"Yeah, he's over at the memorial service. He said he'd stop by later."
"Check with him then on that. He should be able to square you away on everything."
"Roger that. Anything else I need to know, sir?"
"No. Good luck."
Linders turned off his STU-III and swiveled his chair around. Something didn't sit right with this whole situation. He'd understood the need to keep the Hammer strikes in real tight for security reasons, but this thing was almost getting out of hand.
Linders considered calling the chairman with his misgivings. He thought about it for a few seconds, then picked up the phone and punched in an internal number for the Pentagon.
"Chairman's office. Colonel Cross here, sir."
"This is General Linders. Is the chairman available?"
"No, sir. He's across the river testifying on the B-2. Do you have a message?"
"When will he be back?"
"He left word that he'd be heading straight home to Fort Myers after finishing there, sir. Would you like me to forward a message to him over at the hill?"
Linders sighed. "No. That's all right. I'll get a hold of him tomorrow."
The chaplain stood in the shadow of the famous Iron Mike statue of a Green Beret soldier that stood outside the Special Forces Museum at Fort Bragg, across the street from the 1st Special Operations Command headquarters. His words drifted out over the crowd gathered for the service.
"We are gathered here together to honor the memory of our fallen comrades. Ours is a profession that is fraught with dangers, even during the apparent safety of peacetime. We all know the risks involved in training hard and we all.."
Pike tuned out the 7th Group chaplain. He hated the hypocrisy of the whole thing. Partusi, Marzan, Holder, and Lane had all died in combat fighting. Yet, that reality would never be acknowledged.
Pike turned his weathered gaze on the people seated in the front row facing the statue. Two of the four men had been married and both had children. The weeping families sitting in that front row had paid a high price, and they would never know how their husbands and fathers had really died.
Pike knew he could still stop the wheels he had set in motion. But looking at those crying faces steeled his heart. There'd been too much backing off and too much running away. He was going to push this to the limit. He'd probably be found out and fail, but he'd go down trying.
"I'm scrapping this whole thing."
Strom looked up in surprise at his boss's reaction to the news on Jameson. "But they don't know if Riley or Westland were compromised."
Hanks shook his head. "This thing's turning to shit. What did the local authorities say?"
Strom looked up from his briefing notes. "They say Jameson was killed during a robbery attempt."
"Bullshit!" Hanks exploded. "A chest full of 9-millimeter? Anything on Westland?"
"No."
"Think they got her?"
Strom paused for a second. "I don't know. Somebody had to waste those three cartel guys."
"You think Westland did that?"
"The report I've got says that Jameson's weapon was still in his holster and unfired. Since the bodies were still there when the police arrived, I'd have to assume that nobody was left alive from their side to retrieve the dead. Otherwise you can pretty much figure they'd have tried to cover things up."
"Where is she then?" asked Hanks. "Why didn't she show up at the embassy?"
"I don't know. It only happened about an hour ago. She could be anywhere."
Hanks considered the situation. "You think they'll still try and go ahead with the Ring Man hit?"
"My best guess is that Riley and Westland have gone into hiding. Maybe they have aborted and are on their way back. They've got to know their cover is blown."
The director made his decision. "I've already stuck my neck out too far on this one. I want you to fly to Bogota immediately on my jet and lay down the law to Alegre. Tell him he can do all the talking he wants about the Hammer strikes, but we're done doing his dirty work. I'm going over to State and brief the secretary, then take him over to the White House to let the Old Man know what's going on. It's time to cut our losses."
"What about Riley?"
"Try to use the local people to track him down and call him off if he's still on the mission, which I doubt anyway." Hanks shook his head. "I don't know why I authorized this thing in the first place." He pointed a finger at Strom. "You tell Alegre to cool this stuff with the cartel. We did what the president wanted and we've pushed it as far as it's going to go without losing Alegre. I think State will back me up on this."
The operations officer for the 1st Special Operations Wing reread the message flimsy. He looked up at his assistant. "What the hell is this?"
The major shrugged. "Got that about twenty minutes ago."
"Did you verify?"
"Yes, sir. It's genuine."
The ops officer scratched his head in irritation. "Shit. How the hell are we supposed to plan a mission off this piece of crap? I'm getting real tired of this bullshit. I hope this isn't another one of DCSOP's no-notice tests."
The major smiled. "Can't be one of those. They're giving us eighteen hours of advance warning."
The operations officer chuckled. "Keep it up, smart ass." He turned his chair and looked at the status board behind his desk. "Hotel Six is already in place. Alert Tango Three for the lift. Tell them to be prepared for whatever the hell they think those yahoos up at Bragg can dream of. Tell 'em to also make sure they can talk SATCOM to Hotel Six, and get" — the ops checked a clipboard to see who was the pilot in command of Hotel Six—"Mackelroy up to speed once they find out what's going on."
The assistant operations officer presented his superior with a mock salute. "Aye, aye, sir."
Pike poked his head around the doorway. "What's up, Jim? Pete said you wanted to see me before I left."
"Hell, yeah. I just talked to Linders a little while ago. He verified the operations order but he didn't know shit about commo or verifying. You know I got to have a comm link and a final verifier."
Pike eased around the doorway and into the office. He'd been half afraid to find the whole thing blown. He was getting too old for this stuff. His heart couldn't take much more. "I'm sorry. I guess I was just too caught up with this memorial thing. I knew those guys who were killed. They used to work for me."
"Yeah, that was a real shame."
"Anyway." Pike reached into his pocket and produced a piece of paper. "Here's the call signs and comm instructions. You'll be talking back to me at Fort Belvoir and I'll have a link direct to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs." Pike chuckled. "Who the hell he'll be talking to I don't know, but I'll be relaying the verification from the chairman if it's a go. Is that good enough?"
The other man relaxed. "Yeah, that will be fine. By the way, 1st SOW just called all pissed off about not getting any operational info. I told that piss-head ops officer to go pound sand and just get me a bird up here." He shook his head. "Fucking air force thinks the world revolves around them. How the hell can I give them any operational info when I don't even know how it's going to go down yet?"
Pike nodded in sympathy. "You know how the air force is. Try to treat them good. It's a long walk without them. Got any ideas yet?"
The man smiled. "Yeah. We've run some scenarios like this in training. The troop commander is working it out with his people right now."
Riley crouched in the drainage ditch on the side of the road and watched the occasional car flash by. He checked his watch again. She was late. There were few things he hated more than someone being late. Especially with him sitting here exposed. He'd cached the rifle in his tree, and the submachine gun and other equipment were in a sack by his feet.