Peacekeepers (1988)

by Ben Bova

  "Could that be it?" Pavel asked.

  Jay brushed an insect away from his face. "My guess is that's the bomb-storage depot. And the building next to it, where the truck is parked, is probably their electronics facility."

  Pointing to the temple at the head of the plaza, Pavel said, "She must be in there. None of the other buildings are guarded. Most of them are half destroyed."

  Jay nodded agreement. "Plenty of guys with guns hanging around that entrance, too. How do we get in?"

  "Through the back. It's only a few dozen meters from the trees to the rear of the platform. Can you climb the stones?"

  "I guess, if I have to."

  Pavel reached into the pack lying beside him and pulled out a coil of rope. "This will be helpful."

  "Only if there's a door back there. Or a window."

  They circled around the hollow, staying low, using the grass for cover, until they could train the binoculars on the rear of the temple.

  Jay saw a dark oblong shape, focused the binocs on it. It wavered in the heat haze, then snapped into clear sight: a window, about ten feet above the floor of the stone platform. Unbarred. Unguarded.

  Passing the glasses to Pavel, he murmured, "That's the way in."

  The Russian nodded. "Let's go."

  It was late afternoon by the time they reached the edge of the woods behind the temple. What had looked like a short distance to the stone base of the platform now seemed like a mile of terribly exposed open territory.

  Both men were studded with tools and weapons from the pack Pavel had brought: ropes, grenades, knives, electronics gear, pistols on their hips. Both men held machine pistols in their hands, long black ammo clips jutting from their grips.

  "Come on," Jay whispered. "Hurry it up."

  Pavel looked up from his kneeling position. He had spread a satchel full of antipersonnel mines along the ground at the edge of the trees, tiny gray plastic discs that could blow a man's feet off or shred his legs from ten meters' distance.

  "This will cover our retreat," he whispered harshly. "It is necessary."

  Jay knew he was right. The Russian had a lot more training in this kind of thing than he did. Jay knew. His own background consisted of a one-week course in guerrilla warfare, part of the mandatory training the Peacekeepers insisted upon. Not much. Would it be enough?

  Finally Pavel was ready. Jay tossed the rope up to the twenty-foot-high tier of the platform. The electrochemical bonding agents in the grapnel at the end of the rope took hold of the ancient stone surface. Jay tested the rope with a hard pull, then started scrambling up the face of the stones.

  Pavel looked around one wary time, then followed him up the rope.

  There were four tiers to the platform, and then they were at the base of the temple wall. Once more Jay flung the rope upward, this time into the dark cavity of the window. They scrambled up the rope and disappeared inside the ancient temple, the site of countless human sacrifices in centuries long past.

  Down at the base of the platform a hidden stone door swung outward and four armed men dressed in ragged fatigues calmly walked out to the edge of the woods and began picking up the small gray disc-shaped antipersonnel mines that Pavel had so carefully scattered there to cover their retreat.

  Gunfire broke out from inside the temple, booming, echoing weirdly. The four men looked up briefly. One of them pointed a finger to his head and made a circular motion.

  "Los gringos hay muy loco, no?"

  His companions grinned. Then they returned to their task.

  That scene was a re-creation, of course. A

  bit of dramatic license. We know some

  details of the ancient city and its temple

  from questioning the grave robbers who had

  been methodically looting Montesol until

  the drug manufacturers chose it as their

  headquarters. We assume that young

  Hazard and the Russian Zhakarov made the

  best use of the resources available to them.

  More than that we cannot say.

  MONTESOL

  Year 8

  ALEXANDER stood on shaky legs as four men in dirty fatigues searched him. They pulled his arms out from his sides and roughly pawed his chest and midsection, his legs and groin, both arms. They even yanked off the bandage wrapped around his head, revealing a nasty wound along his left temple, a gash crusted with dried blood and oozing slightly with medication.

