Perspiration trickling down his face, DeMarco swept the rifle across the trees, a damn lot of them for that bastard to be hiding in, where the hell was he up there—?
He abruptly checked the weapon’s motion. Through the electronic reticle of its sight, he’d spotted the treetop shooter saddled in the crook of a foliage-swaddled limb, his IR phantom form absolutely still.
It took perhaps a millisecond to realize the sighting was mutual.
His eye to the scope, DeMarco had enough time to see the bore of the sonofabitch’s rifle swing toward him in the treetop, just enough, the sniper absolutely still and steady up in the treetop except for that one conspicuous movement.
DeMarco could hear his pulse somewhere between his ears as he squeezed back Big Daddy’s trigger and felt the recoil against his shoulder, a 20-mm smart round flying from the rifle’s titanium upper barrel, the micro-computerized sight processing range and position, automatically calculating the round’s best point of detonation for target acquisition, setting it for airburst rather than on-impact explosion. And then an earsplitting blast, the treetop igniting into an orange bouquet of flame, its trunk blowing apart, spewing everywhere, obliterated into countless fiery chunks, shaves, and splinters of wood.
DeMarco felt his heart stroking. Later he would recall his half-surprised glance down at himself as if to confirm it really was still beating inside him, that he really hadn’t gotten slugged in the chest—here, unbeknownst, was the crowd grabber of War Story Number One for the books.
He returned his eye to the rifle sight, looked through the smoke into the thicket. The gunfire around him had gotten more sporadic. He could hear the whap of copter blades closer overhead. Good signs. Very good signs.
“Chief!” Scanning the vegetation, scanning. His back pressed against the side of the Rover, his comlink channel to Nimec was open again. “Chief, come in, I’m trying to get a visual—”
“I hear you,” Nimec said. “Can’t see a damned thing, though. Smoke’s too thick. Best estimate, I’m ten yards back of the Rover, twenty yards or so deep in the brush.”
DeMarco swung his rifle barrel to the left, picked up a pair of low TIs—one man propped on his arms, the other flat on the ground.
“Think I’ve got a visual on you, chief, hold up a hand . . .”
It rose ghostly and shimmering in his scope’s eyecup.
DeMarco breathed.
“Okay, it’s you all right,” he said. “Hang tight, I’m on my way over.”
“Remind me to kick you down for insubordination when you get here.”
“Will do,” DeMarco said, and tore forward into the vegetation.
Watching the explosion rip through the treetops through his glasses, listening to the sound of a helicopter in the not-too-distant eastern sky, the headman knew it was time to call off his raid, knew irrevocably that it had come to almost total failure. The man marked for assassination was alive, the cargo he’d meant to hijack out of his grasp. Several of his band had been killed or wounded. Any financial compensation he stood to gain from having stopped the vehicles would not offset his losses.
He had become uneasy about his situation the minute he’d noticed there were armored vehicles in the convoy, a feeling that rapidly turned to anxiousness when their chemical fog was released to shroud the trail, and the security teams aboard the enhanced 4×4s had begun fighting off his men. It was not their impressive firepower alone that opened a fissure in his confidence—as a former Cameroonian military officer, he’d learned that no amount of planning could prepare one for every aspect of an engagement, that there were always gaps in what was known about an adversary. What mystified him was that the capabilities they’d demonstrated were in such total conflict with everything he’d been told about them. To have gotten incomplete information was something he could accept. But it made no sense that sources he had always found reliable could so wholly and startlingly misinform him, not unless . . .
The headman’s features stiffened, his fierce brown eyes riveted on the enkindled tree where he had placed his sniper. The helicopter would soon appear over its broken, blazing remnants, and when it did, his opposition would be able to scour the ground for him and his men.
There was no time left for further supposition, not now. He would find another opportunity to throw himself open to them.
Trembling with anger, he raised his handset to his lips and called a retreat.
As the copter came flying in overhead, Nimec pressed the TRANSMIT button of his Rover’s ground-to-air.
