Silent Running

“There you are, Richard,” a woman in a light tropical dress said with a smile.

Dr. Mary Hamilton was the other reason he had started to enjoy the cruise. Since his divorce, his social life had been pretty much confined to exchanging mumbled greetings with the surly waitress in the restaurant where he had breakfast. When he’d found himself almost the only single guy in a boatload of doctors with their trophy wives and younger girlfriends in tow, he’d been a little overwhelmed. It made him realize how long it had been since he’d enjoyed the scent of a woman. On the second night out, though, he’d stumbled onto Mary.

She was a woman many men wouldn’t notice. She wasn’t a fashion plate, nor was she young enough to be a centerfold. She was, however, trim, confident and intelligent. That rare combination made her more than exotic to his eyes. Best of all, she was also a Ph.D. research director for a major pharmaceutical company. He worked in a smaller university setting, but their professional lives were similar and they could talk shop. Until meeting her, he hadn’t realized how nice it was to be able to talk about his work with a woman who understood what he did for a living.

“You ready to go in to dinner?” she asked. “The eight o’clock bell just rang.”

Being a man who hated to waste time, Spellman took her arm. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “Rather than standing in line with the rest of the herd at the common trough, why don’t we go down to that little French restaurant on the second deck and eat by ourselves. It seemed like a nice place, and the menu looked interesting.”

He didn’t add that this place he suggested was an intimate little bistro designed more for romantic encounters than for pedestrian dining. But if he was going to get to know this woman better, and he intended to, he wasn’t going to waste any more time doing it.

“Great idea.” Hamilton smiled. “I’m up for a few snails in garlic butter.”

Spellman grimaced. He should have checked on her culinary preferences. But in for a penny, in for a pound. If he needed to, he’d introduce her to breath mints.

NGUYEN CAO NGUYEN stood on the deck of the blacked-out canal tug as it approached the stern of the Carib Princess. On deck with him were two dozen heavily armed Matador operatives in black combat suits. Another dozen men stood behind them ready to take command of the ship after the assault teams had secured it. Doing the takedown in the canal made it easier, and his allies at the eastern lock guaranteed that the ship’s passage under new management would go without a hitch.

With the ship brightly lit, the Vietnamese had no trouble seeing the hatch open in the hull above the stern. A figure in a crewman’s uniform rolled out a long rope ladder and lowered it over the side.

“Go!” he said in Spanish, and motioned to the waiting assault leader.

The black-clad commandos swarmed up the rope ladder, their silenced weapons slung over their backs, and disappeared inside the ship. To keep from being spotted, Nguyen had the tugboat captain back off a hundred yards while he waited. He didn’t mind the wait because he’d been waiting for years to get his payback.

During the Vietnam war, Nguyen had been a young Vietcong agent planted in the USAID office in Saigon. In the aftermath of the Tet Offensive, he’d been exposed and sent to a South Vietnamese prison camp for six years. The North Vietnamese liberation of Saigon had freed him, but when he returned to what had been his home, he learned that his wife had moved in with an American foreign service officer in his absence.

The Yankee was already gone, having fled with the rest of his people in the last-minute evacuation, but Nguyen had hunted down his unfaithful wife and killed her and her bastard half-Yankee child. He could now see that it had been an impulsive act, but he’d been imprisoned for a long time. Had he taken the time to think about it, he would have still killed her, but might not have done it so publicly. His wife’s family was high-ranking Vietcong officials, and he’d been forced to flee to Red China to escape their vengeance.

Even though China and the People’s Republic of Vietnam shared the same twisted Oriental version of Marxism, they weren’t quite on speaking terms. In the aftermath of North Vietnam’s takeover of the South, the Chinese were concerned about continuing their expansionistic policies. The unsuccessful Vietnamese military incursions into the disputed Chinese border territory only confirmed their fears. Therefore, working on the enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend theory, Nguyen was welcomed in China.

