Valley of the Templars

19

“The planes out there under the camouflage nets are Super Tucanos. I guarantee you they were provided by International Aviation Services, which is a subsidiary of Blackhawk Security,” said Carrie Pilkington, her voice firm with conviction. “I knew they weren’t Cuban Special Forces.”

“They’re speaking Spanish,” said Laframboise, their pilot. “And they sure as hell aren’t Mexicans.”

“Maybe it’s the Bay of Pigs again-Cuban exiles.”

“Not with that kind of equipment,” said Carrie. “They’re Americans.”

“We’ve been over this a hundred times since yesterday,” sighed the MI6 agent, Will Black. “Let’s give it a rest for a while, okay? I’m hungry, I’m thirsty and I am most definitely not in a good mood.”

Carrie, Will Black, Arango and Pete Laframboise were seated with their backs to the walls in the ruins of a single-story wooden structure that must have been what once had passed for a control tower or communications shack back in the days when the private airstrip had been in operation.

Over the years and decades since then, the jungle had grown up around the building, hiding it from the air. There was a walled outhouse-style toilet cubicle in one corner of the shack but no running water or any other kind of facility.

“From what I saw, there are at least a hundred men bivouacked here,” said Laframboise.

“There were enough crates of equipment stacked around under those camouflage nets for ten times that number of men,” murmured Carrie. “They’ve got brand-new turboprop fighter planes armed with Hellfire missiles. Whatever this is, it’s major league.”

The old wooden door of the hut opened and four uniformed men appeared, silhouetted by the sunlight outside. Like every one else they’d seen so far, the men all wore mirrored aviator-style sunglasses and had no rank insignia on their battle fatigues or their Special Forces-style berets.

The first two carried in a shaky-looking card table and the other two brought in five folding chairs. The men set up the table and chairs and then withdrew. Two more silent men brought four military-style covered trays and a carton of bottled water bottles, then withdrew themselves. They left the door open.

Peering out, Will Black could see across the dirt strip to a small clearing carved out of the jungle and topped by yet another jungle-pattern camouflage net. Under the net was a large tent, flaps pulled open to reveal a sophisticated communications setup and manned by another half dozen soldiers, all of them wearing headsets and staring into computer screens and what appeared to be radar displays.

From what he could make out squinting through the open door, they’d pulled the old Wilga off the end of the strip and halfway into the scrub brush beside the burnt-out DC3, then covered it with more of the jungle camouflage.

“I guess there’s no point in making a run for it.” Laframboise grinned, getting to his feet and stretching. “They’ve got poor old Miroslava bound up in a girdle.”

“No point at all,” agreed Black. He and Carrie stood up, as well. They went to the table and sat down. Arango joined them silently.

“Even if they didn’t swat us down like flies, where would we go?” Carrie said sourly. “It really is a jungle out there.”

They took the covers off the food trays. “Roast beef, mashed potatoes with gravy, creamed corn, steamed spinach and green Jell-O,” said Laframboise, ripping open the little package of plastic utensils. “Pretty good grub for a prison cell.”

They ate and drank and fifteen minutes later two men appeared and cleared away the trays, then disappeared. Two minutes after that a new figure appeared in the doorway. He turned away for a moment and barked an order in Spanish before he stepped into the old shack. He was tall, hawk-faced and visibly much older than any of the men Black had seen so far. Unlike any of those men, he also had a rank insignia on his beret-the single silver oak leaf of a bird colonel.

“Su espanol es muy bueno,” said Black. “Pero usted no es Cubano.”

“Your Spanish is pretty good, too, and you’re not Cuban, either,” said the lieutenant colonel.

“Benefits of a classical education.” Black smiled.

“Brit.”

“Quite right.”

“I’m from Brooklyn.”

“Gee, I never would have guessed,” said Carrie.

“My name is Frank Turturro.” The lieutenant colonel smiled. “Who are you?”

“My name is Carrie Pilkington. I’m an analyst in the Central Intelligence Agency.”

“I wouldn’t say that too loudly, Miss Pilkington,” said Turturro. “It’s the kind of thing that’ll get you in a lot of trouble in this country.”

“And being a lieutenant colonel in a foreign mercenary army doesn’t?” Black snorted.

“What foreign mercenary army would that be?” Turturro asked.

“BSSI,” responded Carrie emphatically. “Blackhawk Security Services International. The Super Tucanos with all the firepower out there were provided by International Aviation Services, Blackhawk’s air force. Their headquarters is at the old Air Haven Airport in Alhambra, Arizona. You’ve even got half a dozen Lockheed Neptune bombers from the ’sixties that Blackhawk uses to ‘pacify’ natives in your South American operations.”

