Brilliant New Light (Chance Lyon military adventure series Book 3)

by Van Torrey

  The Honduran President was most anxious for Honduran officials not to be dragged into a potentially messy situation that involved terrorists from the pariah state of North Korea. Ambassador Sandoval indicated Yim had escaped to his country after perpetrating a murderous act and was possibly being aided by Cubans, with whom Honduras had an arms-length, but civil relationship. The Honduran President wanted nothing to do with the Castro brothers or their potential successors. The last thing the Honduran president wanted was the Cubans making mischief in his backyard. Such a situation was a potential minefield for a small country like Honduras that had such a small footprint on the international stage. “Senora Ambassador,” El Presidente stated, “you may take care of this matter with your own people as long as it is done quietly and out of the view of the media here. We do not want trouble with these terrorists. Please arrest this man quickly and get him quietly out of this country with no publicity, and no public pronouncement that he was ever here.”

  *

  The Honduran Dock Master was about to leave for town to run errands when two men he had not seen before pulled up in a military vehicle to the locked gate separating the marina from the sidewalk leading downtown. The men were wearing military uniforms and carrying side arms. “Senor Olivarez, are you the Dock Master?” one of the men asked.

  “Si senor, how may I help you?”

  “Open the gate, senor, and take us to your office,” commanded the officer, with no preliminary pleasantries.

  The Dock Master had seen many things in his twenty years of managing the municipal dock in Puerto Cortes. Sport fishermen, dive boats, pleasure yachts, and commercial vessels such as the Colon came and went, some helping the economy of the town by buying provisions and fuel, some stopping just to take a break from the Caribbean Sea. Occasionally a coastal patrol boat from the Honduran Coast Guard docked for no apparent reason. There was seldom any trouble from any of these visitors, but today was different.

  “Senor Oliverez, what do you know about the Colon? Who is her Captain and what is her business here?” asked the highest ranking officer, who seemed to be a colonel in the Honduran Army.

  Coming so quickly on the visit of the mysterious Yim, this couldn’t be a coincidence. He had spoken to no one about Yim’s visit, so how could these men have arrived so quickly? Oliverez wondered.

  The men spent the next fifteen minutes discussing the presence of the Colon and what Oliverez knew of her captain. When they finished, the Colonel made several calls on his cell telephone out of earshot of the Dock Master. When he returned he spoke with authority to the Dock Master. “Senor, until further notice, this dock is quarantined. There will be no movement of boats either in or out of the marina and anyone leaving the dock to go to town must show their passport and tourist visa to the guard who will be posted at the gate. A Coast Guard patrol boat will enforce the boat traffic restriction. That is all.”

  There was no mention of or questions about a Korean by the name of Yim.

  *

  The municipal officials in Puerto Cortes had seen the Texaco helicopters come and go many times and had been told by high officials in the government to leave the men alone who came and went from the refinery. The refinery was a huge asset to the regional economy and a cash cow for the select few in the national government who benefitted from the largesse of the oil company that dispensed favors and occasional cash for unhindered access. It was simply the way of doing business in many third world countries.

  The same Honduran Army Colonel who had interviewed the Dock Master earlier in the day went to the security gate of the refinery and asked to see the manager on a “matter of routine business.” It seemed they “needed information about an ex-employee, nothing serious, purely routine”.

  In the privacy of the General Manager’s private office, the Colonel revealed he was here at the direction of the Office of the President to provide assistance to any “distinguished visitors who might have arrived recently”.

  Lyon had been informed by text from the FBI that he and Olyphant were going to receive full cooperation from the Honduran authorities in the apprehension of Yim, but this had to be done quietly under the cover of night. Yim had to be removed from Honduran territory quickly, with no footprints. This would have to be a classic Navy SEAL snatch-and-grab operation with no embarrassment to the Honduran government.

  Lyon, Olyphant, and the Honduran Army Colonel met in the refinery manager’s office with each man cautiously sizing up the other in an attempt to establish mutual confidence. The Colonel was a veteran of over twenty years in the military, fighting guerrilla insurgents, drug cartels, and criminals involved in human trafficking. He quickly established that Chance Lyon and Blackie Olyphant were seasoned veterans and no amateurs at their job.

