War Tactic

by Don Pendleton

  “Intelligence is a dangerous business,” Rhemsen declared. “People employed in it disappear all the time.”

  “If I didn’t know better, boss,” Fitzpatrick said, “I’d think you spoke from experience.” He dragged his boots from where he had propped them on Rhemsen’s desk and planted them on the floor. “I’ll get what they know. And then we can assess just how badly your revenue streams are impinged. But I gotta ask, Harry…”

  Rhemsen sighed. “What is it you ‘gotta ask’?” The last two words were full of contempt.

  “What’s your exit strategy?” Fitzpatrick pushed up from the chair. “I know mine. Blackstar can’t keep reorganizing under new management forever. Sooner or later, some of those investigative hearings, or the Infernal Revenue bastards, are going to catch up to us. When that happens, I’ve got enough money and guns tucked away to keep me happy for a good long while, sitting on a beach with a drink in my hand in a country with no extradition treaty.”

  “I’ve never heard of such a plan,” Rhemsen said dryly. “Truly, you possess a unique mind.”

  “So it’s not the most original of plans,” Fitzpatrick said. “But it will work and it’s enough. What happens to you and your company, Rhemsen? The US government might forget about one guy, but they’re not going to forget an entire corporation running high-tech weapons to enemies of the homeland. What are you going to do when this all comes out and they freeze your assets, Rhemsen? You ready to spend your nights on television, maybe on one of those webcam things, talking about how the American government is going to ice you? It’s only a matter of time after that happens, you know, when they find somebody to cry ‘rape’ and then bring you up on charges. It happened to what’s-his-name, the internet guy.”

  Rhemsen started to say something when the phone on his desk rang. Glaring at Fitzpatrick, he picked up the receiver and put it to his ear. There was a pause. “Yes,” he finally said. “Yes, Mr. Lao. I’d like to meet to discuss with you those matters that have…occupied us previously…Yes…Yes, of course…All right. My secretary will apprise you of the time and location.” He hung up the phone.

  “You doing online dating now?” Fitzpatrick quipped.

  “Shut up, Jason.” Rhemsen sounded tired. “Just do your job.”

  “When have I not?”

  “Just… Fine. Let me worry about my ‘exit strategy,’ Jason,” Rhemsen said. “What I need from you is to find out just which branch of the government I need to throw money at next. Get those field agents to talk. Once they do, make sure nobody finds the bodies. That should be simple enough, even for you.”

  “Man, you are grumpy today.” Fitzpatrick sneered. “You stay up here in your ivory tower for as long as you like, Harry. I’ll go do the dirty work.”

  “See that you do.”

  Choking back another retort, Fitzpatrick figured he had needled the King of Plastic Surgery enough for one day. He left Rhemsen’s office and sauntered down the hall, taking the elevator down to the subbasement level. He was now on the east end of the substructure. All the way on the opposite wall, the west end, was the interrogation section.

  Rhemsen didn’t like it when Fitzpatrick called it “the dungeon,” but that’s what it really was, and for the first time in a long time, it was being put to its intended use. The “storage closet” had never really been used for storage. Rhemsen’s manufacturing facilities were all elsewhere. This building was nothing but offices full of engineers and bureaucrats, operatives and con artists. That’s how all the suits looked to Fitzpatrick. He took a dim view of any profession he did not really understand, figuring that if he couldn’t tell what a man did after ten seconds of explanation, then what that man did was probably bull.

  Fitzpatrick liked to keep things simple.

  At the thought, he cracked his knuckles again. He was really going to enjoy this. Growing up, he’d always been “hyperaggressive” or so the counselors had called it. With few prospects for college and a dismal high school record marred with disciplinary problems, it was only a matter of time before he’d ended up charged with assault and battery as an adult. He just liked fighting too much. So he’d joined the Marines.

  That had lasted only as long as boot camp, where a savage fight with another recruit had ended in his washing out. He’d tried to join the Army after that, but whatever black mark was on his record had kept him out. He was actually marching out of that Army recruiting center, mad as he’d ever been, when one of Blackstar’s recruiters had appeared out of nowhere to chat him up.

