by Bob Mayer
"The warehouse on route 46 was attacked last night."
Ring Man dropped the weights with a loud clang. "Tell me what happened."
"Someone must have hit it between ten last night and this morning. It was just discovered by the new shift of guards. All five guards were killed. Four were shot and one had his throat cut out."
"Maria?"
"She was killed also. Shot."
"What about the American DEA agent?"
"He's dead too. At least we think it was him." Ponte hastily explained as Ring Man frowned at him. "Maria had him booby-trapped in case something like this happened. There's, the remains of a body that the guard who called in says is Stevens."
The Ring Man threw his towel across the room and stalked out. Ponte meekly followed him to his office along with the girl. The Ring Man sat behind his desk and for almost five minutes stared out the bulletproof windows at the mountains stretching off to the north. Finally he turned to Ponte. "We must find this American. Do you have anything further on him?"
"The man from the Embassy Cafe who originally met him says that the American told him he was from New York City and that he had just flown in on Tuesday night with his wife. He gave the name Martinez."
"Have you checked the manifests from all flights from New York that night?"
"There was only one flight. There was no Martinez listed."
The Ring Man looked up in disgust. "You idiot! Did you check every couple that flew in? Do you think the man would be stupid enough to tell you the right name? Did the man say anything else?"
Ponte was shaken. "He said he was looking for a child to adopt. He said his wife couldn't have children and that's why they were down here. He also said that he'd heard about Maria from his brother, who had been told by a marine from the embassy that she could help."
Ring Man shook his head. "Maria never dealt in babies." He slammed his desktop and stared hard at Ponte. "I want you to go through the manifest of that flight from New York and track down every couple that came and find out where they are. Hell, track down every man on the plane, in case the story of a wife was a hoax too. Get the man at the bar to give you a better description and also keep a hold of him to identify the people when you find them. There can't be that many off that flight."
Ring Man stood up and went over to Ponte, grabbing his face between his fingers. "You'd better not fuck this up, my friend. You have already done too much with your incompetence."
CARTAGENA
6:40 A.M.
Ariel felt alive. The thought of upcoming action sent the adrenaline flowing and dried out his throat. In his opinion this was better than being with a beautiful woman knowing you would soon bed her. Much better.
He peered once more through his tripod-mounted binoculars from his aerie on top of the Citizens Bank office building. The twenty-four-story building, tallest in this section of the city, afforded him a superb view. Most importantly, it gave him a lengthwise view of the main road that ran down the center of the city.
Still no sign. Ariel pulled his eyes from the binoculars and scanned the rooftop, ensuring that his local security was in place. He felt confident that their presence had not been leaked, even though Ramirez effectively controlled the city. His men had broken into the building two hours ago and covered any signs of the intrusion. Ariel had ten sicarios on the roof, four deployed guarding the staircase entrance, and one on each corner scanning the adjacent roofs and sides of the building. The last two were next to him. One had a U.S. made Redeye antiaircraft missile in the unlikely event they were spotted from the air and attacked from that direction. The other was the gunner for the bulky weapon they had hauled to the roof with great effort.
The Hughes BGM-71 TOW was designated as a heavy antitank weapon manufactured for use by the U.S. Army. TOW stood for tube launched, optically guided, wire command linked missile. The entire system had five parts and totaled 172 pounds without the missile. Each rocket weighed 42 pounds. Set up, the system consisted of a tripod with a fiberglass tube into which the missile was inserted. An optical sight with clamp was on the left side of the tube. A missile guidance system, MGS, in the form of a large black box was connected to the sight by a heavy black cable. Having been fielded since 1970, the TOW was the most widely used antitank weapon in the world. Ariel had purchased this system and two missiles from a source that had dealings with various governments in the Middle East.
Ariel was somewhat concerned because he wasn't sure of the shelf life of the two missiles he had. The little indicator window on them still showed blue, meaning the warhead was good, but Ariel's experience in Israel had taught him that missiles that sat in the depot too long sometimes developed faults without tripping the indicator.
He was also concerned with his gunner. The man had never fired the weapon before. In some ways, firing the TOW made video games seem difficult. Basically, the firer centered the cross hairs of his sight on the target. He pulled a trigger and the missile used a quad boost motor for a recoilless launch. The missile coasted briefly, then a rocket kicked in and flew the missile to its target. The key was that the gunner had to continue tracking his target, keeping it in the cross hairs. If the cross hairs were on the target when the missile arrived, the result was devastating. The warhead held 5.3 pounds of high-explosive shaped charge. It would be more than sufficient for the target Ariel had in mind.
His surveillance of the last two days had revealed a pattern. Patterns were dangerous things for men with enemies. His target left his strongly defended seaside home every morning and drove into the city to meet with his subordinates in the city infrastructure.
The target's security chief wasn't totally foolish, however. Although the timing was the same every day, the route varied. This had led Ariel to throw out the idea of an ambush or mining one of the roads with a command-detonated charge.
The bottom line, however, was that the target left one place and went to another at the same time of day. With those three constants in mind, Ariel had come up with his present plan. He checked his watch one more time. Any minute now.
