Clear and present danger - Tom Clancy [294]
"You're lost, 'Berto."
"No shit, man. I know where the fuck we are, but we're fucking lost all right."
"Where's Cap'n Rojas?"
"Dead. Esteves, Delgado, half the team."
"Okay. Hold it." Ding punched his radio button. "Six, this is Point. We just made contact with BANNER. They've had a little trouble, sir. You better get up here."
Click-click.
León waved for his men to come in. Chavez didn't even think to count. It was enough to see that half weren't there. Both men sat on a fallen tree.
"What happened?"
"We walked right into it, man. Thought it was a processing site. It wasn't. Musta been thirty-forty guys there. I think Esteves fucked up and it all came apart. Like a bar fight with guns, man. Then Captain Rojas went down, and - it was pretty bad, 'mano. Been on the run ever since."
"We got people chasing us, too."
"What's the good news?" León asked.
"I ain't heard any lately, 'Berto," Ding said. "I think it's time for us to get our asses outa this place."
"Roge-o," Sergeant León said just as Ramirez appeared. He made his report to the captain.
"Cap'n," Chavez said when he was finished, "we're all pretty beat. We need a place to belly up."
"The man's right," Guerra agreed.
"What about behind us?"
"They ain't heard nothin' in two hours, sir," Guerra reminded him. "That knoll over there looks like a good spot to me." That was about as hard as he could press his officer, but finally it was enough.
"Take the men up. Set up the perimeter and two outposts. We'll try to rest up till sundown, and maybe I can call in and get us some help."
"Sounds good to me, Cap'n." Guerra took off to get things organized. Chavez left at once to sweep the area while the rest of the squad moved to its new RON site - except, Chavez thought, this was an ROD - remain-over-day-site. It was a bleak attempt at humor, but it was all he could manage under the circumstances.
"My God," Ryan breathed. It was four in the morning, and he was awake only because of coffee and apprehension. Ryan had uncovered his share of things with the Agency. But never anything like this. The first thing he had to do was… what?
Get some sleep, even a few hours, he told himself. Jack lifted the phone and called the office. There was always a watch officer on duty.
"This is Dr. Ryan. I'm going to be late. Something I ate. I've been throwing up all night… no, I think it's over now, but I need a few hours of sleep. I'll drive myself in tomorr - today," he corrected himself. "Yeah, that's right. Thanks. 'Bye."
He left a note on the refrigerator door for his wife and crawled into a spare bed to avoid disturbing her.
Passing the message was the easiest part for Cortez. It would have been hard for anyone else, but one of the first things he'd done after joining the Cartel was to get a list of certain telephone numbers in the Washington, D.C., area. It hadn't been hard. As with any task, it was just a matter of finding someone who knew what you needed to know. That was something Cortez excelled at. Once he had the list of numbers - it had cost him $10,000, the best sort of money well spent, that is to say, someone's else's well-spent money - it was merely a matter of knowing schedules. That was tricky, of course. The person might not be there, which risked disclosure, but the right sort of eyes - only prefix would probably serve to warn off the casual viewer. The secretaries of such people typically were disciplined people who risked their jobs when they showed too much curiosity.
But what really made it easy was a new bit of technology, the facsimile printer. It was a brand-new status symbol. Everyone had to have one, just as everyone, especially the important, had to have a direct private telephone line that bypassed his secretary. That and the fax went together. Cortez had driven to Medellín to his private office and typed the message himself. He knew what official U.S. government messages looked like, of course, and did his best to reproduce it here. EYES-ONLY