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  Otherwise, the thing here might fall apart on the spot, which is what he hoped for this one staging area of what was shaping up to be one hell of a takeover plot from a modern-day warlord named Javier.

  Hawkeye slammed the van’s side door shut after him. He realized he was in close physical contact with someone of breeding and class and shirked away from Valera.

  Valera was looking more discombobulated by the second.

  Caine groused at Cody’s back as Cody steered them along.

  “Damn, guy, you said if I blew up enough of that place I wouldn’t have to suffer this cowboy’s excuse for the King’s English.”

  “It’s called an accent, limey,” Hawkeye grunted. He righted himself against one side of the van and unscrewed a tin of Skoal. He pinched a taste and commenced chewing it.

  “Ugh,” Caine shuddered.

  Cody wheeled them onto the two-lane blacktop that crested the hill here before it slipped out of view to the east, the chaotic scene inside Valera’s ancestral home disappearing behind them. He flicked on the headlights, depressed the accelerator to the floorboard, getting them in the direction of Pasay.

  They had not gone more than half a kilometer when the first emergency vehicle, its rooftop light flashing, siren wailing, whistled past them, heading in the opposite direction toward the battleground that had erupted out of nowhere, it seemed, in the heart of this quiet countryside.

  More sirens could be heard, filling the night, like animal howls coming this way from every direction.

  “What now?” Murphy grunted.

  Cody eyed the huddled form of Valera visible in the rearview mirror, in the passing lights of vehicles and some street lights. They came closer into Pasay’s shopping district.

  The shiny black streets were deserted at this time of an unpleasant evening.

  A warning calmness now said that a big storm was near, yes, very near.

  Cody pulled the van off from a street when they reached a block lined with closed one-story shops along either side. He stopped the van in an alley between two such buildings.

  There was no traffic on the streets at either end of this alley.

  The only sound in the confines of the van was Vincente Valera’s ragged, shallow breathing.

  Hawkeye spat a chaw of chewing tobacco at a corner of the van’s interior and something in the spit itself carried derision.

  “I’d say it’s the commie’s turn to return the favor of us saving his tight red butthole.”

  Valera kept breathing raggedly, heaving for lost breath. Murphy snorted at him, “Listen, asshole, if you have a heart attack after all the shit we went through to get you out of there—”

  Valera caught some of his breath.

  “You… do not have to worry about me. I will cooperate with you, gentlemen.”

  “Thought you would,” Cody conceded. “You were way off-base to think snakes like Javier and Maceda and their pals would throw in with you people. I’m surprised the payoff didn’t come sooner.”

  “My th—thanks to you for getting me away from there. Who are you people? Were you the ones at my club, with the American girl… and Mara?”

  Cody detected a flicker in the question when he asked about the Zobel woman.

  They meant something to each other.

  Had…

  “Must have been someone else,” Cody said.

  He needed to use Vincente Valera and he could hardly expect cooperation if the old guy knew his team had been responsible, after a manner of speaking, for what happened to Mara Zobel.

  That crummy lady had put herself in that situation, to be impaled by that steering column that had ended her life.

  But Valera would not see it that way if he knew the facts.

  There was something reverent in the way he said the dead woman’s name.

  Valera asked, after a moment’s silence, “How much did you hear outside that screen door, before you… appeared?”

  “Enough to know you’re supposed to be on your way to meet Javier,” Cody said. “And from the way Maceda was pushing, it sounds like the cards are on the table.”

  “They are.” Valera nodded. “Javier… they… intend to kill me when I get to their base on Mindanao. Now… will I be… free to go?”

  “That’ll be the day.” Cody chuckled with no humor. “You’re going to tell us where that chopper pilot was supposed to take you.”

  Murphy rustled some papers in removing them from a pocket of his fatigues.

  “No need to waste time on that, Sarge. I nicked these from the pilot and brought ’em along when they put us down. Coordinates and everything. Doesn’t look too far from what went down this morning, when we pulled those folks out of that base.”

