Black Ops

by W. E. B Griffin

  Görner got his emotions under control to the point where he was able to say, in a reasonably civil voice, “Thank you.”

  Delchamps followed Castillo through the office door, touched his arm, and softly said, “I presume you know, Ace, that cutting out someone’s eye is Middle East speak—and, come to think of it, Sicilian—for This is what happens to people who get caught looking at things they shouldn’t.”

  Castillo nodded, then said, “But setting up something like this to look as if it’s a homosexual love affair gone wrong isn’t Middle East speak, is it?”

  “That may have been a message to your Onkel Otto,” Delchamps said. “You keep sending people to look at things they shouldn’t be looking at, and the way we take them out will humiliate their families and the Tages Zeitung.”

  Castillo considered that a moment, then nodded.

  “Billy, can I see you a moment?” he said, and mimed holding a telephone to his ear.

  Kocian came back into the kitchen ten minutes later, which told Castillo that he had subjected Otto Görner to a thorough interrogation, which in turn meant Kocian knew all the sordid details of his friend’s death. But there was nothing on his face to suggest anything unpleasant.

  He’s one tough old bastard, Castillo thought admiringly.

  Doña Alicia was more perceptive.

  “Not bad news, I hope, Billy?” she asked.

  “I’m afraid so. A dear friend has passed on unexpectedly.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” Doña Alicia said. “And at Christmastime!”

  “I’ll have to go to the funeral, of course,” Kocian said, and looked at Castillo. “How much of an inconvenience for you would it be, Karlchen, if we went to Germany very soon—say, tomorrow—rather than after New Year’s?”

  “That can be arranged, I’m sure,” Castillo said, adding mentally, because I know, and you know I know, just how quickly the Hungarian charm would vanish if I even looked like I was going to suggest it would be “inconvenient.”

  “You’re very kind, Karlchen. You get that from your mother.” Kocian paused. “I refuse to let my personal loss cast a pall on everybody else’s Christmas. So while you’re making the necessary arrangements, I will open an absolutely superb bottle of wine from a vineyard that was once the property of the Esterhazys.”

  [THREE]

  Colonel Jacob D. Torine, United States Air Force, answered his cellular telephone on the third buzz.

  “Torine.”

  “Merry Christmas, Jake. How would you like to go to Germany?”

  “That would depend on when,” Torine replied, and belatedly added, “And Merry Christmas to you, too, Charley.”

  “Early tomorrow morning. Something’s come up.”

  “You want me to get on a secure line?”

  “I’ll explain when I see you.”

  “This is going to cost me two hundred dollars,” Torine said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “At dinner, I said something to the effect that it was nice, for a change, to be home for the holidays, to which my bride replied, ‘I’ve got a hundred dollars that says you won’t be here through New Year’s Day,’ to which I replied, ‘Oh, I think I will be,’ to which she replied, ‘Double down if the phone rings before we’re finished with dinner.’”

  “I’m sorry, Jake. If it’s a real problem, I can get Miller to come down from Philly.”

  “Thank you just the same, but I don’t want to have to explain to your boss why I wasn’t driving—and you and Gimpy were—when you got lost, ran out of gas, and put the bird down in the North Atlantic, never to be seen again. I’ll be at Signature at half past seven. That will mean I will have to tear Sparkman, weeping piteously, from the bosom of his beloved, but that can’t be helped.”

  “I thought you said he wasn’t married?”

  “He’s not. What’s that got to do with anything, Don Juan?”

  Castillo caught the crack, smiled, but ignored it. He instead replied, “Do it, Jake. It’s important we get to Rhine-Main.”

  “I have told you and told you, Colonel, that Rhine-Main is only a memory of our youth. I’ll have Sparkman file a flight plan to Flughafen Frankfurt am Main.”

  “I’m really sorry to have to do this to you, Jake.”

  “Yeah,” Torine said, and broke the connection.

  Captain Richard M. Sparkman, USAF, was the most recent addition to OOA. After five years flying an AC-130H Spectre gunship in the Air Force Special Operations Command, he had been reassigned to the Presidential Airlift Group, 89th Airlift Wing, based at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland.

