Cobra Strike

by J. B. Hadley

  Waller backed the car out of the driveway and drove down the street without saying anything. They passed through what appeared to be the main campus center on the lakeshore, with a lot of high-rise buildings. He just kept driving, making random turns, not saying anything.

  “Where’re we going?” Arthur Putnam finally asked.

  “Just driving around and around.”

  Waller saw out of the corner of his eye that Putnam was finally giving him some suspicious looks. It took most people about two seconds to start doing that. Waller knew he struck most people as “creepy.”

  “What do you want?”

  “You a communist?”

  “A what?”

  “Communist. A believer in Marx and Lenin. Maybe you never heard of them.”

  “I know who they are,” Putnam said indignantly. “Can’t say I’ve read anything by them because they’re not on any of my courses, and I’ve got a big enough workload as it

  “You ever heard of David Forbes?”

  “Sure. He’s my mother’s brother, lives in New York City.”

  “Has he any reason to kill you?”

  A long silence now. Finally Putnam asked in a hesitant way, “Are you a cop?”

  “No. A hit man.”

  Another long silence.

  Waller snapped, “I asked you a question. Has he some reason to kill you?”

  Short silence. “I suppose so. We’re the only two left in the family. My parents were killed in an air crash three years ago. They left me a lot of money. I’m not allowed to touch it till I’m twenty-one—my father stipulated that in his will—and I won’t be that till next year. David is the trustee of the funds. He knows all about those things, being involved in the stock market and such. He paid you to kill me?”

  “Fifteen thou was all you were worth, body dumped in a bad neighborhood of Chicago. Make it look like a street crime, he said. He’s on a three-day cruise to the Bahamas. Left early yesterday.”

  “Why aren’t you going to kill me?” Arthur Putnam asked.

  The kid was maybe not so dumb, Waller decided. “ kinda like this place, college and all.” Waller smiled his sinister smile. “I enjoyed killing a guy in Harvard. I didn’t like that place at all. But this is all bullshit. I don’t kill people for money, that’s all.”

  “That why you were asking about me being a communist?”

  “Don’t ask questions. What is this place?”

  “Aboretum. Like a botanical garden,” Putnam explained.

  Waller’ parked, got out, and looked around him at the lawns and trees. He took a large, extra strong plastic garbage bag from the trunk and told Putnam to bring the Polaroid camera that was on the backseat. Waller lit a Viceroy and stubbed it out after a few puffs. He made a round black mark the size of a bullet entry wound on Putnam’s left cheek, then another on his right forehead.

  “I don’t have nothing to make you look pale. You’re too fucking healthy-looking. Get into that sack with your head and shoulders sticking out-maybe one arm-like I was stuffing you into it so your corpse wouldn’t mark up the trunk of the car or leave hairs or skin traces that lab guys could analyze.”

  Waller spent some time getting his arms and head into unnatural positions.

  “You always know a dead guy by the way he lays,” he instructed Putnam. “No matter how bad a guy is hurt and unconscious, so long as he’s still alive, he lays in a natural way. Only after he’s dead does he get what they call a broken-doll look. Yeah, now you’re doing good. That’s better. Much better.”

  He took three shots from different angles quickly. Then he uncovered the Polaroids in turn without bothering to count off seconds. They could have been better photos, but one thing all three of them plainly showed was a dead youth half in a garbage bag with two bullet holes in his face.

  “David’s gonna love them,” Harvey said, gloating.

  Harvey Waller was wrong. David Forbes didn’t love the photos. When Waller thrust them before his eyes, the lawyer made little gurgling sounds like he was going to throw up. They were walking west on Wall Street, after Waller had waited for him to arrive that morning at his place of work on Water Street.

  “I believe you, Harvey. I don’t need to see that. Please destroy them.”

  Waller produced a lighter and touched it to all three photos held together. They burned fiercely, and to save his fingers he tossed them in a steel mesh trash basket. The contents of the basket caught fire.

