by Alex Ryan
Rex looked at the photo. It was black and white, but at least it was sharp. She looked captivating, even in black and white. “I don't know what to say.”
“Don't lose your focus. Maybe someday you will have time for that. Right now you don't. And you know that.”
“So what now?”
“Before we move on, let’s back up just a second. I realize that you are a young man with needs, but you need to understand the seriousness of the path you have chosen. Once you have crossed over, and trust me, you have, you can never go back to the life you had before. Some of the choices you have and will make will result in marking you as a killer, a terrorist, and an enemy of the country, even though in reality, you are none of that. Your current occupation was borne of desperation and hopelessness. I trust you do understand that. James Bond may have a license to kill, but nobody will ever issue one to you. The only thing that keeps you alive, housed, and fed is your commitment to your chosen duty, your vigilance, and your resourcefulness. Are we clear on that, Rex?
“As a bell.”
“Good. Keep that photo for your memory, but my advice to you is to go no further. She will only cloud your judgment and cause you to behave irrationally and self-destructively.”
“Sound like the story of my life.”
“My mentor in MI5 gave me that advice. I did not heed it. As a result, a lovely lady is busy feeding the daisy population at the Nottingham General Cemetery, to the anguish of her family and friends.”
“I'm sorry.”
“Well, let’s move on then. This is your next assignment.” Simon pushed a large yellow manila envelope over to Rex.
He pulled out a dossier with several photographs. “Who is this?”
“They call him El Rey. The King. His name is Ceasar Castillo. He is a drug kingpin, and he lives in Mexico. He is involved in a ‘drugs for guns’ operation that is supplying pro-Sandinista forces operating out of Nicaragua and Honduras. It's getting our people killed.”
“Is this another hit mission?”
“No. He’s not actually the one we want. But somebody, somebody acting within the United States government, is running this. Buying the drugs. Supplying the guns. We have no idea how extensive this is or even what agencies may be involved. The CIA is running scared right now; out of fear it may even be one of their own. That's why they came to us. They need someone outside of the government to find this individual or individuals.”
“They as in the CIA?”
“They, specifically, as the deputy director himself, personally, acting alone.”
“That's pretty heavy duty.”
“It is, and it's also why I can't use a known heavy hitter. Someone with known ties in the intelligence community will not get very far.”
"What kind of timeline are we looking at for finding this person?"
"Very good question. Sooner is better than later, obviously, but there is a little bit more to the story. There is a little bit more than guns that are running through and around the borders, like weapons grade plutonium from Libya, likely Soviet produced, and supplies consistent with the development and production of a thermonuclear bomb. Minus the development. It's easy to get a set of plans for these things these days."
"Are you saying they are planning on nuking the Contras?"
"Nooooo, whomever is running those guns not only doesn't give a shyte about the United States, they probably actively hate us. You don't use a thermonuclear device on a sparsely populated jungle, particularly when you want to claim it and reuse it as your own. You bomb San Francisco, Los Angeles, or Manhattan. Do the math."
"Oh Jesus."
"Yeah. It's kind of important. Stealth is the key. Now, we have tactical operations available to you, when and should you need it. I will introduce you to Will Lattimore. He's the commander of the tac ops team. They are two Infantry squads of elite operators. Ex Deltas and Seals. You need to talk to Lattimore. Consider him your new best friend."
"Why not just send them instead?" Rex asked.
Simon threw up his hands. "Tac ops is a support unit, not an investigative unit. Their method of investigation is to kill everyone first, then try to sort out the details of who did what later. No, if you do your job correctly, you shouldn't need them. If you do need them, technically you probably didn't do something quite right, but use them anyway."
