Deep Ice (28 page)
“Not bad,” said Grimes, slapping Hoy on the back.
“You really showed me something that time.”
“Thanks, sir,” said Hoy. “Do you think he bought it?”
“Why not? At least he won’t think Hodges has been caught. Suarez is probably
pissed
off, but he’s not
tipped
off. That’s all we care about. Just make sure you don’t answer that line if it rings again.”
#
A loud gong echoed through the Hacienda, activated by Suarez’s omnipresent laptop. Everyone living there – a support staff of a dozen businessmen and -women, a small security force of twice that many, and a maintenance staff hand-picked from a stable of ex-
Chilean Government workers – knew the signal meant to stop what they were doing and go immediately to the main building’s living-room. It meant their boss had something big to say.
With little conversation they assembled at the back of the very large, arched room, with its panoramic view of the Chilean Andes. The view was seen through almost an inch of clear web-reinforced Lexan laminate.
Though never tested by Suarez on site, the material was said to be able to stop high-velocity armour- piercing shells, even the uranium-cored shells that had turned solid steel into a shower of sparks during the two Gulf Wars. This wall of light, as Suarez called it, spanned about forty by fifteen feet.
All the furniture in the room faced the Andes. The staff, gathered at the far wall, were afforded just as grand a view as their boss. He treated his staff well. He’d made sure that coffee and beer were accessible to them – albeit only at his offering; even his inner circle of henchmen and his own family couldn’t dispense refreshments in here without his approval. When he was not in residence the room was sealed.
Suarez spent most of his time at the Hacienda in front of that Lexan. It made him feel secure, and he loved the view. Today, however, he was standing with his back to the Andes and eyeing each and every one of them as they entered the room. Final y, when they were all assembled, he addressed them.
“My friends, you all know what ‘industrial espionage’ means. That’s when a business competitor tries to put you out of business. This, I fear, is something that grows more common with every passing day.
Corporations can be thrown into ruin with the press of a button on Wall Street.
“But there are other, darker and more physical ways that businesses war with one another. That’s why today I bring you grave news. TransAm Optical is about to be attacked by agents of another corporation, masquerading as military police – perhaps even United States military – or as local bandits acting in support of some junta or another. They are actually agents who are out to steal our patents, our secrets, our plans; anything they can get their hands on to help their greedy ends.
“Many of you signed on to be craftsmen and engineers. But will you also remember that I demanded of you, as a prerequisite to your employment here, a sworn oath of allegiance, and that you take some form of military training. You all know how to handle weapons of war. You know how to hit a target with a military weapon.”
He stood stiffly, unmoving, silhouetted by the Andes. As he spoke his voice was calm and his tone reassuring. Now he turned away from them and stared at the sky.
“I have few secrets from any of you. You know we make the best optical armour in the world. Scores of companies want our secrets, secrets that are entrusted to you who stand with me today. We are – we
may
– find ourselves under attack. If it comes, it will come suddenly and without mercy. You will all be killed.
“That is, unless you resist.”
His eyes scanned his staff.
“I know many of you are wondering why I don’t just call the local police or demand protection from the government.” He laughed. “That would be nice, but it is a fantasy to think they would help us. You know they sell themselves to the highest bidder, and all they have to do is to turn away. . . and perhaps, later, stack up the bodies.”
He continued to pick out the people behind the eyes that watched him. He tried to reach out to them with all his will.
“I ask you only to defend your own lives, and I provide for you the means to do so. After all, I love you all. You have given me your trust and your precious time. I owe you that at least – the means to defend yourself.”
He reached a hand towards Remo, who quickly passed him a Glock Mark 1 automatic pistol.
“I am giving each of you – along with an AK-47, should you wish it – one of these, with three clips of fifteen rounds of teflon-coated uranium slugs. They will penetrate any body armour.”
He laughed again.
“As a matter of fact, you helped me develop them and they are a part of what our enemy wants.
“My security force will brief you further. Let me add only that my heart and my life are in your hands, my friends. May God be with us all.”
