The 4 Phase Man (28 page)

“Copy that, two-six,” Jerry whispered as he peered through the binoculars at the encampment below. “All units stand by.”

The encampment was just west of the Pakistani border, filled to capacity with Moujahadeen gunmen, Taliban militiamen, and Russian deserters. All distracted by the daze of their afternoon meal and the unconfined joy of unloading the crates they’d stolen from the U.N. convoy.

Jerry’d planned the raid with his usual precision.

For three weeks in a row—on random days—the cable, which carried electricity and communications to the camp, had been cut in different places. Now they were getting used to the outages.

He’d surveilled the camp for a month, had memorized every building, path, vehicle, and procedure there. Had gamed it out in his head endlessly.

Explosions were set off in the old Soviet garrison in the nearby town of Charikar. Knowing that the authorities in Kabul would immediately pull back all their roving patrols into the city—believing this to be an attack in force.

Rumors had been floated that a Soviet Spetsnaz commando group was hunting this particular band of guerrilla/thieves, so that anything that would happen would be laid at their door.

And something was about to happen.

Herb had given him the mission with his usual casual-ness.

A band of guerrillas—in the pay of the DIA—had recently crossed the line by hijacking U.N. humanitarian shipments; raping the women and torturing the men who had volunteered to bring “a degree of humanity and hope” to the survivors of the endless guerrilla war.

It was one of Herb’s most sincere moments as he ordered that they were to be eliminated—out of righteous indignation, as a point of national honor.

As an example to other such groups not to cross the line from freedom fighter to marauder.

But the operation was to have complete deniability.

And in these days of greater media access to the former battleground of Afghanistan, with 60 Minutes regularly exposing embarrassing intelligence connections, that meant one thing.

A Four Phase operation.

Jerry swallowed a handful of nepenthe, washed it down, then closed his eyes and waited for the effect to begin. As he felt the warmth and calm rise up in him, he opened his eyes, looking back down at the target.

There was more activity now. A group of the ragged band was herding three men and a woman in U.N. uniforms toward the middle of the camp. Jerry decided to wait until they were distracted by the attack on the men and the rape of the woman before he would give the go code.

“Car Wreck, Car Wreck, Car Wreck, this is ground.” “Car Wreck.”

“Car Wreck, this is ground, all units at IPs.”

“Ground, this is Car Wreck. All ground units are go for action in one-zero minutes from my mark.”

“Car Wreck, this is ground. Copy. Ground units go one-zero minutes from your mark.”

As the time ticked down, Jerry watched the camp closely. The sentries were where they were expected. No aircraft or ground traffic could be seen. His men had inched within striking distance. Time to give the order.

But something was wrong.

Again, he carefully searched the camp. The guards, the trucks, the hostages… The hostages.

No one was being assaulted, no one being brutalized. They were laughing with the Afghans! Coffee and food were being doled out. There was a general sense of relaxation and ease.

Then one of the crates was pried open, and Jerry finally
understood. Slowly he worked his way closer to the camp to confirm the awful truth.

The crates were stenciled in German, not English; and what was coming out of them was far from humanitarian aid. Rather, it was Heckler & Koch assault weapons in their original factory wrappers. Each arm-length weapon coming complete with its triple-forked banana clips.

And the relief workers wore the pale blue uniforms of the Grens-Schutz Gruppe III. West German GSG-3 counterinsurgents, not U.N. workers.

Jerry cried.

Because these people—their wives, children, animals, homes, their very existence and any traces of it—were to be wiped out simply because they had changed allegiance from one Western power to another. And Herb Stone—as well as the people behind him—were going to send
that
message to the other groups.

“We buy you, you’d better stay bought.”

“Car Wreck, Car Wreck, Car Wreck, this is ground.”

“Car Wreck.”

“Car Wreck, this is ground, all units at jump-off. Go/no go?”

“Ground from Car Wreck.” Jerry took a deep breath. “Abort, abort, abort.” “Say again Car Wreck.”

“Abort! Abort! Abort,” he almost shouted into his radio as the tears of this final betrayal filled his eyes.

Disaffection from service to country almost never comes about apocalyptically. There are almost never crashes of thunder, streaks of lightning, or great sudden realizations.

Instead, it’s a gentle, a quiet thing. A moment—if a moment could be identified—when you realize that you’re being used not to protect God and country, not for lofty ideals or flags waving in the wind; but to get someone a corner office, enhance an invisible’s career, defend an essentially meaningless whim, or merely the transitory personal agenda of middle management.

These are the things that lead to apostates and burnouts, suicides and men shooting from towers.

But at this moment (being asked to destroy innocent allies in the name of proprietary office politics)—torn between the pull of his twin addictions (nepenthe and blind patriotism)—Jerry Goldman simply and completely chose to blink from all existence.

Hoping God and the devil wouldn’t notice.

Xenos pulled himself back from his dark center.

“I finally realized,” he said to the rapt youth, “that the only thing these men wanted was power. For themselves, for their power structure, for the Hell of it. Right and wrong were mere abstracts to them. Tools.” He paused. “Like I was.”

He exhaled deeply. “Anyway, I quit because—whether he wants to admit it or not—your grandfather taught me to hold myself to a higher standard. To demand truths, real truths of the world, and to defend them whenever and wherever I found them.”

“Trouble was … I couldn’t find them. So, after a while, I stopped looking.”

He shrugged, like a helpless child. “How could I go home to a man like your grandfather after that?”

Bradley shook his head. “You just could’ve. I know him.”

Xenos sadly shook his head. “Sixteen,” he said with a sad laugh. “Talk to me when you’re forty.”

Bradley stared at his uncle, then suddenly stood up and walked to the door.