  “Senor Lyon, I have instructions to get you and your colleague stealthily on to the marina dock. The rest is up to you. My government prefers no gunfire or any disturbance that might become public knowledge. Once you have your captive, we will escort you back to the refinery. We prefer you leave immediately to another location outside Honduras. If we can accomplish this, I think our mutual goals will have been met.”

  “Thank you Colonel,” answered Chance. “When it gets dark, we will be ready to go. I think you can count on getting a good night’s sleep with no one suspecting anything out of the ordinary.”

  *

  Lyon and Olyphant left the refinery at twenty-two hundred hours in two Honduran Army Humvees moving along the deserted streets to the marina. Military vehicles at any hour were a common sight in a country where most of the major law enforcement was done by the Army.

  When the convoy arrived at the gate to the marina, the officer-in-charge of the military escort relieved the soldier at the gate and replaced him with two guards in civilian clothes armed with concealed side arms. After the lights on the marina dock were killed, Lyon and Olyphant entered the marina through the gate and headed directly for the Colon bathed in moonlight. Both men were dressed in black tactical clothing, wearing balaclavas over their faces, and carrying silenced SIG-Sauer P-226’s which had been obtained from the CIA pilot of the helicopter.

  The two men made their way to the starboard of the Colon with Lyon moving toward the bow and Olyphant staying at the stern. The two Americans silently waited and listened for any signs that the crew might still be awake. The Dock Master had revealed the Colon only carried the Captain and three crewmen, who stayed aboard at night drinking and playing cards. Tonight, at twenty-three hundred hours, there was no sign of activity on the Colon.

  Chance Lyon had no clear idea where Yim might be on the ship. He reasoned that the Captain’s quarters were immediately behind the bridge, and that was where he and Olyphant headed. So far they were fifteen minutes into the operation on the marina, and they had not been detected.

  Even at night on the creaking dock, the muggy warm air hung over the Colon like an invisible fog. When the Americans made it to the Captain’s quarters they found the door open, an invitation for any stray breeze to enter and provide some comfort in the stifling interior. In the absence of air conditioning an electric fan battled the oppressive dead air of the cabin while the snoring of Orcharo punctuated the darkness. Lyon and Olyphant turned their night vision goggles to the ‘dark’ setting and the room immediately erupted into an eerie flood of green-lit clutter to their eyes. In the midst of it all was Captain Orcharo sleeping noisily. With a hand signal, Olyphant went to the door to provide security while Lyon knelt down next to Orcharo’s bed and prepared to wake him.

  Lyon placed the muzzle of his P-226 next to Orcharo’s face and gently shook him. Orcharo’s breath reeked with a combination of alcohol and tobacco smoke as he fought subconsciously against wakefulness. But he quickly snorted loudly in acquiescence and his bloodshot eyes batted grudgingly awake to confront the horrible apparition of a face shrouded in a mask barely a foot away holding what looked to be a gun only inches from his face. Orcharo’s eyes widened in fear as Chance Lyon greete
d him in a stage whisper, “Buenas noches, motherfucker. Do not make a sound, or you will die right here.”

  Lyon let his threatening presence sink in with the terrified Captain and then continued, “We are here for your passenger, Mr. Yim. Where is he? Take me to him silently, and you will not be hurt. Make any noise, and you will die.”

  Orcharo was now fully awake and was close to total comprehension as he struggled to rise against the force of Lyon’s hand on his chest. “I...I cannot see, senor. Who are you?”

  “Never mind, asshole. Just take me to Yim and you can go back to sleep. All we want is Yim.”

  Lyon took out a small flashlight with a red filter on the lens that provided enough light for Orcharo to get his bearings. Wearing only a pair of boxer shorts, Orcharo stood and nervously attempted to take inventory of his situation. The man who woke him was bad enough, but when he encountered the hulking Olyphant with his fearsome ski mask and one of his eyes covered with a black patch blocking the door, he finally understood the urgent seriousness of his situation. Tonight he was possibly going to die!

