"And what is that?" said Kilmara.
Fitzduane spread his hands. "I don't know," he said. "Theories abound. I have heard everything from a missile site to a biological weapons production facility. When I next see pigs flying I could even believe it to be that much-referred to oil extraction process. Personally, I don't much care. I am going down there to get Kathleen back and wipe out some people who really do not do much for the advancement of the human condition. If there is a third leg to the mission. All I can say is that I hope we can do it fast, because it is not going to be healthy to stick around."
Kilmara poured himself a mug of straight black coffee. There had been a time when both men would have mortally wounded a bottle of Irish whiskey over an evening's talking, but Fitzduane was no longer much of a drinker and his sobriety was catching. Also, there was much to think through, and a reasonably clear head helped. He stood up and stretched. "I need some air, Hugo," he said.
Fitzduane opened the sliding doors and both men stood on the balcony. Fitzduane found he was quite affected by the Iwo Jima memorial each time he saw it. It had not just become an everyday part of the view from the apartment. It touched something in him. Life was the way it was — imperfect but still precious — because some people, always a minority, were willing to risk all.
"The paradox," said Kilmara, as if reading his mind, "is that the other side have beliefs and values and dedicated people too. We have patriots and they have fanatics. They are both two sides of the same coin. The only distinction is that we think they are wrong."
Fitzduane laughed. "A rather important distinction," he said.
Kilmara grinned. "Yeah, that's my conclusion when I get philosophical, and it doesn't hurt that I believe it. Love for your fellow man is all very well and has to be the better way, but until Utopia arrives after the talking stops, there will always be a need to hold the line. And that's what people like those marines did and do."
"Fortunately for us," said Fitzduane quietly.
Fortunately for us, thought Kilmara, looking at Fitzduane. Fitzduane caught the look and smiled. "You got me into all this, Shane," he said.
Kilmara shook his head. "It was always there, Hugo. Blame your ancestors. A willingness to serve: It's something that is bred into you."
Fitzduane leaned on the railings and gazed out over Washington. "Quite a country," he said with feeling. "I love the place, the land, the energy, many of the structures, and the sense that in the U.S. anything is possible. But some pundits argue that America's day is over and that power is now gravitating inexorably toward Asia or some other axis. Think so, Shane?"
Kilmara was looking again at the Iwo Jima memorial.
"We're both Irish," he said, "and these days we are both European, but the reality is that Americais us. We are all of a piece and we are not going to go away."
He turned to Fitzduane. "Hugo," he said firmly. "You're going to get Kathleen back. But don't get killed. Do what you have to and then get the hell out. We have enough dead heroes."
Fitzduane smiled. "Deal!" he said.
They went back inside.
* * * * *
Fitzduane slept for several hours and then he woke.
It was still dark, but he could not sleep. He put on some running gear and jogged down to the Iwo Jima memorial. Somehow it seemed to bring comfort.
He was thinking of Kathleen. Was she really where he thought she was? Could he really bring her back? Were his plans the best that could be devised? Was there an alternative strategy? Should he go in with helicopters, as everyone else had recommended? Was it all as impossible as some had argued?
Endless doubts coursed through his mind. He was not just putting his own life at risk. Apart from the C130 pilots and crew, he was taking with him fourteen others. All of those people had their own relationships and dependents, and it was near certain that some would die. This was too dangerous a mission for all to get through unscathed. Life was not like that. Had he the right to get other people killed and to wreck other lives?
He walked slowly around the memorial. Such self-doubt, he knew, was futile. In the end you did your best and lived or died with the consequences. And that was all you could do. But above all, you had to try.
Dawn was coming. Could Kathleen see the sky as he could, or was she held chained and blindfolded like so many hostages? Was she alive at all?
At first he had been so horrified and angered by her kidnapping that it had taken all his self-control not to head down to Mexico and just do what he could. But that would have been futile and he knew it. The initial shock and fury had passed. Now there was just a cold anger that stayed with him every waking hour and an absolute determination to get Kathleen back.
