Brown, Dale - Independent 02 (110 page)

 
          
In
the glow of the stricken Sea Lion aircraft Salazar saw him—none other than
Admiral Hardcastle, crawling up the side of the river- bank. Someone was with
him, still lying near the water’s edge. Salazar checked his fuel—less than
forty minutes’ worth—but he had made up his mind as soon as he saw Hardcastle
crawling like a dried-up old turtle on the water’s edge. It didn’t matter if he
was only running on fumes. He was going to kill Admiral Hardcastle. He started
a thirty-degree-bank turn to the right, circling over the crash site and using
the burning Sea Lion as a landmark. He used the tight turn to bleed off
airspeed, slowing to one hundred eight knots—the slowest he dared go at such a
low altitude—and racetracked around to line up for one last strafing run on the
beach. The F-5E had no true ground-attack mode for the twin cannons, but the
reticle was accurate enough to smear bullets in the area.

 
          
Rolling
out of his final turn, he saw Hardcastle trying to drag his comrade out of the
water and into the shadow of a few bushes near the top of the embankment. It
was thoughtful of them to move closer together. As he moved within cannon
range, he saw that Hardcastle had taken out his sidearm and appeared to be
firing ... at
him.
The ultimate
futile gesture, like a mouse pissing on an eagle just before the end—

 
          
“Yo.
Colonel Salazar. This is your old friend Viktor Charbakov. I’m a’comin’ for
you, old buddy.”

 
          
“Who?
What?” The strange voice on the emergency GUARD channel was immediately
followed by the scream of the F-5’s Threat Warning Receiver and a blinking red
air-to-air radar threat-warning indicator. At first Salazar was distracted by
the man’s voice on the radio, then by the warning light. He quickly looked
around for any sign of pursuit—pointless, really, since except for the burning
AV-22 below it was total black outside. By the time he faced around to check
his alignment on Hardcastle, the aiming reticle had just passed over him. He
did get a half-second burst off before flying overhead. But who . . . ?

 
          
“You
remember me, Colonel. Flight Kepten Viktor Peytorvich Charbakov?” It was,
Salazar now
⁷
realized, the young pilot that had flown the Sukhoi-29
into Verrettes!

 
          
Powell
had been alerted by Elliott once the details of Salazar’s plan were known, and
since the Border Security Force and the Mexican government had finally made a
cooperative border security agreement, he had been standing by with a two-seat
F-15E fighter from nearby Luke Air Force Base, with the representative of the
Mexican Air Force flying in the backseat, to chase down Agusto Salazar.

 
          
“You
threw one of your pig-stickers into my arm, Colonel. I wanted to get you so bad
I joined the U.S. Air Force to get a shot at you. Now it’s just you and me.”

 
          
Salazar
put in full power. No afterburners ... that would have been an easy giveaway .
. . climbed to only two hundred feet and turned northwest. With an enemy
somewhere nearby, pitch black outside, a threat-warning receiver that didn’t
give bearings to the source of the enemy radar, he had no choice against a
pursuer except to run— and the best place to run was the city of Juarez, with
El Paso right across the river. The ground clutter might disrupt their radar,
giving him a better chance to escape.

 
          
“Colonel
Agusto Salazar,” another voice, an older, Latino voice, came on the channel,
“this is General Tomas Rodriguez Fuentes of the Monterrey District Headquarters
of the Mexican Air Forces. You are ordered to reverse course and lower your
landing gear immediately.”

 
          
Salazar
was only ten miles outside
Juarez
—already
overflying outlying villages and communities. He had to delay his pursuers for
just a few moments longer—then, so close to the city, they would not dare open
fire on him . . . “General, I would not do that,” Salazar said on the GUARD
emergency channel. “My men have your family ...”

 
          
There
was a long pause. The lights of the city were getting closer—
Juarez
was just six miles away, the outlying
lights almost touching the air-data probe on the needle-nose of the F-5. Just a
few more . . .

