The DMZ Read online

  IRAN TO FINANCE MEAT-PACKING PLANT IN COLOMBIA’S GUERRILLA-HELD REGION

  SAN IGNACIO, COLOMBIA (Reuters): The Iranian Bureau of Economic Development signed a $10 million agreement today with top Colombian officials to finance a meat-packing plant in San Ignacio, a small city lying well inside the demilitarized zone ceded to Colombian guerrillas more than two years ago to facilitate peace negotiations with the rebels. The town has since become the ex officio headquarters of guerrilla operations in the region, which is the country’s primary coca-growing area. U.S. State Department officials characterized Colombian approval of the investment as “bizarre,” citing the fact that Colombia’s main cattle-ranching region lies 300 kilometers away on the other side of the Andes Mountains.

  ONE

  DEMILITARIZED ZONE, SOUTHERN COLOMBIA:

  Like an ungainly dragonfly across a stagnant pond, the shadow of the DeHavilland RC-7B flitted across the restless sea of the jungle canopy. The U.S. Army reconnaissance plane wasn’t really there. Not officially, anyway. This particular patch of Amazonic rainforest was off-limits to military flights. But Washington wanted to know what was down there in that tangle of green, and someone up the chain of command had given an order.

  So here they were, a few thousand kilometers from home, flying over a land where they did not belong and that did not want them. The ramifications of that presence were undoubtedly giving someone somewhere pause. But the seven-member crew of the reconnaissance plane cared nothing about the politics involved. They’d been given a job to do, and the powers that be could sort out the rest.

  Today, at least, they had earned their project funding.

  “Another coca field at three o’clock.”

  The alert brought Major Thomas Sanchez across the cabin of the plane. The DeHavilland RC-7B had started life as a fifty-passenger civilian aircraft before the U.S. Army decided that the rugged performance of its four powerful turbos and its ability to take off and land on the world’s most limited airfields were just what was needed for a flying reconnaissance platform. Stripped of its seating, the interior was now an open work area refitted with the most sophisticated intelligence-gathering equipment known to-man. Or to Uncle Sam, which was one and the same.

  Stopping at the imagery intelligence—or IMINT—workstation, the major looked over the shoulder of the young lieutenant seated there. A large computer monitor in front of the IMINT officer relayed the images gathered by the collection of camera turrets and infrared scanners on the outside of the plane.

  “That’s a coca field, all right. What’s that—number six today? How many hectares would you say we’ve got there? Ten? Twenty? Enough for a few hundred keys of coke, anyway.”

  The major leaned forward to study the video image, then tapped a pinpoint blotch that had just edged onto the computer screen. “Check this out, Johnny. Looks like we might have some company. Can you blow that up on the screen?”

  Lieutenant Jonathan Hilgeman—a.k.a. Johnny to friends and, it would seem, to superior officers—nodded approvingly. This was the IMINT officer’s first day on the RC-7B, and it was a pleasure to fly with a superior who knew his stuff. That wasn’t always the case.

  Dragging his cursor to enclose the blotch in a box, he enlarged it to fill the screen, a blur of browns and greens until the young soldier tapped a command into his keyboard. Then it sharpened to become the figure of a man stepping out from the shelter of the trees. His head was tilted downward under the floppy hat, but there was no mistaking the jungle combat clothing. Or the AK-47 slung over one shoulder. The automatic weapon rose in what was clearly a gesture of command.

  The IMINT officer, his fingers punching hurriedly at the keyboard, backed off on the zoom just in time to catch a dozen other men in peasant clothing emerging from the jungle. At another gesture from the AK-47, the peasants set to work stripping leaves from the bushes.

  The image shifted to the jungle canopy as the DeHavilland moved out of camera range. Major Sanchez let out a low whistle. “Well, well! If we ever needed a confirmation that the FARC is up to its collective eyebrows in narco-trafficking instead of being the innocent bystanders they claim to be, we’ve got it now.”

  Straightening up from the workstation, he clapped the IMINT officer on the shoulder. “Good work, Johnny. Let’s get those images uploaded to Center right away.”