  His superiors—the ones in the Pentagon, not those at Hurlburt Field, home of the AF Special Operations Command—had decided that it was time to rescue him from those regulation-busting special operations savages and bring him back to the real Air Force. He was, after all, an Air Force Academy graduate, and stars were in his future.

  It was solemnly decided that flying very important people—very senior military officers and high-ranking government officials—around in a C-20, the Air Force’s designation for the Gulfstream III, would broaden his experience and hopefully cause him to forget the outrageously unconventional things he had learned and practiced in special operations.

  When he had politely asked if he had any choice in the matter, he was politely told he did not and advised that down the line he would appreciate what was being done for him.

  Shortly after he’d begun seriously contemplating resigning his commission—sitting in the right seat of a G-III and flying a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Whatever around was not what he’d had in mind when he applied for the academy—he’d run into Colonel Jacob Torine again.

  Torine was sort of a legend in the Air Force Special Operations community. Sparkman had flown his Spectre in a black mission that Torine had run in Central America, and had come to greatly admire him. So when he’d come across Torine again, he’d told him of his frustrations—and of his thoughts of getting out to go fly commercial passenger airliners. “If I’m flying taxis, I might as well make some money at it.”

  Torine, as one ring-knocker to another, had counseled him against that.

  And Sparkman had taken the advice, and some time later wound up then and again in the right seat of a Gulfstream V that ostensibly “belonged” to Director of National Intelligence Charles W. Montvale, though he’d yet to meet the man or have him on board.

  Sparkman had heard that when Torine later had been given command of a wing of Lockheed Martin C-5B Galaxy aircraft, he had been as enthusiastic about it as Sparkman had been when ordered to park his AC-130H and get in the right seat of a Gulfstream, even though a colonel’s eagle had come with Torine’s reassignment.

  And small wonder, Sparkman had thought, considering what Torine had to leave behind.

  It wasn’t much of a secret that Torine had been in charge of the Air Force’s contribution to the Army’s Delta Force and the even more clandestine Gray Fox unit. Nor was it super secret that a certain C-22, the Air Force designation for the Boeing 727, sat in a heavily guarded hangar at Pope Air Force Base, which adjoins Fort Bragg, North Carolina. This aircraft had been extensively modified; it was whispered to have almost twice the range of the standard 727, was capable of being refueled in the air—and had a passenger compartment that could be depressurized at 35,000 feet so that Delta Force and Gray Fox special operators could make undetected high-altitude, low-opening (HALO) parachute jumps.

  It also was rumored that in two hours, the so-called Delta Force 727 could be painted in the color scheme of any airline in the world.

  Sparkman thought that that seemed a bit over the top—a two-hour paint job?—but he had never seen the aircraft, so he didn’t know for sure anything about it, save that a Delta Force 727 existed.

  But he believed another story going around: that Torine had used the aircraft in a black op in which another 727, a stolen one, had been recovered from a fanatic Islamic group that planned to demonstrate its disapproval o
f everything American by crashing the fuel-bladder-packed aircraft into the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia.

  Sparkman did know a little about that. He had been the co-pilot on a Gulfstream flight that had flown a hurry-up mission to take the Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force to MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa.

  As they taxied to MacDill Base Operations, Sparkman had seen a great deal of unusual activity on the field. Yellow fire trucks had lined the main runway, and that implied an aircraft in trouble. But alongside the fire trucks were a half-dozen HUMVs manned by airfield Security Forces. Not only were there .50-caliber machine guns in the ready position on the HUMVs, but belts of ammunition gleamed in the sun. That rarely happened.

  Even more interesting were two vans conspicuously labeled EXPLOSIVE ORDNANCE DISPOSAL.

  Minutes later, two F-15s made a low-speed pass over the field, giving Sparkman time to remember that that was the type of aircraft he had expected to fly after joining the Air Force. Not some itsy-bitsy VIP aerial taxi.

