Z (2 page)

Aragon Island, 9 June

The helicopter was barely twenty feet above the tops of the trees, moving at over a hundred miles an hour. Inside, soldiers with camouflage paint on their faces and the double-A patch of the 82d Airborne Division on their left shoulders pulled back the charging handles on their M-16s and put a round in the chamber, ready for action.

In one of the center seats facing to the rear, Dave Riley’s hands twitched, missing the feel of a weapon in them. It was instinctual, and as he caught himself doing it, he smiled and forced his muscles to relax. He glanced to his left at Conner Young. She wore the same armband he did over the loose-fitting khaki, indicating she was with the press. On Riley’s right, their military escort, a young captain from the Pentagon named Kanalo, was watching the actions of the paratroopers with wide eyes. From the shield insignia on the left collar of Kanalo’s battledress uniform, Riley knew that the closest the officer had ever come to a situation like this was probably in his basic officer-training course. The shield with stars on it indicated Kanalo was in the adjutant general’s corps, and the rest of the army had a saying about that branch of service: Twinkle, twinkle, little shield, keep me from the battlefield.

The battlefield was not a place that Riley had been kept from in his eighteen years of active duty. In his time in the Special Forces, he had been on covert combat missions into Colombia and mainland China; even live operations in the United States itself that had involved death and destruction. After leaving the army two years ago, after the death of the woman he loved—a Chicago police officer he’d met on his last mission under the streets of Chicago—Riley had worked for an international security firm and gone down to the wastelands of Antarctica, where he’d run into commandos from North Korea trying to appropriate atomic weapons.

His official job now was to watch over Conner Young and keep the reporter safe. Hard to do with no weapon, he reflected, as he noticed the crew chief indicate one minute out to the lieutenant in charge of the soldiers. The landing zone was supposed to be clear, but from the intelligence reports Riley had looked at, over the course of the past week—ever since this unit of the 82d had deployed here to bring peace—the rebel forces had had a strange habit of showing up, at just the worst time, in places that had been “secured.”

Riley was shorter than most of the men in the helicopter at five and a half feet. He was dark skinned, an inheritance from his mother’s Puerto Rican side. His muscles were like rubber stretched over his bones. His body emanated barely restrained tension as the helicopter began slowing, but his dark eyes reflected the patience he’d learned over the past thirty-seven years—from the streets of the South Bronx through all his years of service.

The lieutenant reached over and tapped Conner on the knee, ignoring Riley and Kanalo. “We’re one minute out!” he yelled to be heard above the sound of the engines and rotor blades.

Riley understood the reason he was being ignored. He knew the effect Conner had—any man would. She was a beautiful woman, with dark eyes, a thin nose, and a wide mouth. Her skin was the most alluring aspect of her face: soft and white, it highlighted her features to maximum advantage. She had not applied the camouflage stick that Riley had given her earlier this morning and he understood her reasoning behind that, but it was something he noted for future reference. Tucked under the bush hat that Riley had given her was Conner’s trademark—thick black hair, cut short and framing her face.

Riley knew that Conner knew the effect she had, and he also understood that was partly the reason she wasn’t wearing camouflage paint on her face. And he respected her for that self-knowledge, and for the fact that, while she did use it to her advantage in her job, she didn’t complain about the times when it worked against her and people treated her like she was just a pretty mouthpiece for the network. Even in the midst of all this, Conner’s charm was working on the lieutenant, who should have been thinking about other things.

They cleared a tree line and the Black Hawk swooped down into an open field on the edge of a small hamlet. As soon as the wheels touched, the soldiers scrambled off, weapons at the ready, forming a loose perimeter as a second bird came in. Within a minute an entire platoon, over thirty infantrymen, was on the ground. Riley crouched with Conner on the inside of the hasty perimeter. The hamlet consisted of eight cinder block buildings with tin roofs. A dirt road ran through the center.

“Let’s move in,” the lieutenant called out, and the men stood.

Two black men dressed in cutoff shorts and T-shirts appeared on the edge of the village. They had AK-47s in their hands.

“Put down the weapons!” the lieutenant yelled to the men.

“This is our village,” one of the men yelled back. “You put down your weapons.” Despite the rhetoric, the two men were not holding their rifles in a threatening manner. The paratroopers came to a halt, forming a line less than forty feet from the edge of the village.

An old black woman came out of one of the buildings. “Let me talk to your leader,” she said, her accent similar to that heard in the hills of Jamaica. According to intelligence, this area was sealed by descendants of runaway slaves from that island, and they valued their independence fiercely. Unfortunately, this village was in the buffer zone being established by the United Nations peacemakers between the government and a dissident rebel group.

