William Christie 02 - Mercy Mission

by William Christie

  As the bus rolled south, Scanlan said, "You know, I've been wanting to ask you. What did you do to that bruiser back in the bar? Before you hit him with the chair, that is."

  Welsh looked around before answering, but there was no one within earshot. "Kicked him in the kneecap."

  "Why?"

  "Why? Because your Mom was wrong, violence does solve everything."

  "No, really, I think it's great learning all this stuff. Tell me, why the knee?"

  "Are you kidding?"

  "No," she insisted, laughing nervously. "This is all new to me, and I really want to know."

  Welsh looked into her bright, shining eyes and thought: adrenaline junkie. Nice American girl, business professional, she'd had a little taste and now she was hooked. Most military officers, by contrast, weren't. The emphasis was always on how to get the job done in the least dramatic fashion without getting yourself or your people hurt. He moved in close, so he was talking right in her ear. "Hit a three-hundred-pound goon in the ribs with a baseball bat and watch him laugh at you. Take out a knee and his NFL career is over. And if I hadn't got my hands on a chair, I would have smashed their testicles, fractured their larynxes, or ripped out their eyeballs. That's why they're in the hospital getting fed through straws instead of us."

  "Hey, don't get mad."

  "I'm not getting mad. I just want you to wake up and realize what the fuck's going on. Compared to what the Guatemalans can throw at us, those two were fucking Mouseketeers."

  "I am taking this seriously. If you recall, I'm the one who had the pepper spray."

  "Then I could just as well ask you why you had the pepper spray?"

  "Because the men down here never learned to take no for an answer."

  Despite his best efforts, Welsh felt a smile creep onto his face. He filed that away for any time the word no might come up in conversation.

  Every time the bus stopped, Welsh checked everyone who got on and off. Soon there were all new faces, which was exactly what he wanted to see. He and Scanlan got off in south Guatemala City.

  They walked three blocks to another modem office building. The lobby was an open atrium that could be observed from balconies circling the inside of the second and third floors. Welsh had the name of a company ready for the security guard who challenged them.

  He looked at his watch. "Go ahead and make the call," he told Scanlan.

  "Me calling him," she said. "You should have heard the screaming when I sprang that on him."

  "But he went for it."

  "He went for it. He's desperate to meet you." Scanlan picked up the pay phone and dialed. When she was done, they went up to the second floor to watch the entrance.

  "We're not so much looking for him," said Welsh, "as guys in good physical condition who'll arrive either before or after him. They'll be in twos and threes, and in a hurry. Maybe flashing badges at the security guard."

  "And what do we do if they show up?"

  "Get the hell out of here."

  "And leave Booker?"

  "Damn straight. We showed up clean. They'll be his problem." Welsh turned to look at her. "That's the way it's played."

  "Okay, okay."

  Welsh kept one eye on the entrance and the other on his watch. About fifteen minutes after the call, a lanky middle-aged man carrying a briefcase came through the doors and almost sprinted across the lobby to the elevators.

  "That's Booker," Scanlan said.

  Welsh waited for another fifteen minutes. No one who entered the building made him suspicious. "Okay," he said. "Let's go up and meet the man."

  They took the elevator to the top floor, and then the stairway to the roof.

  It was his second trip up, and Welsh still thought the stairwell smelled like the rats held a dance there every night. The roof door was normally locked. On his visit the previous day, Welsh had jimmied the lock. The movies might delight in depicting high-tech burglar tools, but the true thief knew there were few things a crowbar wouldn't open. Welsh arranged for the bolt to stay retracted into the door with the help of some super glue and a small-denomination coin as a shim. After that the door only looked locked.

  Welsh knocked twice, paused, and then knocked twice again. The door opened an inch, and then a little wider as the man behind it looked Welsh over. Then it opened all the way and they both walked up, squinting in the bright sunlight.

  The truth be told, Welsh had been expecting Booker to be wearing a tailored linen safari suit, solid gold Thai bhat chains, and mirrored sunglasses. But he turned out to be a bald, skinny redneck in his early fifties, dressed in blue jeans, expensive cowboy boots, and a flashy silk shirt. He did have the gold Rolex, though. Booker was one of those bony guys with angular shoulders, arms that hung down to his knees, and absolutely no ass. But he was also pointing a Colt .45 automatic very confidently at Welsh's head.

