Would he be above petty politics if he were national security adviser?
The pressure would be worse.
“Just one second, Ms. Telach, as I reconsider this,” he said. “Can Servico be retrieved without further endangering our people?”
“We planned it that way.” Her cheeks, never plump, had pulled tight and hollow. Her upper body was stiff with tension. “The helicopters are nineteen minutes away.”
Would it be safer for all concerned to concentrate on simply picking up Dean and Lia?
Absolutely.
Was the risk worth it?
Yes, because snatching Servico might give them more information about any possible rebel connection to the bomb — or more likely, rule it out. And he might be of use in dealing with Peru.
“Lia’s safety is paramount,” said Rubens.
“I understand that,” said Telach.
He didn’t have to be pure — no one could entirely divorce himself from all possible influences. But he did have to make a decision.
“I want Lia safe,” he told Telach. “Beyond that, if there is an opportunity to snatch Servico, who is wanted by the British government as well as Peru, then do so.”
“Yes, sir.” Her shoulders relaxed slightly, and she looked less like an enraged scarecrow.
“Where is Mr. Karr?”
“Making his way back to the river. I have Fashona on his way there.”
“Have him move into position to make the switch with the voter card at Nevas. If possible, Lia can meet him. Or, if necessary, he can proceed alone.”
“Yes, Mr. Rubens.”
87
Dean led Lia to a spot about three hundred yards from the camp where a pair of fallen tree trunks gave them cover and a vantage point to watch for guards.
“We’re at the trunks I told you about,” he told Rockman.
“Good. Helicopters are sixteen minutes away,” said Rockman. “One group is going to take out Servico. The other will meet you at LZ One.”
“You’re taking Servico?” said Lia.
“Yes. He’s wanted by the British as well as the Peruvians, and we want to talk to him about the bomb.”
“All right. Tell the landing team we’ll locate him for them,” said Lia, sliding off the tree.
“Hey, hold on,” said Dean, grabbing her. “We just got out of there.”
“We?”
“Lia, Charlie? Just relax a second,” said Telach. “There are two helicopters of paramilitaries on their way. You’ll hear them shortly.”
“So will the guerrillas,” said Lia. “Servico will get away.”
Dean recognized the defiant look in her eye, the look he called Lia DeFrancesca takes on the world.
“There’s only six of them. They’re mostly kids. They’re not very well trained,” Lia said. “Do you really think we need to wait for help?”
“All right, let’s do it,” said Dean, taking the lead.
* * *
By the time Lia caught up to Dean, he was crouched a few yards from the point where she’d come into the jungle. Two men were talking in front of the shower hut. One was Servico; the other was the man who’d been guarding her.
“On the left,” said Lia.
Servico started walking in the direction of the huts. The other man went down the road to the right, probably to join the hunt.
“Rockman, where are all the guerrillas?” she asked.
“They sent one to the road, probably to go to the others four miles away where they’re searching for the military stragglers. We have two on the north side, one just walking to the south. One in the village near the cottages.”
“That leaves one more.”
“Has to be still inside Cabin Two. Is that our guy?”
“Servico’s the one walking toward the cabin,” said Lia.
“OK, got it. Helicopters are now ten minutes off.”
“Wait till they’re five,” Dean said. “We’ll take him before they hear the rotors.”
“Charlie, it’d be much easier for you guys if you just waited—”
“Servico isn’t going to surrender,” Lia told the runner. “He made a real point of that before. If you want him alive, we have to grab him before he knows he’s in trouble.”
“Charlie? Lia? Are you sure about this?” said Telach.
“We’re sure,” said Lia.
“Charlie?”
“Yeah, we can do it.”
“Eight minutes,” said Rockman.
Lia looked at Dean. He scanned the village slowly, as if he were a robotic surveillance camera, taking it all in, analyzing every inch.
“I didn’t need to be rescued,” she whispered, checking her pistol to make sure it was ready, even though she’d done that just a few minutes before.
