Ice Woman Assignment

by Austin Camacho

  The windows were draped in the finest ivory silk and the hardwood floor was white ash showing a beautiful prominent grain. The mantle of the massive fireplace spanned the entire wall to their left. The opening to the right showed off a cherry oak formal dining room set but they were ushered forward through a back door and onto a brick patio. There they found a short, pecan-colored man fussing over a barbecue grill. When he looked up at them Felicity saw graying hair and the relax smile of a man who is in total control of his universe.

  “You like the house?” he asked in almost accent-free English.

  “Impressive,” Felicity said. “Nicely appointed, and bigger inside than it looks from the outside.”

  The older man paused to seize a steak with a pair of tongs and turn it carefully. Then his eyes moved across Morgan and Felicity in turn, as if trying to decide something.

  “I see. You speak. He observes. And you do not ask.”

  “You’ll tell me,” she said. Felicity maintained a casual, relaxed attitude. Morgan was tense and ready. That was enough.

  Their host nodded. “I am Diego Pulido. I consider myself a successful businessman, and I am successful in part because I am curious. And you two have piqued my curiosity.”

  Felicity closed her eyes for just a moment to take in the aroma of the sizzling steaks. When she opened them she matched Pulido’s smile.

  “Senor Pulido, I would be pleased to satisfy your curiosity about anything that is my information to share. I’m sure you will understand if I refrain from sharing anyone else’s secrets.”

  “Of course, senorita. I am aware that you consort with the American Central Intelligence people, but they are of no interest to me. What I do find interesting is that you managed to enter my country without my knowledge.”

  “Now why is that so interesting?” Felicity asked. “Do you observe all tourists?”

  Pulido chuckled and shook his head. “Let us be open with one another, eh? I earn my living in the trade of coca and its derivatives. It is my business to know who comes and goes. You are a thief whose reputation leads me to believe that only a high value target would earn your attention. Your friend here is a soldier for hire. It is only because one of my men recognized him from a prior visit to our land that I am aware of your visit. During that visit, Senor Stark was part of a team who executed a number of men in my business. I am in the position that I am in now in part because of the damage he and his team did to the Medellin and Norte del Valle Cartel.”

  Now Pulido turned back to the grill, turning each of the seven steaks, raising a loud sizzling sound as the juices reached down to the ash-covered coals. Felicity gave a slow nod. “I now see your concern. Your question is really…”

  Pulido looked up and locked eyes with Felicity. “I would simply like to know why you are here. Need I prepare for conflict?”

  Felicity looked to Morgan, registered his small nod, and turned back to Pulido.

  “If I understand the situation, sir, our visit here has nothing to do with you. I can assure you that we are not here on government business. We are merely accepting a little government assistance. We are here on personal business. We have a score to settle with the woman known as Anaconda.”

  “You are here because of a conflict with the leader of the Escorpionistas?”

  “Yes,” Morgan said. “Is that a problem?” Felicity was the only person in the room who was not surprised when Morgan spoke for the first time. “Does that put us in conflict with you?”

  All eyes were on Morgan, but he kept his gaze locked on Pulido. Felicity felt the tension in the air and in her partner, even though he made no threatening gesture. If anything was going to happen it would be at this moment. Pulido had abandoned the steaks for a moment, and her nose told her that at least one of them was getting a little too dark on one side.

  After ten long seconds a slow smile crept over his face.

  “You ask is it a problem? That a warrior such as yourself is moving against my competition? Mr. Stark, I make my living from the coca plant. I do not believe in these new chemical products. They are more harmful, and more addictive, than traditional drugs. This attracts the attention of our northern neighbors. I am like the neighbor’s yapping dog. You get used to it and after a while you stop complaining so much about the noise. But then, if he gets a new, noisier dog, you get annoyed all over again and go back to trying to get rid of the dogs. All the dogs.”

  Morgan nodded. “Anaconda’s ice is the new dog. And she is drawing too much attention from my country.”

