Black Ops

by W. E. B Griffin

  By the time they got to Washington, Yung had figured out a likely scenario to explain the money, and why they had been attacked at the estancia: Dr. Lorimer—by now identified as the bagman for oil-for-food bribes and payoffs—had stolen the sixteen million bucks from his as-yet-unidentified employers.

  These people had kidnapped Lorimer’s sister—Mrs. J. Winslow Masterson—then murdered her husband before her eyes to impress upon her that they were quite serious about being willing to kill her and her children unless she told them where in hell they could find Lorimer and their sixteen million. But she hadn’t told them because she didn’t know.

  The bad guys had found Estancia Shangri-La by themselves.

  That they arrived there to reclaim their money and eliminate Lorimer ten minutes after Castillo’s covert team had arrived to repatriate Lorimer was pure coincidence. Not to mention damn bad luck.

  “They didn’t expect to find anything at the estancia, Mr. President, but Dr. Lorimer and the sixteen million dollars in bearer bonds,” Castillo had explained the next day in the presidential apartment in the White House.

  “Surprise, surprise, huh?” the President replied. “You have no idea who these people were, Charley?”

  “I don’t think they were South American bandits, Mr. President. But aside from that—”

  “Find out who they are, Major,” the President interrupted, “and render them harmless.”

  Castillo noted that he’d been formally addressed. And, as such, so ordered.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Anything else, Charley?”

  “Mr. President, what do we do with the money?”

  “Sixteen million, right? Where is it? Are you sure you can cash those bearer bonds?”

  “Sir, to make sure we could retain control of money, we already have. It’s now in the Riggs Bank.”

  “I’m not going to get involved with dirty money,” the President said. “You understand that, of course?”

  “Yes, of course, Mr. President.”

  “But on the subject of money, and apropos of nothing else, Charley . . .”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “I funded OOA with two million from my discretionary funds. That’s really not very much money, and I have a good idea of how expensive your operations are. Sooner or later, you’re going to have to come to me for more money, and right now I just don’t see how it will be available. It’s something to keep in mind.”

  “Sir, are you suggesting—?”

  “Major, I have no idea what you’re talking about. What sixteen million?”

  Thus was established the Lorimer Charitable & Benevolent Fund, with an initial donation the next day of nearly sixteen million dollars from an anonymous well-wisher.

  On the same day, David W. Yung, Jr., and Corporal Lester Bradley were placed on indefinite temporary duty with the OOA.

  At the time, there was only one true volunteer in the ranks of the OOA, essentially because very few people had even heard of it. Sergeant Major John K. “Jack” Davidson had learned of OOA from Corporal Bradley, whom Castillo, perhaps unwisely, had sent to Camp Mackall—the Special Forces/Delta Force training base near Fort Bragg, North Carolina—“for training” but actually to get him out of sight—and out of truthfully answering questions from his gunny and any other superior—short-term until Castillo could figure out what to do with him long-term.

  Davidson’s function at Mackall was to evaluate students to see if they were psychologically and physically made up to justify their expensive training to become special operators. He had taken one look at nineteen-year-old Corporal Bradley—who stood five-four and weighed one thirty-two—then decided that someone with a sick sense of humor had sent the boy to Mackall as a joke.

  Davidson put Bradley to work pushing the keys on a computer.

  The next day, Lieutenant General Bruce J. McNab, commanding general of the John F. Kennedy Center for Special Warfare, disabused Davidson of this notion that whatever the kid was, he was no warrior.

  The general had choppered out to Mackall to take Corporal Bradley to Sergeant Krantz’s burial at Arlington National Cemetery. Davidson had no Need to Know, of course, but he and General McNab had been around several blocks together, and so the general told him what had happened to Krantz on Charley Castillo’s ad hoc assault, and how, had it not been for Corporal Bradley’s offhand hundred-yard head shots, Charley would be awaiting his own interment services at Arlington alongside Krantz.