He stood back and looked at the marines raising the flag on Mount Suribachi. He was sure it had not been quite as depicted, but he was equally sure it was close enough.
He raised his hand in a silent salute and went jogging toward ArlingtonCemetery.
Behind him his shadow ran easily, ever watchful. Dana had been strangely touched by what she had seen. It was not his country, but he still seemed to care.
She had lost her partner. She was not going to lose her charge. And when the mission was mounted she was going to be damn sure she was on it. Texas had been the best of people and the closest of friends, and her killing was not going to go unpunished. She smiled as she cried. Texas had been good fun, too. Outrageous sometimes, humorous practically always.
She thought ArlingtonNationalCemetery at dawn was the most beautiful place she had ever seen. It should be somehow sad, given all the dead and the memories they evoked, but it was not. It was magnificent.
Fitzduane ran steadily toward a tombstone not too far from the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Then he stopped beside the tombstone, took something out of his pocket, and placed it on the base. Next he stepped back and stood with his head bowed for a good ten minutes.
After he had left, Dana checked the headstone:
JAMES N. “NICK” ROWE
COLONEL U.S. ARMY
Then she remembered. This grave had particular significance for special forces. The inscription closed with the stark line:
KILLED BY TERRORISTS, MANILA
Fitzduane had left an Irish Rangers shoulder patch on the base, held in place by a small stone. The rituals of warriors before battle, Dana thought. We think we have changed, but we have not. We prepare, we draw strength from our heroes, we pay our dues, and then we fight. Ancient Roman, Norman knight, or twentieth-century special forces. Different causes, different customs, different weapons, but when it came to facing the reality of combat, common traditions.
11
Fitzduane flew into Phoenix, picked up a rented Ford Bronco, and drove north and east.
He had debated phoning rather than making the trip, but he rationalized that if he was going to ask Al to put his life on the line it was something he had better do face-to-face.
In reality, he was desperate for a change of environment. The mission was coming together, but Washington was one long reminder of Kathleen. He needed space and a chance to get some perspective.
He was heading for the newly incorporated city of Medora, population all of 5,648. It was about three hours' steady driving time from Phoenix. He could have rented a light aircraft and flow the last hop, but he had mixed feelings about light aircraft he did not know, and anyway he had heard the that the Medora airstrip was on top of a butte.
Since a butte, as best he could recall, was a sheer-sided mountain jutting out of the ground rather like a rocket, its top, even if flat, did not seem a terrific place to land. The pilot could miss or you could fall of the edge or something. Fitzduane preferred his airstrips on the ground, preferably very flat ground without things to bump into.
A few miles outside Phoenix, the highway climbed steadily. The rolling foothills stretched away on either side and the ground looked hard and arid. This was high desert dotted with scrub and mesquite and cacti. Some people found it harsh an
d forbidding. Fitzduane relished the contours of the land and the clear light and the sense of space, and found it achingly beautiful.
It was so different from his home country. Ireland's scenery was on an altogether smaller and more human scale. Here, the vistas were immense and mankind almost insignificant.
It was hard to imagine how anyone had survived in such a vast, rugged, water-starved landscape, yet this was the terrain that the Apaches had made their own and over which Geronimo had been hunted. Five thousand troops trying to find thirty men in an era before helicopters and radios and modern technology. Endless locations in the heavily contoured landscape to hide in. The difficulties and hardships overcome in the hunt were hard to comprehend.
Al Lonsdale's mother had been a full-blooded Apache. His father, the sheriff of a border town in Texas, had been of mixed English and Irish stock, and the combination had produced a striking-looking man. Al had thick black hair, a high forehead, deep-set thoughtful eyes, high cheekbones, and a strong nose and chin. He stood six feet three in his socks.
