Brown, Dale - Independent 02

by Hammerheads (v1. 1)

  Carmen del Sol Airlines, Ciudad del Carmen, Mexico

  Two Hours Later

  The launch went off with military precision. The smallest plane of the group, a single-engine Cessna Caravan cargo plane, was the first to begin the fourteen-hundred-mile flight from Mexico to the Medellin

  Cartel’s drug-distribution center at Valdivia; it would take the plane nearly ten hours to make the trip, including quick-turn refueling stops. One by one the twin-engine planes, the other Cessnas, Pipers and Aerospatiales leaped into the warm night sky to begin the largest single air-smuggling operation in history. They were followed by the higher-performance turboprops, commuter and business jets, and the smaller cargo planes, most sporting Carmen del Sol Airlines livery.

  Finally the big boys rolled down the taxi way and took their place at the end of the runway for takeoff—the huge Soviet Antonov-26 Curl transport, modified and upgraded to boost its load-carrying capacity to 22,000 pounds; the boxy, droop-nosed Shorts 440, built in Northern Ireland and one of the most modern planes in the Cuchillos’ fleet; and the venerable old Douglas DC-3 tail-dragger, spewing great volumes of black smoke as its engines were started and its huge silver props began to turn. All these planes had been modified to carry huge volumes of drugs—all creature comforts had been either pulled out or bolted in temporarily, able to be removed on very short notice, and the engine horsepower had been boosted well above safe limits to increase its load-carrying capacity.

  All would be fitted with extended-range fuel bladders to boost their effective ranges by at least fifty percent; with the bladders on board and a full load of drugs, the Antonov-26 was able to fly for over two thousand miles without refueling, plenty of range to fly directly from Colombia to the United States, make its drops and return to Mexico or an alternate. The other planes would land and refuel at prearranged spots in the Bahamas, Cuba or Mexico; or they would be forced to ditch their planes near land and make their escape on their own.

  In the Carmen del Sol Airlines traffic office Van Nuys, ordered there by Salazar, watched as the Cuchillos’ controller logged the departure of each flight and began tracking their progress on a chart. They could communicate with each plane via high-frequency radio either directly or by relays through the country’s international flight-following system. He was amazed at the precision of these men—it must be like this to stand in the War Room at the Pentagon.

  After checking that all the flight plans were activated and flowing through the currents of international commercial air traffic, Van Nuys went back to the airline director’s office and closed the door. It was going to be a long, long night. The Caravan would be stopping in five hours at its first refueling stop, a seldom-used airport outside San Salvador; because it was only a quick-turn refueling on a stopover flight plan, El Salvadoran Customs had already signed off the plane for landing and would probably not even show up at the airport. That was going to be the routine for most of the Cuchillos; but if it turned out differently there wasn’t a hell of a lot he figured he could do about it except hope the Customs official could be bribed or scared over the phone. Van Nuys had a Learjet and a suitcase full of cash waiting, ready to speed out to some foreign airfield to bail a plane out, but he hoped like hell he wouldn’t have to do that.

  He was settled in the chair and beginning to doze oflf when there was a loud knock on the door and a clerk said in broken English, “Senor, a man waits for you outside.”

  “I'm not expecting anyone, tell him to go away.”

  “He says give you this.” The clerk came in and presented Van Nuys a small dark .22 caliber automatic pistol—Salman’s gun. It was a special, manufactured from advanced plastics and Kevlar that made it undetectable by metal detectors, which meant his ex-bodyguard, butler and secretary always had a gun no matter where he went. “What is this man’s name?” Van Nuys asked.

  “He says his name is Salman.”

  “Big guy? Tall? Big shoulders?”

  “Si, senor. Muy grande. Muy gordo. Shall I bring him in?”

  Van Nuys waved a hand at the clerk. “No, I’ll go out.” But before he did he caught up with the clerk and pulled out his sidearm, an all-steel Walther P38 that had to be at least twenty years old. He wasn’t going out unarmed.