  “Just so,” Pulido said, pointing the tongs at Morgan for emphasis. “If you want to reduce my competition, by quieting the new dog, well… If your sights do not wander to me or my business afterward, then you and I, we are not in conflict. Do you agree?”

  Morgan said, “I do,” and Felicity could feel the group heave a collective sigh of relief. Then Pulido turned to her.

  “And you?”

  “Sir, I follow my partner in this area. If he says we’re all good, then we’re all good.”

  “Excellent,” Pulido said, breaking into a broad smile. “Then will you stay for a steak? This is excellent, locally raised beef.”

  -43-

  Forty-eight hours after dinner with Mark Roberts, a knock on Morgan’s hotel room door roused him. His response was slow and gradual. He lay on his bed, face up, only half aware. Felicity sat on the floor beside the bed, in a full lotus position. She was in a deep trance. Morgan stirred slowly and answered the door. Roberts stepped in, glanced at Felicity, and gave Morgan a questioning look.

  “We’re preparing for tonight’s fun. We take off in about seven hours, you know.”

  “Yeah, well I’ve got some bad news,” Roberts said. “I’m afraid the mission’s a scrub.”

  “What? Why?” Felicity looked up, uncrossing her legs. She wore a leotard, and was unconsciously demonstrating why the other garment was called tights.

  “Well, a couple of wrinkles,” Roberts said. “First, the latest weather report indicates a pretty healthy increase in the cross winds by one o’clock.”

  “So, we move the timetable up a bit,” Felicity told him, stretching her arms over her head to restore full circulation.

  “And then there’s the equipment snafu,”

  “Okay, Mark, what couldn’t you get?” Morgan asked. He was already adjusting their plan to work with no darts, inferior helmets or even lacking the requested explosives. In such a case, he could mix up a substitute himself.

  “Wrist altimeters,” Roberts said. “Not just the kind you wanted, we couldn’t get any at all. Just a bizarre coincidence. With the amount of diving they do on the coast, the whole country seems to be bought out.”

  “Damn,” Felicity said. “If you’d told us sooner, I’d just gone out and stolen one. This won’t wait until morning, Mark. Poor Frederico’ll be cooling in his grave by sunup.”

  After a silent moment in which Felicity paced across the room five times, Morgan said “That’s it, Red. I can’t judge that distance. Not in the dark. We can’t do it blind.”

  “Sure we can.” Felicity stared into Morgan’s face with that Irish look that dared anyone to gainsay her. “I can. It’s just time, after all. Once we’re free of the plane we fall at a constant rate right? What do they call it?”

  “Terminal velocity, and why do you think they call it that? No. Sorry, Red. Too many variables. We just can’t. Out of the question.”

  “Bull. We can, and we will. Or fly it by meself, I will.” Green eyes flashed their personal fire and Morgan had to know she meant it. When he finally released a long held breath, she knew she had won.

  Felicity’s first touch of doubt came while the Regent taxied down the runway. As it lifted off into the blackness, she considered the possible damage to her partner, or herself, if she was wrong.

  “Final mike check,” Morgan whispered.

  “Loud and clear, partner,” Felicity answered. Throat mikes gave their voices a deeper, more guttural
tone, but they could still understand each other.

  They had all they could ask for, a cloudy, moonless night with moderate winds, and an excellent pilot who knew the area. Tuned in to the steady thrum of the twin engines up ahead, Felicity did a mental inventory.

  They crouched in the plane’s rear compartment dressed entirely in black: jumpsuits over warm jeans and sweaters, soft boots, helmets, gloves. Even their sport parachutes were black, inside and out. Felicity wore a black carpenter’s belt filled with burglary tools and several drug darts for her silent pneumatic dart gun. Morgan also had one, plus a crossbow and bolts for longer distance shots. He carried his two boot knives, plus his pistol and fighting knife. In squeeze pockets on his jumpsuit he stored a half pound of C4 high explosive wrapped in paper and several varied pencil-sized time fuses.

  They were as prepared as possible, assuming they reached the ground intact. Morgan had a pretty good idea from experience how long they would fall. Because he said “about”, Roberts had given the problem to a professional mathematician on the CIA payroll. He had confirmed Morgan’s estimate.