  So he wanted to fight for his country, did he? Well, there was a way he could still do that. All he had to do was sign on with Blackstar. The pay was good and the questions were few. All he had to be able to do was follow orders.

  Well, Fitzpatrick didn’t give a damn about fighting for his country. He just wanted to fight, and he wanted to be paid for doing it. Blackstar or, more correctly, the company that would become Blackstar several name changes later, was happy to have him. Fitzpatrick rose quickly through the ranks. It helped that, eventually, he’d learned to channel his urge to smash people and things. Being able to hold that impulse in check, most of the time, allowed him to advance in the company’s ranks and assume even greater positions of authority.

  Now, he had a reasonable amount of autonomy. Blackstar didn’t care what he did as long as he got things done. The company’s management was busy for the most part just fielding and evading various congressional investigations, so they didn’t care what was happening with him as long as the money flowed. Rhemsen paid well and he needed a lot of manpower. And so the cash came in, Fitzpatrick stayed employed, Blackstar’s management left him alone and everybody was happy.

  But it looked as if that all might come thundering to a close, if they couldn’t get a handle on what was really going on. Rhemsen’s weapons sales were the only thing keeping the company going, keeping it profitable. Rhemsen had slipped up and admitted that much to him before. The money spent in research and development on the Thorns, the GGX drop charges, the EM pulse taggers, the portable torpedoes…it was a lot. And apparently government contracts, combined with all the controls and regulations the government expected RhemCorp to follow, meant that the company couldn’t manage a decent profit level. At least, that’s what Rhemsen said. Who knew what that margin was supposed to be? Harry had expensive tastes, from what Fitzpatrick could see. No dude who was addicted to plastic surgery could be trusted around money, if you asked Jay Fitzpatrick. There was something just…wrong…about that guy’s face. He was probably skimming profits from the company.

  Either way, for the cash to keep flowing to Blackstar and thus into Fitzpatrick’s pocket, RhemCorp’s illegal arms sales, and the shipping pipelines that sustained them, had to stay open. Fitzpatrick wasn’t privy to all the details in the South China Sea, but Rhemsen had alluded to big markets over there. Whatever his hired pirate crews were doing had something to do with all that. That was why Rhemsen had risked arming the pirates with RhemCorp’s own hardware. It wasn’t just an expedient means of accomplishing his goals in that part of the world. It was also some of the only leverage Rhemsen had, with the rest of his cash tied up in hiring muscle like Blackstar and the pirates themselves.

  What a tangled web. That was what people said, right? The thought brought Fitzpatrick back to what Rhemsen had said about China and its government. What the hell had that been all about? And who was Lao? Could be Rhemsen was reaching out to the money men in China to back some of his losses. That didn’t seem like a smart strategy to Fitzpatrick, using China to debt-roll RhemCorp’s operations, but Fitzpatrick only cared so much. His interest in RhemCorp’s financial health extended only as far as how much of Rhemsen’s money was going into Blackstar’s coffers. Even that was a relative thing. Jason Fitzpatrick wasn’t really the loyalty type. He just knew not to crap where he ate.

  He would do the job Blackstar needed him to do, and even enjoy it, as long as they kept paying him. If anything changed he’d find another o
utfit to take him. Private contracting was all the rage these days. Wars were expensive and outsourcing was economical. The business world had discovered that a long time ago. For that matter, hiring mercenaries to do the dirty work was a long-standing tradition in the history of war. He wasn’t exactly a student of history, but he knew that much.

  As he made his way through the darkened corridors of the sublevel, he reached the first high-security door, where a pair of Blackstar guards stood, subguns at the ready. Normally there was no need to keep anybody down here, but with high-speed, low-drag spooks like his three prisoners cooped up down there, he figured he had better post the men. Better safe than sorry. Although, if he was honest with himself, he really wasn’t very impressed with what he’d seen so far from the captives.

  “Jerry,” Fitzpatrick said, nodding to the guard on the left. He threw a half salute to the man on the right. “Ryan.”