When his debriefing revealed his vast working knowledge of American military and political activities, the Chinese took him on as an agent in their intelligence service. After extensive training, he’d been infiltrated into a group of “boat people” refugees from Hong Kong being sent to the United States. Once in the U.S., he settled in Southern Florida and, on orders of his Beijing masters, linked up with the Cuban DGI agents active there.

The Chinese considered the Cubans to be rather unimportant in the grand scheme of world history, and bumbling, overly emotional amateurs to boot. But they were the sole Communist state in the Western Hemisphere and a good launchpad for China’s plans for the region. And Beijing had been making plans for Latin America for decades. Since Chinese strategic thought was always couched in terms of decades instead of weeks, Beijing didn’t mind letting someone else be their front man as long as it served their ultimate goals.

When Nguyen discovered the activities of the Matador Section and reported it to his Beijing handlers, he was ordered to try to get accepted into the secret organization and, given local Chinese assets, to offer the Cubans as an enticement. The Cubans fell for it, and Nguyen soon became Diego Garcia’s second in command. As such, he was personally supervising the takeover of the Carib Princess as it was a critical element of Garcia’s overall Matador plan.

If Garcia’s operation was successful, it would advance China’s long-range objectives without their having to expose any of their own operations. Best of all, if it failed, China wouldn’t be caught up in the inevitable backlash. The Americans had been looking for an excuse to obliterate Cuba for many years now, and the Chinese didn’t want Beijing to end up on the same nuclear cruise missile target list as Havana.

When Nguyen heard the code word over his radio, he motioned to his replacement crew that would sail the ship on to Cancun. As per his instructions, the assault team had executed the ship’s captain and most of the bridge crew. The Carib Princess’s first officer, purser, engineering officer and the Black Gang had been kept alive, though. The Matador replacement crew was experienced with large vessels, but in case something came up, he wanted men on hand who knew the intimate details of operating this particular ship.

As soon as the substitute crewmen had climbed the ladder into the ship, Nguyen started up after them. His first act on board would be to notify Garcia that the ship was theirs.

RICHARD SPELLMAN grandly slathered butter on the last slice of thick-crust bread. “I swear this is the last bite,” he said. “I’m going to have to call the ship’s doctor and order a gurney to roll me back to my cabin.”

Mary Hamilton smiled. “Coming here has to have been one of your better ideas, Richard. But wait on calling for the gurney, my cabin’s right down the hallway.”

“That’s an even better idea,” he said. “But on a ship, I think they call it a passageway.”

“It still leads to my cabin.”

Spellman signed his dinner check with his room number and stood. He was pulling Mary’s chair back when he spotted a man in black heading down the passageway. He was carrying a submachine gun. A second later another gunman appeared. The ship had a small security force, but he’d not seen them wearing black combat suits nor packing automatic weapons. And the way these two men were moving told him that these guys weren’t friendly.

“Come on,” he told her quietly. “We’ve got to get out of here fast.”

“What is it?” She frowned and turned toward the door.

He took her chin and turned her head back toward him. “Don’t look,” he said, “but something odd’s going on. I just saw a couple of armed men in black SWAT suits in the hallway. Let’s look for a back door out of this place until we can figure out what the hell’s going on.”

Hamilton was a decisive woman, but she was out of her element here and didn’t mind him taking the lead.

The cook staff looked up from their chores when the two Americans walked into the kitchen. “Is there a back way out of here?” Spellman asked in English, nodding toward his companion. “Her husband is coming.”

Keeping a straight face, Hamilton translated his question into flawless Spanish.

One of the cooks left his soup pot and showed them to a passageway behind the kitchen.

“I didn’t know you spoke Spanish,” Spellman said.

“You never asked.”

“What else do you know that might come in handy right about now?”

She shook her head. “I can’t think of anything.”

“Keep thinking.”

When the cook stopped in front of a door and said something in Spanish, Hamilton translated. “He says that if we need to hide from my husband, we can stay in here. There’s a lock on the inside of the door.”

“Gracias,” Spellman said.

The cook grinned.

The storeroom behind the door was quite large and the door had been fitted with a pair of sliding bolts on the inside. A thick pile of blankets on the floor showed that this was a common trysting place for the staff seeking an afternoon delight.