  At the pilot’s signal they would slide out the door, nearly twenty-five thousand feet above a tiny, one and a half acre landing zone. Four and a half seconds later and three hundred twenty five feet lower, their downward velocity would go from zero to one hundred forty-six feet per second. “Round about a hundred miles an hour straight down,” as Morgan would say.

  Two minutes and thirty-eight seconds later they would be five hundred feet from the earth. Low enough to minimize their hang time and make it very unlikely even an alert guard would see them. Also minimizing the amount of time the growing wind could blow their parachutes off course. Two minutes and thirty-eight seconds.

  Two minutes and thirty-nine seconds after jumping, they would be a hundred and forty-six feet lower, too low for their canopies to fully develop before the soft, fertile black earth of the Andes Mountains rushed up and crushed their bones into powder.

  When she looked down, Felicity saw her hand tracing the scar on her breast under her jumpsuit. Morgan saw it too. She had never doubted herself before. But in all her life, no one had ever managed to hurt her. That was Morgan’s advantage. He had been hurt before and always come up a winner.

  “Sure wish you could do this,” Felicity whispered. Her voice seemed throaty, but it could have been the microphone.

  “And you know I can’t,” Morgan answered. “I can judge distances perfectly, but not in this situation. Tall trees would throw me off by dozens of feet, even if I could see the ground. If we pop too soon we’ll end up in the trees, and probably be spotted by the bad guys. If you’re not sure, Red, we can still just turn around and nobody will call you chicken. If you are sure, I’m right next to you.” He kept facing straight ahead.

  “No,” Felicity said, biting her lip. “We go or he dies. I made a commitment. Besides, that bitch can’t win.” That bitch can’t hurt me again, she did not say. “Morgan, one other thing. Taking the boy a second time is going to hurt her.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Remember what you said?” she asked. “Never do your enemy a minor injury.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I think if we’re in there, you should finish it,” Felicity said.

  “Red, are you asking me to kill her?” He paused, letting it sink in. “I don’t know. You’ve never killed and I don’t want to be your gun.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Felicity said. “Of course I’ve killed. Since I’ve known you.”

  “Accidents,” he responded. “Or indirectly helping me kill to save my life. This is different. This is cold blood. Can you handle that? Inside?”

  “I know you’re trying to protect me but I got past it before,” Felicity said, her voice strengthening. “Remember Monk? O’Ryan? And there was Herrera just a few months ago.”

  “All of whom were actively involved in trying to kill me,” Morgan reminded her.

  “I got past it each time because I saw that they weren’t people at that moment. They were animals, wild animals, rabid creatures that you dispose of before they can do any more damage. Well, Anaconda, cold, calculating, hands-off Anaconda is an animal too. A vicious deadly animal that needs to die.”

  “Coming up on drop time,” Isaacs said from up front. The new voice coming into their ears startled them, until they remembered he had no earphone, just a microphone.

  “Red, think about it some more,” Morgan said, standing. “It’s impractical right now. We’ll be pushing our luck as it is. Dwell time in the house needs to be minimum and we’ll be running a search pattern if Jorge was wrong about what room Frederico’s in. We get the boy and get. That’s final. When we come back if you want to be in on Anaconda’s finish, well, we’ll talk about it some more.”

  “Pop the door,” Isaacs said, and Morgan did. “I’ll take one circle at exactly twenty-four thousand feet. I’ll give you a countdown and on go, hit it. And good luck.”

  Morgan stood in the doorway, his left hand on the plane’s wall, his right gripping Felicity’s arm. She held the plane’s wall on the other side. A sharp wind slashed across them, curling under their helmets. Small rebreather devices allowed them to take deep, slow, comfortable breaths. The helmets and breathing masks combined to cover their entire faces. They could not even see each other’s eyes. Felicity slid her hand up onto Morgan’s back. Somehow, she knew he was smiling. It was two minutes to midnight.