Riley could see that the lieutenant had not expected this type of challenge. “I’m in command,” he said.

“I lead this village,” the woman replied. “What do you want?”

“We’re here to protect you,” he said.

The woman held up her own rifle. “Ourselves, we protect. Help, we don’t need. You will only bring the infiltrators here.”

The lieutenant was sticking to what he’d been taught and ordered. “We can help you defend yourselves.”

“Ourselves, we have done that quite well. Your help, we don’t need.”

“We can add our strength to yours,” the lieutenant said.

“For now,” the woman agreed. “Maybe. But what about when you leave?”

“We—” the officer began, but he was cut off.

The woman spit. “Somalia, you left. Vietnam, you left. A long history you Americans have of offering to protect people, getting them to join you, then abandoning them and leaving them worse than they were before you came with your fine help.”

If the lieutenant’s face had not been painted green, Riley would not have been surprised to see it get red. “We are here to enforce the United Nations resolution regarding the peace between—” he tried, but again the woman interceded.

“What do we care for the United Nations, eh? Over a hundred years we have lived here. Our land this is and we want no outsiders here. Leave us alone.”

“I can’t do that,” the lieutenant said. “My orders are to secure this village. A demilitarized zone is being—”

“This village is secure!” the woman yelled. Several other villagers had joined her so that there was now a small crowd of ten, eight adults and two children. All the adults were armed. The lieutenant shifted his feet nervously. This was not at all going the way he had hoped, and they hadn’t covered this type of scenario in his Infantry Officers’ Basic Course at Fort Benning and most certainly not in Ranger School.

The woman looked at the soldiers for several moments. “How do I know we can trust you?”

The lieutenant was taken aback. “We’re Americans. We’re here at the bequest of your government and under United Nations charter to—”

“Our government,” the woman’s voice was full of scorn. “What does our government care about us? They’d rather see us dead out here in the swamp. Tell me, American man, why should we trust you?”

The lieutenant glanced at his platoon sergeant, searching for advice, but the woman beat him to it. “Lay down your weapons and I will believe you. I will let you into our village and we can talk.”

“I can’t do that,” the lieutenant said.

“Then leave. We will never allow you in our village with your weapons.” The woman turned away.

“Wait!” the officer cried out. The woman paused.

Riley knew the lieutenant was seeing his career go down the tubes with the failure of this mission.

“I will put down my rifle and join you. We can talk.”

“And leave thirty armed men waiting to attack my people?” the woman replied.

Conner leaned close to Riley. “What do you think?” she whispered.

“I think we’re going to see a fuckup,” Riley quietly replied. He was looking about, checking out the buildings, the wood line. He had a very bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. The paratroopers were strung out in the open, waiting for their leader to make a decision. The lieutenant had become so preoccupied with the confrontation with the woman, he had lapsed in control of his platoon and the overall tactical situation.

The woman smiled and took the magazine out of her AK-47. She tucked it into her waistband and ejected the round still in the chamber. “There. See?” She gestured and the other men did the same. “We are willing to compromise. Unload your weapons and join us in the village.”

The lieutenant stood a bit taller. He turned to his platoon sergeant. “Have the men unload.”

The veteran NCO stared at his officer. “But, sir—”

“Now!” the lieutenant ordered.

“Yes, sir,” the sergeant said reluctantly.

“Magazines out of weapons, chamber empty.”

In the tradition of the 82d, the men did as they were ordered. Satisfied, the woman turned toward the first building. “Come, join us.” She disappeared into a doorway. The platoon had started moving forward, when the rooftops suddenly erupted in a cacophony of small arms fire. Riley dragged Conner down to the ground as firing also roared out of the tree line to their left.

The paratroopers dived for what scant cover there was in the open field, tearing magazines out of their ammo pouches and desperately jamming them back into their weapons.

“Fuck, I’m hit!” one young soldier called out.

A loud beeping noise chirped off of Conner’s web gear. “What is that?” she asked above the sound of weapons firing.

“You’ve been shot,” Riley said. He reached into her combat vest and pulled out a small envelope, tearing it open. It had been placed there at the beginning of this exercise and now he read it. “At least you’re not dead. According to this you’ve suffered a wound to your stomach. You need to call for a medic.”

“Great game you men play,” Conner muttered.

“I don’t hear you crying out in pain,” Riley noted. “Wounds to the stomach tend to hurt.”

“Screw you, Dave,” Conner said. “Keep it up and I’ll show you hurt.”