  “This is just what my reputation needs, Harvey, to be caught setting fires before my day’s work. I know what you’re here for. Your money. I don’t have it. No one in this city walks around with seven and a half thousand in their pocket.”

  “So we go to your bank,” Harvey suggested.

  “My bank is where I live, in Connecticut.”

  “I know someone who will take your IOU and pay me on it.” Harvey pushed him down the subway steps of the Lexington Avenue IRT, ignoring his pleas to take a taxi and that he had an important appointment in fifteen minutes. Waller had tokens and pushed Forbes through the turnstile ahead of him. They stood on the uptown platform, and Forbes complained to the silent Waller but made no effort to disobey him. When they heard the grinding of steel wheels on steel rails as the approaching train rattled toward them at speed, Harvey began shouting over the din.

  “I don’t want your fucking money! Forget the second payment! Those photos were fake! I didn’t kill the kid because he was no commie! You’re the rotten bastard, not him! You stabbed me in the back once! Think I had forgotten that?”

  Harvey Waller waited only long enough to see the fear in the lawyer’s eyes and then pushed him headlong in the path of the train.

  CHAPTER 7

  With Andre Verdoux it was a case of “old soldiers never die,” except he had no intention of fading away, either. The Frenchman was in his fifties, but he considered himself fitter in many ways and a hell of a lot wiser than when he was in his twenties. Mike had been trying to ease him out of missions recently and, when that didn't work, shunt him into a noncombat managerial position. In his wily way Andre had turned that ploy against Mike by taking on as much responsibility and undertaking as many arrangements for each mission as he could possibly handle. That way he knew who was going to be where and when, and so included himself in an indispensable role. Although Andre was definitely included on this mission, he found all the same that he was saddled with all the arrangements.

  Besides Campbell, Andre was the only member of the team to know where they were going. And he had just now found out where they would train.

  “Now, I want you to repeat for each man before he goes,” Mike said, “that it's illegal for U.S. citizens to plan within U.S. borders to violate U.S. neutrality in the internal affairs of another country. Since none of them will know where they're going, they can't plan to violate the place. But we take no weapons, no military gear—it's strictly running shoes and shorts.”

  Andre nodded.

  “There's another problem,” Mike went on. “The Nanticoke Institute people pointed out to me that they consider their big mistake was in sending in a three-man team who did not know Afghan languages and customs. They said they now have an expert on the area working for them, and they want to send him with us. I said I'd have him checked out by one of my men and warned them that he was not to reveal the mission's destination to this man. So I phoned Bob Murphy before he left Hilton Head Island and told him to try to find out where the mission was to, that this guy knew it. Bob called me an hour ago. He said the guy was a beanpole but real smart—he had been able to find out nothing from him about where we're going. So that's good. I asked Bob what else the guy could do. Bob said, ‘He can swim.' ‘Anything else?' I asked. Bob said, ‘No. I gave him a rifle to shoot and he didn't know how to hold it. He admitted he'd never fired a gun in his life.'

  “Well, I blew up at that, hung up, and dialed the Institute. I screamed at them that we weren't taking any helpless egghead with us, regardless of h
ow many dialects and folk dances he knew. They told me that they would work with him nonstop, beginning in ten minutes from talking with me, and all they asked in return was for me to give him a chance at training. If he flunked that, he's out. So I said okay.”

  “I see the problem,” Andre said. “We know that all the other team members are proficient with weapons. All they will need is some physical toughening up and discipline. But this one will need testing with weapons. There is no way around it. But I agree with the Institute members—I think his knowledge of the region's languages and customs make him worth including if he can pull his own weight at all.”

  Mike smiled, knowing that Andre prized his own linguistic abilities and regarded them as important to the success of some past missions. The Frenchman knew none of the Afghan languages, nor did Mike or any of the others.

  “We'll see how he turns out,” Mike said, resigned to the worst.

