The Mercenary (26 page)

Glancing in the mirror, the mercenary checked his patches and transferred his ID and money into the little shoulder pocket. The blue flight cap with a silver oak leaf on one side was already in his left leg pocket. Lastly, the Sandman loosened his watch and turned it around, pilot style, with the face on the inside of his wrist.

Pulling back onto the highway, he took the base exit again and followed the cars to the stop sign. This time, however, he turned right into the strip mall. Pulling around to the side away from the street and restaurant, he got out and stretched a moment, eyes flickering beneath the dark glasses.

There was still a steady stream of traffic onto the base. Across the highway near the runway, he caught flashes from the strobe lights on a pair of fighters waiting to take off. Bending down to tighten his bootlaces, the mercenary stuck the car keys up under his front bumper then stood up, put his hat on and strolled toward the restaurant.

Chapter 19

“Y
ou look like shit,” Colonel John Lee said cheerfully as he walked into Doug Truax's office.

Axe looked up bleary-eyed and said nothing. He didn't have to—his expression said it all.

“Ouch.” Jolly kicked a swivel chair from under a desk and plopped down in it. Truax looked at him distastefully. Jolly, of course, was wearing clean Blues, looked like he'd just gotten a haircut, and his teeth sparkled. Oh, and his shoes were perfectly shined.

“I hate you.”

“I know.”

Axe stretched painfully, then lifted a stained coffee mug to his mouth and sniffed carefully. He and Karen Shipman and the FBI agent, David Abbot, had come straight back to Langley from Colorado yesterday afternoon. They'd immediately gone to work analyzing the forger's information. The biggest problem was that it was all verbal—Womack had realized that he really had something the Feds wanted and wouldn't provide any backup hard data until he was out of Florence. This was something Abbot had to arrange with D.C., and he was across the street now using a classified line trying to do just that.

“Here's a transcription of the recording we made during the interview.” He yawned and tossed a sheaf of papers across the desk.

Jolly ruffled them. “Anything?”

Axe got up and walked to the windows, cracking one open. The parking lots were beginning to fill as Langley came to life. Balancing coffee cups and cradling briefcases, men and women were funneling into the big red brick buildings. Disappearing from reality for another day. Forcing himself to concentrate, he turned and sat on a desktop.

“In the past five years, this little shit Womack did twenty-three document sets. We've eliminated nineteen of these so far.”

“How?”

“Six were women, two were African and four have been confirmed dead by InterPol.”

Jolly rubbed his chin. “And the remaining ones?”

“If we're assuming that this guy is either European or American, we can knock off four South Americans, two Indians and one giant Swede.”

“Leaving four.” John Lee picked up several pieces of paper and waved them gently. “These guys, I guess, since you put big purple stars on them.”

Truax nodded and Jolly scanned them. After several minutes he looked up. “Shit.”

“That's right.”

“It could be any of these.”

Axe yawned again. “He could also be a non-American or non-European. He could also be an Agency asset that turned bad. If that's the case, we won't have anything on him because his legend was prepared up the road.” He jerked his head toward the north and the
other
Langley.

“We need pictures.”

“Exactly. And the fingerprints that had to go with the original application. He couldn't fake those, or any Customs officer would nab him with a mismatch. With that stuff we can search every database in the world.”

“Okay.” Lee stood up. “And that's what Abbot went off to do?”

“Yep. He expects authorization within an hour. The local Fibbies in Colorado will get the data from Womack and email it across the street. Hopefully”—Axe glanced at his watch—“we'll have pictures in a few hours.”

“Then?”

“Then we send them to each of the services, here and abroad, and see if anyone turns up. Also the FBI and its counterparts around the world.”

“Good enough.” Jolly looked around. “Where's the major?” Meaning Shipman.

Axe nodded toward the small office at the back of the room. “Asleep.”

“How's she doing?”

“Actually, very well. She sent copies of the transcript to her DIA buddies hoping they might pick up something we missed. Smart girl behind that colossal chip on her shoulder.”

Lee chuckled. “No bigger than yours.”

Doug Truax stretched his aching shoulders, then stopped. Something from the conversation rang a tiny bell. A connection to something else.
What was it?

Jolly paused and looked back. “Nothing more you can do at the moment. Get some rest yourself.”

