Cleopatra Gold

by William Caunitz

  He and Wilma were a good fit. He’d never been married. She’d been married to a nice guy who had a big booze problem that had led to a divorce several years ago. He’d known, almost from the first, that he loved her. And when he retired from the Job he was going to sit her down and tell her so. But would she wait that long? he often worried.

  Stepping off the elevator, he walked along the concrete corridor toward the computer room, a glass-enclosed area with rows of computer banks, their reel-to-reels spinning and jerking their own strange dances. The black security tag trimmed in silver that Seaver had clipped to his jacket did not have his photograph or his name, only the Roman numerals IX in bold silver script. This was the Intelligence Division’s top security clearance card with a magnetic strip on the back that opened all doors in the Land of Trick Mirrors. Not many people were authorized to wear the black tag, and the sight of one always caused quick, curious looks at the wearer.

  As he entered the computer room he became aware of the soft hum of air-conditioning. There were six rows of data banks and a dozen carrels, tall, partitioned desks with a shelf over the flat, enclosed area. All the carrels faced the data banks, the backs of their chairs flush with a wall, thus preventing prying eyes from seeing the computer screens. There were laser printers on the shelves above the carrels’ flat writing surfaces.

  Seaver squeezed in behind a carrel’s desk and switched on the machine. He signed on by inputting his tax registry number, his special operations identification number, and his mother’s maiden name, Slingland. XXXXXX flashed in the screen’s upper right-hand corner, granting him access to all data banks. Inputting the access code for magazines and periodicals, he typed: “Parapoint Delivery System.”

  The following scrolled onto the screen:

  “The CIA’s Secret War in Afghanistan”—Newsweek magazine—March 2, 1987, Index, 474–87

  “The Covert War”—New York Times Sunday Magazine—April 9, 1989, Index, 511–89

  “CIA’s Secret Army—Delta Force and Navy Seals”—Aviation Week—February 1, 1987, Index 173–87

  End of List.

  He could have gotten that information at any public library by checking out the Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature. But after writing down the index numbers of the magazines, he inputted the access code for the Department’s secret Force Record File and called up all members of the service, Cuban ancestry, with any connection to Havana and Ciego de Avila Province.

  Twenty-three names, shield numbers, and commands appeared. He pressed the Print button, and the laser printer churned out the hard copy. He knew all too well that there were those few in the Job who were authorized to call up the daily inquiries input into all data banks. But he knew how to brush over his electronic footprints. He took the printout, tucked it into his briefcase, and left, heading for the library.

  The woman behind the desk wore octagon-shaped glasses, jeans, and a Grateful Dead T-shirt. He passed her the call slips; she looked at his black tag, said, “Yes, sir,” and disappeared inside a maze of steel bookcases.

  Sixteen minutes later, alone in the duplicating room, Seaver was slipping copies of the articles on Parapoint into his case when his cellular phone went off. He unfolded it and answered, “Hello?”

  “That was quick,” Hicks said, adding, “I spoke to some of my people. I got those toys you wanted.”

  “Appreciate it. And I got those names you wanted.”

  “And it’s kosher on both ends, right? See you soon,” Hicks said, and disconnected.

  Seaver snapped his fingers, remembering that he had one more classified data bank to enter.

  Back in the computer room, he squeezed into a carrel and signed on again, smiling to himself at Alejandro’s suggestion for a legend to explain his possession of Parapoint. He reentered the Force Record File and inputted: “Gay male members of service assigned to Intelligence or Narcotics Division.”

  A minute later he whisked the print out off the printer and tucked it into his briefcase. After doing that, he inputted his personal code, which effectively erased all traces of his log-on and inquiries. He switched off the machine and walked to the elevator with an unlit cheroot sticking out of his unsmiling mouth.

  12

  She slept on her side with the sheet molding the curves of her body and her dark brown hair spread over the pillow.

  Alejandro turned and snaked his arm under her shoulder, cupping her full breast, gently kneading the nipple.

