The Mordida Man

31

Using the full powers of his CIA position, it took Alex Reese only three phone calls to lay on everything — the plane tickets, the ground transportation, the boat — even the weapons, which would be waiting for them in Malta. Almost as an afterthought, Reese also arranged for the disposal of Harold Hopkins’s body. That required the third call.

While Reese’s deep bass rumbled into the telephone at one end of the still sunny room, Leland Timble carefully outlined the situation and options that Dunjee had open to him.

“According to what you’ve told us, the Libyans have removed Mr. McKay from the yacht, along with his female companion, and secured them in this old farmhouse on the island of Comino, correct?”

Dunjee nodded.

“Your Mr. Abedsaid also informed you that the two prisoners are now being guarded only by the three terrorists — two men and one woman, is that also correct?”

Again, Dunjee nodded.

“The two questions that we must now ask ourselves,” Timble said slowly, “is why did the Libyans decide that the yacht was no longer suitable as a jail, and secondly, why did they choose this particular farmhouse and whom does it belong to?”

“That’s three questions,” Dunjee said.

“I stand corrected.”

“First, the yacht was drawing too much attention, or so Abedsaid claimed. The farmhouse is isolated. It’s really not much more than a stone shack. A year ago a rich Libyan tourist saw it, liked it, and leased it for twenty years with the idea of eventually turning it into a vacation home. Abedsaid claims that he ran out of money or interest or both. Abedsaid told me all this, but didn’t tell me where the farmhouse was located. I had no idea it was on Comino.”

Timble pursed his lips. “It does seem logical. I mean, the farmhouse would not only provide a suitable jail, but also sanctuary for our three terrorists. It’s almost clever.”

“What about me?” Dunjee said.

“You? Well, you, I’m afraid, Mr. Dunjee, have only two choices. You can either join your friend in the corner over there—” Timble gestured toward the body of Hopkins, which had been rolled up in the rug and tugged over to a corner. “Or you can join us.”

“You already know my answer,” Dunjee said. “What I don’t understand is why. What’ve I got to offer?”

Timble chose his word carefully. “Credibility.”

“You mean after Bingo McKay is rescued — providing he is.”

“Exactly. It will then be made known to Washington that it was only with the help of me and my colleagues that the rescue was effected. Mr. Reese will also attest to this. Your testimonial will be the icing on the cake, so to speak. Of course, I do expect to compensate you. What would you say to $250,000?”

It was several seconds before Dunjee answered. When he did, the small awful smile was there. “I’d say yes.”

“Good. That’s settled.”

“Tell me something,” Dunjee said. “You expect to get a pardon out of this?”

“Certainly not. My crimes are too... enormous, let’s say. But I think I can reasonably expect a light suspended sentence, don’t you?”

“I have no idea. But why not just stay loose?”

“Because, Mr. Dunjee, I’m homesick.”

The five men took the late afternoon Air Malta flight out of Rome’s Fiumicino Airport. They flew tourist class. This time Dunjee found himself sandwiched in between Franklin Keeling and Jack Spiceman. In the seats just ahead, Alex Reese sat next to the window, Leland Timble next to him.

Timble had used a Canadian passport to slip through customs. He also wore a kind of disguise — a grayish-blond wig that covered his ears and hung a fringe of bangs down over his forehead almost to his eyes. After he put on a pair of dark glasses, he seemed to think he was invisible.

The flight to Valletta took not quite an hour. Because none of them was carrying any luggage, they breezed through customs. Outside the terminal building a thirtyish man with a drooping mustache and a John Deere billed cap on his head held up a scrawled sign that read, “Mr. Arnold.”

“That’s our taxi,” Reese said and moved over to the man. Dunjee was again sandwiched in between Spiceman and Keeling in the rear seat. Timble sat next to the silent driver. Reese sat next to the window and sipped from a pint of brandy. Nobody had to tell the driver where to go.

The boat was docked on the quay at Marsaxlokk. The five men got out of the taxi and walked toward it. Nobody said anything to the driver. Nobody paid him any money. As soon as the five men got out of the taxi, it pulled away.

The boat was a twenty-one-foot cabin cruiser. It was painted a light blue with a darker blue trim. Its brightwork gleamed. Dunjee knew little about boats, but he thought it looked fairly new. The name painted on its stern was Maria.

