Radiant Dawn (24 page)

On the first day of the search, a SEAL team in the Panamint Range had come across an abandoned borax mineshaft out of which a copious amount of smoke was pouring. The medic in the group had provoked the ribbing of his comrades when he identified the scent of marijuana in the smoke. Greenaway thought it sounded wrong, but ordered them into the mine before the park rangers or the local law enforcement took over. Four went in, and almost immediately tripped an explosive charge which collapsed the whole shaft, killing three of them. The rest of the SEALs took a negative shine to him thereafter, blaming him, rather than themselves, for exposing the team's ineptitude. Several near-fatal friendly fire exchanges had further enlivened the search into an exercise in logistical clusterfucking that would be studied by scholars of covert ops for generations to come. In another day, he hoped, his own people would be totally mobilized and could step into the main search, and things would go more smoothly.

Greenaway hunted Scud missiles in Kuwait and western Iraq, and had come up empty, unless the hundred-odd wooden decoys they destroyed counted. The British SAS had run circles around them, picking off four launchers in their sector. No matter how well-schooled at taking down actors and mannequins, Delta Force was still a relatively green outfit, with only the Desert One debacle in Iran to their credit, while the SAS had been honed on countless anti-terrorist assignments, from Ireland to Hong Kong. Greenaway had earned his reputation for taking advice from nobody and paid for it in assault charges, but if he never seemed to learn, he could adapt. The lessons were not lost on him, and within a year, he had thoroughly drilled his teams to sweep hostile territory and isolate offensive forces, no matter how small or how well dug in. He had made zealots of his men, martyrs to the code of SpecWar. Greenaway silently hoped that the SEALs would continue fumbling and shooting at each other until he could replace them. His men wouldn't stand out; half of them would recon the entire eastern half of the state undercover as bikers, truckers, traveling salesmen, even wetbacks. His people would root out the group. It was a strange feeling not to be looking forward to that event. Now that Greenaway had been told who they probably were, he was more confident that he could find them, but the thought of actually neutralizing them almost reminded him of what it felt like to be afraid.

Because he wasn't looking for terrorists.

When the early morning meeting on the fifth of July had gotten out, Lt. Col. Greenaway had found himself invited to join the meeting's inner circle for a "corollary briefing" with the CIA, DIA, NSA and Rear Admiral Meinsen. Sibley, the CIA rep, looking freshly terrorized, took the floor and laid out an amended shortlist of suspects. Greenaway was familiar with more than a few of the names, and for once, he'd been stunned to silence rather than bored. There followed a lot of explaining, after which Greenaway took his leave with a Zip disk filled with photographs and scanned documents requiring a Top Secret clearance to review.

Now, Sibley sat opposite him on the bench seats usually occupied by pilot trainees on this outdated old helicopter, sniping animatedly at one of his colleagues into a cell phone. Greenaway eyed Sibley's geek junior partner, clattering away on a laptop, and his own lieutenant, watching a small convoy of Navy trucks thread a condemned two-lane highway below. He tapped the lieutenant, who passed him a folded Geology Survey map on which he'd been marking their position.

They were on the outskirts of Baker, a wide spot on the road to Las Vegas. The trucks were bound for an abandoned industrial park that a spotter plane had found to be occupied by a large group of people. Guards with small arms had been observed outside. Greenaway had seen the thermo shots the spotter chopper had taken last night, and had no interest in setting down. The groupings of the bodies inside the rusted out warehouses had been huddled together for warmth. They were illegal Mexican immigrants who'd paid the wrong people to get them across the border. Greenaway rubbed his temples, tugged at his beard until brittle red and silver hairs came out in his hands. In a week of searching the hottest, most desolate place in North America, they'd only succeeded in rooting out drug kitchens, smugglers, and well-armed hermits who'd been scattered from their squat-town by a crazed Gulf War vet who'd shot up the local law and set fire to a store. Greenaway had been out of the world entirely too long, but decided now that he'd missed absolutely nothing.

Sibley was tapping his knee. Touching him. The urge to seize him by the lapels of his double-breasted blazer and heave him out into the noonday sun was overwhelming. The pleasure of the fantasy would have to do, for now.