  Davidson, as he reminded General McNab, also had been around the block several times with Charley Castillo. He further reminded General McNab that the general knew as well as he did that while Charley was a splendid officer, he tended sometimes to do things that he would not do if he had a sober, experienced advisor, such as Davidson, at his side to counsel him.

  General McNab, who first met Castillo when Castillo had been a second lieutenant, and who thus had been around the block with him on many occasions, considered this and agreed.

  Sergeant Major Davidson was sent to OOA.

  It was Davidson who had recruited Dianne and Harold Sanders to run the OOA safe house on West Boulevard Drive. Master Sergeant Harold Sanders, who had been around the block several times with both Jack Davidson and Charley Castillo, had been unhappy with his role after he had been medically retired. Sanders said that he had become a camp follower, because CWO3 Dianne Sanders had remained on active service. But recognizing the situation, she then had retired, too.

  Living the retired life in Fayetteville, North Carolina, however, then caused the both of them to be bored—almost literally—out of their minds.

  They had jumped at the chance to work again with Charley and Jack, even if it only would be guarding the mouth of the cave. Still, both suspected that Charley would sooner or later require the services of a cryptographic analyst—and Dianne, recognized as one of the best code-breakers around, would be there.

  Edgar Delchamps had been the CIA station chief in Paris, France, when Castillo, running down Dr. Lorimer’s various connections, first met him. Men with thirty years in the Clandestine Services of the agency tended to regard thirty-six-year-old Army officers with something less than awe, and such had been the case when Delchamps laid eyes on then-Major C. G. Castillo.

  He had told Castillo that he was the station chief in Paris as the result of an accommodation with his superiors in Langley. They didn’t want him to retire because his doing so would leave him free to more or less run at the mouth concerning a number of failed operations that the agency devoutly wished would never again be mentioned. Langley reasoned that if Delchamps was stationed in Paris—the only assignment he was willing to accept—he couldn’t do much harm. Paris wasn’t really important in the world of intelligence.

  “Despite my name, I’m a Francophobe, Ace,” Delchamps had told Castillo. “My files say all sorts of unkind things about the Frogs. They are sent to Langley, where, of course, they are promptly shredded—unread—by a platoon of Francophiles humming ‘The Last Time I Saw Paris.’”

  Delchamps made it perfectly clear that he had no desire whatever to become in any way associated with OOA. When, a month or so later, Castillo decided he had to have him whether or not he liked it, and Delchamps received orders to immediately report for indefinite temporary duty with OOA, he first had stopped by Langley to fill out his request for retirement, effective immediately.

  He was dissuaded from going through with his retirement when Castillo told him he was going after the oil-for-food people with a presidential carte blanche to do what he thought had to be done, and that the carte blanche specifically ordered the Director of Central Intelligence to grant access to OOA to whatever intelligence—raw, in analysis, or confirmed—the CIA had in its possession. Castillo said he thought Edgar Delchamps was just the man to root around in Langley’s basement. It was an offer Delchamps could not refuse.

  And there was one man in the kitchen who was neither an American nor a member of OOA. Sándor Tor was the chief of s
ecurity for the Budapester Tages Zeitung, of which Eric Kocian was the managing director and editor in chief. Tor didn’t feel uncomfortable among the special operators and senior law-enforcement officers, as might be expected. Before he had gone to work for the newspaper, he had been an inspector on the Budapest police force and, before that, in his youth, a sergeant in the French Foreign Legion.

  There were other people assigned to OOA, but all of those who had families—Corporal Lester Bradley, for example, and Major H. Richard Miller, Jr., USA (Retired), a West Point classmate of Colonel Castillo and OOA’s chief of staff—had been turned loose by Castillo to be with them at Christmas.

  [TWO]

  One of the pair of wall-mounted telephones in the kitchen rang a little after two o’clock.

  The young, muscular black Secret Service agent answered it.

