Section 8

CHAPTER 9

"Hono Mountain, on this side," Vaughn said, pointing at the imagery tacked to the plywood. He had managed a few hours sleep, but got up before dawn, poring through the intelligence on Abayon and Jolo Island.

Orson stared at him silently for several seconds. Vaughn was behind the podium, the rest of the team arrayed about in their seats facing him.

"That's it?" Orson finally asked.

"There's not much intelligence on the Abu Sayef on Jolo," Vaughn said, which was an understatement.

"Reversing the videotape that was taken of the failed raid indicates it was shot from the mountain."

Vaughn turned to a satellite image of the mountain and marked out a large area with a pointer.

"Somewhere on the southeast side."

Orson turned to Hayes.

"You have any idea where Abayon hides out?"

"Like I said yesterday, in the mountain," Hayes said. He shrugged.

"No one except those in Abayon's inner circle are allowed anywhere close to the mountain. What I heard when I was on the island was that there are tunnels and chambers throughout it and that's where his lair is. And he almost never comes out. That's why there is no recent photo of him."

Orson got up and walked to the imagery.

"It's a big damn mountain. And the area is crawling with guerrillas. Not only do we need to pinpoint how to get into the tunnel system, but we also have to figure out how to kill him once we're in. Whether it's a shot to the head or taking out the whole complex."

"There's a third issue," Sinclair said.

"And what is that?" Orson demanded.

"Getting out."

Vaughn smiled but didn't say anything. He could tell that Sinclair had indeed served in Special Forces. It was always an issue on A-Teams that higher command had great plans for getting a team into its target area but was always vague on getting them back out.

"We'll get out," Orson said.

"That's about as specific as where the entrance is to the tunnel complex," Sinclair pointed out, "and you weren't too happy with that."

"One thing at a time," Orson said.

"First, we have to pin down exactly where Abayon is. According to everything we have and our asset" – he nodded at Hayes – "he's in the tunnel complex. So we have to figure out how to get in there."

"Why?" Tai asked. She didn't wait for an answer.

"If we can figure out how air is pumped into that place, we could gas everyone in there. Wipe them out without entering. Get Abayon and a bunch of his people in one attack."

Orson shook his head.

"We have to confirm that Abayon is dead. Doing what you suggest won't accomplish that."

Tai frowned but didn't say anything more. Vaughn also wasn't satisfied with Orson's answer. If they were so sure that Abayon was in the complex, then what she'd suggested made sense. Yes, they wouldn't be able to bring back Abayon's head, so to speak, for confirmation, but the odds would be that they had succeeded. He also knew, though, that ever since 9/11 and the failure to nail Bin Laden, there was a strong emphasis on having bodies in hand rather than best guesses on termination. The last thing anyone wanted was to report Abayon dead and then have him pop up somewhere.

"What about thermal imagery?" Orson asked.

Vaughn nodded.

"I ordered an intelsat to do some shots when it goes overhead. We should be getting those in shortly."

"The other thing to factor in," Hayes said, "is that Abayon has money. Lots of it. He's put a lot of it into the infrastructure on the island and also bought a lot of space from the Philippine government with bribes. When I was on the island, I heard rumors of large piles of gold that Abayon had from the war."

"Yamashita's gold," Tai said.

"Whose gold?" Vaughn asked.

"Gold is not an issue here," Orson said. He tapped the photo tacked to the plywood.

"Abayon is the target."

He turned to Tai. As he was about to speak, there was a tap at the door.

Vaughn went over and opened it. One of the ASTs was there with a large manila envelope with a red top secret seal. Vaughn took it and went back to the podium. He ripped it open and looked at the thermal imaging while the others waited impatiently.

"The complex must be deep," he said as he scanned the pictures.

"There's not much…" He paused as he noted something.

"There's a hot spot on the side of the mountain. Northwest side. Looks like it might be a ventilator exhaust, since hot air is flowing out of it."

"Just one?" Tai asked.

"A complex as big as what were talking about should have more than that."

Vaughn shook his head.

"According to some historical records I found, there were originally numerous caves and caverns on Hono, which the natives used hundreds of years ago. So we have to assume that the complex is mostly natural, with some artificial enhancement – cross tunnels, enlarging of natural chambers, and so on. I checked online with an expert on underground bunkers and he told me that in such a situation it's possible that the complex doesn't need an extensive air system, that air might flow through fissures and other natural openings. They could place generators for power in caverns that have the most air flow to cross ventilate.