  Salman was standing outside the airlines building in the alley between the rear entrance and the first set of hangars, guarded by a Cuchillo soldier. Van Nuys waved the guard away. “Salman? How’d you get here?”

  “I was released on bail a few days ago,” he replied in his customary monotone. “I heard you were in Mexico so I came as fast as I could.” Van Nuys was going to ask who put up bail but decided to table that question for now. The fact he had not done so would have teed oflf Salman . . . “How did you find out I was here?”

  “Why did you not come to my help?” was Salman’s answer. “I was in jail, you did not come to help ...”

  The big guy’s tone of voice was as always, but coming from a man as big as Salman, the accusing words sounded like a physical threat. Van Nuys pulled out the Walther and aimed it at Salman’s stomach. “I asked you a question. How did you know I was here?”

  “We told him, Max,” said a female voice—immediately preceded by a loud snik of a hammer being locked into place. Van Nuys glanced out of the corner of his eye. Beyond the muzzle of a .45 caliber Smith and Wesson he saw . . . Sandra Geffar.

  With the .45 directed at Van Nuys’ right eye, Geffar quickly reached over and plucked the Walther from Van Nuys’ hand. “Hello, Max. I’ve come for a visit, you left so abruptly last time. Straight ahead to the left of that hangar. Not a sound or Salman will remove your tongue through your ears. He’s pretty well annoyed with you.” Salman reached over, put an arm on Van Nuys’ shoulders and led him to the darkness of a small alleyway between two vacated aircraft hangars.

  “What are you doing here, Sandra . . . ?” Van Nuys began, trying to recoup. Salman’s hand moved to the back of his neck, his big fingers clamped down.

  “I said not a sound, Max.” Geffar checked behind her, then hurried them between the hangars, stopping at the other end. Curt Long appeared from around the corner, dragging an unconscious guard. “Curt, what happened?”

  “Foot patrol. We’re running out of time.” They heard a voice behind them near the airline offices calling for Van Nuys—the guard had come back. “Scratch that. We’ve run out of time.”

  “Can we make it ofif the airport?”

  “No good. We saw armed police in the streets—the town wouldn’t be safe for us.”

  “Call the Huey in,” Geffar said. Long reached into a pocket, extracted a lighter-sized device and punched a button. A red light flashed on, followed by a green one. “Message received. He’s on the way.”

  “Rushell Masters, no doubt,” Van Nuys said. “So, the old Customs Service gang is here. The Hammerheads weren’t supposed to show for another two days.”

  “You’re really well informed, Max ... except this is a private party, just for you.”

  A Jeep appeared about a hundred yards away on the other side of the fence that bordered the airport. It stopped just opposite the hangars, and a searchlight began moving across the ground, scanning the hangars and the alleyways. The three men and the woman between two of the hangars crouched down as low as they could as the beam swept over in their direction into the alleyway—and stopped. Soon they heard warning shouts coming from the men on the other side of the fence.

  “Get back,” Geffar said. She fired at the searchlight, sending sparks flying from the Jeep’s fender. The soldiers went for cover as Geffar lined up more carefully and knocked out the searchlight with the next shot.

  Geffar turned and saw Salman, Van Nuys and Long climbing up a ladder bolted on the side of the hangar leading to the roof. She fired three more times at the Jeep to pin down the soldiers, then ran for the ladder, holstered her .45 and started climbing.

  It was a long, hard one. the bruised muscles in her chest were throbbing after a few rungs. The la
st twenty feet of the six-story climb were agony—she was sure her fingers and arms would give out any moment. Her thighs burned and trembled. When she dared to look up to see how far she had to go, she couldn’t even see the top—the ladder seemed to go on forever.

  A shot rang out from somewhere behind her, and she stopped climbing and clung to the ladder. Long began returning fire from the roof, his shots close enough to get her moving again. A few feet from the top, arms lifted her up and onto the roof.

  “Not much time,” Long said. “They’ll be up here any minute.” Long had set the tiny device in the center of the hangar roof. A radio transmitter and locator beacon, the device also had a small infrared rescue strobe, a bright flashing light that was invisible to the naked eye but could be seen for miles on an infrared scanner or night-vision goggles.