  Castillo wondered idly who was calling. Neither of the telephone numbers was listed in the phone book. Both rarely were used; everyone had their own cellular telephone or two. There were two secure telephones, one in what was Castillo’s bedroom and the other in what he called his office, an anteroom off the great big living room.

  Castillo was surprised when the Secret Service agent held out the phone receiver to him, indicating the call was for him. He crossed the room, took the phone, and, after putting his hand over the mouthpiece, asked with his eyebrows who was calling.

  “Mr. Görner, Colonel. He’s on the list.”

  Castillo nodded his thanks, and in German cheerfully said into the phone, “Merry Christmas, Otto!”

  Nice that Abuela is here, Castillo thought, glancing across the room and making eye contact with her. She and Otto can talk.

  “I hope you know where Billy Kocian is,” Görner said by way of greeting, his voice completely devoid of Christmas bonhomie.

  Castillo turned his gaze just slightly. “As a matter of fact, I’m looking at him.”

  “Thank God!” Görner exclaimed, his genuine relief evident in his tone. “There was no answer at the Mayflower.”

  “Why do I think you’re not calling to wish him a Merry Christmas?” Castillo said.

  “I’m calling first to tell you to make sure he’s safe.”

  “He is. He frequently complains that he can’t go anywhere without being followed by two or more men who wear hearing aids and keep talking to themselves.”

  Castillo expected to get a chuckle, if only a reluctant one. He didn’t.

  “Günther Friedler has been murdered,” Görner went on, “his corpse mutilated.”

  Who? Castillo thought.

  Shit! Someone close to Billy obviously . . .

  “Where are you?” Castillo asked quickly, his tone now one of growing concern.

  The others in the kitchen picked up on that and Castillo’s body language, and had expressions that asked, What?

  “In the office,” Görner said.

  “I’ll call you right back,” Castillo said. “I can’t talk from this phone.”

  He put the handset in its cradle before Görner could reply. He saw that Edgar Delchamps was looking at him. He nodded just enough to signal Delchamps to follow him, then left the kitchen to go to his office.

  The anteroom was barely large enough to hold a small desk and a skeletal office chair, but the door to it could be closed and was thick enough to be mostly soundproof. Castillo picked up the telephone. It could be made secure when necessary, and came with earphone sets on long cords so that others could listen to the conversation. It also had a built-in digital recorder so that conversations could be replayed for any number of reasons.

  He pushed the RECORD button, then dialed a long number from memory.

  “Görner.”

  “Karl. Who is Günther Fiedler?”

  “Friedler,” Görner corrected him. “He was a staff reporter.”

  Castillo knew enough of the operations of the Tages Zeitung newspapers to know that a staff reporter was analogous to a reporter for the Associated Press or other wire service in that the reporter’s stories were fed to all of the Tages Zeitung newspapers, rather than to any individual paper.

  “I don’t think I knew him,” Castillo said.

  “Probably not,” Görner said on the edge of sarcasm. “Billy did. Billy gave him his first job on the Weiner Tages Zeitung years ago. Billy was godfather to Peter, Günther’s oldest son.”

  “Great news on Christmas Day. Who killed him and why?”

  “He was working on a story about German involvement in that oil-for-food obscenity. Does that give a hint, Mr. Intelligence Officer?”

  Castillo’s face tightened.

  “Otto, I’m about to tell you to call back when you have your emotions under control.”

  “I want to tell Billy before somebody else does.”

  “But you can’t do that, can you, unless I put him on the phone?”

  There was a ten-second silence—which seemed much longer—before Görner replied, “I suppose I am a little upset. Günther was my friend, too. I put him on that story, and I just now came from his house. On Christmas Day, as you say.”

  Castillo realized it was as much of an apology as he was going to get.

  “Okay. Do they have any idea who killed him?”

  “The police tried to tell me it was a fairy lovers’ quarrel. My God!”

  “What was that about his body being mutilated?”

  “I couldn’t count the stab wounds in his body.”

  Delchamps, holding one can of an earphone set to his ear, touched Castillo’s shoulder, and when Castillo looked at him, handed him a slip of paper on which he had quickly written, That’s all?