“Just what we need.” Mary chuckled.

“Complete with enough food and drink to last us for a couple of weeks.” Spellman’s eyes made a quick inventory of the shelves.

“Do you think someone’s trying to hijack the ship?”

“I don’t know, but we should be okay if we stay in here.”

There was a porthole at the end of the compartment, but he couldn’t see anything through it beyond the jungle lining the canal.

“How long do you think we’ll have to stay here?”

“I’ll be damned if I know,” he replied. “But if we hear any shooting we’ll be safe, at least until we reach a port somewhere.”

She glanced down at the pile of blankets. “I’m sure we can stay busy till then.”

Seeing the look in her eyes, so was he.

“This would’ve been better in my cabin.” She smiled. “More comfortable.”

He grinned. “I think we’ll be able to manage okay here.”

THE SPRAWLING PEMEX facility at Vera Cruz Llave was one of the Western Hemisphere’s largest oil refinery complexes. Crude oil from dozens of Caribbean and South Atlantic offshore, deep-sea oil platforms was pumped in to be processed into everything from bunker fuel to Avgas. Because of the never-ending court battles being waged to terminate such industrial activities as refining in the United States, more and more American oil companies were sending their crude to Mexico for processing. This arrangement was a boon to the Mexican economy and got the environmentalists and their vulture lawyers off the backs of American “big oil.”

Pemex wasn’t unaware that their refineries were prime potential terrorist targets. Even with the successes of the ongoing war on terrorism in the Middle and Far East, Latin American terrorism was still a common fact of life. Here, though, it wasn’t Islamic radicals causing trouble, but the home-grown whackos. There were still a few Marxists who still dreamed of dusty socialist glories to be won by the gun. But Native Indian separatists and would-be socialist land-grabbers were more likely to use terror tactics as were some of the drug cartels and out-of-office opposition parties.

As was common in all of Latin America, Mexico had more private security forces than it did police, and Pemex had the largest single security force establishment in the country. Sharp uniforms and modern weapons made the company cops look good, but the relatively low pay and almost complete lack of training made them little more than paper tigers. They would be no match for the forces Paco Domingo was moving into place against them.

Domingo was publicly known as the fiery leader of a militant oil field workers’ union. To Diego Garcia, though, he was one of a number of deep-cover Cuban Matador agents who had been placed in Mexico years earlier. Some of these men had been undercover for more than ten years, but all of that waiting was over now. One of the main Matador targets this night was Mexico’s petroleum industry, but other critical infrastructure systems would be taken over, as well. The electrical power generation facilities were high on that list as were the ports and the air traffic control system. And, of course, the presidential palace in Mexico City.

Come morning, Mexico would finally belong to the people. The rule of the powerful old families and corrupt business elites would be ended, and the people would be presided over by their “chosen” representatives—Paco Domingo and his deep-cover associates.

That thought sustained him when he drove up to the main gate of the Pemex complex. This was an impressive security hard point complete with razor wire, a remote-controlled traffic barrier, security cameras and half a dozen armed guards behind bulletproof glass. It looked formidable, but it was mostly show because the checkpoint was manned by idiots.

Domingo stopped his SUV in front of the barrier and honked. The security officer who came out of the booth recognized him and walked up to the open driver’s-side window. “You’ve been banned from this place, Domingo. Move on before I have to shoot you.”

“I have to talk to the company officer in charge tonight,” he replied. “I’ve learned information about a threat to your plant and I have to tell him about it.”

The guard laughed. “That’s a new one coming from a union bastard like you. You’d be happy to see this place burn down to the ground.”

“You idiot,” Domingo gritted. “My people need their jobs here so they can feed their families. They’re not crazy enough to destroy their own jobs. This is a foreign threat to the plant, and it’s serious.”

“Okay.” The guard reluctantly reached for his radio. “But if this is some kind of a trick, Domingo, you’re going to pay for it.” He pointed to the video camera. “This is all on tape, you know.”

“Just let me talk to the man in charge.”