Lancaster, California. It was a hop, skip, and a jump back over the Cajon Pass, but this is where you keep a group of paramilitary guys, who were essentially homegrown mercs. They were sort of like the Ridgecrest shooting club, except these guys were pros, and did this kind of thing for a living. "Arrow Protective Enterprise Services" was their official name. They could be mobilized anywhere in the world on short notice for executive protection, whether it was the oil company in Colombia, the ethanol plant in Brazil, or a ship passing near Somalia; those are the guys you hire to keep you safe. They get the job done. And that's how Simon keeps them busy. Company protection. If that work is low, they work as outright mercs. But their real job is to provide armed support to critically important investigative efforts.
These guys are simple. Push a button and they go. Push it again and they stop. But they aren't quite so simple. Just like any organization, just like any company, just like any military, there is rank, hierarchy, seniority, and pull. And they are all four in that particular order. Those at the top rank. They have their hierarchy. Seniority follows. Those at the bottom, who have no claim to the previous three, have 'pull.' Everybody has to have some role to which they can claim leadership.
What are their stories? These guys are mercs with the best of both worlds. They left active duty military from their respective elite forces because they couldn't deal with the command and control bullshit. In other words, they wanted to be in command and control. No fuckin' pansy ass lieutenants barking orders. Kids need to stick with pinball, or otherwise shut up, listen, and take notes.
And, as Shakespeare said so eloquently, '... and therein lies the rub.' The rub was that Rex was the fuckin' lieutenant. He wasn't really, he was actually a sergeant, more like one of them. But he was young. Green. The fact he was a Grenada vet drew both envy and disdain at the same time. 'Grenada was a birthday party. The real deal was in Nicaragua. And Mogadishu. Where were you?'
Will Lattimore. Former Delta operator. He left Delta as a Sergeant First Class. He looked like a life-size incarnation of GI Joe. He looked military even in civilian dress, but he probably didn't own clothing other than his various sets of tan, forest pattern, and black combat fatigues. He wears jungle boots for daily wear. He wears spit shined jump boots for 'formal' wear, but don't expect to find him in a suit. You don't invite him to a wedding, because he won't show, and if he did, he'd stand in the back, out of view from everyone else. But he has a commanding presence. He speaks military. He spends half the day pumping iron in the gym and taking supplements in an attempt to emulate Mr. Universe. He lives and breathes assault rifles, pistols, improvised munitions, and hand to hand combat. He was probably a lot like Rex when he was young. But he never did develop after that. And the other thing was that he was just a bit of an asshole.
As were the rest of the guys. They grudgingly accepted Lattimore as their commander; mostly by virtue of the fact Lattimore came first and actually recruited most of them. They were apes. APES. Arrow Protective Enterprise Services. Apes. Simon himself came up with the name, for no other reason than to have an endearing acronym that would inspire camaraderie and cohesiveness. They were Simon's apes.
The thing about Simon is that he came first. The whole chicken and the egg thing. Simon begot Lattimore. Lattimore begot Briggs and Southland, and they begot their respective fire teams. Simon gives the orders. Will Lattimore and his Apes get the job done.
There was that one time when Rex (before he was Rex) drank with the pistol shooting league at the pizza restaurant in the desert. They respected him. But they also had real lives. Day jobs. There were no egos. They were out there to have fun.
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br /> It was clear that Will Lattimore was not there to have fun, even though he was drinking. The bar was half occupied by Lattimore and his Apes, and the other half was occupied by Hells Angels Los Angeles Chapter that sort of associated themselves with the Apes except that they were all old, bearded, and some were in 'Nam, some not, but they were there to drink and talk shit. They Apes tolerated them, and enjoyed them as people they could relate to socially. The Hells Angels respected them. They considered them one of their own.
Rex was out of place. Never mind that he had killed motherfuckers, three in Grenada, and that major in East Germany. He was a kid. He had a kid's face. He talked like a kid. He looked like a kid. The one thing Rex knew, going in to this, as these types of people are all the same, is that it isn't going to be an easy sale.
"So I understand you're Bowe's new wonder kid." Lattimore said, as he guzzled the frosted mug of cheap domestic beer.
"He hired me, yeah." Rex replied.
"So, what is it that you want to talk about?"