  Castillo nodded and said into the phone, “You said ‘mutilated’?”

  “They cut out his eye. That’s what I mean by mutilated.”

  Delchamps nodded as if he expected that answer.

  “I don’t think you should tell Billy that,” Castillo said. “And in your frame of mind, I really don’t think you should talk to him at all.”

  He let that sink in a moment, then went on: “If I put Billy on the phone, can you leave out the mutilation?”

  “That wouldn’t work, Karl, and you know it. No matter what I tell him, he’s going to look into it himself. And just as soon as he gets off the phone with me, he’ll be on the phone himself. And he has a lot of contacts.”

  Shit, Castillo thought, he’s right!

  When Castillo didn’t reply, Görner added, “And it’s already all over the front pages of the Frankfurt newspapers, the Allgemeine Zeitung and the Rundschau. And Berlin and Munich won’t be far behind. And as soon as Billy gets to reading his newspapers online, he’s going to find out. You can bet your ass on that.”

  He paused again, then gave what he thought would be the headline: “ ‘Tages Zeitung Reporter Murdered. Police Suspect Gay Lovers Spat.’ Merry Christmas, Frau Friedler and family.”

  Castillo was ashamed of the irreverent thought that popped into his mind—Is there no honor among journalists?—which immediately was replaced by another disturbing thought, which he said aloud: “Billy will want to go to the funeral.”

  “Oh, God! I didn’t even think about that!”

  “Right now, he’s surrounded by Secret Service agents. How am I going to protect him in Fulda?”

  “Wetzlar,” Görner corrected automatically. “He lived in Wetzlar. He’s from Wetzlar.” Another brief pause. “You can’t keep him there?”

  Castillo didn’t reply.

  In as many seconds as it takes Otto to hear what he just said, he will realize that the only way to keep Billy Kocian from doing whatever he wants to do is convince him he really doesn’t want to do it, and that’s not going to happen.

  A moment later, Görner thought aloud: “Let me know what flight he’ll be on and I’ll have some of our security people waiting at the gate. Better yet—I have some friends—send me the flight number and I will get agents of the Bundeskriminalamt to take him off the airplane before it gets to the gate.”

>   “I’ll bring him in the Gulfstream,” Castillo said. “For one thing, he won’t leave the dogs, and I don’t want—”

  “I thought you went out of your way not to attract attention,” Görner interrupted.

  “Here’s a headline for you, Otto: ‘Tages Zeitung Publisher Returns from America for Friedler Last Rites.’ ”

  “Okay,” Görner said after a moment. “But don’t bring anybody from the CIA to mourn with you.”

  Castillo looked at Delchamps and smiled.

  He would no more have gone to Germany without Delchamps than he would have gone without shoes, but this was not the time to argue with Görner about that, or even tell him.

  As a practical matter, before this came up, they had been planning to go to Europe, taking Billy Kocian with them, and not only because they knew Kocian was out of patience with living in the Mayflower Hotel and spending his days searching his copious memory to fill in the blanks of the investigation.

  Delchamps and FBI Inspector John J. Doherty—another at-first-very-reluctant recruit to OOA—were agreed that the time had come to move the investigation out of the bubble at Langley and onto the ground.

  They would start in Budapest, Doherty had suggested—and Delchamps had agreed—then move almost certainly to Vienna, then to Berlin and Paris and wherever else the trail led, preceded by a message from either—or both—Secretary of State Natalie Cohen and Director of National Intelligence Charles M. Montvale ordering the ambassadors and CIA station chiefs to provide the people from OOA whatever support they requested, specifically including access to all their intelligence.

  All that this latest development had changed was that they first would go to Hesse in Germany—seeing Otto Görner in Fulda had been on the original agenda—rather than to Budapest, and that they would go as soon as possible, rather than “right after the first of the year.”

  “If you think you have your emotions under control, Otto,” Castillo said, “I’ll go get Billy.”