  “Sir,” the two men said. “All quiet, sir.”

  Fitzpatrick looked at the men’s equipment belts. “Who the holy hell authorized you guys to draw grenades? Are those…are those frags? Are you nuts?”

  “But you said they were dangerous,” Jerry said.

  “Paurich and Witkowski have grenades, too,” Ryan said, sounding defensive.

  “The guys stationed inside?” Fitzpatrick said, incredulous. “I can see we need to have a serious talk about things that go boom and the dangers of enclosed spaces.”

  He reached into his back pocket for his wallet, where he carried his RFID security card. The card could simply be held in proximity to the electronic locks securing the double set of security doors. It formed an airlock, of sorts, with two guards out here and two more in the space between here and the room holding the prisoners.

  His wallet was gone. “Shit.”

  Jerry and Ryan exchanged glances. “Sir?” Ryan asked.

  “Hey,” Jerry said. “Did you hear that? Like somebody dropped a soda can on the floor. Something heavy and metal.” He turned to put his ear to the security door.

  Jason Fitzpatrick turned and ran for his life. He was almost to the stairwell, down the corridor from the security doors, when a tremendous explosion—like what you’d get if you detonated several stolen grenades all at once to breach a security door, for example—made his ears pop and threw him to the floor. He tasted blood from where his face had made contact with the steps. His vision threatened to gray out.

  In less time than it took to think of it, Fitzpatrick was running through his actions in the dungeon. Yes, there could have been time during the fight for them to lift his wallet. But taking that wouldn’t help unless… No. Damn it, they had the knife he’d taken off of one of them, too. And that meant that the spooks were on the loose, probably with the B&T subguns the guards in the airlock space had been carrying. They might also acquire additional weapons from Jerry and Ryan, if either of those guys still had equipment intact after the close-range blast.

  Fitzpatrick wasn’t sticking around to find out.

  He took the steps two at a time, bounding up until he reached the ground-floor office level. Racing through the lobby, he told the miserable old bag at the front desk, “Security breach! Go to condition alpha! Condition alpha!”

  He didn’t wait to hear if the old battle-ax actually did what he said. He was already running out the front door for the parking lot. By the time he had the high-powered Dodge Charger running and had pulled to a tire-burning stop in front of the building, Rhemsen was rushing out with a briefcase in his hand.

  The sound of automatic gunfire could be heard inside the building.

  “Get in, damn you!” Fitzpatrick ordered.

  Rhemsen practically fell into the Charger and slammed the door. He clutched his briefcase to his chest as though it could stop a bullet—which, actually, it could, because Fitzpatrick had seen to it that Rhemsen added a ballistic plate to the inside of the case. It was commercial security stuff, the kind of thing any nervous business executive could buy, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t work.

  “What is happening?” Rhemsen demanded. “Why did you use the evacuation code?”

  “Because your spies or agents or whatever they are, are armed and loose,” Fitzpatrick snapped. “And now that they know we’re dirty and what’s in store for them if we catch them, they’re going to shoot first and ask questions later. That’s what I’d do, in their position. So we’re getting out of Dodge, boss. We’re going to the factory.”

  “What good will holing up there do?” Rhemsen said. He sounded almost hysterical. “This is exactly what we were not supposed to let happen! If those agents do not disappear, everything will start to fall apart at once!”

  “Keep your shirt on,” Fitzpatrick said. “We’ve still got this.” He reached across Rhemsen, popped the glove compartment and removed the remote detonator that was housed inside.

  “You’re going to blow the building?” Rhemsen asked.

  “It’s the only way to make sure they don’t walk out of there. We’ve got to do it now, before they clear the place.”

  “It is…it is a very final move,” said Rhemsen, hesitating. “I am not sure we are ready to cross that line.”

  Fitzpatrick swore under his breath. He poured on the speed, making the Charger’s powerful engine scream. Putting the pedal to the floor, he focused on the road, making sure they didn’t do something as stupid as cracking up trying to escape. When they reached the main highway, he throttled it back a bit, so as not to get the attention of the cops. But the detonator had limited range. Even if they’d had all the time in the world, which they did not, Rhemsen needed to push the button.

