The Outlaws

by W. E. B. Griffin

  They were furnished.

  “Give me a day or two to check these people out,” Casey said, “then come to see me.”

  The first person Casey had tried to call was then-Major General Bruce J. McNab, who at the time commanded the Special Forces Center at Fort Bragg. He got instead then-Major Charley Castillo on the phone. Castillo did odd jobs for McNab—both had told Casey that—and he’d become one of Casey’s favorite people since they’d first met.

  And when Casey had asked, Castillo had flatly—almost indignantly—denied telling anyone about the Tunisian radios mentioned in the casino pisser and of ever even hearing of the man who claimed to own the glitzy Las Vegas hotels.

  General McNab, however, when he came on the line, was so obfuscatory about both questions—even aware that the line was encrypted—that Casey promptly decided (a) McNab knew the guy who owned the three glitzy casinos; (b) had told the guy where the radios used in Tunisia had come from; (c) had more than likely suggested he could probably wheedle some out of Casey, which meant he knew and approved of what the guy was up to; and, thus, (d) didn’t want Castillo to know about (a) through (c).

  That had been surprising. For years, from the time during the First Desert War, when then-Second Lieutenant Castillo had gone to work for then-Colonel McNab, Casey had thought—In fact I was told—that Castillo was always privy to all of McNab’s secrets.

  Casey prided himself on his few friends, and on having no secrets from them. He had quickly solved the problem here by concluding that having no secrets did not mean you had to tell your friends everything you knew, but rather, if asked, to be wholly forthcoming.

  If Castillo asked about these people in Las Vegas, he would tell him. If he didn’t ask, he would not.

  And, as quickly, he had decided if these people were okay in General McNab’s book, they were okay—period.

  Unless of course something happened that changed that.

  Casey had called the man who owned the three glitzy hotels—and was in business discussions leading to the construction of the largest hotel in the world (7,550 rooms)—and told him he was in.

  “What do these people need?” Casey asked.

  He was told: secure telephones to connect them all.

  While AFC had such devices sitting in his warehouse, these were not what he delivered to the people in Las Vegas. The secure telephones they used thereafter had encryption circuitry that could not be decrypted by even the legendary National Security Agency at Fort Meade, Maryland. Casey knew this because the NSA’s equipment had come from AFC Corporation.

  And after that, and after writing several very substantial checks to pay his share of what it had cost those people to do something that had to be done—but for one reason or another couldn’t be done by the various intelligence agencies—Casey realized that he had become one of the group.

  No one said anything to him. He didn’t get a membership card.

  He just knew.

  He became friendly with the man who owned the glitzy hotels, and not only because one of his hotels had a restaurant to which lobsters and clams were flown in daily from Maine. The man who owned the hotels was from New Jersey. Politicians and high taxes, not the cuisine, had driven him from the Garden State. They took to taking together what they thought of as One of God’s Better Meals—a dozen steamed clams and a pair of three-pound lobsters washed down with a couple of pitchers of beer—once or twice a week.

  One day, en route to the restaurant, Casey had witnessed one of the gambling cops intently studying the face of the man who happened to be walking ahead of Casey.

  “What’s that all about?” Casey had asked his new friend the casino owner between their first pitcher of beer and the clams, and their lobsters and the second pitcher.

  The problem of controlling undesirable incoming gamblers was explained.

  “There has to be a better way to do that than having your gambling cops in everybody’s face,” Casey said. “Let me think about it.”

  The AFC prototype was delivered in three weeks, and operational a week after that. All the photographs of miscreants in the files were digitalized. Additional digital cameras were discreetly installed at the entrances in such positions that the only way to avoid having one’s face captured by the system would be to arrive by parachute on the roof.

  The computer software quickly and constantly attempted to cross-match images of casino patrons with the database of miscreants on the security servers. When a “hit” was made, the gambling cops could immediately take corrective action to protect the casino.

  The owner was delighted, and ordered installation of the system in all his properties as quickly as this could be accomplished.

