Cut Out (25 page)
Riley concentrated, trying to remember. “I don’t think so, but I can’t guarantee that.”
“We’ll take it slow and careful then,” Prowley said as he returned his concentration to piloting the helicopter.
Riley took off the headset and made his way back into the cargo compartment. Hammer was lying down on the far side. Riley leaned over to look at him—from all he could tell, his partner was asleep. He stepped across to where Lisa sat. Her eyes were wide open.
“Ever flown on a chopper before?” Riley yelled in her ear, trying to be heard above the whine of the two turbine engines.
She shook her head.
Riley didn’t bother to ask if she’d ever rappelled before. He had not planned on giving her the good news until they were airborne— past the point of no return. He was glad the fast rope was on board; if it hadn’t been, his plan was to use the nylon rope he had in his pack and standard-rappel out off the back ramp. That would have been much more difficult for Lisa, to say the least.
“Listen,” he yelled in Lisa’s ear. “When we get to the mountains, the helicopter isn’t going to be able to land. We’re going to have to use that to get off.” He pointed at the thick rope. “That’s called a fast rope, and it’s very simple to use.” He proceeded to explain how it was employed. Her eyes grew wider as the helicopter made its way west across North Carolina, leaving the flatland of the seaboard behind.
POPE AIR FORCE BASE, NORTH CAROLINA
1 NOVEMBER, 12:10 a.m.
The unmarked Lear jet touched down and swiftly braked to taxiing speed. Master watched it approach from his position in front of his command van. He was reflexively squeezing a climbing ball in his left hand, the effort causing the muscles in his forearm to ripple.
The jet’s hatch swung open and a small set of stairs descended, down which a young man in a three-piece suit bounded. The man had thinning blond hair and clear-rimmed spectacles; he carried a large briefcase in his left hand and a smaller one in his right. He put down the small one and extended his right hand as he came up to Master, but the older man ignored it.
“You’re the guy I talk to in Virginia?” Master asked.
“Yes, I’m here to—” Simon began.
“Shut up,” Master ordered, cutting him off, his eyes glinting dangerously in the glow of the airfield landing lights. “This is my operation and these are my people. You got anything to say, you say it to me, but otherwise you keep the fuck out of my way.”
Simon positioned the small briefcase between them. “It might be your people and your operation, but it’s our money. So far, your operation hasn’t gone very well. That’s why I’m here—to make sure it does.” With that, he turned and climbed into the van, Master following, eyes glinting furiously.
As soon as the side door slid shut, the vehicle began moving. Master, seated in a swivel chair, waited a few moments to calm down before turning to face Simon, who was in one of the fixed chairs bolted to the floor. “Do you have the conversation this cop Giannini had?”
Simon opened his briefcase and pulled out a laptop computer. He turned it on and slipped in a three-and-a-half-inch disk, while handing a copy to Master’s analyst. “The transcript is on the disk. She was talking to Riley. They set up a meeting in the Great Smoky Mountains.”
“Where in the mountains?” Master demanded.
Simon gestured at the disk. “They didn’t say. See for yourself.”
Master turned and looked at the computer screen as the analyst scrolled up the conversation. When Master had looked at all of it, he turned back to Simon. “Do you have anything on Riley?”
“I’ve got records on him—including his black file, or at least what I could get access to; it wasn’t complete. He’s been involved in several classified operations.” Simon scanned the screen. “In eighty-nine his Special Forces team got involved in an operation on mainland China during the Tiananmen Square riots. The pages are missing as to what the operation was or its purpose, but based on the security codes it was very high level. In ninety-one he was part of the covert raids the DOD and CIA launched into Colombia to destroy the cocaine-processing plants there.”
“I heard about those missions,” Master said. “Go on.”
Simon shook his head. “There’s some reference to a domestic operation last year in Chicago, but we couldn’t get access to what happened. All we know is that’s where he met Giannini—she was involved in it also.”
“Domestic?” Master repeated with a frown. “How the hell was some SF guy involved in a domestic op?” When Simon didn’t answer, he leaned forward. “Give me his two-oh-one file.”
