Brown, Dale - Independent 02 (100 page)

 
          
A
shot rang out from somewhere behind her, and she stopped climbing and clung to
the ladder. Long began returning fire from the roof, his shots close enough to
get her moving again. A few feet from the top, arms lifted her up and onto the
roof.

 
          
“Not
much time,” Long said. “They’ll be up here any minute.” Long had set the tiny
device in the center of the hangar roof. A radio transmitter and locator
beacon, the device also had a small infrared rescue strobe, a bright flashing
light that was invisible to the naked eye but could be seen for miles on an
infrared scanner or night-vision goggles.

 
          
“What’s
the point, Sandra?” Van Nuys said as Long and Salman moved to cover the various
ladders up to the roof. “You’ve just about succeeded in getting us all killed—“

 
          
“We’re
taking you back. That’s the point.”

 
          
“Like
hell. This is
Mexico
, the Border Security Force has no jurisdiction here—”

 
          
“We
can arrest an American citizen anyplace.” Well, it sounded good. “Now, you are
going to tell me about Salazar. He’s planning a large drug delivery . . . where
is he delivering the drugs?”

 
          
He
shook his head. She moved the muzzle of the .45 away from the ladder and aimed
it into his face. “Max, you know me. If you don’t cooperate I’ll have to kill
you. Now.”

 
          
“I
don’t believe that.” God, what an ego, she thought. Even now. “I can do better.
I can leave you for Salazar, his knife . . . Would you prefer to take your
chances with Salazar?” She could smell his fear. Dapper Max, scared shitless.
“I could let you go but he’d believe you talked and have you sliced into fish
food.” She reached into a pocket and pulled out a handful of American bills.
“I’ll knock you unconscious, put money and my card in your pocket. Smooth-talk
your way out of that.” She reached over and stuffed the money into his pants.
“There you go, Max. You tell him you just don’t know how that money got there—”

 
          
“All
right,
get me out of here and I’ll
make a deal—”

 
          
“First
things first, Max. Talk to us now and we’ll talk about getting you out. Don’t
talk and ...”

 
          
“Okay,
okay . . . Salazar has a huge drug shipment going on right now. His planes are
flying to
Colombia
to make the pickup, they’ll be delivered
tomorrow night—”

 
          
“Where?”

 
          
“All
over.
Florida
,
Louisiana
,
Texas
, the
Bahamas
—he’s got fifty thousand kilos coming in . .

 
          
“Fifty thousand?”

           
“Yeah. Now get me the hell out of
here.”

 
          
“Keep
your head down and we might,” Geffar said. It would be good to get him back to
the States, make an example of him—Just then an automatic rifle opened up,
bullets whizzing through the air, pieces of tar ripping up the rooftop. Geffar
rolled onto her stomach, took quick aim at the outline of a man on the roof of
an adjacent hangar, fired twice. The man called out in pain and disappeared
from sight. Geffar knew the muzzle blast from her own gun was a dead giveaway.
She grabbed Van Nuys and pulled him to his knees. “Move in, Max.” And
half-dragged him away moments before more gunshots chewed into the tar at the
spot where they had been.

 
          
The
hangar they were on was the middle one of five hangars, and they could see
soldiers on both adjacent hangars as well as on top of the airline offices
building fifty yards away. “We’re going to be surrounded,” Long said. “Where’s
that helicopter? It should be here

 
          
And
suddenly the whole area was bathed in brilliant white light. The soldiers had
turned on the ballpark lights, the large banks of lights on tall towers that
usually lit up the aircraft parking ramps, and had turned them inward to
illuminate the hangar rooftops. Geffar and Long saw that both adjacent hangars
were lined with soldiers, three or four on each side, and more were coming up.
Nowhere to find cover.

 
          
“As
rescuers you people make good grave-diggers,” Van Nuys said, and started to get
to his feet.

 
          
“Stay
down,” Geffar said in a low voice.

 
          
Van
Nuys shook her hand away. “I’ll just tell them you tried to kidnap me. They
still need me for their operation, they won’t do anything right away ...” lie
got to his feet, arms raised high, and turned in a full circle to show that he
was hiding nothing.

 
          
“It’s
me, Van Nuys, Colonel Salazar’s assistant. They tried to kidnap me—”

 
          
A
shot rang out. Van Nuys grabbed his shoulder and collapsed to the roof. Geffar
crawled over to him. “I told you to stay down. You are a total jerk.” She
glanced over at Long. “I think I hear the chopper coming.”

 
          
“Checks.”
He opened his left hand to reveal a black-colored canister about the size of a
soda can, with a rectangular top and a pull ring; another was in his other
hand. “Ready any time.”

 
          
Geffar
produced two similar canisters from a small waist-pack. “Wait until the chopper
comes closer.”

 
          
It
did not take long. A few seconds later the heavy beating of rotors was clear. A
few soldiers began to make the climb up to the roof where Geffar was trapped,
but most were frozen, waiting for orders. Soon the helicopter zoomed overhead,
less than ten feet above the rooftops, scattering soldiers across the rooftops.