"There's a junkyard about two klicks south of our present position that merits a quick look, we think," Sibley said, his tone defensive in anticipation of another argument. The morning's sweep had amounted to a lively exchange of ideas on search methodologies, which had accomplished nothing, but put a lot of mileage on Greenaway's flying-lesson fantasy. Every trailer park, every burned-out gas station, every solitary derelict propane tank in the middle of an empty lot became a bone of contention, and here was Sibley with yet another, throwing around the royal we like Queen fucking Victoria and putting his sweat-slimed little pink rat-paw on
his knee
. At least Hunt wasn't here. He would've tried to bring a newscrew along.

"What, are there a couple of helicopters parked out front?" Greenaway asked. "How many military reconnaissance missions have you overseen in the field,
Mr.
Sibley?"

"How many Scud launchers did you and your teams find in Desert Storm, Lieutenant Colonel?"

Greenaway just stared, then, while Sibley studied something fascinating on the empty desert floor, he switched on his headset and ordered the pilot to turn south and find the CIA's precious fucking junkyard.

As it turned out, Sibley's junkyard had once served as the town drive-in, and the huge screen of whitewashed sheet metal still loomed over the lot like a shuttered window into another world, the cars stacked before it seemingly having gone to rot and rust waiting for it to open again. The marquee rose up out of a mound of tumbleweeds outside the yard. On one side, in faded red paint, LIBERTY SALVAGE YARD. On the other, the last drive-in features: RED DAWN and MOTE HELL, and a message: GOD LESS ERICA.
Amen
, Greenaway said in his heart.

The Sea Ranger swept over the junkyard at about a hundred feet, banking so Greenaway could survey the interior at a glance. A cinderblock bunker, which once housed the projection booth and the snack bar, still stood in the center, and he spotted two Hispanic males in ragged flannel coats and jeans picking through the wreckage. They looked up and backed out of the blasting wash from the props, but didn't bolt.

"Looks promising, Mr. Sibley," Greenaway said with syrupy contempt. "What's up your ass about this place?"

Sibley looked absurdly proud of himself as he answered, "Going over Agent Cundieffe's files on activity in the region—"

Cundieffe. The junior G-man behavioral scientist. The little paper-pushing eunuch had bothered Greenaway more than made any logical sense, not least because every speculation he'd offered at the meeting had dovetailed neatly with what the spook subcommittee had briefed him on later.

"Remarkably exhaustive," Sibley went on. "Cundieffe's quite the overachiever. He covers reported incidents the local cops never even followed up on. About four years ago trucks came and went out of this yard at odd hours, and passersby thought they saw aircraft landing. The Baker sheriff investigated, staked the place out for two weeks, but never found anything. It was dismissed as a onetime illegal immigrant smuggling operation, and no further reports were ever filed. I think maybe your men should comb the area, check for underground bunkers, that sort of thing." He smiled, then turned the page. "Moving along, there's an old railyard just over the Cal-Neva border—"

Greenaway raised the pilot. "Set down anywhere."

Sibley went white. "What? We're not prepared for—"

"Three SEALs died reconning a hole in the ground on my watch. You want to call searches? Fine. Do this one."

The helicopter set down just outside the front gate, throwing up a sandstorm into which Greenaway and his lieutenant leapt readily, but Sibley had to be dragged.

"This isn't how it's done, Lieutenant Colonel. We're putting ourselves at risk—"

"Then you're beginning to see how much confidence I have in you and your tip sheet," Greenaway shouted back, and made for the gate. The four Delta operatives sitting in the back row of seats sprang out and took up a perimeter around the chopper.