Lonsdale had followed in his father's profession and spent a few years as a sheriff's deputy, but then had joined the U.S. Army in search of wider horizons. He had grown up with weapons, and hunting was a family tradition, so the transition to U.S. Army Special Forces had been smooth. But Lonsdale wanted to be the best of the best, so he volunteered for the top-secret U.S. Army counterterrorist unit, Delta, which had been set up Colonel Charlie Beckwith on SAS lines. When he was accepted by Delta, Al Lonsdale felt he had arrived.
The Irish equivalent of Delta were the Rangers commanded by General Shane Kilmara. Master Sergeant Al Lonsdale had been on secondment to them, training on Fitzduane's island off the West of Ireland, when they had stumbled across a terrorist assassination attempt.
Superb long-range shooting by Lonsdale with a .50 Barrett at over 1,800 meters had saved the lives of both Fitzduane and his son, Boots. Subsequently, Lonsdale had fought beside Fitzduane and Chifune Tanabu on a counterterrorist action in Japan.
It was a relationship born and tempered under fire, and as a consequence, Lonsdale was a natural choice for the Mexican mission. But whether he could be persuaded to join the team was another matter. Al's leaving Delta had been unexpected. His appointment as Chief of Police of the tiny city of Medora had compounded the surprise.
Fitzduane had tabbed Al Lonsdale as hard-core military through and through. A caliber soldier. A warrior. His reasons for abandoning a promising military career for the vicissitudes of the civilian world were unknown. Still, Fitzduane had faith in Al Lonsdale. There would be reasons, and they would be good. Well, he hoped they would be good.
People were people the world over. All were a little flaky. In its way, the consistency of the human factor was kind of reassuring.
* * * * *
"Mrs. Zanduski," said Chief of Police Al Lonsdale patiently, "what we're looking for here, ma'am is a certain dynamic tension. Simply put, your right hand holding the firearm pushes out and is braced against your left arm pulling in. The result is — or should be — a stable weapons platform."
"I don't want a weapons platform, Chief," said five-foot-two seventy-eight-year-old Mrs. Zanduski, her outstretched hands holding the .357 Magnum with the six inch barrel hesitantly. "I want to hit the goddamn target. I want to blow the motherfuckers away."
"There is a relationship, ma'am," said Lonsdale quietly. "You point the weapon in the right direction and the round goes more or less the same way. It's a useful principle to keep in mind."
"Don't patronize me, young man," said Mrs. Zanduski sharply. There was a flash from the weapon's muzzle and a loud boom. The metal can she had been aiming at some twenty-five yards away was blasted off the wooden plank against the wall of sandbags.
The crowd cheered and whistled and clapped. "Way to go, Granny!" could be heard. Mrs. Zanduski looked up at Chief Lonsdale triumphantly.
"Very nice, Mrs. Zanduski," said Lonsdale, "but don't you think a smaller caliber might be better?"
Mrs. Zanduski's chin jutted out. "Clint Eastwood uses a large-caliber weapon, young man, and I would point out that he is now practically a senior citizen himself."
Chief Lonsdale sighed. Life and fantasy seemed to be getting increasingly intertwined these days. "Next!" he called.
Hiram Albertsen was an eighty-two-year-old retired accountant. He was not much taller than Mrs. Clara Zanduski, and carried a bull pup High Standard Model 10B shotgun equipped with a laser sight and a Choate magazine extension.
"Where is the target, young man?" he said.
Lonsdale pointed at the next can in a row of seven. This was supposed to be a familiarization lesson. One shot each and they would focus on weapons handling and get to serious shooting later. He was already forming the view that he had underestimated the senior citizens of Medora.
Mr. Albertsen adjusted his bifocals, held his weapon at his hip, and then activated the laser sight. A red dot hovered unsteadily around the target.
"BOOM! BOOM! The seven cans were near-simultaneously propelled into the air, and the plank on which they had sat reduced to matchwood. Lonsdale looked on in disbelief as slivers of wood and wood dust fluttered to the ground. The cans were shredded, most split right open.