  But Casey was just getting started. The first major improvement was to provide the gambling cops with a small communications device that looked like a telephone. When a “hit” was made, every security officer in the establishment was immediately furnished with both the digital image of Mr. Unwelcome—or Grandma Unwelcome; there were a surprising number of the latter—and the last known location of said miscreant.

  It hadn’t been hard for Casey to improve on that. Soon the miscreant’s name, aliases, and other personal data, including why he or she was unwelcome, was flashed to the gambling cops as soon as there was a hit.

  The next large—and expensive—step had required the replacement of the system computers with ones of much greater capacity and speed. The owner complained not a word when he got the bill. He thought of himself, after all, as a leader in the hospitality and gaming industry, and there was a price that had to be paid for that.

  The system now made a hit when a good customer returned to the premises, presumably bringing more funds to pass into the casino’s coffers through the croupier’s slots. He was greeted as quickly and as warmly as possible, and depending on how bad his luck had been the last time, provided with complimentary accommodations, victuals, and spirits. Often, the gambling cops assigned to keep them happy were attractive members of the opposite gender.

  Good Grandmother customers, interestingly enough, seemed to appreciate this courtesy more than most of the men.

  The new system soon covered all of the hotels owned by the proprietor. And the database grew as guests’ pertinent details—bank balances, credit reports, domestic problems, known associates, carnal preferences, that sort of thing—were added.

  For a while, as he had been working on the system, Casey had thought it would have a sure market in other areas where management wanted to keep a close eye on people within its walls. Prisons, for example.

  AFC’s legal counsel had quickly disabused him of this pleasant notion. The ACLU would go ballistic, his lawyers warned, at what they would perceive as an outrageous violation of a felon’s right to privacy while incarcerated. He would be the accused in a class action lawsuit that would probably cost him millions.

  What Casey was doing when his cellular buzzed in the lab deep beneath Hangar III was conducting a sort of graduation ceremony for a pair of students who had just completed How This Works 101. He had just presented the graduates with what looked like fairly ordinary BlackBerrys or similar so-called smart-phones.

  Actually, by comparison, the capabilities of the CaseyBerry devices that Casey had given the two students made the BlackBerry look as state-of-the-art as the wood fire from which an Apache brave informs his squaw that he’ll be a little late for supper by allowing puffs of smoke to rise.

  The students were First Lieutenant Edmund “Peg-Leg” Lorimer, MI, USA (Retired), and former Gunnery Sergeant Lester Bradley, USMC.

  When the Office of Organizational Analysis had been disbanded and its men and women ordered to vanish from the face of the earth, Casey had had a private word with Castillo about them.

  Neither Bradley nor Lorimer had a family—perhaps more accurately: a family into whose arms they would be welcomed with joy—and neither had skills readily convertible to earning a decent living as a civilian. There was not much of a market f
or a one-legged Spanish/English/Portuguese interpreter, or for a five-foot-two, hundred-thirty-pound twenty-year-old who could give marksmanship instruction to Annie Oakley. Further, there was the problem that they, too, were expected to fall off the face of the earth and never be seen again.

  Both men, Casey had told Castillo, had become skilled in the use of the state-of-the-art communications equipment that OOA had been using. Casey intended to keep providing similar equipment to Delta Force, and with some additional training, Bradley and Lorimer could assume responsibility for training Delta troopers to operate and maintain it.

  So far as their falling off the face of the earth, Casey said, they would be hard to find in Las Vegas and next to impossible to find if they moved in with him at the home Charley Who had built for the Caseys on a very expensive piece of mountainside real estate that overlooked Las Vegas. Now that Mrs. Casey had finally succumbed to an especially nasty and painful carcinoma, there was nobody in the place but the Mexican couple who took care of Casey.

  And to keep them busy when they weren’t dealing with the equipment for Delta Force, or keeping an eye on the communications network used by those people, they would be welcomed—and well paid—by the gaming industry as experts in the digital photo recognition and data system.

