Biowar (26 page)

44

“Let her play it as far as she can,” Rubens told the runner in the Art Room. He wouldn’t have ordered her to try taking the helicopter—it was suicidal—but now that she had they might as well take advantage of it. “Have you found Dean?” he asked Telach.

“I’m sure he’s in that tunnel somewhere,” said Telach. “It’s just a matter of waiting. The crash units are ready.”

“Very well.”

“Lia went too far,” said Telach. “She could have been killed there, easily.”

“Yes, that is the problem with Miss DeFrancesca,” said Rubens. “She always goes too far. Nonetheless, she does get results. And at the moment she’s our best line to Dean.”

“All right,” said Telach.

“It’s all right, Marie. I’ll speak with her when the operation is over,” said Rubens.

“If she’s here to speak with,” said Telach.

45

Dean and Hercules stared at each other. The driver was about three feet behind him to the right, the barrel of his pistol just visible in Dean’s peripheral vision.

“Well, Dr. Dean?” asked Hercules.

“I’m not a doctor,” said Dean, holding his hands out in apology. “I don’t have a Ph.D. Remember?”

A faint smile curled at the corner of Hercules’ face. He turned and nodded at the driver.

It was then that Dean struck.

Dean threw his leg hard into the man’s chest, knocking him backward against the wall as the pistol went flying. Hercules reached quickly for his own gun, but Dean threw himself into the scientist, landing on him like a blitzing linebacker taking down an unprotected quarterback. With one hard smack against the floor he knocked Hercules cold; he rolled off and dived for the other gun as the driver came up from the floor. Dean grabbed the weapon with both hands, fumbling before pulling it around to hold it properly.

The driver threw his hands back, surrendering. Dean got up.

“Against the wall,” he told the man. “Spread ’em. Do it.”

The driver got the idea after a few gestures. Dean patted him down, careful about keeping the pistol positioned where the driver couldn’t pull the same trick he had. He found a small revolver strapped to the man’s ankle and slid it into his pocket.

Dean went to Hercules, intending to grab him and pull him with him. But as he hauled him up, the Greek’s head flopped to the side; Dean realized with a shock that his blow had killed the man.

Voices were coming from the other end of the tunnel. Before Dean could react, the driver shouted, then lunged at him.

His first bullet grazed the Austrian’s arm, but the second and third missed and the gun fell away. Dean wrestled with the man; though they were about the same size, the driver was perhaps half Dean’s age. They gripped each other and twisted, stumbling back and forth, neither able to get an advantage. There were more shouts from the tunnel and the sound of three or four men running.

Desperate, Dean screwed up his energy into a final burst, hurling his assailant over his shoulder and then, in a blind fury, kicking him unconscious as the man dropped to the floor.

Dean scooped for the gun but dropped it.

The footsteps were coming. He ran to the door at the left and pulled it open, finding himself in another tunnel, this one lined with concrete. Dean began to run.

46

“Schönbrunn,”
said Lia. “Where is it?”

“It’s a palace just outside the city,” said Telach. “There’s a lot of ground there.”

“It is near where you lost Dean?”

“A mile away.”

“Close enough,” said Lia.

“They wouldn’t land the helicopter there,” replied Telach.

“He’ll land it anywhere I want.”

“My point is that they wouldn’t have planned to go there. It’s filled with tourists during the day. And there’s all sorts of security.”

Lia put her pistol to the pilot’s head.

“Where the hell are you supposed to meet them?” she asked. She’d put on the radio headset to make it easier to speak.

“Schönbrunn,”
said the pilot. His voice cracked twice; Lia decided he was telling the truth.

“Lia, their other helicopter is headed toward the airport,” said Telach. “We’re just not sure what he’s up to, but it looks like he’s out of the picture, at least for now.”

“That’s nice.” Lia pushed her gun closer to the man’s neck. “What are the words for ‘get the lead out’?” she asked Rockman. “I can never remember the idioms.” Unlike the first tunnel, this one was very poorly lit, and Dean kept stumbling as he went. He came to a Y intersection and ran right.

Within twenty feet the light gave out completely. With voices now echoing behind him, he decided it was better not to turn back, and so he kept going, resorting to feeling his way against the side of the wall.

After twenty or thirty yards, he came to a ladder. He was about five rungs up when the beam of a flashlight played across the space below. Dean froze, then reached for the small revolver he had taken from the driver earlier.

There were two lights, coming toward him from the distance. Dean watched and waited as they approached; he could get both bodies behind the lights, but it wasn’t clear to him whether there was a third or fourth man behind the front two; his first shots would leave him an easy target.

More shadows—a third man, maybe a fourth farther back.

One of the lights swung toward the ladder. They were ten yards away.

Dean fired his first shot into the skull of the man on the left. One of the men in the rear began returning fire. Dean took down the second man with the flashlight and then fired into the flashing rifle; it took two slugs before the gunfire stopped.

The flashlight rolled on the ground. Gunpowder filled Dean’s nostrils, mixing with the damp air and hot sweat pouring off him as he scrambled upward. Finally his arm smacked hard against something. He pushed; miraculously it gave way. He threw himself up as another gun began firing behind him.

He was in a tunnel.

A train tunnel.

There was a light behind him, and a loud rumble approaching.

Lia saw one of the vans that had been part of the Austrian contingent moving along Edelsinnstrasse, which ran roughly west-east at the southern part of the grounds.

“We see it, too,” said Rockman. “All right, what was he supposed to do?”

Lia asked in German. The pilot pointed to the ground. Lia realized that he was supposed to hover until Hercules appeared. If he didn’t come, then he was to return to the airport.