"There's even the possibility," he continued, "that used air and exhaust could be pumped out into this river" – he tapped the imagery, indicating the valley in front of Hono Mountain – "and be dispersed in the water. So we're lucky to get at least one hot spot."

Kasen spoke up for the first time.

"Pretty sophisticated setup for a bunch of terrorists."

Hayes cleared his throat and everyone turned toward him.

"The rumor is that the original complex was built by the Japanese during World War Two."

Vaughn frowned "I didn't find anything on that."

Hayes shrugged.

"That's just the rumor on the island. I never saw anything either to substantiate it. An old guy I met did speak, though, about Japanese soldiers killing some of the villagers, but he said they weren't around very long."

"If the Japs initially built this thing," Sinclair said, "any chance of getting their blueprints or whatever?"

"I found no record of the Japanese building anything," Vaughn said. He tapped a very thick folder.

"The NSA, CIA, and various other agencies have spent a lot of time putting this material together, and there's nothing in it on that."

"So all we have is one hot spot and a big mountain?" Sinclair asked. He got up and went to the map.

"Nice talk, but there's six of us, and we have to get onto this island, find this old man hidden in a tunnel complex we don't even know how to get into, kill him, and then – even though you don't seem overly concerned about it – get back off the island and home without getting our heads blown off. We could use a little help here."

"We have to find him ourselves," Orson said.

Vaughn glanced at Tai. He found it curious that Orson had cut her off so abruptly earlier about the Yamashita gold thing, and that he also didn't seem interested in the Japanese connection. Even though it was long ago, it made sense that the Japanese might have done something on the island.

"And how do you propose finding him?" Sinclair asked.

"We send in a recon team ahead of the target window to pinpoint Abayon's location," Orson said.

"To check that hot spot and see if it's a way in."

Since it seemed that his part of the briefing was over, Vaughn went and took the seat that Orson had vacated. He glanced around the room. They were all considering the suggestion.

Sinclair was the first to voice an objection.

"If this island is run by the Abu Sayef, then it's going to be hard not to get discovered and give the enemy a warning, never mind losing the recon team."

Orson held up a hand.

"We're getting ahead of ourselves here. Let's back up and stick with the original briefing plan. We've determined we can't pinpoint our target – Abayon – so we'll have to come back to that."

He turned to Hayes.

"It's your island. I tasked you with infiltration and exfiltration planning."

Hayes stood. He ran a hand along his upper lip, wiping off a thin sheen of sweat, then went to the maps.

"Either into the water or the jungle is the best way. You want to avoid the villages, naturally. Any strangers will immediately be reported to the Abu Sayef. And none of you are going to pass for locals."

"We land in water," Vaughn noted, "it's a bit of a walk to the mountain."

Hayes nodded.

"True, but the closer you come down to the mountain, the more eyes will be watching. One thing the Abu Sayef are constantly warned about during their training is to watch the sky, that the government troops would come in helicopters or by parachute from a low flying airplane. You can be sure that there are antiaircraft missiles hidden somewhere on that mountain."

Vaughn remembered the RPG that had killed his brother-in-law. Things would have been much worse if the terrorists had used surface-to-air missiles. For this mission, he had entertained thoughts of landing right on top of the mountain and working their way down to find the entrance. Military dogma dictated taking the high ground.

"You said a low flying plane," Vaughn noted.

"I think we can get in at night using HAHO with offset."

He was referring to a high altitude, high opening parachute operation. It was a procedure where the plane flew very high, sometimes at an altitude of over 20,000 feet with the jumpers on oxygen, exiting at that height. The aircraft would not only be high, but offset laterally from the drop zone. After exiting the aircraft, the jumpers would immediately deploy their parachutes and then "fly" them to the drop zone. Offsets of ten to fifteen miles were common using such a technique, but the aircraft never got close enough either in altitude or lateral distance to raise suspicions.

Orson nodded.

"HAHO definitely for the recon team. The question is, who here is qualified to do that kind of jump?"

Vaughn raised his hand. Then Tai. That was it.

"We have our recon team," Orson announced.

"When do we go?" Vaughn asked.

"As soon as we can get a plane to drop you," Orson said. He tapped the map.

