‘We were on Operation Jericho together,’ Mazie told him.
‘I’ll be damned,’ Standard muttered, recalling the rescue of three Americans out of Burma.
‘Believe me, we all are,’ MacKay said.
He listened as Mazie and Standard outlined his part in the operation. Since he was in the field, he was only told what he needed to know, but his mind filled in the blanks. ‘I’ve got to catch the afternoon flight to Bloemfontein,’ he told them. ‘I’d like to talk to the Boys before I go. I want to throw some grit into the system.’ Standard made the phone call and sent him on his way.
‘What next?’ he asked Mazie when they were alone.
‘Any progress on the leak in the UN?’
‘Leaks are like rats,’ Standard replied. ‘Find one and you know there’s more in the woodwork. One big rat was Pontowski’s aide, a Captain Piet van der Roos. We monitored him making phone calls asking about sorties and launch times, including the day Leonard was shot down and Perko killed. But he’s out of the picture now.’
‘Have you found other leaks?’
Standard smiled at her.
*
Sunday, April 19
Iron Gate, near Bloemfontein
*
MacKay presented his identification card to the guard at the main gate and tried to act bored. Going through the massive stone entrance always bothered him. The young soldier took his card and ran it through the scanner. The video monitor flashed and a message scrolled up on the screen. ‘A message for you,’ the guard said. ‘Report immediately to the security compound.’
‘When was the message posted?’ MacKay asked.
The guard glanced at the screen. ‘Twenty minutes ago.’
MacKay thanked him and drove on to the base with every inner alarm in overdrive. What’s going down? he thought. An NCO was waiting for him at the entrance to the compound and escorted him to Kreiner’s office. ‘Wait here,’ the sergeant commanded. MacKay sat down and cooled his heels for the next half hour.
Kreiner burst into the room, all hustle and activity. Two armed guards were right behind him. MacKay adopted his most bored look. ‘Kreiner, what dumb thing are you doing now?’
‘The Generaal wants to see you.’ MacKay gave a shrug and followed him down the stairs to Interrogation. ‘Wait,’ Kreiner said, pointing to a chair. MacKay sat down and leaned back against the wall. Beckmann’s hard leather heels echoed over their heads as he came down the stairs.
‘There you are,’ Beckmann said amiably. ‘Why were you at Cape Town?’
‘Is that what this is all about?’ No answer. ‘I was checking out a breach in security.’
‘Security is always a primary concern,’ Beckmann said. ‘Kreiner.’
Kreiner stepped up to the curtain that covered the one-way window into the interrogation room. He glanced at MacKay in triumph and pulled the cord. The curtains swooshed back.
Ziba was sitting on the table. She was naked.
‘Your woman,’ Kreiner chortled. It was payback time.
MacKay joined Beckmann by the window, a firm grip on his emotions. ‘Getting your jollies off, Kreiner?’ he asked. One wrong move and you’re dead, he thought. He looked at Ziba. She was unhurt and alert. They hadn’t begun the interrogation yet. ‘Why did you bring her in?’ he asked.
‘We became worried when you went to Cape Town without telling us. So we took the normal precautions,’ Kreiner said.
MacKay couldn’t take his eyes off Ziba. The memory of the first time they had met came rushing back. Like then, she was regal. A queen. They could strip her, shackle her, imprison her, even kill her. But nothing they could do would ever degrade her. ‘Hostages, Kreiner?’ MacKay scoffed. ‘You’re suffering from a massive case of brain farts. I was chasing pussy, not looking for a long-term commitment.’
Beckmann smiled at MacKay, his eyes bright and unblinking. ‘Slavin tried to escape with his family and she was with him. I want to know if she is part of the security problems you have discovered. This is your interrogation.’
MacKay glanced at him and then fixed his eyes on Ziba. In that split second, he almost killed Beckmann. But the guards weren’t making any mistakes, not after the Azanian incident, and the attempt would have been suicide. ‘After you, Generaal.’ He opened the door into the interrogation room.
Kreiner entered first and placed a straight-back chair directly in front of Ziba. Beckmann sat down on it backwards, his arms resting on top of the back. ‘Proceed,’ he said. His eyes had stopped blinking.