  The plane leveled off. A voice in Felicity’s ear said, “Five, four, three, two, one, go!” Two bodies launched themselves into the void. They separated, and there was the weightless feeling of free fall. Felicity spread her arms and legs, ticking off seconds in her mind.

  Ten seconds. The wind was coming up sooner than expected. Subjectively, in the dark, she felt as if she was holding still. What if the wind became a downdraft, reducing the air’s resistance? They would fall faster. A steel ball, not subject to air resistance, would reach nine hundred feet per second before it hit the ground. How much could the wind speed their bodies up?

  Twenty seconds. Where was Morgan in the darkness? Was he in position? Above her? Below her? Either way could spell disaster.

  Morgan’s hand was pulling on his rip cord exactly as Felicity’s voice said “Now!” in his ear. From her, he had felt the time was right but it was comforting to hear her say it as well. He felt the pack open and his pilot chute leap out - heard the deployment sleeve yank the rectangular sport canopy out into full deployment - felt a jarring shock as the nylon raft above him grabbed air and his speed suddenly dropped to a little over ten feet per second.

  Morgan’s hands slid up the risers to grasp his steering lines. He was farther south than he wanted and pulled the lines to slip some air, drifting himself north again. He wondered if Felicity was similarly off course. He had no way to tell her which direction to drift herself. He could not know which way she was facing, and a compass direction would not help her with no landmarks visible.

  Then, thirty seconds after he pulled his rip cord, Morgan’s feet folded under him and he rolled comfortably across the tall grass. As he came up on one knee he pulled his canopy release and the black parachute drifted away like some land-bound jelly fish. He had a tranquilizer gun in his hand within five seconds of hitting the ground.

  “Felicity,” he called, standing. “You okay?”

  “I’m not hurt,” her voice came back. “I’m also not on the ground.”

  Morgan did a slow half turn and centered on his partner’s location. He began an easy jog across the grass and forty yards later reached the base of a tall cigar box cedar.

  “I can free myself from the chute,” Felicity said, “but I’ve got nothing to grab onto.”

  “You’re only about thirty feet up,” Morgan said into the darkness. “Go ahead and pull your harness release. I’ve got you.”

  Three seconds later Morgan heard a subtle click, and Felicity’s weight slammed into his waiting arms from three stories up, slapping him b
ack onto the ground.

  Felicity just had time to say, “Thanks,” before her head snapped up. Morgan sensed it too. Something was coming their way, something unfriendly. He pointed his dart pistol toward the danger signal’s source. The world showed bright green in the night scope mounted on the gun’s top rib.

  Into his sights loped a peculiar animal. A green glowing fox-like beast on stilts, easily clearing the tall grass which would slow down and hang up a shorter animal. Morgan saw long wavy hair ranging down its back. Before the maned wolf could pinpoint the human intruders, Morgan’s air gun made a coughing sound and, forty feet away, a dart stabbed into the wolf’s neck. It stopped, looked around, and decided to lie down.

  “He knew we were here, but that neutral scent soap of yours seems to keep them from pinpointing us,” Felicity said.

  “Told you,” Morgan replied, pulling off his helmet. “If it lets you get closer to deer, it’ll work against anything on feet.”

  After a minute to think and orient himself, Morgan pointed them toward the house. Without helmets, breathing gear or their parachute seat packs, they moved smoothly and silently, slipping through tall grass like two stalking leopards. They found it relaxing and almost fun, knowing they were undetected, in fact unexpected, due mostly to Anaconda’s incredible confidence in her fearsome reputation and her political protection. While no nation would risk an international incident, no local person would dare risk the Escorpionistas’ wrath.

  During their slow trek to Anaconda’s house they put seven maned wolves to sleep. Felicity had prepared the drugs and assured Morgan the animals would awake, healthy and strong, in five or six hours.

  One hundred yards from the house they made their first infrared contact with human guards. One patrolled in front of the helicopter with an Uzi submachine gun. Three others walked a perimeter around the house, under lights directed so they bathed the house, but left darkness fifteen feet from it. It was token security. They counted on the wolves to raise an alarm if intruders approached. With the radios on their belts they could summon help from the barracks in seconds.