The Last Operation (The Remnants of War Series, Book 1) (30 page)

When Kate opened the door of her condo that evening, she had to blink in surprise. She'd seldom seen a young woman as pretty as the one that stood outside her door—large soft-brown eyes with dark brows and features that Hollywood could die for. Exotic steaming good looks in a face bristling with razor sharp intelligence that seemed beyond her twenty-one years.

"I am Rosa. My brother Carlos works for your friend, Richard Daniels. I think we met years ago. I was twelve at the time."

Kate remembered. A beautiful precocious child accompanied by her mother and brother, all brought out of some situation in Mexico by Daniels. She had helped get immigration papers and green cards for them.

The young woman handed Kate a gold amulet. Kate had given it to Richard two years after her husband was killed. She blinked back the moisture creeping into her eyes as she read what she had inscribed.

My Dear Richard, thanks for being there when I needed you. Love, Kate.

"He said you would recognize it came from him and you would follow us. Your life is in danger. He sent us for you," said Rosa. "A lot has happened and there is only one safe place for now."

Bobby-Ray waited in the narrow doorway, a Mac-10 under his loose sweatshirt. The automatic pistol could spew bullets out at an appalling rate and Bobby-Ray knew the weapon like a witch knew it's Familiar. He scanned the street as the women got into Daniel's Camry with Rosa driving. He jumped in the back and they left Naples toward Everglades City. They turned off into what seemed like bushes off the side of the road. The bushes concealed a narrow weed-filled dirt path, just wide enough for the Camry. The trail led them away from the main road and the several Agency cars and men patrolling it, looking for them.

Kate felt the pounding of her heart as the car turned into a narrow trail and vegetation closed around them. She'd made the decision to go with them instinctively.
Or maybe not,
she thought.
Maybe I've just started following my heart. All this time, long after the grief became manageable, I've let guilt turn into self-indulgent pity. Oh Richard, I should have gone to you long ago.

She glanced at Bobby Ray in the rear view mirror. His eyes scanned the surroundings and he held the weapon loose in his lap. His entire demeanor exuded confidence and she was suddenly glad he was there. In spite of Bobby Ray's legendary binges, Daniels had known you could depend on him in a pinch. He caught her eyes in the mirror and gave her a thumbs-up. She smiled back.

Kate felt a wave of impatience wash over her. Now she wanted the time to fly. Her condo, her life since she'd been widowed, all those painful circumstances had led her to this moment; to Richard Daniels. She wanted to hold him, feel his strength and watch the gentle smile play across his face.

The dirt trail took them the back way into a small landing ramp on the channel leading to Everglades Park. Spirit Wolf waited with two Seminoles. Tall men, tanned brown with stringy tough muscles and armed with sawed-off "alley sweepers" shotguns. They all jumped aboard a flat bottomed air boat and roared off into the dark jungle, out of reach for any who had not been born and raised in the depth of its wild heart.

Chapter 44

Taylor's agents searched for days, crisscrossing the vast expanses of waterlogged grass and jungle, never seeing anything beyond the mangroves, alligators and salt flat channels. He couldn't call out large units to participate in the search. Too much explanation would have been required.

Taylor ordered a raid on Richard Daniels' base. They came at first light in a Blackhawk and a Bell Ranger helicopter. Fourteen agents armed with compact sub-machine guns fanned out, searching.

It was as if Daniels had never existed. No trace remained, no clue in the abandoned house and storage sheds.
Albatross
had been removed days before, towed out and hidden among the tangled Mangroves and bushy Saw Palmettos, invisible to all but the Seminoles who had hidden it. Daniels and his friends had been swallowed whole in the lost wilderness.

It was two weeks later when most of them finally left, the strangers with the Federal badges and sunglasses and Government sedans. A rearguard remained behind, a half dozen or so who continued roaming Everglades City and its surroundings. A few days later one of the Seminoles brought in a copy of the Florida Sun-Times and gave it to Daniels as he sat outside Spirit Wolf's cabin with Kate.

TRAINING ACCIDENT KILLS SIX

US Intelligence authorities completed the investigation of a training accident that claimed the lives of six men. The accident took place two weeks ago in the Everglades. The men were conducting a classified training mission designed to test equipment that will eventually be used in the rescue of downed military flyers. First Lieutenant John W. Gilbert Jr., on temporary duty from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, David Hart, Anthony Alaimo, Peter Fallon and Retired Master Sergeant Roland F. Washington. Also killed was Collier County Deputy Sheriff Robert Schmus who was acting as guide. All died when their Blackhawk helicopter struck a pine tree in the Everglades. The bodies of Lt. John Gilbert and Mr. Roland Washington were never recovered. It is believed they were washed out to the Gulf and authorities doubt they will ever be found. Except for Lt. Gilbert and Deputy Schmus, all were employees of various Federal intelligence agencies.

