"It's not hard. His service records are just gone. Same thing we did with the SHOWBOAT people. His fingerprints in the FBI file were changed - that was back when Hoover still ran things and, well, there were ways. He died and got himself reborn as John Clark."
"What's he done since?" Cutter asked, enjoying the conspiratorial aspects of this.
"Mainly he's an instructor down at The Farm. Every so often we have a special job that requires his special talents," Ritter explained. "He's the guy who went on the beach to get Gerasimov's wife and daughter, for example."
"Oh. And this all started because of a drug thing?"
"That's right. He has a special, dark place in his heart for druggies. Hates the bastards. It's about the only thing he's not professional about."
"Not pro -"
"I don't mean it that way. He'll enjoy doing this job. It won't affect how he does it, but he will enjoy it. I don't want you to misunderstand me. Clark is a very capable field officer. He's got great instincts, and he's got brains. He knows how to plan it, and he knows how to run it."
"So what's his plan?"
"You'll love it." Ritter opened his portfolio and started taking papers out. Most of them, Cutter saw, were "overhead imagery" - satellite photographs.
"Lieutenant Jackson?"
"Good morning, sir," Tim said to the new battalion operations officer after cracking off a book-perfect salute. The S-3 was walking the battalion area, getting himself introduced.
"I've heard some pretty good things about you." That was always something that a new second lieutenant wanted to hear. "And I met one of your squad leaders."
"Which one, sir?"
"Chavez, I think."
"Oh, you just in from Fort Benning, Major?"
"No, I was an instructor at the Jungle Warfare School, down in Panama."
"What was Chavez doing down there?" Lieutenant Jackson wondered.
"Killing me," the major replied with a grin. "All your people that good?"
"He was my best squad leader. That's funny, they were supposed to send him off to be a drill sergeant."
"That's the Army for you. I'm going out with Bravo Company tomorrow night for the exercise down at Hunter-Liggett. Just thought I'd let you know."
"Glad to have you along, sir," Tim Jackson told the Major. It wasn't strictly true, of course. He was still learning how to be a leader of men, and oversight made him uncomfortable, though he knew that it was something he'd have to learn to live with. He was also puzzled by the news on Chavez, and made a mental note to have Sergeant Mitchell check that out. After all, Ding was still one of "his" men.
"Clark." That was how he answered the phone. And this one came in on his "business" line.
"It's a Go. Be here at ten tomorrow morning."
"Right." Clark replaced the phone.
"When?" Sandy asked.
"Tomorrow."
"How long?"
"A couple of weeks. Not as long as a month."
"Is it - "
"Dangerous?" John Clark smiled at his wife. "Honey, if I do my job right, no, it's not dangerous."
"Why is it," Sandra Burns Clark wondered, "that I'm the one with gray hair?"
"That's because I can't go into the hair parlor and have it fixed. You can."
"It's about the drug people, isn't it?"
"You know I can't talk about that. It would just get you worried anyway, and there's no real reason to worry," he lied to his wife. Clark did a lot of that. She knew it, of course, and for the most part she wanted to be lied to. But not this time.
Clark returned his attention to the television. Inwardly he smiled. He hadn't gone after druggies for a long, long time, and he'd never tried to go this far up the ladder - back then he hadn't known how, hadn't had the right information. Now he had everything he needed for the job. Including presidential authorization. There were advantages to working for the Agency.
Cortez surveyed the airfield - what was left of it - with a mixture of satisfaction and anger. Neither the police nor the army had come to visit yet, though eventually they would. Whoever had been here, he saw, had done a thorough, professional job.
So what am I supposed to think? he asked himself. Did the Americans send some of their Green Berets in? This was the last of five airstrips that he'd examined today, moved about by a helicopter. Though not a forensic detective by training, he had been thoroughly schooled in booby traps and knew exactly what to look for. Exactly what he would have done.
The two guards who'd been here, as at the other sites, were simply gone. That surely meant that they were dead, of course, but the only real knowledge he had was that they were gone. Perhaps he was supposed to think that they had set the explosives, but they were simple peasants in the pay of the Cartel, untrained ruffians who probably hadn't even patrolled around the area to make certain that...
"Follow me." He left the helicopter with one of his assistants in trail. This one was a former police officer who did have some rudimentary intelligence; at least he knew how to follow simple orders.