  And then something else very interesting appeared: a Costa Rican Air Transport Boeing 727 on final, about to touch down.

  Costa Rican Air Transport? he’d thought.

  MacDill was closed to civilian traffic.

  The 727 had made a perfectly ordinary landing but was not allowed to leave the runway. The fleet of emergency vehicles—now joined by a half-dozen staff cars, most of these bearing general officer’s starred license plates—rushed out to meet the plane.

  Then a U.S. Army Blackhawk helicopter of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment fluttered to the ground as a pickup truck with mounted stairs backed up to the forward door in the civilian transport’s fuselage.

  The plane’s door opened and two men got off. They were wearing jungle camouflage uniforms and their hands and faces were streaked with the grease-paint normally worn by special operators deployed in the boonies.

  The taller one, seeing all the brass, saluted, and it was then that Sparkman recognized Colonel Jacob D. Torine, USAF.

  There was no way—not with all the brass around—that Sparkman could make his manners to Colonel Torine and politely inquire what the hell was going on.

  But when he heard the rumors that Torine and a Special Forces major had stolen a 727 back from Muslim fanatics who had taken it with the idea of each of them collecting a harem of heavenly virgins just as soon as they crashed it into the Liberty Bell, he thought there might be something to it.

  Especially after he heard two weeks later that Torine had been awarded another Distinguished Flying Cross, for unspecified actions of a classified nature.

  The next time Captain Sparkman had seen Colonel Torine was at Andrews, as Sparkman was taxiing a Citation III to the runway for takeoff, this time hauling a senator to Kansas to give a speech.

  Torine was in civilian clothing and doing a preflight inspection walkaround of a Gulfstream. A civilian G-III, which was interesting because Andrews also was closed to civilian aircraft.

  Sparkman again had no idea what was going on, but he was determined to find out. If the Air Force insisted that he fly itsy-bitsy aircraft, he would see if he could fly Torine’s.

  It took some doing, but Sparkman was an enterprising young officer, and within a few days, he learned that Colonel Torine had been assigned to some outfit called the Office of Organizational Analysis, which was under the Department of Homeland Security, which had its offices in the Nebraska Avenue Complex in Washington.

  When Sparkman went there, though, the security guard denied any knowledge of any Colonel Torine or of any Office of Organizational Analysis.

  Which of course really got Sparkman’s attention. And so he took a chance: “You get on that phone and tell Colonel Torine that Captain Richard Sparkman has to see him now on a matter of great importance.”

  The security guard considered that for a long moment, then picked up his telephone. Sparkman couldn’t hear what he said, but a minute later, an elevator door opened, and a muscular man, who might as well have had Federal Special Agent tattooed on his forehead, got off.

  “Captain Sparkman?”

  Sparkman nodded.

  “ID, please, sir.”

  Sparkman gave it to him. He studied it carefully, then waved Sparkman onto the elevator.

  Colonel Torine, in civilian clothing, was waiting for the elevator when it stopped on the top floor.

  “Okay,” Torine said to the agent. “Thanks.” He offered his hand to Sparkman. “Long time no see, Lieutenant. Come on in.”

  “Actually, sir, it’s captain.”

  “Well, sooner or later they finally get to the bottom of the barrel, don’t they?”

  Torine had an impressive office. Behind a massive wooden desk were three flags: the national colors, the Air Force flag, and one that Sparkman had never seen before but correctly guessed was that of the Department of Homeland Security.

  Torine sat in a red leather judge’s chair. He waved Sparkman into one of two leather-upholstered chairs before his desk.

  “Okay . . . Dick, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What’s the matter of great importance?”

  “Sir, I thought maybe you could use a co-pilot for your Gulfstream.”

  Torine’s eyebrows rose, but he didn’t speak for a long moment.

  “How do you know about the Gulfstream?” he asked finally.

  “I saw you doing a walkaround at Andrews, sir.”

  Torine shook his head.

  “Make a note, Captain. You never saw me with a Gulfstream at Andrews or anywhere else.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Still driving a gunship, are you, Sparkman?”

