by Robert Cain
"So you assume that Diamond is CIA because he had access to the SNOWDROP debriefing. He gave it a low reliability rating so that no one would pay attention to it.” "It seems the likeliest explanation, sir. That debriefing strongly suggested Agency complicity, SNOWDROP was supposed to be picked up by an unmarked helo flown by a CIA contract pilot named Braden. Instead—”
"The helo was full of troops.”
"Probably contract meres out of Central America. We’re checking on that. But it all points to someone up at Langley.”
"What the hell is going on over there?” the senator demanded. "Hitting our own people! And I thought CIA policy specifically prohibited having anything to do with narcotics!”
"It does. But remember, everything over there is compartmented for security’s sake. Directors don’t always know what’s going on in their own department. We could be looking at a rogue operation. Someone in the CIA chain of command has gone into business for himself. Someone in a position to tap Company field assets.”
"Christ, James! We’ve got to get this guy! The CIA is already thoroughly involved both with Group Seven and with RAMROD. If Diamond is in on Group Seven planning, he’ll pass everything to his buddies in Colombia!”
"The thought had crossed my mind,” Weston said dryly.
The limousine left 64, swinging onto the desolate stretch of road that led to Camp Peary’s front gate. Both men began fishing for their wallets. The guards would want to see their IDs.
What worried Weston was the fact that Esposito— the fake Esposito—had risked showing himself. That they’d gone to such trouble to eliminate Drake—and in a way designed to both discredit him and avoid suspicion that he’d been deliberately silenced—meant that the man masquerading as Esposito was going to be used again, presumably someplace where Drake might have recognized him.
But where? How did he fit in with Diamond?
And did Diamond know that Drake had not been silenced, after all?
Weston feared it was only a matter of time before Diamond knew that the SEAL lieutenant was alive.
And when he did, he would strike again.
His survival depended on it.
Drake lay in his cot, in a gray-walled room with a guard outside his door.
The room was part of the Camp Peary dispensary. His chart listed him as under observation.
Under observation was right. A wire-protected TV lens watched him from high in one corner. The doctors were afraid he’d try to kill himself again.
He closed his eyes. He’d been so close. So close. The gun, the Walther PPK he’d bought Meagan years ago as protection for when he was away, had been in the drawer of her bedside table. It hadn’t helped her. She’d obviously not been able to reach it when the thugs broke in.
Probably they’d grabbed her when she answered the door. Maybe they’d posed as telephone repairmen.
Damn, damn, damn! He remembered his despair when he opened the drawer and saw the gun lying there. He remembered the gunpowder-metal taste as he’d placed the muzzle in his mouth, remembered the numb bitterness as he sat on the bed, surrounded by death . . . death. . .
Why hadn’t he been able to pull the trigger when the police burst in?
The evening’s events continued to recycle themselves in his mind: his crawl toward the preoccupied guard, his race toward the bedroom, the unexpected appearance of Julio. He’d been over the situation time after time after time. What else could he have done? What else could he have done?
He’d had two and only two choices: do nothing and be slaughtered like a trussed-up sheep along with Meagan and Stacy, or rush into the room in the hope of catching their captors off guard.
But the unpredictable had happened and he’d lost the element of surprise. One of the bad guys had picked up a gun.
And Stacy and Meagan were dead. He’d failed them. He could not see past that single fact. Their lives had depended on him ... and he’d failed them.
Why hadn’t he been able to join them? Why?
There was a knock, and then the door opened. Weston walked in, followed by someone familiar. Who was it? Yes . . . Senator Buchanan.
"Hello, son,” Weston said. "How are you doing?” Drake turned his head back toward the window, unwilling to look at them, unwilling to talk.
"Lieutenant,” the senator said, coming closer. "I was terribly sorry to hear about your family. Please accept my . . . my most sincere condolences. I know what you must be going through.”
"Right.” The word was sharply bitten off, raw in his throat.
"I hope you don’t mind, Chris,” Weston said. "I brought the senator along because I thought . . . well, I thought he might be able to convince you.”
"I can’t do what you’re asking me,” Drake said. He fought the burning in his eyes. "I can. ’t. . . . ”
He knew what Weston wanted. RAMROD’s director had suggested it Saturday, when he’d come to question Drake about what had happened.
"You saw those men,” Weston said. "You could help us identify them. And if we nail them, they can lead us to Diamond.”
Drake shook his head. "I told you what I could. I gave you their descriptions.”
"A tall, Latin-looking guy named Luis? A shorter, blond-haired man with a Texan accent? Those descriptions could be anybody, Chris,” Weston said. "But there’s another way—”
"I told you, no.” Drake squeezed his eyes shut, trying to close out his visitors, the pain. He didn’t want to remember.
Buchanan’s hand touched his shoulder. "I meant what I said earlier,” he said. "I know what you’re going through.”
"You know.” Anger flared. Drake rose from the cot, his fist clenched. "You know!”
"Yes, damn it,” Buchanan snapped, pulling back his hand. "You’re not the only one whose life has been ruined by this . . . this curse!”
