The 4 Phase Man Part 28

Armed, uniformed men burst into the hut, quickly searching the men on the floor, then lining them up along the far wall. Canvas accepted a .45 from one of the men and casually walked over to the shocked men, two minutes after it was over.

"I hate amateurs," he said as he blew the brains of two of the Chinese through the front of their faces onto the tin wall. Then he took the gun, placing it under Yin's quivering chin. "To say nothing of second-raters with delusions of grandeur." He pulled the trigger three times.

"Watch the Corsies," he said as he handed the gun back and stepped outside.

The bandit toughs were all dead, blown apart by the disciplined, concentrated fire of the mercenaries. He picked his way through their corpses, casually taking a machete from one. Then met a limousine that was pulling up to the hut.

Xi lowered the window, ignoring the b.l.o.o.d.y scene. "The negotiations are over?"

"Quite."

The general sighed. "Our chairman and general secretary has been a brilliant man in his time. Quite ruthless, intelligent, uncompromising." He sadly shook his head. "But age brings out caution in many."

"But not you."

Again, Xi shrugged. "A matter of perspective, really. I have been bred-not for caution, as the West so often misunderstands-but for long-term strategy. And when that strategy calls for boldness, I am quite prepared to employ it."

"So I've noticed lately." Canvas leaned casually on the open window so he could feel the cooling air-conditioning from inside. "So the negotiations were the chairman's idea."

Xi nodded. "An old man's desire to preserve the status quo. Apple Blossom is in place, so we must take no further risk, merely trust to momentum and time to finish the job."

"How very Chinese of him."

The general frowned. "Do you know bezique?"

"Card game."

"Yes," Xi said flatly. "It is very popular in my country. Many consider it a true test of one's patience and self-control. The only way to win is to closely husband your most strategic, most important cards until the most critical moment, then play them all at once."

"So?"

"The truly gifted player, however, will not wait for that critical moment to come to him. He will force it to happen at a time of his own choosing."

Canvas was quiet for a long time. "And now is your time?"

"It is my country's time, Canvas. My people s. I just see that more clearly than others."

The Englishman shook his head. "What do you want me to do?"

"Can you now find Alvarez and the other one, this Xenos?"

Canvas glanced back at the hut. "I imagine."

"Then destroy them, please."The window was raised and the limo pulled away into the jungle.

He watched it go, pleased to have clear orders at last; but shaken to his core at having to try to directly confront the one man he could least control.

He tested the heft of the long blade in his hand, laid the flat of it on his shoulder, then started back toward the hut.

"All right, gents," he called out conversationally, "who wants to be the first to tell the truth to their Uncle Colin?"

He stepped inside, closed the door, and a minute later the screaming began.

Elevan "The sum of all our answer is but this,

We would not seek a battle, as we are;

Nor, as we are, we will not shun it."

Bradley stood in the doorway, watching his uncle read aloud to the empty room, not certain whether or not to intrude on so private a moment.

"Come on in,"Xenos said to his nephew without looking up.

"I didn't want to disturb you."

Xenos smiled. "You? Not possible."

The boy settled in a chair opposite him. "Everybody's so tense, I was just looking to get away, you know?"

"Oh yeah." Xenos leaned back in the overstuffed chair. "Something I've dedicated the last few years of my life to." He studied the sixteen-year-old. "How're you holding up?"

The boy laughed. "Are you kidding?" This is great! I mean the trip, this place, these people! s.h.i.t! It's the best time I've ever had. He suddenly looked very guilty. "Except for you getting hurt and all, he said sheepishly."

Xenos shrugged it off. "I'd always hoped to get to know you in somewhat calmer circ.u.mstances." He paused, glancing down at the book in his hands. "It just never worked out, you know?"

"Mom says ..." But he hesitated rather than finish the thought.

"Bradley," Xenos said supportively. "You don't ever have to choose your words around me. Never. Just say what you mean and do what you say. That's all I'll ever ask of you."

The boy laughed. "Sounds like a lot."

"It is."

A moment of comfortable silence wrapped itself around them.

"Mom says you and Poppy didn't talk from before I was born."

"Yeah."

"She says you had a horrible fight when she was just a little girl and you left."

"Also true." The man leaned painfully forward. "Just say it, kid."

Bradley reached for Xenos's can of beer, surprised when the man just smiled and pushed it over to him. "Why'd you run away?"

Xenos studied the clear eyes, the smooth skin, the face that reminded him so much of the nightmare/visitation of his pain.

"My father and I disagreed about how I should lead my life. And neither of us was willing to work hard enough to get around it, I guess."

"Not that," the boy said as he sipped the beer-obviously disliking the taste, but determined to drink it nonetheless. "I mean afterwards. After you quit."

