Rattlesnake

by Andy Maslen

  He called Terri-Ann.

  “How’s your project going, prof?”

  “Not bad. I downloaded a whole heap of random documents off the web. I was just about to call one of my students. He’s pretty good with graphics packages. How about you?”

  “Yes, OK. It’s finished and it works. When do you think you and your student will have the stuff ready?”

  “Realistically, a couple days. I don’t want to rush this and make him suspicious. Is that OK?”

  “It’s fine. We’ve waited this long; we can wait a little longer.”

  The call over, Gabriel went down to the hotel restaurant and ordered an omelette and French fries and a beer.

  Then he went back to his room and used the burner phone to call the offices of Orton Biotech. He waited as the receptionist delivered a speech virtually identical to the one he’d heard from Chantal at the San Antonio Express-News. When she asked him, “How may I direct your call today?” he said:

  “I’d like to speak to Clark Orton.”

  “I can put you through to his PA, Janice?”

  “That would be perfect, thank you.”

  The line clicked and Gabriel was treated to some syrupy jazz-funk that made him wince. Another click.

  “This is Clark Orton’s office.” She phrased the sentence with a rising intonation at the end, like a question.

  “Yes, is that Janice?”

  “Yes, sir. How can I help you?”

  “I’d like to speak to Mr Orton, please, Janice.”

  “I’m afraid he’s not available right now, Mr—”

  “Wolfe. We met when I came to see him before. He tried to have me killed in Phnom Penh, but as you can hear, I survived.”

  Whatever she had been expecting, it wasn’t this, and Gabriel took advantage of the silence to continue.

  “I have something I know he will want to hear. Maybe you could check if he’s become free?”

  “Er, yes. Please hold, Mister Wolfe.”

  Funny how professionals can stick to the script even when someone throws a curveball.

  More jazz-funk. More bland sax.

  The wait was longer this time. Gabriel amused himself by using the digital timer to measure it. Forty-seven seconds.

  “Orton.”

  Gabriel read a lot into those two short syllables. Confidence. Authority. Security. This was a man used to getting what he wanted. A man who feared nothing and nobody. A man who believed he either had no enemies, or those he did have were fleas on a lion. A man who had dropped the cheesy jokes about using his first name.

  “Listen to this,” Gabriel said. Then he held his own phone up to the burner and pressed Play.

  “My name is Baines Christie. I am a paramilitary operations officer with the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States of America. Clark Orton killed Vincent Calder with a nine-millimetre Glock.”

  “Why?”

  “Calder discovered Orton was involved in a CIA plan to test a bio-weapon on Cambodian orphans.”

  The digits of the timer reached eight before Orton responded.

  “Who are you, Wolfe? Really?”

  “A friend of Vinnie’s, like I said before. I want to meet you again.”

  “Why? So you can blackmail me with a fake recording? I don’t think so.”

  “Come on, Orton. You know it’s not a fake. They were pretty much Christie’s last words. You know that’s admissible in court, right? It’s called the dying declaration. Any voice-print analyser will confirm it was really him. I think I even saw one on sale in an electronics store this morning. Anyway, that’s not all I have.”

  “Go on.”

  “Documents. Hundreds of pages. The whole Cambodian end of the operation. CIA local operatives’ records. Marie-Louise Hubert’s own files. Communications between her and the ex-Khmer Rouge generals she was paying for protection. She kept a record of everything, you know. I’ve got a briefcase full of it.”

  “Let’s say just for the sake of argument I believe you. Which I don’t, by the way. I’ve never killed anyone in my life, and Orton Biotech is a one hundred percent ethical business. Why do you want to see me? If it’s not blackmail that only leaves revenge as a reason. I’m not about to let myself get killed by a—”

  “Whoa, there! I don’t want to kill you, Orton. You were right the first time. It’s money that I want. Lots of it. I didn’t do as well as Vinnie did after leaving the army. Some cash would come in really handy at the moment.”

  Orton’s voice changed. Clearly he felt he was on firmer ground talking about money.