“Who’s the sailor?” Dunjee asked.

“Spiceman,” Keeling said. “He used to have one a little smaller than this in Washington. Kept it docked over in Anacostia.”

Spiceman was the first aboard. He went below and then came back up and turned toward the gauges. “The bilges are okay,” he said. Nobody seemed to care. Spiceman started the boat’s engines. They caught immediately.

Reese turned to Dunjee. “Let’s you and me and Keeling go down and take a look at the goodies,” he said. “Leland’ll take care of the lines.”

There were two bunks on the port side of the cabin and another one forward which could be pulled down. There was also a small galley and a head. On the bottom bunk were two large suitcases. Reese opened the first suitcase. Inside, resting on what seemed to be a thick bed of old bathrobes, were three M-16 rifles. There were also a stack of magazines and a roll of friction tape. Dunjee counted twenty magazines.

Reese looked at Dunjee. “You still know how to work one of these babies, don’t you?”

“I think I remember.”

Reese opened the second suitcase. It held another M-16, ten more magazines, a bullhorn, and six fragmentation grenades. Reese grunted. “They must’ve thought we were going to start a war.”

He picked up a rifle and handed it to Dunjee. “Here,” he said adding, “you’ll need one of these, too,” and handed him a magazine.

“I’ll need two of them,” Dunjee said, just as the boat began to pull away from the dock.

Reese handed him another magazine. “And some of that friction tape,” Dunjee said.

Timble came down into the cabin just as Dunjee was taping the two magazines unevenly together. He clicked one of the magazines into the breech.

“Why do you have them taped together?” Timble asked.

“Because,” Dunjee said, released the magazine, flipped it over, and slapped the fresh magazine into place.

“Oh,” Timble said. “For when you run out of bullets.”

“Dunjee was sort of a hero over in Vietnam,” Reese said.

“Really?” said Timble, interested.

“Really,” Dunjee said.

Spiceman ran the boat aground on the small, narrow rocky beach. Sharp rocks cut a jagged foot-long hole in the boat’s bow. The five men jumped from the bow into less than two feet of water and waded ashore. Alex Reese was the last off the boat. He carried the loudhailer as well as an M-16. No one looked back at the boat as it began to fill with water. Again, no one seemed to care.

There was a full moon, fat and bright. Dunjee turned to Reese. “You lay on the moon, too?”

“No, but I fixed up the weather.”

It was warm, somewhere in the low sixties. The five men were dressed much alike — in jackets and tieless shirts and slacks and ordinary street shoes. Two of the shirts were even white. Dunjee was grateful that his was blue.

They gathered around Franklin Keeling, who had folded the big map down into a thick one-foot square. “There should be some kind of steps leading up to the top of the bluff,” Keeling said.

The bluff started where the rocky beach ended and went straight up for nearly forty feet. The bluff appeared to be smooth solid rock. If there were no steps, Dunjee didn’t think they could climb it.

Keeling had a flashlight. He switched it on and moved its beam over the rock face. He found the first step a little to the left. It was nearly two feet high and very narrow, both in depth and width. The steps were worn smooth and seemed to have been chiseled and hacked out of the rock face a long time ago. “It’s gonna take a goat to get up those,” Keeling said.

“I think we should best start,” Timble said.

Dunjee moved over to Timble. “Let me ask something.”

“What?”

“When we get up on top, who’s going to be in charge? There are three people up there behind stone walls who’re probably going to be shooting at me pretty soon. So I’d kind of like to know who’s going to be running things.”

Timble nodded. “My experience in such matters is limited.”

“I’m glad you appreciate that,” Dunjee said.

“So Mr. Keeling here will be in charge.”

“He gives the orders?”

Timble nodded. Dunjee turned to the big man with the rubbery face who sometimes liked to call himself Arnold. “You’ve done this kind of thing before?” Dunjee said.

“Once or twice,” Keeling said.

“Just curious.”

“I don’t blame you.” He turned to the others. “All right. I’ll go up first. Then Dunjee, then Jack, then Leland. Reese, you bring up the rear.”

Nobody argued. Keeling stepped up onto the first narrow ledge and then went smoothly on up to the top. Dunjee followed. It was easier than he had thought it would be. When he reached the final step, he stopped and slowly poked his head up over the lip of the cliff.

