Don Pendleton - False Front

Topping a rise, Latham saw another break in the trees, twenty yards off the road. A glance upward told him Cooper was maneuvering toward that spot to land. Latham lost sight of the clearing as the road dipped down but when he reached a point he guessed was directly across from it he pulled off the road and killed the engine again.

Latham glanced once more into the rearview mirror, this time to lift the weathered straw hat off his head. The leather sweat band came up off his scalp and he felt a quick rush of cool breeze roll over his closely cropped hair. It was a nice relief from the sultry Filipino heat and he almost dropped the hat onto the seat beside him. But the sun would beat down on his face and neck if he did, and besides, he was from Texas. The only time he’d ever felt right without a hat was when he wore a helmet. Football in high school. Then U.S. Army until a year or so ago.

Settling the hat back onto his head with a sigh, Latham reached into the back seat and grabbed a rusty two-dollar machete. He got out of the Jeep, crossed the road into the semi-thick vines of the coastal secondary jungle and lifted the long blade over his head.

A thin trickle of sweat ran down his cheek as he began slicing a path toward the clearing. The jungle canopy blocked his view of the sky, but he knew Cooper had to be nearing the site. It was the only open landing zone in the immediate area.

By the time he had cut himself into the clearing, Cooper was clearly visible in the sky. Latham was surprised to see that the chute beneath which the big man drifted was smaller than he would have expected for such a jump. In addition to the usual parachute gear, Cooper wore a huge backpack. Other equipment carriers were belted around his waist and strapped to his shoulders. Almost as quickly as his brain registered these details Latham was able to answer his earlier question as to why the man was so far off course. No, it wasn’t due to a lack of expertise as he had originally guessed. In fact it appeared that Cooper might be even beyond expert. At least the man knew how to keep his head in the face of danger. His main chute hadn’t opened and he was landing with the small reserve canopy. That was what had thrown him off course. He was loaded down like a pack mule and, considering the tricky winds through which he’d just come, the fact that he’d even survived with the small reserve chute gave him master-jumper status as far as Latham was concerned.

The Texan stepped out of the trees into the clearing and let the machete hang at the end of his arm. He suspected Cooper could see him by now. Even if he couldn’t, the big American would know someone was down here waiting for him by the sunlight shining off the large silver belt buckle that held up Latham’s shorts. As he continued to wait, the Texan chuckled silently at himself.

After retiring from the Army, the last ten years of which he’d been assigned to Delta Force, Charlie Latham had come to the Philippines to further pursue his life-long love affair with the Filipino martial arts. But he had brought a part of Texas with him and the unusual combination of clothing he wore was a pretty good indication of his bifurcated personality. The straw Stetson screamed Texas!, as did the Western belt and buckle. But the Philippines were just too hot for denim jeans and boots, so the rest of his attire consisted of a tank top, khaki cargo shorts and sandals. It was an unusual, eclectic image he projected, he knew, but he didn’t care. He was an unusual man—a mixture of nineteenth-century gunfighter and twenty-first-century soldier with a little bit of Eastern mystic thrown in. He saw no reason his clothes shouldn’t reflect that mix.

Latham’s mind jerked back to the present as Cooper landed expertly on his feet, rolled to his side, then popped back up to a standing position. In his mind, he gave the man an A-plus on landing to go with the high grade he’d already earned in canopy steering. The Texan could see now that, beneath all the equipment, Cooper wore some kind of skintight blacksuit that had to be hotter than his aunt Betty’s salsa. He grinned to himself as he walked forward.

He hoped the man had brought along some cooler rags. Finding anything to fit a guy his size in this land where a man who weighed 130 pounds and stood over 5’ 4” in height was considered a giant wasn’t going to be easy.

Cooper was already gathering up the chute by the time Latham reached him. He shifted the machete to his left hand and extended his right. Before he could speak, the big man turned his way and said, “You’re Charlie Latham?”

Latham nodded as he shook the hand. “And you’re Matt Cooper.” The handshake was firm and confident without being overly hard. Latham was glad of that. He got the feeling that had this guy wanted to, he could have snapped off several of his fingers.

Bolan released his hand and frowned, his eyes scanning the area around and behind the Texan. “Where’s the CIA man?” he asked.

Latham shrugged. “You got me. He hadn’t shown up at your original landing site by the time I saw where you were heading and left.”

Bolan nodded. “Something may have delayed him. We’ll check the spot on the way back.”

“Sounds good to me,” Latham said. He reached to the ground and lifted two of the heavy equipment bags the parachutist had shrugged out of when he’d hit the ground. “Ready to do it?” he asked. “Sounds like it should be fairly easy.”

Bolan hoisted the rest of his gear. “Yeah,” he said. “To be honest, it sounds too easy.” He let the Texan take the lead and followed the man along a recently cut path through the trees. Walking single file as they were wasn’t conducive to conversation and both men lapsed into silence as they dodged branches and vines. Left to his own thoughts, the Executioner found himself questioning certain aspects of the mission once more.

He still hadn’t gotten over the fact that there were parts of the CIA intelligence reports that didn’t make a lot of sense. One of them was how easily Candy Subing could be located. If the man slipped in and out of Zamboanga all the time as the CIA believed, why hadn’t the Filipino search force already grabbed him? Better yet, why hadn’t they put a tail on him and followed him back to where the missionaries were being held? The CIA even had an address for Subing’s uncle. So what, exactly, had this CIA man—Reverte was his name—been doing over the past few weeks? For that matter, where was the man now?

Reaching the Jeep Cherokee parked on the side of the road cut Bolan’s thoughts off again as he and Latham tossed the equipment bags into the back. The Executioner shook his head. His mission sounded easy on the surface—capture Candido Subing, interrogate the man concerning both the hostages and the “big strike” the Tigers had planned in the U.S., free the hostages and take whatever action was called for in regard to the American strike.

Bolan found that he was grinding his teeth together as he contemplated the situation. If everything was all that cut and dried, somebody would have already done it.

With the Cherokee’s tailgate still open, Bolan unzipped one of the ballistic nylon bags and pulled out a short-sleeved blue chambray shirt, a pair of khaki cargo pants and a plain white T-shirt. The blacksuit he had worn for the jump came off and the khakis went on. The Executioner felt a hard rectangular lump in one of the hip pockets, a micro-cassette recorder brought along for one simple reason—he didn’t speak or understand any of the languages in the Philippines except English. Tagalog—sometimes referred to as Pilipino—was the major tongue, but there were close to a hundred other languages and dialects used throughout the islands. According to what he’d been told, Latham was fluent in Tagalog and could get by in a couple of the tribal tongues. Reverte was reported to have the same skills. But the Executioner could foresee an eventuality in which something he suspected was important might be said with neither one of them present. If that happened, it would benefit him to be able to record it and have the words translated later.