  “What’s the point, Sandra?” Van Nuys said as Long and Salman moved to cover the various ladders up to the roof. “You’ve just about succeeded in getting us all killed—“

  “We’re taking you back. That’s the point.”

  “Like hell. This is Mexico, the Border Security Force has no jurisdiction here—”

  “We can arrest an American citizen anyplace.” Well, it sounded good. “Now, you are going to tell me about Salazar. He’s planning a large drug delivery . . . where is he delivering the drugs?”

  He shook his head. She moved the muzzle of the .45 away from the ladder and aimed it into his face. “Max, you know me. If you don’t cooperate I’ll have to kill you. Now.”

  “I don’t believe that.” God, what an ego, she thought. Even now. “I can do better. I can leave you for Salazar, his knife . . . Would you prefer to take your chances with Salazar?” She could smell his fear. Dapper Max, scared shitless. “I could let you go but he’d believe you talked and have you sliced into fish food.” She reached into a pocket and pulled out a handful of American bills. “I’ll knock you unconscious, put money and my card in your pocket. Smooth-talk your way out of that.” She reached over and stuffed the money into his pants. “There you go, Max. You tell him you just don’t know how that money got there—”

  “All right, get me out of here and I’ll make a deal—”

  “First things first, Max. Talk to us now and we’ll talk about getting you out. Don’t talk and ...”

  “Okay, okay . . . Salazar has a huge drug shipment going on right now. His planes are flying to Colombia to make the pickup, they’ll be delivered tomorrow night—”

  “Where?”

  “All over. Florida, Louisiana, Texas, the Bahamas—he’s got fifty thousand kilos coming in . .

  “Fifty thousand?”

  “Yeah. Now get me the hell out of here.”

  “Keep your head down and we might,” Geffar said. It would be good to get him back to the States, make an example of him—Just then an automatic rifle opened up, bullets whizzing through the air, pieces of tar ripping up the rooftop. Geffar rolled onto her stomach, took quick aim at the outline of a man on the roof of an adjacent hangar, fired twice. The man called out in pain and disappeared from sight. Geffar knew the muzzle blast from her own gun was a dead giveaway. She grabbed Van Nuys and pulled him to his knees. “Move in, Max.” And half-dragged him away moments before more gunshots chewed into the tar at the spot where they had been.

  The hangar they were on was the middle one of five hangars, and they could see soldiers on both adjacent hangars as well as on top of the airline offices building fifty yards away. “We’re going to be surrounded,” Long said. “Where’s that helicopter? It should be here

  And suddenly the whole area was bathed in brilliant white light. The soldiers had turned on the ballpark lights, the large banks of lights on tall towers that usually lit up the aircraft parking ramps, and had turned them inward to illuminate the hangar rooftops. Geffar and Long saw that both adjacent hangars were lined with soldiers, three or four on each side, and more were coming up. Nowhere to find cover.

  “As rescuers you people make good grave-diggers,” Van Nuys said, and started to get to his feet.

  “Stay down,” Geffar said in a low voice.

  Van Nuys shook her hand away. “I’ll just tell them you tried to kidnap me. They still need me for their operation, they won’t do anything right away ...” lie got to his feet, arms raised high, and turned in a full circle to show that he was hiding nothing.

  “It’s me, Van Nuys, Colonel Salazar’s assistant. They tried to kidnap me—”

  A shot rang out. Van Nuys grabbed his shoulder and collapsed to the roof. Geffar crawled over to him. “I told you to stay down. You are a total jerk.” She glanced over at Long. “I think I hear the chopper coming.”

  “Checks.” He opened his left hand to reveal a black-colored canister about the size of a soda can, with a rectangular top and a pull ring; another was in his other hand. “Ready any time.”

  Geffar produced two similar canisters from a small waist-pack. “Wait until the chopper comes closer.”

  It did not take long. A few seconds later the heavy beating of rotors was clear. A few soldiers began to make the climb up to the roof where Geffar was trapped, but most were frozen, waiting for orders. Soon the helicopter zoomed overhead, less than ten feet above the rooftops, scattering soldiers across the rooftops.