Axe stared at him and tried to think. Like that was going to happen.

“M
ornin' fellas.” The Sandman sauntered up to the booth with a cup of coffee in his hand. “Sit . . . sit.” He waved a hand as the three other pilots, all captains, started to stand up.

“Morning, sir,” the one closest to him replied, giving the polite smile required to an unknown more senior officer.

“Mind if I join you?” He slid onto the leather bench without waiting for a reply as the others all shook their heads. Dishes clattered and the low hum of conversation mixed with CNN filled the room.

Sipping his coffee, the mercenary knew their eyes were on him and he gave them a few seconds. The oldest-looking pilot cleared his throat. “Are you here for the ORI, sir?”

“What makes you think that?” The Sandman smiled and continued watching the TV.

The others laughed.

“Maybe the ACC STAN EVAL patch on your shoulder gave you away, sir.”

Standardization and Evaluation on any air base was responsible, among other things, for giving check-rides—aerial exams—to all pilots. It was a very necessary part of flying fighters, but the evaluator pilots, called SEFE's (Standardization and Evaluation Flight Examiners) understandably made most people nervous.

Chuckling good-naturedly, he turned his head and grinned at the captain. “And maybe I'm just here to give
you
a No Notice check.”

“Ouch!” One of the others said. But the captain stared him right in the eye and replied, “Let's do it, sir! I'm always ready.”

The mercenary's smile widened. The perfect answer and the kid seemed to mean it.

“Good . . . maybe you'll get your chance.” He nodded at the pilot's right shoulder patch. It was a fanned-out deck of cards, sevens and Aces. “Might hafta pay the Gamblers a visit. Good patch.”

All three of them beamed with the genuine pride of belonging to a top fighter squadron.

“I want one like
that
, sir.” The older one dipped his head toward the Sandman's left shoulder. “I was the alternate on this last board.” The other two pilots also stared at the black-and-yellow Fighter Weapons School patch on the mercenary's arm—there was no higher achievement for a fighter pilot than to graduate from that six-month-long course. It was essentially a PhD in tactical aviation and the art of killing. Each fighter wing sent its top instructor pilot out to Nellis AFB to be torn down and remade. It was a brutal school, and the Patch, as it was called, was the prize a grad would wear for the rest of his career.

“So did I when I was sitting in your seat,” he said calmly. “More than anything.”

They all nodded. They could all understand that.

“So you really are here for the ORI, right, sir?”

The mercenary added sugar and stirred his coffee again. “Well, I like Shaw but I wouldn't be here for the sights.”

“What sights?” One of them laughed.

“Exactly. So yes, I'm here for the exercise. The one, incidentally”—he looked around at them with a bemused expression—“that none of you are supposed to know anything about.”

The older one snorted. “Well, when we have a Dash One party, pencil whip the nonflying training bullshit, and the cops stack up orange cones everywhere, it's not too hard to figure out.”

They all laughed again. Making paperwork pretty was part of any evaluation, so Stan Eval in each squadron usually got all the pilots together to go through their individual flying publications prior to a big inspection. This included checklists and systems manuals, called Dash Ones, and all the gradebooks containing permanent records of their flights.

“Yeah . . . there aren't any secrets in a fighter wing. But”—he glanced at his watch—“I'd say you guys don't hafta worry for a few hours yet.”

“Well that's good news,” replied one of the others, a stocky redhead. “I've got a flight physical this morning.”

“He just can't wait to get Doc's finger up his pooper,” the other pilot said, then winced when the redhead slugged him on the arm.

“Closet Eagle Driver, huh?” The Sandman deadpanned and the others grinned. F-15 pilots were always the brunt of any homosexual joke due to one isolated but highly discussed old incident. But he saw his opening.

“If you guys are headed in, I'd appreciate a lift. Gotta run by the flight doc too, and my rental car bit the big one.” he jerked a thumb toward the parking lot.

“No problem, sir. We're about to head out right now—0830 Mass Brief.”

He nodded. Some squadrons still did that, especially on Mondays, to get everyone together and discuss the upcoming week. Throwing a ten-dollar-bill on the table, he stood up. “Thanks, I'll run get my things then.”

Minutes later the pilots filed out, flipping on their blue flight caps and stuffing change in their pockets as they strutted toward a dark blue BMW.