A few minutes later a BMW drove up, the barrier was opened and a man in a suit and tie walked through. “I’m Valdez,” he said. “What’s this about a threat here?”

“It’s no threat,” Domingo said as he pulled out a silenced pistol and shot the guard in the forehead. The company man got two rounds in the back as he turned and fled for his car.

Four black-clad gunmen stormed out of the darkness and rushed the guardhouse. A few shots later it was over. With the main gate secured, Domingo radioed for the rest of his assault force to move in. Twenty more armed, black-clad men emerged from outside the cone of light, slipped through the perimeter and fanned out, weapons ready.

The Pemex refinery was about to become the property of the people of Mexico.

A HALF AN HOUR later the leader of the strike team reported to Domingo. “The entire complex is in Union hands, boss.”

“Good.”

As with any successful revolutionary, Domingo never let the right hand know what the left was doing. His militant Union brothers might have been a little apprehensive had they known that he was working more in the name of the Cuban DGI than he was in theirs. It would turn out the same in the end, though, and that’s what really counted.

“Comrade Engineers,” he said, turning to the dozen or so grim-faced men standing around a van sporting caution markings, “it is time for you to do your part.”

“Yes, Comrade.” The explosives engineer smiled. When he and his men were done with their work, all it would take would be a single push on a button and the largest oil refinery in Mexico would go up in flames. And, until the rightful demands of the union workers were met, not a single drop of gas would leave the place.

Domingo reached into his SUV for the radio to make his report.

DIEGO GARCIA SMILED as he stepped off his boat onto the brightly lit yacht dock at the Cancun marina. The initial phase of the plan had gone like clockwork. The Cancun peninsula was completely secured, the Carib Princess was in his hands, as were as most of the targets in Mexico. He had expected nothing else from his Matador teams, but he knew that the Goddess of Fate could always unexpectedly deal herself into the game. She’d been smiling on him this time, though, which meant that the rest of the operation should continue according to plan.

When the sun rose over Latin America in a few hours, it would be on a new world in the making, a world of his making.

CHAPTER THREE

Cancun

The mood in the main conference room of the Hotel Maya could only be called grim. It was approaching dawn, and raw nerves had kept most of the conference hostages from sleeping. The heavily armed, black-clad guards had reacted swiftly with rifle butts to any attempts at conversation, so the men had been left to stew in their anger.

Hal Brognola was an old hand at the crunch game and knew how to keep his emotions firmly in check. He, too, was outraged at being taken hostage. But he knew that wasting his energy on things he had no control over was a useless exercise.

He’d catnapped throughout the night while still staying alert to exploit any opportunity that might have presented itself. Unfortunately, though, the silent guards hadn’t blinked. With the dawn, additional armed gunmen walked into the room, which only increased the tension.

To some, the newcomers might have been a guard shift change, but Brognola had no trouble identifying that they were a command group. The head honcho was easy to spot. He was a light-skinned Hispanic who looked as if he had a Spanish grandee somewhere in his bloodline. He appeared to be in his mid-fifties and had a relaxed, military bearing. His eyes swept across the roomful of captives but revealed nothing. The way the other men treated him, told Brognola that the show was about to get on the road. He was glad to see the newcomers settle at one of the conference tables.

Not having been able to talk to his fellow captives, Hal couldn’t even begin to guess what this was all about and he looked forward to going one-on-one with his captors. Being interrogated always worked both ways, and he should be able to pick up some information. There was no doubt that he and his fellow conferees had some perceived value as hostages. Were that not the case, they’d have simply been gunned down in reprisal for some real or imagined wrong done to someone, somewhere, sometime ago. The usual terrorist excuse for brutality.

They were considered valuable, so the only question was what they would be held ransom for.

He was a bit surprised when he wasn’t the first man to be taken over to the head table. The American representatives bore the brunt of the kidnappers’ displeasure so the others could see how tough they were on the biggest threat. His friend Hector de Lorenzo got first honors. Hal wasn’t close enough to overhear what was being said, but Hector didn’t hide the fact that he was royally pissed. The questioning was short, and de Lorenzo was led away.