Mr. Albertsen cackled. "That old hag's six-gun isn't worth spit."
The rivalry on all issues between Clara Zanduski and Hiram Albertsen was legendary. Rumor had it that it had started at the bridge table but had speedily spread to just about every aspect of life that could be remotely regarded as competitive. The consensus was that both were thriving on the endless confrontations.
"What in heavens are you firing, Mr. Albertsen?" said Lonsdale weakly.
Mr. Albertsen held up his weapon. The muzzle had been fitted with a duckbill diverter, which spread the steel darts in an elliptical pattern. "Loaded ‘em myself, young man," he said. "Twenty fléchettes to a twelve-gauge. With the duckbill, at twenty-five meters, they'll clear everyone in a pattern of twelve feet wide and five feet high. And deafen' ‘em, too! Hot damn!"
"Hot damn indeed!" agreed Lonsdale. This police chief business was not working out quite as he had expected. The city of Medora was two-thirds a retirement community and loved being incorporated. City politics was what kept the adrenaline of the senior citizens flowing. But for all practical purposes there was no crime. And the citizens, armed to the teeth, intended to keep it that way.
Apart from being a pawn to be argued over at weekly meetings of the city council, Medora's four-man police department had almost nothing of substance to do except traffic control during the season when hundreds of thousands of tourists streamed through on the way to the Grand Canyon. Ironically, thanks to fines resulting from traffic violations, the police department even made a profit.
Pay and benefits were good, the scenery was superb, the air was clear, and his golf handicap was coming down, but Chief of Police Al Lonsdale was bored.
It was then that he saw Colonel Hugo Fitzduane standing apart from the gun crowd, looking fit and tanned and a little thinner than he remembered. And he knew things would start to happen the way they normally did when the Irishman was around.
Fitzduane was a charming man, but he was a magnet for trouble. Al Lonsdale knew he should know better, but he was very pleased to see him. He felt a stirring in the blood, a lust for adventure, for life on the edge. A mature man should have gotten over such feelings. The Chief was glad he still had some way to go.
* * * * *
Lonsdale lived five miles out of town in a valley that the local Indians considered sacred. He had built his own house in an as-yet-undeveloped area, but had consulted the local medicine men before commencing construction. They had consulted the spirits and then recommended a series of purification ceremonies that lasted on and off for a month. The rituals did not come free. Lonsdale did not break ground until they were completed.
"Did the ceremonies work?" said Fitzduane.
They were sitting on the raised deck of
the house. A bloodred sun was setting in the V formed by the walls of the valley. The red rock glowed as if on fire. It was not hard to see why the Indians considered the location sacred. There was a special, almost spiritual quality about the place, and it was more than beautiful. It was spectacular. It was also isolated. The nearest neighbor was more than two miles away in the next valley.
Lonsdale grinned. "Sure." Earlier on he had raised the subject of Kathleen, and Fitzduane had frozen. The look in the man's eyes had said it all. Now Lonsdale steered the conversation to safer subjects. The man was on autopilot. He could function as long as he did not think of her except when absolutely necessary.
The Chief made a gesture encompassing the house. It was a large two-story adobe dwelling surrounded by a high wall that fit nearly perfectly into the landscape. In terms of the basic comforts it was completely modern, but externally it would not have seemed out of place when Arizona was part of Mexico. In truth, it was more like a small fort than a house.
"The last man to try building in this valley," continued Lonsdale, "dismissed the Indians' objections as superstition and an attempt at extortion. Medicine men don't perform their ceremonies for free."
"So what happened to him?" said Fitzduane.
"He was overseeing the clearing of the site when the bulldozer cut into a nest of snakes. One moment he was standing there shouting directions, and the next he was flat on his back on the ground under a whole mess of writhing snakes. They had antitoxin, but he was way beyond that. He was dead within minutes. They say he was bitten more than fifty times and most of his face was torn off. He had no eyes by the time they were finished and his skin was black from the venom."
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