Cut Out

by Bob Mayer

  “My husband used to make very good money in his business. I didn’t look at his books.”

  “But. . .” Riley hesitated for a second. “Did your husband—after everything came out in the open—ever talk about money he had hidden away?”

  Hammer stopped whittling and swiveled his head to look at Lisa.

  “What do you mean, ‘money he had hidden away’?”

  “I mean exactly what I said,” Riley replied. He gestured about. “We’re out here with our asses on the line because someone wants you dead, but it appears that it’s more than simply a case of the mob wanting revenge. Giannini found out there might be a lot of money involved— money that your husband skimmed or stole or whatever. Someone just tried to kill Donna.” Riley’s irritation was clear in his voice. “I want to—scratch that—I need to know what the hell is going on. Is there something you aren’t telling us?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lisa said, her body stiffening.

  Riley couldn’t accept that. There were too many unconnected pieces of the puzzle. “Your husband called Fastone, right? Or at least that’s how you think she ended up down there in Charlotte.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re pretty sure it was his body you saw outside your motel room door?”

  “Yes.”

  “So maybe Fastone got the location of the money,” Riley reasoned out loud. “Or maybe the two of them were in on it together and they had a plan.”

  “I don’t know what money you’re talking about,” Lisa repeated.

  “Giannini says it’s probably a couple of million dollars—money that your husband stole from the Torrentinos. That helps explain a lot of the shit that’s been coming down lately. It also helps explain why Fastone was killed—one less person to know about the money.”

  “But it don’t explain why they’re still after her,” Hammer said, pointing at Lisa with his knife.

  “No, it doesn’t,” Riley acknowledged. He looked at the young woman long and hard in the waning light. “Unless, of course, your husband was killed before he told them the location of the money and they think you’re the only link to it. If you have anything to tell me, do it now, before it’s too late.”

  “I’ve told you everything,” Lisa insisted.

  Riley looked from her to Hammer, who shrugged and went back to his whittling. He stared at Lisa until finally she broke the eye contact. “All right, then,” he said, not sure what to believe anymore.

  Chapter Fifteen

  CAMP MACKALL LANDING PAD

  31 OCTOBER, 11:22 p.m.

  They could hear the two helicopters long before the blacked-out silhouettes appeared, hovering low over the tree line to the west of the landing pad. The choppers had been active for the past three hours, running exfiltration missions, and they’d dropped off the last load of students ten minutes ago. They’d circled for a while before coming back—as per the plan Riley had arranged with Chief Warrant Officer 4th Class Prowley.

  “Ready?” Riley asked, placing a reassuring hand on Lisa’s shoulder.

  She nodded, her face tight with anxiety. She was dressed in a loose-fitting pair of jungle fatigue pants and shirt that Riley had stolen off one of the drying racks outside the tin shack barracks on the compound. His lightweight jacket was zipped up tightly around her neck, and her short hair was stuffed under a black watch cap. Anyone looking closely would be able to tell she was female, but that didn’t particularly bother Riley; women were often used on special operations exercises. What worried him was someone finding out she was a civilian. The army had rules about civilians on military flights. He’d given Lisa strict orders not to talk to anyone aboard the aircraft. Riley had helped her buckle on a combat vest with two canteens on top of the jacket, the bulky black vest helping to mask her slight figure.

  The lead helicopter settled down, blowing dust about; the second remained airborne a few hundred meters off. Riley led the way around to the left side of the bird, toward the rear where the back ramp was settling down. Hammer followed them, carrying his own small backpack of gear.

  Riley ran up the back ramp, threw down his rucksack and submachine gun, and settled Lisa in one of the nylon web seats that lined both sides of the cargo bay. In the dim glow of the red night lights, he buckled Lisa’s safety strap, waving off the crew chief who had come over to help.

  “You got everyone?” the crew chief yelled in Riley’s ear.

  “Yeah,” Riley replied, giving a thumbs-up.

  The crew chief mumbled something into the boom mike in front of his lips and, with a waver, the helicopter lifted, the back ramp still open to the night air.

