Eyes of the Hammer (The Green Berets)

Eyes of the Hammer

book 1 of the Green Beret Series

by

Bob Mayer

CHAPTER ONE

WEDNESDAY, 21 AUGUST

SPRINGFIELD, VIRGINIA

8:18 A.M.

The convoy was caught in the tail end of the morning traffic crush pouring out of the suburbs and cascading into Washington, D.C. The three four-door Chevys with tinted windows were sandwiched in a long string of cars rolling east along Keene Mill Road. Another mile and a half along the two-lane road that bisected Springfield, Virginia, and they'd reach the Beltway girdling the nation's capital.

The morning sun was low on the horizon, its slanting rays a harbinger of the broiling heat to come later in the day. Penetrating the dark windshield of the second car, the bright sun caused the occupant of the right front seat to squint as he scanned the road ahead. Although the sun hurt his eyes, Jenkins resisted the temptation to put his sunglasses on, knowing that the combination of dark glasses and a tinted windshield would effectively blind him to the shaded areas along the sides of the road, which he was methodically scanning.

Conscious of his responsibilities as the agent in charge of the convoy, Jenkins twisted in the seat and glanced over his shoulder. Car Three was lagging behind. Before another car could slip into the gap, he picked up the radio microphone and keyed it. "Three, close it up."

"Roger, Two."

Jenkins shook his head in slight irritation as he put down the mike.

There was never enough time to train his men correctly. He glanced over his left shoulder again to ensure that the third car had closed the gap sufficiently. Satisfied, he continued his forward surveillance of the right side of the busy two-lane road.

Jenkins checked to make sure that his own driver was maintaining the proper interval behind the lead security car. He wished he could roll down his window. Smoke from the cigar in the backseat was overpowering the air-conditioning. The cigar smoke from their charge was just one of several things Jenkins didn't like about this assignment. He envisioned himself as a man of action, and bodyguard details bored him. In his opinion, they were usually a waste of personnel. Six U.S. marshals to guard one person wasn't what Jenkins considered an efficient use of manpower.

He returned his attention to the route. They were driving along a section of road bordered on both sides by expensive houses. Fifty meters ahead of the lead car, a group of about twenty high school students waited for their bus along the right side of the road. Jenkins briefly considered them as a source of danger, then rejected the possibility.

He shifted his gaze twenty-five feet farther down the sidewalk and raked his eyes over two men walking toward the students. Two men carrying gym bags and wearing dark glasses. Two Latino men. The last note started a little alarm pinging in Jenkins's mind as the first car began to pass the school bus stop.

Jenkins was already grabbing for the mike as he watched the two men stop and pull submachine guns out of their bags. He keyed the mike as they began firing at the youngsters. Seeing the young bodies getting bowled over by the fusillade, Jenkins was stunned for a split second. The lead car was already turning toward the firing.

Jenkins's training was screaming for him to order his driver to accelerate away. His reaction as a human being conflicted with that. Already the sidewalk was littered with young bodies. Fleeing children were crossing the street in front of the convoy. Jenkins whipped his gaze back to the right. The lead car had stopped. Its doors were swinging open.

"No! Keep going!" Jenkins screamed futilely into the radio.

The two marshals from the front car leapt out, one from each door, their Uzi's at the ready. Jenkins was shocked as a machine gun, hidden in a culvert on the left side of the street, opened fire. The two exposed marshals wilted under the fire.

An explosion from behind caught Jenkins's attention. The trail security car was a ball of flame. "Go! Go!" Jenkins yelled at his driver, Parker.

Parker needed little prompting as he spun the wheel and attempted to get around the stopped lead car. But to do so, Parker would have to run over the bodies of some of the students who had been gunned down in the street. He couldn't bring himself to run over the youngsters, some of whom were still alive and crawling away from their attackers.

Jenkins grabbed Parker's shoulder. "Go! You've got to go!"

Jenkins flinched as the car's windshield crackled under the impact of the machine gun that had shifted its fire to his car. The bulletproof glass was designed to stop a sniper rifle, not the pounding of a heavy caliber machine gun. Jenkins ducked just before the glass finally gave in and rounds crashed into the interior of the car. Blood splattered the front seat as a round sheared off the top of Parker's head. The engine died as armor-piercing rounds tore through the engine block.

A ricochet ripped into Jenkins's chest and slammed him further down on the seat. The right side of his chest initially felt numb, then little sparks of pain started flaring.

The chatter of the machine gun ceased. Dimly, Jenkins could hear the screams of the wounded. Gasping with pain, he drew his mini Uzi submachine gun from its scabbard on the right side of his seat. He reached up and pushed his door open, but before he had completed a roll into the street, he was hit with four more rounds fired by men approaching the car from the rear. The rounds hammered him to the ground, half beneath the car.