  A mere in the field was often only as good as his hardware. It was not that difficult for any soldier of fortune to infiltrate someplace with civilian status. Only when he made contact with his hardware was he burning his bridges. This was nearly true, because some missions were already dead before the meres left home base as a result of leaked information about the mission. However, so long as they did not collect their weapons, they could only be charged with conspiracy, which was a lot more vague than being accused of possession of military-grade weapons. The point of purchase of the weapons was often the weak spot. When somebody bought a quantity of serious hardware, it was obvious what he had in mind, and often it was not hard to guess where. Some of the more unscrupulous arms dealers regarded selling such information to interested parties as a bonus to their deal; first they'd sell the guns to one party, next they'd sell the information to the other party. Sometimes the information brought in even more profit than the guns.

  Quality was another problem. A mere leader could order from a shiny catalogue with four-color pictures in one location and accept delivery of rusty weapons with parts missing in another. When that happened in the field, it was usually too late to replace the weapons, and the mercs would be goddamn lucky if they survived to complain.

  Point of delivery was even more risky than point of purchase. Kind old ladies don't go into the business of delivering arms. If the mercs had not already been sold out to the local authorities, they were liable at this point to be murdered by their suppliers—killed with their own guns and bullets. The popular notion of mercs arriving in rubber rafts by moonlight, with blackened faces and weapons draped across both shoulders, did not correspond much to reality. Parachute jumps and frogmen stealthily creeping onto a beach were nice notiohs, but the preparations necessary for any of these maneuvers would be bound to attract far more attention than the low-key arrival by commercial aircraft at different times of a number of unremarkable men who picked up their hardware from a reliable source close to the scene of the action.

  Mike Campbell normally took all of these problems to Mobile, Alabama. Colquitt Armaments was composed of a small office building and a big warehouse in an industrial estate on the edge of the city. Lawns, azalea bushes, and live oaks took the harsh edges off the factory environment. Inside the glass doors, a startlingly pretty girl sat at the reception desk. Mike hadn't seen her before, which was no surprise to him since Cuthbert Colquitt's receptionist-secretaries never seemed to last more than a couple of months.

  “Mike Campbell is the name. Mr. Colquitt is expecting me.”

  She pushed her chair back from the desk to give him a view of her legs and shook a wave of her long black hair from in front of her dark eyes. “Cuthbert said he didn't want to be disturbed.”

  “Please tell him I'm here.”

  “Cuthbert don't feel so good this morning. You sure you don't want to come back some other time?”

  “Tell him Mike Campbell is here.”

  Instead of using the intercom, she stood in her high heels and sashayed back into the office, wiggling her cute butt in a tight black skirt. She was gone awhile. When she came back, she raised her eyebrows and said in an arch voice, “Mr. Campbell, Mr. Colquitt will see you now.”

  Mike heard her snigger as he went in.

  As well she could. Cuthbert Colquitt looked a sight. At the best of times his jowls and double chin, the rolls of fat on his neck, and his great bulk hardly presented a picture of health. This morning his little bloodshot eyes had almost disappeared above his bloated, reddened cheeks, his hands trembled, and his stomach audibly rumbled across the room.

  “Been burning the midnight oil, Cuthbert?” Mike asked pleasantly, and shook his hand.

  “I been drinking the midnight oil, least that's how it feels.” Cuthbert made no move to rise from his chair and greet him, which was not typical of this usually courteous man. “You could perform a big service for us both if you'll take out that bottle of Jack Daniel's and pour us two generous measures over the ice you'll find in that spittoon over there.

  “That dingbat gal keeps insisting I need a blow job more than I need a drink, but my pecker don't seem to agree. He ain't jumping to attention for anyone till I get a drop of good liquor in me. Way I feel right now, I'd be surprised if either of us ever move again. Been on a three-day jag, boy. I met some friends unexpected like, and everything just fell in place and I kept going. I've no idea what happened to them. They just fell by the wayside or went home. I kept going.” He slurped greedily on the Jack Daniel's and held out the glass to Mike again, his shaky hand rattling the ice cubes. Mike poured him another three-finger measure. Cuthbert swallowed half that. “Oh, yes, I believe I'm beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. What brings a cunning Yankee like you down among us Confederate chickens?”

