by Vince Milam
Chapter 7
We spent the night with the door locked and a chair against the door handle. The Glock rested at my side. Luke and I said goodbye before dawn.
“Take care, Luke. Thank you for your help. It’s been a pleasure.”
He returned a true smile. “Maybe not such a pleasure.” He pointed to my left chest, tugged my extended hand, and stepped face-to-face. He spoke into my ear. “But some excitement. A good thing.” He chuckled. I placed a hand on his shoulder and wished him well. He’d be remembered.
This engagement was over. I’d done my job, gone the extra mile. The Indonesian gang already negotiating with a sponsor provided a nice informational nugget. Plus I’d been shot with an arrow, hunkered with leeches, and put up with Babe Cox. It was over. But the clandestine atmosphere yesterday smelled rotten. A simple gig, turned sideways.
I made it to the gravel-strip airport as the eastern horizon showed signs of light, senses on high alert. Kiunga had transformed into enemy turf. The unknown nature of my client—a given, and accepted in the past—now stood shardlike on what should have been a celebratory trip home. Someone or some organization had contacted the Zurich gnomes and asked for a specific individual. Case Lee. The needed spice in whatever exotic gamesmanship gumbo simmered. I felt it in my bones.
Time to zip back to the States and disappear once again. But answers satisfying “why me?” and “what was going down?” gnawed at my gut and tainted the vanishing act.
The pilot appeared at dawn and began loading his cargo. Sheets of corrugated tin and bags of rice. Tins of meat, mosquito netting, tools. Sundries and medicines and boxes of nails. He’d take off before the day heated and begin his milk run. The Islander aircraft sat nine. Five seats removed and, voila, a cargo plane.
Global Resolutions wouldn’t hand out my name. Ever. They would never dangle my identity and expertise for a potential client. Unless there was an operational leak. A possibility. But the Swiss tended to run a tight ship, and the rules were simple. Interested clients contacted Zurich. The gnomes contacted me. No exchange of names or identities in either direction. Clean, efficient.
We took off at a roaring lumber, clawing air, gaining small bites of altitude.
“First stop just a short hop,” the pilot said.
“Roger.” I sat in the copilot’s seat. We flew over the PNG rain-forested hills, valleys, and mountains. No roads, no electrical lines, no cell towers. The shimmer of rivers and streams would flash below and disappear. Wild, isolated, rugged jungle for hundreds of miles. Our target was a runway hacked from the rain forest.
Who would have asked for me by name? A small pool of possibilities. CIA, NSA, military intelligence. It was also conceivable the British MI6 or Israeli Mossad had requested yours truly. It made sense if they didn’t want their fingerprints anywhere near the operation. But I’d met the MI6 guy. Not that it meant anything. Smoke and mirrors. The clandestine world. Helluva way to live.
The pilot set the flaps and we dropped to treetop level and flared as a runway appeared. The Islander slammed down. At the end of the grass runway stood a cluster of villagers and two outsiders. Smart money would bet on them as a husband and wife missionary pair. With the engines cut, the pilot crawled out to help unload. I waved and smiled from the copilot seat. They returned the gestures.
A request for me could have been someone from Delta Force days. Someone who knew I worked through Zurich. Other than my blood brothers—Bo, Catch, and Marcus—I’d never spilt beans regarding my livelihood to anyone. Still, someone played the Case card.
I always disliked these takeoffs. At the short grass runway’s end, facing us, a wall of jungle. Tall trees, thick and unyielding. The pilot goosed the throttles and stood on the brakes. The Islander pressed against the restraint and edged forward. Brakes released, we shot past the villagers, missionaries, and pressing jungle. At the last possible second, the pilot pulled back on the wheel, and we lifted off, clearing the wall of timber ahead by a good ten feet. Less than my favorite way to fly. I’d done plenty of gnarly things in aircraft before, but with Special Forces pilots. Not a kid from Australia racking up air hours so he could transfer to a better gig back in Oz.