  The MH-47 was the special operations version of the venerable CH-47 Chinook, which had seen extensive service in Vietnam. Using a powerful tandem rotor configuration, the helicopter was able to carry a large load of troops long distances under adverse weather and visibility conditions. The interior of the cargo bay was large enough to hold a couple of cars or almost forty troops.

  Like all other special operations aircraft, the MH-47 flew close to the earth, and Riley could see the tops of trees flicker by a few feet below the bottom of the rear ramp as they headed off to the west. He looked around the interior, noting the contents. A small pallet sat in the front middle of the cargo bay and held the crew’s kit bags and luggage. Along the left bulkhead, a thick rope was tied down, its length tripled back on itself.

  Riley made his way to the cockpit, where both pilots were seated, arrayed in a futuristic ensemble of night vision goggles, flight helmets, and sterile flight suits. He recognized Chief Prowley, with his hands on the controls to the right. The copilot was watching the complex array of instruments and relaying their readings to Prowley, who was dividing his time between looking at the terrain outside through the enhancement of his goggles and watching the small TV screen set in the control panel to his left front. The screens showed the terrain ahead; a computer adaptation made it look like high noon outside.

  Riley grabbed a headset off a hook on the cockpit ceiling and placed the cups over his ears to listen.

  “Got that microwave tower at eleven?” the copilot’s voice crackled over the intercom.

  “Roger,” Prowley replied. “That’s checkpoint two. How’s the time?”

  The copilot glanced at a map covered in acetate, then the glowing red time display. “We’re plus four seconds on checkpoint two.”

  “Sounds good. How’s it going, Chief?” Prowley said, finally acknowledging Riley’s presence.

  “All right,” Riley replied. He hadn’t spoken before, not wishing to distract the pilots from their task of flying, especially this close to the ground.

  “So how are you getting off at your target?” Prowley asked.

  “Two degrees to the left,” the copilot interrupted, his eyes still intent on the instruments. In response, Prowley banked the helicopter slightly.

  “I see you have a fast rope rig in the rear,” Riley answered. “You don’t mind if we use it, do you?”

  “No, but we need to keep it. Can’t be dropping off two thousand dollars worth of equipment on an unauthorized mission. The crew chief will have to winch it back in after we let you off, which means we’ll have to be on station about forty seconds.”

  “That’s no problem,” Riley said. “What’s time on target?”

  “We’ve got two hundred forty miles to your drop-off point,” the copilot answered. “We’re going low level the whole way, so that will slow us down a bit.” He consulted the grease-pencil numbers on the map. “TOT at zero-one-four-seven, give or take a few seconds.”

  “Okay, thanks,” Riley said.

  “What’s this thing here, right next to where you want us to drop you?” Prowley asked, nodding at his partner, who held the map and pointed at a symbol on the paper.

  “That’s a tower, about fifty feet in height. You can use it as your reference point to find the place to drop us.”

  “Why not simply put you down in
this parking lot?” the copilot asked. “We could set down there.”

  “It should be closed this time of year,” Riley said, “but I don’t want to take any chances on security. The opposing force on this exercise might have gotten the park people to open it,” he added, trying to keep up the image of a training exercise.

  “I’m going to put that tower right in front of my windshield when I let you all out,” Prowley said. “Does it have anything on top of it, like a radio antenna?”

  Riley concentrated, trying to remember. “I don’t think so, but I can’t guarantee that.”

  “We’ll take it slow and careful then,” Prowley said as he returned his concentration to piloting the helicopter.

  Riley took off the headset and made his way back into the cargo compartment. Hammer was lying down on the far side. Riley leaned over to look at him—from all he could tell, his partner was asleep. He stepped across to where Lisa sat. Her eyes were wide open.

  “Ever flown on a chopper before?” Riley yelled in her ear, trying to be heard above the whine of the two turbine engines.

  She shook her head.

  Riley didn’t bother to ask if she’d ever rappelled before. He had not planned on giving her the good news until they were airborne— past the point of no return. He was glad the fast rope was on board; if it hadn’t been, his plan was to use the nylon rope he had in his pack and standard-rappel out off the back ramp. That would have been much more difficult for Lisa, to say the least.