The earphone running from the radio on his belt crackled. "Target is moving. Taking route B."
Ariel twisted his binoculars in the indicated direction. There they were. Two limousines trailed by a van. Ariel knew that the two limousines was another trick thrown in by the target's security chief. The main target was in one of the two, but because of the dark windshields it was impossible to tell which. An attacker might destroy one and miss his intended victim. Ariel felt a passing moment of respect for his adversary. Supposedly the target had hired a former West German commando officer to serve as his security chief.
Ariel thought that was amusing in a way. An Israeli against a German in a South American country. What a twisted world, he laughed to himself. He reached over and grabbed the shoulder of his gunner. The man had shown the steadiest hands in Ariel's testing. Now he would have a chance to put them to use. "Do you have them?"
"Si, senior."
"Good. Wait till I tell you." Ariel wanted to make sure his gunner didn't fire when the vehicles might be in a position to go out of sight before the missile completed its flight. The missile flew at about 620 miles per hour once it got up to speed but, including the launch time, it would still take almost five seconds from leaving the tube to impact. The missile was connected to the launcher by a thin metal wire that relayed instructions from the guidance system to the warhead and fired small maneuvering rockets that changed the missile's course to keep it on target. If the target went behind a building or power lines crossed the missile's path in that flight time, the shot was wasted.
Ariel watched the convoy a few seconds. He knew that the van contained a contingent of guards with heavy weapons. One of the two cars held the primary target. Ariel waited. He made his first decision. "The lead car."
The gunner nodded and pressed the rubber eyepiece of the sight deeper into his eye socket.
Ariel swung his binos from the convoy up along t
he street they were on. He made a quick calculation. "When they reach the middle of the next block. Do you see the gas station?"
"Si, senor."
Ariel waited, feeling his excitement rise. "Steady. Steady. Fire!"
There was a blast and a roar. The missile leapt out the end of the firing tube and screamed toward the target. It made an ear-piercing noise as it picked up speed and roared downrange.
Ariel was torn between watching the target and watching his gunner to make sure the man didn't screw up. He decided to keep his eye on the target. In two seconds the missile appeared in his binos as a ball of flame flying away.
"Yes!" Ariel yelled as the missile impacted in the lead car and the warhead exploded with a roar. He turned and helped the gunner as they unlatched the clamp, pulled the empty missile case out of the tube, and slapped the second missile in. By cranking down on the clamp, Ariel engaged the tracking system wires. He slapped the gunner on his back. "Up."
He peered through his binoculars as the gunner gained his next target. The second limousine had pulled off to the side of the street and stopped. That was a mistake. Guards were pouring out of the van, quartering the immediate area, looking for the source of the explosion. Ariel wanted to laugh from his perch over two kilometers away. The TOW belched and screamed as the second missile roared off.
The gunner cursed and Ariel pulled his eyes away from the binoculars in dismay. Instead of flying true, the second missile had curved and now flew almost straight up into the air.
"Keep tracking," Ariel yelled, in the vain hope the missile might turn. His military mind already knew it was too late. The missile was already too far off course to be able to correct. Something had gone wrong in its guidance system.
The 3,750-meter spool of guidance wire reached its end and snapped. The missile was a dim ball of flame that suddenly winked out, its fuel expended. Ariel was unconcerned with where it would land now.
He took a last view through his binoculars. The guards were pulling bodies out of the first limousine. It was impossible to tell who they were at this distance.
Ariel turned to his men. "Let's go." As they headed for the stairs, he pulled the pin on a thermite grenade and laid it on top of the missile guidance system nestled underneath the tripod. He turned and leapt for the stairwell. Oh well, he reasoned. It was a fifty-fifty chance they had gotten Roberto Ramirez.
BOGOTA
7:30 A.M.
Kate Westland stirred. She had a strange feeling of warmth along her back. As consciousness grew she realized that warmth was Riley curled up behind her. The realization caused her no discomfort. On the contrary, she felt quite secure in his arms. She lay still for a few minutes, relaxing and enjoying the sensation.
Finally, she slipped out of his arms and stole quietly to the bathroom. Coming back out she regarded the sleeping form for a few seconds. Riley's normally intense face was relaxed. The lines in his forehead were smooth. She stood there, hesitating to wake him.
"Makes me nervous to be stared at," Riley drawled as he cracked open one eye. "You ready for another exciting day?"
Westland shook her head. "I don't think I could take any more excitement. Especially on an hour and a half of sleep. What's on the agenda?"
Riley sat up. "First you take me out to the villa site again. I want to check it out during the daytime. Then you go and get a hold of the military attaché and try to make contact with Pike. I've got his STU-III number. Then you come back out and meet up with me sometime this evening to let me know what you've learned. Sound good?"
Westland nodded. "Ready when you are."
RING MAN'S VILLA
7:46 A.M.
Ponte stiffened as he heard the Ring Man call for him from the adjacent office. Today had not been a good one so far and it was still early in the morning. Ponte went through the connecting door into his boss's office.