Rex was of the uncomfortable feeling that this was more of an interview, and less of a 'get to know your team ' encounter.
"I got a mission, and I'm going to need your help."
"You got a mission, and you're going to need our help. That's funny, but keep talking. I like entertainment."
As fat and out of shape that Lane was when he met him in Germany, god, he was so much easier to work with. He could talk to Lane. Lane listens. He may not have agreed, but he listened, and at least he talked man to man. Not asshole to asshole. Lattimore was used to dealing with assholes, where no real dialogue is required, just directives and ultimatums. That's it. It's precisely why Simon wouldn't dream of assigning Lattimore to an actual investigative case. "There is a guy from the government, possibly the CIA, running guns into Central America through a drug cartel leader named Ceasar Castillo. My job is to infiltrate his organization, and find out who that is."
Lattimore grimace could best be described as humorously condescending. "How long have you been doing this business?"
"I've been through training."
"’You've been through training.’ It's like this. I take the lead on missions like this. Not you. Just so we have that understanding. I realize that Bowe is a busy man and sometimes he gets communications fouled up, but that's how it is. Got that?"
What do you do now? Pull rank? Do I actually have rank? Rex asked himself. He took a deep breath. Just look deep inside of you. This isn't the first time Rex has been in this kind of situation. Imagine being the training NCO, an E4 Specialist working an E6 Staff Sergeant slot overseeing Company training NCOs of the same and greater rank. No, the Company First Sergeants hated him. Except for First Sergeant Hallenbeck. Hallenbeck liked the kid. Took him under his wing. "Got it." Rex downed his beer. "Guess we're done."
"Hey kid?"
"Yeah."
"Take this."
"What's this? A pager?"
"Yeah. You get a page, you call the number labeled as '2'. That means I have orders for you. You get in a tight spot, you dial the number listed in '1', and wait.
"That’s it?"
"That's it."
That's called 'saving face.' Lattimore, in his own way, acknowledged that Rex was lead. And Simon, he left it up to Rex to deal with the situation. Simon had better things to do than mediate petty turf wars. Plus the kid needs to prove his worth. That meant playing the political game.
It seemed like years, but in reality, it had been weeks. The last time Rex was in a car on Interstate 14 from Los Angeles to Ridgecrest, he was going the other direction. This time, he had some down time, and a mission. Intel says that there was a group of people in San Diego that were friends of Ceasar Castillo. Who says you can't take a dog legged route through Ridgecrest?
So-Young had a foster family there; two of them actually. At least one of them, maybe both of them, were key in finding out where she was in Korea. And by the way, a trip to South Korea was not out of the question. He had to ask himself, 'wait, she went back to South Korea, for that arranged marriage, what is the point even?'
As Carly said herself, she is reaching out to you. She has made a choice. And that choice is you. But, it is incumbent on you, to reaffirm to her that you actually are the right choice. That means going after it.
What really is important in life? Just living? Just living to be living sucks. It isn't living. Living to reach a goal, which is what is important. It is all that is important. So-Young was his goal. So-Young assigned him that mission. He accepted it before he even knew her.
But don't fuck up. Simon, in his British properness, alluded to the statement in his own words. He understood where Simon was going. He, of all people, had fear of relationships and failure. Or success. Sometimes, success meant ultimate failure. This is horrid. Goddamn loveless Will Lattimore has a simpler life. No women. No love. No...
You really want to be a Lattimore?
The rental company had one left. A small pickup truck. A Chevrolet Mikado. It was a fairly bizarre name for a pickup truck, one that conjured images of Japanese concubines, but it was an Isuzu pickup sold under Chevy nameplate. Despite its small 1.8 liter engine, it had a massive amount of low-end torque through its gearing and was easy to drive. It wasn't particularly fast, but it didn't really matter; a vehicle was a vehicle. As the tiny engine buzzed through the desert approaching Ridgecrest, he began to formulate a game plan. The mission was to locate the foster family supporting So-Young. How many of them were out there? Probably not more than one or two. She was a student. The only school there was the community college. That was his best chance for finding answers.