I kept scratching the “being played” itch. And considered Jules. I didn’t want to go there. Jules knew of my destination, my engagement, because she’d provided me salient intel prior to my departure. Good and valued stuff. In the past, she’d indicated a liking for me. A preference for me over others she dealt with. But she was Jules. Jules of the Clubhouse. No one on this good earth knew what she thought or what information she passed. But I couldn’t bring myself to think of her as the culprit. Or figure why she’d initiate such an activity.
We made another landing, unloaded, and headed for our final stop prior to Port Moresby. We flew over the Owen Stanley Range, a series of mountain peaks running along PNG’s heart. They weren’t trivial peaks. Several over twelve thousand feet, the tallest over thirteen thousand. Isolated, jungle covered. Wild, wild turf.
“This one’s a bit hairy.” The pilot’s voice crackled over the headphone speakers.
Not what I wanted to hear. He put on a false smile as reassurance. It didn’t help.
“How’s that?” I asked.
“Box canyon. Halfway up the mountain.”
“You done it before?” A legitimate question. A yes raised the confidence factor half a notch. Both his and mine. A no meant my ass would grip the seat cushion.
“Couple of times. The good news is the runway slopes uphill. Helps stop us.”
“What’s the bad news?”
“She lacks much of a runway. Takeoff is a bugger.”
We weaved through mountain peaks. Clouds clung to jungle ridges. We bounced among the varying air currents. A sharp left turn and it appeared. A three-sided walled runway. At the upper end, a thousand-foot vertical wall of sheer rock and vines. At the lower end, where our wheels would first touch, a several-thousand-foot dead drop.
The landing wasn’t bad. We roared into the canyon and landed up a ten-degree slope, stopping thirty yards from the mountain wall. The pilot wheeled the plane around and shut it down. He patted my leg as he left the cockpit to unload. A pat of victory.
Freight removed, there were handshakes, goodbyes, and shared “Godspeed.” The empty Islander fired. The pilot squeezed his headset on and rolled his shoulders.
“Can’t jack it too much on this end.” His voice came across the headset as tinny, tight.
“Understood.” We faced downhill. Too much of a “give it gas and brakes at the same time” would plow us into the runway, nose first.
“All right. Hold on. And don’t touch a bloody thing, mate. Not a bloody thing.”
I held a pilot’s license and flew enough hours to keep it current. I paled in experience next to this guy, but I knew what he meant. We would soon fall off a cliff. Grabbing something, anything, was a natural reaction.
I also knew we had one shot. When we hit the end of the runway we’d still be on wheels. And enter dead space. The natural tendency—pull the wheel back and try and gain altitude. A death sentence. We’d stall, tumble, and become another three-sentence news item in Australian papers.
The lone solution—airspeed. And to gain airspeed, we’d have to point the nose into the canyon below. A couple of thousand feet down and gain speed. Then pull up, under control. And experience aside, if the pilot freaked and started to nose up too early, I damn sure was going to touch something. Namely the controls.
Sweat pouring across his face, the pilot eased off the brakes and shoved the throttles forward. The Islander roared, bounced, and accelerated. Mountaintops, jagged ridges, and drifting foglike clouds waited. We fell off the end of the grass runway. The pilot pressed the wheel forward. The Islander dive-bombed for one, two, three, four, five seconds—gaining speed. And we pulled up. Seven tight circles and we topped out of the surrounding peaks. I patted his leg.
“Well done.”
“She’s a scrotum-ti
ghtner, for sure.”
“Well done. Let’s get to Moresby.”
We did. There are times when I looked forward to concrete. Concrete roads, bridges. And runways. Port Moresby’s airport appeared, and I appreciated the firmament.
The Port Moresby layover offered sufficient time to file a report on the deep web. The final act. The report took an hour and a half. I prefaced it with an email.
Was I specifically asked for with this engagement?
Short and sweet and direct. No point asking the client’s identity. Wasted breath. A reply returned within an hour.
“Job well done. Solid report. Payment made by usual means.”
A typical Global Resolutions response. Job over, money transferred into my Swiss account. And “we know nothing.” Freakin’ gnomes.