Most of the MILES harnesses on the men in the platoon were already activated, indicating that they had been hit by laser beams from the ambushing force. It was over quickly. A surviving squad leader rallied the remnants of the platoon and retreated to the far tree line, calling on the radio for reinforcements. Riley’s MILES vest was silent, but he simply rolled on his back and stared up into the blue Louisiana sky.

“How do you shut this damn thing off?” Conner asked.

“The controllers will sort this out in a few minutes,” Riley said. “Give the squad leader a chance to finish his radio calls for help.” He looked around. The lieutenant took a key out of his rifle laser—making the emitter inactive—and placed it in his MILES harness, turning off the beeper. Not a happy camper, Riley thought, but unloading weapons—that was stupid, and the whole purpose of this exercise was to have people like the lieutenant do stupid things here where the price paid was a little humiliation rather than blood and guts.

A man wearing an OC—observer-controller—armband walked over. “What have we here?” he asked, stooping over Conner. “A dead reporter?” He looked at the card. “Ah, just wounded. Still, very bad for publicity,” he said loudly enough for the lieutenant to hear. He took his controller key and turned her MILES gear off. He looked at Riley. “How come you didn’t run with the others? You’re still alive.”

“I’m signed for her,” Riley said.

The OC laughed. “Well, welcome to peacekeeping 101. As you can see, the natives aren’t too friendly.”

Cacolo, Angola, 11 June

Sergeant Ku buttoned his fatigue pants and threw several bills on the ground. The whore scooped them up and they disappeared into the robe she wore. She hadn’t even bothered to take it off for their brief coupling, simply hitching it up at her waist. Prostitution was not exactly an art form in the Third World but rather a matter of everyday life.

Ku walked out of the “house” made of cast-off cardboard from relief packages and squinted up at the sun. There was the sound of a helicopter, and he watched as the aircraft banked across the sky and headed to the west. It was a pretty thing to watch. The Americans certainly had better equipment than the Cubans had had.

“There you are!” A soldier who had been in the patrol the previous day sauntered up. “The major wants to see you.”

Ku frowned. “What for?”

“How should I know?” The soldier pointed at the hut with a knowing smile. “How is she?” He didn’t wait for an answer, disappearing into the black hole of the doorway, already tugging at his pants.

Ku walked toward the garrison headquarters, wondering why the major in charge of the garrison here would want him. There was more going on in Cacolo than had happened in years. The Americans were coming and everyone was excited. After the patrol’s arrival late yesterday evening, the officer in charge of the Cacolo garrison had absorbed Lieutenant Monoko’s men into his own force regardless of Monoko’s original orders. Not an uncommon occurrence in Angola, where communication over distances was slow and erratic at best.

A guard lounging in the shade didn’t even acknowledge Ku’s approach. He knocked once, then entered. “Sergeant Ku reporting, sir.”

Major Gungue, the garrison commander, looked up from some papers on his desk. There was another man in the room, a white man dressed in camouflage fatigues.

“Sergeant Ku. Welcome, welcome!” Major Gungue smiled. “This is Major Lindsay, the commander of the Americans who will be helping us.”

Ku stood a little straighter “Sir!”

The American returned his salute.

“I am assigning my most experienced men,” Gungue said in Portuguese, the official language of the country and military, “to work with the American soldiers who will be coming here. You,” he said, looking at Ku, “will work with one of the units that will be stationed here at Cacolo.”

The American spoke for the first time, also in Portuguese, which surprised Ku but explained the fulsome way Gungue had just spoken about him. “Sergeant Ku, you will be working with Operational Detachment three one four.”

“Yes, sir,” Ku said, for lack of anything else to say. He had no idea what an operational detachment was, or what the numbers represented. He also wondered why he was being sent to the Americans. Gungue didn’t have a clue whether Ku was experienced or not. Obviously the major didn’t want to spare any of his own men.

“You will be the unit’s interpreter and guide,” Major Gungue said.

“Guide?” Ku asked.

Gungue smiled and now that smile made Ku nervous. He’d seen that look before on officers’ faces, and it usually spelled trouble. The major walked over to the map pinned to the wall. “The Americans are going to clear this area of rebels. You must show them around.” Gungue’s hand swept across the northeast part of the country on the map. Ku knew next to nothing about the area. How could he? It was rebel territory. He felt trapped, knowing there was no way out of this assignment.

Then Ku thought about the heavily armed helicopter he had just seen flying away, the American helicopter. They had hundreds of those, from what he heard. Maybe this was not going to be as bad as it looked.

“The team will be here on Saturday,” the American major said. “Do you have any questions?”