Sandra Nils was seated at her desk. She was the admissions registrar. "May I help you?" She asked, typing away at a computer terminal.
"I have a problem. I have two semesters worth of textbooks, several hundreds of dollars worth of books, that I need to return to a former student, but I don't know the address of the foster family that supported her."
"Foster family?"
"She is Korean."
"What do you want?"
"The address of the foster family. It should be on her record."
"I'm afraid I would need permission from the foster family to release that information."
"I don't know the name of the foster family."
"Then I'm afraid I cannot help you."
"If you could give me the name of the foster family, I could get permission from them, and then you could release the information."
She pulled off her thick horned rimmed glasses and looked at him, then took a deep breath. "What is her name?"
"So-Young. I don’t know what her last name is. There can't be very many."
"You look familiar."
"I did a work study program with you when I was a student. Filing. Looking up records."
"Oh, yeah. Now I remember." She typed a few strings in to the terminal, hit enter, and looked at the screen. “I'm afraid I still can't reveal the information. Listen, I need to run down the hall to gather some things for a few minutes." She stood up, unlatched a swing-open section of the counter, swung it open, and walked out of the office.
That wasn't just random. Rex stepped behind the counter, and looked at the screen. In red, glowing letters on the CRT monitor was the record.
Tang, So-Young
C/O Jacobs, Robert and Nancy
1133 Highland Street
Ridgecrest, CA 93555
Rex hastily scrawled the name and address on a notepad, and walked out into the hallway. He could see Sandra Nils through the glass door at the end, smoking a cigarette outside.
A Winnebago motorhome was parked under an awning next to the driveway, next to a black Lincoln Continental. An elderly looking woman was outside tending to some shrubbery. Rex parked the small pickup on the side.
"Would you happen to be Nancy Jacobs?" Rex asked the lady.
"Yes, I am, can I help you with something?"
"I am a friend of So-Young Tang. I was ho
ping you might be able to help me get in touch with her."
"Oh, my land, I'm afraid she left, and returned to Korea."
"Yes, I know she did, I was hoping maybe you would have an address or a telephone number."
"She left in such a hurry. She didn't even take all of her things. Just her passport and some clothes."
"Maybe copies of some forms or something, possibly?"
"Will you see her?"
"Yes, I plan on seeing her."
"We boxed her things up. She didn't have much. It fit all in one box. Can you take them to her?"
"Yes, of course, I will. But it would be helpful to know where she lives. Or where her family lives."
"There are some papers in the box, hopefully they have enough information that you can find her."
"What is your name?"
He had to think about that. So-Young knew him as Alex, but, that's irrelevant to Nancy Jacobs. "Rex" he said, nonchalantly.
"Rex. That’s a nice name. Rex, So-Young is such a wonderful, lovely girl."
"I know."
"Take care of her, Rex."
"I will."
The box wasn't large. It contained some clothing; gym tights, a pair of jeans, a knit sweater, two neatly folded blouses, tennis shoes, socks, a couple pairs of panties and a bra. An electric shock came over him as he held them. These were personal. Private. He felt privileged. He felt close to her. This was her stuff. Her things. There were three ceramic figurines of horses. She must like horses. A lot of people had horses out here in the desert. There were a few odd mementos from various cities and countries. Singapore. Hong Kong. Los Angeles. San Diego. San Francisco. Trinkets aren't important. For some reason, it seemed like the horses were. Why did she leave them? She couldn't take everything. And there were some papers. Her transcripts. Certified copies of her visa and passport. Some essays.
He read an essay. It was about climbing rocks. She loved climbing. She described climbing sheer limestone rocks in Korea. Karst formations. They jutted out of the sea in Vietnam. They were inland in the rivers of China and South Korea. She would scale them, belayed with ropes. Another essay was about riding horses. There was a ranch not too far away that offered riding lessons. She loved riding. For that matter, she loved travel, and finding new adventures.