"That’s easy for you to say, you sanctimonious son of a—”
"You think so? Talk to my wife. Ask her what it’s like to have your only son killed. By drugs!”
Buchanan’s words were biting, sharp. Drake’s eyes locked with his.
"Your son . .
"Five years ago. It took him four hours to die after a head-on collision that killed two other people and left a sixteen-year-old girl in a coma for life. And you want to know the hell of it? The whole affair was hushed up. 'Senator’s Son Dead in Highway Crash.’ That’s how the headlines read. What my staff covered up was the fact that Mike was the driver, that he admitted to the police he’d been flying on coke at a party that evening. It was his fault that three people died and others had their lives ruined. His fault . . . and mine.”
"Yours . . . sir?”
"Mine.” Buchanan turned away. "Oh, you know all the hoary cliches. If I’d been around more. If Mike hadn’t had things so easy. God knows being a politician’s son is never easy, but he had money and a car and a taste for a swinging life style. Yeah, I blame myself. So does my wife. The only thing keeping us together now is the damned job. Senators don’t get divorces.”
Drake wanted to say something but held his tongue. He could see where the obvious and banal rejoinder— "it wasn’t your fault”—would come boomeranging back at him.
And yes, it was true. Could he really blame himself for the fact that Meagan and Stacy were dead? Any more than Buchanan could blame himself for the death of his son?
Drake slumped back down to the cot. "There’s . . . nothing I can do.” He could feel the fear, ice-cold and dark. He didn’t want to look at it, couldn’t face it. . . .
"You can fight, damn it,” Buchanan said. "What happened to my son nearly killed me. But I’m fighting back.” He paused. "You’re cleared for Group Seven, aren’t you? You know what it is?”
"Yes, sir.”
"Well, Group Seven’s my way of striking back at the bastards. I built it, back when the Reagan administration first proposed the idea. That was the year after Mike died.” He stopped, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. "Group Seven,” he continue
d after a moment, "was designed to find ways to combat the drug problem. New ways . . . innovative ways, because the old ways haven’t been working. You’re already a part of one of our projects.”
"RAMROD.”
"Right. We need you, son. If you quit now, you’ve just given the sons of bitches an easy victory.”
"He’s right,” Weston added. "On the way down here, we were talking about how bad things are getting.
Crime. Firefights in the streets. Things happening to ordinary, decent people . .. like what happened to you. It’s getting worse, and if we don’t do something soon, this country is going to look like downtown Beirut in less time than I care to think about.”
Buchanan’s fists clenched at his side, white- knuckled, working. "Lieutenant, I’ll be damned if I’ll just sit back and watch these drug lord bastards buy, steal, corrupt, or drug my country into ruin! What we’re asking you, son, is that you help us. Maybe it’s too late to help your family. But you can still help yourself. You can help us!”
He thought about it. The fear was still there . .. mingled with the mindless grief.
But there was another emotion as well, one he’d not recognized before.
Hatred.
Until he became a SEAL, Drake had never thought much about drug lords or their product. Even when he’d been shipped off to Colombia on SNOWDROP, they’d been abstractions, targets, creatures of adventure fiction and "Miami Vice” reruns.
Yet somehow, those men, those bloated monsters in their multimillion-dollar palaces and penthouses and yachts, had reached out and, with less thought than they’d give to crushing a fly, had wiped his family off the face of the earth.
He found he hated these faceless beings, these less- than-human leeches who thrived on the weakness and miseries and deaths of people.
No more. No more! He wanted to strike back. He had to strike back to win some measure of peace for Meagan and Stacy.
And for himself.
"I’ll help if I can,” he said quietly. He saw a tightness in Weston’s face relax.
"I knew you’d come through, son,” the CIA man said.
"I still don’t know ... if I can . . .”
"We’ll take it a step at a time, son. Dr. McDaniels knows what she’s doing. I’ve discussed it with her, and it should be safe enough.”
But Drake didn’t care about safe.
It was the memories, facing the memories that he feared.
© Chapter Eight
AN hour later, Drake was back in Lab One as McDaniels and Costrini and Irvin and the rest pumped his hand and asked how he was and told him how sorry they were. Drake managed to tell them that he was fine . . . managed, too, to ignore the sad, pitying looks he caught out of the corner of his eye.
Strangely, he was, if not fine, at least . . . handling the grief, and for now that was enough. Once he’d made up his mind to act, he found he was able to move, to think . . . where he’d thought he never wanted to move again.
Hatred, he discovered, was a source of tremendous strength.
"Hello, Lieutenant Drake,” a familiar, almost cultured baritone voice said. "I understand that you wish to try something different this afternoon.”
Drake turned and was surprised to see Rod dressed in civilian clothes. He was used to seeing the robot either without clothing or with the utilitarian combat blacks worn by men going through Kiddie Land. This . . . man looked like any casually dressed Ameri- 107 can, in blue jeans, slip-on deck shoes, and a colorful madras sport shirt.
"It’s Weston’s idea, Rod,” he replied. "I don’t know if I’m ready for this or not.”