  “I'm thinking of a vacation in Afghanistan, Cuthbert.”

  “You really know how to pick them, boy. I see likely fellas head out to places only half as dangerous as you like to pick, and sure they go, but they don't come back. You keep coming back all the time with never a scratch nor a gray hair, while even stay-at-homes like myself, who don't feel comfortable more than twenty miles outside Mobile, die like flies on the highways and in other people's beds. It's like those folk who tell you flying is safer than driving to the airport. You're out there beating on the heads of savage, wild men and you don't break a fingernail, while I'm liable to slip in the shower and crack my skull. It don't seem fair, but the Good Lord give the and the Good Lord disposeth. When my time comes, I hope to go gracefully…”

  “I know there's going to be a big discount on prices for my having to nurse you through this crisis.”

  Cuthbert cackled and reached out himself for the bottle of Jack Daniel's. “Don't you go pulling your fast ones on us easygoing Southern people. You know you're not going to the cheapest part of the world so far as hardware is concerned. A Kalashnikov assault rifle you could buy for two-fifty in some places will cost you twelve to sixteen hundred on the Afghan border. I can get them for you for less than a thousand, of course, but that's still four times the price elsewhere.”

  “Money's not a problem, Cuthbert. I need non-American weapons. Iron Curtain countries if possible. Antihelicopter, antitank, something that packs punch on the one-man missile line. The Kalashnikov sounds good as a rifle. I'll leave the pistols, grenades, and so forth to you. Give me the best available. For seven men plus two in reserve.”

  “Then not everything will be of Iron Curtain manufacture,” Cuthbert pointed out. “Peshawar is a good marketplace. It's in Pakistan, not far from the border. As I said, it's expensive, but I'll get you what you need.”

  “I also need a contact inside Pakistan, someone who can evaluate our contacts for me and talk with me about crossing the border. I'm using someone called Aga Akbar for the crossing. He brought in three Americans not long ago. Have him checked out for me. You know someone?”

  “A good man. I've known him for years. He spent a few days with me last year. We went coon hunting every night.”

  Mike had already
been through that a few times, and he knew that Cuthbert's invitation to go with him and his dogs was his supreme tribute to any man.

  Mike smiled. “I'm trying to imagine what a Pakistani thought of tramping the Alabama backwoods with you and your hounds in the dark of night.”

  “This man's a Pathan warrior. He shot them damn raccoons out of the trees before I could properly get a light on them. If it had been up to me, I'd have made him a U.S. citizen on the spot.”

  “Okay, okay, Cuthbert, that's enough.”

  Mike waited at the small airstrip outside Santa Ynez. He saw a single-engine plane approach and lower its landing gear. He recognized it from the high-wing design as a Cessna 210. The plane made an awful landing, its left wheel touching before the right, and the pilot managed to steady the craft only by almost aborting the landing by lifting both wheels off the ground and touching down again. The Cessna stopped with only about twenty feet of runway to spare. Campbell drove out to meet the plane, hoping this landing was not a sign of things to come. He watched while the pilot seemed to be having difficulty extracting himself from the cockpit. Finally a six-foot-four, extremely thin, bony man jumped out and walked toward him, hand extended.

  “Jedediah Crippenby,” he said, introducing himself.

  Mike nodded and shook his hand. “That was some landing.”

  “Not bad for my first time at the controls of a plane,” Crippenby said in a pleased voice.

  “Your copilot let you land first time at the controls?” Mike asked incredulously.

  The second man, looking a bit shaken, joined them. “Not the wisest thing I've ever allowed. But Jed here has made such progress in the last few days, I thought we might deliver a skilled pilot as well as everything else to you. That was a little premature, I'm afraid.”

  “Wait!” Crippenby said enthusiastically, and rushed back to the plane. He drew out an Armalite rifle, snapped a magazine in place, and wildly looked around him. Mike took the pack of Kent Golden Lights from the copilot's hand and threw it out on the grass. Crippenby hit it with his second shot on semiautomatic fire and then blew away the fragments with an automatic burst of four shots.