As darkness filled his mind, Jenkins heard the crunching of approaching shoes. His legs were kicked out of the way as the back door was swung open. From a distance, he heard an accented voice.

"Is it him?"

"Si."

The darkness finally enveloped Jenkins as a submachine gun roared.

CHAPTER TWO

THURSDAY, 22 AUGUST

LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

8:00 A.M.

The director of the CIA, Bill Hanks, turned his baleful gaze on the man seated across from him. Hanks didn't like the nattily dressed man, but the elderly director had long ago learned to respect and use talent wherever he found it and in whatever form it appeared. Peter Strom embodied some of what Hanks felt was wrong with the "new CIA," yet the young man also was a shining example of many of the qualities needed in the modern world of intelligence. Strom could compile and summarize information better than anyone Hanks had ever worked with. Hanks also knew that Strom's meteoric rise to deputy director at the relatively young age of thirty-four had been largely due to his ability to ingratiate himself with the people in power. Strom had been a particular favorite of the previous director, and Hanks had inherited the man. He detested Strom's two-faced behavior—sucking up to his superiors and lording over his subordinates. Yet, not liking someone's personality was not a good enough reason, in Hanks's book, to demote the man. Being honest with himself, the director also had to admit that his deputy did excellent work, and that was one of the reasons Strom was present in his office this morning.

The director waved a hand, indicating that he was ready for the briefing to start, then swiveled his chair to gaze out his window. He knew it irritated Strom not to be looked at while he briefed. "Give me the background on why Santia was here, so I'm up to date. The Old Man is screaming bloody murder across the river, and he's probably going to hit me up for something about the whole Springfield thing when I see him later this morning."

Strom snapped open a folder and started speaking in a rich, cultured voice that Hanks was sure he practiced. "Judge Santia was one of the twenty-four Supreme Court justices in Colombia. Using diplomatic pressure, the State Department finally got Santia and two other judges to sign extradition papers on several members of the Colombian drug cartel, most specifically members of the Ramirez family from the Cartagena branch, one of the most powerful drug families in Colombia. The Justice Department presently has three members of the Ramirez family here in the United States awaiting arraignment for drug trafficking.

"In exchange for signing the extradition order, State agreed to bring Santia and the other two judges here to the United States for protection. They've done this several times in the past, ever since '85, when eleven members of the Supreme Court in Bogota were massacred for allowing extradition of some drug traffickers."

Strom glanced up as Hanks mused out loud. "I remember that. They torched the damn Supreme Court building, didn't they? Held out for a couple of days there until the government ordered the army in?"

Strom nodded. "Yes, sir."

Hanks indicated for him to continue with the briefing.

"Santia was to finish testifying before a congressional subcommittee on drug trafficking on Friday and then he was to disappear into the Federal Witness Protection Program."

Hanks cut in. "Obviously that isn't what happened."

Strom glanced up from his notes. "No, sir."

"What did happen then?" Hanks swung his chair around and faced Strom. "What has the FBI turned up on the actual attack?"

"I've got an eyes-only copy of their initial report." Strom slid some pictures across the desk. Hanks didn't bother to ask where Strom had gotten hold of the highly classified internal FBI report. Obtaining useful information was another of Strom's assets. Hanks pulled his chair up to the desk to look at the pictures as Strom briefed.

"The final tally from yesterday's attack was seventeen killed. That includes Judge Santia, six U.S. marshals, and ten bystanders. There are six youngsters still in the hospital, two in critical condition.

"As best as the FBI can reconstruct, the sequence of events was as follows: The attack began with two unidentified males opening fire with 9-millimeter Ingram MAC-10 submachine guns on a group of twenty high school students waiting for the school bus." Strom pointed at one of the pictures. "Right about there. This was apparently done to lure in the lead car and stop the convoy."

The director of the CIA looked up. "Weren't those men properly trained to ignore a diversion like that?"

"I imagine that the killing of the school kids made them forget what they were supposed to do. That was just one of several mistakes they made," Strom sniffed, apparently feeling that the U.S. marshals had committed some personal affront to him.

Hanks didn't bother to hide his irritation. Strom had never seen a shot fired in anger. "Well, I guess they won't make any more mistakes, will they? Continue."

Strom pointed at another picture. "The lead car pulled up to the bus stop and the two marshals inside exited. As they did so, an M60 machine gun opened fire on them from across the street, located here in this culvert. The FBI believes that the machine gun and its firer had been hidden in there since dawn, because they have not been able to find any witnesses who remember seeing anything suspicious earlier that morning. They believe that the firer most likely stayed hidden well back in the culvert until the attack started.