  She moaned and shivered slightly in anticipation.

  He pressed his body closer, sliding his other hand up between her legs and nestling it against her mound. Her skin was warm and smooth, and he could smell her perfume. He kissed the tender nape of her neck; for once he felt safe and at peace with himself.

  He had finished his last performance around three that morning and had been leaving the club when a hand fell on his shoulder, causing him to turn. “I’m Joanne. And I just had to tell you how much I loved your singing.” Her eyes were smiling at him.

  He smiled back. “Hi.” They both knew what they wanted; and she had ditched her date to get it.

  They awoke around noon and made love again. After showering together, they dressed. By one o’clock they were sitting out on his terrace, drinking coffee and listening to the sounds of the city. Lifting her cup to her mouth, Joanne asked in bad Spanish, “¿Cuandro algo vimos por una vez?”

  He laughed. “Are you trying to ask me when we’ll see each other again?”

  She flushed. “Yes.”

  He brushed a ribbon of hair from her forehead. “I’ll call you. I really hate to have to cut this short, but I have a two-thirty rehearsal.”

  She looked at him, her face full of disappointment. She gulped down some coffee, put the mug on the glass top, and opened her pocketbook. She took out her business card, placed it down in front of him, and got up. “This number always reaches me.”

  He started to get up to walk to the front door with her, but she put her hand on his shoulder, nudging him back onto his seat. “I can see myself out.” She stepped off the terrace into the living room, then turned and said, “See ya.” She turned away quickly to hide the tears in her eyes.

  When he heard the door slam, he picked up her card and, with real sadness, tore it in half. As he stared off at a rising plume of smoke in the distance, his eyes began to well up as he empathized with her loneliness. He sucked in a mouthful of air, tossed the pieces of the card into his coffee mug, and went inside. Something told him that he had to stop living this way, in the country without maps that undercovers lived in, alone and untrusting.

  The sky was a soft blue and the breeze warm. A front had pushed through, making New York City’s air quality momentarily “acceptable.”

  Alejandro, dressed in desert tan slacks, light gray sport shirt, and brown tasseled loafers, waited on the northwest corner of Fifth Avenue and Fifty-fourth Street, in front of the University Club.

  A woman in her early forties with an elegant carriage walked out of the club to a waiting limousine, casting a sly glance in his direction.

  “She liked what she saw,” Barrios said, coming up behind him. “Let’s walk,” he suggested.

  They strolled north, past elegant shops and apartment buildings with uniformed doormen. A laughing couple ran from Lucullus’s Restaurant into a waiting livery stretch limo. Watching the woman lifting her legs inside, Barrios said, “If your system works for us, I might be able to offer you two points. But first you’re going to have to tell me exactly what it is.”

  “Four points sounds fair to me.”

  Barrios sucked in his lip. “First you tell me how you’re going to guarantee delivery.”

  “Parachutes.”

  Barrios’s face showed real surprise and clear disbelief. “Parachutes?”

  But when Alejandro explained about the Parapoint delivery system, Barrios’s doubtful expression changed to one of keen interest. “How many keys a chute?”

  “Twenty-two hundred,
max.”

  “We can bring in more weight using other methods.”

  Alejandro stopped in front of Steuben Glass and looked at the splashing fountain. “But your other methods don’t guarantee you delivery. You just had to turn back a boat because of a security leak. With my way, you dump your load sixty miles from a landing zone that you preselected. The chutes won’t show on radar, and you don’t need a lot of people.”

  “Our product comes from outside the States.”

  “So what? You could even file your flight plan with the FAA, fly into the States from wherever, dump your load, and your plane continues on to its scheduled destination. It lands with no drugs aboard. Once the dope is on the ground, it’s no big deal to transship it to your distribution centers.”

  Looking around at the shoppers on Fifth, Barrios asked softly, “Tell me again how this parachute of yours works.”