Keeling was almost flat on the ground. He turned his head back toward Dunjee. “See that?” he said.

Dunjee looked. There was a low stone wall some ten yards away. It was crumbling through age and neglect. In some places it was only a foot high; in others two feet; there was even one section which had managed to retain its original three-foot height. The wall ran for twenty feet on either side of Keeling and then seemed to give up. It simply dribbled away into small piles of stones.

“That’s where we set up,” Keeling said. “At the wall. Pass it back.”

Dunjee passed it back to Spiceman and then began crawling on his belly and knees and elbows toward the wall. He cradled the M-16 in his arms as he crawled.

When he reached the wall, Keeling was already peering over it. “Take a look,” he said.

Dunjee smeared some dirt on his forehead before raising the top of his head slowly above the wall until he could see what lay on the other side. It was the farmhouse. It seemed to be some forty yards away. The house was a square flat-roofed one-story structure, simply built of round stones. There was a solid enough looking door, which was closed. On either side of the door were two windows. They were shuttered. Through the cracks in the shutters came some soft light. Dunjee looked for power lines, but could find none, and assumed that the light came from either oil-or battery-powered lamps. Or even candles.

“It’s a fort,” Dunjee said.

Keeling grunted. “If we can’t get in, I guess we’ll have to get them to come out.”

Keeling turned and watched as the other three men crawled toward them. After each of them had taken a quick peek over the top of the wall, Keeling looked at Reese and said, “Remember that time I was telling you about in Luanda?”

Reese nodded. “Want me to try it?”

“Why not?”

Reese picked up the bullhorn. “I’m going to try to talk them out.”

He put the bullhorn up to his lips. “You, inside the house!”

Reese’s bass voice seemed to thunder out of the bullhorn. “This is the U.S. government. You are surrounded. If you throw out your arms and come out with your hands up, you will not be harmed. I repeat. Throw out your arms and come out with your hands up. You have three minutes.”

Halfway through Reese’s invitation the lights in the farmhouse went out. They were thick candles stuck into saucers and it was Ko Yoshikawa who blew them out. “Can you see anything?” he said.

Bernt Diringshoffen was already kneeling at a shuttered window, peering through the cracks. In his left hand was a Kalashnikov assault rifle. “Nothing,” he said.

“I told you,” Françoise Leget whispered fiercely into the dark. “I told you it was a trap. Now they’re going to kill us. I dreamed it night before last. I told you then what was going to happen.”

“Shut up, Françoise,” Ko said wearily.

“They’re not going to kill me,” she said. “No. Not me. I’m not going to let them kill me like they killed Felix.”

There was a thump. Ko looked around. There was no light. He used a disposable cigarette lighter to see what Francoise was doing.

The thump had come from the lid of the suitcase that she had thrown back against a wall. She was pawing through the suitcase, looking for something. Her rifle lay discarded on the floor beside her.

“What the hell are you doing, Françoise?” Ko said, the weariness in his tone overlaid by disgust.

“They’re not going to kill me. I don’t want to die. I can’t die. I’m going out. Don’t try to stop me. I’m going out and then I’ll explain everything to them. They will understand.”

“Let her go,” Diringshoffen said from the window. “She’s crazy.”

“I’m not crazy. You’re the crazies. You can stay here and get killed. I’m going to live. That’s important — to live.”

She stood up. Even in almost total darkness, Ko could see the white blouse she held in her hand. It was her flag of surrender.

“I will explain everything,” she said. “They will understand.”

“They’ll kill you,” Ko said.

“No. Not me. I will surrender and then explain everything and they will understand. And I will live.”

She started toward the door. “So long, Françoise,” Ko said.

Dunjee watched as the farmhouse door swung open. Something white was being waved.

Reese put the bullhorn back to his lips. “We see your white flag. We will respect it. Just come out slowly with your hands high in the air.”

Jack Spiceman put his M-16 up to his cheek and took careful aim at the doorway.

“You think it’s a trick?” Dunjee said.

“Who knows?”

All five men watched as Françoise Leget stepped slowly through the farmhouse door, her arms straight up above her head. In her left hand was the white blouse.

She walked slowly toward the stone wall. When she was twenty yards away, Jack Spiceman shot her in the left knee. Francoise Leget crumpled to the ground. Then the screams began.