  Not thirty seconds after Casey had handed Lorimer and Bradley their new cell phones, vibration announced an incoming message on the peoples’ circuit, and Casey thought he had inadvertently pressed the CHECK FUNCTIONING key.

  But he checked the screen and saw that there was indeed an incoming message.

  It’s from Colonel Hamilton.

  I wonder what the hell he wants.

  When, inside his Level A hazmat gear, Colonel J. Porter Hamilton had pressed the TRANSMIT button for his cellular phone, and given his name, the following had happened:

  An integral voice recognition circuit had determined that he was indeed Colonel J. Porter Hamilton and, at about the time a satellite link had been established between Hamilton and Las Vegas, had announced that Encryption Level One was now active.

  By the time Hamilton spoke again to report the delivery of biohazardous material to his laboratory and what he planned to do about it, the cell phones in the hands of those people had vibrated to announce the arrival of an incoming call. Their cell phones automatically recorded the message, and then sent a message to Hamilton’s phone that the message had been received and recorded.

  He had then broken the connection.

  When those called “answered” their telephones, either when the call was first made, or whenever they got around to it, they would hear the recorded message. A small green LED on the telephone would indicate that the caller was at that moment on the line. A red LED would indicate the caller was not.

  Casey saw that the red LED was illuminated.

  Hamilton’s off-line.

  I wonder what he wanted.

  As he touched the ANSWER key, he saw that both Lester and Peg-Leg were doing the same thing.

  Hamilton’s message was played to them all.

  “I wonder what the hell that’s all about,” Casey wondered out loud.

  “He said, ‘identical to what I brought out of the Congo,’” Peg-Leg said. “What did he bring out of the Congo?”

  Both Peg-Leg and Aloysius looked at Lester, whose face was troubled.

  “You know what Hamilton’s talking about, Lester?” Casey asked.

  Bradley looked even more uncomfortable.

  Casey waited patiently, and was rewarded for his patience.

  “Colonel Torine would, sir,” Bradley said finally.

  “How many times do I have to tell you to call me ‘Aloysius’?” Casey said.

  He pushed a button on his CaseyBerry.

  “Jake? Aloysius,” he said a moment later. “Got a minute? Can you come to my lab?”

  “Captain Sparkman would know, too,” Bradley said.

  “Sparkman with you?” Casey said to his telephone, and a moment later, “Bring him, too.”

  Casey pushed another button and said, “Pass Torine and Sparkman,” and then looked at Peg-Leg and Lester. “They’re in the hangar.”

  He pointed upward.

  Colonel Jacob Torine, USAF (Retired), and Mr. Richard Sparkman (formerly Captain USAF) got off the elevator ninety seconds later.

  They were dressed almost identically in khaki trousers, polo shirts, and zipper jackets, and had large multibutton watches on their wrists. Their belts held cases for Ray-Ban sunglasses. They both had clear blue eyes. No one would ever guess that they were pilots.

  “What’s up?

  “Listen to this,” Casey said, and handed him his Caseyberry, and motioned for Lester to hand his to Sparkman.

  Both listened to Colonel J. Porter Hamilton’s message.

  Sparkman’s eyebrows rose in surprise.

  Torine said, “Oh, shit!” and then asked, “When did you get this?”

  “Just now.”

  “Not good news,” Torine said. “What is the exact opposite of ‘good news’?”

  Casey said, “What’s he talking about? What did he bring out of the Congo?”

  Torine exhaled.

  He looked around the laboratory.

  “I don’t suppose this place is bugged?”

  Casey shook his head.

  “We went over there in Delta’s 727,” Torine said. “It was painted in the color scheme of Sub-Saharan Airways—” He stopped. “Why am I telling you this? You know.”

  “Go on, Jake,” Casey said.

  “We landed at Kilimanjaro International in Tanzania. Uncle Remus and his crew went by truck to Bujumbura in Burundi. There’s an airport at Bujumbura but Castillo decided we’d attract too much attention if we used it, particularly if we sat on the runway for a couple of days, maybe longer.