Ku had hundreds of questions, but he could tell by the look that Major Gungue gave him that it was best to keep his mouth shut. He found it strange that the American would ask such a question. Officers usually did not answer questions of sergeants in the Angolan army. Maybe the Americans were different, Ku thought. He eyed the combat vest the white man was wearing: top-notch equipment. If all the soldiers coming had such gear... Ku’s head swam with the possibilities, not in terms of combat potential but in terms of the black market.

“No, sir. I have no questions.”

Fort Bragg, North Carolina, 11 June

“We are very pleased to have you here, Ms. Young, and to have you work with us.” The 3d Special Forces Group commander, Colonel Burrows, walked around his desk and extended a hand.

“I’m pleased to be here,” Conner Young replied, taking the hand.

To her left, the large young man in uniform snapped to attention. “I’m Captain Kanalo, sir. I’m Ms. Young’s escort from the Department of the Army public affairs.”

Burrows acknowledged the captain’s presence with a hearty handshake, but his attention was focused on the lone woman in the room. To Conner’s right, Dave Riley went unnoticed as Colonel Burrows introduced the other members of his primary staff to her. The Conner effect was in full force, Riley thought.

“This is Mr. Riley, my assistant,” Conner said, breaking up the group in front of Colonel Burrows’s large desk.

Burrows nodded. “Mr. Riley.”

Riley forced himself not to snap to attention and salute. He simply nodded back. “Colonel.” He felt uncomfortable. His years in the service had instilled in him many habits that the past couple as a civilian had not quite erased. It felt strange to be around men in starched camouflage fatigues while wearing khaki pants and an open-collar, short-sleeve shirt.

Riley could read the cloth markings sewn on the men’s fatigues: Combat Infantry Badges (CIBs), jump wings, Ranger and Special Forces tabs, scuba badges, and others. From his own personal history, he knew what was needed to earn each of those, and thus he knew a little about each of the men in the room.

He wondered what they knew about him. He had never served with any of the officers present and for that, in a way, he was grateful. He preferred not to have anyone take interest in him. Of course on this job, that wasn’t so hard. One thing he had learned in the past six months while working with Conner was that he could be wearing a clown’s costume and doing backflips and most men would not notice him if he was in the same room with her.

“You had no trouble finding us?” Burrows asked.

The 3d Group headquarters was away from the hustle and bustle of the main post at Fort Bragg. It was set in the midst of a grove of pine trees off Yadkin Road on the edge of the reservation. Special Forces had been started on Smoke Bomb Hill on the main reservation, but as the years had gone by and the forces modernized, both the 3d and 7th Special Forces Groups along with the brand new Army Special Operations Command had moved over to this area of the post. In his last assignment, Riley had worked with the Special Forces Training Group just down the road and had seen the construction begun on these buildings, so it had not been a problem to find them.

The facility consisted of a group headquarters, three battalion headquarters, barracks for the unmarried soldiers, an isolation facility for mission preparation, and space for team rooms. It was a long cry from the old World War II “temporary” barracks that had housed Special Forces at Fort Bragg for forty years.

Riley didn’t like the new buildings. They seemed too impersonal. The old white-sided buildings on Smoke Bomb Hill had history hanging over them like a fog. One could almost imagine one of the first members of Special Forces walking about and working there. These glass-and-brick pieces of architecture seemed more fit for the MTV generation. Riley smiled at that thought. He still thought of himself as a twenty-something soldier, and he had to remember that he was much closer to the forty-something, nearing-retirement age he had thought was so old when he’d first come on active duty.

Conner shook her head. “No, none at all. My cameraman is taking some background shots outside. The compound here is most impressive. Captain Kanalo told me that would be no problem.”

“No, that’s not a problem.” Burrows gestured toward the door. “Well, let’s go down to the conference room and we’ll get you up to speed on what’s going on.”

They moved down the carpeted hallway to a large room with a wood table as a centerpiece. The Special Forces crest was carved into the middle of the table, and the walls of the room were crowded with various plaques and photographs from the military elite of other countries around the world—places 3d Group teams had visited or hosted visits from.

Riley noticed that they had reserved one seat for Conner next to the group commander, one farther down the table for Captain Kanalo, and none for him at the main table as the staff filled in the rest of the leather chairs. He took a hard plastic chair along the back wall along with a few captains and a couple of NCOs.

Colonel Burrows didn’t sit down right away. “As you know, Third Group has been tasked to support Operation Restore Life. An essential part, if I might say so. I will let my operations officer, Lieutenant Colonel Waller, brief you on the details of our tasking.” With that, Burrows settled down in his seat and a gray-haired officer took his place.