“Pilot, this is CSO, you read me?” he said.
“Roger, sir.”
“We’ve got a mess here. Fatalities. Several wounded, three seriously. They need immediate medevac. There’s a burn vic, don’t know how long he’ll last without treatment.”
“Goddamn. The pack of wolves that did this is on the move, I see them heading toward some off-road vehicles—”
“Let ’em go.” His eyes on the dash display, Nimec was watching his microwave video feed from the chopper’s aerial surveillance pods. “We can’t chase them and get these people out at the same time.”
“Yes, sir. Hang on, we’re coming down. Over.”
Nimec cut the radio, exhausted, holding a cotton pad from a first-aid kit to his forehead. It was soaked red.
“Man,” DeMarco said beside him. “I feel like I’ve been clubbed by a giant.”
Nimec snorted. He reclined against his backrest in silence.
They sat waiting for the helicopter to land. Stretched out behind them in some cargo space cleared by their Rover’s packed-together occupants, Loren released a long, low, wavering moan.
It made the fine hairs on Nimec’s neck and arms bristle.
“A few minutes ago”—DeMarco began, then paused to marvel at those very words out of his mouth. He found it hard to believe so little time had elapsed since the windstorm of flame had come raging over the convoy from the mass of trees in front—“When you were out in the thicket, something made me remember Brazil. I couldn’t even tell you what right now, my thoughts were racing along so fast. Still are. But the raid there, those terrorists hitting us by surprise, almost wrecking the Matto Grosso compound . . . it feels similar to this in a way.”
Nimec looked at him. “How do you mean?”
“Damn thing is, I’m not sure.” DeMarco made a groping-at-the-air gesture with his hands. “It’s been ages since I read the Shadow Watch case files. But even before we tied it to that maniac Rollie Thibodeau calls the Wildcat, what stuck out at me about the Brazil raid was that it was done by real pros. A HAHO jump insertion, prototype FAMAS assault guns that are just being put into mass production this year . . . those guys were seasoned fighters, must’ve had serious underwriting.” He shrugged. “Another thing I could never get was what they were trying to accomplish. Always seemed kind of fuzzy to me, like nothing was what it seemed on its face. And the shit that came down on us now makes me wonder on the same accounts. Motive, tactics, equipment.”
Nimec added a fresh first-aid pad.
“I don’t know,” he said. “The connection’s not there for me.”
“Maybe it’s because there isn’t one,” DeMarco said. “But who were these guys? Does it seem to you we were up against two-bit bushwhackers?”
Nimec considered that.
“I wouldn’t lump together every robber gang in the neighborhood as two-bit,” he said. “Some are made up of breakaway soldiers. Men who’ve had combat training from foreign advisers. Russians, Brits, Israelis, our own Green Berets to name a few. The bunch that hit us could fit into that category.”
DeMarco shook his head.
“It still doesn’t explain their ordnance,” he said, and jerked his chin toward the windshield. Up ahead of them, SGF2 mist and dark gray smoke from the burning lead Rover and trees had commingled to blur out the sky and forest, its acrid stench seeping into their ventilation system. “Whatever they used for a showstopper was heavy duty.”
Nime
c bounced DeMarco’s main points against his logic. He really didn’t know what could or couldn’t be inferred from them. It was hard for him even to think straight. A man was moaning in pain, maybe dying, less than five feet in back of him. Hard to think. At first blush, though, he didn’t see that the incidents could be compared. The strike in Brazil had been massive, well organized, perpetrated by an enemy that had carefully assessed and exploited UpLink’s vulnerabilities. But their ambushers had gone after a small supply convoy and badly underestimated its defensive strengths. Given the hotel room buggings, and the extent of the surveillance on UpLink personnel in Port-Gentil, Nimec understood there was a very credible possibility that the men who’d struck at them here had backers with a wider agenda and substantial resources—which was a handful of needles and broken glass in itself. To go beyond that at this stage, though . . .