 
          
Salazar
reached between his legs and pulled the yellow ejection ring moments before the
Mexican general hit the launch button and sent two Sidewinder missiles from Powell’s
F-15E fighter into the F-5. Both missiles hit dead on target, and the fighter
blew apart like a ripe melon hit full force by a sledgehammer, pieces
scattering for miles across the
Rio Grande
and sending debris over both sides of the
border . . .

 
          
Salazar
was jarred by a huge slap of jet-hot wind followed by a driving, pounding
noise. His helmet was ripped from his head, breaking his nose and temporarily
blinding him. His parachute opened in time to give him one swing in a fully
opened chute before he slammed into the hard-packed earth, head and shoulders
first.

 
          
Dazed,
bleeding, his left shoulder in a vise-tight jaw of pain, Salazar untangled his
feet from the parachute risers and painfully undipped himself from the
parachute harness. There was a shack about a half-mile away on fire, and beyond
that it seemed the entire desert was ablaze. He dragged himself to a tree
nearby and drew his side- arm, a Soviet-made Tokarev 10-millimeter automatic
pistol with a nine-round clip.

 
          
It
now appeared to Salazar that he had landed just a few hundred meters outside a
small farm. He could see buildings and a pyramidshaped grain silo, highlighted
by the glow of the fires. Just ten meters to his left he saw a pickup truck and
decided to make his way to it. But as he did he heard a sound overhead—another
Sea Lion aircraft was hovering only a few hundred meters away, searching near
the area where he had landed. He couldn’t stay around here—the Hammerheads were
closing in . . .

 
          
Ignoring
the pain in his shoulder, Salazar crawled to his feet and ran to the pickup,
crashing, exhausted, into the passenger door. He pulled open the door and
crawled inside just as the NightSun searchlight flared through the darkness and
the heavy, rhythmic beat of the Sea Lion’s rotors got louder and louder—

 
          
The
driver’s door now swung open, Salazar raised his pistol and aimed at the head
of... an old woman who had come out to see what all the late-night commotion
was about. What she confronted, and froze her, was a mangled, bloody face.

 
          
As
the searchlight beam came closer Salazar managed to get out in Spanish, “Wave
at the plane, old woman, Wave pretty . . .’’

 
          
The
NightSun beam swept across the side of the farmhouse and rested just in front
of the pickup truck. Salazar slumped to the floor of the truck, as far into the
shadows as he could.
“Wave.
” The old
woman looked into the bright light and waved at the Sea Lion crew. The beam
swept around the yard, searching the tree that Salazar had just hidden near,
then moved away . . .

 
          
He
had made it... the Hammerheads had missed the dark, camouflaged parachute in
the piowed-up field, missed the tracks he had made in the dirt.

 
          
He
hauled himself up ofif the floor and into the passenger side of the truck. “Get
in, old woman,” he ordered. “You will drive m^into
Juarez
.”

 
          
Too
frightened to protest, the woman finally slid into the driver's seat and
started the engine.

 
          
“Take
a back road,” Salazar told her as she pulled out onto the main road. “If we are
caught by the police, you will be shot.”

 
          
“No, senor, por favor ...”

           
“Just do as I say and you will be
safe ...” They began moving down the chip-and-seal road toward the distant glow
of the city of
Juarez
. The woman was hunched over the steering wheel, her lips moving but not
making a sound. “Turn your damned headlights on,” Salazar shouted at her.
“Drive normally.”

 
          
The
woman gasped, reached down and turned the headlight switch on . . .

 
          
And
there, illuminated in the dull glow of the headlights, was a person standing in
the middle of the road leading a donkey by the reins.

 
          
“iJesus Cristo, el burro mio!”
the woman
wailed. Salazar got a glimpse of a woman in a pair of bright-colored overalls
just before the old woman slammed on the brakes. Unable to hold himself steady
with his left arm, Salazar pitched forward and crashed against the dashboard.