“Go over to the airport,” said Rockman. “Let’s get a line on that, see who else is working with them.”

“No way,” she told him. “If Hercules comes out and doesn’t see the helicopter, he’ll know something’s up.”

“Lia’s right,” said Telach. “Stay with him.”

Thank you, Lia thought, though she didn’t say anything. She looked through the windscreen, trying to see what the pilot was watching for.

“Is it the van?” she asked the pilot. “Van?”

The man shook his head.

“What then?”

Words sputtered from his mouth. He was looking at the Gloriette Monument overlooking the gardens. The massive stone structure looked like the ghost of an ancient castle.

“He’s supposed to be on the lawn near the monument?” asked Lia.

“
Ja
,” said the man. “Yes.”

“Go,” she said. “Now.
Schnell gehen. Go!”

For a moment, Dean wasn’t sure whether to run or try to get back down the hole. Finally he saw a small ledge at the right side of the underground. As the subway train bore down on him, he threw himself over the rail and lay in the tiny coffin space between the track and wall.

The space had been carefully measured to provide clearance for workmen in case of an emergency. But Charlie didn’t know that. All he knew was that the air rushing around him felt like a tornado thrust sideways against his face. He couldn’t breathe, and even his heart seemed paralyzed from the shock of the train and the danger.

He heard the screech of brakes.

I’m dead, he thought to himself. I just got split in half and I’m dead. I’m seeing my own demise.

But no angel came for him. Instead, the train had cleared and gone on a few hundred yards to the station.

Dean unfolded himself, trembling, then started in the direction the train had taken. After two steps he began to run, realizing that his pursuers might still be after him. He could hear the train in the station ahead starting out, saw another track nearby. And then he was at the platform, pulling himself up.

He’d nearly gotten flattened in a subway in Moscow a week or two ago. Then Tommy Karr had been waiting by the steps. For some reason, Dean didn’t think he’d be waiting to bail him out now.

47

Karr had just finished his steak when the first of the two helicopters began rumbling in the distance. Unlike the helicopter that had taken him up-country, these were large Chinooks, massive troop carriers propelled by rotors at either end. Temporarily chopped from a Special Forces assignment in the southeast, the helicopters were so large that they had to descend one at a time to pick up the Thai force, which had been divided into half for the mission. Karr went aboard with the first group, moving up to the cockpit to help guide the pilots to the landing zone. The Thai major, somewhat in awe to be receiving all this assistance, came with Karr, staying a respectful distance as he popped his head next to the two warrant officers guiding the big helicopter. One of the men handed him a headset with large earphones so he could hear above the roar of the engines as they lifted off.

“Pretty small airstrip,” said the pilot, his Texan accent nearly drowned out by the engines.

“Yeah, I was going to ask you to drop a bulldozer first,” said Karr, “but I figured these guys would have so much fun playing with the sucker I wouldn’t get them to come along.”

The flight over the border took less than fifteen minutes. Major Sourin had picked out a field as a landing zone about a mile and a half from the target camp; the helicopters had an easy time getting in.

“We’ll be back at nine, unless you warn us off,” said the pilot. “Things get dicey, you can call us back earlier, but we have to head all way back to Chiang Mai to refuel. Build that into your timetable.”

The attack plan was relatively simple—one unit would swing around behind the camp while the other three groups approached from the southeast, splitting for the final attack. Karr’s satellite reconnaissance photos revealed only two defensive positions covering the southeast; the guerrillas’ real enemy, the Myanmar army, would approach from the north and the guerrillas had not unreasonably located their main defenses there. The photo interpreters predicted a force of no more than fifty men, with the likely number closer to two dozen; Sourin had guessed seventy-five, though this may have been a play for as much firepower as he could get. The attack was planned for first light, giving them three hours after landing to get into position before the air support arrived.

There were two small buildings at the center of the camp, more huts than houses. They’d seen the pigs near building two. Karr gave strict orders that the buildings themselves were not to be targeted and under no circumstances were the antitank missiles to be used against them. The Thai soldiers were also told to be on the lookout for an “Anglo”; as an incentive against shooting him, Karr offered a reward of $25,000 to the man who captured him, as well as a similar amount to the major.

Sourin’s point people were all equipped with night-vision goggles and small radios. Each group also carried an AN/PSC-5(V), a twenty-pound multiband radio that could hook into satellite frequencies as well as UHF and VHF. Karr clipped a small radio onto his belt. He attached a headset with earbud headphones and a necklacelike mike that would allow him to talk to the others. The Marines did the same.

The Thai soldiers were well disciplined and used to working in the jungle; they moved toward their target area silently, stringing out along both sides of a small streambed. Karr adjusted his night-vision glasses—unlike the powerful but relatively clumsy AN/PVS-5 units supplied to the Thai forces, his were NSA-designed and looked more like extra-thick wraparound sunglasses than traditional night viewers. They were very powerful, however, and besides allowing the wearer to see in the dark provided up to sixty-four-times magnification, depending on the circumstances. Even the Marines, who were equipped with AN/PVS 14 monocles, were jealous.

“How we looking back there, Chafetz?” Karr asked his runner after they’d marched for better than two hours through the jungle.

“Satellite’s just coming over the area now. We’ll have a fresh series of infrared snaps for you in about ninety seconds.”

He took out his handheld, waiting for the download. Besides his A-2, he was humping one of the Minimis and three see-through boxes of ammo belts, all he could fit in his second ruck. Just before joining Desk Three, Karr had done a short stint in Iran helping to plant a signal-stealing device array in the northern mountains; the brief but intense experience drove home one overriding fact of warfare—you can never ever have too many bullets.