"You pick your drop zone. You HAHO onto the island. Check it out. Radio back to us how the rest of the team will get in. And you find Abayon. Let us know how we can get to him, and we'll do the mission prep for the actual kill. You let us know what we'll need to bring."

How about a tactical nuke? Vaughn thought. He didn't think much of the plan. It put him and Tai into enemy territory in an exposed position.

"And if we're compromised?" he asked.

Orson's dead gray eyes fixed Vaughn with their gaze.

"Then you're dead. Do not allow yourself to be taken alive, because we're not coming to get you, if that's what you're asking."

Vaughn took the thermal imagery and went over to the map of the island.

"I say we land here," he said, tapping the very top of Hono Mountain, where there appeared to be a small clearing.

"That all right with you?" he asked, looking at Tai.

She nodded.

"Fine."

Orson almost seemed disappointed.

"All right. I'll arrange the aircraft. You go in tonight. Get your gear ready today. The rest of you, back to work."

The request to send in a reconnaissance team had generated a great deal of debate among the staff officers who were working the simulation. Most were against it and argued instead that more assets be allocated. The operations officer even sent a request to the National Command Authority for more troops and some Air Force assets with greater firepower. General Slocum, part of the old school that believed in using a sledgehammer when a hammer might do, signed off on the request, adding in an appendix the alternate plan for a recon element to be sent in early to try to pinpoint Abayon's position and the attendant risks of doing so.

It only went as far as Foster's computer, which was acting as National Command Authority. He denied the request for more assets, on the grounds that the operation was to be conducted clandestinely. Then he gave the go-ahead for the reconnaissance element to be sent in. The operations officer then turned around and, after having Slocum sign it, sent the tasking for a C-130 transport to conduct the HAHO drop that night, thinking it was all part of the simulation. In fact, Foster sent this tasking with the official signature block and proper code words to the designated Air Force squadron in Okinawa.

It was a shell game, one that only Foster knew the extent of and controlled. He had his own ideas about why he was being used to do this. He assumed that he was the "cutout," the link between those doing the mission and those ordering it.

Foster wasn't naive, though. He also knew that things were done in certain ways to allow for deniability. No one would be able to prove who gave the orders. While he yearned to work for the National Security Agency, he also knew that he'd be traveling much further into the world of covert operations than while working military simulations here in Hawaii. Not that the thought bothered him. If one wanted to play in the big game, they had to be willing to take big risks. And there was also the issue of the threat the NSA representative had held over his head. He was still shaken by the revelation that the secret he had assumed was buried in the past was not only known by others, but well-documented.

When he was in college, during his senior year, the football team had been invited to a bowl game in San Diego. Two nights before the big game, Foster had gone with a group of teammates across the border into Tijuana. They'd consumed vast quantities of questionable alcohol and finally ended at the desired location: a whorehouse. The group had split up into various rooms as directed by the madam, and to his surprise, dismay, and – to be honest – titillation, he had walked into a room occupied by a young girl. A very young girl. One who not yet made it to double digits in age.

In the years since then, he'd always regretted not turning right around and walking out. But he'd been drunk, he'd been horny, and he'd been in Mexico.

And now he wondered if he'd been set up. He doubted it, given the years that had passed since with nothing happening, but when the mysterious David showed him those photos, he'd wondered.

Foster shook off his concerns as he worked both sides of the supposed simulation. He had to accept that he was on the inside now. He was what he had always aspired to be – a player – and he was getting ready to move to the big leagues. He looked out the window of his office at the Sim-Center, at all the men and women in military uniform "playing" their parts, and shook his head. They were fools, ignorant of the way the world really worked.

There was another aspect of this that told him he was already at another level. The intelligence he was forwarding to the team in isolation was not only top of the line from the NSA, CIA, and other alphabet soup organizations in the United States government, but some of it was coming from agencies that worked for foreign governments. He assumed that the NSA had tapped into these sources somehow and was coopting them.

Foster ran through the message traffic being generated on Okinawa. Most of it was mundane, the normal stuff that was to be expected from a team in isolation, and it mirrored what his computer was generating for the staff in the simulation. There were some minor differences, however. For example, the team was asking for two Squad Automatic Weapons, while the simulation had not anticipated such a request. Foster pulled that message out of the flow and sent it on to the appropriate facility on Okinawa, giving it the proper authorization from Westcom headquarters. He did the same with the request for sniper rifles and the equipment for the HAHO jump. It was almost a ballet of data, he thought, and he was into it, playing both sides with the expertise he had built up over the years. Those being tasked did as ordered, as far as supporting the mission, while those giving the orders as part of the simulation didn't know that some of the orders were actually being implemented.