“There is some soul of goodness in things evil,” would men observingly distill it out, he recited carefully, thoughtfully. “For who could bear the whips and scorns of time, the oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely, the pangs of despised love, the law’s delay, the insolence of office, and the spurns that merit of the unworthy takes…”

Xenos looked up abruptly.

“… but that the dread of something after death,” he
said as if going into or coming out of a trance, “the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns, puzzles the will and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of.” He hesitated. “Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.”

He looked stunned. “Where did you learn that?”

Bradley shrugged as he went through the door. “Something Poppy taught me.” And he was gone.

Slowly, as if drugged and fighting through it, Xenos turned the pages in the old book, not checking numbers, knowing by the feel where it was.

And beneath it, in a tiny, childish scrawl, the words:

And he stared at those words for the bulk of the next hour.

“Six, in position.”

“Copy six. Twelve?”

“Twelve, in position.”

“Copy twelve. Thirty-four?”

“Thirty-four, in position.”

“Copy thirty-four. Vulture, Vulture, Vulture, this is ground.”

“Vulture.”

“Vulture, this is ground, all units at IPs.”

“Ground, this is Vulture. Inbound one-five minutes to
LZ. All ground units are go for action in one-zero minutes from my mark.”

“Vulture, this is ground. Copy. Ground units go one-zero minutes from your mark.”

“Ground, ground, ground. My mark in three, two, one. Mark!”

“All units, all units, all units. This is ground. You are go for action in nine minutes five-zero seconds.”

In his third day at the clinic, Herb was getting his balancing act down to a science.

Shuttling messages to his Washington headquarters through information-blind intermediaries in half the capitals of Europe; answering queries from other government agencies as if he were still in Washington; fending off the suspicion of Alvarez and the Corsicans with a natural charm and glee. He was alive, functional, awake after decades of disuse and bad habits born of boredom.

But, chillingly, he was no closer to stopping Apple Blossom than when he’d first arrived.

“Your reputation seems to have been inflated, Mr. Stone, Alvarez snapped at him.”

He shrugged. “You’re the politician, Congresswoman, not me. I just try to do my job.”

“You don’t do it very well!”

For one of the rare times in his life, Herb allowed his anger to show.

“What would you have me do?” he demanded. “If my suspicions and your allegations are even
half
right, then this Apple Blossom thing’s penetrated almost every organ of the government. If George Steingarth’s involved, if they’re in
your office
for God’s sake, I’d better goddamn assume they’re in mine! And that means taking no chances, going damned slowly, and restricting access to the truth as much as possible.”

He shook his head in exhausted fury. “Even without these handcuffs, I’ll be damned if I know how to go about this without getting us all killed, committed, or disappeared!”

He began counting on his fingers.

“One, figure out who Apple Blossom is in provable, concrete terms.”

“Two, find your children—God knows where—before exposing the traitor or risk losing them.”

“Three, find a way to use this impossible to find proof to bring down Apple Blossom, whoever
he
is when he’s at home.”

“Four, find a way to expose the remainder of the Apple Blossom network. And let’s not forget number five.”

He paused, clearly for effect. “Do all this with no budget, no trustworthy, experienced personnel, no planning staff, and damned little else!”

“Xenos! You said—”

Avidol interrupted her. “My son has done what he’s willing to do. What he
can
do, in good conscience.” He shook his head. “Asking for more than that would be futile.” He sighed. “I know.”

“As do I,” Herb added firmly.

Valerie looked at them—her mouth moving, but no words coming out—then whirled and stalked from the room.

Franco watched her go, then turned back to the men. “But you haven’t given up.”

“No,” Herb said flatly. “Not likely either.”

“Call if you need anything,” Franco said as he headed out the door. “Just not in the next couple of hours, okay?” He smiled and hurried off.

Herb studied him. “You suppose that smile of his is ever sincere?”

“As often as yours is,” Avidol said simply.

Herb smiled, then went back to work.

Franco caught up with Valerie at the door to her cottage on the edge of the clinic’s grounds. “Hey, slow down. I hate running after a woman. It’s demeaning.”

“Go away.” Valerie’s voice was harsh and bitter.

“Sure, sure.” But he didn’t move.

There’s a moment that comes at the end of every battle;
an odd quiet that descends on the field and on the men and women in it. They hear the wind blow, the strange rustle of a dying flame, dirt settling, their own hearts trying to begin to beat again. As if the world—as they’ve known it—has stopped, and they’re completely and utterly alone.

Like Valerie.

Like Franco.

Their combined guilts, angers, failures, becoming a distant but piercing howling in the wind—like a banshee’s warning.

The soldier looks around, sees the odd abstracts that his best friend’s brains and blood have made on a nearby wall. The way the angles of an imploded chest are almost beautiful; the strange dichotomy of a shoe—laces still tied and cinched—sitting by itself away from any possible bodies. And one thought sweeps over them like a gel, slowly enveloping them in its demand for…

…
Life.

And like it or not, Valerie and Franco had either become soldiers … or victims.

“What are we going to do,” eh? Franco said after a long moment. He took a step toward her. “You going to lie in your bed, alone, and think about your boy and girl? I’m going to lie in my bed, alone, and think about Paolo?” He shook his head. “Stupid.”

“I don’t want to think at all, Valerie said angrily.”

“So let’s
not think
together.”

Valerie was quiet for a moment.

How can you allow yourself a few minutes of freedom
, her mind tortured her,
of physical joy, while your children are dead or dying… alone.
Whore!

She didn’t think she liked Franco. There was a smell about him, physically and morally. A thing that stank of her own past. And he was most certainly no bastion of a gentleness and tenderness she so longed for. There was nothing about the man she liked, let alone loved!