  “Well, now. If it’s cash you’re after, and, again, without admitting that anything you’ve said so far is anything but a total fabrication, what sort of sum would you need to set you back on your feet?”

  “A million two.”

  “That’s very specific.”

  “I did some calculations. It’s what I need to last me out.”

  “And that’s commendable. You figuring out a pension for yourself using my money. I tell you what. In recognition of your service, and nothing else, how about we settle on a round million?”

  “I really need the two hundred grand as well, Clark. I have medical expenses.”

  “And I really need to get to a meeting. So what’s it going to be? I should warn you, we have an extremely capable general counsel here at Orton Biotech, and some ferocious lawyers on retainer. Take your evidence” – Gabriel heard the irony dripping from Orton’s lips; even if he knew it was put on, it was a good act – “to the media or the police, or the President for all I care, and see how long you wait before you see so much as a dime of my money.”

  Gabriel paused, used the timer to mark ten seconds.

  “Fine. A million.”

  “Attaboy! Now, I suppose you’ve thought about a meeting place, given your obvious penchant for planning.”

  “As a matter of fact, I have. There’s a deserted US Air Force base over in Pyote. Name of Rattlesnake. You heard of it?”

  “No, but I can find it.”

  “Good. There’s one hangar left. A shell, really. Meet me there at 4.00 p.m., three days from now. It’s off the I-20, and it’s a long drive. You should pack plenty of coffee.”

  Orton laughed.

  “You worry about the drive. I have to go.”

  In her office at Langley, Martha Cruikshank was hunched over her desk, a half-full glass of Wild Turkey bourbon cradled in her left hand. She raised it to her lips and took a long pull. The desk was free of papers. Through the open door, she could see two men approaching with purposeful gaits that spoke of trouble. At that moment, her phone chirruped. She glanced down at the screen and tapped the green icon. As she did so, the two men arrived on the threshold of her office. She signalled to them with an upraised finger.

  “Yes?”

  “We need to talk. Wolfe is blackmailing me.”

  “Yeah well, I’d love to help, Clark, but I’ve just been pink-slipped. So unless you’re hiring a new head of security, I’m not your woman.”

  “But you can’t—”

  “But I can. Have a great life. And hire a good lawyer and a PR agency. You’re going to need them.”

  She ended the call.

  “Ma’am,” the bulkier of the two agents at her door said. “Time to go.”

  She swigged the remains of her bourbon, clanked the glass down and bent to retrieve a cardboard carton by her feet. It contained a career’s worth of personal items, which as she looked down at it, made her sad. A couple of framed citations. A gold pen-and-pencil set. A framed photo of her shaking hands with the Vice-President-before-last. A straggly potted plant. And that was it. Outside the Agency she had no life. Not really. The Agency was her life. And now her life was over.

  Scott Fleming had called her into his office half an hour earlier. This time he’d not felt the need for measured tones. He’d yelled at her. Yelled so loudly that she had flinched. Once he’d vented, he calmed himself down with a few deep breaths and then s
poke again.

  “I said your career was on the line, Martha. I told you, didn’t I?” He looked at her. She realised it wasn’t a rhetorical question.

  “Yes you did.”

  “And from what I have learned, not only has the shit hit the fan, it has been blown back with enough force to coat this whole fucking organisation. So as of now, Project ROSS is cancelled. I am arranging for all records to be destroyed. Our involvement with Orton Biotech is being erased. Orton is history. And like I said before, I am denying you like Peter denied Christ. Although believe me, you do not deserve to be compared to him. You’re done, Martha.”

  From somewhere, she didn’t know where, she found a scrap of defiance.

  “You mean demoted, suspended, what?”

  “I mean fired. I’m canning your ass. Return to your office and get your shit together. You have thirty minutes. And don’t bother trying to log in. Your access to all Agency databases and systems has been revoked.”

  He didn’t bother feigning an interest in the papers on his desk. He just stared her out until, struggling to prevent the tears from breaching the levee, she turned and walked on unsteady legs out of his office, closing the door behind her.