  “It has a thing called a Ram Air canopy that looks like a floating wing. Instead of floating vertically down to earth, it glides in a slanting direction, beaming in on a hand-held homing transmitter that resembles a portable telephone.”

  “Yeah, but what makes it tick?”

  “A black box attached under the parachute’s canopy has an electronic homing device that’s powered by a nickel cadmium battery. This black box controls the chute’s steering lines, and directs it right to the transmitter that’s sending out the homing signals.”

  Barrios was still skeptical. “And we can dump the product from thirty thousand feet?”

  “’At’s right.”

  “How do you know these things work?” Barrios asked, eyeing a passing woman.

  “The CIA used them to supply guerrillas in Afghanistan and Central America. They used to drop their loads over Pakistan and the equipment would slant down to the Afghans.”

  A sharklike smile came over Barrios’s bony face. “Those same ragheads are now peddling those weapons on the open market. Some of our Colombian friends have just bought some Stinger missiles from them.”

  “Looks like Uncle Sap stepped on his cock again.”

  Barrios nodded. “It’s lucky for us that those assholes in Washington stay dumb.”

  They stopped with the herd for the light on Fifty-seventh Street. Alejandro glanced across the street at the familiar crestfallen man and little girl sitting on the sidewalk in front of Bergdorf Goodman’s holding the tattered sign that read Homeless and Hungry.

  The light changed.

  Alejandro and Barrios stepped off the curb. Barrios nudged him with his elbow and asked, “You sure you can supply us with this equipment?”

  “Absolutely. Everything but the plane and pilot. That’ll be your job.”

  “Will you take part in the drops?”

  “Initially, I’ll be on the ground to make sure your guys use the equipment correctly. Then you’re on your own.”

  Barrios’s lips peeled back in an expression of contempt. “’Fraid of getting your hands dirty?”

  “’Fraid of amigos with tequila mouths. The fewer people who know about me, the safer we all are.”

  They continued along in silence. As they were passing the Hotel Pierre on Fifth and Sixty-first, Barrios asked, “Where do you get the chutes from?”

  Alejandro stopped suddenly and gave Barrios a cold look. “That’s my business.”

  “Not if you want to come with us.”

  “We can talk about that later, after we agree on the money.”

  “We’re gonna want a demonstration, and soon.”

  “Just tell me where and when.”

  “I’ll let you know.” He looked at him. “A friend of mine is going to want to talk to you. Seven o’clock tomorrow in the Sapphire Room of the Hotel Versailles.”

  “Does your friend have a name?”

  “Hector.”

  Alejandro rushed home after his meeting with Barrios and went directly into the bedroom. He slid open the closet door, reached in for his makeup kit, and went into the bathroom.

  He put the kit on top of the toilet tank and clicked it open. He took out a tube containing different-colored contact lenses and unscrewed the top. He slipped out a green pair and, after stretching open his left eye, slipped in the soft lens. He did the same with the other eye, then put the tube back in the kit. Next he removed a bottle of clear liquid glue and brushed it on over his chin. He put the bottle down on the sink, took out a neatly trimmed beard, and pressed it on over his chin, thinking, Nobody but Seaver gets to see the real me. He then glued on a mustache. That done, he closed up the kit and returned it to its place on the closet floor. He changed into a faded denim shirt and jeans, took a New York Mets baseball cap out of the closet, and left his apartment, heading for the basement garage.

  Precision Industries was housed in four long cinder-block buildings with corrugated roofs along Route 110 in Farmingdale, Long Island, across the highway from a golf driving range. A fifteen-foot fence crowned with rolls of razor wire surrounded the compound, and high-intensity halogen lights were strategically strung out around the perimeter. Security guards manned the double gates, admitting only those whose names appeared on the daily visitors log.

  It was late Tuesday afternoon when Alejandro drove up to Precision Industries checkpoint.

  “May I help you, sir?” asked one of the guards, holding his clipboard at the ready.

  “I’m Mr. A. Brown,” Alejandro said. “I’m here to see Jim Hansen.”