Foster paused as he noted a message directed to an address he didn't recognize. He checked his database and found out it was being sent to ARPERCEN: Army Personnel Center, headquartered in Fairfax, Virginia. The message seemed innocuous enough: a request from Captain Lee Tai to be considered for an ROTC teaching slot in her next assignment. Not exactly an earth-shattering message, and one that could easily have been lost in the volume of traffic.

But it was wrong because it had nothing to do with the mission. The written instructions he'd received on the laptop had been explicit: any unusual message traffic was to be diverted to a certain address to be reviewed. He was sure there was nothing wrong with Captain Tai's request, but after his most recent encounter, he was now a big believer in following Royce's rules. Foster stopped the message and did as instructed.

As General Slocum took the podium at the front of the Sim-Center, Foster paused in his work and turned on the intercom so he could hear what the general had to say.

"People, listen up," the general began.

"Apparently, the big wigs in Washington think they know how to run this operation better than we do. They've denied our request for more air power, but they have given the go-ahead for the reconnaissance element to go in tonight. Regardless of how you feel about that, I want you to support this with your best effort."

Slocum paused and looked about the room.

"Is that clear?"

The reply was a thunderous, "Yes, sir."

In the control room, Foster shook his head. It was as if they were still in college, playing on the team. He had left the team behind a long time ago.

"What is this Yamashita's gold thing you mentioned?" Vaughn asked Tai. The two of them were in the corridor outside the main isolation room, packing their rucksacks for the upcoming mission. Vaughn could tell that Tai had been on airborne missions before, because she was going through the same process he was: packing and repacking, each time leaving something out to lighten and tighten the load. You took a whole different view about what you packed when you had to carry it on your back.

For example, they were carrying a week's worth of food – just in case – even though they planned to be on the ground for only a few days. But they were cutting down the meal packages, taking out unnecessary and "heavy" items such as extra plastic spoons. To an outsider it would seem ridiculous, but it was almost a ritual of mission preparation in Special Operations. Of course, a week's worth of food for a mission was only seven meals. On the other hand, they both were going heavy on items such as ammunition.

Tai looked up from her gear, which was laid out on a poncho liner.

"General Tomoyuki Yamashita was the commander of Japanese forces in the Philippines during the Second World War. It's been well-documented that the Japanese conducted a systematic pillage of the countries they conquered during the war. They took all the riches they could get their hands on, particularly gold – the accumulated wealth of twelve Asian countries. Not only gold, but other treasures, such as pieces of art.

"There were special teams accompanying Japanese forces in the early days of the war, when the Rising Sun spread around the western Pacific Rim. They were tasked with emptying banks, treasuries, art galleries, museums, palaces – even pawnshops and private homes – of anything of value. It was a special branch of the Kempetai – the Japanese military intelligence service."

Vaughn didn't find that very surprising. He'd been to Kuwait during the first Gulf war and seen what the Iraqis had done there. Plundering was an age-old companion of military conquest. Sometimes it was done officially, and often unofficially. He knew the Nazis had done it in Europe and Russia during the Second World War, so it didn't take a great leap of logic to figure the Japanese had done it too.

"There's a lot that's not known about the entire thing," Tai continued, "but there are some facts. The overall plundering project was called kin no yuri, which means Golden Lily, named after a poem written by the Emperor Hirohito."

She snorted.

"That's one war criminal who got to skate. He professed ignorance of Golden Lily after the war and said it didn't exist. Yet his brother, Prince Chichibu, was in charge of the project. You don't think they chatted about it over a meal? Of course, Hirohito also expressed ignorance about the rape of Nanking. Seems everyone always gets memory failure or they weren't really in charge when bad things that occurred under their watch are brought up."

"I don't get it," Vaughn said as he refolded his Gore-Tex waterproof jacket and stuffed it once more in an outside pocket on his rucksack, trying to have it take up fewer square inches of room.

"Why do you think this treasure ended up in the Philippines and not Japan? Seems like the emperor would have wanted those riches close at hand."