Suarez turned away from the group and faced the window while Remo and his other close associates began distributing weapons to the staff. Slowly the volume of sound rose in the room as the conversation and questions flowed freely. Some seemed to have doubts believing the threat was real, while others stood quietly, apparently stunned by their boss’s words. But, despite some minor protests, when he finally turned to survey his staff again he could see how very persuasive his words had been. Once again he had risen to the occasion. In his mind, this was another lofty deed that verified his princely powers.
When everyone had eventually spilled out of the room to their own quarters or to emergency stations, Remo stood before his employer.
“My guess is still that Trevor will show up – talking about some bitch,” said Remo.
“I have a feeling he isn’t coming,” said Suarez.
“Humour an old friend, will you, Remo? Get us ready for war.”
#
Gadflies One and Two left the deck of the
Big E
at midmorning. Their sleek angularity, framed by the sun, drew more than a few comments from the crew. In Gadfly One, Grimes reminded his companions, Hayes and Henry Gibbs, that this was the first time these helicopters had flown in broad daylight.
Shep was still by his master’s side, at Henry’s absolute insistence. He would never have gotten his way in the argument with the SEAL if the general hadn’t still regarded the dog as a bona fide witness and an asset to the mission. But even the general’s support was tested when, during takeoff, the dog farted loudly.
“Wheeeeew, Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” yelled Grimes into his helmet’s microphone. “What are you feeding that mutt?”
“Same as always,” said Henry. “Seal.”
Rob Walters piloted the craft on an indirect route to the Hacienda: first towards the northeast to avoid coastal towns, then a pause to regroup at a hastily constructed depot outside Santiago.
#
October 1, the big day, was finally upon them. Around the globe, people held their breath as they waited for news. Would the industrialized nations come up with five billion? Was the entire matter a hoax? Now, as the deadline arrived, reality caught up with speculation. Would the piper be paid? After all the media analysis and speculation, the world’s questions remained unanswered. Everyone knew that for the first time in history a terrorist had forced the world to its knees. And nearly everyone agreed that, if it was only money that the terrorists wanted, then it should be given to them. Still, the outcry to the contrary was easy to hear ringing in the halls of government. All the old warhorses of the NATO nations were affirming over and over the danger of capitulation to terrorism.
Having armed his Hacienda with guns and paranoia, Rudolfo Suarez retired to the place he called his doomsday room: a radio/computer room located next to his living-room. He sat in a padded black leather chair fingering a matching console. Behind him a computer waited to be triggered by a signal from Geneva, Switzerland, that the first payment had cleared the Chase Manhattan Bank.
If the world had paid its bill, Suarez would know by noon. Everything was going as he’d planned, except that his British bodyguard, Hodges, had still not arrived. By eleven, Suarez knew he’d never see the man again. As he stared at the colourful numbers sliding on and off the screen of his laptop, he sensed that his orders to his staff had been more than mere precautionary actions warranted by the situation. His feelings of portent grew with each passing second as he waited for the numbers to rol.
A war was raging in his mind. A crescendo of conflicting voices, like spirits of ancient Incan kings, all gathered to give him counsel.
As Remo entered the room, Suarez looked up from the screen. He noted the strain in Remo’s eyes. “It is too early in the day to look so tired,” he said.
“It’s a big day,” said Remo. He looked at the screen of Rudy’s laptop. “I guess it hasn’t rolled over yet, huh?”
Rudolfo didn’t answer.
The condor had taken flight.
Ten
Shep was hanging his head and looking queasy as the Gadflies settled down on the landing strip for refuelling.
Henry held the dog between his legs and patted him reassuringly. By now Henry was used to helicopters, but it seemed Shep would never get acclimatized to them.
And Henry had to admit that his own supposedly iron stomach was having problems with the motion of the Gadfly. The strange flight characteristics of the tiny black choppers had him imagining this must be what it might be like to ride piggyback on a bumblebee. He was glad to feel solid ground under his feet again when he stepped out onto the quickly laid tarmac of the fuel depot.
