Black Silver, page 34
31
SUBIC BAY, MID-AUGUST
Back at his studio Havok opened the envelope and started to read the three-page typed brief. Halfway through, he heard the door open. He looked up and saw Apple, wearing the bar’s uniform and carrying a six-pack of bottled beer. She didn’t say anything but walked over to him, pulled a beer from the six-pack, and handed it to him. He accepted the bottle and watched her as she turned to the refrigerator. After placing the six-pack on a shelf in the fridge, she grabbed a Sprite before closing the door. Then she sat on the bed and used the bottle to smooth a crease in the bedspread. Havok could see her mind was a million miles away.
Without thinking, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the diamond ring he’d salvaged off the Russian ship. Holding the ring out, he blurted, “Apple, will you marry me?”
He saw her eyes close ever so slightly as her hand squeezed the Sprite bottle. Veins stood out on the back of her hand. She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she kept staring at the bedspread. She seemed not to notice the diamond ring in his hand. Havok waited, giving her time to answer when she was ready.
It was a strange silence.
Finally, she looked up. “Why do you ask me now? Do you really love me? Or is it because you feel guilty that my father died on one of your adventures?”
Havok saw the reflective look on her face. He sighed. “No, it’s not because of your father’s death. It’s just that now I realize how much you’ve cared for me and put up with my crap. I want to do right.”
“So you think you owe me for my service?”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Havok said, regretting those last few words.
“You never said you love me,” Apple said, staring at the bookshelves.
He paused. “I don’t know what to say, Apple. I do love you. Again, will you marry me?”
After a minute, she responded, “Mercedes said you’re going to Vietnam to kidnap somebody.”
“Yes, we are,” Havok said firmly, “but we’ll be back. It’ll only be for a few days.”
“But then you’re going to the Caribbean right after that.”
“Yes, we are, but we’ll come back after that.”
“How long will that trip take?” Apple asked as if she already knew the answer.
“Only a few weeks,” he replied weakly.
“What about after that? Where will you go next?”
Havok could not answer that question.
Apple broke the awkward silence with a deep sigh. “Mr. Joseph Havok, no, I will not marry you and you can keep your ring.” She returned her gaze to the books. “Our lives together as a husband and wife were not meant to be. Your life is in those books. Or if not in those books, it’s in some cave in Mexico or a shitty bar on Mombasa.” She turned to look at the screen on the laptop, which sat on the rolltop desk. “Or looking for an ancient underwater city off the coast of Cuba. If we got married, you’d feel obligated to stay here, which would destroy us both. If you took me with you, what would ‘M’ have to say about it in Pensacola? She’s on that side of the world, waiting for you, and I am on this side of the world. She keeps sending you books with notes in them, so what would she have to say about me following you around?”
“I just want you to be happy,” Havok stated.
“I’m happy for our time together,” Apple said as she turned to face Havok. She had a pleasing smile on her face and a hint of a tear in one corner of her eye. “Nothing can take that away. Just as you will always find another adventure, I will eventually find somebody else to marry and live with. That is our future. In the meantime, you finish reading what Kilgore gave you and then take a shower, because you’re taking me to Olongapo for a movie.”
Apple stood up from the bed, kissed Havok on the forehead, and left the room, leaving Havok to his three-page brief and his thoughts. He looked at the unopened beer bottle and thought about how fortunate he really was: I’ve never been so gratefully indebted to anybody like her. I don’t deserve her.
32
THAILAND, MID-AUGUST
The brief was clear and direct. Havok, Stone, and Kilgore were to catch a commercial flight to Bangkok; rent a car and drive to Pattaya Beach, a resort area seventy miles southeast of Bangkok; and check into the Royal Garden Hotel and pose as tourists. To the south of Pattaya Beach was the town of Sattahip and a Royal Thai naval base, the training ground and headquarters for their naval special forces. Because of the similarity in topography, and because they were to operate at night in Vietnam, they would train at night, then make their way back to Pattaya each morning and sleep during the day.