"Because the U.S. Navy instituted a submarine blockade of Japan very early in the war," Tai explained.

"Many ships heading back to the homeland were sunk, and Chichibu didn't want to take the risk of losing the treasure. It was easier – and more secure – to send the ships carrying the loot to the Philippines. The Americans were leery of sinking ships in that area because some of them carried American POWs. In fact, a couple of POW ships were accidentally sunk late in the war, with great loss of friendly life."

Vaughn considered this as Tai began loading magazines with nine-millimeter rounds for her MP-5 submachine gun. He noted her precision as she made sure each round was properly seated.

"Why do you think Orson didn't want to talk about it?" Vaughn asked.

Tai paused, bullet in one hand, magazine in the other, and looked at him.

"As he said, the target – our target – is Abayon."

"But if Abayon has some of this Golden Lily treasure – "

"Listen," Tai said, cutting him off.

"There's no doubt Yamashita received a lot of the Golden Lily shipments in the Philippines. Hirohito's cousin, Prince Takeda Tsuneyoshi, was stationed in the Philippines to oversee the secreting away of the treasure. Some say there were over 175 sites prepared all over the islands. No matter how good they were at secrecy, word of this leaked. Some have been found. But the rumor is a couple of the truly key ones, containing hundreds of millions – if not billions – of dollars worth of gold and art are still hidden.

"When Yamashita surrendered on September second, 1945, he was charged with war crimes, but there was no mention of plundered treasure – not a single mention of it in the trial transcripts. Yamashita was convicted and sentenced to death. He was hanged. Pretty damn quickly too. War was different back then. None of this bleeding heart stuff you see these days."

She said this with a tone of contempt that even Vaughn found striking.

"But…" She drew the word out.

"Have you ever heard of Operation Paper Clip?"

Vaughn shook his head. He had stopped packing and, while focused on what Tai was saying, felt as if he were at the edge of a vast, dark chasm, the ground on which he stood not exactly secure.

"Operation Paper Clip has also been well-documented, yet no one ever talks about it," Tai said.

"And when they do, they focus on Europe and the German rocket scientists. Paper Clip was instituted in the last years of the war, when the tide had turned and we were pretty confident we were going to win. Some smart person figured out that there was going to be a wealth of technical information to be gained from those we defeated. After all, the Germans had built V-2 rockets capable of hitting London.

"Operation Paper Clip, a rather innocuous name for a rather devious endeavor, was started in 1944 as those at the strategic level started looking beyond the end of the war. The Japanese and Germans might have plundered the lands they conquered of their physical riches, but in the States there were those who realized that there were other, more valuable riches which needed to be harvested."

Tai tapped the side of her head.

"Brain power."

Vaughn nodded.

"Yeah. I read about that. A lot of the scientists who worked on the early space program were ex-Nazis."

"Ex-Nazis who we could use," Tai said.

"They hanged Yamashita in the Philippines for war crimes, yet they welcomed into the United States Nazi scientists who had done terrible things, because they had knowledge we wanted. Like the Kempetai, we sent intelligence officers from the JIOA – Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency – with our frontline troops as they swept into Germany. There are actually recorded instances where the JIOA officers almost got into firefights with officers from the war crimes units as both groups went after the same people, but for very different reasons. And when official decisions had to be made over jurisdiction, the JIOA almost always took precedence. And this was despite the fact that President Truman signed an executive order banning the immigration of war criminals from the Axis powers into the United States."

"How do you know all this stuff?" Vaughn asked.

"My specialty is intelligence."

"Yeah," Vaughn said, "but all this history. World War II. I mean, that's old stuff."

"Old stuff that still has repercussions today," Tai said. She put another bullet into the magazine in her hand, held it up to check that it was full, then slid it into a pocket on her vest.

"Abayon came out of the Second World War. Everything has a history. The best way to understand things now is to examine where they came from. Most Americans have little sense of history, and because of that, they have little sense of why things are the way they are."

Vaughn held the thought. His brother-in-law had died on a mission to free hostages. The justification for the mission had been enough for Vaughn's team in isolation. But they had never examined why the Abu Sayef had taken those hostages. It was an axiom of guerrilla warfare that few openly discussed anymore, but one man's terrorist was another man's freedom fighter.

"Listen," Tai said. She had stopped loading bullets.