Kreiner stood beside Ziba and lifted one of her breasts. ‘Generaal, please. This is my duty.’
‘Not this time, Kreiner. I want MacKay to solve this problem for us.’
‘Solve the problem?’ MacKay asked. ‘No sweat, Generaal.’ His hands flashed and he spun Kreiner around. Kreiner tried to resist but MacKay stunned him with a rabbit punch, kicked at the back of his knees and snatched the pistol out of his holster. Kreiner was going down as MacKay chambered a cartridge. He reached over Kreiner’s head with his left hand and hooked two fingers in his eye sockets. He held Kreiner’s head up, jammed the pistol’s muzzle against his temple and fired.
The guards were coming through the door. MacKay let the body fall to the ground and threw the pistol to the first guard, stopping him. MacKay held up his hands. ‘Problem solved.’
The violence had satisfied whatever need Beckmann felt and his face was normal. ‘Clean up this mess,’ he ordered. He looked at MacKay ‘We need to talk.’
*
Four guards with drawn automatics surrounded MacKay as he sat in Beckmann’s office. ‘Kreiner and I go back years,’ Beckmann said. ‘He was a trusted lieutenant.’
MacKay threw a small booklet on the desk. ‘I was in Cape Town checking up on your “trusted lieutenant”. That’s his bank balance.’ The savings account pass book in Kreiner’s name was part of the ‘grit’ the Boys had given MacKay to throw into the system. ‘I found it in a safe deposit box in Cape Town. You’ll notice there’s a rather large recent deposit.’
‘This is a large amount of money,’ Beckmann said.
‘Thrifty little bugger, wasn’t he?’
‘Do you think he sold out?’
MacKay paused. ‘Where did he get all that money? It does answer a lot of questions, Generaal.’
Beckmann gave an audible sigh. ‘There is still the question of the girl. She did try to escape with Slavin and may have been working for Kreiner.’
‘Perhaps,’ MacKay said. ‘Release her but don’t let her leave the base. We can watch her for a few days, use her as bait, and see if anyone tries to contact her. Or she might lead us to someone else.’
‘An excellent suggestion,’ Beckmann said. ‘There is still one more problem. I told you never to disobey me again. You did. You also killed one of my best men.’
‘I killed a traitor, Generaal. And I did not disobey you. You said to solve the problem. I did.’
‘Based on suspicions,’ Beckmann said. ‘Only suspicions.’
‘You need to see what’s in my briefcase,’ MacKay told him. ‘It’s in my car.’ A heavy silence came down as one of the guards ran to get the briefcase. The guard was back in moments, not wanting to miss anything that might happen. ‘Let me open it,’ MacKay said. ‘It’s booby-trapped.’ He smiled at Beckmann. ‘I told Kreiner I was good at my job. He didn’t know how good.’ He flipped the top open and stepped back. The briefcase was full of blank ID cards — thanks to the Boys. ‘These were in his safe deposit box.’
Beckmann was shaken. ‘But why?’
MacKay forced a sadness he did not feel into his voice. ‘I don’t know, sir. Money? Sex? Who knows?’
Beckmann rummaged through the cards. ‘These cards have caused more trouble than they are worth.’
‘That’s because the system was rigged to be compromised,’ MacKay told him. ‘I can fix that.’
‘I need a replacement for Kreiner. Are you interested, Mr Mills?’
‘
I was going to suggest it if you didn’t,’ MacKay told him.
‘Is Mills your real name?’
MacKay shook his head. ‘John Author MacKay. I deserted from the U.S. Army years ago. You can check it out.’ He rattled off his Social Security number. It was as deep as MacKay’s cover went.
‘We will, Mr MacKay, we will.’
*
Monday, April 20
Ysterplaat Air Base, Cape Town
*
‘It’s called mission creep,’ Pontowski told Bouchard, ‘and I can’t think of a better way to get your ass in a crack. We should have never gone after the Azanians. We showed the politicians what we can do, now they want us to do more with less.’ Bouchard let him talk, aware that the American was blowing off steam. ‘I was certain de Royer would tell them to go piss up a rope.’
‘Piss up a rope?’ Bouchard asked. The mechanics of doing that specific act eluded him.
