Legacy (19 page)

THE ANDES FOOTHILLS EAST OF QUITO, ECUADOR

Any hope of knowing exactly where they were had gone by the wayside as they were immediately hooded and moved into the back of a truck. Each of the Americans—Ryan, Mendenhall, Everett, and Collins—had a security man sitting next to him, preventing any conversation or touching, with the handcuffs making the ride that much more uncomfortable.

Jack was silent and had his eyes closed under the black hood. What he had hoped would happen was indeed happening. Given Niles’s explanation of the short time frame they had to come up with something, what better way was there to get inside any heavily guarded facility than to be arrested and thrown in? It was a risk, and more than likely that risk had now tripled, but they had to play the hand they had been dealt. For the moment Jack was busy estimating speed and time as the truck made its way to wherever they were going. They had made three turns—the first left, the next two right—and they had stopped twice, so he took all that into account for his estimate. He knew all three of his men were doing the same calculations.

Every once in a while, Jack could hear the security men whispering to each other as they joked or spoke about one thing or another. The curious thing about their conversation was that they were speaking English in two distinct accents, one American and the other German. Finally, as Collins listened and calculated at the same time, the truck came to a sudden halt and the engine was shut off. Instead of being taken from the covered back of the truck, which was probably a Mercedes brand vehicle, they felt the bottom give way on their stomachs. Although the truck had ceased moving, it was now being lowered by elevator. The colonel figured any pretense about this being an Ecuadorian government-funded operation went right out the window.

After traveling downward quite a distance, all movement ceased. They heard the tailgate being lowered, and then they felt themselves eased onto a hard surface. Jack was the first to have his hood removed. He blinked in the bright fluorescent lighting. They were in a giant concrete tunnel of engineered beauty. It was rounded above the floor and traveled in a steady downhill slope, disappearing at least half a mile ahead of them. Jack remained silent as the others had their hoods taken off.

“Hey, I thought we were going to eat Salisbury steak,” Ryan said, as a way of getting attention.

“Yeah, I’m hungry. What happened to lunch?” Mendenhall asked.

The distraction gave Everett the chance he needed. He slid in beside Collins.

“About three miles,” he whispered.

“Yeah, three miles and some change, traveled in a roundabout way. We didn’t go anywhere,” Jack said, as he watched two menacing and very large guards staring down Will and Jason. “We zigzagged in a circle around the perimeter and then ended up right back at the main gate and then up a hill to the base of a mountain. They drove in here and then we took an elevator down to this marvelous place. I figure—”

“You, silence!” one of the guards said, approaching Jack and Carl.

“He was just explaining about how he just knew the Salisbury steak thing was too good to be true,” Everett said, looking up at the guard. The man stood at least four inches taller than Everett himself, making him no less than six feet, eight inches. “But I don’t want to get hit for it,” he said, feigning fear at the man’s intimidating size. The comment put a smile on Jack’s lips as he lowered his head because he knew that the former SEAL could bust the man in two with his hands still tied behind his back.

“Is that what you came here for, Jack? Lunch?” a voice asked from behind them.

Collins turned and saw a small man signing something on a clipboard and then handing it back to one of the guards. The man with the mustache and well-trimmed beard and light blue suit looked familiar, though Collins couldn’t place him at first. But when the newcomer smiled, recognition hit him like a brick to the stomach.

“Jim McCabe?” Jack asked as he tried to focus his eyes in the harsh lighting.

“Good to see you too, Jack,” the man said as he approached.

“Has everyone you’ve ever known gone over to the dark side, Colonel?” Mendenhall asked, as he watched the smaller man join their group.

“Gentlemen,” said Jack, “I’d like you to meet Lieutenant Colonel James McCabe, former United States Delta Force leader, supposedly killed in action 12 November 2004 in Iraq.”

The man smiled again, this time even wider than before, and then turned as if he were showing off a new suit.

“Ah, the rumors of my demise were greatly exaggerated, old friend.” McCabe approached the four men. “I am glad my little ruse to discharge myself from the employ of Uncle Sam was so successful, er—what is it now, Jack? Still Major?”

“Colonel,” Collins said.

“I knew you would make it. Tell me, who in hell do you work for that would send you here, of all places? DOD?”

“You can ask,” Jack said, “but you know me, Jim—hush-hush and full of mystery.”

Again the smile and the shake of the head as McCabe turned his attention to Jack’s three companions.

“I take it these three are as fully capable as yourself?”

“Nah, they just came along as valets.”

“Now, let me guess,” he said, turning back to face Everett, Mendenhall, and Ryan, “Jack and I used to play this game back at the Point, guessing the rank of military personnel in civilian clothing. They always look so out of place. Let’s see…” He stepped up to Mendenhall. “A sergeant, maybe a master sergeant?”

“Off,” Will said, although he knew the man to be right, up to a point. Will had only recently become an officer and a gentleman, a second lieutenant, and he had been promoted to that rank from master sergeant.

“Really? Well, we’ll come back to you.” McCabe then looked Ryan over and laughed out loud. “You’re hanging out with Navy men, Jack. What the hell is the world coming to?”

“Hey!” Ryan said, taking a menacing step toward the man staring at him before the guards restrained him.

As McCabe turned toward Everett, his eyes narrowed to mere slits.

“Could I be looking at a Navy SEAL?” he asked Jack.

“Guys, don’t let McCabe’s mind-reading ability intimidate you. Ryan, you just look Navy, not hard to guess. Will, McCabe here is a puritanical bigot, who thinks black men are only capable of reaching noncom status. Mr. Everett, your SEAL tattoo is showing.”

“Why, Jack, you
are
capable of giving away secrets,” said McCabe.