"You know the saying, 'Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it'? Well, those who don't learn from history end up not making it, but being footnotes in it. Bad footnotes. And for everything that's written down in history books, think about all the things that aren't written down.

"You said you heard of the German rocket scientists we used after the war. But what about the German chemical and biological scientists? No one ever wrote about them or talked about them. But the Germans were the world's foremost experts on chemical warfare by the end of the war because they used it. On an unimaginable scale in the concentration camps. Tabun. Soman. Sarin. They invented them all."

Vaughn held his hand up.

"Wait a second. Let's not go off on a tangent here. This" – he pointed down at the rock floor – "is Okinawa, not Europe."

Tai nodded.

"I know. I was just using examples. But don't you think we did the same thing out here in the Pacific at the end of the war? You have to admit that despite the war crimes trials, overall, we were pretty lenient on both the Germans and the Japanese after the war."

"Okay," Vaughn acknowledged.

"Getting back to the Golden Lily project…wasn't a lot of treasure recovered after the war?"

"No. Some say Marcos came to power because he had some of Yamashita's gold. Then there's the rumors about the Black Eagle Trust."

Tai paused and shook her head.

"You're right. I'm going too far afield. We have to keep our eye on our ball: Abayon. He's the target, and we're going in tonight to figure out how to terminate him."

Vaughn was tempted to ask about the Black Eagle Trust, but knew it was time to focus on the upcoming mission. There was still some last-minute planning before they headed out to the airfield.

He went into the latrine and stopped in surprise when he saw Kasen seated on one of the open toilets, a rubber tube around one arm and a syringe in the other hand, the needle sunk deep into his arm. Kasen looked up and saw Vaughn but pushed the plunger anyway.

"What the hell are you doing?" Vaughn demanded.

Kasen slid the needle out of his arm, removed the rubber tube, and flexed that hand several times. He stood, sliding the gear into a small black pouch.

"None of your fucking business."

"We're on a team," Vaughn said.

"So?"

"I don't want to be on a team with a junkie."

"Oh, fuck off," Kasen said, trying to push past.

Vaughn put an arm out, blocking him.

"Wait a second."

Kasen swung and Vaughn ducked the blow, backing up.

"The others need to know about this."

"Why?" Kasen asked, pausing, looking at Vaughn as if he were speaking to an idiot.

"Everyone here has secrets. At least you know mine. Tell Orson. Tell the others. You don't think Orson and the people he works for know about this?" He held up the black case.

"Shit, it's the reason they recruited me."

With that, he pushed past Vaughn and left the latrine.

Royce read the message from Tai to ARPERCEN twice, then closed the lid of David's laptop. He was seated in David's Defender, which he'd parked along the side of a road overlooking Kaneohe Marine Corps Air Base. He put a set of binoculars to his eyes and looked down at the runway. A Gulfstream jet painted flat black was parked near the tower, door open and stairs down.

Royce adjusted the focus as a half-dozen people emerged from the building below the tower and made their way to the plane. Even without the aid of the binoculars he would have been able to spot David's figure among them. The other five were around David's age, but Royce had never seen any of them before. They were all dressed aloha style and seemed quite excited.

The heat was reflected off the tarmac, intensifying the effect of the sun. David put a hand over his eyes to shade them and looked up at the mountains to the west. He knew Royce was up there somewhere. He was going to miss his friend. He dawdled, letting the others pass him on the way to the plane. There was a distinct sense of anticipation among them – the payoff after decades of hard work in the trenches was at hand. It wasn't a normal retirement, but none of them had lived normal lives. The other five were from the mainland and had been flown to Hawaii the previous day. David had never met any of them before, though he knew it was possible he'd worked on missions in conjunction with some if not all of them. The Organization was big, its tentacles spread around the planet.

As he reached the steps up to the plane, he paused, looked past the mountain where he knew Royce was and to the sky. As his brother must have looked at the sky that morning over sixty years ago, he reflected. His last dawn. He and his older brother had been close for all of his fourteen years, before his brother enlisted and was shipped out to basic and then to Hawaii.

David had visited the Punchbowl the previous day and stood at his brother's grave, one of many with the same final date etched on the stone: 7 DECEMBER 1941. Leaving the grave for what he knew was the last time had been difficult, harder than leaving the small house on the east shore he'd called "home" for the last ten years. People in the covert world never really had homes.