When the A.G. of Panama was called out next, Brognola let himself relax. There was no point in getting amped up until his time came, but he automatically patted his empty coat pocket anyway.

He was catching another catnap on the floor when he was called for his turn in the barrel via a rifle butt in the middle of his back.

MISTER HAROLD BROGNOLA, the honcho read in almost unaccented English from what looked like a rap sheet. “Let’s see, you’re usually called Hal by your good friend the President, right?”

“And you are?” Brognola answered the question with one of his own.

The honcho’s eyes bore into him. “I would answer the question if I were you.”

Brognola met his eyes and shrugged. “You know who I am. You have my passport.”

The honcho nodded curtly, and the guard hovering over Brognola reversed his AK and slammed it into the pit of his stomach.

He’d seen it coming and tried to move with the blow, but it still took his wind. As soon as he could breathe again, he straightened.

The interrogator leaned forward. “Mr. Brognola, a man of your high position in government can’t be stupid enough not to recognize the realities of what is taking place here today. You are my prisoner and regardless of who you might be in your American Justice Department, or who your friends in Washington are, whatever may be left of your life is solely in my hands now.”

The honcho smiled. “You can play childish macho cowboy games with me if you want, but I can assure you that you will answer my questions sooner or later.”

Brognola knew that to be a simple statement of fact. He had no amateurish illusions about the realities of going through an extended interrogation. But he wasn’t about to play ball with this asshole until he absolutely had no other choice. If he was held long enough, or if they brought out the chemical interrogation gear, he’d have to talk. But he really didn’t expect to be here that long.

As the honcho had said, he had friends.

“We’ll see.” Brognola didn’t blink.

“Yes, we will,” the man replied. “And by the way, I am Diego Garcia. You are going to get to know me well before this is over.”

A feminine scream split the air and the captives, not knowing who’s woman was being mistreated, turned toward the sound. Brognola didn’t, however.

“You’ve got some real winners working for you here, mister,” he said, his eyes locked on Garcia’s. “It looks like they have to beat up the women to get enough balls to talk to the—”

Focused on Garcia, Brognola didn’t see the rifle butt coming this time, but he rode it out.

The Cuban turned to one of his gunmen. “Take Mr. Brognola to the jail.”

“Sí, Jefe.”

Garcia watched impassively as the Yankee was escorted out of the room. The report he had received from the Matador operative at the Latin American Desk of the U.S. State Department had been accurate. Hal Brognola was a force to be reckoned with, but he also had his weaknesses. What the American saw as his strength, the Cuban saw as something to be broken. His arrogance would also contribute to his downfall as would his protective instincts toward the women. Though the Yankee hadn’t turned when the woman screamed, Garcia had seen the anger flash in his eyes.

Though the “interview” had been short, it had told Garcia much and confirmed that he had chosen his man well. Had he wanted, he could have arranged for the attorney general of the United States to have attended the conference and taken him hostage instead. But the American A.G. was always a political flunkey who had been given his job as a payoff for services he had rendered to the party of the incoming President. Brognola was a career Justice Department officer, and he had more than likely forgotten more about the workings of U.S. law-enforcement agencies than the A.G. would have time to learn before he left office. And his intimate knowledge was the goal.

If it wouldn’t have tipped his hand, Garcia would have simply snatched Brognola and the Mexican de Lorenzo and let the rest go free. The other lawmen he’d gathered up were of little use to him except as expendable pawns as his plan played out over the next few weeks. And, to get what he needed from the Yankee, he fully intended to waste a couple of them. He would expend several of the women, as well, if that was needed to get what he wanted.

Except, of course for the delectable Señorita Martinez, Brognola’s dinner companion. He was very careful about not sacrificing his top operatives.

THREE OF DIEGO Y GARCIA’S goons escorted Brognola to an SUV parked out in front of the hotel, handcuffed him and tossed him into the back seat. A short drive brought them downtown to a three-story building with an ornate, cast concrete, pseudo-Mayan facade. The sign carved into the facade, though, told it all—Municipal Jail.