Running from the Devil (2 page)

“Screw it,” Emma whispered.

She typed a text message anyway. She knew that the text system often worked even when the phone service did not. Her fingers shook as she dialed her boss’s number and typed:

Am alive, plane downed, in jungle, army men taking hostages. Help.

Emma hit send and waited while the phone displayed a little hourglass that spun as it searched for service. After a minute the display read UNABLE TO SEND.

“You worthless piece of shit!” Emma hissed out loud at the phone. She turned it off and snapped it shut. She slumped back down and stared at the burning treetops. Her eyes grew heavy, her head ached. She felt a strange languor wash over her. She worried that a concussion was causing her drowsiness, but she no sooner had that thought than she slipped into unconsciousness. The orange flames blurred as her mind shut down.

4

BANNER SAT IN SOUTHERN COMMAND’S CONFERENCE ROOM AND gazed at a large screen that contained a PowerPoint satellite photo of a black mushroom cloud. He wasn’t sure of the significance of the picture, but he figured it didn’t bode well.

Department of Defense, State Department, NORAD, and Department of Transportation personnel filled the room, as well as a soldier named Miguel Gonzalez, who’d been appointed to run a possible special operations first response force. About thirty, he was a slender five foot ten, and Banner guessed he was of Cuban descent. The others referred to him as “Major.” Banner didn’t know Miguel’s background, and no one offered the information. Presumably Stromeyer knew the details, but she hadn’t volunteered them, either.

The group in the room consisted of some of the best military and political minds in the country. The highest-ranking members of the army, navy, air force, and marines fiddled with legal pads, flipped pencils in the air, and sipped coffee from china cups that they held like mugs, ignoring the elegant, curved handles.

Jordan Whitter represented the political branch. Whitter’s reputation for maneuverability within the State Department was legendary. As a result, his career had already outlasted two presidents. Whitter had shrewd eyes and a lifelong bureaucrat’s aversion to sticking his neck out. He wore a dark suit and a striped tie that he kept adjusting.

Banner watched Whitter fidget with his tie and wondered why he’d chosen that particular combination. He’d bet a week’s salary that the stripes on the tie matched Whitter’s college colors.

Banner’s own participation in the meeting wasn’t clear, even to him. He attended at the request of an old friend, Brigadier General Robert Corvan. Corvan asked Banner to moderate the meeting, but made no mention of hiring Darkview for a mission.

When Darkview provided the military with highly qualified special operations personnel, Banner flew the men into extremely volatile situations—wars, guerrilla insurgencies, and genocidal civil conflicts. Although they often fought alongside the regular army, they were technically not a part of the United States military machine, and so their deployment could not be considered by the “host” country as a formal act of war.

The men’s unique status conferred some equally unique benefits. They were not required to follow military protocol, they had state-of-the-art equipment, and their pay was much better than their regular army counterparts. Their status conferred some negative consequences as well. Although they died in battle, their deaths were not included in official war tallies, no one hailed them as war heroes, nor did anyone present their widows with posthumous medals acknowledging their sacrifice. The unkind called them mercenaries.

Recovering a hijacked plane, even by force, could be handled by regular military search-and-rescue teams sent openly into the target area. Banner’s crew generally implemented covert missions, and so Banner wondered what the collected men in the room knew about this situation that he did not.

Miguel fiddled with a laptop computer, replaced the mushroom-cloud photo with a large satellite map of Colombia, and began his presentation.

“The first thing we did was look for any distress signals emitting from where we believe the plane landed. A satellite passing over Colombia returned a report of a cell-phone-based GPS transmission in this part of the country.” Miguel pointed to the northwestern mountains near the Colombia-Venezuela border.

“Unfortunately, the satellite passed again approximately one hundred minutes later, and the ping was gone.”

“Could it have been from a passenger’s phone?” the undersecretary of the navy said.

Miguel nodded. “The GPS transmission code was registered to a phone owned by a passenger named Emma Caldridge. And Ms. Caldridge was kind enough to send us a note.” The photo behind Miguel shifted to a copy of Emma’s text message. The words army men taking hostages were highlighted.

Whitter groaned. “This is awful.”