  “Listen,” he yelled in Lisa’s ear. “When we get to the mountains, the helicopter isn’t going to be able to land. We’re going to have to use that to get off.” He pointed at the thick rope. “That’s called a fast rope, and it’s very simple to use.” He proceeded to explain how it was employed. Her eyes grew wider as the helicopter made its way west across North Carolina, leaving the flatland of the seaboard behind.

  POPE AIR FORCE BASE, NORTH CAROLINA

  1 NOVEMBER, 12:10 a.m.

  The unmarked Lear jet touched down and swiftly braked to taxiing speed. Master watched it approach from his position in front of his command van. He was reflexively squeezing a climbing ball in his left hand, the effort causing the muscles in his forearm to ripple.

  The jet’s hatch swung open and a small set of stairs descended, down which a young man in a three-piece suit bounded. The man had thinning blond hair and clear-rimmed spectacles; he carried a large briefcase in his left hand and a smaller one in his right. He put down the small one and extended his right hand as he came up to Master, but the older man ignored it.

  “You’re the guy I talk to in Virginia?” Master asked.

  “Yes, I’m here to—” Simon began.

  “Shut up,” Master ordered, cutting him off, his eyes glinting dangerously in the glow of the airfield landing lights. “This is my operation and these are my people. You got anything to say, you say it to me, but otherwise you keep the fuck out of my way.”

  Simon positioned the small briefcase between them. “It might be your people and your operation, but it’s our money. So far, your operation hasn’t gone very well. That’s why I’m here—to make sure it does.” With that, he turned and climbed into the van, Master following, eyes glinting furiously.

  As soon as the side door slid shut, the vehicle began moving. Master, seated in a swivel chair, waited a few moments to calm down before turning to face Simon, who was in one of the fixed chairs bolted to the floor. “Do you have the conversation this cop Giannini had?”

  Simon opened his briefcase and pulled out a laptop computer. He turned it on and slipped in a three-and-a-half-inch disk, while handing a copy to Master’s analyst. “The transcript is on the disk. She was talking to Riley. They set up a meeting in the Great Smoky Mountains.”

  “Where in the mountains?” Master demanded.

  Simon gestured at the disk. “They didn’t say. See for yourself.”

  Master turned and looked at the computer screen as the analyst scrolled up the conversation. When Master had looked at all of it, he turned back to Simon. “Do you have anything on Riley?”

  “I’ve got records on him—including his black file, or at least what I could get access to; it wasn’t complete. He’s been involved in several classified operations.” Simon scanned the screen. “In eighty-nine his Special Forces team got involved in an operation on mainland China during the Tiananmen Square riots. The pages are missing as to what the operation was or its purpose, but based on the security codes it was very high level. In ninety-one he was part of the covert raids the DOD and CIA launched into Colombia to destroy the cocaine-processing plants there.”

  “I heard about those missions,” Master said. “Go on.”

  Simon shook his head. “There’s some reference to a domestic operation last year in Chicago, but we couldn’t get access to what happened. All we know is that’s where he met Giannini—she was involved in it also.”

  “Domestic?” Master repeated with a frown. “How the hell was some SF guy involved in a domestic op?” When Simon didn’t answer, he leaned forward. “Give me his two-oh-one file.”

  Simon passed him the manila folder and Master scanned the officer record brief (ORB). The acronyms told him all he wanted to know about his adversary.

  DOB 08/12/59 BIRTHPLACE- NEW YORK SEX/RACE- M/WHITE NUMBER DEPENDANTS- 0 RELIGION- N/A MARITAL STATUS- SINGLE HEIGHT/WEIGHT- 67/150 EDUCATION- ASSOCIATES DEGREE AWARDS AND DECORATIONS-

  AAM (army achievement medal)- 04 ASR (army service ribbon)- 01 ARCOM (army commendation medal)- 03 MSM (meritorious service medal)- 02 Ranger Tab SF Tab

  Master Parachutist Badge Expert Infantry Badge

  Foreign Jump Wings—Thailand, Panama, Republic of Korea

  Schooling: Infantry One Stop Unit Training 1977; Airborne 1977; Ranger School 1979; Special Forces Qualification Course 1980; Jumpmaster School 1981; Malaysian Tracking School 1982; Republic of Korea Mountain Commando School 1983; Special Operations Training 1985; Special Forces Operations and Intelligence School 1986; Special Forces Warrant Officer School 1990; Nuclear Weapons Safeguards School 1990.

