The sentry walked right past Ding's position, looking but not seeing the form under the bush. He made it another step before he heard a swishing sound, but then it was too late. By that time, he was facedown on the gravel, and he felt the hilt of a knife at the back of his neck.
"Ninja owns the night, boy! You're history."
"You got me, sure as hell," the man whispered in reply.
Chavez rolled him over. It was a major, and his headgear was a beret. Maybe the OPFOR wasn't MPs after all.
"Who are you?" the victim asked.
"Staff Sergeant Domingo Chavez, sir."
"Well, you just killed a jungle-warfare instructor, Chavez. Good job. Mind if I get a drink? It's been a long night." Chavez allowed the man to roll into the bushes, where he, too, took a pull off his canteen. "What outfit you from – wait a minute, 3rd of the 17th, right?"
"We own the night, sir," Chavez agreed. "You been there?"
"Going there, for a battalion staffjob." The major wiped some blood from his face. He'd hit the road a little hard.
"Sorry about that, sir."
"My fault, Sergeant, not yours. We have twenty guys out there. I never thought you'd make it this far without being spotted."
The sound of a vehicle came down the road. A minute later the wide-set lights of a Hummer – the new and larger incarnation of the venerable jeep-appeared, announcing that the exercise was over. The "dead" major marched off to collect his men, while Captain Ramirez did the same.
"That was the final exam, people," he told the squad. "Get a good day's sleep. We go in tonight."
"I don't believe it," Cortez said. He'd hopped the first flight from Dulles to Atlanta. There he met an associate in a rented car, and now they discussed their information in the total anonymity of an automobile driving at the posted limit on the Atlanta beltway.
"Call it psychological warfare," the man answered. "No plea-bargain, no nothing. It's being handled as a straight murder trial. Ramón and Jesús will not get any consideration."
Cortez looked at the passing traffic. He didn't give a damn about the two sicarios, who were as expendable as any other terrorists and who didn't know the reason for the killings. What he was considering now was a series of seemingly disjointed and unconnected bits of information on American interdiction operations. An unusual number of courier aircraft were disappearing. The Americans were treating this legal case in an unusual way. The Director of the FBI was doing something that he didn't like, and that his personal secretary didn't know about yet. "The rules are changing." That could mean anything at all.
Something fundamental. It had to be. But what?
There were a number of well-paid and highly reliable informants throughout the American government, in Customs, DEA, the Coast Guard, none of whom had reported a single thing. The law-enforcement community was in the dark – except for the FBI Director, who didn't like it, but would soon go to Colombia…
Some sort of intelligence operation was – no. Active Measures? The phrase came from KGB, and could mean any of several things, from feeding disinformation to reporters to "wet" work. Would the Americans do anything like that? They never had. He glowered at the passing scenery. He was an experienced intelligence officer, and his profession was to determine what people were doing from bits and pieces of random data. That he was working for someone he detested was beside the point. This was a matter of pride and besides, he detested the Americans even more.
What were they doing now?
Cortez had to admit to himself that he didn't know, but in one hour he'd board a plane, and in six hours he'd have to tell his employer that he didn't know. That did not appeal to him.
Something fundamental. The rules are changing. The FBI Director didn't like it. His secretary didn't know. The trip to Colombia was clandestine.
Cortez relaxed. Whatever it was, it was not an immediate threat. The Cartel was too secure. There would be time to analyze and respond. There were many people in the smuggling chain who could be sacrificed, who would fight for the chance, in fact. And after a time, the Cartel would adapt its operations to the changing conditions as it always had. All he had to do was convince his employer of that simple fact. What did el jefe really care about Ramón and Jesús or any of the underlings who ran the drugs and did the killings that became necessary? It was continuing the supply of drugs to the consumers that mattered.
His mind came back to the vanishing airplanes. Historically, the Americans had managed to intercept one or two per month, that small a number despite all their radars and aircraft. But recently – four in the last two weeks, wasn't it? – had disappeared. What did that mean? Unknown to the Americans, there had always been "operational" losses, a military term that meant nothing more mysterious than flying accidents. One of the reasons that his boss had taken Carlos Larson on was to mitigate that wastage of resources, and it had, initially, shown promise – until very recently. Why the sudden jump in losses? If the Americans had somehow intercepted them, the air crews would have shown up in courtrooms and jails, wouldn't they? Cortez had to dismiss that thought.
Sabotage, perhaps? What if someone were placing explosives in the aircraft, like the Arab terrorists did… ? Unlikely… or was it? Did anyone check for that? It wouldn't take much. Even minor damage to a low-flying aircraft could face the pilot with a problem whose solution required more time than he had in altitude. Even a single blasting cap could do it, not even a cubic centimeter… he'd have to check that out. But, then, who would be doing it? The Americans? But what if it became known that the Americans were placing bombs on aircraft? Would they take that political risk? Probably not. Who else, then? The Colombians might. Some senior Colombian military officer, operating entirely on his own… or in the pay of the yanquis? That was possible. It couldn't be a government operation, Cortez was sure. There were too many informants there, too.
Would it have to be a bomb? Why not contaminated gasoline? Why not minor tampering with an engine, a frayed control cable… or a flight instrument. What was it that Larson had said about having to watch instruments at low level? What if some mechanic had altered the setting on the artificial horizon… ? Or merely arranged for it to stop working… something in the electrical system, perhaps? How hard was it to make a small airplane stop flying? Whom to ask? Larson?
Cortez grumbled to himself. This was undirected speculation, decidedly unprofessional. There were countless possibilities. He knew that something was probably happening, but not what it was. And only probably, he admitted to himself. The unusually large number of missing aircraft could merely be a statistical anomaly – he didn't believe that, but forced himself to consider the possibility. A series of coincidences – there was not an intelligence academy in the world that encouraged its students to believe in coincidences, and yet how many strange coincidences had he encountered in his professional career?