  The guard studied the visitors log. “Who recommended you to Jim Hansen?”

  “Mr. Wade Hicks,” Alejandro said, wondering if he would ever get to meet the CIA’s liaison. Over the years Hicks had arranged many similar appointments for Mr. A. Brown.

  The guard said, “Jim will meet you outside of building one.”

  Hansen was bald and lean, with a hooked nose and a weathered face. He was waiting in the doorway with his thumbs hooked into his jeans pocket. His aviator’s ankle boots were old but polished to a deep brown gloss.

  Alejandro parked in the designated visitors parking space alongside the building’s flower bed and got out, plopping his New York Mets baseball cap on his head.

  “Hicks said you’d be coming our way,” Hansen said, stepping out of the doorway to shake A. Brown’s hand.

  Alejandro followed him inside. Rows of parachutes hung limp from the ceiling, reminding Alejandro of ribless umbrellas. Workbenches stretched the length of the building. Workers packed parachutes into their containers, gingerly insuring that the shroud lines were not tangled and were properly aligned. Rockabilly blared from a tape deck on one of the workbenches.

  Walking down the aisle, Alejandro asked, “How do these things work?”

  “Simple. The canopy offers resistance to air, retarding the descent.”

  “How long have they been around?”

  “A guy named Jacques Garnerin made the first jump in 1797. He dropped three thousand feet from a balloon.”

  Alejandro stopped to watch a woman packing a chute into its container.

  Hansen said, “The people who do this are called riggers, and they’re all certificated ‘Airman’ by the FAA.”

  Alejandro reached out and felt the canopy.

  “It’s a low-porosity nylon,” Hansen explained, “and the shroud lines are made of polyester or Kevlar.”

  As they walked toward the rear of the parachute loft, Alejandro said, “Tell me about the Parapoint delivery system.”

  “It uses a Ram Air canopy that’s rectangular. When it’s deployed it looks kind of like a flying wing. The air rushes through the front of the chute and gives it an efficient glide ratio, causing it to swoop into the landing zone like a glider.” Pausing alongside a rigger, he pointed. “The payload is loaded in the empty space between the shrouds. We call that space the store.”

  “What causes the chute to deploy?”

  Hansen reached across the workbench and pulled over a packed rig. “The container has a row of grommets on the outside that secures it. A curved locking pin runs t
hrough the grommets. When the ripcord is pulled the locking pin is disengaged, opening the container, or the rig, as it’s called. A pilot chute, which is spring-loaded inside the rig, pops out and acts as an anchor because its rate of descent is much slower than the main chute. As the rig falls away, the anchor remains almost stationary, pulling out what’s called the bridle cord, which is attached to the main canopy, pulling it out of its rig, causing it to deploy and blossom.”

  “What about the guidance system?”

  Hansen walked over to a cluttered tool bench that was set in between the workbenches, and after shuffling through tools and equipment, he pulled out a black box and a transmitter. He gestured “A. Brown” over to him.

  “This is it,” he said, picking up a screwdriver and taking the box apart. He then disassembled the handset. He took a silver pen out of his shirt pocket and pointed to the box. “Here is the power source, and here is the circuit board that receives the signals from the homing transmitter that controls the parachute’s flight by reeling in and out the shroud lines.” He gave Alejandro a detailed lesson on how the circuit boards worked, looked at him, and asked, “Any questions?”

  A. Brown shook his head.

  They walked off down the aisle.

  Alejandro straightened his baseball cap. “Can anyone walk in here and buy parachutes?”

  “Absolutely not. Our industry does a damn good job of policing itself. Not a day passes when some greaser don’t walk into one of our showrooms around the country looking to buy parachutes. This industry only sells to legitimate companies, known and verifiable sportsmen, skydiving clubs, and government agencies, including the military, of course.”

  Alejandro rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “Suppose someone wanted to set up a sting operation manufacturing Parapoint. What would it take?”