Chapter 32

The message light on Fay’s room phone was flashing, and so was the “e-mail-waiting” icon on her monitor. She called the front desk first to retrieve her messages. There was one message for her from Jangho Kim. He had asked she call his room ASAP. It would be good news, his message promised.

Fay called his room. His words brought a smile to her lips. Following a brief conversation, she hung up the phone.

Fay turned to Gifford and announced, “Good news. The tension between North and South Korea is subsiding. The threat of war has passed.” Fay thought his response would have been to beat a hasty retreat to the nearest phone with the news tip of the year. While he did look happy to hear the news, he did not display any urgency to convey the information to anyone, such as his employer, NCC. “Gifford, don’t you have to call someone?” Fay prompted.

“It’s not my assignment,” he replied.

“What is your assignment?” She thumped herself in the forehead with the heel of her hand and said, “Champion, you bastard. I’m your assignment. I’m your story.”

He sheepishly nodded.

“DAMN!” Fay groaned as she glowered at him. “Can’t I trust anyone?” she muttered to herself as she stalked to the window. She looked through angry eyes out over the tops of the office buildings at the gathering storm front as she felt hurt and rage welling in her gut and said, “Son-of-a-bitch.” She then turned and glowered, again, at Gifford Champion. “This is bull…” She abruptly stopped speaking.

Gifford swallowed hard. “The bull you fed me about the Carr when we first met doesn’t make us even?” he asked weakly.

“Not…even…close.”

“I thought we made a pretty good team,” he said softly.

Fay remained silent for a moment. A sly smile slowly formed on her lips. “You’re right. We do make a good team. You get a good story, Champion?”

A look of relief came to Gifford’s face. “We make a great team…and yes, I’m getting a great story. Although as it turns out, it may never be written.”

Fay realized she had one more bit of communication to attend to: the e-mail. She retreated to the PC and brought up her e-mail. “Come look,” she beckoned.

“Hi,” she read the words displayed on the screen out loud, “I’m sorry this took so long. I had a difficult time figuring this one out. The three items you asked about are Air Force budget line items. Run an Internet search on the U.S. Air Force’s annual expenditures; it’s public knowledge. Good luck, Winslow.”

Gifford stepped back from the computer. “The lad is good.”

Fay moved to the phone to call Winslow. “Don, I need you, pronto. And call your buddy; I need her too.”

“We’re across the street, in the park,” Winslow responded. “We’ll be right up.”

While waiting for her dynamic duo to arrive, Fay entered the required input needed to prompt the Air Force’s complete annual expenditures database. The process took less than a minute.

“Okay, let’s see what we have.” Fay reviewed the various budget line items.

“There,” Gifford said, pointing to a line item that had captured his attention.

Fay focused her attention on three-line items in the budget. “All of these expenditures are black budget items.”

A knock at the door. “Winslow and Pearce. Will you let them in, Gifford?” Fay asked.

Winslow and Pearce entered.

“What were you kids doing in the park?” Fay inquired, “Or need I ask?”

Pearce replied, “Feedin’ the squirrels, ma’am.”

“It would seem, darlin’, and y’all managed to bring a couple of them back with you. Make yourselves at home.”

“Afternoon, Miss Pearce, Mr. Winslow,” Gifford added.

Fay read the line Gifford had noticed. There were three items, and she read each one aloud. “‘0304111F, Special Activities—nine hundred million dollars, Rothchild, Barrymore, and Gain—classified. PE 0207248F—five hundred million dollars, Special Evaluation Program—classified. PE 0207424, Special Evaluation and Analysis Program—six hundred million dollars—classified.’ The line items don’t mean anything to me,” she finished.

“The sum of the three-line items does mean something, though,” Winslow observed. “It totals slightly over two billion dollars. The Special Activities designation is the Air Force’s name for their ‘Black Projects.’”

“The line item referring to the law firm of Rothchild, Barrymore, and Gain is interesting,” Fay noted. “The Air Force paid them a sizable amount of cash in the past year. It makes me wonder. I need to get into Gain’s billing records.”

“Wouldn’t you need a password?” Gifford asked.

“Well, I do have some contacts at the NSA. They employ the best hackers in the world. But no. Hacking is illegal,” Fay stated. “In a criminal trial, primary evidence, illegally obtained, is inadmissible under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Subsequently, such evidence can potentially taint legally obtained secondary evidence. It’s a doctrine we refer to as ‘fruit of the poisonous tree.’” She thought for a moment. “Tell ya what. There’s a guy at Gain who owes me a favor. He knows I would never compromise him, no matter what I found in their records. He will probably help me out.”

