Section 8

by Bob Mayer

  “About your representative. It was a rash act by—”

  The woman dismissed the issue with a brief wave of her hand. “He was nothing. A messenger. And the message he transmitted, so to speak, was understood. I just am not sure what your message is.”

  “Tonight’s auction.”

  The woman waited.

  “I will preempt it and deliver all I have to you for fifty million dollars.”

  “You would sell us what was ours?”

  “‘Was’ is the key word,” Ruiz said.

  “And the rest?’

  “‘The rest’?”

  “The rest of the Golden Lily? What you have here is but a fraction of the whole.”

  “I cannot speak for the rest,” Ruiz said. “I have what was shipped here.”

  The Japanese woman looked around the suite, as if contemplating the offer. “I assume you will not be returning to Jolo?’

  “I cannot—if we make this deal.”

  “And if we do not?’

  “Then I do as planned and hold the auction tonight.” Ruiz shifted in his plush seat uncomfortably. “The items sold separately at auction—based on last night— will cost well over five hundred million. I am making you a very good proposition.”

  The woman abruptiy stood. “You will have my answer one hour prior to the auction.”

  “I’d prefer—”

  “I do not care what you prefer. To be able to transfer that large a sum takes a little bit of time. You will have my answer.”

  With that she strode to the door and was gone.

  Jolo Island

  Tai waited until it became light enough to see before climbing down to join Vaughn. He was at the bottom of a twelve-foot shaft cut into the side of the mountain. The sides were overrun with growth and the opening was almost completely blocked. If Vaughn hadn’t fallen in, Tai doubted they’d have found it. When she finished climbing down, she found Vaughn sitting cross-legged, staring straight ahead at a two-foot-wide black hole at the side of the shaft.

  “What do you think?” she asked.

  Vaughn glanced at her. “That’s the way in. The question is, do we want to go in?”

  Tai glanced at him. “What do you mean? Abayon is in there.”

  “I think there’s more than Abayon in there.”

  Tai sat down next to Vaughn at the bottom of the shaft. She could feel the warm air blowing out of it on her face. “There probably is.”

  “Such as?” Vaughn asked.

  She sighed. “What do you think of the team?”

  “What?”

  “Our illustrious team. Orson. Sinclair. Kasen. Hayes. You. Me. The team.”

  Vaughn shrugged, still staring into the dark hole. “Mostly Special Ops people. The kind you’d want for something like this.”

  “Fuck-ups,” Tai said.

  Vaughn turned to her. “What did you say?”

  “I was relieved of command in Iraq because I complained of prisoner abuse. My career was over. Kasen—I checked on him. He was up for manslaughter for killing an Afghani outside of rules of engagement. Couldn’t get much more than that, but his time in the green machine was over.”

  “He’s also an addict,” Vaughn added.

  Tai didn’t seem surprised. “Lots of drugs in Afghanistan. He’s not only an addict, but he has AIDS. And it’s not responding well to treatment. Then there’s Sinclair. Came here from Leavenworth.”

  “What was he in there for?”

  Tai looked at him. “Running weapons out of Thailand.”

  Vaughn had heard about the scandal in the First Special Group. “Orson? Hayes?”

  “Hayes is dying.”

  “He’s what?” Vaughn remembered Hayes’s late night trip to the latrine and the coughing.

  “Cancer. Very aggressive. He was diagnosed three weeks ago. From what I could find out, he’s got one to two months left to live.”

  “Fuck.”

  “Right on that.”

  “And Orson?”

  “On him, nothing recent that I could find. He was in the SEALs. SEAL Team Six, as that spook said. But he left the team four years ago and simply vanished as far as having a paper trail, even a classified paper trail.”

  “How did you get access to this information?”

  “I was Military Intelligence,” Tai said. “I still have contacts.”

  Vaughn wondered about that. How could she communicate with her contacts about the other members of the team if she only met them once they went into isolation? The facts didn’t add up. But he wasn’t about to point that out to the one person who was supposed to cover his back here on an island full of terrorists.

  Vaughn shifted back to what she had told him about the other members of the team. “So one guy who is going to die shortly, one who has a potentially fatal infection, and three people who fucked their careers up. And one mystery.”

  “A bunch of losers.”

  “Speak for yourself.”

  Tai smiled. Her short dark hair was plastered to the side of her face. Her skin was splattered with mud. Her gear was still wet from the ocean. All in all, quite the mess. She had her MP-5 across her knees and had gone back to staring at the dark hole that beckoned to them.

  “I don’t think we should go in until night,” she said.

  “What difference will it make in there?” Vaughn asked, nodding toward the opening.

  “Because most people still work on a normal biological clock,” Tai said. “I guarantee there will be less people about at night.”

  “You guarantee?”

  Once more she gave a slight smile. “All right. But come on—”

  Vaughn nodded. “I agree. I’m in no rush anyway. And I don’t see why Orson is either.”

  He shifted his rucksack into a more comfortable position. “Do you buy that killing this Abayon guy will destroy the Abu Sayef?”

  “No.”

  Vaughn waited for amplification but none was forthcoming. Finally he was forced to ask: “Why not?”

