'Evidence of what?' said Maury.
'I have absolutely no fucking idea,' said Cochrane cheerfully. 'He just said that the whole thing was more serious than we had thought, and he added it was the luck of the devil that Rheiman had made it down there. Rheiman meant diddly to me, but Patricio was anxious to get over here, so I figured it could wait.'
Maury crashed back into his swivel chair, and rotated it a few times, his legs stretched straight out in front of him. Suddenly, he dropped his feet as he centered on Cochrane, bringing the chair to an immediate halt.
He leaned forward to emphasize his words.
'Why should colonel Hugo Fitzduane, this good-natured Irish aristocrat with his island and his castle and his think tank, go on a mission for us? According to what I read here, he's recently married and he has a young son by a previous arrangement. Why would he risk his life to do the Task Force's dirty work?'
'Well,' said Cochrane, 'that's the beauty of it. Fitzduane doesn't know it yet, but there's a problem down there he won't be able to walk away from. Remember a certain someone who was reported as being very dead but reappeared in Tecuno? A Japanese connection? A certain Reiko Oshima?'
Maury thought for a few seconds, then a look of perfect understanding came over his face. 'A brilliant plan, Lee,' he said.
'Entirely your concept, Maury,' said Cochrane tactfully.
2
The landing was not one of the airline's finest.
It belonged to the ‘any landing you can walk away from is good’ variety by a slim margin, but Patricio Nicanor was so relieved to be on U.S. soil that he felt like hugging the pilot and then kissing the world-weary face of the Washington National Airport immigration official who queried him.
Patricio's only baggage was a shoulder-slung carry-on one-suiter. He stopped at a kiosk and bought two foldaway nylon shopping bags and a length of strapping, the kind used to bind and identify a suitcase. He then headed for the rest room and entered the stall reserved for the physically disabled.
He needed the extra space to open his suitcase. The two packages inside, each contained in a thick bubble envelope about the size of a paperback book, had aroused the interest of customs. 'Mining samples,' Patricio had said, and had opened the retaining clip of one of the packages and pulled out a plastic bag containing what looked like concrete chippings.
The customs man had looked at Patricio's profession, which was written into his passport. 'Ingeniero de Minas,' it said in Spanish. Samples seemed to make sense.
Obtaining the contents of the two packages had been both difficult and dangerous in the extreme. Patricio wanted to keep them as close as possible until he delivered them to his friends in Congress.
Removing his jacket and working swiftly, he constructed a simple harness that hung each package securely under each arm like twin shoulder holsters. Both strapping and bags were of strong black nylon.
He replaced his jacket. He would look somewhat bulkier, but nothing could be seen. It would be safer to have the items actually on his person.
He reshouldered the carry-on case, made a brief phone call to Cochrane, and found a cab.
They had a funny charging system, he remembered. Zones instead of a meter. What you might call a game of chance if you were a tourist.
Warner started to emit electronic chirping sounds as they left the elevator on the floor where the subcommittee offices were located. He made a gesture of apology at Fitzduane and reached under his T-shirt for the compact mobile phone that was clipped there.
'You got the Irishman?' said Cochrane cryptically.
'Yo!' said Warner. 'We've just got out of the elevator and we are down the hall. I can shout if this thing breaks down.'
'Shit!' said Cochrane. 'Wiseass!' he added.
'Maury?' said Warner.
'Yeah,' said Cochrane. 'We've still got a few things to settle, and Patricio's not here yet. Give me fifteen. Maybe prep Fitzduane a little.'
'Lee's schedule is running late,' said Warner. 'I'll buy you a cup of coffee.'
The cafeteria was nearly empty. Warner picked a quiet corner.
'The Task Force,' said Warner. 'Lee asked me to prep you. What do you know about us, Hugo?'
Fitzduane smiled. 'I've read your reports and traded information with you. I figured you were worth visiting. Beyond that, I know little.'
Warner nodded. 'The Task Force was started by Lee. He made a bargain with Congressman Wayne Sanders. Lee would get Sanders elected if Sanders would back the setting up of a subcommittee on terrorism. Lee had come out of Vietnam feeling the U.S. was selling itself short and no one in power seemed to be paying any serious attention to dealing with the threats that were popping up all over the globe.'
'Why didn't Lee run himself?' asked Fitzduane.
Warner laughed. 'Lee Cochrane suffers from a bad case of integrity. In short, he is no politician, but he is bright and committed and knows his strengths and his weaknesses, so he found another way. He would piggyback right in as close to the center of power as he could get. He might prefer to work in the White House or the Senate, but he's a realist.'
'What got Lee focused on terrorism?' said Fitzduane. 'It's an abstract to most people. Normally, it is only when you are touched personally that you start to take notice. Then you realize that the world is a vastly more dangerous place than most people like to believe.'
Warner nodded. 'Lee had a commanding officer in Vietnam he much admired. The guy went on to work for the CIA, got kidnapped by fundamentalists in Lebanon, was tortured over many months and then hanged. That incident set him off. He also believed various agencies of the United States government did little about it.'
'So how do you guys really operate?' said Fitzduane. 'Congress is there to legislate, not go hunting down bad guys. The media would have a field day if a bunch of armed staffers started invading sovereign nations and taking out terrorists. Look at Ollie North, and he didn't shoot anyone. Well, not that I know of, anyway.'
Warner laughed. 'Ollie's heart and head don't always synchronize too well,' he said, 'but he's not the worst. Look at the Achille Lauro affair. The guys who killed the hostage in the wheelchair cut a deal with the Egyptians and were going to get away.
'Ollie got their aircraft forced down. Was he right? I think he was. The United States of America should not sit idly by when its citizens are killed.'
Fitzduane drank some coffee. He did not dispute the basic thrust of Warner's argument, but he was having a hard time getting a fix on what a small group of motivated staffers could actually do against the reality of physical threat.
'We're a small group with the great advantage of having a simple mission,' said Warner, 'and that is the identification and destruction of terrorism insofar as it threatens this country. And all of the team identify with that mission. We are not riddled with factions and feuds like the CIA and the FBI, or faced with opposing agendas like State or Treasury. Our rationale is not primarily our own preservation. And we care.'
Fitzduane's interest was piqued. He was well familiar with the CIA and State situations, but Treasury was a player he had not encountered much previously. 'Treasury?' he asked.
'It's a story that makes a point about how we let them get away with it,' said Warner. 'When the Shah of Iran was in power, the Iranian government was considered a close ally of the West. Better yet, Iran was a major purchaser of Western goods. The Shah wanted the latest and the best, and because he had oil, he could afford it. Along with the tanks and the aircraft and the missiles, the U.S. supplied him with the latest in printing technology so that he could get his profile just right on the Iranian currency.
'Unfortunately, the equipment he bought was exactly the same as that used by the United States mint. Enter