“Shotgun!” one of them called, for the comfort of riding in the front seat.

But the driver, the redhead, said, “The colonel gets it, numbnuts.”

Smiling broadly, the mercenary shook his head and put his hand on the back door, away from the driver's side. “Fair's fair. He called it. Not sure I wanna be that close to him if he's think'n' about fingers up his butt.”

Hooting loudly, they all piled in.

The line to the gate had thinned out a bit. As they crept up to the waiting security policeman, the Sandman pulled a plain black notepad from his backpack and began scribbling. The redhead passed his ID to the cop, who looked at the front and the back and scanned it. He glanced at the reader, then bent down and peered into the BMW. Seeing three other uniforms, he straightened, gave the ID back and snapped a salute.

“Thank you sir, have a good day.”

“Same to ya.” The redhead casually returned the salute, replaced his ID, and slowly drove through the main gate of Shaw Air Force Base. Sliding his notepad into a leg pocket, the mercenary gazed out the window and listened to the pilots talk about their upcoming day.

The main drive split around an immaculate white wooden church and they veered off to the right on Houston Avenue.

“You know, I should drop in on the OG before heading to the flight doc. How 'bout dropping me there on your way past?”

“No sweat, sir.”

The Operations Group commander was responsible for flying combat operations. Since it was his neck on the block for the ORI, then it seemed normal that a visiting evaluator would pay him a visit. As the BMW careened into the little parking lot next to the flight line, the Sandman punched the driver's arm. “You guys rock, and thanks for the lift. Won't forget it.”

“So I suppose we'll see you later, sir?”

The mercenary got out and smiled. “You never know, now, do you?” He stepped back and waved as the car drove off. It was 8:16.

“S
o what's the latest?” General Sturgis said without preamble. In twenty minutes he had his normal 0900 Monday-morning “look ahead” meeting to go over the coming events of the week. He knew there'd be questions about the Neville investigation and the latest incident in Texas.

Lieutenant Colonel Lawson, the Security Forces commander, took the plunge. “Sir. In conjunction with the local police, TSA, and FBI, we've eliminated, as suspects, all commercial airline passengers from Norfolk International, Patrick Henry, and Richmond International airports for the period of Colonel Neville's death.”

“Murder.”

“Yessir. Murder. Also one thousand fourteen out of one thousand one hundred fifty-two AMTRAK passengers have also been eliminated.”

“How?” Jolly Lee asked.

“The lists were initially cut down by about seventy-five percent by discounting anyone under twenty and over sixty, all females, and anyone physically handicapped.”

“He could be feigning a handicap—been done before,” Axe added.

Lawson looked up. “We verified each case with a relative or physician.”

“And the remaining train passengers?” Sturgis asked. “What about them?”

“The last thirty-eight are being located through their credit-card companies, state IDs, or passport information.”

“And if they paid cash and didn't use an ID?” Axe asked again.
Like a professional would do.

“They have to show some ID to board a train, and all train stations have security cameras. If we can't identify someone, then we'll frame-check the cameras from the stations in Newport News, Norfolk, and Virginia Beach against the face the FBI will provide. Then we'll have a face, a name and a train to start from.”

That sounded pretty thin to Doug Truax, and glancing at some of the others' faces he saw they felt the same.

“What else?” Sturgis looked at his watch.

“Rental-car companies have all cooperated and come up negative. As for charter aircraft”—he flipped a page over—“all but two have accounted for their passengers.”

“What's their story?”

“Well, one of them left for South America—Brazil, I think—the day after Neville's death. If that was our killer he's long gone. The other one, Sundowner Aero, is a mom-and-pop outfit with one aircraft, and neither principal can be located.”

“Sounds promising.” Sturgis sat up, interested in this.

“Sounds like a fishing trip to me, sir. Or a weekend in Atlantic City.”, Axe said.

John Lee shot him a warning glance as Sturgis's eyes went beady. “But getting the jet's N number should be easy. It would have to be on any flight plan filed, and the FAA would have a record of it.”

“Unless he killed the owners, dumped them in the back, took off VFR, and flew to the Bahamas.” Axe frowned at Jolly. Staff work had made him stupid.

Sturgis held up a hand. “Okay. It's not failsafe, but it is something.” He looked at Lawson. “Find out what the FAA has. Anything else?”