Banner couldn’t agree more, but he was surprised at Whitter’s empathetic response. Perhaps the man had a heart after all.

“I agree, sir. But at least we know that some people survived the crash. Better to be a hostage than dead,” Miguel said.

Whitter slapped his hand on the table. “Hostages are a political nightmare! How many? There were two hundred and sixteen people on that jet. This administration cannot have such a breach of security under its watch.”

What an asshole, Banner thought.

Miguel shook his head. “Tough to know how many survived. Once the cell-phone ping disappeared, we looked for any other anomalies that could indicate a downed jet, and we found this.”

The mushroom-cloud photo reappeared. Miguel pointed at it with a laser pointer.

“We believe it was a large explosion that caused this actual cloud. If this is the plane, either it exploded on landing, or it was deliberately exploded.”

“How long will it take to get a small troop to the location pinpointed by the cell phone transmission?” Banner said.

“It’s done already,” Miguel said.

“Excellent.” Whitter smiled for the first time that day.

Miguel grimaced. “We requested that the Colombian military send a helicopter to verify that it was the crash site and assist in a search-and-rescue mission. They did, and they say that no crash exists at those coordinates.”

Whitter’s face fell. “Could she have sent the message while the plane was still flying? Perhaps the plane continued on for a while?”

Miguel shook his head. “I doubt it.”

Whitter pointed at the screen. “What about your satellite? You got a picture of the mushroom cloud. How about a picture of the crash?”

Miguel shook his head again. “This area is mountainous and covered by dense foliage. Once the mushroom cloud dispersed, all we saw was green.”

“That’s FFOC territory, isn’t it?” Banner said.

“Not just FFOC. Every guerrilla and paramilitary group in Colombia keeps a satellite force here. It’s one of the most dangerous areas in Colombia, if not the world.”

“Why there?” Stromeyer said.

“The Oriental gas pipeline is there. The pipeline pumps fifty thousand tons of oil a day. The groups bomb it regularly and then extort protection money from Oriental and the nearby municipal authorities.”

Banner snorted. “I hope Oriental’s executives aren’t stupid enough to pay. They’ll never make a penny.”

“They did pay, until six months ago, when the United States sent a special operations force of five hundred men to protect the pipeline.”

Banner sat up straighter. “Why is the United States Army protecting a private corporation’s pipeline? Shouldn’t the corporation hire its own force to guard its property?”

“You mean like your guys?” Whitter’s disdain for Banner’s men rang in the room.

Banner stared Whitter down. He allowed no one to disrespect his men, especially a career politico in his college colors who had never fired a gun in his life.

“I mean exactly that,” Banner said. “Deploying regular army to protect a corporation, even an oil corporation, is a waste of the taxpayers’ dollars.”

“Mr. Banner, since 9/11 our new mission is to eradicate terrorism wherever it may exist in the world. If that means we send the military to protect an American corporation, then that’s what we’ll do,” Whitter said. Banner and Whitter glared at each other. Several people shifted uncomfortably in their seats as they watched the two men square off. The undersecretary of the army broke the stalemate.

“We’re there for training purposes only,” he said. He raised an eyebrow at Banner.

Miguel cleared his throat. “That mission, however, actually increased terrorism.”

Whitter shot a look at Miguel. “Explain that statement.”

“The special forces have been in a pitched battle with the FFOC and the cartels since they landed. We’ve been dropping tons of herbicide on their coca fields and intercepting their saboteurs on the pipeline almost nightly.”

“Who’s winning?” Whitter said.

“It was a stalemate. While the attacks on the pipeline diminished and some coca fields decreased, the cartels adjusted quickly. They’ve ordered the farmers to begin moving their crop to the base of the mountains, where the planes can’t spray, and this hijacking could be payback.” Miguel turned to Stromeyer. “Major Stromeyer, do you have any information on Emma Caldridge? Is she on your manifest?”

Stromeyer riffled through her many sheets of paper. She pulled one out with a passport picture at the top. A pretty young woman with brown hair and vivid green eyes gazed at the camera with a hint of a smile.