“What now, Jim?” Collins asked.

“Oh, my employer will want to know what a multiservice group is doing on his property. And my name is now Smith, by the way.”

“That’s original,” Jack said, eyeing the man in front of him.

“Jack, Jack, Jack! When will you get it through your head that the entire world is now a gray area? No white, no black, just gray. Gone are the bad guys and the good guys, and all that’s left is men trying to survive in a world that only cares who is strongest or who is the wealthiest.”

Collins tuned toward his three men.

“The former colonel’s last psych evaluation said that he was off his rocker, maddened by an inability to control his temper.”

“Just as I am having difficulty keeping that temper now, Colonel Collins. May I say, gentlemen—” He looked from Jack to the others. “—that you walked into the wrong fucking piece of property, and it will be my pleasure to bury you here.”

Collins, Everett, Mendenhall, and Ryan watched the small man turn away and gesture for the guards to bring them along. They headed down the tunnel where the overhead lighting disappeared to nothing as it sank into the ground.

Leave it to Ryan to anger McCabe even more with his last question.

“So I guess lunch is out of the question?”

4

Jack, Carl, Will, and Ryan watched as the excavation dug back in the thirties and forties slid by the windows of their tram. There were three cars attached to the motorcar and they were riding in the middle six-wheeled conveyance. The road they traveled on was old but well maintained. The concrete poured all those years ago must have cost the German government a small fortune. As Collins tried to examine some of the deep depressions where men had once dug into the base of the mountain, he saw no evidence of anything that had been taken out years before.

Finally their journey came to an end. Although they had stopped in front of a large steel-reinforced gate, the paved road continued downward at a steep angle, indicating that there were further excavations beyond. The guards in the front and rear cars motioned for them to get out. McCabe was there and he was again writing on his clipboard. As the guards herded the four men toward a Quonset hut in front of the large gate, Jack saw several items that chilled his blood. Lined up neatly against the stone wall were approximately a hundred crates of varying sizes. On several of the smaller ones, stacked thirty feet high and sloppily covered in tarpaulins, the crate’s markings had been exposed.

“Damn, Jack, do you see that?” Everett asked, just as he was pushed from behind.

Collins took one last quick look before he himself was jabbed in the back.
FIM-92
was stenciled on several of the exposed plastic cases. Jack immediately recognized what they were seeing. FIM-92 was a Stinger missile system, an infrared-homing surface-to-air missile developed in the United States and licensed by the Raytheon Corporation to be built by EADS, the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company in Germany.

“Shit, there must be over eighty of those cases!” Carl said, as a door was opened and they were led into the hut.

James McCabe stepped in behind them and watched as Jack and the others were placed in seats. McCabe then gestured for the men and women who were sitting at several desks to leave. Once they were gone, McCabe sat on the edge of an empty desk and looked at the four men. He seemed confident, even though none of his captives was restrained. Jack supposed the eight large men in gray security uniforms holding AK-47s were a confidence builder for the former Delta officer.

“Okay, here we are. As you can tell, Jack, there’s nothing much to see here but an old German mining company that was once a promising site for recovering uranium. The mining attempt failed, and the new owner is particularly worried about others digging around and finding something the old boys from the war didn’t. A patriot, you might say, who doesn’t want any undiscovered material falling into the wrong hands.”

“I see, and that makes you a man who is concerned about the well-being of innocent people?” Jack asked, his brows raised.

“Ah,” McCabe said, raising his hand and swiping it through the air, “You know me far better than that, Jack. It’s the money, of course. I’m paid a lot by my employer to keep this place secure. It’s not the rest of the world I care about—it’s my world I’m concerned with, you should know that.”

McCabe stood from the desk and walked up to Will Mendenhall and looked down at him.

“Now, I need to know who you work for.” McCabe looked from Will to Ryan, and then down the line until his eyes rested on Jack. “Any volunteers?”

The room remained silent as McCabe glanced from face to face. He didn’t seem disturbed that all four men kept their mouths shut.

“It’s just a matter of curiosity. It makes no never mind to me. You came, you saw, and now you can report to—” He smiled. “—
whomever
it is you answer to that there is nothing in Quito that requires American involvement.” He looked at his wristwatch. “Well, I have to be somewhere else in a few hours. I think it’s time to feed you that lunch that my colleague promised you, and then you can get back to wherever you came from.” He slapped Collins on the right knee. “Jack, it was good to see you, old friend. Take care of yourself.”

They all watched as McCabe left the room. After he did, Jack and Carl exchanged a look and their unvoiced thought was that they would never see the light of the outside world again.

The security men gestured for the four to stand. The door was opened and they were escorted out into the massive cavelike gallery. Collins looked to the left at the large gate, and then to the right, where several workers were starting to load the crates and their contents onto the tram. The lead security guard pointed his AK-47 in the direction they had come from. Altogether there were just four of them and they had eight large men with guns. Jack was trying to think as fast as he could as they were led to a small excavated gallery that had been dug into the side of the large tunnel system. He remembered Sarah explaining to him that miners sometimes dug out side shafts for the discarding material that would save them loading it onto a conveyance to take topside. He knew this was where they would be shot and dumped. They were out of time.

“Colonel, I don’t think this is the way to the kitchen,” Ryan said from the front of the line as they were led into the darkened chute. “I hope you have a plan.”

“Nothing comes to mind,” Collins answered from the back. The security men were in two rows beside them, four on the left and four on the right.

“This job really sucks sometimes,” Mendenhall said from behind Ryan.

“Shut up and move forward,” the guard said. He turned around and faced Mendenhall. They could hear that he was one of the Americans in the security group.