  Jabal Shamar sat on a canvas camp chair some ten feet away, smoking a cigarette, watching Alexander intently with eyes that looked only faintly amused. Shamar wore a one-piece jumpsuit of mottled jungle greens, the shirt unbuttoned halfway down his hairy chest to reveal an oblong black box hanging by a silver chain about his neck.

  A silver-plated pistol was tucked into his black leather belt, invitingly.

  The room was deep inside the Incan temple, solid-stone walls, floor polished smooth even after centuries of neglect.

  No windows. Only one door. Yet natural light seemed to be filtering through from some sort of hidden access up in the stone ceiling. Alexander tried to look up and see where the sunlight was coming from, but his head throbbed so hard that it made him woozy with pain.

  "You must excuse the primitive way in which my men are searching you," Shamar said in his slightly guttural English. "We lack modem facilities such as X-ray machines and metal detectors."

  The four years since he had last seen Shamar had not been kind to the man. His hair was almost entirely gray now, the scar along his jaw seemed more pronounced, harsher, almost as white as the cigarette that dangled from his thin lips. He was leaner, too, his face sculpted with hollowed planes and jutting cheekbones. Four years of running and hiding have taken its toll, Alexander told himself.

  His head was pounding, his stomach doing nervous rollovers. Every nerve in his body was stretched taut. He had been forced to pull a gun on Alma Steiner before she would back away and allow him to leave the plane.

  "You're mad," the blond Austrian had whispered, staring at the pistol Alexander held in his wavering hand.

  "Maybe so," he admitted. "But I'll kill you if you don't get the fuck out of my way."

  "He'll murder you!" she screamed. "He's probably already murdered Kelly."

  Alexander tottered toward the helicopter Shamar had sent in response to his call. "Maybe so," he shouted over his shoulder. "But I've got to go. I've got no choice."

  Alma understood, although she could not agree. Her tears were as much rage and frustration as mourning for a man she could have loved.

  The helicopter crew had searched him before letting him come aboard, but now Shamar's personal guards were searching him again. Very thoroughly. But will it be thoroughly enough? Alexander asked himself. Unbidden, a shadow of a smile touched his lips. Standing there, even on legs rubbery from his concussion, Alexander loomed over the diminutive Shamar on his camp chair.

  Finally they removed his boots and tossed them across the bare little room, where they had thrown the miniature radio transmitter and electrostatic stun wand he had carried inside his belt.

  He stood on the cool stone floor, barefoot, beltless, wearing only a pair of light denim jeans and a long-sleeved sport shirt.

  The four men backed away, leaving Alexander to stare down at the seated Shamar, radiating hatred.

  "She is your daughter, isn't she?" Shamar asked.

  Alexander nodded. "Where is she? I want to see her. If you've harmed her . . ." He suddenly stopped, realizing the words were totally empty. There was not a thing he could do to save Kelly from whatever harm Shamar wanted to inflict on her.

  Taking the slim cigarette from his lips, Shamar asked calmly, "Have you learned to kill? The last time we met, you could have killed me, but failed to do so."

  "That was four years ago."

  "Yes, but some men lack the ability to take a human life. I myself have never killed a man in combat; not face-to-face."

  "You just order others to kill f
or you."

  "As you do," Shamar countered. "We are very much alike."

  Alexander swayed on his feet, a wave of nausea and dizziness washing over him. "Can I have a chair? They told me I've got a concussion ..."

  Shamar's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "You can sit on the floor. At my feet."

  Alexander did so. Shamar seemed pleased to be able to look down at the American.

  "So now what happens?" Alexander asked.

  "Now you die."

  "Not before I see my daughter."

  "You will see her, I guarantee that."

  The way he said it sent a chill along Alexander's spine.

  He tensed, his hands clenched into fists.

  Lighting a fresh cigarette from the butt of the one he had been smoking, Shamar said, "Please do not think that you can leap up and disarm me. I know how your mind works, Cole Alexander. Remove all such romantic notions from your thoughts."

  Alexander said nothing.