“You’re very well informed, Miss Pilkington. I congratulate you,” said Turturro.

“It’s my job,” said Carrie. “What’s yours?”

“I follow orders, Miss Pilkington, no more, no less.”

“Where have I heard that before? I wonder,” said Black.

“A Brit who speaks excellent Spanish in the company of a CIA analyst. You must be MI6.”

“Bond, James Bond,” said Black in a terrible Sean Connery brogue.

Turturro smiled and leaned back in his chair. He stared at Pete Laframboise, then reached into the breast pocket of his fatigues and tossed over a package of unfiltered Camels with a matchbook tucked into the cellophane. Laframboise tapped one out of the pack and lit it, taking a deep drag, and then let it roll out from his nostrils and his mouth with a contented sigh.

“So, who are you?” Turturro asked.

“Nobody,” said the pilot. “Just along for the ride.” He took another drag on the cigarette and smiled. “Actually, I am the ride.”

“You own the Wilga?” Turturro asked.

“‘Owned’ isn’t a real word in Cuba, Mr. Colonel, sir,” said Laframboise. “You only own something here until the government or some bigwig gets it into his head that he doesn’t like it or he wants it himself and then, poof, it’s gone. It’s like power, Colonel. It’s an ephemeral thing; it only exists if you can hang on to it and for as long as you can hold on to it.”

“Deep thinking for a crop duster,” said Turturro.

“Before I left the country in a hurry, I was finishing up a postgraduate degree in political science at McGill University in Montreal.” He picked up the Camels from the table. “Mind if I keep these?”

Turturro nodded. “Go ahead.”

Laframboise slipped the matches back under the cellophane, then put the package of cigarettes into his pocket.

“And you?” Turturro asked, staring at Arango. The Cuban turned his head and spit onto the floor.

“I am the man who cut off your compadres’ cojones fifty years ago. I was also the man who loaded the rocket into the RPG that brought down that airplane out there.”

“A CIA analyst, an MI6 agent, an old Fidelista and a gray-haired grad student from Montreal fly into an armed camp in a piece-of-crap crop-dusting plane. Why?”

“Sounds like the opening to a bad joke,” said Carrie. “We know why we’re here, but what about you?”

“This is the part when the bad guy tells the hero his evil plans for world domination?” Turturro said. “I don’t think so.” He stood up. “You’ll be held here until things…are under way. “After that you’ll be released and you’ll be on your own.”

“Not much of an interrogation,” said Black. “Where are the lasers and the pools full of sharks? Snakes maybe?”

“There are no poisonous snakes in Cuba,” said Turturro. “And I don’t need to interrogate you. For the moment I just need to keep you out of the way. Try to escape and my men will shoot you. Survive that and there’s thirty miles of jungle between here and the next best thing to civilization. So just stay put.” Turturro walked to the doorway, then turned. “Don’t piss me off,” he said, and then he was gone. A guard stepped halfway into the room and shut the door.

“That was a bit weird,” said Carrie. “It wasn’t much of an interrogation, was it?”

“You believe any of that bull-puckie?” Laframboise drawled, still smoking the Camel.

“I don’t think he has the slightest idea of what to do,” said Will Black. “We weren’t part of whatever game plan he’s got in mind. Flies in the ointment, so to speak.”

“So, what does he do with us?” Carrie said.

“He goes up the chain of command until he gets someone who can make a decision.”

“What chain of command?” Carrie asked. “Who is Blackhawk working for? The Pentagon wouldn’t sanction an invasion of Cuba; they wouldn’t dare and neither would the president.”

“I don’t know who his ultimate employers are, but the colonel is in the middle of something very big here. Those men and that equipment aren’t here as some sort of resistance army in the mountains. They’re an assault force.”

“You think this is part of Selman-Housein’s Operacion de Venganza?” Carrie asked.

“I think it has to be.” Black nodded.

“Okay, I’m lost,” said Laframboise. He wet his fingers and pinched out the butt of his Camel. “What the hell is Operation Vengeance and what does El Comandante’s doctor have to do with it?”

“It’s a long story.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” said Laframboise. “And neither are you, boss.”

“We’d better be,” said Black, staring at the closed door, his tone ominous.

“Why’s that?”

Carrie answered, “Because pretty soon the colonel’s going to get his orders from on high and he’s going to kill us.”