"Actually,” McDaniels said, "it was my idea. And Chris ... I don’t want you to even think about going through with it if you’re not a hundred-percent sure. I know ... I know what it must be costing you.” Drake shook his head. "Don’t talk me out of it. Let’s do it.” He looked at Rod as he settled himself into a chair. "Are you ready for this?”
"I am. The idea is . . . interesting. I do not believe anything of this kind has been attempted before. However, it should work in principle, with CORA’s help, of course.”
One of the technicians was already pulling Rod’s shirttail up and working the end of a cable into the robot’s receptor.
McDaniels brought him a PARET helmet. "Chris,” she said. "I want you to think carefully about what you’re doing. You’ve had a ... a bad time, and—” He took the helmet from her and put it on. "Run it,” he said. "I want these people, and if pulling them out of my head is the only way to get them, that’s what we’re going to do.”
"Printer on,” CORA’s voice said out of the air. A large, boxy gray machine like a photocopier clicked and hummed on a bench in the corner of the lab. "Direct access,” CORA continued. "Initiating . .
"If this works,” Weston said from nearby, "we’re about to revolutionize the science of criminology.” The laser printer was kept hooked to the computer system strung through Lab One for those times when the technicians needed a sheet of hardcopy, especially when they needed to scrutinize a schematic diagram of some piece of circuitry in Rod’s innards. Printed schematics were easier to read than glowing lines on a TV monitor.
Computers work with pictures, any pictures, by scanning the image and digitizing it, which means reducing it to a pattern of dots stored as numbers in the computer’s memory. As with photographs printed in a newspaper, the image can be reproduced by a printer that can read those numbers and recreate the dots. The laser printer was capable of exceptionally fine resolution.
The key to Dr. McDaniels’s idea was the knowledge that the final picture was the product of numbers, only numbers.
And it didn’t matter at all where those numbers came from.
Teeth set, eyes closed, Drake remembered driving up to the house, walking up to the door, stepping inside. . . .
Pain . . . and the horror of an unexpected attack . . . helplessness . . .
Esposito smiling, too far away to reach.
"Hey, boss! When does the fun start?”
And later . . .
"God, Chris!” Meagan’s face, terrified. "Oh God, Chris! Who are these people? You . . . you know one of them?”
"Yeah, I know him. ”
"But who is he? Where did you—”
"Look, honey, if you don’t know, maybe I can convince them, to let you go. So no questions, okay? Just stay calm. It ’11 be all right. ”
And later still . . .
"Listen, guy. Nothing personal, okay?”
"You son-ofa-bitch bastard!”
"Hey! C’mon, Luis! Let’s haul ass, for Chrissakes! Diamond doesn’t want us anywhere around when this goes down, okay?”
"Go on, then! Anyway, Lieutenant, sorry it had to be like this. Just business, you know?”
Weston hurried toward the chair where Drake sat, face taut in a hideous, teeth-baring rictus, fists clenched on the countertop before him so tightly they shook, white-knuckled, rigidly locked.
"What is it?” Weston called. "What’s wrong?” The robot, standing impassively a few feet away, swayed suddenly, then crashed to the floor. McDaniels, snapping orders, stooped next to the robot’s body, which was twitching now as though suspended on the brink of an epileptic seizure. Its eyes were wide open, staring at the fluorescent lighting fixtures on the ceiling. "CORA!” McDaniels screamed. She was trying to hold the trembling robot, trying to pull it to her. "Discontinue access! Discontinue access!”
"Unable to comply . . .”
Tears streamed down McDaniels’s face. Rod twitched and shuddered in her arms.
"Listen, guy. Nothing personal, okay?”
Running down the hall. Obscene, grunting noises, sounds of lust . . . sickening . . .
If he could just catch them unarmed. Their only chance . . .
"Whee-oo! Hey, Arturo! Get the fuck in here and have some!” The door banging open . . . Julio striding through . . . "These honeys are sweet!”
Gunfire, shredding Julio ’5 shirt and chest, a savage, t
hundering burst . . .
Rod had never felt anything like it before, an inner pang of loneliness and grief and loss and empty yearning. Properly speaking, he had never felt anything, ever, but the distinction was a minor one.
God, I’ll kill them! I’ve got to save Meagan and Stacy!
Gunfire and horror... obscene movements in nightmare shadows . . ■
No! Denial and rage in a room painted with blood. . . blood!
With the horror came pain. Servo relays in Rod’s legs and arms fired randomly, wracking his body with convulsions.
Override! Override! Reestablish autonomous control. . . .
Meagan! Stacy! No!
His optical feed circuits had tripped out. His eyes were open, but visual was out. He restored the circuit and sight returned, harsh at first, until he adjusted for the room’s fluorescent lighting. He seemed to be lying on his back, his head cradled in Dr. McDaniels’s arms.
How had that happened?
Rod ran a diagnostic on his own systems, checking autonomic responses and on-line programming. Everything was functioning within normal parameters.
Yet something had happened, even though Rod wasn’t sure what.