  "Friend," he said to Welsh. "I hate to get off on the wrong foot, but I'd appreciate it if you'd take out your passport, real slow so's I don't have to blow your head off, and put it down in front of you. Then lace your fingers together behind your head and take a couple of steps back."

  Welsh did what he was told.

  Keeping his pistol on them, Booker checked the passport. Then he reached into his jeans pocket and took out a small plastic box smaller than a pack of cigarettes. He extended a thin antenna with his teeth. "Real sorry about putting you to all this trouble," he kept saying as he aimed the antenna up and down at Welsh and Scanlan. Satisfied, he closed the antenna and slipped the box back in his pocket.

  "This is the second time he's done that to me," Scanlan said to Welsh. "And he won't say why."

  Welsh knew, and it wasn't a bad opportunity to let Booker know he wasn't dealing with a putz. "He was checking to see if we're wired. His little box is a bug detector. The kind of wire microphone you hide on your body transmits a signal. The box detects a radio frequency field. That's what his apology was for, to make any voice-activated bug transmit. The bias oscillator in a recorder emits a detectable energy field too. The box is a little more civilized than having us strip down to our skivvies."

  "I'm a civilized fellow," said Booker. "And you're a right smart young man."

  "Of course," said Welsh, "I'm sure the fact that there are self-powered bugs smaller than a dime, which you might miss in a search, had nothing to do with your decision."

  Booker engaged the safety on the .45 and slid it back into his belt. "Okay," he said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. "No hard feelings. I knew you wouldn't screw me, Maggie."

  "Thanks," Scanlan said dryly.

  Welsh was keeping an open mind, but there was nothing about Booker that he liked so far.

  "Now, Maggie," Booker said. "I'd be eternally grateful if you'd go over and watch the stairs while I have a few minutes alone with this young fellow."

  "Now wait just a minute," Scanlan said. Welsh hadn't seen her that angry, and in a perverse way it was kind of amusing.

  "Right next to the door," said Booker, leaving no room for argument.

  Scanlan went over to the stairwell, talking under her breath. Welsh couldn't quite make it out, but it sounded neither clean nor complimentary to the male gender.

  Booker led him over to some noisy shade beside an air conditioning unit, checking him out all the way. "You look good," he said. "You look just like a tall Guat."

  "How long do we have to talk?" Welsh asked, sitting down.

  "Hell, all day," Booker said gleefully. He gestured toward his open briefcase.

  Welsh took a peek inside. He'd seen that piece of equipment before, being used by Marine Corps radio battalion reconnaissance teams. It was a communications receiver, a handheld unit that scanned the communications spectrum and picked up every radio set transmitting within range. It was connected by cable to a notebook computer. Spanish voices could be heard through the notebook's speakers. "Looks to me like someone out there is talking on encrypted radios, your computer is set up for their cryptographic so
ftware, and it's breaking today's key setting so you can listen in."

  "Didn't I say you were smart?" said Booker. "Been listening to your surveillance talking to each other all morning. And you were just slicker'n snot on a doorknob. They still aren't sure whether you lost them on purpose or they lost you by accident. They're on the other side of town right now, trying to figure it out."

  Booker had one of those rumbling Southern smoker's voices, pure phlegm. Welsh thought it sounded as if he might cough up a lung at any moment. "They weren't very good," he said.

  "They weren't expecting you to be. But next time they'll be ready. So don't let your guard down."

  "I won't."

  "Say, you and Maggie must have hit it off; she seems to have taken quite a shine to you."

  Welsh didn't know what the son of a bitch was fishing for, but he wasn't going to indulge him. "How did you happen to meet her?"

  "She came nosing around a while back, and I thought I ought to get in touch with her."

  "Why?"

  "She wants to know what happened to her brother, and I want to get the fuck out of Guatemala. She's some pretty nice tail, isn't she? You gettin' any of that?"