  “Push it, boss,” Fitzpatrick said. “Push the button.”

  “I am not sure…”

  Exasperated, Fitzpatrick reached out and clamped his hand over Rhemsen’s, forcing the businessman to close his fingers over the remote. The detonator beeped. Rhemsen bowed his head.

  Fitzpatrick smiled, waiting for the sound of the building being flattened—the deep, rumbling explosion that would kill everyone still inside.

  “Three,” he said.

  “Damn you, Jason!” Rhemsen said. “What have you done?”

  “Two,” Fitzpatrick continued. “One…”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Calapan, Mindoro Island

  It was easy to think of Puerto Galera, the northwestern-most municipality of the Philippines’s Oriental Mindoro province, as nothing but resorts, colorful umbrellas and girls in bikinis. But as was usually the case with resort towns, there was much of Puerto Galera that tourists never saw…and for good reason. Venturing too far out of the tourist areas was never advisable for young, pretty people who lacked life experience. Some of the area around Puerto Galera, namely Calapan, the only city in the province, could be pretty rough.

  Oriental Mindoro, for its part, was roughly 140 kilometers southwest of Manila, bordered by Batangas Province on one side and the Verde Island Passage on the other. Calapan City, the provincial capital, boasted a population of 125,000 people. It was the busiest seaport on Mindoro Island and the hub of the province’s industry and commerce. Much of Calapan was colorful and bustling as one would expect…but as in any city, there were seedier areas, and it was in these that Phoenix Force would find what they were looking for.

  What appeared to be concrete or stone buildings, many of them painted bright colors, predominated. Many of the streets were absolute riots of overhead wires, shop signs and other obstacles. The streets were crowded with a number of vehicles, many of them motor scooters and bicycles. Pedicabs and motor-trike carts and conveyances were also abundant. The general mood, at least in the main part of the city, seemed positive enough.

  Phoenix Force, dressed in combat gear, drew more than a few stares, but the presence of their Calapan City police escort helped discourage too much gawking. The provincial government had insisted on sending “protection” into the city with Phoenix Force, most likely to keep an eye on these foreign interlopers whom their government se
emed inclined to indulge.

  As for what had brought them to Calapan, well…that was something altogether different. McCarter was very suspicious of the timing. No sooner had they concluded their little adventure aboard the Filipino naval vessel than the Farm had received word through channels that a local informant, somewhere in Calapan, wanted to turn traitor for pay. The informant claimed to be part of a pirate crew operating in the area; a crew that took its orders from somewhere else. Just where that was, or from who, the informant wouldn’t reveal…not until he was paid handsomely. An address in Calapan was provided, but it was a street only, not a specific location. The Farm had decided that, with Grimaldi temporarily grounded in Puerta Galera, this was a great time for Phoenix Force to stretch their land legs and check out the tip.

  Bloody convenient, wasn’t it? McCarter had been in a lousy mood all morning, considering the implications.

  As for the Sikorsky, repairs were under way. Grimaldi had a pair of somewhat bewildered Filipino naval techs assisting him. Once all the dust had cleared, a few phone calls back and forth to Washington—with Hal Brognola involved—had been made, and the brass had satisfied itself that Phoenix Force was trying to help the locals, the Filipino government had fallen over itself to render assistance. Something about McCarter and his men helping to prevent the sinking of a Filipino naval ship. Go figure.

  An analysis of the damage to the Filipino ship, as well as Grimaldi’s firsthand account of what had happened to his chopper while it was in the air, had been cross-referenced with the Farm’s database. It was not a surprise that RhemCorp-manufactured weapons were being used. Now they could add several more examples to the list of contraindicated hardware known to have been employed by unauthorized, hostile forces in the South China Sea region. That list now included the XM-Thorn rocket, a portable torpedo system called the Mariner 21 and something called an EM Pulse Tagging Projectile, which was fired from the barrel of a conventional assault rifle like a rocket-propelled grenade. It was the pulse tagger that had damaged Grimaldi’s whirlybird.