A flash of light on the hillside caught his attention. He knew it was Royce, shifting his binoculars, the sun striking the lens. David waved, sighed, then stepped into the plane. As soon as he was on board, the door was pulled up behind him and the jet engines revved with power.

Royce tracked the Gulfstream down the runway and into the air. It was gaining altitude fast, rocketing up into the blue sky and banking to the west. He kept the craft in sight until it disappeared into the blue haze, then slowly lowered the binoculars and put them back in their case.

He glanced at the laptop lying on the passenger seat, feeling the pull of duty and work, but didn't pick it up for a while. The laptop was his link to David's – and now his – handler in the Organization. It was also the address where all information on the operation was collated. Royce had spent the morning recovering from the hangover that was the result of his and David's last night on the town, and then going through the computer after David disappeared in a cab to head to the Marine base. Royce had offered to drive, but David nixed that idea, saying they had kept their relationship secret all these years, there was no point in him showing up at the gate of Kaneohe with Royce at the wheel.

So Royce had checked what had been bequeathed to him by his old friend: an old truck and a new laptop. The setup inside the laptop was efficient. There was an address book with numerous points of contacts, each labeled with a code word and a brief summary of what that POC was responsible for. It was specific and extensive. If he needed weapons up to and including heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades in Chile, there was a phone number and a code name. If he needed access to the Defense Intelligence Agency's most deeply held files, there was an e-mail address, a phone number, and a code name for that. There were even access points for most other country's intelligence agencies.

Royce had his own code name. Like the others, it was a six letter/number combination. An annotation told him that the code cycled every forty-eight hours, which required him to sync the computer to the satellite wireless system it automatically picked up every time it was on, at least every two days. He had no doubt he was hooked in to Milstar, the secure satellite system the Pentagon had circling the planet.

Since the satellites were linked to each other, Milstar provided initial security by requiring no ground relay, which could always be tapped in to. And the satellites used frequency hopping to transmit their encrypted messages. When he checked into Milstar after first using it several years ago – and he always checked everything he used, since his life depended on it – he discovered that the Air Force claimed there were five working satellites in the system, even though six had been launched. The publicity page on the Air Force website claimed that a mistake was made on the third launch in 1999 and the satellite had been placed in a nonusable orbit.

He very much wanted to know where that satellite was in geosynchronous orbit. He had a feeling it would tell him a great deal about the Organization he worked for, because he doubted that the orbit for that one had been a mistake. Perhaps from the Air Force point of view it had not gone where they wanted, but he believed that someone else was very happy wherever that satellite had ended up.

Royce sighed. All this thinking was keeping him from doing what had to be done. He opened up the laptop and read Tai's request to ARPERCEN one more time. It was either bullshit, stupidity, or something else. Because he had told Tai, as he'd told the others, in no uncertain terms, that she was no longer part of the big green machine and could never go back to it. So why was she sending an e-mail concerning a next assignment that would never happen?

She was not stupid. He had her file. Tops in her class at the University of Arizona. While on active duty, she had somehow managed to earn a Ph.D. in military history. Every efficiency report sparkled and glowed with that extra bit of effort that indicated her commanders had not been just routinely punching her ticket, but truly impressed with her. Until she was accused of abusing prisoners in Iraq, a strange departure from her straight and narrow record to that point.

Since she wasn't stupid, that meant the ARPERCEN request wasn't bullshit. Which meant it was something else, and the only thing Royce could come up with was that it was some sort of coded message Tai had sent to someone on the outside.

According to the file, she'd been recruited because of the prisoner abuse charges – and her personal motivation after losing her sister on 9/11. Her test – like those of all the others – had been to assassinate a target designated by the Organization. Even he had no idea why these people have been targeted. She had killed the target as ordered, so there was some degree of security in that – she'd crossed a line.

But…

Royce brought up her 201 personnel file once more and began reading it, searching for the thread he must have missed the first time through, now that he suspected that Captain Tai was more than she appeared to be. He glanced at his watch. The C-130 for the recon team should be ready on Okinawa by now. And Tai and Vaughn should be heading to the airfield.

Royce pulled out his secure satellite phone and punched in a number.

Vaughn could see that Orson wasn't one for rah-rah premission speeches.

"We don't hear from you on your initial entry report in twenty-four hours, we'll consider your mission compromised."