 
          
“Now,”
Geffar shouted. They threw
canisters onto the adjacent rooftops, then buried their heads under their arms.
The shock wave from the two concussion grenades erupted in their faces, sucking
the air out of their lungs.

 
          
“Up,”
Geffar called out. Van Nuys, stunned by the grenades, was rolling about the
roof, disoriented and in pain. Salman was also shaken but was strong enough to
fight off the pain and help carry/ drag Van Nuys. Geffar could see soldiers
still on their feet on the roofs around them, but they had hands over their
ears. The concussion grenades were not altogether effective in the open, but
with the soldiers clustered together on the rooftop the effect was devastating
enough.

 
          
The
helicopter made a tight pirouette over the taxiway in front of the airline
terminal and headed back toward the row of hangars. Hearing rifle shots as the
chopper approached, Long and Geffar tossed concussion grenades out over the
front of the hangar as the green and blue UH-1 Huey helicopter swooped back
over the hangars and settled into a close hover near the center hangar. Door
gunners covered both sides of the chopper, sending bursts of gunfire over the
heads of the troops on both adjacent rooftops to keep them from
counterattacking. Seconds later everyone was aboard and the helicopter was
speeding out of range of the tiny Mexican airport

 
          
“You
all right?” Masters shouted from the cockpit. “Anyone hurt?”

 
          
“Van
Nuys got hit in the shoulder,” Geffar called back. The copilot tossed her a
first-aid kit, and she ripped off his jacket and shirt and dressed the wound.
Wouldn’t do to have fancy Max bleed to death before the courts got to him.

 
          
“How
bad is it?” Van Nuys said, more lucid now.

 
          
“You’ll
live,” she said.

 
          
“We’re
off the airport?”

 
          
“We
made it—no thanks to you, you sonofabitch,” Geffar said, deliberately pulling
the bandages tighter. “You almost got us all killed. Now listen up. Do as I say
or we’ll dump you off back in Ciudad del Carmen and you can tap dance in front
of your buddy Salazar. Tell me about this drug shipment . . .”

 
          
Carmen del Sol Airlines,
Ciudad
del
Carmen
Airport
,
Mexico

 
          
Salazar’s
face was red as he chewed out his chief of security at the airline office,
along with Major Trujillo’s deputy chief pilot, Captain Garza, the security
shift supervisor and the three squad leaders in charge of the airport security
detail. “Three unknowns, including a
woman
—infiltrate
my base and kidnap Van Nuys out from under your noses?”

 
          
“It
was a well-trained commando-style unit, sir,” the shift supervisor tried. “They
used automatic weapons and concussion grenades. We had no way of defending—”

 
          
“I
didn’t ask for your excuses. Get out.” The security commanders left in a hurry,
all except the chief of security.

 
          
“I
have begun a search of the district, sir. I have ordered the chief of the
militia, the local police and the Customs Bureau to report here at once and
coordinate the search. I took the liberty of requisitioning six helicopters
from operations—five are in the air conducting the search, the sixth is
standing by for you in case they are found.”

 
          
“I
am warning you, Captain,” Salazar said, barely able to control his temper,
“that if they are not found in an hour ... I can almost forgive lax security
procedures at Verrettes when you faced an aerial bombardment, but stopping three
persons? Get out of here and don’t come back unless you find those intruders.”
The chief of security retreated quickly, thankful he was leaving with all of
his fingers and most of his bodily fluids and internal organs intact.

 
          
When
they were alone, the deputy chief pilot, Garza, said, “With Van Nuys missing,
sir, the mission is in jeopardy—”

 
          
“I
know
that, Captain. Is that all you
can offer?”

 
          
“Senor
Gachez and Major Trujillo in
Colombia
must be notified, sir. If it
was
agents from the Border Security or
the DEA that took Van Nuys, the shipment is at risk. We must assume that all
our routes, the contacts, the distribution network—everything—has been
compromised.”

 
          
“I
know
that
too. But Gachez cannot be
told.”

 
          
“Not
tell Gachez? It will put his entire shipment at risk if he is not informed—”

 
          
“Garza,
I don’t care a rat’s ass about his shipment. I care about finding a way to
preserve the one and a half
billion
dollars we’ll be paid for this job.”

 
          
Garza
looked at his superior officer. “But . . . but how can that be done? We
must
assume that if Van Nuys is alive he
will eventually talk ...”

 
          
Salazar
ignored him, going on as if talking to himself. “If Gachez is told about Van
Nuys’ disappearance he will take his cocaine and head for the jungle. But if we
don’t tell him and the operation is permitted to continue we receive six
hundred and fifty million dollars wired to our European and
Caribbean
accounts in non-refundable, non-traceable
American dollars the minute our planes leave Valdivia,
plus
the one hundred million in cash we already have. If the
shipment is intercepted enroute, that money will still be ours. And we can’t be
certain that Van Nuys will blab our plan ... at least in time for the
Hammerheads to stop us, and that means we make fifteen thousand dollars for
every kilo of cocaine that is eventually delivered. We must keep silent until
our planes can be loaded and launched out of
Valdivia
,” Salazar said, a smile appearing. “Even if
we lose every plane and every gram of cocaine, the three-quarters of a billion
dollars is not too bad ...”