 
          
“iVaya! VayalAl abrigo!”
someone was
shouting. With remarkable speed the old woman threw open her door and scrambled
out. Salazar fired once out the driver’s door but the woman had disappeared. He
climbed behind the steering wheel, put the Tokarev automatic pistol on the seat
beside him, and was about to put the pickup truck into gear when a blinding
white light hit him in the face.

 
          
And
rising out of the darkness, like some mythic, fire-breathing dragon, the AV-22
Sea Lion hovered in ground effect just a few dozen yards directly in front of
the truck. The aircraft had been hiding behind a lush tree line on one side of
the highway and had, seemingly, popped up out of nowhere. Salazar could see the
Chain Gun pod deployed and aimed at him—in fact, he was close enough to see the
pilot in the right seat with the targeting visor lowered. Soldiers in dark
helmets carrying M-16 rifles were running down both sides of the road, moving
to surround him . . .

 
          
He
reached for the pistol . . .

 
          
“Pare!”
a woman's voice sounded over the
roar of the Sea Lion’s rotors. “Don’t move, Salazar,” she said in English.
Salazar looked to his right and saw Geffar, who had left the AV-22 when Masters
landed it to unload the I-Team, aiming a huge automatic pistol directly into
his bloody face. She wore a Hammerheads orange flight suit and an I-Team
communications helmet. Her eyes were directly on his, as unwavering as the
automatic.

 
          
The
fingers of his good right hand were inches from the gun. He tried to inch it
down . . .

 
          
“Go
ahead,” Sandra Geffar said. “I need to kill you. Give me a reason.”

 
          
Salazar
straightened his fingers, carefully lifted them clear of the pistol.

 
          
“Hands
behind your head—slow.” Salazar raised his right hand to the back of his head,
his left arm as high as he, could—his dislocated shoulder was obvious. “Don’t
move.” Geffar stepped away from the truck door and reached up to her helmet to
draw the communications microphone closer, to her lips. The Hammerheads I-Team
and
federales
were closing in. “Got
him . . . Salazar,” GefiFar radioed to them. “Looks like he’s hurt. Better get
ground transportation out here—”

 
          
In
a flash—desperation helped—Salazar’s right hand moved down to the special sling
behind his neck, his fingers found the leather- wrapped butt-end of a throwing
knife, the knife was slipped out of the sling and Salazar aimed—

 
          
Fast
as he was, his old lightning speed had been leeched by the injury, which, along
with Van Nuys’ tip, gave Geffar her chance ... and as he aimed to let fly she
dropped into a shooter’s crouch and fired, all in a single motion. The first
.45-caliber slug, the one that counted, that made the difference, went through
his right eye, into the back of his skull, scattering brain tissue over the cab
of the truck. The remaining rounds were redundant, but necessary. They were for
too many good people, dead and still to die, thanks to the late Colonel Agusto
Salazar.

 
          
The
White House Press Room,
Washington
,
D.C.

 
          
Two Days Later

 
          
The
SENIOR officers of the Border Security Force were standing in a line on the
stage, hands behind their backs, fidgeting uncomfortably under the hot lights:
Curtis Long, Rushell Masters, Sandra Geffar and Ian Hardcastle on one side of
the President; the Mexican ambassador Lidia Pereira, Vice President Martindale
and Drug Control Policy Advisor Samuel T. Massey on the other.

 
          
“I
did not want to make a public statement about the events of the past few days,”
the President began, “without recognizing the people on this platform today. It
was because of their remarkable efforts that a major multi-billion-dollar drug
shipment was stopped and the principal smugglers arrested or killed. It has
been a crippling, if not fatal, blow to the cartel. My special thanks go to the
people and the government of Mexico, who have had the courage and conviction to
enter into an unprecedented cooperative border security and antismuggling task
force with us, one in which we will fly, sail and fight together to secure our
common borders. I would especially like to thank the ambassador from
Mexico
, Dr. Lidia Pereira, for her ... role in
securing this historic agreement.”
Pereira
nodded her thanks to the President,
maintaining her famous smile in spite of the qualifying pause in the
President’s accolade. She caught it, as he intended.