  He could just barely see the dark form of Tai’s head moving in the growing dawn as she turned toward him. “Come on. You’ve been in Special Operations. All we’ve been doing over the last is fight terrorism. You know better.”

  This time Vaughn remained silent. She was right, but he wanted to hear her thoughts, because the more she spoke, the more he would learn about her. And he needed to know more about her because it was the two of them alone on this island, and tonight they were going in that dark hole that beckoned in front of them.

  Tai finally continued. “Capturing Saddam didn’t stop the insurgency in Iraq. The Israelis have killed many Palestinian leaders and the movement continues. These are people who haven’t dedicated themselves to their leaders, but to their causes. And the only way to defeat a terrorist movement is to defeat the cause.”

  Vaughn had spent two rotations in Iraq and one in Afghanistan while he was in Special Forces before going to Delta Force, and he knew she was right. The U.S. military was waging the wrong type of war in both places—as it had done before in Vietnam.

  “So then why are we doing this?” he asked.

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” Tai said.

  Vaughn could now see that she was also lying back on her ruck, the infamous rucksack flop. Her eyes were closed.

  “There’s something else going on,” Tai said. “Something that Royce and Orson aren’t telling us.”

  “There’s always something else going on,” Vaughn said. “And it’s usually about money.”

  A slight smile graced Tai’s thin lips. “‘Ours is but to do and die.’”

  Vaughn was startled. “Tennyson?”

  It was Tai’s turn to be surprised. “Every soldier should know Tennyson. The Abu Sayef have never been high on the United States terrorism target list for a simple reason—there’s no oil here.”

  “Cynical,” Vaughn said.

  “Skeptical,” Tai countered.

  “So what’s changed?”

/>   “That’s the big question, isn’t it? But I bet it has something to do with wealth in some form or another. Now, you want first watch?”

  Johnston Atoll

  Moreno looked through the periscope at the small island, focusing on the cluster of buildings. His location was a couple of hours ahead of Jolo Island, so the morning sun was already well up. He could see little activity on the island. An occasional vehicle moving on the few miles of paved road. There had been no activity at the airfield so far.

  Moreno had the military flight schedule for the atoll. He’d downloaded it from the Internet, and he thought it was very nice of the American military to publish it on the Web. One Air Force plane was scheduled to land just after noon on its way across the Pacific on a regular run.

  Moreno had an entire binder of information on Johnston Atoll, all gained from simply surfing the Web. He even knew the exact number of guards on the island. Not U.S. military, but rather, civilian contractors. And probably not the best that could be recruited, since those were serving in places where the pay was much better, such as Iraq.

  Thirty-two rent-a-cops guarded the facility, probably in three shifts of eight, if they were working at full strength. But that implied they were all working seven days a week, which Moreno doubted, since one had to add in days off. He guessed a guard shift was at most six, possibly four. There were several hundred U.S. military personnel on the island, but they were scientists and supply officers and clerks—not infantrymen. He had to assume those people had access to weapons, but he hoped to be on the island before an alert could be issued.

  And then it would be too late.

  Oahu

  Royce sat in the clearing on top of David’s truck, staring aimlessly to the north. He had no doubt the Organization had killed David and all the others on the plane. Not being a fool, Royce also could extrapolate that eventually he would suffer the same fate, probably under a different guise and at a different time.

  Knowledge was power. And for the first time in his career with the Organization, Royce was thinking hard about how little he knew about it. He had contact points laterally. Orders from above via secure encryption on a computer from an unknown source. And below him, those he recruited were in the same situation. He was a piece of a machine that he had little idea of the true nature or extent of, and like any piece, he was certain he was replaceable.

  He had a strong suspicion that David had been replaced because of some aspect of the current mission. It had been David’s mission, and to pull him off it and “retire” him before it was completed was a sure sign of that. So there was more going on with this mission than appeared. The Tai angle wasn’t good, but he didn’t think that had been enough to cause David’s death.

  Royce blinked, bringing his attention back to his immediate surroundings. Action. When in doubt, take action. But very, very careful action. Because the wrong action could bring the wrong attention.

  First, he needed to know more about David’s death, and in the process, more about the Organization.

  Second, he needed to know more about this mission against Abayon of the Abu Sayef. What was the real goal? Because the Hong Kong angle meant this was much bigger than just a terrorist leader on Jolo Island of the Philippines. He doubted very much that the Organization would launch this mission simply in retaliation for the botched rescue mission. The Organization, in his experience, did not react to such things. The Organization acted.

  And thus, he had to act. But very carefully.

  Hong Kong

  The Japanese woman met the team from Australia planeside, standing next to a stretch limousine with heavily tinted windows. The Learjet in which they had flown from Okinawa to Hong Kong was unmarked and parked far from the main terminal. There were no customs officials in the area, and she directed the team into the limousine.

  No words were exchanged as the long car drove away from the airport. The woman pointed at a pile of gear stacked in the middle of the passenger compartment. The team leader pulled off the blanket covering it. Weapons, body armor, explosives—all that had been requested was there.

  “When do we go?” the team leader asked, speaking first as they approached the city.

  “When I tell you to, if I tell you to,” the woman replied.