  Caine nodded. “It does all tie together, like you thought it did,” he said to Cody.

  “And Javier pulled double cross on this bored, rich piece of shit.” Hawkeye spat another chaw.

  Valera’s frightened eyes flitted from one commando to the other in the shadows of the van before settling on Cody.

  “You… will turn me over to the authorities?”

  “In your dreams.” Murphy snickered, and he made a show of checking the action of the .45 automatic he held for Valera to see.

  “What do you know about what’s planned for tonight?” Cody demanded. “Don’t bullshit us. We know Javier’s got you, the NPA, and guys like Maceda and their men—your political connections; it’s set up throughout the country and it strikes tonight.”

  “Javier spoke from Mindanao just before you arrived,” Valera sputtered. “General Maceda was to stay. I was instructed to join Javier. He said… 0200 hours. Now. Will you let me go? I am already ruined, can you not see that? Don’t kill me?”

  “If you’re a good boy,” Cody snapped, “we won’t kill you.”

  “What do you want?”

  “You’re taking me into Javier’s base camp.”

  That got the attention of Cody’s team, too.

  “You mean us, don’t you, Sarge?” Murphy growled.

  “Since we’re so sure it’s tonight,” Caine put in, “mightn’t it be a good time to alert the Filipino authorities about all this so they can properly respond? I mean, it is their problem, if there’s time.”

  “They already know about it,” said Cody.

  “They what?” Hawkeye grunted. He almost choked on a gob of his own chewing tobacco.

  “That’s why they haven’t pushed harder on this.” Cody voiced the thoughts as they fell together at this moment inside his head. “They must be prepared to counterattack. They just don’t know how deeply we’re into it and they don’t know Javier’s exact timetable or they’d have responded already. They don’t know where Valera and Maceda and the rest have their staging areas located, right, Vincente?”

  Valera gulped, “If they do, it’s a better-kept secret than Operation Thunderstrike.”

  “Don’t sell the Flips short,” Hawkeye muttered. “They’re tougher than hell, right, Sarge?”

  “They proved that in World War II.” Cody nodded. “And they managed to get rid of Marcos; that was no small feat.” He turned around to face Valera. The Filipino counter-insurgency doesn’t know where Javier’s main staging area is, the one on Mindanao, the heart of this thing.”

  “Why wouldn’t they know about that?” Caine asked. “I thought they had a man inside.”

  “A lot of those guys bought it this morning—when you combine casualties with Locsin’s and Javier’s,” Cody said. “One of those dead could have been that informer or maybe he just slipped up and they caught him.”

  “So why do you go alone?” Murphy wanted to know. “And how do you intend to do it?”

  Cody asked Valera, “If you were a good little boy for Javier, what would he expect you to do right now?”

  “He would… he would expect me to flee.” Valera nodded, affirming his reply, “Yes, that’s it, he would tell me to leave the country.”

  There came a whack! from the dark of the i
nterior of the van and a grunt of surprise and pain from Valera, who had not expected Caine to rap him along the side of his jaw with the butt of his pistol.

  “Playtime is over, comrade, or haven’t your picked up on that yet? Better answer the man’s questions.”

  “Who are you?” Valera half-shrieked. “My life… it’s all fallen apart… what is happening to me!”

  “Can that shit,” Cody snapped.

  “Javier’ll get word soon enough of what happened at your place. He won’t know who or what, and you’re not supposed to be so scared that you run, right? You only think he plans to off you.”

  “But he said—”

  “Right?”

  “Uh, yes,” Valera conceded. “Well?”

  “He’ll expect you to helicopter to his base on Mindanao, one way or another; to find a way there. And what would you do, Vincente?”

  Valera, rattled beyond straight reasoning, mumbled, “I own a small processing plant just north of here. There is a private landing field there. I own it.”

  “Javier expects you to fly to him and report what happened,” Cody said. “And you will. And I’m going to be your pilot.”