Nimec wasn’t ruling anything out, not until he’d had a chance to reflect with a clear head. But he’d been with Roger Gordian’s organization long enough to realize it had many disparate enemies, and wasn’t about to make any broad jumps drawing conspiracy theories.
He expelled a breath, looked out his window. The Skyhawk was finally wheels down in the grass.
“We’ll pick up on this later,” he said over the loud whack of its blades. “The guys on that chopper are going to need an assist getting our wounded aboard.”
His arms crossed over his chest, Vince Scull sat in front of his idling laptop computer at a cramped corner table in a cyber café called Zèbre Passage, which translated in English as Zebra Crossing, and seemed about as absurd a name to him as Scintillements. More ridiculous, actually. Maybe it was a sign he was getting old, but Scull often looked fondly back on the days when the name of a business would convey most of the information prospective customers needed to know about the services it offered, the products it sold, and whatnot. Macy’s Department Store. Woolworth’s Five and Dime. Ebinger’s Bakery. Howard Johnson Restaurant and Ice Cream Parlor. A customer walked off the street into any of those places, he not only had a very definite idea what he could expect to find, but knew the family name, and in some instances the first and middle initials, or even the full name, of its founder. Talk about a lack of consumer awareness, how were you supposed to draw people through your storefront door when the sign above it told nothing about what you were peddling?
Scull made a grumbling sound and shifted in his chair. What the name Zebra Crossing had to do with a joint that served rollups, scones, coffee, and bottled mineral water while providing Internet access to its customers, he didn’t know. He also couldn’t fathom how the twentyish men and women typing furiously at their keyboards—all of whom were white, and probably the dilettante kids of expat businessmen, and most of whom had come in wearing backpacks with padded sleeves designed for their computers—were able to concentrate on their work amid the flurry of other customers placing orders at the counter, carrying food trays past their tables, settling into chairs, or getting books, file folders, and other odds and ends out of their packs. They seemed so damned self-conscious about looking earnest and definite as they clacked away at their machines, some with headphones over their ears. What were they writing? Class papers? Travel articles? Online music reviews? Books, God forbid?
Scull didn’t understand how they could get anything accomplished. His job assignments took him everywhere on the planet and involved gathering information in every kind of physical environment, but when he actually sat down to prepare a coherent written evaluation, he needed a quiet office, or at the very least a room where he had four walls around him and some uninterrupted solitude . . . none of which was available in good ol’ Gabon courtesy of the droops, which was another reason for him to love the country, he guessed. Somebody could stick a gun to his head, tell him to put together a grocery list or else, and Scull doubted he’d be able to do it with all the fucking distractions in here.
But maybe his advanced age of fifty-three was why he didn’t compute, excuse the pun. Or maybe, just maybe, people thinking they could do honest, roll-up-your-sleeves, get-your-underpants-sweaty work in public places where they could also showcase their lightning-fast notebooks was one major reason so much of everything sucked rotten pigeon eggs nowadays.
Scull produced another low grunt of dissatisfaction and tapped a key on his laptop to wake it from its SLEEP mode, figuring he’d check his e-mail queue to see whether Sherm had come through with any dope on Nautel yet. After five hours of waiting impatiently in this crowded community nowhere, he’d about reached his limit . . .
He abruptly sat up straight. Miracle of miracles. Boldface on his inbox screen was a message from user name F. Sherman with the subject “Hope You Brought along Galoshes and Nose Plugs.” Cute, but what was it supposed to mean? Scull hardly cared. He was too busy noticing the little paper clip icon that indicated the message had arrived with a file attachment.
He highlighted the message and clicked it open. There were, in fact, several attached files. Large ones.
The e-mail’s body text read:
Per your request, I’ve got a thigh-high puddle of shit for you to wade through, Vince. And you better believe it stinks.
Scull opened the first file and browsed through it. Within minutes, he was ready to start holding his nose.
