“Looks like a guard change to me,” Stoke said. “Where there’s guards, there’s hostages.”
“Definite guard change,” Fitz agreed. “Gotta be where the hostages are held.”
“Okay. That’s a start. Now, these are all barracks,” Boomer said, pointing to neat rows of buildings in a compound about half a mile from the hostage site. “Soldiers there will definitely come running when they hear the fire and grenades as we enter the target building. We have a serious need for speed.”
“Yeah,” Stoke said. “Hop and Pop.”
“Fitz’s specialty,” Boomer said. “Here’s the primary radar dome, and look at all these cute little sammy and scud site missile launchers.”
“The sub pen looks like it’s still under construction,” Fitz said. “See all the crap still on the ground? Bulldozers? Steel beams and rods. Tell me about the sub, Commander. Building looks big enough to accommodate three fooking subs.”
Hawke did. When he described the Borzoi sub with its delta-wing design, retractable conning tower, and forty missile silos, both men’s eyes widened with excitement. The idea that this might be more than just another hostage extraction clearly got their attention.
“Can we take out that sub?” Fitz asked.
“Well, it is destroying private property,” Hawke said. “But then again, the world would be a hell of a lot safer place without it. And, since the Atlantic Fleet is at this very moment preparing to neutralize or destroy it, the Americans might just look the other way. Let’s take it out.”
“Good lad. We’ll see what we can do. I’m wondering about this large structure here,” Fitz said. “The one nearest the beach. It’s clearly much older than anything else. Looks like a small finca that’s had a lot of wings added over the years.”
“It belongs to General Manso de Herreras,” Hawke said. “American intelligence has him as the guy who took Castro down. You can hear his voice on the tape. I’ve got video footage of him as well.”
“How and why did he abduct the hostage?” Fitz asked, looking at the photo of Vicky.
“How, I don’t know,” Hawke replied. “Why is easy. An attempt to get me to use my influence in Washington. Affect U.S. policy toward his new government. Ridiculous, but true. I’m going to kill him, by the way. When I find him.”
“Sorry?” Fitz said.
“Thirty years ago, Manso de Herreras and his two brothers murdered my parents. Stokely captured one of the brothers just yesterday and had the bastard arrested for murder. Head of the Cuban Navy, as it happens.”
“That’ll tend to piss the other two off,” Fitz said.
“So,” Boomer said, eyeing Hawke carefully. “It’s not just a simple hostage snatch, is it?”
“No, it’s not,” Hawke said. “Somehow, I’m going to get inside this finca here and kill the two remaining brothers. That’s my problem, not yours.”
The Indian nodded his head. “I understand,” he said.
“Which leaves me with one question,” Fitz said. “Namely, how do we get two squads in and out of there? Look at this place! We got radar here and here, we got fooking SAM sites under every bush, we got two, maybe three fooking thousand troops in these barracks. I mean—”
“HAHO,” Boomer said. “Night time.”
“Yeah, just what I was thinkin’, Boomer,” Stokely said. “HAHO.”
Seeing Hawke’s puzzled expression, Fitz said, “A jump. High Altitude–High Opening. The plane is flying at thirty thousand feet, fifteen miles from the target. It’s night. Nobody hears us, nobody sees us.”
“We use flat chutes as parasails,” Boomer said. “We use minibottles of oxygen to keep from blacking out. We’ve got lights on our helmets, compasses and altimeters on our wrists. We do a long, controlled glide into the LZ. Done much jumping, Commander?”
“The logic of jumping out of a perfectly good airplane has always escaped me,” Hawke said. “But I did a tour with SBS. Jumping was a big part of our training.”
Stoke looked at the two ex-SEALs, grinning. “What’d I tell y’all? Ain’t nobody got bigger stones than my man Hawke here, huh? Balls to the wall!”
“SBS? No shit,” Boomer said. “Tough outfit.”
SBS was the British Special Boat Squadron, whose rigorous training was known throughout the special warfare world as even tougher than the SEALs’. In Boomer’s eyes, Hawke had just become an official member of the brotherhood.
“Right, one more thing and then we’re done talking,” Fitz said. He got up and handed Hawke the transcript of Vicky’s message. He’d used a red pencil to circle four words in the second paragraph.
Hawke stared at it, trying to make some sense of the thing.
“I’ve listened to countless hours of these kinds of tapes,” Fitz said. Depending on the hostage’s state of mind, they tend to use words only a loved one would understand. Or send clues that would be helpful in a rescue situation.”
“Yes?” Hawke said.
“I’m wondering,” Fitz said, lighting another cigarette. “Would Vicky ever use a word like ‘uppermost’ or ‘herein’ in her general conversation?”
“Never,” Hawke said, looking at the paper. “I think I see where you’re going.”
He studied the section in question, reading it aloud:
“—so herein you’ll find me, alive and well but uppermost in my mind is that in whatever time is so far left to me is getting my backside nestled next to yours again—”
“Herein, uppermost, backside,” Hawke said. “She’d never talk like that. Rather cute, however, the backside reference.”
“So ‘herein’ is her location,” Fitz said, spreading out the plan of the hostage building they’d identified. “ ‘Uppermost’ has got to be this top floor. Far left side of the building is here, obviously, and this is the very backside or rear of the structure.”
He put his finger on the floor plan. “That’s her room, gents, right there.”
“We got it!” Stoke exclaimed. “Vicky, you something else, gal.”
“Right, then,” Fitz said. “Why don’t you two guys go get some hot java or chow or take a walk? Visit the Fort Whupass Museum gift shop. Boomer and I have some serious bone-crunching brainstorming to do and no time to do it. Be back here in one hour. That suit you lads?”
Stoke could see Alex about to protest and said, “One hour.” He pushed back his chair and stood up.
When they were outside the door he turned to Hawke and said, “Sorry, boss. I know you want to be in there. But this here one hour is why Thunder and Lightning get the big bucks. Trust me.”
“I’ve got a good feeling about these guys, Stoke,” Hawke said. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet, boss.”
“Least I can do is buy you a little souvenir from the gift shop,” Hawke said, disappearing down the stairway and into the tunnel leading to the Emerald City.
51
Rita Gomez was sitting in her kitchen crying when the front door bell rang.
The small pewter urn containing her late husband was sitting on top of the refrigerator where the kids couldn’t see it. Gomer’s will had stated he wished to be cremated, and the CO’s wife, Ginny, had made sure he got his wish. Twelve hours after his death in “No Man’s Land.”
When Rita had climbed up on the footstool to place it there, she’d seen about two years’ worth of dust coating the fridge top. Dust to dust. That’s what she thought, stepping down from the stool.
On the walk home from the small service at St. Mary’s, Amber and Tiffany kept demanding to know what she was carrying. Except for her two noisy daughters, the whole neighborhood seemed eerily quiet.