A sun-bleached plastic sign hung from the chain-link fence of the gate, TRESPASSERS WILL BE EATEN, but there was no sign of dogs, and the pair of Mexicans who met them at the gate seemed none too eager to talk, let alone devour them. Greenaway ordered his lieutenant to take the patrol group and walk the yard, with both eyes on the ground, and shouted at Sibley's lackey to do the same. The milquetoast little creep looked at Sibley for a countermand, but Sibley was wary of pushing Greenaway any further. The group of them went off at right angles, eyes glued to the oil-spattered sand, while Greenaway and Sibley rushed to brace the Mexicans. The pair of them stood looking sheepish

"
Buenos dias, amigos
," Sibley stammered in Yale Spanish, "
Donde esta el jefe?
"

"Shut up, shithead," Greenaway hissed in Sibley's ear. He turned to the workers and said, in unaccented peasant Spanish, "
The United States needs your help today, gentlemen. The United States helps its friends, yes?
"

The Mexicans looked at each other, then back at Greenaway. "
You looking for smugglers?
" one of them asked at last. "
This is a clean place. No drugs here.
" Greenaway pegged a noticeable Salvadoran accent in the man's mumbled response.

"
You are from El Salvador, yes?
" the man nodded. "
Came here to get away from the troubles, yes?
" The man nodded again. "
Then you know how the US Army feels about guerrillas. That's what we're looking for today. Guerrillas.
"

"
Salvadoran guerrillas?
" the man asked, then smiled. "
No, no, no. We love this country. America number one!
"

"
Yes indeed,
" Greenaway answered, smiling. "
My stupid colleague here,
" he pointed at Sibley, who'd retreated back into his cell phone, "
thinks there's an ammunition dump here, or close by. Many big barrels of bad chemicals, maybe stored in a cave or a truck trailer, maybe buried in the sand. Have you seen anything like that around here?
"

The man shook his head emphatically, but the other one whispered in his ear, eyes fearfully glued to Greenaway all the while. The speaker shook his head and moved his hands in a suppressing gesture. Greenaway reached into his breast map pocket, fished out two green cards and held them up before the astonished wetbacks.

"
Do you gentlemen really love this country? I can arrange it so you don't have to hide anymore. You can apply for citizenship. Legally. I just want to know what you know. The United States takes good care of its friends, but friendship has to be earned, yes?
"

The men conferred a bit longer, then the speaker said, "
We were told not to say,
" he said, eyes downcast.

"
Where you're from, you should know better than anyone else how the United States treats its enemies.
" He held the cards out, certified and processed by the INS for just such an eventuality. The other operatives empowered to hand them out called them Get Into America Free Cards.

"
Men in trucks come,
" he said, "
they come and they put barrels into the ground.
" He waved his hands around to take in the whole junkyard.

For a single, glittering instant, Lt. Col. Greenaway felt as he had the last time he'd seen combat, a tiny engagement in Lebanon that'd made no papers and which all nations involved had agreed to keep secret. His hands became a hundred hands, his brain subdivided into a thousand chambers, each parsing a step in his survival and the enemy's demise. It took fierce self-discipline not to give in to that illusion of omnipotence, to do everything at once and leave it to someone else to apologize. Greenaway hadn't risen to the rank he held, the highest an officer could reach while attached to Delta Force, which he dearly loved, for want of self-discipline. The enemy was
here
.

"
Where are they now?
" Both of them shook their heads like they were covered in hornets. "
When were they here last?
"

"
They come every month, sometimes twice. Maceo and me, we let them in and then we go down to the gas station until they go away.
"

Sibley's clammy hand on Greenaway's shoulder. He fought the urge to seize it, twist it off and beat its owner dead with it. "A word, Colonel?"

Greenaway took a very deep breath and turned on the CIA man.

"I've just got off the phone with a congressional aide," Sibley said. He looked sicker than usual. "This place is off-limits." Greenaway took hold of Sibley's shoulder now, bore down on it and drove the man halfway to his knees under the force of his full weight as he leaned into the man's sweaty pink raisin of an ear and hissed, "It's
here
, fuckhead. It's
HERE
."

Sibley staggered out from under the Colonel and backed away a few more paces, stumbled over the gutted chassis of a Datsun hatchback. He smiled. "There's nothing here, Lieutenant Colonel, nothing we're looking for. The aide works for the Representative of this district. About ten years ago, when he was the assemblyman for this hellhole, took a series of sizable donations in return for letting a waste disposal company—"