The flight to mainland Asia was uneventful, allowing each man to be alone with his thoughts.
After landing in Bangkok, Kilgore checked out their car from the rental center, a mundane white four-door sedan, while Havok and Stone retrieved their luggage. They then drove to Pattaya, passing the many baht buses that shuttled the local population up and down the flat countryside. They checked into their hotel, just off South Pattaya Road, the main drag of the resort town, and visited old haunts. When dusk approached, they piled into their rental and made their way to Sattahip.
The two Thai guards at the gate sweated profusely from the early-evening tropical heat, wet spots staining their uniforms. One of them stepped out of the guard shack and peered through the tinted glass before Kilgore had a chance to lower the window. The guard seemed to be expecting them because, as soon as he saw three white males, he yelled something to the other guard inside the small shack, who then picked up a cell phone.
The first guard signaled them to pull off to the side of the road and wait.
Their wait was short. In a couple of minutes, a giant of a white man, wearing tiger-striped BDUs and jungle boots, stepped out of a nearby two-story wooden structure. Bamboo blinds covered the inside of the building’s windows. The man lumbered toward the car with an easy gait despite his immense size. Havok saw no nametag or insignia patches on the uniform.
Kilgore rolled the window down but kept the car’s air conditioner going.
The man bent down and peered through the driver’s-side window. He looked them over cautiously and then said, “Kilgore?”
“In the flesh,” Kilgore answered, flashing a huge smile.
The man’s smile matched Kilgore’s. “Park next to the building I just came out of.” He allowed the car to pass and then followed it as Kilgore drove the short distance and parked it under the light at the corner of the building.
Kilgore, Stone, and Havok left the car, retrieving their luggage from the trunk, and walked up the bare wooden steps to a plain brown door. The uniformed man opened the door and all four of them stepped inside a large room. The room was dim and cavernous with sparse furnishings. A dozen seated men eyed the new arrivals with cautious suspicion. Though not as imposing as the first man, they all appeared to be tough and professional, and all wore the same type of camouflage BDUs, also without badges or distinctions of rank. Most wore civilian ball caps denoting the names of states or sports teams.
“Gentlemen, this is Joe Havok, Scott Kilgore, and Pete Stone.”
The seated men warily inspected the new arrivals, sizing them up like wrestlers before a big match. Havok, Kilgore, and Stone did the same. Intense, hardened eyes clashed against one another.
“Let’s get started,” said the big man, breaking up the silent duel. “I’m Blane Tucker, and I, like everybody else in this room, am a member of SCRU. I believe you know what that stands for. You’ll learn everybody’s names as we go along.” Tucker turned and faced the entire crowd. “The purpose of our mission is to infiltrate a villa located just outside of Da Nang. You are going to bring out two men, Tang and Anisimova. Their photos are included in the briefs I hope everybody had a chance to study. Tang is probably the biggest drug manufacturer, trafficker, and pusher around. His cliental is definitely not exclusive. Then there is Anisimova, who’s not only a Russian separatist wanted by his own government, but also Tang’s partner in the heroin trade. The type of heroin that these two are turning out is twisting many minds into zombies in both the US and Russia. Both Tang and Anisimova are old friends and have been partners for years. Now, we’re going to bring them both back to the States.”
One of the men, who sat near the far wall, raised his hand. “Is the Vietnamese government still in the dark about this?”
He appeared to be perhaps the youngest man in the room and wore a Minnesota Vikings ball cap, which was perched jauntily on the back of his head.
“Yes, Bergdahl, they are. Most of Tang’s relatives run the government and are paid a decent sum. We couldn’t take a chance at informing them,” Tucker said as he looked around the room sternly. “I must stress that we cannot leave anybody behind. If, for whatever reason, you’re not at the extraction point, you must make it to the alternate extraction point. We are not supposed to be there, and Uncle Sam will not admit to anything.”