  “Where is Yim?” Lyon hissed, waving the automatic pistol in the face of the shaking Captain.

  “He has a bed off the galley,” replied Orcharo quickly. “I will take you there.”

  “Silently...silently, Captain, or you will die a painful death!” reminded Lyon.

  “Madre de Dios!’ whispered Orcharo as he strode barefoot to the door leading to the deck.

  The thoroughly cowed Orcharo led Lyon and Olyphant back to the ship’s galley and pointed silently at the door leading from the deck. “Open it...quietly,” admonished Chance as he pointed the SIG P226 at the Captain’s head for emphasis.

  A dim light from the galley provided some illumination to the room and the Captain silently pointed to something covered with a blanket on a cot against the wall. Lyon gave a hand-signal to Olyphant, who approached the figure on the bed. Olyphant gently pulled the cover back exposing the Korean sleeping on his side. Chance pointed at the sleeping man and asked the Captain with his eyes if that was Yim. Orcharo nodded vigorously in response.

  Olyphant took a rag from his pocket and sprinkled liquid on it from a flask he produced from his tactical vest. He took a whiff, quickly pulling his head back in reaction. He nodded to Chance, who gave him a thumbs up. Olyphant leaned over the sleeping Yim and plunged the liquid-soaked rag into the face of the unsuspecting man. At first Yim struggled mightily against his attacker, but in seconds his body went slack as he involuntarily rolled over on his back, totally anesthetized. Wasting no time, Olyphant stood up and strode over to Captain Orcharo, grabbed him by his hair and roughly placed the rag to his face as well. In a few seconds Orcharo slumped to the floor in a deep sleep from which he would not recover for hours.

  “Should have killed the fucker,” muttered Olyphant.

  Just thirty minutes into the operation Lyon and Olyphant strode down the dock with Yim slung over Olyphant’s broad shoulders, dead to the world and facing harsh questioning when he awoke.

  When the men arrived at the marina gate, Chance greeted the convoy commander, “Sir, if you will escort us back to the refinery, we have what we came for. Thank you for your assistance, and please pay my respects to your colonel.”

  Forty-five minutes later the Bell JetRanger lifted off the helicopter landing pad of the Texaco refinery heading for El Salvador. It was not exactly how Yim had visualized being rescued from the Colon, but sometimes life makes sudden turns. Yim would never make it back to Cuba. He was destined to live a very lonely life in solitary confinement at Supermax in Florence, Colorado.

  CHAPTER 26

  CONFRONTING THE FHANG

  “A bad neighbor is a misfortune, as much as a good one is a great blessing.’

  Hesiod (Ancient Greek poet)

  *

  After Secretary Randolph and Ambassador Bledsoe were excused from the meeting with the Premier of the People’s Republic of China, the Premier asked Foreign Minister Yang to stay behind. “Please stay and have tea with me, Minister.” The Premier continued to speak formally to his Foreign Minister, “We must speak of the American’s strongly held feelings about what they see as abuse and misbehavior on the part of our North Korean cousins.”

  As a servant arranged the elaborate tea setting in respectful silence, the Premier rose from his seat and walked unsteadily to the large picture window that allowed him to view the perfectly manicured garden two stories below. Several men and women, all dressed identically in green jumpsuits tended the vast expanse of garden with great care, leaving nothing but floral perfection in their wake. Seeing such beauty gave the aging Premier a sense of order and peace as he imagined a China finally at peace with her neighbors and enjoying the self-respect born of China’s emergence as a world power, having to bow to no one. It had been a long journey to this point from the dark days of the warlords and feudal societies. This was the “new China” that his father had predicted when he was a child.

  The Premier returned to the sitting area off his office as the servant poured the tea and took his silent leave. “What was your impression of the conference today, Minister Yang?” the Premier asked heavily. “The American President seems deeply troubled by these revelations.”