“Didn’t say you did.”
Right, she thought to herself.
* * *
Dean glanced at his watch, then held up a finger: one minute.
“Right or left?” Lia asked.
“I’ll take the right.”
“Call him out in Spanish,” she suggested.
“Yeah, good.”
“Rockman, where are the guerrillas?”
“Two to the north are about eight hundred yards away, searching at the edge of a ravine. Your target is in the cabin, with another man. The one on the road is out of the picture. We’re missing one to the east, at least fifty yards from you, most likely more. Woods are too thick.”
“Let’s go,” said Dean.
Lia ran on the left side of the door. Dean took the right. Pistol ready, he cupped his left hand over his mouth and called to the guerrilla leader in Spanish.
“Comrade Paolo,” he said. “¡Vamos! Come on! Hurry!”
Someone answered with a grumble. Dean saw the door open; as a man stepped out he leapt onto his back, smashing his neck and then the back of his head with his pistol. The figure collapsed and Dean fell with him, rolling in the ground as the guerrilla’s AK-47 clattered behind him.
The rebel clawed at the ground, trying to pull himself away. Dean caught him and gave him another smash, this one so hard it felt like he had knocked the man’s skull off. Yet the guerrilla still struggled, and it wasn’t until Dean hit him on the other side of the head that the man finally collapsed.
Dean grabbed the guerrilla’s shoulder, planning to haul him up over his back into the nearby jungle. As he did, he caught a glimpse of the man’s face and realized it wasn’t Servico.
* * *
Lia leapt through the doorway as Dean took the guerrilla who had come out. There was a desk and a chair to the left, a rifle hanging on a hook in the corner.
And a man just starting for it.
Servico.
“Don’t move!” she told him. “I’ll shoot you.”
“Shoot me then,” he said, and he twisted around to seize the gun and fire.
Lia fired two shots through his right knee. Servico managed to get his hand onto the gun stock but fell, crippled by the pain of the bullets that smashed his patella and the adjacent bones.
She ran to him quickly, grabbing him by the shirt and pulling him across the floor. She started to lift him up to carry him over her back, but he struggled ferociously, grabbing her hair. A kick to his wounded knee drained the fight from him; another quick blow to his neck paralyzed him.
“Let’s go, let’s go,” Dean yelled from the doorway. He had the other guerrilla’s AK-47 in his hands.
Lia took hold of Servico’s shirt and pulled him to the doorway, rolling him over to check for a hidden weapon. As she looked around for something to truss him with, she noticed two grenade launchers sitting on a flat box near the door.
The heavy beat of the approaching helicopters filled the air.
“Helicopters are sixty seconds away,” said Rockman. “We’re sending everybody into the village.”
“We’ll be waiting,” said Dean.
88
Jackson didn’t realize anyone was in the room with
him until he heard Rubens clearing his throat.
“Dr. Rubens,” he said, starting to rise.
“Ambassador. Anything useful?”
“Just old reports on the Brazilian effort to develop a nuclear weapon,” Jackson said, sitting as Rubens pulled over a chair.
“You’re here late. It’s going on seven.”
“Really? Being underground means becoming something of a mole.” He smiled to himself at the unintentional pun.
“I wonder if you’d be interested in going to Peru.”
“When?”
“As soon as possible.”
Jackson began thinking of what arrangements he would have to make. His cat needed to be fed — he hated the cat, but it did need to be fed. The plants.
“I’m afraid I can’t go into detail unless you agree to go. You understand.”
“Well, yes. I will go. If you need me.”
“I have to arrange an aircraft first. And other details, such as a cover.”
“What is it you want me to do?”
“The president wants to make sure that the candidate who is benefiting from General Túcume’s money and his apparent maneuverings is aware of that. He wants us to send an unofficial emissary to deliver the information in person.”
“To Hernando Aznar?”