“Here she is!” Stromeyer waved the page at the others. “Emma Caldridge. Thirty years old. She’s a chemist working for Pure Chemistry, a laboratory specializing in formulating products for some of the top cosmetic companies in the world. Her supervisors say she’s one of the best chemists they’ve ever hired. She has an expertise in plants and herbs. She studies them for any special properties they may have in a cosmetic application.”

“You’ve spoken to her supervisors?” Whitter looked impressed.

Banner could have told Whitter that speaking to a key target’s supervisor would be the minimum Stromeyer would do. She had been working so long at her manifest lists that he suspected she had each person’s shoe size and preference in wine cataloged as well.

“A good dossier requires contact with someone with personal knowledge of the target,” Stromeyer said, sounding every bit the bureaucrat.

“All right,” Banner said. “What about boyfriends, husbands, lovers? Anyone she could have teamed up with to assist in this hijacking?”

Stromeyer looked startled. “You think she’s a player?”

Banner shrugged. “She survived and sent a text message, didn’t she? I wouldn’t rule anything out.”

Stromeyer nodded. “I see your point. She’s single, lives in Miami Beach, and travels for business. She was going to Bogotá to meet with a local scientist, and then was headed to Patagonia for an endurance race. No current boyfriend, although a secretary at the lab had heard a rumor that she’d previously been engaged to marry a man who died suddenly. I’m still working on that, as well as her family connections.”

“What does she do with her time? Does she belong to any questionable activist groups or have political affiliations?”

“Not at all. She works. And when she isn’t working, she runs ultramarathons.”

“What the hell is an ultramarathon?” Banner said.

“A marathon of thirty-five miles up to over one hundred.”

Banner couldn’t quite believe his ears. “Are we talking one hundred miles or one hundred kilometers?”

“Miles. I know it sounds crazy, but she literally runs one hundred miles at a time.”

Banner ran five miles every other day at five in the morning. He used a treadmill and watched the Early, Early show. It took him an hour and he was always happy to be finished.

“Hell of a way to spend your time,” Banner said.

“It is. And Ms. Caldridge ran the Badwater 135, one of the most grueling runs in the world.”

Miguel looked intrigued. “Why so?”

“It’s also known as the Death Valley run. The competitors run one hundred thirty-five miles through Death Valley. When Ms. Caldridge ran it last year, it was so hot that the rubber on the bottom of the competitors’ shoes melted to the pavement.”

Banner whistled. “Tough lady.”

“She had better be,” Miguel said, “because she’s going to have to outrun this man.” The photo behind him shifted again and a picture of a ferret-faced man in faded army fatigues filled the screen.

Miguel placed a laser dot on the man’s forehead. “This is Luis Rodrigo, head of a small band of paramilitary losers whose home base is in the mountains near where the mushroom cloud occurred.”

“What’s their role in all of this?” Banner could see from the picture that Rodrigo looked like a rodent and had the brains of a single-celled creature.

“We’re not sure, but his group camps in the vicinity of the mushroom cloud, and the location alone suggests he’s a player in the hijacking. If he is, we are dealing with a very bad guy.”

“Worse than your average guerrilla leader?”

Miguel nodded. “Much worse. Rodrigo is insane. He makes the leaders of the drug cartels look respectable by comparison. He governs a band of outcasts that have all been ousted from the more established organizations. Rodrigo, though, is able to control them. When one messes up he simply maims or kills the offender. He cuts off ears, tongues, and plucks out eyes. The really incompetent assholes he shoots. Lately he’s been said to have taken a page from the Afghan playbook and beheaded two particularly stupid soldiers.”

“If they’re so stupid, how did they plan and execute this hijacking?”

Miguel shook his head. “There is no way he did it alone. He must have had help. Either from the cartels or the FFOC, or both.”

“Do you think this man has control of the passengers?” Whitter said. He looked appalled.

“Anybody wandering around that location will have to deal with him eventually, so we need to extract any survivors quickly. This man is volatile and could kill them all in a fit of rage.”

“Suggestions?” Banner said.

Miguel nodded. “Wait until they make contact and then send them whatever ransom they demand. It’s the best plan for getting those people out alive, and the price demanded will pale in comparison to the cost of a rescue mission.”