  Fingering the slim oblong black box hanging around his neck, Shamar said, "Do you know what this is? I will tell you. It is a radio trigger for the nuclear bombs that my technicians have assembled. It is tuned to my heartbeat. If by some strange chance you should kill me, it will set off the bombs. Everyone here will die. Everyone."

  "Including Hazard and Zhakarov," Alexander muttered.

  "Hazard?" Shamar's slim brows rose in surprise.

  "The son of the IPF's director-general."

  Shamar let a thin jet of blue-gray smoke stream from his lips. "I did not realize he was Hazard's son."

  "Was?" Alexander felt startled.

  "They are both dead," said Shamar. "Brave men, to try to rescue the woman. But foolish, also. They fought to the death. They killed more than a dozen of the drug merchant's hired men. They nearly fought their way to the very room where your daughter is being kept."

  "Both dead." Alexander bowed his head. "Both of them."

  "They would not surrender. Even after they had been wounded repeatedly, they fought on. I would have treated them mercifully."

  "Sure you would."

  "I am a soldier," snapped Shamar, "not a cutthroat."

  "Go tell it in Jerusalem."

  "What I do I do for a cause! You may not believe in my cause, but I do. Millions do!"

  "You're nothing but a bloodthirsty murdering son of a bitch." Alexander started to clamber to his feet. The four men behind him stirred, gripped their guns.

  But Shamar merely smiled and tapped the tiny box on his chest. "Be careful, Cole Alexander. If my heart should stop, this entire mountaintop explodes."

  Alexander sagged back to the floor, his head thundering.

  Shamar smiled at him pityingly.

  Finally Alexander asked, "Aren't you being a little too dramatic about this? Triggering the bombs to your heartbeat? You've got a couple hundred people here protecting you and you know I'm no killer."

  With a sardonic laugh Shamar tapped the electronic medallion and replied, "This is not because of you. Cole Alexander! I have no need of such elaborate precautions as far as you are concerned." His face grew more serious.

  "But I know that you have recruited a small army of mercenaries. Professional soldiers. They could cause much trouble. Therefore this little challenge for them. Once they know that I am willing to blow up the entire top of this mountain, I doubt that they will even try to attack. They fight for money, and they will see no reason to march into guaranteed death. I am willing to die; they are not."

  Alexander had to admit to himself that Shamar was entirely right. Once the mercenaries realized the nukes were rigged with a dead-man's switch, they'd pack up their gear and go home. Hell, he told himself, once they realize I won't be around to pay them they'll call the whole operation off.

  "You see, Cole Alexander," said Shamar, "I am a dedicated, professional soldier. A true military man, willing to sacrifice my life to my cause. You are an amateur; you are driven by emotion, not logic. And you value your life too highly to be truly effective."

  Alexander made no reply.

  "You have bungled everything," Shamar went on. "All your efforts have led to your defeat and humiliation."

  "Seems to me you've gone to a lot of trouble over my bungling efforts," Alexander retorted.

  "Oh, you have been troublesome. I grant you that. But today I will remove your slight irritation and go forward with my plans."

  "To what end?" Alexander asked, his voice hoarse, choked. "Just what in hell are you trying to obtain?"

  "Power, of course. That is the only goal worth pursuing. Power. Without power a man is nothing. But with power, ahh." Shamar's smile widened to show his perfect teeth.

  "With power comes wealth, and respect. A man of power can go where he wishes and do what he wants."

  "And your cause?" Alexander asked dryly.

  "What is more vital to my cause than power, real power? The power to bend nations to my will. The power to exterminate the Peacekeepers."

  Alexander made himself laugh. "With five little nukes?"

  "Five nuclear weapons are quite enough—for a start," replied Shamar. "Three of them will level Geneva." His smile faded, his voice became harsher. "I had hoped that the Peacekeepers would believe they had located my weapons in Washington and those other cities, but your prying fools canceled that plan." He took a deep pull on his cigarette. The acrid smell made Alexander realize that it contained more than tobacco.