But Jules had heard something. Somewhere out in the fog and mist, word filtered through. Word affecting me. Whether she knew more or scooped wafting bits and pieces of disconnected information, I’d never know.
On the third Grey Goose, I made a decision and shunted aside personal curiosity. Outside my world, the game of geopolitical chess. Every time bright, earnest spooks started whiteboarding scenarios behind triple-sealed doors, you could count on one thing—it would go sideways once the rubber met the road. Innocent people affected, ruined, killed. Probability matrices adjusted back at headquarters. New vignettes envisioned. More attempts made.
I knew. Delta Force often filled the role of hammer for US clandestine operations. And at least half the time we’d wade through the BS tossed on the table until a definitive mission was uncovered. Real and deliverable outcomes. Some flavor of violence assured—but quick, short, and final. In and out, mission accomplished. We didn’t overthink things in Delta. We were similar to SEAL teams. But with a difference.
Delta Force doesn’t officially exist. The operators work hard avoiding attention. Civilian clothing, beards, long hair. We worked deep in the shadows. A big fat downside of doing so was that’s where our clandestine services also lived. Elbow to elbow, missions accomplished. One side gamed, predicted, and sought big-picture rationale. Not Delta. We did our job. We took out the human garbage. And we were the best.
So yeah, I’d scoot away and quit scratching that itch. I’d check in with Jules before I made it back to the Ace of Spades. Give her an update. And download whatever she might tell me. Call it good and disappear again.
Then Abbie Rice walked into the open-air bar at the Port Moresby airport. Abbie Rice of the CIA.
Chapter 8
We had first met at another airport. In Washington, DC. And we’d chatted several times since. She still owned the pixie haircut and owlish glasses, and still walked with a jock’s tight confidence. Martial arts, triathlons. A master’s degree from the Harvard Kennedy School in international and global affairs. Under other circumstances I would have appreciated seeing her. But not here. Not now.
Answers tumbled into place. The curtain behind the clandestine Kabuki theater opened up. My paranoia-driven instincts were now justified. A secret agency—the CIA—requested me. Played me. And the Company emissary—Abbie Rice—was someone I trusted. Or used to trust.
Yeah, gears turn, Jules. Turn and spit out Company puppeteers with Case Lee dangling from unseen strings. PNG was a straightforward clandestine ops campaign. End of story.
She slid into a chair across the table and cast hard glances around the room. Tradecraft, on the job.
“Can’t say I’m glad to see you,” I said.
Her eyes widened. “Really?”
“Yeah, really.”
“Then there’s something you don’t understand.”
“Oh, I understand, Abbie. Believe me. I understand.”
Rising anger met her quizzical silence. Affection for her acted as a governor, a restraint, on my outrage throttle. I’d even hit on her when we first met and asked for a date. Later she revealed she had a girlfriend. Those signals were presented during our initial conversation. I’d ignored the interpersonal road signs because she was cute. Still was.
She scoped the room again. A dozen other people occupied the bar, most of European stock. Aussies, Kiwis, Brits, you name it. I’d sussed them out when I first entered, sitting with my back to a wall. Standard operating procedure. Since I’d entered, the cast had changed little.
“Well, I thought you’d be excited to see me. The opportunity for a new engagement.”
“You thought wrong.”
“And the opportunity to work together.”
The Abbie Rice career path, right out of the chute. She’d been all over me to partner when we first met. Her grand plan. Leave the CIA and hang a shingle with Case Lee, Esq. Her neck showed the remnants of a bullet graze from a previous CIA operation. Due to such a close call, the Company pulled her from the field and sat her at a desk. She would have none of it. Hence the plan to partner with me in the private sector. And I would have none of that.
“We’re not going to work together.”
“I know. Understood. But things have changed.”
“I can see that. You’re back in the field.”
“Yes! Meaning we can work together under a different framework.”
“So let me tell you how I see this.” I took a deep breath, calmed the internal violent seas, and spoke with absolute candor. “You used me to get you back in the field.”