  Once she was gone, he called an international number with the dialling prefix +855. As soon as the recipient of the call answered, he began speaking.

  “It’s over. Delete everything.”

  57

  Recce

  GABRIEL spent the rest of the day running through the plan. At six he went for a run, and arrived back soaked with sweat and feeling more energised than he had since the escapade with the hunters in Phnom Penh.

  The next morning, he filled up the Camry and was en route to Pyote by 6.00 a.m. Apart from two coffee stops, he drove solidly all the way and arrived at the main gate just after 11.40. Bookending the gate, two low, red stone walls forming a pair of broad outstretched wings bore the legend:

  RATTLESNAKE BOMBER BASE

  He climbed out and eased his back. Turning a full circle, he took in the landscape, which was a continuation of the Chihuahuan Desert terrain where he’d found Vinnie’s imprint in the dirt. Red, sandy earth, low-growing, scrubby vegetation and that was about it. The sun was high in the sky and with no cloud to block its rays, the heat was ferocious.

  He drove through the gateway, noting the faded red-and-white pole standing to attention to his right. According to his research the previous day, the facility covered almost three thousand acres. He drove into the centre of the base, down one of the runways. Straggly weeds grew from cracks in the concrete, although he was surprised how well it had held up over the years. He’d read that the place had been used as a drag strip for a while and wondered whether that might account for it.

  The place had the eerie feel of a ghost town. In a way that’s exactly what it was. In its glory days, it had been home to six thousand men and women, and had barracks, officers’ quarters, family housing, a BX, dining facility, gym, maybe a cinema, a base medical centre, the whole nine yards. Ahead, he saw what he was looking for. A white concrete structure of stacked rectangles like the grille of a truck. If they’d ever built trucks for titans, that is. Fully sixty feet tall and at least three hundred feet wide, it was all that remained of the hangar that had once housed some of the world’s most devastating bombers.

  He parked and got out. He walked up to the wall and laid his palms flat against the concrete, which was so hot he had to pull his hands away immediately or risk getting burnt. He looked through one of the rectangular holes and gasped.

  Ranged before him were a dozen rows of huge planes. Their camouflage, grey, and blue-over-grey paint schemes had weathered to pale shadows of their originals and were scabbed with rust, but he could still make out their insignia. These were the big birds of the Vietnam War and various conflicts since. Most Gabriel didn’t know by name, but two he did recognise. Boeing B-52 Stratofortress heavy bombers. And Lockheed Martin C-130 Hercules transport planes. The mothballed planes added a melancholy air to the base that even the blistering Texas sun could not dispel.

  He walked round the hangar wall and over to the nearest B-52. Up close it was breathtakingly huge. He laid his hand against one of the massive tyres. It was hotter even than the hangar wall. He tried to imagine what it must have felt like to fly one, or to look up from a paddy field and watch streams of them coming over, opening their bomb bay doors and pouring napalm, incendiary and high-explosives down. He remembered what Lina had told him, about the millions of unexploded cluster munitions still blowing off limbs and disfiguring civilians decades after the conflict had ended. It was General William Tecumseh Sherman who’d first said, “War is hell,” and Gabriel could only agree.

  He made his way back to the hangar, passing a C-130 with its rear ramp down as if waiting for one final cargo of troops and vehicles. Having scoped out the hangar and its potential as cover, he gratefully climbed back into the Camry, turned on the ignition and cranked up the air conditioning. He made a slow circuit of the rest of the base, noting gaps in the perimeter fence. Then returned and left via the main gate. It was perfect.

  58

  Firefight

  GABRIEL checked the time. Three p.m. An hour to go. High clouds in the scale-like pattern called a mackerel sky filtered the sun’s rays just a little. This time he’d used Vinnie’s Ram for the journey. It was parked behind the hangar wall in the shade, an aluminium stepladder in the load bay.

  A distant engine note reached him. He raised a pair of compact binoculars to his eyes and scanned the horizon, tracking east to west along I-20. Just visible through the heat haze was an SUV. Dark colour. Travelling at speed. As it neared the main gate, it slowed and turned in.