  Jolo Island

  Abayon was in pain. There was nothing unusual about that. His life had been full of pain ever since his encounter with Unit 731. But today he felt it more deeply than usual. And he knew it was not just a spike, but the heralding of even more pain to come. The doctors had given him six months. But that was only a guess.

  He leaned back in his wheelchair, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, trying to expel the agony with the air. It did not work. He closed his eyes for several moments, then opened them and reached for the piece of paper that had been brought to him several minutes earlier. It detailed the money made and disbursed the previous evening in Hong Kong. The numbers lessened the pain. If tonight’s auction did the same, his group would have gone a long way toward funding the war against the rich for many years to come.

  There was, of course, no word from Moreno. Security dictated that. The only way to know if he was successful would be to watch CNN and wait for the news.

  CHAPTER 15

  Oahu

  “I have a job for you.” Royce stared at Foster and waited.

  The scientist in charge of the Sim-Center avoided his eyes. “I’m doing the job I was given.”

  “Multitask,” Royce said.

  Foster glanced into the control room where the military people were changing from day to evening shift. “Did that person really die in the parachute drop?” He nodded his head toward the control room. “They think it’s part of an obstacle in their exercise, losing half the recon element. But you and I know better, don’t we? I didn’t program it in. That was a real message from real people.”

  Royce folded his hands in his lap. “You think you know better? Than what? You don’t have a clue.” And neither do I, he thought.

  “You’re doing all this for deniability,” Foster said. “You’re using me as a cut out—don’t think I don’t realize that I take the fall if the shit hits the fan on this.”

  Royce had read Foster’s file. The man was not stupid, that was certain, although he had been rather indiscreet years ago. Royce briefly wondered how many people worked for the Organization simply going around and gathering blackmail material on people the Organization might eventually use someday. And not for the first time he wondered what the Organization had on him.

  “You know what happens to you if the shit hits the fan?” Royce asked.

  “What?”

  “You die.”

  Foster blinked, then ran his tongue over his lips. “Who are you? That other guy said he was NSA. But you’re not NSA, are you?”

  “No.”

  Foster fidgeted in his seat for several moments. “All right,” he finally said. “What do you want me to do?”

  “I want you to hack into Space Command’s tracking records.” He gave Foster the time period and estimated location in which David’s plane had gone down. “I want whatever they have on the plane. I want to know exactly when and where it went down. I know they track every goddamn thing moving in the sky with their satellites.” Ever since nine-eleven, keeping an eye on the skies had become a much higher priority.

  “Who was on this plane and why do you think it crashed?”

  “That’s not something you need to know,” Royce said.

  Foster was confused. “But why don’t you send a request—”

  “I want you to do this without anyone knowing you’re doing it. Between me and you. Are you capable of that?”

  Foster slowly nodded. “I should be able to get in there. I have access to the government’s secure system, so that helps a lot. The hard part will be leaving no trace of my visit.”

  “I recommend you don’t,” Royce said. “Or else you’ll get visitors who won’t be as nice as me.” />
  Johnston Atoll

  Moreno knew he should stay on the submarine. He’d even promised Abayon that he would, though at the time they both knew it was a promise that would not be kept. Since their first days together as teenagers fighting the Japanese, they had always held the belief that a leader did so from the front. Moreno knew that a major reason why the Abu Sayef had not been as active as it might have been was Abayon’s confinement to the wheelchair. While it had been a politically prudent move for the group to lay low for many years, it was also partly because it took Moreno a long time to convince his old friend that even though he could not personally lead his men, he could—and had to—issue orders for others to go out and kill and die.

  Moreno, though, was not confined to a wheelchair, and the spry old man slid down the side of the submarine into the waiting rubber boat crowded with his men. There were two other similar boats, each holding sixteen men. That left a skeleton crew of five on board the submarine, enough to hold it in place until they returned.

  Moreno sniffed the air as they cast off in the dark. The wind was shoreborne, as he had planned. There was no moon yet, leaving only the scant illumination of the stars. He didn’t need a compass to find Johnston Atoll, though. The complex was well-lit, glittering like a beacon three kilometers away.

  Using small electric engines, the three Zodiacs glided silently through the water toward the lights. Moreno sat in the bow of the lead boat, his silenced submachine gun across his knees. A kilometer from shore he directed the small fleet to the left, to the landing spot he had picked using Google Earth, out of the glare of the lights. The three boats ran up on the beach and the crews jumped overboard, dragging them above the tide mark.

  There was no need for Moreno to issue any orders, since they had rehearsed what they were about to do at least a hundred times on a mock-up of the facility on Jolo Island. The forty-eight men moved toward a fenced compound set about three hundred meters away from the main complex. Inside the eight-foot-high fence topped with razor wire, there was a bunker shaped like a pyramid with the top half cut off. According to the intelligence Moreno had been able to gather, it was built according to U.S. government specifications. He had been able to find the exact same type of bunker in Subic Bay at the abandoned American base. It was used to hold precision munitions when the American fleet operated out of Subic—at least, that’s what the Americans had publicly claimed. The persistent rumor was that the bunker had held the fleet’s nuclear weapons.