4

 

Denver, Colorado

 

Sometimes it’s like playing chess, Roger Brinkman thought, and sometimes like peeling an onion.

He sat in his austere basement office in Denver, located two levels beneath a parking lot to protect against the terrorists who’d bombed his former offices in a high-rise. On his desk lay the day’s varied catch of information on international crime, plus anything his operatives, contacts, and friends thought might interest him. From adjacent offices came the hum of electronic equipment and faint sounds of activity by the small staff he maintained here.

No, peeling an onion was the wrong comparison for this business. Lately it was like playing chess inside the onion.

It was different in the old days—the Cold War with the CIA and, after his growing wealth permitted, his own independent agency. Back then, everyone knew who to watch. But now, with half the former KGB tied in with an international mafia selling illicit arms to third world nations and international terrorist groups, no one knew who to watch, where to watch, or what to watch for.

Or maybe he was too old to adjust to the new conditions. He couldn’t complain, though. He’d soon see his ninetieth birthday, but he still had more energy than most had at seventy. He’d had a longer run than most ever dreamed of, but it was clear he wouldn’t live long enough to see the peaceful world he’d longed for in his youth. Soon he’d need to pass the baton to a younger man.

Meanwhile, he had work to do. Who to watch? He had few contacts bearing on terrorist organizations. Not much hope for a breakthrough there. That left rogue nations like Iran and North Korea. Headlines focused on nuclear weapons, but other weapons could be just as deadly. No one could be sure what moves those nations’ leaders were making now.

Brinkman knew what he would do in their places. He’d deal with whoever was selling, and he’d smuggle in anything he couldn’t manufacture in-country.

How could it be done, though? Air transportation was too easily monitored. Overland transport wasn’t practical. That left sea transport. Ships coming from likely suppliers would draw special attention. So the astute smuggler would use ships from locations not usually associated with the illicit arms trade.

How many places did that include? Most of the world.

Not very encouraging.

Soon he’d need to compare notes with Brian Novak, his primary CIA contact. But first it wouldn’t hurt to put a few questions to friends in the maritime business.

He turned to his computer and began a search for addresses.

 

****

 

Colombia

 

After Kristin’s interrogation, she and Jocelyn passed three days in their hut without further contact. Meals arrived more or less on schedule and proved more or less edible. Their guards showed no overt hostility but refused conversation. This isolation brought a nagging sense of abandonment, and Kristin fought a losing battle with despair. A similar decline showed in Jocelyn’s face, though she said nothing about it.

On the third afternoon, Kristin heard the faint popping of blades on an approaching helicopter. Ideas spun through her mind as she searched for a plan. When she found one, she whispered instructions to Jocelyn.

As they heard the helicopter almost overhead, they opened the hovel door and ran outside, looking skyward and pretending curiosity. Their two guards were hurrying around the corner of the hut, apparently to hide their weapons from the helicopter. Consternation showed in their faces when they saw the two women. They made agitated signals with their hands, but Kristin and Jocelyn pretended not to understand.

The guards quarreled as the helicopter drew nearer. Then one carried both rifles under nearby trees while the other seized an arm of each woman and forced them back into the hut.

He was too late. When the helicopter passed overhead, two blonde heads were quite visible to anyone looking downward. Kristin doubted there were two other blondes within fifty miles.

Before the guard got them back inside, Kristin saw a flurry of activity around Contreras’s hut. No weapons were in sight anywhere. The guerrillas apparently were well trained in concealing their equipment.

The guard gave the two women an angry lecture in half-intelligible Spanish, then returned to his post.

The sounds of the helicopter faded eastward up the valley. Silence prevailed for a while. Then the popping blades announced the aircraft’s return and departure to the west.

“Do you think they were looking for us?” Jocelyn whispered.

“It’s possible,” Kristin whispered back, “but one thing is certain. If anyone was looking down, he’ll wonder what two blonde women were doing this high in the Andes.”

It was a frail hope, but better than none at all.

 

****

 

Raúl Ramirez flew Sledge and his two companions into the adjacent valley. Though Raúl had offered him the copilot’s seat, Sledge rode in the passenger compartment where he could watch Mario and Javier. He liked what he saw. They seemed as calm now as they had that morning while coordinating plans and signals.

All three men carried AK-47s and wore the camouflage uniforms, fatigue caps, and boots used by Contreras’s forces. They hoped that at first glance they’d be mistaken for guerrillas. A second glance would show they carried heavier packs than any guerrilla would, but the split- second interval between first and second impressions might mean the difference between life and death.

Sledge regretted the weakness of last night’s slide into sentimentalism. He’d always thought of people as either weak or strong, and he counted himself among the strong. During last night’s ruminations he hadn’t been so sure. But today he’d locked down his emotions and his mind was clicking with the machine-precision that combat operations demanded. He didn’t relish what he was doing, but with enough willpower he’d get through it.

Raúl caught Sledge’s eye and held up five fingers to indicate they were five minutes from landing. Sledge acknowledged with a nod, secretly happy that using hand signals meant he didn’t have to hear the pilot’s malapropisms. Sledge glanced at his companions. Mario gave an answering nod, and Javier acknowledged with a wink.

The helicopter began a gentle descent. Sledge hoped Raúl would not try any demanding maneuvers at this high altitude, but he’d trust the pilot’s judgment.

Raúl leveled out and, with a momentarily free hand, pointed ahead and right. In a few seconds, a clearing appeared. Raúl flew past it as if to continue on course. Then, with one sudden motion, he dropped the aircraft into a breathtakingly swift descending turn and brought it to a hover near the wood line on the east side of the clearing.

Sledge and his companions leaped out and ran for the cover of the trees as quickly as their heavy packs allowed. Without further signal, they spaced themselves fifteen feet apart at the corners of an imaginary triangle. With each man responsible for 120 degrees of arc, they covered the entire circle of woods around them. Assured that no threat was hiding there, they moved eastward up the valley with Mario at the point. Sledge and Javier followed at fifteen-foot intervals.

Raúl had made his takeoff as soon as his passengers cleared the aircraft. Now Sledge again listened to what seemed to him the loneliest sound in the world: the decrescendo of popping blades on a departing helicopter. The sound signified that he and his companions were on their own in a deadly, hostile environment. Nor could they know if they would live to hear those blades again.