  Gabriel pursed his lips. Then he jogged back to the hangar wall, climbed through one of the lowest apertures and flattened himself against the wall before peering round the edge. The SUV was headed straight for the hangar. He hadn’t imagined Orton would want to arrive early for the meeting. In his experience, men like Orton tended to use lateness as a strategic weapon. Nothing like treating people as supplicants to establish a power relationship. So far, so good.

  The SUV arrived in the centre of the apron two minutes later. The distance from there to the hangar was two hundred and fifty feet. As Gabriel watched, four men got out, dressed all in black and carrying assault rifles. Some kind of AR-15, that much was clear. Although with virtually every arms manufacturer offering a semi-automatic based on the M-16-derived platform, nailing the brand was impossible at this range. They wore matching sunglasses and baseball caps and had the lean, hard look of ex-soldiers who were still working in the business. Four charging levers were pulled back then released with a sharp volley of cracks that echoed off the concrete hangar wall. They fanned out and walked towards the hangar, rifles held across their chests. Gabriel watched with interest. His pulse was a steady sixty-five. Not bad for an unarmed man about to get into it with a squad of tooled-up mercs, he thought.

  From the ground at his feet, he picked up a leather holster and removed Vinnie’s Desert Eagle. Holding it out in front of him just below the aperture he’d just climbed through, he racked the slide. The noise was gratifyingly loud. As the men turned as one into the sound, he leaned round the wall and fired twice, aiming well to their left. The recoil sent the pistol skywards and with only a single-handed grip, Gabriel simply let his arm fly back.

  The report as the half-inch round left the muzzle was enormous.

  The effect was instantaneous.

  All four of the mercenaries opened up with their AR-15s. Chips of concrete and dust flew out from the front of the wall and a couple of bullets hit the edges of the aperture, sending sharp fragments back past Gabriel.

  Each man had fired a controlled burst of maybe four or five rounds. With the sharp flat cracks of the cartridges echoing off the hangar, they stopped firing.

  His back to the wall, Gabriel inhaled deeply then yelled out a command.

  “Drop your weapons and return to
your vehicle. You can still get out of this alive.”

  “Fuck you, asshole,” one of the men shouted back then punctuated his response with a further three-round burst.

  Gabriel heard the man shout, “Get him!”

  He looked to his left, held up his index finger. Then closed his hand into a fist.

  The burst of firing, coming from closer in, was louder even than the four AR-15s.

  The Mossberg Patriot and the Smith & Wesson AR-15 were lethal even when fired by inexperienced shooters. But the people pulling the triggers were anything but inexperienced. One was a former US Marine, the other a self-confessed army brat whose two-star general daddy had taught her to shoot.

  Two of the mercenaries went down simultaneously. One had his heart ruptured by a Springfield thirty-ought-six round. He bled out in seconds from the catastrophic damage. The other was dead before he hit the ground, half his skull torn away by a 5.56 mm round.

  The other two ran for cover, zig-zagging in a crouch, and reached the shelter of the SUV. Though not before one had taken a round from the Mossberg in the left calf that shattered the bones of his lower leg.

  Kneeling now, Gabriel grabbed the Remington 870, worked the pump, then popped up and discharged two rounds straight at the SUV, shattering the windscreen. In response, the mercenaries let loose a volley of shots. Pinned down behind the SUV, their aim was hopelessly off.

  Gabriel turned to his left again, gestured with two outstretched fingers, dropped the Remington and vaulted through the aperture.

  At the same moment, Mossberg and Smitty opened up with covering fire, sending rounds smashing through the SUV’s bodywork. Neither mercenary could do more than fire wildly back, probably holding their rifles out to their sides and shooting blind.

  Gabriel reached the front of the SUV in eight seconds. He dived onto his belly, and slid under the front axle. As rounds continued to hit the vehicle above his head, he aimed the Desert Eagle at the two pairs of boots he could see at the rear of the car. Flat beneath the chassis, he was deafened by the explosions as he sent four rounds into the mercenaries’ ankles.