Her mouth opened, shut, and forehead furrowed. “No. Absolutely not. You can’t view it that way. No. You were the best person, the best fit for this ops.”
I remained silent.
“Yes, we did ask for you personally.”
“Yeah, I get it now.” A heart-to-heart conversation with Global Resolutions loomed. No more assignments from spooks. Period.
“Yes, I pushed you. Laid out your experience. And attributes. The team thought you a perfect match.”
“The team.” Her perspective found bedrock in Company operations, Company missions.
“Well, yes, the Company team. And we’re talking big-time stuff.”
Always big-time stuff. The Company could assemble enough enthusiasm in one meeting room to find a stubbed toe big-time stuff. A collective Delta Force eye roll was a regular occurrence during those meetings.
She did a classic look left, look right, and get closer thing. She leaned so far across the table her butt must have lifted from the chair. Eyes blinked once behind those large, round glasses.
“We’re talking JI. I’m not kidding.”
Jemaah Islamiyah. JI. A militant terror group with ties to Al Qaeda and ISIS. Dedicated to the establishment of a Southeast Asia Islamic State. They occupied operational bases across Indonesia, with a stronghold in Central Sulawesi’s mountainous jungles. Their largest operational issue—cash. Funding.
It clicked with crystalline clarity. The Indonesian gold camp. Men comfortable, at home, in those surroundings. Men challenging and wary of outside contact. Well, I guess they would be, representing a Southeast Asia terrorist organization. Yeah, a little wary. Man, I was an idiot.
“So I’m clear on this, you asked for me. Personally. Sold me to the Company as the guy for the job.”
“Yes. Exactly.” Her eyes excited and her voice low but animated. The tabletop prevented her from inching closer.
“And the grand plan included sending my sorry butt into an Islamist terrorist camp.”
“Yes.”
“Without telling me.”
“We both know it works best that way. No preconceived notions to signal your knowledge.”
She was right. Classic spook methodology. Unaware worked best. Which did nothing to lid my simmering anger.
“And have a little chat with said terrorist group. Make an offer. Perhaps a spot of tea.”
I released the table’s edge, controlled my fury. The arrow wound had lit up at the exertion.
“Come on. Don’t act like it wasn’t a good plan.”
“You played me.” There, slapped on the table. I’d thought of her as a friend.
She’d even made a commitment to sniff around the Company and try and find the source, the paymaster, for our bounty. But friends don’t play you. Ever.
I could visualize the top-secret conference room at Langley. Word arrived from an Indonesian source—an on-the-payroll source. A collection of JI members from Sulawesi headed for the gold strike. Papua New Guinea—part of the Southeast Asia neighborhood. Find gold. Fund their operations. PNG presented one of the few places on earth they’d be comfortable pulling this off.
In the Langley conference room, excitement as hands gesticulated and plans sketched on the whiteboard. A collection of JI terrorists would have been easy enough to take out. Delta handled such things with great efficiency. No muss, no fuss, no media.
But no. No, the Company had other ideas. They would work these guys. Swim upstream. Learn their associations with other terrorist groups around the world. Create a spider web of connections. Slap it on the whiteboard, boys. Make it clean, sure, flowing. PowerPoint to follow.
And JI required playing ball before being worked. And who better playing them than yours truly, as per the Company and Abbie Rice. Write Case’s name into the flow diagram. Nothing to it. Traipse into their camp and become bosom buddies. Reach out. Share.
“No! No, Case. Not played. Ops. Field ops. Come on! This is you, me, and the bad guys,” she said, delivered with an adamant head shake.
Sincerity shone through her denials. She considered it utilization of a high-value asset. Me. This was normal CIA operations and tradecraft. Part of their grand plan. My anger and sense of betrayal eased off. She didn’t understand the bond. The personal glue required to work together. It was understandable. Such glue, as evidenced in Delta Force, was a rare commodity. And absent that glue, career desires and buy-in to a new field operation pushed personal considerations aside. Abbie was a hard charger, and young. But the trust factor, the connectivity between us, would never be the same.