  “No, sir. I’m flying the right seat of mostly C-20s for the Presidential Airlift Group.”

  “How did you get a soft billet like that?”

  “Over my strongest objections, sir.”

  “How much Gulfstream time do you have?”

  “Pushing six hundred hours, sir.”

  Torine tapped the balls of his fingers together for perhaps fifteen seconds, then shrugged and punched buttons on a telephone.

  “Got a minute, boss?”

  “Sure,” a voice came from a speaker Sparkman could not see.

  “Put your shoes on and restrain the beast. I’m on my way.”

  Torine led Sparkman through an inner corridor to a closed door. He knocked, but went through it without waiting for a reply.

  Sparkman found himself in an even more impressive office. It was occupied by a very large—six-foot-two, two-twenty—very black man, a slightly smaller white man, and a very large dog that held a soccer ball in his mouth with no more difficulty than a lesser dog would have with a tennis ball.

  When the dog saw Sparkman, he dropped the soccer ball, walked to Sparkman, and showed him what looked like five pounds of sharp white teeth.

  The white man said something to the dog in a foreign language Sparkman could not identify, whereupon the dog sat on his haunches, closed his mouth, and offered Sparkman his paw.

  “Shake Max’s hand, Sparkman,” Torine ordered.

  Sparkman did so.

  Pointing first at the black man, then at the white man, Torine said, “Major Miller, Colonel Castillo, this is Captain Dick Sparkman, whom, I believe, the good Lord has just dropped in our lap.”

  Sparkman saw the nameplate on the desk: LT. COL. C. G. CASTILLO.

  A light bird, he thought, and Torine, a full bull colonel, calls him “boss”?

  And his office is fancier than Torine’s. . . .

  “I have this unfortunate tendency to look your gift horses in the mouth, Jake,” Castillo had said as he took a long, thin black cigar from a humidor and started to clip the end.

  “Do you remember Captain Sparkman?”

  “I just did. You were driving a Gulfstream that gave me a ride to Fort Rucker, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Captain Sparkman has nearly six hundred hours in the right seat of a G-III,” Torine expl
ained.

  “Ah!” Lieutenant Colonel Castillo said.

  “Before that, he was flying an AC-130H gunship out of Hurlburt,” Torine went on. “We once very quietly toured Central America together.”

  “Ah ha!” Lieutenant Colonel Castillo said.

  “And he saw me doing a walkaround of our bird at Andrews.”

  “And, Captain, who did you tell about that?” Major Miller asked.

  “No one, sir,” Sparkman said.

  “And how did you find Colonel Torine, Captain?” Lieutenant Colonel Castillo asked.

  “I asked around, sir.”

  “And how did you get past the receptionist downstairs?” Major Miller asked. “He’s supposed to tell people he has never heard of Colonel Jake Torine.”

  “The receptionist did,” Torine said. “The captain here then told him, forcefully, to get on the phone and tell me that he had to see me on a matter of great importance.”

  “Ah ha!” Lieutenant Colonel Castillo said.

  “Which was?” Major Miller inquired.

  “That if I had to fly the right seat of a Gulfstream,” Sparkman offered, “I’d rather fly Colonel Torine’s.”

  “Ah ha!” Lieutenant Colonel Castillo said for the third time, then looked at Major Miller, who paused a moment for thought and then shrugged.

  “Tell me, Captain,” Castillo said. “Is there any pressing business, personal or official, which would keep you from going to Buenos Aires first thing in the morning?”

  “I’m on the board for a flight to Saint Louis at 0830, sir.”

  “Jake, call out there and tell them the captain will be otherwise occupied,” Castillo said, and then turned to Sparkman. “Prefacing this with the caveat that anything you hear, see, or intuit from this moment on is classified Top Secret Presidential, the disclosure of which will see you punished by your castration with a very dull knife, plus imprisonment for the rest of your natural life, let me welcome you to the Office of Organizational Analysis, where you will serve as our most experienced Gulfstream jockey and perform such other duties as may be required.”

  “Just like that?” Sparkman blurted.