"What did your mother tell you about me?"

"She said you worked for something like the CIA, but not the CIA. That you were a very important person there, that you did a lot of bad things for good reasons, and that you split."

Xenos chuckled bitterly. "Bad things for good reasons," he repeated. "Makes it sound like cheating on my taxes to pay for Grandmother's operation." He shook his head. "Close enough, I guess."

"So why didn't you come back to us? To Poppy?"

Xenos flipped through the book on his lap as he talked. "I left when I was around your age, I guess." Full of life and ready to change the world. You see"-he hesitated-"I was a true believer. There was good and there was evil, and as long as you were on the side of good, you couldn't do anything evil."

He looked into the fireplace, losing himself in the flames.

"Don't ever believe in anything, Bradley," he said wearily. "It hurts too much when you're proven wrong."

But the man's grays were lost on the boy's clarities.

"Why didn't you come home afterwards?" he persisted. The answer was clearly important to him.

"Oh, I don't know. Got lost, I guess."

"Bulls.h.i.t," the boy said clearly and carefully.

Xenos grinned. "You got a lot of your grandfather in you."

The boy just sat there, silently demanding an answer.

"All right. Truth." He thought for a moment. "What I did-good, bad, or indifferent-I did because other men told me to do it. They convinced me that democracy was better than totalitarianism or communism or whatever ism we were fighting that month. Or I did it because it was easier than not doing it."

"I hurt a lot of people," a lot! His voice trailed off. "Maybe helped a few, I don't really know. Like to think I did."

He took a deep breath. "I was going to change the world!" he almost yelled out in sarcastic exuberance. "Through me, the Maccabee Code was going to be reestablished. Milk and honey would flow, swords beaten into plowshares, evil men beaten off." He hesitated. "Peace made a real thing, not a goal or ideal. When he spoke again, his voice was still as the grave."

"I didn't figure out, until it was too late, that peace is just a fairy tale, bait to catch people dumb enough to believe in it."

He managed a strained laugh. "And, G.o.d, how I believed."

"Two-six to Car Wreck."

Jerry keyed his mike. "Two-six, this is Car Wreck."

"Two-six to Car Wreck, in position."

"Copy that, two-six," Jerry whispered as he peered through the binoculars at the encampment below. "All units stand by."

The encampment was just west of the Pakistani border, filled to capacity with Moujahadeen gunmen, Taliban militiamen, and Russian deserters. All distracted by the daze of their afternoon meal and the unconfined joy of unloading the crates they'd stolen from the U.N. convoy.

Jerry'd planned the raid with his usual precision.

For three weeks in a row-on random days-the cable, which carried electricity and communications to the camp, had been cut in different places. Now they were getting used to the outages.

He'd surveilled the camp for a month, had memorized every building, path, vehicle, and procedure there. Had gamed it out in his head endlessly.

Explosions were set off in the old Soviet garrison in the nearby town of Charikar. Knowing that the authorities in Kabul would immediately pull back all their roving patrols into the city-believing this to be an attack in force.

Rumors had been floated that a Soviet Spetsnaz commando group was hunting this particular band of guerrilla/thieves, so that anything that would happen would be laid at their door.

And something was about to happen.

Herb had given him the mission with his usual casual-ness.

A band of guerrillas-in the pay of the DIA-had recently crossed the line by hijacking U.N. humanitarian shipments; raping the women and torturing the men who had volunteered to bring "a degree of humanity and hope" to the survivors of the endless guerrilla war.

It was one of Herb's most sincere moments as he ordered that they were to be eliminated-out of righteous indignation, as a point of national honor.

As an example to other such groups not to cross the line from freedom fighter to marauder.

But the operation was to have complete deniability.

And in these days of greater media access to the former battleground of Afghanistan, with 60 Minutes regularly exposing embarra.s.sing intelligence connections, that meant one thing.

A Four Phase operation.

Jerry swallowed a handful of nepenthe, washed it down, then closed his eyes and waited for the effect to begin. As he felt the warmth and calm rise up in him, he opened his eyes, looking back down at the target.

There was more activity now. A group of the ragged band was herding three men and a woman in U.N. uniforms toward the middle of the camp. Jerry decided to wait until they were distracted by the attack on the men and the rape of the woman before he would give the go code.

"Car Wreck, Car Wreck, Car Wreck, this is ground." "Car Wreck."

"Car Wreck, this is ground, all units at IPs."

"Ground, this is Car Wreck. All ground units are go for action in one-zero minutes from my mark."

"Car Wreck, this is ground. Copy. Ground units go one-zero minutes from your mark."

As the time ticked down, Jerry watched the camp closely. The sentries were where they were expected. No aircraft or ground traffic could be seen. His men had inched within striking distance. Time to give the order.