The Ring Man was on the phone. He gestured for Ponte to take a seat across from his desk and paused in his conversation. "I want you to listen in. This is the type of information I like hearing." The Ring Man punched the intercom on his phone and put the receiver down. "Tell me again what you have done, my friend."
"About an hour ago I assassinated Roberto Ramirez." Ponte cringed as he heard Ariel's accent come out of the speaker.
"How did you do that?"
"I hit his limousine with an antitank missile. Completely destroyed it. From what I've been able to find out, it killed not only Roberto but his second-oldest son, Miquel."
Ring Man laughed out loud. "The Shark is fish bait now." He turned to Ponte. "Miquel was the next in line, wasn't he?"
Ponte nodded glumly. Ariel's good work made his own involvement with the mysterious American seem all that more incompetent. "The eldest, Julio, is still in the States facing trial. He's looking at a life term. That leaves the third son, Jaime, and the youngest, Carlos. I'd say the younger is the more dangerous of the two left."
The Ring Man had already turned his attention back to the phone. "What are things like there? How are Ramirez's people reacting?"
Ariel's disembodied voice floated in the room. "There hasn't been time for them to do much of anything. They've recovered the bodies and pulled back to his house on the ocean and are fortifying themselves. In my opinion they're scared. I think the time is ripe for us to move into the city here and take over. The Ramirezes will be too busy trying to protect themselves to come out and try to stop us."
The Ring Man was all smiles. "Good. Very good. I want you to come back up here. Hold on a minute." He turned to Ponte. "Is my helicopter flying yet?"
Ponte glanced at his watch. "The repairs were just completed. It will be taking off from the airport in about forty-five minutes to go up to Barranquilla."
"Have it also pick up Ariel at the airfield in Cartagena. I want him down here."
As Ponte listened to Ring Man relay this information to Ariel, he realized that Ariel wasn't coming down here just to get a pat on the back. Job security wasn't exactly the highlight of Ponte's position. Ring Man himself had sat in Ponte's office prior to assassinating Ahate. Although Ponte knew that the Ring Man didn't consider him a threat, his boss might consider Ariel to be even less of a threat. Ariel, as a foreigner, could never rule in the cartel in Colombia.
The Ring Man startled Ponte out of his self-absorbed thinking. "Do I have to tell you again? Get moving on the call to the pilot."
Ponte scurried out of the office, half of his mind on what he had to do and the other half on what he needed to do to survive.
BARRANQUILLA
9:53 A.M.
Ariel enjoyed flying in helicopters. He'd had the pilot fly low over the coast on the short run from Cartagena to Barranquilla. He could see the bulk of the city farther up the coast as the aircraft banked right and headed down onto a dirt runway. Ariel had heard about the aborted attack by the Americans on this lab site. He wished he had been there. The thought of meeting one of these American commandos piqued his military interest.
The pilot didn't want to shut down his engines so he had radioed ahead for the guards to have the prisoner waiting. As the skids of the Bell Jet Ranger touched down, four guards rushed forward, dragging a hooded and shackled figure. Ariel opened the back door and helped them position the man inside and lash him into the seat with the safety straps. The helicopter lifted and turned to the south.
Ariel reached over and removed the hood from the American. The prisoner blinked as his eyes adjusted to the light. Ariel could see that although the man's face was unmarked he was in some degree of pain. Ariel assumed that the sicarios had amused themselves with beatings while keeping in mind the Ring Man's instructions not to mark the face. Also, Ariel knew that the man had been knocked unconscious by a grenade blast during the firefight—but not before he had killed several of Ring Man's men. Ariel wanted to talk to this man who had shown such bravery and military prowess.
The Israeli grabbed the extra headset and plunked it down over the American's ears, positionin
g the boom mike in front of his lips. The prisoner regarded him with dark, angry eyes. Ariel knew he would have his hands full if this bear of a man got loose. There was little chance of that, though: The Colombians had shackled his wrists with two sets of steel handcuffs, and his feet were held with two rings welded to an iron bar that was tied into the floor of the helicopter.
"Can you hear me?"
The man's gaze swung around.
"What is your name?"
The man shook his head.
"You can talk. You have a hot mike. I'm interested in what you thought you were doing when you tried to attack this facility."
The man just glared.
"My name is Ben Ariel. I might be able to help you. I'm a professional military man just like you."
That brought a reaction. "You call yourself a professional, working for these scum? You're a hired killer. You're lower than whale shit."
"Ah, I see you can talk." Ariel smiled. "Yes, I do call myself a professional. I am just like you. I get paid to provide military services. I just do it for an individual instead of a government. I don't see much difference between the two."
The American shook his head. "You work for the money. I do it for my country. I would think you'd understand that, seeing where you come from if I read your name right."
Ariel shook his head. "I don't do this for the money. I do this because I am good at it. Just this morning I set up a beautiful ambush. You would have been impressed. Destroyed an enemy vehicle at almost two thousand meters. Do you have a name?"
The man shook his head. "You get no information out of me."