Several black-suited military types with automatic weapons quickly surrounded the Gadflies and stood with their backs to them, presumably to keep prying eyes away from the secret craft.
The sight made him grin in spite of his airsickness.
“Who do they think they’re guarding against?” he said to Hayes. “This looks like the emptiest piece of real estate in all of Chile.”
“You never know.” Hayes looked down at Henry’s malamute and shook his head. “Your beast has looked better. Is he going to make the second leg of the flight?”
As if on cue, Shep vomited.
“I guess now he will. There goes his breakfast,” said Henry with a forced laugh.
Grimes stared at the dog and shook his head. “You and your mutt, Henry, I swear to God. . .”
Without finishing his sentence, the SEAL walked to the other Gadfly to talk to his men.
“Well, Henry,” said the general, “don’t feel bad about Shep. He’s doing about as well as the President of Chile did on his maiden flight in a Gadfly. Still, I find it hard to understand why you’re so insistent about the dog going everywhere you do.”
Henry wasn’t feeling up to explaining himself. “You don’t need to, General.”
As they waited for the refuelling operation to be completed, a call came in for the general and he was escorted inside a large black truck that bristled with several types of antennae.
A cool breeze blew from the direction of the distant mountains. Henry chose a grassy spot at the edge of the tarmac to sit and wait. Shep seemed happy to lie down beside him; the dog put his chin on Henry’s leg and seemed to fall asleep instantly. As Henry stroked Shep’s muscular shoulders he wondered if it had been thoughtlessly cruel to drag Shep along wherever he went. What good could having the dog with them serve? That was a question he couldn’t answer. All he knew was that he couldn’t allow himself to become separated from the malamute. Perhaps the reason was simply that he’d left loved ones in the past, only to lose them forever. But now he worried that he was getting Shep into a situation that might get the dog killed.
He gazed affectionately at the malamute. “Maybe I’m just bad luck all around.”
But Shep was perfectly content where he was: curled beside his master, blissful y snoozing; a portrait of pure, unconditional love.
Hayes remained in the communications truck for about fifteen minutes. By the time he emerged the Gadflies were ready for service again.
While Henry, Grimes and the SEALs had been waiting for the general, two more helicopters had touched down. One was a full y armed Apache, the other a larger troop transport full of flak-jacketed Marines. Over fifty people already occupied the depot. It was clear the place was a principal staging area for the entire force bound for Suarez’s Hacienda.
The general surveyed the scene for a moment as he hopped down from the tailgate. Then he shook his head and walked over to Henry. Grimes, eager for information, joined them at the edge of the tarmac.
Hayes signalled to the head of the Marines to join them as well.
The Marine saluted the group, looking from face to face. His eyes stopped when they reached Henry and Shep, but he made no comment. He turned to face Hayes, his arm still poised in a frozen salute.
“At ease, Lieutenant O’Boyle,” said the general. “I believe you know Commander Grimes of the SEALs?”
“Sir,” snapped O’Boyle. “By reputation, sir, but I haven’t had the pleasure,” he said, obviously not at ease. He looked back at Henry.
“These two are the only people who have actually seen Suarez – the terrorist – and his men in action. This is Henry Gibbs from McMurdo,” said the general.
“The Iceman,” said O’Boyle with a smile.
Grimes smirked. “You can call him ‘hero’.”
The general returned the Marine’s salute. “You can put your hand down now, Lieutenant. We aren’t going anywhere for at least an hour. Plenty of time for a cozy chat out in the pampas grass.”
“More waiting?” said the SEAL. “What the fuck is it this time?”
“We’ve been getting some rather disturbing intel from the CIA and Frei’s people,” said Hayes. “Seems that TransAm Optical makes military armour.”
“Great,” said Grimes. “Fucking great! How come they didn’t fucking come up with this before?”
The general gave Grimes a dirty look. “The bottom line is that TransAm Optical could be a fortress.”