  “Yes, sir!” Lieutenant Hilgeman blinked as he obediently initiated the satellite uplink that permitted him to send intelligence data to base even while in flight. Fresh from the spit-and-polish of SouthCom—the Southern Command base in Miami—he hadn’t been prepared for the casual camaraderie that developed, regardless of rank, between a team of highly qualified professionals flying together day after day.

  “Okay, crew, let’s say we wrap this one up.” Major Sanchez slapped an intercom switch on the cabin wall. “Captain O’Neal?”

  A crisp feminine voice came back over the PA. “We’re switched over to reserve tanks, Major. Are you boys about ready to call it a day?”

  “Take her home, Captain. Oh, and with these latest budget cuts, let’s not be wasting flight time.” The major glanced out the nearest of the round portholes that lined both sides of the former passenger cabin where the swift dusk of the tropics was setting in. “We should have fuel for a loop back into the DMZ. I’d like to make a flyby over that northeastern sector we haven’t mapped yet. Johnny?”

  “Sir!” Stiffening into what would have been attention if he’d been standing, the IMINT officer saluted smartly.

  “It’s going to be full dark by the time we’re back inside. Is that upgrade on the infrared scanner on line?”

  “No, sir. But it can be.” Lieutenant Hilgeman’s fingers were already racing over the controls. “Did you want to test it?”

  “Might as well. That sector’s virgin rainforest. Not so much as a coca field, or finca, if the sat intel has it right. The techies are telling me the new IR scanner can pick up the heat signature of a lapi, or jaguar, right through the canopy. If that’s just the usual PR hype, I want to know it now and not when we’ve got some bad guys running for cover down there. Oh, and Johnny …”

  The major was striding toward the cockpit even as he glanced back over his shoulder. Lunch had been hours back, and now that things had settled down, it was time to relieve the copilot to rustle up sandwiches and coffee for the crew. That Captain O’Neal was a very attractive redhead of course had nothing to do with that command decision.

  “Drop the ‘sirs’ and loosen up a little, okay? You’re going to be graded on how well you do the job, not your salute.”

  “Yes, sir!” Johnny saluted instinctively, then reddened and dropped his hand as a chuckle went around the cabin. “I’ll have it on line in five, si—uh, Major.”

  As the DeHavilland droned southward and dusk deepened to full night outside the portholes, the cabin settled into the relative silence of electronic bleeps and whirs. There was no visible change in the tapestry of scattered villages and fincas and tree tops below their wings, but a tangible rise in tension showed itself in the tightened shoulders and sudden attention to instruments as the plane crossed over the invisible boundary of the demilitarized zone. Lieutenant Hilgeman occupied himself plotting the clusters of light that were villages and farms and the yellow blotches that were herds of cattle ambling across the infrared image. Then the last farming community gave way to trackless jungle, and the screen emptied abruptly of life.

  So much for the techies, Johnny snorted to himself. Maybe that cutesy upgrade worked just great up in the trimmed-back woods of some North American national park. But that was triple-canopy rainforest down there with 150 feet of varying treetop levels. Any denizens of the jungle bedding down for the night below the wings of the RC-7B were perfectly safe from Uncle Sam’s spying eye.

  That went for human inhabitants too. A whole battalion of FARC could be hiding under that tangle of vegetation, for all his instruments would warn him. The DeHavilland was flying too high for ground fire
, but if base scuttlebutt had it right that the FARC was using some of those narco-dollars to relieve the glut on the world market of surface-to-air missiles …

  Johnny shrugged off the cold spot that had settled unaccountably between his shoulder blades. He was getting his tail in a twist for nothing. It wasn’t, after all, the RC-7B’s advanced radar warning system or fancy weapons package or even its low operation profile that had earned it the appellation “Ghost Plane.” The DeHavilland had started off on the civilian side, and to any casual glance—someone somewhere having wisely decided against splashing it with the usual army paint job—it was still a commercial aircraft, just one of a hundred midsized commuter planes that regularly crisscrossed the roadless interior of Colombia. Not even the FARC was stupid enough to risk taking potshots at a commercial flight.