Simon passed him the manila folder and Master scanned the officer record brief (ORB). The acronyms told him all he wanted to know about his adversary.
DOB 08/12/59 BIRTHPLACE- NEW YORK SEX/RACE- M/WHITE NUMBER DEPENDANTS- 0 RELIGION- N/A MARITAL STATUS- SINGLE HEIGHT/WEIGHT- 67/150 EDUCATION- ASSOCIATES DEGREE AWARDS AND DECORATIONS-
AAM (army achievement medal)- 04 ASR (army service ribbon)- 01 ARCOM (army commendation medal)- 03 MSM (meritorious service medal)- 02 Ranger Tab SF Tab
Master Parachutist Badge Expert Infantry Badge
Foreign Jump Wings—Thailand, Panama, Republic of Korea
Schooling: Infantry One Stop Unit Training 1977; Airborne 1977; Ranger School 1979; Special Forces Qualification Course 1980; Jumpmaster School 1981; Malaysian Tracking School 1982; Republic of Korea Mountain Commando School 1983; Special Operations Training 1985; Special Forces Operations and Intelligence School 1986; Special Forces Warrant Officer School 1990; Nuclear Weapons Safeguards School 1990.
“A fucking airborne, ranger, hero,” Master said out loud. “Let’s see where he’s been.” He looked at Riley’s assignment history, which was listed in reverse order, with the most current assignment at the top.
93/08 1st Special Warfare Training Group, Fort Bragg—
Instructor/Writer 93/04 Walter Reed Holding Det.—Convalescent leave
92/10 5th Special Forces Group, Fort Campbell—Detachment executive officer 90/07 7th Special Forces Group, Fort Bragg—Detachment executive officer 90/03 Warrant Officer Accession Course—Student 89/07 Walter Reed Holding Det.—Convalescent leave 88/02 Special Forces Detachment Korea—Detachment operations sergeant 84/02 7th Special Forces Group, Fort Bragg—Detachment senior engineer 80/06 1st Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group (forward), Okinawa—Detachment junior engineer 80/01 Special Forces Qualification Course—Student 77/08 82d Airborne Division, Fort Bragg 77/02 One stop unit training, Fort Benning
“You don’t know why he was in the hospital twice, do you?” Master asked.
Simon shook his head. “All we know is the first one coincides with the mission into mainland China and the second one with whatever happened up in Chicago.”
“So he wasn’t kissing babies wherever he was,” Master said. “He got shot up, or blown up, or tripped over his own feet and hurt himself. Given what he’s done here so far, and looking at these records, I’d say we’ve got ourselves an M-l, A-l, badass hero.” Master leaned back in his chair. “We’ll have to play this one tight.”
He flipped open his atlas. “The Smokies are a big area to go looking in, but we’ll get them.” He looked down at the full-length photo of Riley dressed in his class A greens, which was clipped to the inside of the folder. “And this time you won’t get away, Mr. Riley,” he whispered to himself.
KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE
1 NOVEMBER, 12:20 a.m.
Giannini checked into the first motel she found off the interstate, paying cash for her room and signing a false name on the registration card. She didn’t think the subterfuge was worth the effort, since the sleepy clerk barely spared her a glance before disappearing into a back room to go back to sleep. She’d wanted to continue on to the rendezvous point, but Riley had said to show up in the daylight, so she figured that Knoxville was as good a place to stop as any.
Her room was in the rear of the motel, and she parked her car right in front of the door. After putting on the chain, securing the dead bolt, and closing the curtains, she lay down on the bed, fully clothed, with her revolver at her side ready for use. She was almost certain she hadn’t been followed, but after her last conversation with Dave, she wasn’t going to take any chances. The muted roar of trucks rumbling down the highway echoed through the room as she closed her eyes and waited for sleep to come, trying to keep her mind from wondering what the daylight would bring.