“That’s right. You would present just enough to show the link. And then you would return. We’ll have a bodyguard with you, of course. There should be no personal danger to you, but one never knows in these situations.”
“I would think the candidate would already know that he’s receiving funding from the general,” said Jackson.
“The president is not convinced. And in any event, Aznar would not know that we know. And that it’s going to be made public.”
“So we break the alliance when it’s still vulnerable,” said Jackson, “by putting Aznar on the spot. And best case, he ends up grateful to us, since we warned him.”
He had seen this sort of play before. It could be very effective — or it could fall flat on its face. A lot depended on the person delivering the message.
“Please have some dinner,” added Rubens. “We will get a driver for you, who’ll take you to your home for a light bag, then deliver you to the airplane.”
Rubens turned to go.
“There is one thing,” added Jackson.
“Ambassador?”
“My Meals on Wheels assignment Tuesday.”
“You’ll be back in plenty of time. But just in case, I will arrange for a driver to substitute for you. Please give the contact information to Mr. Montblanc.”
89
The helicopter dropped Dean, Lia, and their prisoner off at a mining complex to the east, dust swirling in the darkness. Two of the paramilitaries stayed behind as well. A team medic had seen to the guerrilla’s knee, cleaning and bandaging the wound after knocking him out with synthetic morphine. It was likely that he would never walk properly again; Dean thought he was getting off easy. Servico was to be delivered to a U.S. Navy cruiser off the coast, part of the advance squadron of the carrier task force headed by the Reagan. His chariot, a Navy Seahawk helicopter that had run a transport sortie to northern Peru as a cover, was due in ten minutes.
The two PMs, or paramilitaries, helping them with the prisoner were former “blanket huggers”—Army Special Forces soldiers. They had gone to work with the CIA after their Army careers; Dean guessed both men were in their forties, not quite as old as he was, but definitely on the “mature” side. Both were taciturn, even for PMs. They stood quietly, each man holding his Colt submachine gun ready as he scanned the desolate landscape of the strip mine with his night glasses.
Servico, propped up against a huge rock nearby, shook off his drug-induced stupor.
“Where are you taking me?” he demanded.
“A helicopter’s coming. It’ll take you to a ship.”
“Then where?”
“That hasn’t been decided,” said Dean. “You seem to be very popular with both the British and the Peruvians.”
Servico’s whole body shook. His voice cracked as he spoke. “I’d prefer to go to the British.”
“You would, huh?” said Dean.
“Send me to Dartmoor,” pleaded Servico, referring to the British prison. While not known as an “easy” jail, it was undoubtedly miles ahead of any place the Peruvians would put him.
“Not up to me,” said Dean.
The guerrilla’s lower lip quivered. Dean studied Servico, aware that he was at the very edge of breaking. His eyes swelled and his mouth hung open, his jaw not entirely under his control. But he managed to pull himself back from the edge, pressing his teeth together and raising his head.
Whatever he was holding on to inside wouldn’t last, Dean knew. It would crumble soon, as the pain and pressure continued to build.
“You want more morphine?” said Dean.
A tear slipped from Servico’s eye, but he shook his head.
“No,” he said.
His stubbornness impressed Dean. He didn’t admire Servico, much less pity him, but recognized the man’s struggle to remain true to what he believed, as misguided as that might be.
“If you cooperate with the Americans,” Dean told him, “they’ll be more likely to give you to Britain than Peru. You understand?”
Servico frowned but then bobbed his head up and down twice.
“You oughta take the morphine now.”
“No.”
“Fair enough.”
Dean walked away, thinking sometimes you had to hold on to whatever you thought would make you whole, even if it was just pain. He walked up the ridge, surveying the area with his glasses. Satisfied they were alone, he found a large rock to sit on. He got a sports bar out of his backpack and nibbled at it, vainly hoping it might restore some of his energy. The adrenaline of the day had washed out of his body. He was beyond tired. His legs felt like they’d been worked over by someone with a baseball bat, and his fingers were cold and stiff.