 
          
“The
real warriors are represented by these men and women here. They are the ones
who directed the Border Security Force aircraft, vessels and surveillance
forces against a well-organized and remarkably strong paramilitary
organization. My thanks to Curtis Long, director of the Hammerheads’
Investigating Team; Rushell Masters, chief pilot; and especially Inspector
Sandra GefiFar and Admiral Ian Hardcastle, the heart, the soul of the
organization. They may not consider it a reward, but I’m grounding both of them
effective imme diately—Ian Hardcastle will take command of the new western
division of the Border Security Force, where he will be in charge of
establishing detection and interception facilities and procedures for the
Mexican border and against the growing California smuggling trade. Sandra
GefiFar will command the eastern division, including the expanded Hammerhead
facilities along the Atlantic seaboard.

 
          
“I
anticipate that Congress will very soon pass the law elevating the Border
Security Force, the Hammerheads, to Cabinet-level under civilian command. At
that time my current drug control advisor, Samuel Massey, will be nominated to
be the first Secretary of Border Security Forces. Further, under pending
legislation, the Border Security Forces will soon officially include the Coast
Guard and Customs Service under one roof so to speak, thereby uniting all
federal agencies concerned with traffic across
America
’s borders

 
          
Hardcastle,
listening to the President’s intention to name Massey, had to wince inwardly,
remembering as he did Massey’s early opposition to the notion of the
Hammerheads to protect his turf. Still, maybe it was a good sign that a
bureaucrat with a fierce protective instinct about his territory would be the
nominal head of Hammerheads. And he suspected, thinking on it, that the
President had the same idea in mind . . .

 
          
“Finally,”
the President went on, “I’d like to recognize the efforts of the Vice President
in behalf of the Border Security Force. As director of national drug control
and enforcement, Kevin Martindale has taken the lead in insuring that our
country remains effective in controlling our borders and stopping the spread of
illegal drugs in our society. At the risk of sounding too much like a campaign
speech, let me suggest
America
should be proud to have a man of such
strength and firmness of conviction as its Vice President ...”

 
          
Brad
Elliott, Patrick McLanahan and Roland (J.C.) Powell got to their feet as the
President entered the Oval Office several minutes later. The President
immediately loosened his tie and sat down on the sofa, motioning for the others
to join him. “Ah, press conferences.” He sighed. “A royal pain in the butt.”

 
          
Jack
Pledgeman poured coffee for all three of them. Automatically, the President
reached for the little china pot with the blue ribbon tied around its handle.
Just before he poured, he stopped and looked at the little white pot with a
scowl.

 
          
“What
a hypocrite I am,” he muttered. “Here I am, on my high horse preaching against
drugs, and I keep this crap around my office. What the hell is the difference
between this stuff and marijuana? Where the hell do I draw the line? If I put
some marijuana in a china pot and tied a blue ribbon around it, would it be OK
then?” He looked at the three puzzled faces seated around him, none of whom
knew about the Irish cream. “This is how we kill off society, gents— not with
guns and bullets, but with tired old men with narrow minds, china pots, and
blue ribbons tied to them.” He handed the pot to Pledgeman. “Take that out of
my sight and clean out every drop of it you find in my offices. Do it right
now.”

 
          
The
others were afraid to touch their coffee cups until the President picked his
up. He looked at Elliott and smiled. “Sorry I had to fire you for real this
time, Brad. No offense, General, but I just don’t think you’re cut out for
public life.”

 
          
“I
say you're right, Mr. President.”

 
          
“I’m
glad you agree. Because I’m sending you and Patrick and Roland—”

 
          
“J.C.,
sir.”

 
          
“What?”

 
          
Elliott
and McLanahan winced, knowing what was coming.

 
          
“J.C.,
sir. The name’s J.C. No one calls me Roland except my mom.”

 
          
The
President shook his head, looking at Elliott as if to ask, Where do you find
these guys, General? Instead the President was heard muttering, “Jesus Christ .
. .”

