Countdown: H Hour (38 page)

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

So when you are requested to pay up or be molested

You will find it better policy to say:

“We never pay any one Dane-geld . . . ”

—Rudyard Kipling,
“Danegeld”

TCS Headquarters, Tondo, Manila, Republic of the Philippines

Lucas said, “Out of your cages, Kanos, you’re going to get redeemed.” He motioned for Crisanto to open the cages holding the filthy and stinking prisoners. This, the ex-Philippine Marine did, being careful to only open one at a time. As each of the Americans was dragged out, a group of Crisanto’s men flipped them over to their bellies and lashed their wrists together.

“Now, no fucking talking, assholes.”

Benson kept his face carefully blank. At this point, they’d been confined, and tightly, long enough that they were almost incapable of walking under their own power. There was nothing wrong with the sergeant’s mind, however.
Terry and the regiment might pay or they might not. They might try a rescue. On balance, I think that’s more likely.

“Where are we going?” Benson asked.

He was rewarded with a kick to his side, from Crisanto, just above the hip. It landed close enough to his kidney to be staggeringly painful. Benson gasped from it, biting his lip against crying out. Nor did the pain go away right away.

“ ‘No talking,’ the man said. That means no questions.”

When the pain faded enough to allow a measure of thought, Benson tried to concentrate on what he and the other two might be able to do to help, in the event of a rescue. Nothing came immediately to mind. The best he could think to do was whistle a couple of bars from Tom Lehrer’s “Be Prepared.”

At first, TCS made the Americans walk under their own power. When Washington fell over, though, Lucas ordered Crisanto to help them. Two of the latter’s men, one on each side, grabbed the Americans’ bound arms, holding them up. Their shuffling steps remained uncertain.

There was a van, white painted, with short curtains hung around the rear windows, outside one of the headquarters’ broad double doors. The back doors were open already; Crisanto’s men helped the Americans stuff themselves into the back. Those back doors were then locked from the outside. After that, Lucas, Crisanto, and four of Crisanto’s men piled in the seats in front. The Americans didn’t see it, but two of the captors waved hands under their own noses at the stench.

“Keep your head and eyes to the rear,” Crisanto said, pulling out a Philippine Marines issue combat knife and rapping Searle’s head with the butt to add an exclamation point.

Benson said nothing, Instead, once the passenger doors closed, and the van started moving, he leaned his shoulders into, first, Washington and, then, Perez, seated to either side of him, and began flexing and exercising his legs, at least insofar as the cramped space permitted. Again he whistled a bar from “Be Prepared:”
Don’t solicit for your sister; that’s not nice.

Overhead, the RPV descended to about twelve hundred feet, its stabilized camera controlled by an image contrasting computer back on the
Bland
. At that range, the license plate could be read. The computer could also analyze the color of the van, presented green to the viewers on the screen but not to it, to differentiate the target van from every other.

The aircraft was still quiet enough not to be heard below, at least by anyone inside a vehicle, with the sound of the engine running and of the road vibrations. Unfortunately, the stall speed of a fixed wing RPV is somewhat greater than that of a van at a red light.

MV
Richard Bland
, Wharf at Barangay 129, Tondo,

Manila, Republic of the Philippines

“Fuck!” cursed the pilot, “I lost them.”

Lox, who had almost begun to nod off, jerked alert, heart pounding. “Wha . . . what? What happened?”

“They stopped at a light”—the pilot’s finger tapped the map display—“right here at Capulong and Juan Luna. I had to do a three-sixty. The camera lost them behind a building, which fucked up the stabilization. By the time I did the turn and reacquired the same spot, the light had changed and they were gone. I guess I was following too close but I wanted the license plate.”

“Shit. Shitshitshit. Aida?”

“What lane were they in?” the policewoman asked.

“Ummm . . . left lane.”

“Follow Capulong, east,” she said. “It will become Tayuman. Then it will link with Arsenio H. Lacson Avenue. Lacson goes south which is, I
think
where they’re heading.”

“Do it,” said Lox. “And once you reacquire them, if you do, get some altitude so you don’t lose them again.”

“What if we don’t find it?” Aida asked.