Chapter Sixteen
GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS
1 NOVEMBER, 1:37 A.M.
“Ten minutes!” the crew chief yelled. “Give me a hand with this,” he added, tapping Riley on the shoulder.
Together, they secured the looped end of the fast rope to a bolt in the roof of the helicopter, just ahead of the back ramp. For the past hour, the ride had gotten increasingly hair-raising as the Piedmont gave way to the foothills of the Smokies. As they worked, they could feel the extra weight as the pilots added power to gain altitude up the southeastern slopes of the mountains.
The crew chief kept the bulk of the fast rope in place by wrapping a loop of cargo strap around it. Riley pulled on his rucksack and secured it by buckling the waistband tight around his hips. Hammer did the same with his backpack. They cinched down the slings on their weapons and secured those over their shoulder. Riley then took his twelve-foot length of sling rope and slipped it through snap links on the front of his combat vest, one on each shoulder. He tied off open loops on the two free ends and stuffed the slack in empty ammo pouches on each hip, securing the Velcro fasteners on top.
“You ready?” Riley asked Lisa.
She nodded. She was clenching and unclenching her hands nervously. The open ramp right next to them, the high-pitched whine of the turbine engines, the trees going by just below—all combined to make a frightening scene. Riley had seen trained military men verging on panic in similar situations.
“You go right after Hammer. Just hold on tight and slide. All right?” Riley peered at her, making sure he got eye contact.
“Hold on tight and slide?” she repeated, incredulously. “That’s it?”
“That’s it,” Riley said.
“Five minutes!” The crew chief grabbed a monkey harness off the wall and buckled the straps around his body. He then hooked the end of the tether into an O-bolt on the floor of the helicopter. He played out the slack, walking toward the back ramp, and then cinched down the line to prevent him from falling out the back. He opened up a plastic case, pulled out a set of night vision goggles, and slipped them on.
Riley peered out the back. The terrain below had changed in more ways than its topography. The lights of civilization had been left behind. Riley assumed that a small glow to the left rear was the town of Cherokee, North Carolina. Beyond that there was only the darkness of the forest. Riley edged his way closer to the ramp and, grabbing the ramp’s hydraulic lift, peered out. High ridges loomed like black walls on either side. The helicopter was still going up the valley, heading toward the crest.
“Two minutes,” the crew chief yelled.
A sudden swing to the left caught Riley by surprise, and his fingers tightened on the metal in reflex. Lisa fell to the floor; Hammer leaned over and lifted her to her feet, wrapping one arm around her and the other around a metal strut along the side of the aircraft. He was yelling in her ear, trying to get her to focus on the upcoming event.
The black walls on either side had disappeared. The helicopter was now flying on top of a ridge, moving to the southwest, barely twenty feet above the highest treetops. Riley peered down: he occasionally could make out a black opening below where a two-lane road also followed the ridgeline. They were right on course.
“One minute.” The helicopter was slowing. A large open area passed by to the left, about a hundred yards away. Another two hundred feet up in altitude and a quarter mile to the southwest, the pilot brought the craft to a hover.
The crew chief threw out the fast rope, then leaned over to make sure it was touching the ground forty feet below in a small clearing surrounded by tall trees. “Go!”
Riley took Hammer’s place holding Lisa, and nodded his head toward the ramp. Hammer reached out and wrapped both massive arms around the rope. His teeth glinted in the glow of the red lights. He shouted “Later!” as he stepped off the ramp and slid out of sight.
“Grab it tight,” Riley advised Lisa unnecessarily.
She pulled the rope in tight to her chest and moved her feet back until she could feel the edge of the ramp under her sneakers. The cold night air swirled in the back ramp, chilling her, and the whine of the engines combined with the thunder of the massive blades overhead. She looked at Riley and he nodded. Lisa froze. “I can’t!” she screamed at him.
The crew chief gestured downward, “Go! Go!”
Riley had been prepared for this. He pulled the loops on the sling rope out of the ammo pouches, then hooked each end into the snap links on the shoulder of Lisa’s vest, the fast rope now locked in between them. He grabbed her upper arms. “On three.”