 
          
“Thank
you, Mr. President,” J.C. deadpanned.

 
          
“As
I was
saying,
General,” the President
continued, giving Powell a bemused look, “I’m sending you back to Dreamland. It
would be too difficult to explain how you can be fired and promoted at the same
time, so I’m sending you jokers out to the desert, where I don’t have to deal
with you. I know it would be too much to ask you to stay out of trouble, so
I’ll just say good luck and watch yourselves at all times.”

 
          
“Thank
you, Mr. President,” Elliott said. “I think you’ve made a wise decision. We
have some stuff cooking at HAWC that I think will really knock you out . . .”

 
          
“Oh
God,” the President muttered, “tell me no more . . .”

 
          
Medellin
,
Colombia

 
          
That Same Day

 
          
“Our
losses are impossible to calculate,” Jorge Luiz Pena, one of the senior Cartel
members, was saying. He and ten other directors of the
Medellin
drug cartel were meeting at Gonzales
Rodriguez Gachez’s offices in downtown
Medellin
going over the catastrophe that had just
occurred. “You say only five billion dollars, Gachez.
Only
five billion dollars? You are able to sit there and smile and
pretend nothing has happened?”

 
          
Gachez
was not really smiling, but he also was not whining like the pudgy Pena. The
news of Salazar’s death and the interception of the three main drug shipments
was bad, very bad. They had had losses before, but never in such devastating
quantities. Still, he must be careful not to appear devastated. To show
weakness would be fatal with these men.

 
          
“You
complain too much,” Gachez said calmly. “You lost less product than most of us,
Pena. I personally lost over two billion dollars. Escalante”—he nodded to the
man—“lost almost a billion.”

 
          
“I
say to hell with you, Gachez. You and your fancy education. They sure didn’t
teach you much ...” Pena’s voice was rising. “I may not have lost much compared
to you, but I lost
everything.
You
can start making more cocaine and be back in production in weeks. I have no way
of recouping my losses. Because of
you.
”

 
          
“I
did not lose our product,” Gachez
said. “Salazar was too confident, too cocky . . . too greedy. He actually
believed he had wiped out the whole Border Security Force. He compromised all
of us with his delusional behavior—”

 
          
“What
about Van Nuys?” Pablo Escalante said quietly. “You took on Van Nuys. You sent
him to
Mexico
with Salazar . . .”

 
          
“Van
Nuys had arranged things. Van Nuys was a valuable asset. It was a traitor in
the Mexican Customs Bureau that turned Van Nuys in to the Hammerheads. I
guarantee I will personally take care of the Customs Bureau Chief—”

 
          
“It
is too late for that. He is long gone,” Escalante said. Gachez stared at
Escalante. Normally animated and genial, he had been unusually quiet all during
the briefing and the strategy meetings. Escalante did not have the seniority
that was a traditional qualification for taking control of the Cartel, but he
was rich and powerful enough to command attention when he spoke. How much had
he been speaking to the others . . . ?

 
          
“Never
mind, he can never get far enough away to escape me,” Gachez said with more
earnestness in his voice than he intended. “Now listen, all of you, it does us
no good to point fingers at one another. We are here to discuss the future. All
members will be supported through our ample contingency fund until we can
resume our stockpiles and begin active shipments again. No one will suffer. We
must and we will find a way to break through the Border Security Force’s new
structure. They get tough, we get tough too. I propose—”

 
          
The
doors to the conference room opened and Colombian national police officers
rushed into the office with rifles at the ready. Gachez instantly was on his
feet as the soldiers surrounded the Cartel officers. “What is this? Are you
crazy?”

 
          
No
one said a word. No one else had gotten to their feet, or protested. In fact,
it seemed he was the only one in the room that was surprised by the raid.

 
          
A
senior police officer entered the room. Gachez turned to Escalante, who
returned his look with a shrug.

 
          
The
police officer announced, “You are all under arrest on suspicion of trafficking
cocaine. If you have any weapons, declare them immediately and surrender—”