First Citizen (30 page)

John drove on like an oiled machine. But I could see Amos’s head going side to side like a frightened horse.

We didn’t have to look far. Four cars, heavy-sprung oldstyles, closed in on us from the front, back, and sides, like white blood cells mobbing a germ. They had bronzed privy-glass in the windows, which had been fashionable a few years earlier. So we couldn’t look in, except through the windshield of the vehicle behind us. All we could tell was the faces were dark, maybe masked.

Our revised motorcade was slowing down. John tried once to ram the car in front, but hemmed in as we were, there was no room to fall back and get up decent speed. Next, John nosed into its rear bumper and floored the accelerator. But the other car just snugged in and let us burn rubber. After a few seconds, John took his foot off it and let the inevitable happen.

Amos rolled down the window on his side and started to take aim at the driver in the car on our right. They rolled down both back and front windows and bracketed Amos’s head with about six assorted rifle and pistol barrels. He put down his weapon and closed the window.

“Anything else we can try?” I asked. John shrugged in answer. Amos slumped. “Then we sit back and see where we’re going. If they wanted us dead, they would have rolled a grenade under the car two minutes ago.”

“If they wanted
you
dead, you mean,” Amos said quietly. With that thought spoken, we stopped being a team and became three men in a sedan. Where we were going was the waterfront district, east of Fells Point. Our car cluster took the offramp three abreast, which raised a lot of dust from the shoulder, and one of the outriders peeled off a no littering sign with its bumper. That didn’t slow them.

When we got to the narrower surface streets, the formation slid into two ahead and two behind. John was ready to dodge down any likely side street, except our escort kept us moving so fast we probably would have flipped out and rolled. I ordered him to stay in line until they dropped the speed. They never did.

The first
zing
of sniper fire peeled a strip of plastic off our hood. The second pocked the fender on the vehicle ahead of us. From a side street came a burst of automatic fire that must have chewed up number one’s tires, possibly also its riders. The car swerved out of line and crashed into a mailbox, carrying it on into the closed grille of a storefront. Evidently our escort was crossing enemy territory to get to wherever they were taking us.

Still moving at seventy miles an hour, we roared down a cul de sac and into the open drop-door of an abandoned warehouse. Loose planking thundered under our wheels, so I guessed we were on a wharf or pier over the river. That’s when the car ahead hit the brakes. We all slid around in circles on the oil-soaked, dusty wood, smashing up fenders and doors pretty badly. A couple of tires blew before we ended up near the far wall, all upright, and pointing every which way.

Our escort recovered quickly. They were out of their cars with a dozen weapons leveled before we could get our restraint belts off and the sedan’s doors open.

Even in the dim light, reddish with the setting sun, we could see the deception. They were supposed to look like black men, but it was makeup. I noted the pale flesh of their eyelids, the light color of their lips. They would only be taken for urban guerrillas from a distance.

“Drop weapons! Hands on heads!” one of them shouted. Amos and John made a great show of letting the hardware slip from their fingers and clatter on the planking. We all cupped our skulls.

Poking with shotguns and pistols, the captors separated us. My bodyguard and driver were taken toward the still-open door and into the early evening. To be killed? To be paid off? I don’t know. After the affair was over, we tried to trace them and got no leads at all. That works out either way, doesn’t it?

But, as Amos said, it was me they wanted. The warehouse had an inside structure built along the river wall. It looked like an old wooden meat locker with four doors into it. Half a dozen men with weapons dead-centered on my stomach—they must have appreciated my skill at hand-to-hand combat—walked me over, through the one door that was standing open, and slammed it on me with a
thunk.

It was absolutely black in there. The first impression that came to me was the faintly sweet smell of old, dried blood. Like a butcher shop on a Sunday. As my eyes adjusted, I could see faint differences in the blackness. Gaps in the wood were letting in the evening glow and new fresh scents: water, sewage, tar, spices, and strangely enough—popcorn. Sooner or later the smell of my own sweat, urine, and shit would join them, then overpower them. If I was kept here in hard accommodations. Or if I stayed long enough.