Lia seemed like a bundle of energy, stalking around the area, taking it upon herself to make sure no one was lurking in the shadows somewhere.
Dean wanted to talk to her, but not about the mission — he wanted to talk to her about a lot of things, but this wasn’t the time or place.
“Mr. Dean, this is Rubens. Lia, are you there?”
“Yes,” she said, coming closer to Dean. He took out his phone, pretending to use it as Rubens continued.
In his usual bureaucratic cadence, Rubens began telling them the PMs would take the prisoner to the Navy ship. Their helicopter was ninety seconds away. The two Deep Black ops would not be joining them. Lia was to continue her mission at Nevas; Tommy Karr was already en route there. And Dean was to go to Lima, where he would meet a special envoy who was to talk with one of the presidential candidates. Civilian helicopters were on their way to pick them up.
Dean watched Lia. She’d been mad at him for helping her at the guerrilla compound, he knew; for coming to rescue her.
Well, tough.
“We’ll be ready,” Dean heard Lia tell Rubens. “And it would be nice if you could get me some new shoes.”
“I’m sure Ms. Telach will see to that.”
“She thinks of everything,” snapped Lia. “Like my mom.”
“You shouldn’t be angry with the Art Room,” Dean told her while they waited for Telach to come back on the line.
“What do you mean?”
“I came for you on my own. I heard you were in trouble, and I came.”
“You left the mission?”
“Tommy didn’t need me. You were in trouble.”
“Bull.”
Telach’s voice boomed in, updating them on Karr. When she told them that the other op had found the place where the nuclear weapon had been, Dean felt a stab of guilt.
What if the weapon had still been in the barn?
He hadn’t really considered that, not really, not thoroughly, not the way he should have. Not t
he way his duty demanded him to.
His duty. Who had a greater call on him? His country or his lover?
The Navy helo appeared above; Dean took up a post in the direction of the road, more for form’s sake than out of any sense of danger.
“Wait,” Dean said, grabbing Lia by the shoulders as she started for the chopper. “We have to straighten this out. You’ve been messed up since Korea.”
“Me?”
“Yeah. Listen, I know that because of what happened you’ve been edgy. And I know I can’t make it better. But I still love you. And—”
“I’m not edgy. And I’m past Korea.” She stopped talking.
“Why are you being so hard?”
“I just am. And you — I can’t believe you did that. I can’t believe you left your mission.”
“What?” he shouted over the whine of the helicopter blades.
“You have to do your job. People are depending on you — an entire damn country. We don’t matter, you and I — we don’t matter.”
“That’s baloney.”
“No, Charlie Dean, that isn’t baloney. That’s what Desk Three is about.” Lia pulled away from his grip so fiercely he couldn’t stop her. “I can take care of myself. Thank you very much.”
Dean put his hand around the barrel of his MP5, tightening it in frustration as if to crush the metal. “I didn’t jeopardize the mission. Tommy had it under control. You were in trouble.”
Lia didn’t answer. Instead, she turned and ran to the helicopter.
90
Certain things become ingrained in a man’s being. Moving through a city, finding the alleys where people would do anything for the right amount of money — these had been an intimate part of Babin’s life for nearly two decades before the accident, and even in his crippled state they were instinctual. The most difficult task was slipping from the hotel suite. But this proved easier than he had expected — the general himself had gone out, and the men guarding the rooms did not think Babin a prisoner.
As indeed he wasn’t. Babin simply rode the elevator to the main floor and went to the concierge, who easily found him a car and driver whose fee could be tacked onto his hotel bill. Once in the car, he was tempted to keep going — to have the driver simply take him to the airport. But Babin had little money, barely enough to accomplish what he wanted to do tonight. A sizable amount of cash waited in Ecuador and more might be gotten from bank accounts, but it all might just as well be back in Russia at the moment.
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