  “A fucking airborne, ranger, hero,” Master said out loud. “Let’s see where he’s been.” He looked at Riley’s assignment history, which was listed in reverse order, with the most current assignment at the top.

  93/08 1st Special Warfare Training Group, Fort Bragg—

  Instructor/Writer 93/04 Walter Reed Holding Det.—Convalescent leave

  92/10 5th Special Forces Group, Fort Campbell—Detachment executive officer 90/07 7th Special Forces Group, Fort Bragg—Detachment executive officer 90/03 Warrant Officer Accession Course—Student 89/07 Walter Reed Holding Det.—Convalescent leave 88/02 Special Forces Detachment Korea—Detachment operations sergeant 84/02 7th Special Forces Group, Fort Bragg—Detachment senior engineer 80/06 1st Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group (forward), Okinawa—Detachment junior engineer 80/01 Special Forces Qualification Course—Student 77/08 82d Airborne Division, Fort Bragg 77/02 One stop unit training, Fort Benning

  “You don’t know why he was in the hospital twice, do you?” Master asked.

  Simon shook his head. “All we know is the first one coincides with the mission into mainland China and the second one with whatever happened up in Chicago.”

  “So he wasn’t kissing babies wherever he was,” Master said. “He got shot up, or blown up, or tripped over his own feet and hurt himself. Given what he’s done here so far, and looking at these records, I’d say we’ve got ourselves an M-l, A-l, badass hero.” Master leaned back in his chair. “We’ll have to play this one tight.”

  He flipped open his atlas. “The Smokies are a big area to go looking in, but we’ll get them.” He looked down at the full-length photo of Riley dressed in his class A greens, which was clipped to the inside of the folder. “And this time you won’t get away, Mr. Riley,” he whispered to himself.

  KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE

  1 NOVEMBER, 12:20 a.m.

  Giannini checked into the fir
st motel she found off the interstate, paying cash for her room and signing a false name on the registration card. She didn’t think the subterfuge was worth the effort, since the sleepy clerk barely spared her a glance before disappearing into a back room to go back to sleep. She’d wanted to continue on to the rendezvous point, but Riley had said to show up in the daylight, so she figured that Knoxville was as good a place to stop as any.

  Her room was in the rear of the motel, and she parked her car right in front of the door. After putting on the chain, securing the dead bolt, and closing the curtains, she lay down on the bed, fully clothed, with her revolver at her side ready for use. She was almost certain she hadn’t been followed, but after her last conversation with Dave, she wasn’t going to take any chances. The muted roar of trucks rumbling down the highway echoed through the room as she closed her eyes and waited for sleep to come, trying to keep her mind from wondering what the daylight would bring.

  Chapter Sixteen

  GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS

  1 NOVEMBER, 1:37 A.M.

  “Ten minutes!” the crew chief yelled. “Give me a hand with this,” he added, tapping Riley on the shoulder.

  Together, they secured the looped end of the fast rope to a bolt in the roof of the helicopter, just ahead of the back ramp. For the past hour, the ride had gotten increasingly hair-raising as the Piedmont gave way to the foothills of the Smokies. As they worked, they could feel the extra weight as the pilots added power to gain altitude up the southeastern slopes of the mountains.

  The crew chief kept the bulk of the fast rope in place by wrapping a loop of cargo strap around it. Riley pulled on his rucksack and secured it by buckling the waistband tight around his hips. Hammer did the same with his backpack. They cinched down the slings on their weapons and secured those over their shoulder. Riley then took his twelve-foot length of sling rope and slipped it through snap links on the front of his combat vest, one on each shoulder. He tied off open loops on the two free ends and stuffed the slack in empty ammo pouches on each hip, securing the Velcro fasteners on top.