced along what was now a dirt road, heading toward a mountain. There was silence for a few moments, then Royce began speaking, almost as much to himself, as to Vaughn, as if reminding himself of something important.
"Did you know that Okinawa was the largest amphibious assault of the entire Pacific campaign? And that more people died here, on this island in the assault, than in the combined atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Twelve thousand Americans killed. Over 100,000 Japanese military and conscripts killed. And over 100,000 civilians. At least those are the guesses. No one really knows what the true numbers were. The estimates were made by subtraction."
That got through to Vaughn.
"What do you mean by subtraction?"
"They didn't count the dead after the battle because so many were buried by blasts or incinerated or otherwise wiped from the face of the earth. What they did was count how many civilians were still left. Then they subtracted that number from the prewar population and came up with their casualty estimate.
"And then there were the wounded. Almost half of the American wounded were caused by battle stress, around 26,000 men. That's almost two full divisions wiped out simply by the psychological stress of fighting here. Then there were the kamikazes off shore. Thirty-four ships were sunk and over 350 were damaged by them."
Vaughn tried to visualize war on that scale, but even his combat missions couldn't relate. Those men who had fought here, and the civilians caught in the middle, had truly seen the elephant. A damn big one.
Royce continued.
"The civilians here were used to typhoons. But the worst one that ever hit the island was nothing compared to the tetsu no bow – the storm of steel – that the U.S. Navy and Air Force unleashed on them."
Royce pulled the Land Rover up to a chain-link fence manned by two armed guards. They were next to a small river on the right. The dirt road beyond went to a tunnel entrance barely wide enough for the car. Beyond that there was darkness.
"This tunnel," Royce said, as the guards swung the gate open, "was a hiding place for motorboats that the Japanese loaded with high explosives – the kikusui, floating chrysanthemum – that they planned to bring out on railroad tracks, put into the river there, and send out to hit the American fleet. For some reason, that plan was never carried out. Maybe the Japanese naval commander had a fit of conscience. More likely they didn't have the fuel for the boats, since it was diverted to the kamikazes, who were considered more effective."
The gate was open but Royce didn't move the Rover. He turned to Vaughn.
"Section Eight is classified far beyond anything you've ever been associated with. Only a handful of people at the very highest levels know it exists and what its mission is, which is to fight the bad guys with no rules. Gloves off. If you're successful here, you redeem yourself…" Royce paused.
"…and you'll get revenge for your brother-in-law."
Vaughn sat still, but his mind felt as if it had gone over the edge he had experienced in isolation back in the Philippines. He was in free fall.
Royce continued the sell.
"No bureaucracy. No staff officers interfering. Everything is tightly compartmentalized for security reasons. You will, of course, always be monitored, even when not on mission, but you'll have plenty of free time. The pay is five times what you made in the military and not traceable, so no IRS. In fact, when you join, you no longer exist in any database, anywhere. We make our own rules in this unit."
Royce waited a few seconds.
"Do you accept?"
"Do I have a choice?"
"We always have choices."
"I assume once I go black I can never come back out?"
"Good assumption."
"I'm in."
Royce didn't seem overjoyed.
"It's not that easy."
Vaughn hadn't figured it would be, and he waited.
"You have to prove yourself first."
"How?"
"Do a little job for us. If you're successful, you join Section Eight. You fail…well, if you fail that means you're dead."
CHAPTER 4
Jolo Island, Philippines
"It is over."
Abayon looked up from the desk his wheelchair was behind.
"It was faster than I thought it would be."
The taper shrugged.
"His spirit did not fight well. Once he realized his fate, he gave up."
"You know where to send the DVD."
"Yes, sir."
Okinawa
Royce drove them into the tunnel. Lights tripped by infrared sensors came on, illuminating the way as he drove into the mountain. They went on for about a minute at a slow crawl until they came to a second barricade, this one manned by two Special Forces soldiers, which Vaughn found interesting. To put such highly trained men on a guard detail was unusual, to say the least.
This time Royce rolled down the window. One of the guards had his weapon trained on the vehicle as the other came up to it.
"Mr. Royce," the guard said. He looked past Royce at Vaughn.
"And this is?"
"The last member of the team."
The guard nodded.
"Proceed."
Royce drove on, and they reached a large circular cavern, with a half-dozen tunnels radiating out like spokes on a wheel. Royce stopped the Rover and got out. Vaughn joined him.
"This way," Royce said.
Vaughn shouldered his gear and followed Royce into one of the spokes. Royce opened a steel door twenty feet down the tunnel and gestured for him to enter. Vaughn hesitated, realizing this could as easily be a trap, but he went in.
Lights flickered on, revealing a small chamber, about twenty feet wide and long. A cot, a large table, a sink and toilet: an unsophisticated jail cell was the best way to describe it. Except for the papers piled on the table, which Royce went over to.
Vaughn dropped his gear and joined him. On top of the papers was a grainy black and white photograph of a man.
"Who is that?" Vaughn asked.
<
br /> "The man you're going to kill tonight in order to make the team."
And with that, Royce walked out of the chamber, the steel door slamming shut behind him.
Japan
The flat screen TV was the largest and best model produced in Japan. The man who owned the company that built it sat on one side of the table among men who were as successful and powerful as he. There was one middle-age woman among the dozen in the room, the first of her gender ever to sit there, her place farthest from the head of the table. She was lean, her body tense as she listened and observed.
"Watch, please," the man at the head of the table ordered as he pressed a button and an image was displayed on the television. A man – the Yakuza representative who had been sent to negotiate with Abayon – was tied to a wooden stake set upright in the ground. He was bound to the stake with coarse rope.
"The time lapse of this DVD covers over twenty-six hours," the man informed them.
In a series of shots, the man tied to the stake went from struggling against the rope to struggling against whatever virus was spreading through his blood. The first indication was involuntary spasms. Then frothing at the mouth. Then vomiting blood. The spasms grew worse, to the point where it was obvious the man broke both arms in his convulsions, one a compound fracture with white bone sticking out of the skin of his forearm. More blood was vomited, then it began to trickle out of his eyes, ears, and nose. His mouth was often open, in what appeared to be a scream, but fortunately there was no sound to accompany the image.
Even with the advanced time lapse, it still took five minutes of video before he finally stopped moving. The man at the head of the table left that image on the screen as he turned to face the other eleven people in the room. Some of the men at the table had seen something like this before, long before.
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