“So what else is new?” Stone joked, breaking the ice. He received a couple of chuckles, but most of the men still viewed them warily.
“The basics of the operation are as follows,” Tucker continued. “We will parachute in, landing at a marked LZ manned by people on our payroll, about four klicks from the villa. Far enough away that the sounds of the helicopters won’t alert our targets at the villa and our direction won’t telegraph our intended target, just in case we are tracked by radar. We will make our way to the villa, and the helicopters will land at another LZ two klicks from the villa to wait for us. This will be our primary extraction point. We will complete our mission and make our way there. In case our primary LZ is compromised, there is a second extraction point near Ba Na, about ten klicks from the villa. Both extraction points are on the maps that you will be given as part of your issue; they will be marked in code. Make sure you study those maps carefully. Any questions?”
“Why are we bringing civilians?” asked Bergdahl, seeming to question the presence of the three new arrivals. Havok studied his young face. He was handsome, with Nordic features. Well-muscled, he held himself with extreme self-confidence.
“Easy, Bergdahl,” Tucker said. “These civilians just had a run-in with Anisimova less than a month ago. They know him, and they have a pretty heavy score to settle.”
“This ain’t a grudge match,” Bergdahl retorted. “This is the real thing, and I don’t think we should operate with amateurs just because their pussies got hurt.”
Havok looked around the room at the rest of the agents. He saw others nod in agreement. He also saw Tucker staring at Bergdahl.
“Listen here: these two men kept a cargo of sarin gas out of the hands of terrorists along with a half-billion dollars in gold and diamonds. Also, I’m guessing that any one of these amateurs could kick your ass without even working up a sweat,” Tucker said, staring the man into silent submission. “If you don’t like the way I run my ops, you can always resign and see if the Eighty-Second Airborne will take you back.”
The younger man averted his eyes to the floor.
“All right,” said Tucker, biting his ire, “let’s finish this brief.”
The brief lasted another fifty minutes. Afterward, Tucker led his newest recruits to a backroom in the same building. There they drew their field gear: canvas parachute bags stuffed with packed parachutes, web gear, boots, and BDUs. They put on their fatigues and web gear, stashed their remaining gear in assigned lockers, and then joined the rest of the team, who waited on a grass-covered field behind the building. Their training began as the sound of helicopters approached.
Sixteen men, each equipped with parachutes and night-vision devices, parachuted from helicopters crewed by US Army Special Ops pilots, aiming for the faint infrared markers that ringed the drop zone. After the three-thousand-foot jump, the team would spend time on an improvised range, shooting brand-new AK-47s with the aid of their night-vision devices. If there was going to be any shooting going on, then the brass casings left behind couldn’t be associated with the Americans. The time on the range would be followed by a six-mile land-navigation course back to a country villa. The team had selected the site because of its similarity in construction and terrain to the target villa in Vietnam. Once at the site, they would practice breaching the walls and accessing the rooms where their targets would be sleeping.
The first night of training proved relatively easy and, with one exception, went by without a hitch. The commando team had just landed and were stuffing their parachutes into their rucksacks when a sharp crack rang out in the darkness.
Havok and Stone were the first to reach a struggling form on the ground. Stone turned on his red-lensed flashlight and saw a man lying on the ground, holding his foot with both hands. It was Bergdahl. Next to him, on the ground, was his AK-47. While Stone held his flashlight, Havok helped remove the soldier’s boot to inspect the injury. Havok shook out the remains of his big toe.
Stone squatted next to the gunshot victim and comforted him. “You know something, friend? I feel plumb stupid. I’ve had it all wrong. I had no way of knowing that the best way to get them to drop their guard was to shoot yourself in the foot.”
“Fuck you,” the man hissed.
“No, I think you just fucked yourself, pal.”