Lox shook his head. “I don’t know. Things get a lot harder, anyway.”

Long minutes passed, with the image of the ground passing underneath the RPV flashing across the screen. There were other vans, even white ones. The paint, however, didn’t quite match. There were variables in manufacture, variables caused by exposure to the sun. There were even variables caused by a none-too-skillful job of repainting a stolen van.

The pilot set his curser on one likely candidate. It
looked
the same but then so had another that the computer had rejected. He clicked to mark the van for analysis, then moved the curser to a different box and clicked to begin the analysis.

The answer came flashing back on the screen: “Match.”

Lox reached over and squeezed the pilot’s shoulder. In another context, and with a different tone of voice, his next words might have been friendly. “Now
don’t
lose them again.”

Then he went back to directing the four shooter teams to keep them in as close as possible to Welch and Graft, without arousing suspicions.

Los Baños, Laguna, Republic of the Philippines

Ferd Franceschi drove as fast as road conditions would permit. Given that the National Highway hadn’t been all that well maintained in some years, ever since shortly after the current depression had begun, this wasn’t all that fast and was, in any case, well below the posted speed limit.

He, Malone, and two of the last four remaining and available men from Graft’s team rumbled along the National Highway, heading west. They’d been among the two cars sent east of the big lake, the Laguna de Bay, and now having to race back to get into supporting distance.

Lox sent a message, “One mile north of Tagaytay City.” At the same time, their laptop’s screen changed to show a new route. Malone, with the laptop seated, in fact, on his lap, said, “Shit, that takes us way out of our way, all the way to Santo Rosa City. What say we—”

“Shut up, Malone” every man said, simultaneously. Malone would be a long time in regaining his street cred after the Maricel debacle.

“Just a thought,” he said, apologetically.

MV
Richard Bland
, Wharf at Barangay 129, Tondo, Manila

Lox stared at the map. To Aida he said, “The last three stops have been all around Taal Lake: Lemery, Lipa City, and Tanauan City. And Welch is being sent now to Tagaytay. Does that mean the switch point is going to be around the lake?”

“Tell you in about twenty minutes,” Aida replied. “Rather, I
may
be able to tell you. But not before they commit to either Aguinaldo Highway or to the National Highway.”

“Fair enough,” Lox said. “Though even there, that’s assuming . . . ”

“That’s assuming TCS isn’t being devious with their route. But why should they? Oh, sure,” she conceded, “it might have made sense to lose a possible tail right after leaving Tondo. But they didn’t even try. They’re not going to try to lose a tail now that never had a chance to attach itself to them. And . . . ”

“Yes?” Lox prodded.

Aida spoke perhaps a bit tentatively. “I think they’ve maybe gotten a little complacent, maybe even arrogant. That happens even to pretty smart people.”

Lox, thinking of Malone and the hooker, thought but did not say,
no shit.

“There are three or four things,” Aida continued, “that I’d have expected them to do that they haven’t done. They haven’t done them before, either, mind you, at least not that I know of. But by now, if they were real pros, they’d have refined their procedures.”

“Like how?” Lox asked.

“Well, for starters,” Aida offered, “why no tail car or lead car for themselves? For another, if I were in the business of kidnapping people for fun and profit, I’d have interrogated the people I kidnapped rigorously—maybe not as rigorously as you, but then I’m more experienced and don’t need as much coercion. If they’d done that, they’d have a better idea—yeah, no bullshit between us; anyone can be broken . . . anyone—of what they were facing. If I were them and I had your people, and I knew what you were, I’d have given your people back at the speed of light and tossed in the heads of the people who kidnapped them in the hope you’d call it even. They didn’t do that last, so I doubt they did much of the first, either. That’s arrogance.”

Lox mulled that for a bit. “It’s also possible they’ve got an ace in the hole we don’t know about, either.”

“Yeah . . . maybe. What, though?”

“I dunno,” he said, “but I’m sure thinking hard on it.”

Silang Crossing, Tagaytay, Cavite, Republic of the Philippines

There was a monument of some kind to the right of the Suzuki. It was too far away to read the plaque, though the bronze statue atop the thing suggested it had something to do with the liberation. A high sign nearby, sitting on a pole higher than the monument, was altogether too close to be in very good taste. The sign called upon somebody or other to, “Make Tagaytay . . . A City of Character.”

