Brown, Dale - Independent 02 (74 page)

 
          
“Bullock
tried to kill me.”

 
          
“I
told him to surrender. He’s a three-time loser—probably afraid to go to
prison.”

 
          
“Bullock
does what you tell him to do—”

 
          
“No,
I could never hurt you, never order someone to ... I was trying to get away
before my mistakes ruined any chances I had with you—”

 
          
“Tell
me you had nothing to do with the military smuggling ring in
Haiti
.” Van Nuys glanced at the gun—it did not
waver.

 
          
“Look”—his
cool was slipping—“they found out I had a little business of my own, they made
me an offer I couldn’t refuse, if I wanted to go on living. But I always
intended to turn myself in—”

 
          
“Who
is ‘they’?”

 
          
“A
Colombian drug family. Very rich, powerful, well equipped. They run a bunch of
ex-military pilots that make their deliveries. That’s all I know about them.”
He took a few steps towards her, sloshing through the brackish seawater. “I
played along until I liquidated enough assets to set myself up in
South America
. I own a ranch in
Brazil
now. I’ll give you and your people
everything I have on these guys if you’ll let me go. I’ve got radio
frequencies, maps, names, contacts, safe houses they use in
Florida
and the
Bahamas
. But it’s got to be kept quiet. If the
cartels even suspect I’ve double-crossed them I’m dead. I’ll turn over
everything I have to the Hammerheads. But only in exchange for the right to
insure my own protection.”

 
          
“Put
your hands on your head and come out of there slowly,” Geffar ordered him,
shaking her head. “You’re under arrest.”

 
          
Van
Nuys moved noisily toward the embankment, used his hands to help him crawl up
the muddy, weed-choked ditch to the road. “Please listen to me—”

 
          
A
voice from behind Van Nuys:
"Move.
” Van Nuys hit the ground. Hokum, the security chief for the Sunrise Beach Club
community, was standing in the shadows of the drainage tunnel with a rifle in
hand—and before Geffar could move, Hokum pulled the trigger.

 
          
The
impact of the .30-06 round on Geffar was like an overhanded sledgehammer blow,
but because of the Kevlar material and the steel shock-attenuator plate
inserted into the body armor the bullet did not penetrate. Geffar was, though,
driven ten feet backward, unable to take a breath. She could hear the rustle of
water and the slide and click of a gun being cocked—Hokum was coming out of the
ditch to finish the job.

 
          
Fighting
off waves of pain, Geffar reached down to her right boot for the .38 caliber
automatic in its ankle holster.

 
          
“Are
you okay?” someone was calling out to her on the helmet radio. “Come in.
Answer.”

 
          
She
tried to speak but Van Nuys crawled over to her and removed the helmet.
Gathering her strength, she tried to bring her .38 around, but it was like
trying to lift a truck.

 
          
Van
Nuys scrambled to his feet, down the muddy sides of the ditch and back toward
the escape tunnel, trying to grab Hokum and take him along.

 
          
Geffar
raised the .38 with both hands and shakily aimed. “Max, stop . . .”

 
          
“I
got a score to settle with this one first.” Hokum shrugged out of Van Nuys’
grasp, came up out of the ditch and raised the hunting rifle at Geffar’s head.
“I told you you’d be sorry for the day you clobbered me. Say good-bye to her,
Van Nuys . . .”

 
          
Geffar
reflexed at the sound of three gunshots, dropped her .38 and waited for
darkness to take her over. It never came. When she opened her eyes she saw
Hokum’s body lying at the edge of the ditch, and Van Nuys standing in the knee-deep
water, a smoking .45 in his hand.

           
“It’s over,” he said flatly, and
disappeared into the tunnel as a wave of intense pain blotted Geffar’s senses
and drove her into unconsciousness.

 
          
Border
Security Force Headquarters,
Aladdin City
,
Florida

 
          
Two Hours Later

 
          
The
monitor showed in stark detail a profile view of the main part of the Verrettes
airbase. It appeared to those in the closed-door session at the Hammerheads’
headquarters like a typical military installation in the
United States
or anywhere else—and that was frightening.
A serpent’s den, a scorpion’s lair—so deadly, and so close to home.

 
          
The
room was filled with energy. For the first time they had a fix on a major
smuggling ring. Hardcastle and Michael Becker were especially on edge, itching
to get their forces together to counter the obvious target so close to them—and
get back at the ones that had struck at Geffar. The secret mission to
Haiti
was also the first real indication by the
Administration that they were willing to back the Hammerheads with
substantially more than rhetoric, and they were anxious to follow up on its
success. Even Brad Elliott appeared excited—finally they had a target, possibly
the heart of a major smuggling ring.

 
          
“Armed,
organized and skilled,” McLanahan summarized for his audience. “It’s not like
any other smuggling operation that the Border Security Force normally faces.
They have
military combat-capable
aircraft and weapons,
and they know how to use them.” He turned up the
lights in the small conference room, low enough so they could still see the
screen, high enough so they could see one another. “Question: what do we do
about it?”

