Cody's Army (15 page)

“Absolutely. We are not opposed to as much retribution as required to discourage the terrorists; however, their annihilation
is not our prime objective.”

“Understood.”

The Marine bird colonel lifted his hand at Cody. “The President has asked me to tell you that you have his strongest possible
support on this mission. If you need anything and can’t get it through channels, call me direct. My number is in your briefing
papers.”

Lund stood. “Thank you, Cody; men. This is what we hope is the start of a new attack on terrorism by the United States.”

“Good luck, and good hunting.”

A half hour later, Pete Lund sat in the Oval Office with the President and his top advisor on military operations. The advisor
was Brigadier General Will Johnson, in mufti.

“I still don’t like it, Mr. President,” growled Johnson. “Sure, this Cody has a good record, he gets things done, has had
military combat duty, and worked with the CIA. But it still doesn’t seem right.”

The President turned to Lund. “Comment?”

“Absolutely, Mr. President. Will, you haven’t been on the ground. You haven’t fired a shot in thirty years. You are not thinking
logically when you say a battalion-sized landing party in Beirut would do the job simpler, and better. You could never gear
up a battalion to move in forty-eight hours, let alone put them on-site.

“You could not determine the reception of the dogfaces or Marines on the objective. Cody will go in, do the job, if it can
be done at all, and get our people and the other passengers out of there with minimum losses. And we do not stand to get our
noses bloodied in any fashion.”

“People already know about his move,” Will protested. “I had a call from a reporter asking about our task force to Lebanon!”

“He was out fishing, Will,” the President said. “No, there would be nothing covert about sending in even a thousand men. That
would create a worldwide flap we might never live down.”

“But
four
men, Mr. President?”

“Depends on the men, Will,” Lund said quickly. “I’ll put Cody and his four up against a platoon of regular troops any day.”

“Gentlemen, this is moving us nowhere. When is their plane set to take off, Lund?”

“It left ten minutes ago, sir. I checked just before we arrived here.”

“Enough. We have made a committment. I thought then it was the right move, and I still do. We support them all the way. If
something goes wrong, it’s only four Americans not connected with the government in any way. Now, on to other, more pressing
matters.”

Lund listened, but his thoughts were with Cody’s Army team in that B-52 heading for Cairo, Egypt. He prayed real hard that
this would not somehow prove to be another double-cross—the way Cody had been set up in Nicaragua.

TEN

O
fficially, the four civilians on the Air Force B-52 bomber were hitchhikers. Unofficially, the flight had been arranged to
take Cody’s Army from Edwards Air Force Base to an Egyptian airfield just outside of Cairo.

Time was the essential consideration. At first they had toyed with the idea of using jet fighters with two seats, but when
they took a second look at Rufe Murphy and his 260 pounds of muscle, they changed their minds.

The B-52 could make the 5,200-mile jump to Cairo in a little under eight hours, depending on the headwinds. The four passengers
flaked out on the floor of the big bomber and slept, later sat in jump seats and talked. It was the longest flight any of
them could remember.

They were going as civilians, wore mufti, and had suitcases, and there was not a single weapon among them, not even a knife.
They would be picking up their working “tools” at the American Embassy in Beirut, from the Marine detachment on guard-duty
there.

It was 05:32 when they landed at dawn at the Cairo airbase, where they were met by the U.S. Ambassador to Egypt. Cody had
not realized what a high priority this mission had until then. They had lost seven hours in transit. They were driven directly
to the Cairo civil airport, where they had been booked on a 07:00 Alitalia Airlines flight. The Italian commercial jet would
take them to Beirut in under two hours, nonstop.

Cody stared out the window at the desolate landscape and knew he would soon be fighting on land that was much the same: hot,
dry, and with little natural vegetation. He disliked the idea that they could not bring in familiar weapons. But it would
cause too many problems. They could go with new tools from the Marines.

He preferred his own weapons, but it would simply take an hour to become familiar with the SMGs and other tools they had ordered.
He hoped the Marines had come up with all the right weapons. Some of his crew were particular about the tools they used.

As they turned on their final approach to the runway at Beirut, Cody could see three different downtown buildings smoldering.
There was probably no water pressure to put out the fires even if there happened to be any firemen still on duty.

What once had been the jewel of the Mideast, one of the most beautiful cities in the world, lay a gutted, defiled ruin. He
knew it would look even worse once on the ground. This was simply the continuation of a 400-year-old war. How could a people
survive with only occasional stretches of peace, freedom, and prosperity?

He looked around as much as possible as they taxied toward the terminal, but he could not see the captured airliner. It probably
had been towed to a far corner of the field. They moved quickly down the ramp and into the terminal. At the incoming gate
three Americans waited—their reception committee. Their suitcases were claimed from the baggage check, and they moved through
customs with no trouble.

Cody knew dozens of men from the CIA, but he recognized none of the three They could be from the skeleton diplomatic staff
at Beirut.

The airport terminal showed scars, pockmarks, in some of the concrete and plaster exterior walls. One room had suffered bomb
damage, and one section of wall lockers was still twisted and warped where the explosives had been set off. Blast marks showed
on the ceiling and smoke stains marred the walls.

The three embassy men had said little in the terminal. Once in the embassy cars, moderate-size European-made rigs, they relaxed
a little. Each embassy man carried a snub-snouted Ingram submachine gun under his coat on a strap around his neck. They were
so small as to be practically invisible.

It was 09:12 hours.

Cody’s team traveled in two cars. The embassy type with Cody nodded tiredly once the car door was shut.

“So far, so good. We were afraid something might have leaked and you would have a hotter reception. This place has been wired
for action ever since the hijack.”