  The guy was an asshole, but he'd finally come to the point, and it wasn't the time to talk about manners. "So why don't you go catch a flight?" Welsh asked.

  Booker's smile had thinned out considerably. "If it was as easy as that, I would."

  "Well, what's the problem?"

  "The problem, Rich—you don't mind if I call you Rich, do you?" Welsh didn't respond; Booker took that as a yes. "The problem, Rich, is that if I tried to leave, the people I work with would get the idea I was going to fuck them."

  "You just described your problem," Welsh said calmly. "And why I probably shouldn't be here talking with you. So why don't you give me a reason to stay here and chat?"

  "You don't strike me as the timid type. And I can help you out."

  "Out of the goodness of your heart? What a guy."

  "All right now, I'd expect you to help me out in return."

  "But I'm just a Senator's aide. Why don't you try the U.S. Embassy? The State Department is supposed to help Americans in trouble overseas, even though I've never heard of them actually doing it." Despite the situation, Welsh was almost enjoying himself.

  Booker maintained his equanimity. "Rich, it just so happens that a Senator's aide is exactly what I need."

  "I'm all ears, Tom."

  "Your Senator is hot to know who killed those Marines. Not only can I tell him who, but I can give him proof."

  "And you'll provide all this service in return for a plane ride home?"

  "And immunity from prosecution," Booker added.

  "Immunity from being prosecuted for what?" Welsh inquired.

  "Let's say anything that might have happened during my years down here in Guatemala."

  Welsh just started laughing.

  "Hey, Rich, that's not nice."

  "Maybe not," said Welsh, "but it was funnier than shit. You want a free ride on all your death-squad work and drug trafficking on your ranch?"

  Booker's face dropped about a foot. "How the fuck do you know all that?" he screeched.

  "Not to mention the murders of three Marines," Welsh added. "Your high-speed code-breaking computer systern just put it all together for me, Tom. I read the record book of your drinking buddy, the late Corporal Brian Richardson. His MOS was 2631, uncommon enough for me to get curious and look it up in the military occupational specialty manual. He was a Non-Morse Electronic Intelligence Intercept Operator/Analyst. Which means the Corps trained him to intercept communications, just like you're doing right now, with equipment you didn't buy at Radio Shack."

  Booker's hands were trembling. He shook a cigarette out of a pack, and it took two matches to get it lit. His face was sunburned and deeply lined; his forehead was scored horizontally, and the crevices on each side of his mouth looked half an inch deep. "Okay, Rich," he said glumly. "What's the deal?"

  "How can I tell you what it's worth until you tell me the story?" Welsh asked reasonably.

  "Dam-nation," Booker exclaimed. "The Guats think you're some shithead gringo college boy. Rich, you're a fucking shark. But you know what? That makes me feel good. I think you're nasty enough to get me out of here." He peered up innocently at Welsh. "Say, who else knows what you know about me?"

  "It's not public knowledge," said Welsh. "But if you think your problems are over if I have some kind of fatal accident, you're sadly mistaken."

  "That's not what I meant," Booker protested.

  "Sure," said Welsh.

  Booker smiled for the first time in a while, and Welsh was nearly blinded by the sun flashing off his dentures, definitely not a product of U.S. dental technology. "Nasty," Booker said. "I like that. Okay, Rich, I'll tell you the story."

  "Try to keep any self-serving bullshit down to a minimum. I don't give a shit about all the good reasons you did what you did. All I'm interested in is accurate information."

  "Whatever you say." Booker's initial cheerfulness had pretty well evaporated. "This used to be a hell of a country, Rich," he said without a trace of irony. "All the shit that was going on in the U.S. when I left, they weren't about to let it happen down here. And you could live like a king on an Army pension." He shook his head. "The Guats ran the place as they damned well pleased, and as long as the Russians and Cubans were running around making trouble, they got away with it. Even if they went a little wild and Congress hit 'em with an arms embargo, the CIA was still here no matter what. Whatever they couldn't supply under the table they arranged for the Israelis to take care of.