  “Uncle Remus infiltrated Hamilton back into the Congo from Bujumbura. And then when Hamilton found what he found, and the shit hit the fan, we got a message from Uncle Remus to move the airplane to Bujumbura, yesterday, and have it prepared for immediate takeoff.

  “We were there about three hours when Uncle Remus, his crew, and Hamilton showed up. They had with them a half-dozen of what looked like rubber beer kegs. Blue.”

  He demonstrated with his hands the size of the kegs.

  “Uncle Remus asked me if we could fly to the States with the HALO compartment depressurized and open.”

  “I don’t understand that,” Lester said. “‘HALO compartment’?”

  “For ‘High Altitude, Low Opening’ parachute infiltration from up to forty thousand feet,” Peg-Leg explained. “The rear half—the HALO compartment—of the fuselage can be sealed off from the rest of the fuselage, and then, where that rear stairway was, opened to the atmosphere.”

  “Got it,” Lester said.

  “I told him yes,” Torine went on, “and Hamilton said, ‘Thank God,’ as if he meant it.

  “I asked him what was going on, and he told me the beer barrels contained more dangerous material than I could imagine, and extraordinary precautions were in order; he would explain later. He asked me how cold the HALO compartment would get in flight, and I told him probably at least sixty degrees below zero, and he said, ‘Thank God,’ again and sounded like he meant it this time, too.

  “Then he and Uncle Remus and his team loaded the barrels in the HALO compartment. When they came out, everybody stripped to the skin. They took a shower on the tarmac using the fire engine and some special soap and chemicals Hamilton had with him. Then they put on whatever clothing we had aboard, flight suits, some other clothing, and got in the front, and we took off.

  “Before we had climbed out to cruising altitude, we got some company, a flight of F/A-18E Super Hornets from a carrier in the Indian Ocean. They stayed with us until we were over the Atlantic, where they handed us over to some Super Hornets flying off a carrier in the Atlantic.

  “We headed for North Carolina—Pope Air Force at Fort Bragg. We were refueled in flight halfway acro
ss the Atlantic and when the refueling was over, we were handed over to a flight of Air Force F-16s who stayed with us until we got to Pope.

  “When we got to Pope, we were directed to the Delta hangar, and immediately towed inside and the doors closed. Then maybe two dozen guys in science-fiction movie space suits swarmed all over the airplane. Some of them went into the HALO compartment and removed the barrels. I later learned they were sealed and then loaded aboard a Citation Three and flown to Washington.

  “They took everybody off the airplane and gave us a bath. Unbelievable. Soap, chemicals, some kind of powder. It took half an hour. And then they held us—everybody but Hamilton and Uncle Remus; they went on the Citation with the barrels—for twenty-four hours for observation, gave us another bath, and finally let us go.

  “General McNab was waiting for us—did I mention they held us in the hangar?—when they finally turned us loose. He gave us the standard speech about keeping this secret for the rest of our natural lives or suffer castration with a dull knife.”

  “What was in the barrels, Jake?” Casey asked softly. “Did Hamilton tell you?”

  Torine nodded.

  “He said two of them contained ‘laboratory material’ and the other four had ‘tissue samples.’ When I pressed him on that, he said that two of the barrels contained body parts from bodies he and Uncle Remus dug up near this place, and the other two held the bodies of two people, one black and one white, that Uncle Remus took down when they had to get into the laboratory. He said he needed them for autopsies.”

  “Jesus!” Casey said.

  “And now we learn that not everything was destroyed,” Sparkman said. “The word I got was there was nothing left standing or unburned in a twenty-square-mile area. What the hell is this all about?”

  “I don’t know,” Casey admitted. “But I just had this thought: It doesn’t matter to you guys. OOA is dead. You’ve fallen off the face of the earth. You’re out of the loop. This has nothing to do with you.”

  “Why don’t I believe that, Aloysius?” Torine asked softly.

  “Probably because you’re an old fart like me, and have learned that when things are as black as they can possibly get, they invariably get worse.”