EIGHT
GABON, AFRICA CALIFORNIA
From Sledge Online (“The Alternative E-zine
of News and Opinion”): Hot Briefs
YANK YOUR GRAND BOUBOU
OUT OF THE CLOSET
UpLink and Sedco Get Down on an Unlikely Stage
by Mannee Almonte
An image of the normally reserved Roger Gordian shaking his derriere at a corporate romp charged with the frenetic dance rhythms of Makossa, Sahelian, and Congo pop musicians is one that would be muy quick to grab attention in business and social circles. Add to that picture a dance stage supported by huge pontoons and anchor cables and a background of soaring steel derricks, flying masts, and industrial lifting hooks, and even regular financial observers accustomed to the idiosyncratic styles of a Forbes or Bloomberg couldn’t ignore it.
Ever dangle a feather lure over a cat’s head? It may be for the very purpose of seizing the media’s eye that the event I’ve described above has been scheduled for next week aboard an offshore drilling platform in the waters of Gabon, an equatorial African republic small enough to fit on a microscope slide and never heard of by many American specimens—at least none we know. But there and nowhere else, the head of a telecom giant renowned for having transformed the role of private enterprise in “advancing global democratization” (Whuzzat? Dunno. We’re just quoting the Wall Street Journal.) will join the top dog of an ambitious petroleum company to sign, seal, and celebrate a new partnership that seeks to compete with the older and slipperier oilfish who have dominated that aquatic territory for decades. Add their political hosts in the region, and you’ve got quite the must-see must-be jamboree.
“Yank your grand boubou out of the closet,” enthused the event’s master-of-ceremonies—and Sedco CEO—Hugh “King Hughie” Bennett in a recently televised Financial News Network appearance, referencing the flamboyant embroidered dress costumes worn throughout the African continent. “Work hard, play hard’s my motto; and we’re all getting ready to kick up our heels for this one.”
Having sunk tooth and claw into Bennett’s string-and-feather jiggle toy, your spectacle-susceptible columnist must confess that his mouth is watering with anticipation as he prepares to join the crème de la press corps flying off to the event on Sedco’s charter. Which begs the question to those transculturally fashionable, hoity-toity readers who may be past visitors to Gabon—and to our destination city of Port-Gentil in particular—Can any of you recommend a Rent-A-Grand Boubou on short notice? The threads are a must—just ask King Hughie.
Pointers and discount offers will be welcomed at our e-mail address, dear friends.
They drove to the airport in an armored Land Rover, DeM
arco at the wheel, Wade beside him, Nimec and Scull in the backseat. There were several reasons the group was headed out, their wish to shore up security for Roger Gordian’s arrival the next day top among them, though all they’d felt free to discuss at the Rio de Gabao was their intention to direct a force buildup at their transit warehouse as a precaution arising from the Sette Cama ambush—provisionally labeled an attempted hijack, though they understood the book on that was a far cry from closed.
Another very pressing reason for their drive was one they would not under any circumstances have discussed in the open.
Scull had something he needed to show Nimec. A crucial document he’d extracted from a series of memorandums and correspondences his man Fred Sherman had been tipped to by an inside source at Nautel, and then had pried out of the company’s hands after separately informing three of its highest-ranking executives that UpLink would consider their withholding it from him a flat-out breach of trust and cause for summary abrogation of their as-yet-unsigned outsourcing agreement.
Those statements were no empty threats. The letter had widened Scull’s eyes when it came onto his computer screen at the cyber café, and only now in the protective confines of the vehicle—his laptop in a docking station that had swung out from behind its front seat at the touch of a button, the hard copy generated by a color printer integrated into his armrest—was he even moderately comfortable with the idea of pulling it off his hard drive.
“Here you go.” Scull took the sheet of paper from the printer’s output slot and gave it to Nimec. “A few casts of his line, and Fred got evidence that a mutual pal of ours, identity to be revealed, committed a serious foul.”
Nimec put the document on his lap. He felt totally out of sorts—his head cloudy, his stitched eyebrow tugging under its bandages, his ears still ringing from the combustive blast that had almost finished him just twenty-four hours earlier.
Cutting Edge (2002) Page 26