The lights dimmed and Waller began speaking, remote in his hand. A slide came on the screen built into the wall. “On the twenty-third of May, 1997, this headquarters received a Special Operations Command mission letter. The Third Special Forces Group was ordered in this letter to support Operation Restore Life in Angola. Our specific mission guidance has two phases.” Waller used a laser pointer on the wire diagram as he spoke.

MISSION GUIDANCE: OPERATION RESTORE LIFE PHASE I: ESTABLISH ONE SFOB AT LUANDA PHASE II: ESTABLISH AS MANY AOBs TO SUPPORT MISSION IN COUNTRY AS MISSION PLANNING DETERMINES.

“What these two phases mean is that we must deploy our group headquarters to establish a Special Forces forward operating base, SFOB, at the capital city of Luanda. That FOB must be prepared to send out our company headquarters, augmented, to establish advance operating bases, AOBs, at sites to be determined by the SFOB commander, Colonel Burrows, to support assigned missions.”

“Excuse me a second,” Burrows interrupted. He turned to Conner. “I hope all these terms aren’t a bit overwhelming. Are they?”

“Not at all,” Conner said. Riley could see the flash of white teeth as she graced the commander with a smile. If only Burrows knew what she knew, Riley thought. He wondered how long she was going to wait before bursting Burrows’s bubble.

“Go ahead,” Burrows indicated.

A new slide came up. Waller was indeed keeping it at a base level as he continued. “The Third Special Forces Group consists of a group headquarters, a headquarters and headquarters company, a support company and three Special Forces battalions.

“For this mission,” Waller said, “we have formed a task force out of the group assets to conduct the mission: Task Force Angel.”

Riley winced. He wondered who made up these names. He could well imagine the reaction of the actual men on the teams to being part of a task force with such a name.

“Angel consists of the Group headquarters augmented by the First Battalion staff at the SFOB. The three AOBs, the three line company headquarters from First Battalion, are augmented by personnel from C Company, Second Battalion. And fifteen operational detachment alphas, or ODAs, commonly called A-teams, will be doing the on-the-ground work.

“The SFOB will be established in the capital city of Angola, adjacent to the Joint Task Force headquarters. Each of the AOB titles tells you the town where they will be established.”

Waller paused. “Would you like me to give the background information on the situation in Angola and the strategic-level concept of operations?”

“I understand most of what is happening,” Conner replied in a quiet voice. “Perhaps a brief summary from your perspective would be helpful, though.”

Waller nodded. “I’m sure you know that this is to be a humanitarian mission into Angola with the dual goals of ending the decades-long civil war there and relieving the chronic famine that the country experiences. Basically you might call it an attempt at nation building.

“This attempt, though, is to be different from previous similar attempts, such as the failed one into Somalia several years back. Although the United Nations is sponsoring the mission, command of forces on the ground is to remain with participating countries. Because of that, Angola has been cut in half in operational terms.”

A map of Angola came up on the screen. A red line ran across the middle of the country, splitting it into two almost equal portions, north and south.

“The United States Joint Task Force—JTF—area of operations is the northern half of the country. The southern half—and another difference in this operation—belongs to a Pan-African force spearheaded by the South African Defense Forces. The UN has issued the mandate. It is up to us and the Pan-African forces to enforce the mandate in the manner we see as best accomplishing that.”

A new slide came up. “In support of United States missions in the northern half of the country, Third Group has three initial operational tasks: (a) conduct reconnaissance and targeting in advance of regular forces; (b) provide liaison with Angolan army forces; (c) conduct special operations as dictated by Joint Task Force commander.

“We have already deployed advance elements of our SFOB to Luanda, and they are in place and operational. The rest of the Group Staff, and you with us, will deploy on Friday. Two of the three AOBs are also in place, and the third is currently en route. Our first operational detachments deploy later this week to conduct reconnaissance missions and initial coordination with the Angolan armed forces.”

Riley rubbed his chin in the back of the room. There was a lot that wasn’t being said. Tasking C left a lot of possibilities open. One mission that Riley knew the group had to have under the broad title of “Special Operations” was E & E—escape and evasion for downed pilots. The aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln was off the coast of Angola and air force units were at a Namibian airfield to the south of the country, all prepared to carry out a “no-fly” order in support of Operation Restore Life. Some of the teams of 3d Group were going to be out there in the hinterland prepared to pick up any downed pilots. The rebel forces did have access to ground-to-air missile systems and a fledgling air force, so there were bound to be some shoot-downs.