  “But, hell. Sarge.” Murphy grunted, “I’m your pilot!”

  “We both know how to fly choppers,” Cody reminded him. “You’re just a little better at it than I am, that’s all.”

  “But—”

  “I want to be in on the finish of this one first-hand, Rufe.”

  “Fat chance to take,” Hawkeye muttered.

  Caine said, “My associate’s gift of understatement manifests itself more than ever.”

  “You want Javier’s hit list,” Murphy said to Cody.

  Cody nodded. “He’ll have it all down on paper somewhere—where each one of those units he’s consolidated or set up is, waiting for the time to signal to Clark.”

  “How many choppers are there at this private airfield of yours?” Cody shot at Valera.

  “There are three,” the guy answered, stuttering on the “t”s, “but—”

  Cody ignored him.

  “We’ll only need two.” He looked at Caine, Murphy, and Hawkins. “You three follow us and land nearby.”

  “Land nearby?” Hawkeye echoed sourly.

  “We’re three guys with some M-16s and what high explosives I’ve got left,” Caine said. “If that is Javier’s main staging area we’re talking about, he’d have close to a half-hundred men there at the very least, with full equipment.”

  “We don’t need to destroy that staging area,” said Cody, “if I can take out this warlord and whoever’s bossing the NPA detachment.”

  “There will be General Chung,” Valera volunteered.

  “The North Koreans.” Cody nodded. “Javier will have that list on his person. He’s put the personal touch on every step of his plan so far; he’ll play true to form now, if I can pull that off quietly enough and pull out—and you have the Filipino’s military units ready to close in when I get out; that should be enough work for us for tonight.”

  “That’s one hell of a lot of ifs,” Caine opined.

  Hawkeye said, “And what if high pockets here decides to play along up to a point,” he roughly kicked Valera, “then blows the whistle to this warlord about who you really are and why you’re here.”

  Valera cleared his throat.

  “Er, uh, perhaps it would be best if you went without me. I—”

  “He’ll play along,” Cody growled, “because the one thing we all value the most is our own lives, isn’t it, Senator?”

  “I… do not want to die…” Valera whined. He drew his knees up in front of himself, hugging them to him. “Do not make me go to Javier with you, I beseech you—”

  “This Javier must be quite a dude,” Hawkeye said and whistled.

  “He has… the power of the beast he appears to be,” Valera muttered in a small voice.

  “You know what he has in mind if you play along with him,” said Cody to Valera.

  “He knows a man like you hasn’t carved himself an empire in the black market without being one tenacious son of a bitch,” Caine offered Valera, “even if you do send other people to do your dirty work while you sit reading your leather-bound books. He’ll have to eliminate you to take over your organization, Senator.”

  “I… will help you to kill Javier,” Valera said with a rising inflection that took on a sort of devious purr that coiled through the inside of the van.

  “Now you’ve got it.” Cody nodded, not liking or sympathizing with this little sleazeball one damn bit. “Your only chance out of this alive is to do exactly what I tell you to do. If you do that, you’ll give us, you and me, a shot at walking out of there, back to your chopper, and flying right on out.”

  “Sure.” Murphy shook his head sarcastically. “It’s always easy, just like that. Like hell it is, Sarge, and you know it.”

  “He is right, though,” Caine said. “All fucking bloody right. We follow you to somewhere on Mindanao,” he said to Cody. “You and Valera touch down in the middle of an encampment of some five hundred or more goons and communist guerillas. We call in the cavalry, in this case the Filipino counterinsurgency strike units that we pray are standing by, and we sit on our arses like we were supposed to back at the senator’s.”

  “Where we pulled attention away from that downed chopper to save your asses,” Hawkeye pointed out to Cody.

  “The only thing that matters right now is putting the screws to whatever Javier has ready to roll at 0200 hours,” Cody countered, “and the way to do that is to get my hands on his master list. There sure as hell won’t be any copies floating around.”