Just then, Tucker walked up behind Stone and peered at his man on the ground. He shook his head before speaking. “I knew I shouldn’t have allowed you on my team. Go ahead and see if the Army will take you back. See me in five years once you’ve grown.” Tucker then turned away.
The next three nights were spent fine-tuning their drill. The team had to be at peak efficiency if they were to complete their mission and return. Havok and Stone also knew that, for the team to accept them, they had to prove themselves to the others. They did so by always being the first ones out of the aircraft, the first ones to the target villa, and the ones with the best range scores. By the start of training on the fourth day, they were the most respected members of the team.
***
On the fifth night, the team found themselves at sea. The Macau Lady, a dilapidated coastal freighter, sleepily made its way south along the coast of Vietnam twenty miles away. On the ship’s dark and lonely main deck sat three large transport containers with tarps stretched across their tops. Registered as a Malaysian vessel and a veteran of the Asian trade, the old vessel slowed to a stop, and a radio call went out to the ship’s owners in Panang. The ship’s captain reported that the engines had broken down again, and they would have to spend a few hours on repairs.
Once the owners acknowledged the information, the ship sprang to life. Men who seemed to well up out of the rusty decks climbed all over the containers and rolled the canvas tops back. After removing the tarps, the men pulled pins out of the corners of the containers and gently lowered the fake metal sides, revealing three MH-60 special-operations-capable stealth helicopters that squatted inside. Their crews, the SCRU team, and Kilgore, Havok, and Stone waited patiently in the helicopters while their ears strained to hear that one brief radio transmission.
It came.
The pilots started their engines, and when they were at full power, the large insects lifted themselves off into the midnight darkness. Two minutes later, with only the exception of the ship’s running lights, the dented freighter went back to sleep, slowly drifting southward. Its engines were still being fixed.
The jump was flawless. Havok, like everybody else, dove into nothingness. At one thousand feet, he pulled the ripcord and felt the opening shock of the rectangular chute. He looked up to ensure his lines were not tangled. From what he could tell, they were free and clear of each other. He couldn’t see the canopy above him; it was the same color as the night sky. He looked down and could see only the same thing that the others saw, a fuzzy black blanket under him with a group of diminutive green lights. Barely visible, the pinpricks of light outlined the drop zone, a rice paddy about two hectares in size.
Agents were in position, ready to mark the LZ with infrared markers and guide them to the villa. The agents were Vietnamese peasants employed by the US government for the last twenty years. Their first mission, twenty years ago, had been to report any evidence of American POWs still in Vietnam. Now they kept an eye on the flourishing drug trade.
Havok’s body slammed into the flooded rice paddy without warning, jarring his back painfully. It took precious seconds for him and the rest of the men to extricate themselves from the clinging mud and climb up the narrow dike. This was the time when they were most vulnerable, helpless in the mire; they could be shot down where they stood. After Tucker had a full head count, he led the file of men off the path to the jungle’s edge where two Vietnamese men materialized from the foliage, silently greeting them.
One of them stepped past the line of American men to gather their chutes; the other man just turned around and walked back into the jungle. The Americans followed the man to their target, four kilometers ahead.
Thirty minutes later the group approached the villa. In the dark, they could see the old-style French-colonial mansion. Its unique, imperial audaciousness clashed with the simple peasant huts that surrounded the vast grounds of the estate.
The team split into three groups. After hours of practice, they knew exactly what to do and where to go. The first group followed the informant to remove the guards and set up a defensive perimeter. The other two teams waited in the bushes until Tucker, who squatted next to Havok, heard the all-clear signal on the earpiece looped over his ear. He acknowledged the transmission and then whispered to the leader in charge of Havok’s team. The man nodded and turned to his team, which included Havok and Stone. Nothing needed to be said. The team leader simply stood silently and walked toward the side of the mansion. His team followed. They had been assigned the job of capturing Anisimova, who took up quarters in a spacious guest cottage behind the mansion.