Orson was standing in the entrance to the tunnel, looking up into the back of the truck. Tai and Vaughn sat on benches across from each other, their packed rucksacks on the space behind them.

"Roger that," Vaughn said. He hadn't told anyone about his encounter with Kasen – at this point it would make little difference, if any. The mission was on, and he had to make the best of it.

Diesel fumes from the idling engine wafted through the enclosed space. He felt a curious sense of detachment as he pushed away the thoughts and feelings about the coming mission.

"Is the primary mission canceled if we're killed during the recon?" Tai asked.

Orson stared at her.

"What do you care? You'll be dead."

Vaughn and Tai met each other's eyes. He wasn't sure what he read in hers. Anger? But there was something else. He turned to Orson.

"What if we're captured? Twenty-four-hour rule?"

He was referring to the concept that a prisoner could hold out against torture for twenty-four hours, then even the best would give up everything they knew. But twenty-four hours was enough time for every plan the prisoner knew to be changed, and for damage control to begin.

"Don't get captured," Orson growled. He slapped the side of the truck to let the driver know it was ready to go, then turned and walked away.

Vaughn pulled down the canvas flap covering the back of the truck.

"Friendly."

"This isn't a friendly business," Tai said. Vaughn wondered if she knew about his brother-in-law. Frank and he had discussed the problem of serving on the same team, but in the end they had decided they'd rather fight with someone they knew and trusted. That had not turned out well. As the truck rumbled its way toward the airfield, Vaughn began preparing for battle. Both he and Tai wore sterile camouflage fatigues of a make easily bought anywhere in the world. He put his body armor on, securing it with the Velcro straps. He then slid on the combat vest bristling with extra magazines, grenades, a knife, and the FM radio with which he could talk to Tai. He put the earpiece in, secured the mike around his throat, and when Tai had done the same, turned his radio on and moved to the front of the truck bay, as far from her as he could get.

"Read me? Over."

"Roger that," Tai responded.

"Over."

"Let's keep the radio off until just before jump to conserve batteries," Vaughn said.

"Then operate only on minimum settings. Over."

"Roger. Out."

Tai turned off her radio and Vaughn did the same. He returned to the rear of the truck and checked his pistol, making sure there was a round in the chamber. Then he put on his composite armor forearm guards. Tai noted that.

"What's your training in?" Vaughn knew she was asking for a specific martial arts discipline.

"Killing."

Tai laughed.

"Know enough of a bunch of various styles and master of none?" Vaughn shrugged.

"I don't have a black belt in anything, but I have trained in a variety of styles. What about you?"

"Black belt in hapkido and tae kwon do. And trained in a variety of styles."

Vaughn had expected as much, given the way she took down Kasen. He pulled his flight gloves on, flexing his fingers to ensure a tight fit, then secured the brass knuckles to his combat vest. Seeing that, Tai raised an eyebrow.

"That's a new one."

"Something from my childhood," Vaughn explained. He felt a flush of sadness, remembering Frank at the assembly area in the Philippines before the botched raid also commenting on the knuckles.Tai pulled something long and thin, wrapped in black cloth, out of her pack.

"Something from my childhood."

She unwrapped the object. A wooden scabbard and hilt appeared. Tai drew the blade. It was a shoto, a Japanese short sword, the blade about eight inches long.

"May I?" Vaughn asked.

Tai paused and then handed it over, handle first.

Vaughn took it. He was surprised how light it was. He turned it and looked at the edge. Razor sharp.

"How many times was the metal folded?" he asked, referring to the process by which such blades were handmade.

Tai smiled, holding her hand out to take it back.

"You know something of swords?"

"I spent time in the Far East," Vaughn vaguely answered.

"The making of this is a family secret," Tai said as she slid the blade back into its sheath. She then put the sword inside her combat vest, on top of the body armor, straight down along her chest, between her breasts.

"Interesting placement," Vaughn said. Tai shot him a sharp look. He held his hands up defensively.

"Sorry,"

"You get one mistake," Tai said.

"And you've made it."

Vaughn nodded.

"It was stupid."

Tai relaxed.

"A man who can admit he's wrong. That's something new."

The truck lurched to an abrupt stop, then gears grinded as the driver threw it into reverse. Vaughn lifted the canvas flap covering the rear and saw the back end of a C-130, ramp open.

"We're here."