  “And we play it on the heartbeat, just like Nam,” Murphy grunted. “It worked back there,” he said to Caine and Hawkins. “Remember that time at Luc Da when we—”

  “Jeez, bit guy, save the war stories for later.” Hawkeye chuckled. “But yeah, play it loose. I like it like that my own self.”

  “We’ll radio air cover from the Filipinos to be standing by,” Caine assured Cody. “Let’s hope they play along.”

  “They’ll want what I’m going to get more than we do,” said Cody.

  “Don’t… please don’t tell the authorities about me,” Valera wailed.

  “Pal, your name is already taken and your ass is hung for kicking.” Hawkeye grinned. “You play straight with the sarge, at least you’ll have an ass to run and hide with after this is over.”

  Valera looked to Cody. “If this plan of yours… goes accordingly, then… you will let me, uh, escape?”

  “Now there you’ve got a deal,” Cody consented.

  “We’ll try some escaping together.” Murphy chuckled.

  Cody realized Valera interpreted that as a grim threat. He assured the Filipino, “You help us set up Javier and we’ll let you go free.”

  Valera started regaining some of his composure, or trying to.

  “You’ve got a deal,” he told Cody.

  Cody started the van, flicked the headlights back on and backed out onto the street to continue on along through this slumbering neighborhood street that began curving through narrower streets before linking with the Manila highway.

  “Keep your eyes peeled, guys,” Cody advised his men, each of whom fisted a weapon. To Valera, he said, “And you give me directions to that private landing field of yours.”

  CHAPTER

  EIGHTEEN

  Captain Leiter paused in General Simmons’ open office doorway, saw that his superior was busy on the telephone, and started to walk away when he caught Simmons notice him there and wag a finger for him to enter.

  Leiter stepped inside. He moved over to stand looking out a window at the pitch-darkness beyond, giving the general some privacy to complete the call.

  There was little activity on this restricted section of Clark Air Force Base, this or any other night.

  It had come down, Leiter reflected, as it always did in the end for the men left behind the desks, to do the wai
ting. And worrying, if a man cared about his job.

  The general was doing all of the listening over the telephone, then he said, “Very well, then, General Avelino. I’ll leave it in your capable hands and wait to hear from you.”

  Leiter turned from the window at the click of Simmons hanging up the phone.

  “Avelino? The Commander of the Filipinos’ counter-insurgents?”

  Simmons stared at the phone, his brow creased in deep-set furrows.

  “That was the second strangest phone call of my life, Captain. The other strangest phone call of my life came through about ten minutes before this one.”

  “You got through to Lund?”

  “He got through to me. Get this. We give Cody full support on everything, no questions asked. The guy’s a walking order from the president.”

  Leiter pictured in his mind the indelibly imprinted images of the four commandos he had met briefly a few hours earlier.

  “I’d say the president’s got good taste in fighting men, if nothing else.”

  “It’s still a first,” Simmons grunted, “even if I do half-like it. Those four guys could be the determining force in world affairs, ever think of that?” He chuckled. “Yeah, like I said, Captain, a strange call.”

  “You said one of two, sir.”

  “So I did. You know we passed word along to Avelino’s until this afternoon about what we’d learned about Javier’s plans and Colonel Locsin’s base and the setup we, uh, that is, Cody, thought Javier had brewing.”

  “And got a polite ‘thank you’ and a blank look for the effort,” Leiter guessed.

  “Right; you’ve been dealing with them, too,” Simmons growled. He walked over and poured a cup of coffee from a percolator, offered it to Leiter, who shook his head. Simmons took a sip, made a face, and threw the half-filled cup at the nearest wastebasket.

  “And the general had what to say just now?” Leiter prodded.

  Simmons impatiently threw himself back into the swivel chair behind his desk.

  “He had about as much to say as the paper pusher I handed the poop to this afternoon. Except, oh yeah, he said they were aware of Javier and were prepared to deal with the problem, end of quote.”