Miller was heavily scarred about his mouth and neck, and no amount of plastic surgery would ever make him what he was. He wore a beard and mustache that hid most of the damage, but that was not why he let his facial hair grow. Among his many talents was his knack for languages and his skill as an interrogator. In Iraq, a man wore a mustache; and in Afghanistan, men wore beards and mustaches. So did most of those detained as terrorist suspects. He was merely conforming to the culture of those from whom he wished to extract information. Miller’s record of successful interrogations now exceeded his considerable operational success. It was said that he could get a hardened criminal to dime out his own mother and to feel good about having given her up. When he was an operational SEAL, he was in high demand in the platoons. Now every task unit wanted Miller in their intel shop. Both Engel and Nolan considered it something of a coup to have him in support of their detached squad. That they were given Miller was a further indication that there could be some activity in or around Central America that might require an on-call, special-operations response element.
“Any idea what’s going on down there?” Engel asked the senior chief.
Miller considered this, thoughtfully pulling his hand down his beard in a professorial gesture. He wore his hair longish and combed it straight back over his head. His deep green eyes seemed to be backlit. During interrogations, they became incandescent and piercing, and he used them on his opponent like he had once used the targeting laser on his automatic weapon.
“It could be just about anything,” he finally replied. “Drugs, extortion, a kidnapping. I’ll know a little more tomorrow morning once I’ve had a chance to run the agency alphabet trapline. But something’s got someone’s attention, that’s for sure.”
After more than ten years of war, the military special operators and the diverse appendages of the national intelligence apparatus had finally become synched. They now talked to one another, and the talk led to cooperation — the kind of cooperation that had resulted in the killing of Osama Bin Laden. Miller had good contacts at the CIA, FBI, DEA, NSA, and DIA, and with their human and technical collec Chniof tion organizations. The intelligence community and the military were also now linked by sophisticated and secure communications networks. Early Monday morning, Miller would be pushing his agency and military contacts in Central and South America for any breaking leads. Usually, but not always, bits of information came from the opposition’s use of unencrypted cell phones or some other technical collector. There was also the occasional agent on the payroll of some hardworking CIA case officer who came up with some obscure but related fact. And that fact could be linked to another fact and to still another until the mosaic produced operable intelligence in the form of a target folder. This was called operations-intelligence, or ops-intel, fusion, and it was making life dangerous for terrorists worldwide.
“It’s like this, fellows,” the senior chief continued, “over in the sandbox, in the jihad-land, it’s all about religion and tribalism. Down south, it’s all about money. The money comes from drugs. There are the drug-support industries like gunrunning, the bribing of officials, assassination, and so on, but the big bucks come from producing drugs and moving drugs to the U.S. and European markets. It’s a sixty-billion-dollar-a-year industry. The U.S. military mission down south has to do with training — training the Colombians and the Salvadorians to fight drugs. But we don’t fight drugs down there, they do, or at least that’s the idea. We’ve had the Green Berets and some of our special boat teams helping with this training, but not a SEAL direct-action element in this mix, which, gentlemen, is what you are.”
“What we are,” Engel interrupted. “You’re a part of this team.”
“Thanks, sir. The money from drugs only comes when the product gets moved north. So the druggies have some very efficient and sophisticated ways to get the stuff across our southern border. And God knows there are plenty of illegals moving south to north. The big concern has always been that the jihadists and the druggies might climb into bed with each other. It’s got the boys and girls at Langley scared shitless. See, the jihadists have money and motivation, and the druggies have the mules to move contraband into this country. So the fear is that some deal gets cut to bring chemicals or radiological materials across the border. I know the Agency and Homeland Security have people working on this. So our going south may have something to do with this. My guess is they wouldn’t pull a SEAL detachment down there unless there was something afoot. Someone’s concerned about something. There are probably indicators, but nothing solid yet. But, hey, you fellows have been around long enough to know it could be something or it could be nothing.”
Engel nodded. It made sense. “Chief, what else?” he asked, looking at Nolan.
Nolan simply shrugged. “It is what it is. We’re ready to fight — as a platoon or now as a detached squad. All we need is a target folder and a mission-support package, and we’re good to go.” He paused and glanced over to where the platoon SEALs were gathering expectantly, in two separate groups: one, the squad that would be deploying with the task unit to the Philippines, and the other, the detached squad that would go south. “Boss, the guys all know about the change, but a little fatherly platoon officer advice might be in order right now.”
“Understood. Senior, you want to excuse us for a Ccus/di moment.”
“No problem, fellows. I’ll let you know if and when I learn anything.”
It was the custom on the eve of a deployment for the senior platoon officer and the platoon chief to each give a short, private out-the-door speech to the SEALs before they broke off to finish the evening with their families. Since the Bandito Platoon would be splitting into two squads for at least the initial part of this deployment, Engel had elected to make the break now. His assistant platoon officer and the next senior enlisted leader, the platoon leading petty officer, would caucus with the task unit squad, while he and Nolan would quickly meet with their detached squad. The platoon SEALs sensed this, and the two groups of SEALs separated and moved apart — from the families and from each other. Engel and Nolan led their group to one of the outlying picnic tables. There were five others besides the two of them, making it a light squad. The task unit squad would have a total of nine SEALs, which Engel knew would make his task unit commander more comfortable. He had his own responsibilities. Engel and Nolan had selected the five for their individual skills but had not cherry-picked them; they would fight alongside any of the Bandito Platoon SEALs.
There was Diego Weimy, or just plain Weimy. He was one of the platoon snipers and now the lead sniper for their squad. Like many SEAL snipers, he did not grow up hunting or shooting with his father or uncles. In fact, he grew up on the south side of Chicago, where the closest he came to a rural experience was the trash-strewn vacant lot where the kids played baseball and hid from local merchants after they’d boosted a candy bar or a radio from their store. The SEAL sniper instructors liked men who had limited shooting instruction, as it meant there were fewer bad habits to break in teaching them long-range shooting. Weimy had been stocking shelves in Albertsons when he decided to go into the military. He chose the Navy because he wanted to get away, and there was no saltwater near Chicago. He volunteered for SEAL training on a whim, having no idea what he was getting into. In training, Weimy had been what they called a gray man — someone you never noticed. But after Hell Week had caused most in his class to quit, he was still there. He was good at all SEAL skills, but by SEAL standards, not great at any except for shooting. Still, he had the right temperament, the shooting mechanics, and the cold efficiency of a natural-born sniper. Weimy, like the rest of them, was now anxious to learn more about the squad’s detached duty. He was also anxious to get back to his wife and infant son.