  "However," Shamar went on, "three small planes piloted by three zealots will obliterate Geneva soon enough. The two other major Peacekeeper facilities, in Colombo and Ottawa, will receive one nuclear kiss each."

  "That won't eliminate the IPF," Alexander said.

  "Of course it will! They will be blown off the face of the Earth. Think of how many nations will welcome that moment. Think how many will flock to me, to form a new coalition of true power. " Shamar clenched his fist and held it up before his face. The scar along his jaw seemed to glow.

  "There will be no Peacekeepers to stop us."

  "Then the world will go back to the way it was, with every nation building all the weapons it can."

  "Yes. Including nuclear weapons. And I will lead the nations of the southern hemisphere—my own lands of the desert, together with most of Latin America and Africa. We will bring the industrialized nations of the north to their knees!" Shamar's eyes glittered with the vision of it.

  "Or blow up the world trying."

  "What of it? I am ready to die. Are you?"

  "Not before I see my daughter," Alexander said.

  "Ah yes, your daughter." The gleaming light in his eyes disappeared like a lamp being switched off.

  "You promised that she'd be released if I came to you. I want to see her before you let her go."

  Shamar gestured to his men, and Alexander was hauled roughly to his feet.

  "This way." Shamar ducked through the low stone doorway. The guards hustled Alexander through after him, into a narrow dark passageway. It was difficult to see, but Alexander felt a dampness, a slimy dank chill seeping from the stones. Like an old-fashioned dungeon, he thought. The passageway sloped upward, climbing.

  "I actually had intended to seize you, not the young woman," Shamar said. "If I had sent my own men they would have done the job correctly. But these drug gangs—" Alexander could sense the man shrugging. "They are nothing but common thugs. They botched it."

  "Well, Fm here now," he said to the shadowy form walking ahead of him.

  "Yes, that is true. For more than four years you have troubled me, Cole Alexander. You are a fanatic, just as I am. And therefore very persistent and annoying. Today I will eliminate you. Tonight I will sleep more soundly than I have in four years."

  "I'm flattered to think I've kept you awake."

  Shamar did not reply. They strode along the narrow passageway. Alexander felt the grip of the guards on his upper arms, half helping him along, half pushing him along.

  "This coalition of southern hemisphere nations," he
called to Shamar's back. "Won't they be at the mercy of the industrialized nations once the Peacekeepers are gone? After all, it's the nations of the north that have nuclear weapons."

  Again he could sense Shamar's reaction: a self-satisfied little smile. "Cole Alexander, once the Peacekeepers are gone, how long do you think it will take Brazil or Argentina or even my own native Iraq to build nuclear weapons? We have the capability. Once the restraints of the Peacekeepers have been lifted, we will build bombs within a few months."

  And the world goes back to the edge of Armageddon, Alexander said to himself.

  He heard voices up ahead, arguing loudly in Spanish.

  They were speaking much too fast for Alexander to catch more than a few words: it was an argument about money.

  Something to do with a shipment of "goods"—narcotics, he guessed.

  But one of the voices sounded vaguely familiar. Alexander tried to identify it as they marched along the passageway.

  Light spilled out from a room up ahead. The voices were coming from there. Shamar passed without even glancing inside; the arguments among the drug dealers were of no interest to him.

  But Alexander looked as the guards half dragged him past the open doorway set into the massive stones. It was Sebastiano Miguel de Castanada, son of the presidente, minister of defense, his face red with anger, his impeccably tailored white suit rumpled and stained with perspiration, bellowing at a sallow, skinny, ragged little man who sat behind a table snarling back at Castanada. On the table between them were piles of money, neatly stacked and wrapped with dirty elastic bands. In that one glance into the room Alexander recognized that one pile was American currency, another French francs. There were at least a dozen stacks on the table. The American seemed to be the highest.

  Alexander's heart sank. The breath sagged out of him. So Castanada's in with them! It's been a trap all along. This entire operation has been nothing more than an elaborate snare to catch me. The Castanada family has been working with Shamar and these drug merchants all along. There's been no war between them; they're on the same side.