  Minister Yang put down his centuries-old, ornately decorated ceramic tea cup with great care and thought for a moment before answering. “Premier, the Americans are showing a restraint born of bitter experience that has matured their thinking. Not so many years ago in my remembrance, they may have reacted far differently and with indiscriminate violence.”

  “To what do you attribute that change of heart?” asked the Premier.

  “Perhaps it is the woman...the woman president. I met her once at the United Nations after she had left government and was president of the Stanford University. We spoke for quite some time and I was impressed by the fact she wanted to talk exclusively about China, our people, and our political leaders. She was very charming and quite natural, with no pretense. When I asked her about her former role in America’s intelligence service, she simply smiled and said that was all behind her now. “Now I am interested in developing the intelligence of our students, many of whom are natives of your country”, is what she said.”

  The Premier said nothing in reply, but nodded in understanding, showing a slight smile. After a silent moment he said, “I am worried about our cousins, the North Koreans,” he said. “I was not fond of the Chongs and only met the elder when I was a young student visiting there a few years after the war. This new man, General Fhang Jhai, seems intent on carving something out of nothing. I am concerned that no one in China seems to know him. In international relations, as in life itself, it is bad policy not to know your neighbors.”

  “Yes, Premier, even though we are very much stronger than the DPRK militarily, it is not so much the military situation that concerns me. We have a common border that stretches over fourteen-hundred kilometers. When the Chongs were in power, we had occasions where many refugees from North Korea swarmed across the river to seek asylum in Manchuria. This border remains a large potential problem for us if there were to be an uprising or a national crisis in North Korea, such as a war on the peninsula. We cannot be burdened with the many refugees who would overwhelm our border security in such an event.”

  “Yes, I am aware of this and, as you know, we are building physical barriers on our side of the Yalu River to discourage desperate North Koreans from trying to cross and come into China. But fourteen-hundred kilometers is a very long distance, and the costs in money and manpower are very burdensome on our economy.”

  “But what more can we do, Premier?”

  “Minister Yang, I feel caught between two opposing forces and am uncomfortable with this. On the economic side, we cannot afford to alienate the United States as a business and trading partner. They are a very good customer of our exports, and we need them to continue to infuse capital into our economy to bolster their manufacturing base in Asia. Compared to
them, North Korea is nothing! On the other hand, the raw materials we get from North Korea cannot be acquired anywhere else at twice our net cost. Coal, uranium, iron ore, timber - these are also vital to our economy. If we did not buy these commodities their fragile economy would collapse and the refugee problem we just discussed would overwhelm us.”

  The servant arrived once again and silently refilled their tea and quickly glided away.

  The Premier continued, this time more animated, “If the regime in North Korea collapsed, the South Koreans, with the help of the Americans, would take over their country within a year and now we would have to deal with a unified Korea, led by the South Korean political leadership and their economic power as our border neighbor. This could present problems greater than we now have. As problematic as it is, I would rather have North Korea on our doorstep and as a buffer to the South Koreans...if we can get General Fhang under control.”

  ‘So, Premier, what answer do you want me to give the Americans when they return tomorrow?”

  “The old days of China confronting America are behind us, Minister Yang. I believe we have to work together with them to bring the North Koreans to heel. The bottom line for me is that our improving economic and political relationship with the United States is far more important than getting the chaos that is North Korea more to our liking. I would counsel you to show the Americans we will work with them to better understand the situation in North Korea and work together to improve it without being disruptive to China’s best interests. It will work to our mutual benefit.”

  Yang had risen to the lofty position of Foreign Minister of China by being adept at interpreting the often formal and subtle pronouncements of the Premier when it came to his views on the direction China’s foreign policy should take. The Premier was a wise strategist who took the long view on policies of this new, emerging China. He counted on Foreign Minister Yang to tactically implement his strategy in a formal, nuanced way that would benefit China by making her seem like an ally to all, rather than an impediment to progress. Yang listened carefully to the premier and knew he would have to walk a tightrope to deal with the North Koreans in a way his Premier would approve of.