Welch and Graft waited . . . and waited . . . and waited.

Mixed between anticipation and boredom, Graft asked, “What the fuck is a ‘city of character,’ boss?”

“I dunno. I suspect it’s a little like the Homer Simpson Award for Excellence. Means nothing, in other words.”

“Oh.”

Lox came up on the net. “Boss, just a heads up. We’ve got teams all around you, mostly at a distance of about a mile. We’re still tracking the people who have our people. Their van’s probably going to pass either very close to you or right past you, in about an hour . . . maybe an hour and fifteen minutes. Aida and I are pretty sure that the exchange is going to take place somewhere within a few miles, ten at the outside, of your current location. There are a dozen prime spots for an exchange within that radius. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of at least mildly possibles, all told.”

“Roger,” Welch replied.
I feel that old sinking feeling coming on.

“This is a gamble,” Lox said, “but I’m vectoring two of the teams to cover the two we think most likely, and the other two to get in position where they can, with a little luck, get in position to cover ten more.”

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

It is certain that stealing nourishes courage,

strength, skill, tact, in a word, all the virtues useful to

a republican system and consequently to our own.

Lay partiality aside, and answer me: is theft, whose

effect is to distribute wealth more evenly, to be

branded as a wrong in our day, under our government

which aims at equality? Plainly, the answer is no.

—Marquis de Sade

MV
Richard Bland
, Wharf at Barangay 129, Tondo,

Manila, Republic of the Philippines

“Oops, I was wrong,” said Aida, at the van turned left on Tagaytay-Calamba, heading east.

“Shit!” Lox exclaimed. “All teams, back in your vehicles. Prepare to move to God-knows-where.”

Aida held up a hand, saying, “Wait a second. Oh, yes, get them mounted up again. But there’s another possibility than that they’re heading east.” She hesitated a moment, then asked Lox, “Do you trust my hunches?”

He thought about it for an equal moment and found, “Yes, I do.”

“Okay . . . two teams along Payapa Road, one at the Evercrest Golf Club and the other about three fourths of a mile south of it. The other two along the Tagaytay-Nusugbu road, one north of Splendido Golf Course, the other three fourths of a mile east of that.”

“Okay.” Lox sent the orders. “Now, can you explain why?”

“No, I can’t. Maybe in a few minutes I’ll know.”

Lox let it pass for now. At least Aida had an idea, which was more than he could say at the moment.

Silang Crossing, Tagaytay, Cavite, Republic of the Philippines

Welch’s phone rang. “Southeastern tip of the Splendido Golf Course. Then get out of your car. Keep your cell handy. I don’t suppose you have a compass?”

“No,” Welch lied.

“No matter. I’ll direct you from there.”

Graft restarted the vehicle, then pulled out onto the road, leaving the monument to whatever it was behind.

Lucas pointed out to the driver the road he was to take, an exceedingly sharp right. A half-bent over pole bore the sign, “Ligaya Drive,” in faded white letters.

In back, Benson looked at Washington and gave him an elbow. They’d all heard that last command, “Then get out of your car.” That was a pretty fair indicator that the maze they’d been running Terry through had just about come to an end. But did Washington understand that? A slow nod, almost but not exactly in time with the thumping of the van, said he did. Benson then repeated the elbowing with Perez. He, too, understood, returning Benson’s elbowing with two of his own.

At least, I hope that’s what that means.

MV
Richard Bland
, Wharf at Barangay 129, Tondo,

Manila, Republic of the Philippines

“Bingo!” Aida exclaimed. To the pilot she said, “Leave off the van. I know where it’s going.”

“Wait,” Lox told the pilot. To Aida he said, “That one you’re going to have to explain.”

“They wouldn’t have told Mr. Welch to leave the car unless one or both of two things were true. Either there’s somebody waiting at the tip of Splendida Golf Course, maybe to search him for arms, or he’s going to be sent walking into the woods to the east, where the van will be waiting. I want the pilot to sweep that area.”