As my senses adjusted, I began exploring with my fingertips. The door was faced with sheet metal. It had been scratched and gouged. Somewhere there would be, as required by law, a plunger to release the latches from inside. Were they that careless …? No, here was a stump of iron rodding, sawed off recently by the feel and taste of it. Door hinges were on the outside.

The interior of the locker seemed to be paneled in matchboard. I measured distances with my hand, then gave it a hard back blow with my elbow. Nothing gave. I explored the point of impact and could feel neither dent nor splinters. Nothing. So it was oak or some other hardwood, backed by a solid subsurface. I had been hoping for pine backed by studs.

And where was the light coming from? Ah, the ceiling of this locker had been ripped out. Above it, beyond the top of the locker structure, was a dead space between the inner and outer walls of the warehouse. Vents high in the outer wall were letting in enough of the evening light for my adjusted eyes and enough air that I wouldn’t suffocate.

Jump, heave, and leg up. I could move around in the dead space, but I found there was nothing loose up there. The refrigeration machinery had long ago been stripped down to bulky bare frames and motor parts. There was no way into the other lockers.

I dropped down, deciding to take it slowly. I might be here a long time.

Chapter 15

Billy Birdsong: First Foray

I had taken three platoons east to clean up a guerrilla nest near Chichen-Itza. During a break in the fighting, my wing of Stompers had settled on the parklike grass that stretched between the crooked columns of the Temple of the Warriors and the stepped pyramid known as the Castle. With the green grass, the white stones, and a hot sun in the blue sky, it was a beautiful place— except for the random crack of sniper fire.

I was standing outside my command ship, jawing with a recon group, when the signals section from Merida broke in with a priority transmission. They said it was a call from the States, relayed through our satellite downlink, which over the months had grown pretty wobbly. So the voice quality was shot to begin with; it did not help that Carlotta sounded on the edge of tears, too. Incredible as that was to anybody who knew her.

“Colonel, can you hear me? Colonel? … Colonel?”

After ten seconds or so, I thumbed the mike and told her: “We are on open air here, Carlotta. It is polite for you to say ‘over’ so I can switch to transmit and answer.”

That was a fuzzy old bit of radio protocol, as out of date as Samuel F. B. Morse himself, but with Carlotta Corbin, I played by the numbers. Never cared much for her. Probably because she did not like soldiers, or Indians, or me, and she showed it. I return the love they give me—my choice, right?

“Thank you, Colonel. Can you hear me now, over?”

“Five by. What can I do for you? Over.”

“They’ve taken Gran.”

Two, three, four … “Who has? And where have they taken him?”

“I don’t know. Nobody will say. He just disappeared one night in Baltimore. And then we got a ransom note—with an ear in it.”

That last part was broken up with what might be either her sobs or dropouts in the downlink. I would bet on the link. Carlotta felt about Gran the same way the owner of a winning horse feels. If she was sorry about the ear, it was because without it he was no good on video.

“Are you sure it was Gran’s ear?”

“Well of course it was—! What do you mean?”

“Just that, a couple of hours after being cut off, you might not be able to tell your own ear from a dead baboon’s. It could be anybody’s ear. So stop having hysterics. … Over.”

“I wasn’t having hysterics.”

Three, four … “How much was the ransom for?”

“Five—five hundred million.”

“Can you raise it?”

“I don’t think so. To get that kind of money out, Gran would have to sign a lot of paperwork. I don’t have the power.”

Good! Smart man, our Granny. Keep her hands off the big chunks. But to her I said: “All right. A demand that high—they are not going to deal anyway. Just stalling. We have to find out why. Over.”

“What should I do?”

“Wait for me. I will come north with some tough friends. Where are you, Baltimore?”

“No, home in Vegas. Come quickly. I don’t want to get another ear, or worse.”

“On my way. Good-bye and clear.”

“Good-bye.”

Three, four … “Say ‘clear,’ Carlotta.”

“Yes, that’s—clear.”

Close enough.

I left a captain in charge at Chichen-Itza and flew back to our base. First thing, I looked up Mike Alcott. He had just returned with a mixed company on a training exercise. His face and uniform were colored with sweat and red dust. I pulled him right out of the debriefing anyway, ducked us into an empty office, and explained Carlotta’s call to him.

