With the economic boom that claim would bring, Alegre felt that Colombia could finally throw off the money leash the drug cartel held on the people. Without the carrot of mining rights in the Gulf of Venezuela to offer the economy, he knew he would never be able to fully destroy the cartel.
Another factor, of a more personal nature, was the fact that if the cartel was willing to gun down schoolchildren in America, they wouldn't hesitate to kill a president in Colombia. Alegre knew he was in office only at the tolerance of the drug cartel. He didn't like that setup. He believed the best defense was a good offense. Since being elected, he had bided his time until the situation was right, placating the cartel. The time to fight back appeared to be now.
For the present, Alegre would work with the Ring Man. Their immediate goals were the same. Alegre shivered briefly. If the Ring Man knew Alegre's ultimate objective, there would be blood spilled in the presidential palace.
Alegre sighed. It was all so complicated. Playing people against each other. Trying to manipulate the situation for the country's good. There was a price to be paid for everything.
Alone in the small, two-man room they shared, Powers sat on his bunk unperturbed by his friend's agitation. "It's his neck. Let him hang himself."
Riley shook his head in exasperation. "Come on, compadre. That isn't the way it's supposed to work."
Powers leaned back on his bunk contentedly. "Listen, Dave. Stop worrying about everyone else's problems for a minute. If the little Napoleon wants to split the team up into the new and old guys, that makes sense to me. I'd rather go in with you than with him."
Riley had had a feeling that Powers wasn't going to be too upset with Vaughn's proclamation on the makeup of the split teams. Vaughn had split the twelve-man team in half. The six old members of 055 would go together under Riley's command on the first mission. The six new additions would assume the second mission under the captain's command. What really irked Riley was that the captain hadn't even consulted him. He thought they had had an understanding after their conversation earlier this afternoon. Obviously, he'd been wrong about that.
Riley knew that Powers was also less than pleased with the captain's leadership technique, or rather lack of it. In Special Forces the team sergeant as a minimum should have been consulted before such a decision was made. Riley and Powers had always worked together, bouncing ideas off of each other, consulting the rest of the team where feasible. The idea was to maximize the considerable brainpower every team possessed. With his solo decision Vaughn had acted as though he was still in the 82d Airborne.
Powers continued. "It splits the MOSs exactly. Each split team got one medic, one commo man, one engineer, and one weapons man." Powers sat up and looked at his old friend. "And one officer."
"You know that the team sergeant is supposed to go with the team leader," Riley retorted.
Powers began getting irritated. "Bullshit. That's not written anywhere. Technically, the team sergeant always takes the other half of the team from the captain."
"That's before we had warrants, and the XO was just a lieutenant who couldn't find his ass with both hands."
Powers slammed his hand on the desk next to his bed. "Goddamnit, Dave! Listen. Alexander is a good man. He can take care of the captain. This gives our split team a much better survival chance. We got the guys we worked with all year. Everyone knows the SOPs."
"What about the other guys going with the captain?"
"So what do you want to do? Reduce the survivability of both split teams?"
Riley paused and reconsidered. Powers did have a point there. Riley sighed. What was he getting so worked up about? Deep inside he was happy to have people he knew and trusted on his part of the split team. Plus it opened up more possibilities for infiltration.
Powers wasn't through and was obviously thinking along the same lines. "The bottom line on it is the infiltration. You seem to be forgetting that. Alexander's the only free-fall parachutist out of all the new guys. And he's not free-fall jumpmaster qualified. I'm the only free-fall jumpmaster you got and, since we're thinking of going in from thirty thousand feet on the first mission, I think you're going to need me. The second mission just about calls for going in by Combat Talon with their ass in the grass at two hundred fifty feet. All the new guys can handle that, but they sure as hell ain't going to be able to HAHO in on the first one. Anyway, you ain't got no choice, partner. It's got to be the way the captain set it up."
Powers reconsidered. "Well, maybe it doesn't have to be that way and I don't like the way he did it either, but the end result would have been the same even if he did consult with you or me."
Riley nodded reluctantly. Looking at it from that perspective he realized he was more pissed at the lack of respect the captain had shown him than at the actual decision. He decided to put this one in the past and drive on.
"Screw it. Get the guys on our split team together. I want to do a practice briefback."
Powers grinned. "Now you're getting smart."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
General Pike gestured toward the maps on the wall of the isolation room. "Give us an update, Captain Vaughn."
Riley half expected Vaughn to tell him to get up and do it. But the captain stood up and walked over to the maps. He turned and faced the general and the two civilians.
Riley glanced over at the two agents. Stevens was slouched in his chair trying to pay attention. Probably couldn't wait for the briefing to be over so he could sneak his afternoon pick-me-up, Riley thought. His original suspicion about the DEA agent's drinking had been confirmed the previous afternoon when he had detected the unmistakable scent of alcohol on the man's breath. He had complained to the general about the agent's drinking, but the general had been unwilling to rock the boat too far with the DEA. Besides, Pike had reluctantly admitted, it was too close to the first mission to replace Stevens now.
Westland was sitting straight in her chair, a notepad on her legs. She was wearing a goretex running suit and looked as though she had just finished a hard workout, which Riley knew she had. The previous hour he had occasionally glanced out the back window at the woman working out. He'd been surprised that she apparently had some martial arts background as she did some basic kicks in her calisthenics. Riley idly wondered if she had done that to prove to the team that she could hold her own physically. He shrugged. He didn't care. Just as long as she gave them good intelligence. It wasn't as if she was going on the ground with them.
Vaughn cleared his throat and Riley shifted his attention to the front of the room. "Sir, our analysis of the data we've been provided has led us to the following tentative plan. We have two potential targets that were provided to the CIA by a source representing President Alegre. Checking both against satellite imagery provided by the National Security Agency indicates that there appear to be buildings and materials in both areas that conform to what a processing laboratory would have. Most particularly important is the presence of large numbers of steel barrels in both areas. As you know, they are used to hold the vast amount of chemicals that are used in cocaine processing.