  "Then things changed. I mean, the U.S. always talked human rights, but then they fucking mean it. Maggie's brother gets killed and the Ambassador says someone has to go to jail. First time Army officers ever went on trial for anything. CIA starts taking it up the ass for everything they did down here. You know, Rich, the Guats never could stand us, thought we were a pain in the ass, but they knew they couldn't get along without us."

  Welsh was preparing to intervene if Booker didn't get to the point.

  "So I was out on the town one night, and I run into Richardson. The kid's drunk, and he gets to blabbing about what he does in the Marine Corps. I was a communicator myself, so I know what he's talking about. We hit it off; the kid likes to brag. I'm thinking, maybe some people I know down here would like to meet him. They're worried about the way their own government is going. They're worried about the U.S. leaving them hanging, or worse. Maybe they did a little business with some Colombians or some Mexicans, just as a sideline. Los Zetas in Mexico were all army guys, too. And the CIA turned a blind eye because making sure the country didn't go communist was the main thing. And now that's not the main thing anymore, are they going to get double-crossed; you know, grabbed by the DEA and flown north? The U.S. supplies all their communications gear, which means the U.S. listens in whenever they want.

  "I talk to the Guats. They're interested. Then I talk to Richardson. He's interested. It wasn't like I had to twist his arm," Booker said defensively.

  "Was it just him, or were there others?"

  "Just him. We didn't need anyone else. Richardson's specialty was intercepting people's communications. What made him valuable was that he knew exactly what the U.S. could do. And he knew what kind of equipment the Guats needed to stop that, and where to get it. Unlike in my day, it's all software now. You can get encryption software, unbreakable stuff, right online. Integrate it with the right hardware, wire everything into your radios and cell phones, and no one is going to be listening in when you're talking. The kid made himself a real nice piece of change."

  "And they killed him to shut him up," said Welsh.

  "No," Booker insisted. "Nothing like that."

  "But he did get killed," Welsh pointed out.

  Booker shrugged, as if those things sometimes happened. "The kid was a crooked Boy Scout. Now, you can be crooked, or you can be a Boy Scout, but a com
bination is always trouble. Richardson was willing to help the Guats put together a communications system the U.S. couldn't break into. He did. They loved it. But then they wanted him to help them break into U.S. communications. Not the Embassy or CIA traffic to Washington, you understand; they knew that was impossible. But Embassy, CIA, and DEA cell phones and walkie-talkies. He wouldn't do it. They wanted him to bug the CIA and DEA offices in the Embassy. He's a security guard, walks around all night with the keys, right? No way.

  "The Guats are not people who take no graciously. Now, you understand, I'm being honest with you, Rich. I was getting damned worried. I brought the kid on board. He goes over the falls, maybe he takes me with him."

  Try as he might, Welsh just couldn't seem to generate any sympathy for him.

  "Okay," said Booker. "I knew right from the start how the Guats operate, and that we needed to protect ourselves. So when Richardson rigged up their phones and radios, he also bugged them."

  "He what?" said Welsh.

  "When he put the scramblers on the cell phones he did something that turned the whole fucking phone into one big microphone. So if you had the right equipment you could record the phone calls and what everyone was saying in the room. And you could do it from a long way off. Even if the phone isn't turned on, the bug is. The battery doesn't last as long, but you'd never notice that."

  Welsh didn't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out where Scanlan's sample tape had come from.

  "It was a perfect deal," said Booker. "We were covered all around. Then Richardson gets too smart for his own fucking good. He'd already held the Guats up for more money than they ever intended to pay him. Then he decides he'll sell the recordings from the bugs back to the Guats. No matter we'd both listened to the tape where they talked about killing him if he kept pissing them off. He did it without consulting me, Rich. Kid was crazy; thought he was going to make enough to retire. Two days later he was dead."

  "And the other Marines?" Welsh asked.

  "They just happened to be in the way."

  So it hadn't been some kind of meticulously planned strategic-level covert operation to restart the civil war or influence U.S. policy, thought Welsh. Just a grubby little piece of minor-league treason for money to help a few people cover their asses; it must have seemed like nothing but a money-making opportunity without consequences to Richardson. "Don't take this wrong, but why are you still alive?" Welsh asked.