The keyboard keys clicked as Fay typed out an e-mail to her friend at Rothchild, Barrymore, and Gain. The clicking stopped. “Send,” she said as she clicked the appropriate icon on the screen. “Let’s see what Jerry can do for us.”

****

Someone had grown suspicious when the dog and his handler did not return. The two remaining dogs were now heading toward Simon. He fired a shot at the dogs but missed. Egan knew Simon—all of the team members, for that matter—were trained to repeatedly hit a target the size of a quarter from a distance of a quarter of a mile away. It was called a “quarter shot.” Simon had missed on purpose.

The dogs turned and ran. Seeing the fleeing dogs, two smugglers opened fire in Simon’s direction. It seemed evident some of the smugglers were either terrible shots or blinded by the intense sunlight.

James and Simon worked their way forward through the tall grass from opposite directions, toward the opposing fire. Egan kept his gaze on Andrew and swatted at the many ants covering his body.

Suddenly a bullet caught Andrew in the side of his body. He slumped forward in the grass.

“Timmy’s down!” Egan yelled. “I’ll get him, cover me!” He worked his way forward on his belly. He found the going slow and the return gunfire incessant.

In a moment, Valentine, James, Kimo, and Philip joined in a terrific volley of fire. They managed to keep the pressure up as they all took turns maneuvering toward Andrew and Egan’s position.

Simon was the first to reach Andrew. “Timmy is shot bad,” he reported to the others.

The smugglers retreated into the edge of the jungle, leaving the twin-engine plane unprotected.

“I don’t think Timmy’s going to make it back to the ship,” Simon said. “Let’s get a chopper in here.”

“There’s not enough time,” Egan said as he wrestled off his bug-ridden jacket and Kevlar vest. “I can fly the plane over there. You guys cover me. I’ll taxi to this side of the clearing. I’ll pick you up there. Watch out for the propellers.”

The five team members pulled out everything they had in a tremendous assault. Egan made the dash across the clearing and, in what seemed like one quick motion, got the door open and jumped inside the plane. For a moment, the aircraft sat silently, then suddenly, the engines roared to life. He turned the tail of the airplane toward the smugglers. Advancing the throttle and holding the brakes, he sent a storm of sand, debris, grass, and smoke in the props blast. The plane pulled away.

“Go! Go!” James barked.

Egan watched the action from his vantage point in the plane’s cockpit as Simon and Kimo gathered up Andrew. At the same time, Philip, Valentine, and James attended to the smugglers. The team retreated into the jungle to meet the plane further along the clearing. The men carried Andrew through the brushy cover’s protection and then emerged into the open, farther away than smaller targets. Everything went as hoped, and the men scrambled out of the underbrush to the waiting plane with no more casualties.

Simon and Kimo jumped through the rear door, still carrying Andrew. The two big men made it look easy.

James climbed into the copilot seat. They were just pulling the doors closed when Egan started the plane down the grass runway.

“All right,” James said with a note of relief in his voice.

“I have to assume the beach is at the end of this runway - if you can call it that,” Egan said as they bumped along the grass strip, picking up speed.

“I hope we have enough runway,” James said quietly.

“We got lucky there,” Egan said. “This is a Shrike Commander—good for grass strips and lots of power, the preferred method of transportation of many drug runners. Drugs and money don’t weigh much, but armed men do.”

Egan was experiencing blurred vision as the plane roared down the clearing toward the beach. He had not taken the time to tell the team that he, too, had been shot. “James, watch the airspeed for me. Tell me when we reach seventy-five knots.” He then said, “See if you can find something that I can stuff into my T-shirt to stop this bleeding.”

James quickly glanced at the growing red stain on the front of Egan’s shirt. “Anyone see a towel back there?”

Simon found several clean mechanic’s rags and passed them forward to James, who hastily packed them up under the front of Egan’s shirt.

“Can you make it, sir?” James asked Egan.

“I’m having trouble focusing.” Egan looked at James, then rubbed the red wet area on his upper left chest.

“Seventy-five knots, Hurricane,” James said matter-of-factly.

Egan pulled the wheel back. The twin-engine Commander lifted off quickly. But only an instant after they were airborne, they saw the surf zone flash by underneath them. No one said a word as the plane climbed steadily into the bright afternoon sky.