Frederick Forsyth: Avenger

Most of the time Steve Edmond was a contented man with every right to be so, but there were days when he felt tetchy, ill at ease. Then he would cross the floor of his penthouse office suite high above the city of Windsor, Ontario, and stare again at the young faces in the photo, faces from far away and long ago.

The internal phone rang. He walked back to his desk. "Yes, Jean."

"It's Mrs. Colenso on the line."

"Fine. Put her through." He leaned back in the padded swivel chair as the connection was made. "Hi, darling. How are you?"

The smile dropped from his face as he listened. He came forward in the chair until he was leaning on the desk.

"What do you mean missing?ÉHave you tried phoning?ÉBosnia? No linesÉAnnie, you know kids nowadays don't writeÉmaybe it's stuck in the mail over thereÉyes, I accept he promised faithfullyÉalright, leave it to me. Who was he working for?"

He took a pen and pad and wrote what she dictated. When he put the phone down he thought for a moment then called his chief executive officer. "Among all those young Turks you employ, do you have anyone who understands researching on the Internet?" he asked. The executive was stunned.

"Of course. Scores."

"I want the name and private number of the head of an American charity called Loaves-n-Fishes. No, just that. And I need it fast."

He had it in ten minutes. An hour later he came off a long call from a gleaming building in Charleston, South Carolina, headquarters of one of those television evangelists, the sort he despised, raking in huge donations from the gullible against guarantees of salvation.

Loaves-n-Fishes was the pompadoured savior's charity arm, which appealed for funds for the pitiful refugees of Bosnia, then gripped by a vicious civil war. How much of the donated dollars went to the wretched and how much to the reverend's fleet of limousines was anyone's guess. But if Ricky Colenso had been working as a volunteer for Loaves-n-Fishes in Bosnia, the voice from Charleston informed him, he would have been at their distribution centre at a place called Travnik.

"Jean, do you remember a couple of years back a man in Toronto lost a couple of old masters in a burglary at his country home? It was in the papers. Then they reappeared. Someone at the club said he used a very discreet agency to track them down and get them back. I need his name. Call me back."

This was definitely not on the internet, but there were other nets. Jean Searle, his private secretary of many years, used the secretaries' net and one of her friends was secretary to the chief of police.

"Rubinstein? Fine. Get me Mr. Rubinstein in Toronto or wherever."

That took half an hour. The art collector was found visiting the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam to stare, once again, at Rembrandt's *The Night Watch*. He was taken from his dinner table, given the six-hour time difference, but he was helpful.

"Jean," said Steve Edmond when he had finished, "call the airport. Get the Grumman ready. Now. I want to go to London. No, the English one. By sunrise."

Cal Dexter had hardly finished taking the oath of allegiance when he was on his way to boot camp for basic training. He did not have far to go; Fort Dix was right there in New Jersey.

In the spring of 1968, tens of thousands of young Americans were pouring into the army, 15 percent of them unwilling draftees. The drill sergeants could not have cared less. Their job was to turn this mass of shorn-to-the-skull young male humanity into something resembling soldiers before passing them on, just three months later, to their next posting.

Where they came from, who their fathers were, what their level of education, was of glorious irrelevance. Boot camp was the greatest leveller of them all, barring death. That would come later-for some.

Dexter was a natural rebel, but he was also more streetwise than most. The chow was basic, but it was better than he had had on many construction sites, so he wolfed it down.

Unlike the rich boys, he had no problem with dormitory sleeping, open-doored ablutions, or the requirement to keep all his gear very, very neatly in one small locker. Most useful of all, he had never had anyone clear up after him, so he expected nothing of the sort in camp. Some others, accustomed to being waited upon, spent a lot of time jogging around the parade square or doing pushups under the eyes of a displeased sergeant.

That said, Dexter could see no point in most of the rules and rituals, but he was smart enough not to say so. And he absolutely could not see why sergeants were always right and he was always wrong.

The benefit of signing on voluntarily for three years became plain very quickly. The corporals and sergeants, who were the nearest thing to God in basic training camp, learned of his status without delay and eased up on him. He was, after all, close to being "one of them." Mama-spoiled rich boys had it worst.

Two weeks in, he had his first assessment panel. That involved appearing before one of those almost invisible creatures, an officer. In this case, a major. "Any special skills?" asked the major for what was probably the ten thousandth time.

"I can drive bulldozers, sir," said Dexter.

The major studied his forms and looked up.

"When was this?"

"Last year, sir. Between leaving school and signing on."

"Your papers say you are just eighteen. That must have been when you were seventeen."

"Yes, sir."

"That's illegal."

"Lordy, sir, I'm sorry about that. I had no idea."

Beside him he could feel the ramrod-stiff corporal trying to keep a straight face. But the major's problem was solved.

"I guess it's engineering for you, soldier. Any objections?"

"No, sir."

Very few said goodbye at Fort Dix with tears in their eyes. Boot camp is not a vacation. But they did come out, most of them, with a straight back, square shoulders, a buzzcut head, the uniform of a private soldier, a knapsack, and a travel pass to their next posting. In Dexter's case it was Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, for Advanced Individual Training.

That was basic engineering; not just driving a bulldozer, but driving anything with wheels or tracks, engine repair, vehicle maintenance, and had there been time, fifty other courses besides. Another three months later, he achieved his Military Occupational Speciality certificate and was posted to Fort Knox, Kentucky.

Most of the world only knows Fort Knox as the U. S. Federal Reserve's gold depository, fantasy Mecca of every daydreaming bank robber and subject of numerous books and films. But it is also a huge army base and home of the Fort Knox Armour School. On any base that size there is always some building going on or tank pits to be dug or a ditch to be filled in. Cal Dexter spent six months as one of the post engineers at Fort Knox before being summoned to the Command Office.

He had just celebrated his nineteenth birthday; he carried the rank of private first class. The commanding officer looked grim, as one about to impart bereavement. Cal thought something might have happened to his father.

"It's Vietnam," said the major.

"Great," said the PFC. The major, who would happily spend the rest of his career in his anonymous marital home on the base in Kentucky, blinked several times.

"Well, that's all right then," he said.

Two weeks later Cal Dexter packed his knapsack, said goodbye to the buddies he had made on the post, and boarded the bus sent to pick up a dozen transferees. A week later he walked down the ramp of a C-5 Galaxy and into the sweltering, sticky heat of Saigon Airport, military side.

Coming out of the airport, he was riding up front with the bus driver. "What do you do?" asked the corporal, as he swung the troop bus between the hangars.