“Why would that be?” asked Henry. “I thought you said Suarez was confident of his anonymity, that nobody would find out who he. . .”
“That’s true. Everybody thought that.” The general’s high smooth forehead wrinkled. “But there’s more bad news.”
Grimes stood sideways to the group, looking into the breeze. He squinted as a blast of dusty air hit his face.
“Great,” he said again.
“Not so great at all, Kai. intelligence assures us the place is also full of weapons and people who know how to use them. TransAm Optical apparently gives military training to its staff. Moreover, intel
also
tells us TransAm makes the world’s best armour-piercing light ordnance.”
Grimes stared at the general in disbelief. “You
must
be joking.”
“Sure, Kai. I’m making all this up. Pretty good, Huh?
April fool.”
Grimes blinked. “Sorry, sir. But it doesn’t matter to me, sir, what heavy shit this guy has. He’s meat.”
The Marine laughed. “True to your rep, Commander Grimes.”
“There are some recon pictures in the truck,” said the general. “Let’s go there. You might as well come too, Henry.”
The interior of the truck turned out to look more like an office than the inside of an RV. High-resolution screens lined the wall s, supported by a bewildering array of electronic gear.
There was room for only two to sit, and the general unapologetically chose one seat for himself; the other was used as a prop by Grimes as he leaned forward to examine images of the Hacienda on one of the high- definition screens. Astonishingly detailed telephoto pictures from cameras a mile away from TransAm Optical’s main building were displayed on one monitor, while another showed aerial images of the entire complex from Black-bird overflights by daylight and at night. Soon the electronics men were playing image maps of the two-storey complex done from thermal scans. They looked like X-ray images in full colour.
Grimes smiled. “Piece of cake. Can you hard copy these?”
“Working,” said a skinny corporal in shirtsleeves.
“Give me five minutes.”
Henry stood behind the general’s left shoulder. For once Shep remained on his own in the cold, tied to a fender of the truck.
“This is pretty cool stuff,” said Henry.
The corporal snorted derisively. “You think this garbage is new? This van ought to be in the damned Smithsonian.”
Grimes frowned. “But the stuff we get from the birds makes up for it, doesn’t it?”
A buzzer whined, and a continuous rol of paper started spewing picture after picture into Grimes’s hands. He handed one to the general. “Let’s copy this one for everyone.”
Minutes later the group was back on the field with a stack of colour copies to be handed out. An extemporaneous gathering of the various military parties on the field was preceded by a flurry of paper handling. Questions and answers began almost immediately, but to Henry they sounded like code.
He left the gathering and went back to his dog. Shep pulled nervously at his leash, uncomfortable with the large crowd that had suddenly gathered around him. Henry unhooked the leash and led him away. Out of the crowd, Shep relaxed immediately. The pair of them sat down to listen.
At the end of the flood of dialogue that followed, the general announced a new strategy and indicated they would be rolling within an hour.
Late afternoon was now judged by Hayes and Grimes to be the best time to attack the terrorists’ headquarters. The sun would then be shining through the huge Lexan window and into the eyes of any sentries looking west, the direction from which the Gadflies would approach the Hacienda.
For some unknown reason, Henry hadn’t been nervous until Hayes made that announcement. Seeing the general standing in front of a group in the field, dressed in full assault gear, added a new texture to his perception of the man. He realized the events he was witnessing would someday be the stuff of legend. Like Crockett or Travis at the Alamo, General Anthony Hayes was the herald of great historical events about to happen.
Henry shivered.
#
In his doomsday room, Suarez grew increasingly tense as the seconds ticked away. It was one in the afternoon, and still the primary account balance showing in the window of his laptop hadn’t budged.
“It’s coming up on two in the afternoon,” he said to Remo at last. “Dial the number at the UN again.”
Remo punched a keypad while his boss activated a row of computers. On the roof a satellite dish automatically locked onto a communications satellite, putting Suarez in touch with the world. From there the signal took a trip from uplink to uplink, sometimes splitting into two or three signals to be beamed in opposing directions, all converging at the switchboard of the UN Security Council.