Mike whistled. “You’re actually thinking of taking half a battalion back to the States?”

“No, two platoons, and without air support.” That was about seventy troops.

“Do you want to slow down and give that some thought?”

“What do you mean?”

“Title Twelve, for starters,” he said, referring to a section of the Gentlemen Volunteers enabling legislation. “You can be court-martialed—not some pantomime in the bush by Gran, but the real thing, ordered by Congress—for ‘maintaining an armed presence’ north of the Rio Grande. We can travel to the States—the Old Fifty—as civilians. We can ship weapons, munitions, and supplies there under bond. But you go back with the ordnance in your hands and they’ll swing you. Those are standing orders, Billy. Gran’s, too.”

“I think we can get in and out unseen. Go the cocaine route through the bayous. Dressed in civvies and with the ordnance in crates. Once on dry land, we can buy a bus and head north. Or something.”

“What about police involvement, during and after the action?”

“Then we just have to keep an ‘armed distance’ from everyone until Gran is safe.”

“Planning to take passports, idents, anything?”

“I will think about that,” I said. “Not having them kind of burns the bridges for everyone. … We end up as foreign terrorists, that way.”

“Wouldn’t it be simpler just to pay the ransom?”

“If that would get him back, yes. Personally, I think the ransom is just a stall. They want Corbin for another reason. Maybe to kill him. Or to brainwash him. No way to know until we get in there.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“First, keep up the same level of activity here. Maybe increase it. So any audit team coming through has no reason to suspect part of the division is out of country.

“Second, loan me your best intelligence operative. Preferably one with a police detective or investigative background. It would help, also, if he knew the Baltimore area.”

“I’ll give you Randell,” Alcott said. “Born there and spent three years on the police force—but uniform, not plainclothes. Does that count?”

“He any good?”

“She. Robbi Randell. Yeah, good as I’ve got.”

“Then brief her while I pick the action teams and find some crates big enough for our 110-millimeter rockets.”

“Anyone catch you with those, you’re cooked for sure. What do you want ’em for?”

“We may have to blow a few doors.”

The team prepared in secret and left Mexico by charter plane two days later. Taking a fishing boat across the Gulf and in through the bayou country would have been too slow. Instead we flew hard-ass in the world’s oldest DC-10, which had been converted to long-distance freight hauling around the Caribbean sometime before the Nicaraguan War. The inside looked like a beer can that had been housing chickens. One engine would not stay in synch but warbled all over the scale like a drunken Paiute. Our pilot-owner, Poco Pete, insisted, “She fly good, no problem.”

For the sake of Tampa Air Traffic Control, we were shown as miscellaneous cargo and machine parts out of Merida. For the sake of U.S. Customs, we developed “engine trouble” somewhere over South Carolina and made an “emergency landing” at the Calhoun County Airport. Four trailer trucks were waiting there, by prearrangement with Carlotta, to make a transfer—loading on real “general cargo,” including matching parts, in exchange for men and materiel—before a flying squad from Customs could arrive and seal the plane.

We changed the trucks’ markings and plates before crossing the county line. Carlotta was waiting for us at a farmhouse she and Gran kept outside Loch Raven, Maryland. I bedded down our troops in the barn and then took Randell and my second in command in to see the lady.

Jumpy as a cat, Carlotta leaped off the sofa and came over to us. She was decked out in some kind of satin afternoon dress, like this was going to be a tea party. It occurs to me now: She must have been watching from the window as the men and weapons unloaded, gone to sit down—elegantly—for our entrance, and then been unable to hold the pose. She really was nervous.

“Have you found Gran yet?”

“Slow down, Carlotta. We just got here.”

“But you brought soldiers.”

“We need them no matter what we find,” I said reasonably. “This is my second, Lieutenant Larry Stalk, who I think you met in Merida. And our intelligence expert, Corporal Randell.”

“Charmed,” Carlotta said at ten below.

Robbi Randell was petite, black, and tough as Tyvek paper. She was dressed for hard travel in high-top motorcycle boots, pink denims with a grease smear across the seat, and a pearl-gray pullover sweater. Even wearing civvies, she walked like a soldier—or a cop. She took the three-fingered handshake Carlotta offered her and acted polite over it.