‘Get lost. No way José,’ Pontowski answered.
Bouchard nodded, finally understanding. Although he spoke English, American slang eluded him. ‘The general never rejects anything out of hand.’
‘So I found out,’ Pontowski said. He had been certain de Royer would reject the idea to attack the Iron Guard without a second thought. But the general had only said, ‘Study it.’ No direction, no comment, just, ‘Study it.’ Then de Royer had disappeared. Lacking direction, Pontowski gave Maggot the so-called ‘shopping list’ and set him to work. Then early Monday morning, Standard had called from the consulate. A package had arrived in the diplomatic pouch which he needed to see. It was the latest satellite imagery of the Iron Gate, courtesy of the National Reconnaissance Office via the CIA. The resolution and quality of the photographs indicated that someone in Washington was getting very serious.
Pontowski gave the photographs to Maggot and went back to pacing the floor. Now, he and Bouchard were at the base ready to see the results of Maggot’s ‘study’. Waldo came out of the Intel vault and asked them to come in. ‘We had to clean the place up,’ he said. Inside, Kowalski and Maggot were standing beside a papier-mâché model of Iron Gate. ‘I studied architecture in college for two years,’ Waldo said. ‘The only thing I liked about it was the modeling.’
Bouchard walked around the table, looking at the model from every angle. His one good eye darted from feature to feature, taking in every detail. ‘C’est bon,’ he allowed.
‘What does this prove?’ Pontowski asked.
‘We can do it,’ Maggot announced.
‘I didn’t want to hear that,’ Pontowski said.
‘I will tell the general,’ Bouchard said. Half of his face was smiling.
*
Monday, April 20
The White House, Washington, D.C.
*
The claw held the telephone to Carroll’s ear. The encryption/decryption cycle gave Mazie’s voice a tinny ring and he listened without comment. It wasn’t a long call, a follow-up message with details was on the wires, but she thought he should know in advance that de Royer had okayed the operation. He had named it Dragon Rouge, Red Dragon.
Carroll dropped the phone into its cradle when they were finished and tried to calm the emotions that tore at him. He started to shake. Slowly, he regained control. It’s the price we pay, he told himself. How do the others do it? How can they play fast and loose with people’s lives? It’s distance, he told himself. If you can’t match a face or a personality to the name, then you can do it. Then you can send people to their deaths and still live with yourself. Call off this operation, he warned himself. But he didn’t have a choice. He understood the equations of power only too well: Sacrifice a few now to save thousands later. Running from the problem would only make it worse.
Two hours later, Midge came in with a message. ‘From Mazie,’ she said. It was the ‘shopping list’ coming back to haunt him. He scanned the additional force elements Pontowski and de Royer needed to carry out the operation. The list was much shorter than he had imagined. ‘They’ll need to know how soon we can have everything in place,’ he said, reaching for the phone to call Secretary of Defense Elkins.
After talking to Elkins, Carroll held up the claw and looked at it. He felt an overpowering urge to wash it. He made the claw respond to his will and hit the intercom button. ‘Midge, please call Cyrus Piccard. I need to see him.’ There were times when even the National Security Advisor needed his hand held. Even if it was the claw.
*
Tuesday, April 21
Cape Town, South Africa
*
Richard Davis Standard drummed his fingers on the desk. The Boys were in their usual configuration, two sitting, the tall slender one on the floor yoga-style, and their boss leaning against the wall with her arms folded across her chest, challenging him to surprise her. ‘We’ve got less than ninety-six hours to plug the leak at the UN,’ he told them. ‘Otherwise, Dragon Rouge will lose the element of surprise.’ The women tuned him out and held a brief discussion. The one on the floor smiled sweetly at him, her way of saying they had the problem well in hand. He hated it when they did that to him.
‘Second,’ Standard said. ‘Pontowski wants to set up a forward operation location within range of the helicopters and where they can launch unobserved. I want to open up Desert One.’
Deception was part of Standard’s personality and he misnamed everything. Desert One had little to do with the desert. It was a base with a 9000-foot runway hidden in a semi-arid mountain valley in Lesotho, ninety-three miles from Iron Gate. The CIA had spent millions of dollars creating the facility in the late 1970s as part of the effort to counter a very real communist threat to destabilize South Africa.