When he heard the phone connect Suarez didn’t wait for a voice.
“Did you think I was joking? Why have you not begun to pay?”
“But we
have
,” said the voice on the other end, a voice he didn’t recognize.
“Who is this?”
“Who is
this
?” said the voice. “Tell me the code.”
“White Mountain.”
“No, that’s your password. The new code.”
Suarez pushed the “hold” button on his switchboard and stared at Remo, who was listening to the call on a headset. “Did you hear that? What are they talking about? ‘New code’? I arranged no new code. What are they doing?”
Remo stared blankly back, not sure what to say.
Until that moment he’d been certain their plan would succeed without a hitch. He tried to think of something comforting, but all he could manage was: “You don’t think they’re playing with us, do you?”
“I think they are,” answered Suarez. “What else could it mean? But why would they be so stupid?” He rested his elbows on the padded desk and buried his face in his hands. “Perhaps they need another lesson,” he said softly.
“We should talk to them,” said Remo. “We can’t let some office jerk screw everything up.”
“No. Let
them
do the worrying.” He hit the “hold” button again and spoke. “It would be unwise to play games with the lives of so many people. I can detonate the other bombs in the ice at any time. Or do you think I’m bluffing?”
No answer came. The line was dead.
He redialled the special number. It rang three times, then the same voice answered.
“Who is this?” it said.
Suarez took a deep breath. “The money has not been transferred. Do I have to remind you that noon today, New York time, was the deadline? Is this game you are playing with me an invitation to detonate the rest of the bombs?”
There were a few clicks on the line, then the voice spoke again. “We need some proof that you are who you say you are.”
His face began to flush. “My talking to you on this line is your proof. Why haven’t you moved five billion US dollars from the Chase Manhattan Bank? Are you stalling?”
“I see,” said the voice. “Very well. I have orders to transfer you to the President of the United States.”
“The time for talking has ended. I have no interest in talking to your President or anyone else. In the name of the world’s poor, I demand you begin the transfer of cash as instructed –
now
! There will be no more discussions. And remember this. If the money has not begun to move by midnight tonight, your time, I will detonate the bombs that remain in the Ross Ice Shelf.”
He punched the disconnect switch with a jab of his finger. “You are making this very easy for me, you fuckers!” he shouted. “I will enjoy watching the waves engulf the world, choking the life out of you arrogant bastards.”
#
Suarez had no idea of the problems that had broken out at the United Nations. The secret phone number had been leaked. Some blamed the World Wide Web, others the phone company; whatever the truth, hoaxers were getting through on the line. The Secretary General himself had ordered the UN staffers to ask for a new codeword; only the real terrorist would know that there was no such new codeword, and that would identify him. Unfortunately, the Secretary General hadn’t been able to tell Suarez this so, when he call ed, the staffers knew they had their man. . . but they’d pissed him off so much he’d hung up.
President Kerry sat in the Oval Office listening to a dead phone line for nearly a half hour before he gave up and ordered the link closed. He and the Vice-President, the head of the Joint Chiefs, and several top financial attorneys were poised to begin the electronic transfer of five billion dollars. But the President had wanted to speak to the Deep Ice terrorists himself before recommending capitulation to the world’s bankers. Now he didn’t know what to do.
“Get me Hayes,” he said into the speaker phone.
“He’s in the field, sir,” came the answer a moment later. “It may take a while.”
Kerry turned to Vice-President Rockefeller. “Hope he’s got Suarez by the balls.”
#
It was nearly half past two in the afternoon. Flitting through rocky canyons and above the tips of pine forests, the twin Gadfly choppers led a fairly large air cavalry group. Inside Gadfly Two, General Hayes was wondering how the SEAL commander had been able to foresee how well these Stealth helicopters would suit the mission. No doubt the Hacienda had radar. No doubt Suarez’s antennae were at full mast.