 
          
“They’re
obviously a major threat to us and the entire region,” Brad Elliott spoke up.
“A force that size, that well armed, with no political organization or control,
is an obvious direct threat to our
security.
Whether or not they’re involved in drug smuggling is almost immaterial
—any
such force so close to our borders
would be considered a threat and should be disarmed and broken up. What we’ve
got here is a well-equipped terrorist organization operating less than two
hundred miles from our shores.

 
          
“I
will take these tapes to the Vice President, along with Lieutenant Powell’s
statement. I’ll recommend that, in cooperation with the so-called Haitian
government, we send in a strike force to disable their aircraft and airfield
facilities, then move in a ground-assault unit to disarm and secure the base.”
He turned to McLanahan. “You and Powell did a super job. You took an enormous
risk and you got the information and somehow made it out alive.”

 
          
McLanahan
looked serious. “This Colonel Salazar isn’t exactly a wimp, and his pilots will
follow him into hell. J. C. Powell is one hell of a pilot. He flies better with
one good arm than a lot of two-armed jocks.”

 
          
“J.C.?
What’s that stand for?”

 
          
“If
you flew with the guy you’d know.”

 
          
Elliott
smiled knowingly—he was accustomed to flying with hot- pilots, as was McLanahan
in the short year he had been with him at the secret Air Force research center
in
Nevada
. If McLanahan said so, young Powell must be
one crazy stick . . . “Well, I hope he understands that his days as an ATC
instructor are numbered,” Elliott said. “After flying a mission like this into
Haiti
with a stolen Russian fighter, we can’t
just send him back into the field.”

 
          
“Knows
too much?”

 
          
“Something
like that. He’ll be reporting to Dreamland as soon as he’s back on flying
status. He might just be wild enough to handle the Cheetah project.”

 
          
McLanahan
nodded at that bit of news. “You bet he is. He’s asked for another shot at
Salazar s people, too. This time in an American fighter with real missiles and
bullets.”

 
          
“He
may get his chance ...”

 
          
“Well,
while we’re standing around jawing like good ol’ boys about cheetahs and
Dreamland and hot-shot pilots,” Hardcastle said, “Salazar and his pilots may
well be heading for the hills. They could have heard about Van Nuys and they
must suspect by now that we were on a recon mission to their base. There’s got
to be something we can do to keep them from packing up and leaving right now.”

 
          
“When
I reported to
Washington
the preliminary results of Powell’s mission, the Vice President agreed
to take the matter up with the President, but he also said not to try anything
more until he gives the word. Overflying an isolated part of Haiti without
permission was one thing—and we might catch a ration of shit for doing that, if
they find out for sure it was an American crew in that Sukhoi-27 fighter— but
sending in an armed strike team to destroy a military base is another.”

 
          
“So
it might be politically unpopular, even create an international incident,”
Hardcastle said angrily. “What’s going to happen?
Haiti
breaks off diplomatic relations with the
United States
? Big deal. We pay them off and apologize
like we always end up doing and it’s gone with the wind. Meanwhile we get rid
of a major smuggling ring in our own damned backyard ...”

 
          
“I
hear you, but I can’t authorize it—”

 
          
Michael
Becker spoke up now as he mentioned to the HDTV monitor, which was
auto-replaying the intelligence photos he had taken over Verrettes. “Look at
those pictures. They’ve got at least two MiG-2 Is and two Mirage F1C fighters,
and the MiGs we saw were loaded down with heavy air-to-air and air-to-ground
weapons. Real missiles and bombs, not decoys or retreads. If they had even half
of those planes armed and fueled, they could probably defeat a dozen V-22
aircraft from long range. It would be suicide to send in a V-22 to Verrettes
without first destroying or disarming those fighters. They’ve also got SA-7
missiles and air-defense artillery, in case some of our planes or choppers
did
make it through . . . Once we got on
the ground—if we did—they’ve got at least three Pucara light bombers and two
Aero L-39 Albatross jet bombers for close air support and tactical suppression.
Which means we counter with ground-to-air missiles or anti-air artillery of our
own or we’re sunk. And all that is before we encounter their ground forces.
McLanahan reported some thirty armed soldiers on that ramp, with automatic
weapons. That tells me that we’d better have at least a hundred soldiers before
we even consider taking that base—”

 
          
“I
don’t want to take the damn base, Mike,” Hardcastle said. “I want to knock out
this outfit’s ability to smuggle drugs into the country before they leave and
set up shop someplace else.” He turned to McLanahan and Elliott. “Hell, send in
that F-lll bomber again— send in three or four of them. Target the hangars and
destroy that runway. Knock out as many planes as possible. If we can’t kill
them, at least cripple them enough to put them out of action for a while.”
“I’ll take your recommendations to the Vice President,” Elliott said, but I
want a plan of action, not just some shouting for blood. Ian, give me something
concrete I can take to the White House and I’ll get in there and pitch for
you.”

 
          
“I’ll
fax my report to your plane,” Hardcastle said abruptly. “You’ll have them before
you land in
Washington
. But emphasize that
this
is
our backyard, our area of responsibility ever since we had the sea power to
patrol it. The
United States
is responsible for ensuring the safety and
security of this entire region, and that includes
Haiti
, never mind the rhetoric about the big bad
Yankee colonies of the north. This unit in Verrettes is a major destabilizing
force. It’s our responsibility to go in and clean it up.”