It ate at him like a cancerous growth. Kate could feel it in the way he tensed at certain times and seemed lost in a world of the past that held him in a haunting grip. She'd re-discovered herself in the primitive beat of the Everglades, in the rhythm of passing days and tumultuous nights. As she and Richard made love among the noises of the jungle, their cries of pleasure merged with the surrounding nightly cacophony. Naples, her law practice and binges seemed to belong to another world.

One morning she held him fiercely as a windy thunderstorm raced across the vast swamp, bringing howling wet gales and the smell of water-soaked, vegetation ripened for ages in the tropical sun.

He sat, wordlessly looking out at the churning water and swishing green foliage. She felt the tense muscles of his arm and lower back and gently stroked him as she whispered.

"It seems so long ago Richard, do you remember when you told me to let it go? I heard, I didn't understand right away, I couldn't. It took a while, a long while until I truly felt what you were saying. Now it's your turn Richard. Let it go. It will dissipate in time. It's not your fight, not anymore, it's too big for us now."

Richard turned and looked at her. She thought she could drown in his eyes.

"I can't let it go Kate. Too many people have died, too many lives ended. If I stop now, none of it will have any meaning. There will never be peace. It will haunt us for the rest of our lives until one day it reaches out to kill us."

"All I know Richard is that I can't lose you. Not now, not ever. If something happened to you, it will happen to me also. If they kill you, they kill me also. You remember that always. It's not just your life you're safeguarding it's mine also. I'm not capable of living without you anymore."

She turned her eyes away and rested her head on his chest. She could feel the beating of his heart through the curtain of her blonde hair. She raised her lips as Richard enfolded her in his arms.

The storm passed leaving behind a steaming jungle thick with the smells of decaying vegetation, ocean water and rich loamy soil. Daniels left Kate sleeping in the cabin, cool with the shade of the overhanging oak. He walked to the dock and the edge of the island. Soft grass and mud oozed between his bare toes and it felt good.

It came to him slowly as he sat, his bare feet dangling in the muddy brackish water. He knew it had grown beyond his abilities to handle and safeguard the people he held dear. It was time to act, to strike back. Suddenly he knew what he had to do, had known all along. It formed unbidden in his mind, just waiting for his conscious thoughts. He got up and looked around as if saying goodbye, for a while. Then he turned and headed toward the cabin to talk to Kate.

Chapter 45

Puffy fragments of clouds rolled across the horizon among patches of bright blue sky. It seemed as if the very heavens were moving. Light from the setting sun painted the underside of the clouds a bright orange-red in the late afternoon. The view from the panoramic windows of the 45th floor of the new Federal office building was simply magnificent, thought William Taylor.

It'd taken over twelve years for him to reach this level. The entire floor was devoted to the newly formed Federal organization he headed. His personal office was as sumptuous as any CEO of a Fortune 500 Corporation. The taxpayers wouldn't mind since even though he was a public servant, the furnishings had been paid out of his own funds. Everything from bleached oak floors partially covered by a handcrafted Indian rug, to the custom designed desks, chairs and leather sofa with an original Matisse hanging on the wall above it, had been paid with Taylor's private funds. The scope and source of these funds would have been sufficient to bankroll most third world countries and possibly a few developed ones as well. Throughout South America, the power of the organizational alliances controlled by William Taylor's secret illicit groups, drew funds out of every secretive transaction that took place. Every time illegal drugs were sold, from multi-million dollar shipments smuggled into the US to the hapless junkie buying nickel bags of Coke or "B" rock crack, from bales of high quality Sensimilla Marijuana to individual joints cut with Oregano, from $5 and $10 bills to entire suitcases stuffed with $1,000 bills, a little slice of that cash found its way into the coffers of William Taylor's organization.

But it did not end there. Like the exponential growth of compound interest or a snowball gathering bulk, there'd been a spread of influence and collateral profits from arms and drug sales to scattered groups in all corners. A variety of extremists and a host of unsavory and transitory governments throughout the unsettled corners of the globe, all brought cash, power and influence to be built upon and multiplied. Banks and financial organizations throughout the world and other varied depositories of global wealth, all had huge accounts that were fed, used and linked by Taylor's organization.

Now William Taylor was on the verge of the greatest coup of all. He felt as if he stood on the very top of a mountain at the pinnacle of the world. He was about to soar on the power he'd created over the last dozen years.

In less than three weeks, the Senate would confirm his appointment. The office he had pretty much inspired with spider webs of influence, power, money, deceit and even covert murder, that new office would be his. It didn't seem like much at first glance, but the new cabinet level office known as ICAG, Intelligence Coordination & Action Group, combined elements of the Office of Homeland Security, CIA, ATF and FBI under one command. It opened new avenues, doors that had previously been inaccessible.