“Why?”

“That hunch of
yours
. Whatcha wanna bet that TCS already has security teams on the ground around the area where they’re going to do the exchange?”

Lox considered,
Even if we can’t reacquire the van, and based on the light traffic and limited roads, we just might be able to, big,
big
advantage to be gained by taking out their security. Especially if they don’t know we did.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Yeah, that makes fair sense.” He told the RPV pilot, “Do it.”

“Ya know,” said the pilot, watching his screens and puffing a cigarette held in his left hand, “while it’s not necessarily impossible that three gay couples, all carrying rifles, decided to go out into the woods in the middle of the night to fuck each other, the facts that a) they’re not fucking each other, and b) they’ve formed an almost perfect equilateral triangle on the ground, strongly suggests, at least to me, that they’re not gay, that they are there for security, that their positions frame the center point where the exchange is supposed to take place, and, finally, that our little lady here is a genius.”

Aida felt her face blush. She also felt a moment’s gratitude that the subdued light in the container couldn’t show it.

“Lemme tell Terry. And then we’re going to start vectoring teams into position to cover the likely exchange point, and to kill those motherfuckers deader than chivalry.”

“I’m gonna sweep a little wider,” said the pilot.

Tagaytay-Nusugbu Highway, Cavite,

Republic of the Philippines

Ferd first killed his headlights and then eased his car into the jungle just off the road to the south. With a twist of the key the engine died. It was inherently suspicious, but the pilot hadn’t found any TCS security teams lying farther out than the three who formed the triangle. A risk? Yes, and they knew it. Still, it was an unavoidable one and a small one.

All four were mufti-clad. Their civilian clothing, at least the upper half of it, disappeared under battle dress taken from the trunk, along with their weapons. Floppy, broad-brimmed hats of the same material went on their heads. It was at least within the realm of possibility that the TCS security folks had acquired night vision equipment, since, according to Aida, they weren’t a particularly poor organization. The fact that none had been recovered from the safe house in Muntinlupa said they had what had been there, to a certainty.

The dye in their battle dress would, if not outright defeat that, at least reduce its effectiveness. They’d debated taping IR chemlights, the tiny, 4.5mm versions, to their hats for mutual identification and control, but decided against it precisely because of that high likelihood of night vision equipment in the hands of their present enemies.

Ferd, as junior man, took over the Pecheneg. Malone, for all that he was on the collective doo-doo list, was still considered one of the better shots in the company. He got the Lapua .338. The team leader, Sergeant Trimble, pulled NVGs over his face and took the submachine gun, one of the Sterlings they’d gotten from Ben and that was now part of the Second Battalion’s very esoteric armory. The .510 Whisper went into the hand of the best shot on the team, Sergeant Yamada, who despite his name and partial ancestry, stood about six-two once he’d unfolded himself from the cramped interior of the subcompact. The weapons were already locked and loaded; no need to make a racket with jerking bolts if it could be avoided.

Lox had vectored them to a spot off the road where began a long, winding, north-south ridge line. Quietly, they moved off from their car and formed in a single column on the east side of that ridge. Then, as quckly as the need for silence would permit, they began moving south.

MV
Richard Bland
, Wharf at Barangay 129, Tondo,

Manila, Republic of the Philippines

Aida watched the progress of the teams on the pilot’s screen. He’d done something or other to mark them, one through four, with Graft’s vehicle as five and six, for himself and Terry.

“What would you have done,” she asked Lox, “if TCS had had four or five security teams out? How would you have handled that?”

“What looks like four of our teams,” he replied, “is actually eight. If we’d had to, we’d have held the longer-ranged guns, supported by a light machine gun, in place as soon as they spotted a target. Then we’d have had the shorter-range .510 caliber rifles with the team leaders move in close. Being down to two men at that point, they’d have been quieter and could have gotten in closer. We could have handled eight, presupposing that we’d gotten away with getting ours in position. It’s called ‘Factor P,’ for plenty, and is the basis of all sound military planning, in every area from administration to intelligence to operations to logistics.”

“But how did you know how many to send?”