“What do you have?”

The man in the backseat with Cody held out his hand.

“My name is Gerry Oxe, cultural attaché. Damn little, I’m afraid. Not much that will help. Your cover is as a TV news team,
right? We’ve got some equipment for you, and an expert to show you how to use it enough so you can get by.”

“What about our working tools?”

“We have everything you asked for. The Marine Corps armorer is at your disposal, and you can test and fire-in any of the weapons
you want to. We have an underground range. Your contact will be Jack Gorman.”

Gorman.

And the past hurled in to punch Cody in the gut. Lund had neglected to mention Gorman back at Andrews…

The diplomat let a smile creep over his face.

“I see you know and love Mr. Gorman, the fair-haired boy of the Mideastern section of the Company.”

“I won’t work with Gorman,” said Cody. “Radio Langley that I want a new contact.”

“No time. He’s your man, like it or fly home.”

Five minutes later, Cody and his men milled around a table inside the embassy that held coffee, beer, and snacks. Cody looked
up as Gorman walked into the room.

Gorman saw Cody, and a sneer twisted his face as he started to say something, while at the same moment Cody fought down an
impulse to finish what he’d started eighteen months ago in Nicaragua. But just then the ambassador himself scurried up.

His name was Stewart Tabler; an excellent money-raiser for the party and a wasted diplomat in an impossible situation, he
appeared oblivious to the brittle atmosphere between these men.

“We’ve got troubles,” he blurted without preamble.

“My number-two man will brief you and your crew, Cody, on the political situation here.

“In Lebanon,
everything
is politics. Don’t expect to move with any freedom in the western half of the city or in the countryside; it’s all hostile
territory.

“Even the east section is not always safe for Americans.”

“We’re Australian.”

“Yes, that’s right. So, let’s get at it.”

The political briefing took fifteen minutes and covered much the same material they got in Washington. Then all four went
to the weapons room.

The Marine sargeant in charge was in his forties, an E-12 with stripes all over his sleeve. He had red hair and a big grin.
He stood with his fists planted on his hips in front of a folding table that held the weapons each man had requested. In back
of them were two dozen other assorted handguns, automatic weapons and SMGs.

“Understand you boys know how to use these tools,” Paterson growled. “Damn well better. You fuck up these weapons and you’ll
answer to me.” He grinned then and waved at the table. “Take your pick. I can get almost anything else you want, domestic
or foreign. Problem is, though, I’m fresh out of Sharps, Spencers and Gatling guns.”

“I think we’ll get along,” Cody acknowledged.

The men went to the weapons. Each had a silenced Uzi 9-mm submachine gun. This model had a blowback system and an overhung
bolt that reduced the overall length of the unit.

Cody picked up two of the 32-round magazines and a clip that fastened them together so that when one of the clipped-together
magazines was dry, it could be pulled out, flipped over, and the second magazine, still filled, was slammed home for thirty-two
more quick rounds.

Cody liked the Uzi. It spat out 900 parabellum rounds a minute, about three seconds of sustained firing per magazine. The
Uzi was a close-in weapon with a maximum effective range of 200 yards. Cody figured most of their work would be eyeball-to-moustache
anyway.

He took a trusty Colt Commander .45 as a sidearm, and then began picking out a collection of knives and specialty weapons
for his kit, including a garotte wire with wooden handles on each end and a half dozen other silent killers.

“We standardize on Uzi’s,” Cody instructed. “Pick out another SMG if you want one, but keep it a 9mm parabellum so our ammo
will match.”

Cody added an M-203 grenade launcher attached to an M-16 rifle. The rifle and launcher could both be fired at the same time.
The launcher gave him a 380-yard throw with the small 40mm grenades.

Cody test-fired his Uzi in the adjacent firing range. With the spray effect of an SMG there was little need to fine-tune the
sighting. The Colt Commander was different. At twenty yards, he wanted to know where the cluster of hits would be on the target.
Cody blasted off six rounds and had the target brought up. The weapon fired slightly high and to the left. He would remember
that.

Twenty minutes later all four men had picked their weapons. Caine went for a Beretta, Hawkeye grabbed his ordered .44 Automag.

Caine held the big weapon and almost dropped it. The 6.5-inch barrel made the overall length 11.5 inches.

“You really going to carry that anchor?” Caine bellowed. “Thing weighs a ton.”

“And it will stop a charging bull elephant,” Hawkeye gloated. “Fires a 240-grain slug with a muzzle velocity of 1,650 feet
per second. The round is produced by mating a .44 revolver bullet with a cut-down 7.62 NATO rifle cartridge. Closest by-damn
thing to a rifle you can get in a handgun.”

Caine went with Cody to another table, where they selected the latest plastic explosive, the Army’s C-5, and the necessary
detonators and timers. Cody let Caine finish that part of his job and thanked the sergeant.

They moved their weapons and ammo to a room that would serve as their home base.

Next came a briefing by a TV newsman. He was a reporter for CBS and looked them over for a moment.

“Sorry, men, you just can’t fake it as on-camera reporters, and you don’t want to carry around a twenty-pound sound camera.
Let’s make you advance men for the reporting team. You’re looking for locations, hot spots, trying to set up interviews. That
you can get by with. You’ll need an Arabic-speaking translator unless you can jabber the lingo.”

That briefing was over and Cody sat down across a table with Gorman, who had stayed well removed from Cody’s group the whole
time.

“Kill any nuns and children lately, Jack?”

“You’re not a professional, Cody, you’re just a killing machine with no brains. You want this assignment or do I fire your
ass right here?”

“You can’t, but I can clout you to death. Now tell me what else you know about the hijacking and then I never want to see
you again…alive.”