Tom Clancy - Clear and Present Danger

The easiest thing for Sergeant Mitchell to do was to call his friend at Fort MacDill. He'd served with Ernie Davis in the 101st Air Assault Division, lived right next to him in a duplex, and crumpled many an empty beer can after charcoaled franks and burgers in the backyard. They were both E-7s, well schooled in the ways of the Army, which was really run by the sergeants, after all. The officers got more money and all of the worries while the long-service NCOs kept things on an even keel. He had an Army-wide phone directory at his desk and called the proper AUTOVON number.

"Ernie? Mitch."

"Yo, how's life out in wine country?"

"Humpin' the hills, boy. How's the family?"

"Doing fine, Mitch. And yours?"

"Annie's turning into quite a little lady. Hey, the reason I called, I wanted to check up to make sure one of our people got out to you. Staff Sergeant named Domingo Chavez. You'd like him, Ernie, he's a real good kid. Anyway, the paperwork got fucked up on this end, and I just wanted to make sure that he showed up in the right place."

"No problem," Ernie said. "Chavez, you said?"

"Right." Mitchell spelled it.

"Don't ring a bell. Wait a minute. I gotta switch phones." A moment later Ernie's voice came back, accompanied by the clicking sound that denoted a computer keyboard. What was the world coming to? Mitchell wondered. Even infantry sergeants had to know how to use the goddamned things. "Run that name past me again?"

"Chavez, first name Domingo, E-6." Mitchell read off his service number, which was the same as his Social Security number.

"He ain't here, Mitch."

"Huh? We got a call from this Colonel O'Mara of yours–"

"Who?"

"Some bird named O'Mara. My ell-tee took the call and got a little flustered. New kid, still got a lot to learn," Mitchell explained.

"I never heard of no Colonel O'Mara. I think maybe you got the wrong post, Mitch."

"No shit?" Mitchell was genuinely puzzled. "My ell-tee must have really booted this one. Okay, Ernie, I'll take it from here. You give my love to Hazel now."

"Roge-o, Mitch. You have a good one, son. 'Bye."

"Hmph." Mitchell stared at the phone for a moment. What the hell was going on? Ding wasn't at Benning, and wasn't at MacDill. So where the fuck was he? The platoon sergeant flipped to the number for the Military Personnel Center, located in Alexandria, Virginia. The sergeants' club is a tight one, and the community of E-7s was especially so. His next call was to Sergeant First Class Peter Stankowski. It took two tries to get him.

"Hey, Stan! Mitch here."

"You looking for a new job?" Stankowski was a detailer. His job was to assign his fellow sergeants to new jobs. As such, he was a man with considerable power.

"Nah, I just love being a light-fighter. What's this I hear about you turning track-toad on us?" Stankowski's next job, Mitchell had recently learned, was in the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood, where he'd lead his squad from inside an M-2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle.

"Hey, Mitch, my knees are goin'. Ever think it might be nice to fight sittin' down once in a while? Besides, that twenty-five-millimeter chain gun makes for a nice equalizer. What can I do for you?"

"Trying to track somebody down. One of my E-6s checked out a couple of weeks back, and we have to ship some shit to him, and he ain't where we thought he was."

"Oooo-kay. Wait while I punch up my magic machine and we'll find the lad for you. What's his name?" Stankowski asked. Mitchell gave him the information.

"Eleven-Bravo, right?" 11-B was Chavez's Military Occupation Specialty, or MOS. That designated Chavez as a light infantryman. Mechanized infantry was Eleven-Mike.

"Yep." Mitchell heard some more tapping.

"C-h-a-v-e-z, you said?"

"Right."

"Okay, he was supposed to go to Benning and wear the Smokey Bear hat–"

"That's the guy!" Mitchell said, somewhat relieved.

"–but they changed his orders an' sent him down to Mac-Dill."

But he ain't at MacDill! Mitchell managed not to say.

"That's a spooky bunch down there. You know Ernie Davis, don't you? He's there. Why don't you give him a call?"

"Okay," Mitchell said, really surprised by that one. I just did! "When you going to Hood?"

"September."

"Okay, I'll, uh, call Ernie. You take it easy, Stan."

"Stay in touch, Mitch. Say hi to the family. 'Bye."

"Shit," Mitchell observed after he hung up. He'd just proved that Chavez didn't exist anymore. That was decidedly strange. The Army wasn't supposed to lose people, at least not like this. The sergeant didn't know what to do next, except maybe talk to his lieutenant about it.

"We had another hit last night," Ritter told Admiral Cutter. "Our luck's holding. One of our people got scratched, but nothing serious, and that's three sites taken out, forty-four enemy KIAs–"

"And?"

"And tonight, four senior Cartel members are going to have a sit-down, right here." Ritter handed over a satellite photograph, along with the text of the intercept. "All people on the production end: Fernández, d'Alejandro, Wagner, and Untiveros. Their ass is ours."

"Fine. Do it," Cutter said.

Clark was examining the same photo at that moment, along with a few obliques that he'd shot himself and a set of blueprints for the house.

"You figure this room, right here?"

"I've never been in this one, but that sure looks like a conference room to me," Larson said. "How close you have to be?"

"I'd prefer under four thousand meters, but the GLD is good to six."

"How about this hilltop right here? We've got a clear line of sight into the compound."

"How long to get there?"

"Three hours. Two to drive, one to walk. You know, you could almost do this from an airplane…"

"Yours?" Clark asked with a sly grin.

"Not on a bet!" They'd use a four-wheel-drive Subaru for the drive. Larson had several different sets of plates, and the car didn't belong to him anyway. "I got the phone number and I got a cellular phone."

Clark nodded. He was really looking forward to this. He'd done jobs against people like this before, but never with official sanction, and never this high up the line. "Okay, I gotta get final approval. Pick me up at three."

Murray hustled over from his office as soon as he got the news. Hospitals never made people look glamorous, but Moira appeared to have aged ten years in the past sixty hours. Hospitals weren't especially big on dignity, either. Her hands were in restraints. She was on suicide watch. Murray knew that it was necessary – could scarcely be more so – but her personality had taken enough battering already, and this didn't make things any better.

The room was already bedecked with flowers. Only a handful of FBI agents knew what had transpired, and the natural assumption at the office was that she'd taken Emil's death too hard. Which wasn't far off, after all.

"You gave us quite a scare, kiddo," he observed.

"It's all my fault." She couldn't bring her eyes to look at him for more than a few seconds at a time.

"You're a victim, Moira. You got taken in by one of the best in the business. It happens, even to the smarties. Trust me, I know."

"I let him use me. I acted like a whore–"

"I don't want to hear that. You made a mistake. That happens. You didn't mean to hurt anybody, and you didn't break any laws. It's not worth dying for. It's damned sure not worth dying over when you got kids to worry about."

"What'll they think? What'll they think when they find out…"

"You've already given them all the scare they need. They love you, Moira. Can anything erase that?" Murray shook his head. "I don't think so."

"They're ashamed of me."