“You never do,” he said, his voice ripe with cynicism, “which is where the other basis of all sound military planning—make it up, make do, or do without—comes in. That, and be prepared to pay the price. That’s another important factor.”

“Oh. Police don’t really think that way.”

“Different missions,” Lox said, “for different circumstances. So, different attitudes, different patterns of thought.”

“What happens if you can’t get them all with the first volley?”

“Then we fight in closer.”

“Until they’re all dead?”

“Until they’re all dead,” Lox confirmed.

“Yeah . . . like you said, ‘different patterns of thought.’ What if you can’t get enough in position to engage them all at once?”

“Then Welch pays, we get our people safe . . . and
then
we kill ’em all. Oh, and take our money back.”

“You sure you’ll be able to do that?” she asked.

“No.”

Splendida Golf Course, Taal, Republic of the Philippines

“Are we being watched?” Welch asked Lox, over the radio.

His earpiece answered back, “I doubt anyone in the clubhouse can see you, but it’s just barely possible that their northwestern security team can. So, if you’re thinking of having Graft tail you in, I’d recommend against until the shooting starts, at which point it won’t matter.”

“Roger.”

Welch waited, sometimes pacing around the Suzuki, for the phone to ring. The satchel full of cash he’d placed atop the car, not really for ease of retrieval but just to have something to fill up a few seconds with activity while he waited.

Making small talk, Graft said, “I’ll bet this is a gorgeous course. I’d like to play it some time.”

Welch who, after quite a few years watching U.S. Army officers waste their time—he considered it a waste—on golf courses, would have disagreed. At the moment though, he just didn’t really care. “So take leave after the mission. Assuming, of course.”

“Yeah,” Graft grunted, “assuming. Funny, isn’t it?”

“Isn’t what?”

“With the whole world in depression, the government here can’t keep the streetlights lit and the roads patched. But someone is paying for golf courses like this one.”

“This is for the rich,” Welch said. “The clever ones of those don’t lose money in a depression; they profit from it.”

“I never took you for a Marxist, boss,” Graft said.

“I’m not. You don’t have to be a Marxist to see that the very rich, the ones with no citizenship that means anything to them, especially, are different. You don’t have to be a Marxist to despise them either.”

The phone rang.

MV
Richard Bland,
Wharf at Barangay 129, Tondo,

Manila, Republic of the Philippines

Lox ordered, “All teams, Welch is walking forward. SITREP on targeting.”

“Team One, two hundred and fifty meters from the western security team. Targets engageable with the Whisper.”

“Team Two. Tracking the eastern security team. Don’t think we can get any closer than we are. Long shot for the Whisper. Probably have to use the Lapua, too. There’s a drop off ahead of us. If we go into it we’ll lose them. As far as I can see, we won’t pick them up again until we’re within thirty to fifty meters. That’s pretty close.”

“Team Three”—that was the grouping of Trimble, Yamada, Franceschi, and Malone—“at the southern tip of the ridge. We’ve got the northern team dead to rights.”

“Team Four, covering the presumed exchange point. There’s a van . . . I’d guess
the
van, rolling up a trail. It’s going slow. We can’t always track Welch as he walks forward.”

“Terry,” Lox sent, “unless you say ‘no,’ I’m going to have One and Three fire now.”

“Why? Why without Two?”

“We can’t get Two forward enough for a sure quiet shot without making more noise getting there than is safe,” Lox explained.

Lox could hear Welch gulp. “Okay.” He gulped again, the button mike picking it up faintly. “Do it.”

Laural, Batangas, Republic of the Philippines

Yamada heard the command in his earpiece. He took a single breath, then half let it out. He had both targets within his field of view. They stood about fifteen feet apart, one facing out, one in. The range was three hundred, meaning the accuracy of the rifle was sufficient to place a bullet within just about three inches of his aim point. That was enough for a head shot but,
Why take a chance I don’t have to? Still, wish I had some damned frangible. Ah, but with this low a velocity, frangible might not work. Nothing’s perfect, I suppose.

He’d already decided which one to go for first, the one facing outward who had a chance, a slim one but still a chance, of seeing the Whisper’s very minimal muzzle flash.

He let that last half breath out, took another, and then began squeezing his trigger.