Clear and Present Danger

It wasn't about the bombings, Robby understood, it was about propriety. And it was about security. Had the Navy planned the job, it would have been done better. Painter and his senior A-6 expert would have set it up so that there would have been no awkward evidence for other people - like Robby in the E-2C - to notice. What Painter feared was the simple fact that now his people could be left holding the bag for an operation imposed from above, bypassing the regular chain of command.

'Get Jensen up here?' Robby wondered.

'I thought of that. Too obvious. Might get Jensen in too much trouble. But I've got to find out where the hell his orders came from. Ranger 's out for another ten days or so, right?'

'I believe so, sir.'

'Has to be an Agency job,' Josh Painter observed quietly. 'Authorized higher up than that, but it has to be Agency.'

'For what it's worth, sir, I got a good friend who's pretty senior there. I'm godfather for one of his kids.'

'Who's that?'

'Jack Ryan.'

'Oh, yeah, I've met him. He was with me on Kenneday for a day or two back when - you're sure to remember that cruise, Rob.' Painter smiled. 'Right before you took that missile hit. By that time he was off on HMS Invincible .'

' What? Jack was aboard then? But - why the hell didn't he come down to see me?'

'You never did find out what that op was all about, did you?' Painter shook his head, thinking of the Red October affair. 'Maybe he can tell you about it. I can't.'

Robby accepted it without questioning and turned back to the matter at hand. 'There's a land side to this operation, too, Admiral,' he said, and explained on for another couple of minutes.

'Charlie- Fox,' Painter said when he was done. That was the Navy's shorthand and sanitized version of an expression that had begun in the Marine Corps to denote a confused and self-destructive military operation: Cluster-Fuck. 'Robert, you get your ass on the first plane back to D.C. and tell your friend that his operation is going to hell in a basket. Jesus, don't those Agency clowns ever learn? If this gets out, and from what you're telling me, it's sure as hell going to, it's going to hurt us. It's going to hurt the whole country. We don't need this kind of shit, not in an election year with that asshole Fowler running. Also tell him that the next time the Agency decides to play soldier, it might help if they asked somebody who knows something about it ahead of time.'

The Cartel had an ample supply of people who were accustomed to carrying guns, and assembling them took only a few hours. Cortez was detailed to run the operation. He'd coordinate it from the village of Anserma, which was in the center of the area in which the 'mercenary' teams seemed to be operating. He hadn't told his boss everything he knew, of course, nor did he reveal his full objective. The Cartel was a cooperative enterprise. Nearly three hundred men had been brought in by cars, trucks, and buses, personal retainers from all of the Cartel chieftains, all of them reasonably fit and accustomed to violence. Their presence here reduced the security details of the remaining drug lords. That would allow Escobedo a sizable advantage as he tried to discover which of his colleagues was making the 'power play', while Cortez dealt with the 'mercenaries.' He had every intention of running the American soldiers to ground and killing them, of course, but there was no special hurry in that. F lix had every reason to suspect that he was up against elite troops, even American Green Berets, formidable opponents for whom he had due respect. Casualties among his force, therefore, be expected: F lix wondered how many he'd have to kill off in order to alter the overall balance of power within the Cartel to his personal advantage.

There was no point in telling the assembled multitude, of course. These harsh, brutal men were used to brandishing their weapons like the Japanese samurai warriors of all those bad movies that they liked to watch, and like those actors playing at killers, these men were accustomed to having people cower before them, the omnipotent, invincible warriors of the Cartel, armed with their AK-47s, swaggering down village streets. Comical scum , Cortez thought.

It was all rather comical, really. Cortez would not mind a bit. It was to be a diverting and entertaining exercise, something from half a millennium before, when brutal men would tether a bear in a pit and let dogs at it. Eventually the bear died, and though it was frequently rather hard on the dogs, you could always get new ones. Those new dogs would be trained differently, to be loyal to a new master... It was marvelous, Cortez realized after a moment. He'd be playing a game, with men instead of bears and dogs, a game that hadn't been played since the time of the Caesars. He understood now why some of the drug lords had gotten the way they were. This sort of Godlike power was destructive to one's soul. He'd have to remember that. But first there was work to do.

The chain of command was established. There were five groups of fifty or so men. They were assigned operating areas. Communications would be by radio, coordinated through Cortez, in the safety of a house outside the village. About the only complication was the possible interference of the Colombian Army. Escobedo was taking care of that. M-19 and PARC would start making trouble elsewhere. That would keep the Army occupied.

The 'soldiers,' as they immediately took to calling themselves, moved off into the hills in trucks. Buena suerte , Cortez told their leaders: Good luck. Of course, he wished them nothing of the kind. Luck was no longer a factor in the operation, which suited the former colonel of the DGI. In a properly planned operation, it never was.

It was a quiet day in the mountains. Chavez heard the sound of church bells echoing up and down the valley, calling the faithful to Sunday liturgy. Was it Sunday? Chavez wondered; he had lost track. Whichever day it was, traffic sounds were less than normal. Except for the loss of Rocha, things were in rather good shape. They hadn't even expended much of their ammunition, though in another few days they were due for a resupply drop from the helicopter supporting the operation. You could never have too much ammunition. That was one truth Chavez had learned. Happiness is a full bandolier. And a full canteen. And hot food.

The topography of the valley allowed them to hear things especially well. Sound carried up the slopes with a minimum of attenuation, and the air, though thin, seemed to give every noise a special bell-like clarity. Chavez heard the trucks well off, and put his binoculars on a bend in the road, several miles away, to see what it was. He wasn't the least concerned. Trucks were targets, not things to worry about. He adjusted the focus on the binoculars to get the sharpest possible image, and the sergeant had a good pair of eyes. After a minute or so he spotted three of them, flatbed trucks like farmers used, with removable wooden sides. But they were filled with men, and the men appeared to be carrying rifles. The trucks stopped, and the men jumped out. Chavez punched his sleeping companion.

' Oso , get the captain here right now!'

Ramirez was there in less than a minute, with his own pair of binoculars.

'You're standing up, sir!' Chavez growled. 'Get the fuck down!'

'Sorry, Ding.'

'You see 'em?'

'Yeah.'

They were just milling around, but it was impossible to miss their rifles, slung over their shoulders. As both men watched, they divided into four groups and started moving off the road. A moment later, they were lost in the trees.

'It'll take 'em about three hours to get here, Cap'n,' Ding estimated.

'By that time we'll be six miles north. Get ready to move.' Ramirez set up his satellite radio.

'VARIABLE, this is KNIFE, over.' He got a reply on the first call.

'KNIFE, this is VARIABLE. We read you loud and clear. Over.'

'KNIFE reports armed men entering the woods five miles east-southeast our position. Estimate reinforced platoon in strength, and heading our way.'

'Are they soldiers, over.'

'Negative - say again, negative. Weapons in evidence, but no uniforms. I repeat, they do not appear to be wearing uniforms. We are getting ready to move.'

'Roger that, KNIFE. Move immediately, check in when you can. We'll try to find out what's going on.'

'Roger. KNIFE out.'

'What's that all about?' one of the case officers asked.

'I don't know. I wish Clark was here,' the other said. 'Let's check in with Langley.'