  “Now,” Geffar shouted. They threw canisters onto the adjacent rooftops, then buried their heads under their arms. The shock wave from the two concussion grenades erupted in their faces, sucking the air out of their lungs.

  “Up,” Geffar called out. Van Nuys, stunned by the grenades, was rolling about the roof, disoriented and in pain. Salman was also shaken but was strong enough to fight off the pain and help carry/ drag Van Nuys. Geffar could see soldiers still on their feet on the roofs around them, but they had hands over their ears. The concussion grenades were not altogether effective in the open, but with the soldiers clustered together on the rooftop the effect was devastating enough.

  The helicopter made a tight pirouette over the taxiway in front of the airline terminal and headed back toward the row of hangars. Hearing rifle shots as the chopper approached, Long and Geffar tossed concussion grenades out over the front of the hangar as the green and blue UH-1 Huey helicopter swooped back over the hangars and settled into a close hover near the center hangar. Door gunners covered both sides of the chopper, sending bursts of gunfire over the heads of the troops on both adjacent rooftops to keep them from counterattacking. Seconds later everyone was aboard and the helicopter was speeding out of range of the tiny Mexican airport

  “You all right?” Masters shouted from the cockpit. “Anyone hurt?”

  “Van Nuys got hit in the shoulder,” Geffar called back. The copilot tossed her a first-aid kit, and she ripped off his jacket and shirt and dressed the wound. Wouldn’t do to have fancy Max bleed to death before the courts got to him.

  “How bad is it?” Van Nuys said, more lucid now.

  “You’ll live,” she said.

  “We’re off the airport?”

  “We made it—no thanks to you, you sonofabitch,” Geffar said, deliberately pulling the bandages tighter. “You almost got us all killed. Now listen up. Do as I say or we’ll dump you off back in Ciudad del Carmen and you can tap dance in front of your buddy Salazar. Tell me about this drug shipment . . .”

  Carmen del Sol Airlines, , Mexico

  Salazar’s face was red as he chewed out his chief of security at the airline office, along with Major Trujillo’s deputy chief pilot, Captain Garza, the security shift supervisor and the three squad leaders in charge of the airport security detail. “Three unknowns, including a woman—infiltrate my base and kidnap Van Nuys out from under your noses?”

  “It was a well-trained commando-style unit, sir,” the shift supervisor tried. “They used automatic weapons and concussion grenades. We had no way of defending—”

  “I didn’t ask for your excuses. Get out.” The security commanders left in a hurry, all except the chief of security.

  “
I have begun a search of the district, sir. I have ordered the chief of the militia, the local police and the Customs Bureau to report here at once and coordinate the search. I took the liberty of requisitioning six helicopters from operations—five are in the air conducting the search, the sixth is standing by for you in case they are found.”

  “I am warning you, Captain,” Salazar said, barely able to control his temper, “that if they are not found in an hour ... I can almost forgive lax security procedures at Verrettes when you faced an aerial bombardment, but stopping three persons? Get out of here and don’t come back unless you find those intruders.” The chief of security retreated quickly, thankful he was leaving with all of his fingers and most of his bodily fluids and internal organs intact.

  When they were alone, the deputy chief pilot, Garza, said, “With Van Nuys missing, sir, the mission is in jeopardy—”

  “I know that, Captain. Is that all you can offer?”

  “Senor Gachez and Major Trujillo in Colombia must be notified, sir. If it was agents from the Border Security or the DEA that took Van Nuys, the shipment is at risk. We must assume that all our routes, the contacts, the distribution network—everything—has been compromised.”

  “I know that too. But Gachez cannot be told.”

  “Not tell Gachez? It will put his entire shipment at risk if he is not informed—”

  “Garza, I don’t care a rat’s ass about his shipment. I care about finding a way to preserve the one and a half billion dollars we’ll be paid for this job.”

  Garza looked at his superior officer. “But . . . but how can that be done? We must assume that if Van Nuys is alive he will eventually talk ...”