The woman leaning against the wall was surprised. ‘Gengha Dung won’t authorize that,’ she said.
‘Screw Gengha,’ Standard muttered.
‘She won’t like that either,’ the woman replied. ‘Well, we were all looking for jobs when we found this one.’
‘Go to work,’ Standard told them. He motioned for their boss to wait. ‘I need you to go to Bloemfontein and contact MacKay.’
‘I’m not a courier,’ she told him.
‘You are now.’
‘Make one little compromise and everyone thinks you’re easy,’ she mumbled to herself.
*
Tuesday, April 21
Ysterplaat Air Base, Cape Town
*
Maggot was bent over a planning table, measuring distances off a chart. ‘Perfect, absolutely perfect,’ he murmured. ‘Thirty-five minutes flying time for the Pumas.’
Kowalski and Waldo examined the chart. ‘It should do the trick, Boss,’ Kowalski told Pontowski. ‘If it’s secure.’
‘The CIA says it is,’ Pontowski assured her. ‘You can check it out this afternoon when you start prepositioning men and equipment. There’s a safe corridor here.’ He sketched a route leading from Desert One southeast to the Indian Ocean. The corridor crossed through Lesotho and the Transkei, two of the homelands, or Bantustans, created under apartheid and then ignored by the government.
Kowalski measured a route from Cape Town that looped out over the ocean, around the southern coast of South Africa before coasting in at the safe corridor. ‘Nine hundred nautical miles,’ she announced. ‘Let’s go do it.’
‘Boss,’ Maggot said, ‘I want to go along and see what we got.’ Pontowski told him to get going.
Waldo kept studying the chart. ‘What’s bothering you?’ Pontowski asked.
‘Just an itch, sir.’
‘Then scratch it,’ Pontowski said.
‘After I jettisoned architecture,’ Waldo said, ‘I majored in geography.’
Pontowski couldn’t believe it. ‘Geography?’
‘My specialty was climatology,’ Waldo said. ‘Boss, we need to talk to a weatherman who knows the area.’
*
Tuesday, April 21
Desert One, Lesotho
*
The woman dressed in civilian clothes ha
d not said a word during the flight and had been content to sit on the crew bunk at the rear of the flight deck and read a book. Now she was standing beside Maggot and asking for a headset.
‘You won’t see the runway until you are on short final,’ she told Kowalski.
‘So how do I find it?’ Kowalski asked.
The woman pointed out the visual landmarks for the landing pattern. But no runway was visible in the sparse vegetation below them. ‘Fly a standard downwind leg,’ she directed. Kowalski did as she said and called for the before landing checklist. ‘Okay, turn base here.’ Again, Kowalski followed her instructions. The pilot looked out her left window. But where there should have been a runway was only low scrub and a barren mountain valley. ‘Turn final here and keep your descent going.’
‘What the hell do I line up on?’ Kowalski growled.
‘Click your transmit button seven times,’ the woman said. Again, Kowalski did as commanded and a two-bar VASI came on. The VASI, or visual approach glide slope indicator, was a set of lights on each side of a runway that gave a pilot a visual glide path reference to the touchdown zone of a runway. ‘Click your transmit button five more times,’ the woman ordered. Five clicks and a bright line of lights appeared, cutting through the landscape. ‘Those are the runway center lights,’ the woman explained. ‘You’ll see the runway when you descend through 200 feet.’
As promised, the runway materialized when the C-130 was 200 feet above the ground. The runway was painted to blend with the surrounding terrain and vegetation. It became visible at low level when the perspective changed and a pilot could separate the form of the landscape from the color.
The C-130 touched down. ‘Welcome to Desert One,’ the woman said. ‘The fuel pits are over there and you can off-load next to those revetments.’
‘Son of a bitch,’ Maggot mumbled. ‘You got a crash wagon here?’ The woman shook her head and asked if it was important. ‘We can launch the Warthogs from here,’ he said. ‘But we want to land where we got emergency crews available — just in case we get the shit shot out of us and need help.’
‘Does that happen often?’ she asked.
‘It only has to happen once.’
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