  At least that was the theory.

  Lieutenant Hilgeman dismissed that unproductive train of thought as he leaned forward to study the screen.

  He frowned. Yes, there it was—the anomaly that had grabbed at the edge of his vision.

  He slapped the intercom switch. “Major Sanchez, we’ve got something a little odd here.”

  Johnny had returned to his scrutiny of the infrared image when his commanding officer emerged from the cockpit, a mug of coffee in one hand and half-eaten ham sandwich in the other.

  “What is it?” His tone made it clear the interruption had better not be a waste of his time.

  “Well, it might be nothing.”

  “But?” The major’s glance at the blank screen was not encouraging.

  Johnny hesitated. Maybe this camaraderie stuff only worked from the top down, but all his training told him it was better to be chewed out for wasting his superior’s time than to risk missing something that might turn out later to be of vital importance.

  “Well, sir, you know how infrared works. This here”—Johnny indicated the screen—“is programmed to reflect the normal background temperature of the ground. A little higher than, say, Montana, because we’ve got jungle down there, and that’s steaming hot to start with. Anything warmer—say, a light or a person or an animal—will show up as a bright spot. That’s how we map them. Only that upgrade they sent us isn’t picking up warm bodies through all those trees down there, so the screen’s dark. But right here-well, that’s the anomaly, sir. It’s too dark.”

  The major looked for a variation in the screen’s blackness without finding any.

  “It’s kind of hard to see if you’re not used to it,” Johnny went on apologetically. “But the temperature analysis will bear me out, sir. This spot here, instead of being warmer than the jungle around it—well, it’s colder. Kind of like finding a patch of snow where you were expecting a campfire, see?”

  “So what do you think we’ve got?” His interest reluctantly engaged, Major Sanchez set his coffee mug down on the edge of the workstation and pulled up a nearby chair. Johnny reached for the mug automatically, handing it back to the major as he sat down. Keeping coffee away from the sensitive equipment under his care was so ingrained as to not require thought.

  “I don’t know, sir,” he admitted. “Like I said, maybe nothing. Maybe we’ve got a break in the trees here and some underground spring is spilling cold water onto the surface. It’s just—well, I’ve never seen water quite that cold around here. If this wasn’t the jungle, I’d swear someone opened the door and let out the air-conditioning.”

  “Fine, we’ve got a little time to play with. It won’t be much of a detour to check it out.” Major Sanchez leaned over to slap the intercom. “Captain O’Neal?”

  The plane began a leisurely turn that didn’t so much as ripple the surface of the major’s coffee. Johnny kept his eyes glued to the blacker-than-black splotch in the center of the infrared image. Major Sanchez drained his cup and headed for the galley in the rear of the cabin for a refill. Then—

  “Hey, where’d it go!”

  Johnny didn’t even have time to register disappointment when a sudden jolt rippled through the plane like a massive shudder. A fraction of a second later, every system and light went dead.

  “We’re hit! We’re hit!” The call came through the open door of the cockpit, not over the intercom. From somewhere in the dark, Johnny heard a voice blank with shock. “We can’t be hit! The radar warning system was clear!”

  The blackout lasted only a moment. Then the emergency backup power blinked on, offering only scant illumination to the interior of the plane but powering up computer screens and equipment. Halfway back from the galley, Major Sanchez picked himself up, the pieces of his mug shattered at his feet. Every piece of paper and bit of equipment not fastened down was on the floor with him.

  “Anyone hurt?” the major called.

  Before anyone had a chance to answer, a second shudder rocked the cabin. Pitching forward from his chair, Johnny grabbed at the surface of his workstation. He began to slide as the floor of the cabin tilted to a 45-degree angle. His computer keyboard slipped past his hands, and his desk chair tumbled down the slope ahead of him, throwing him violently sideways, then forward as the plane continued its nose-down plunge.

  Scrabbling his boots into the carpet, he managed to hook an ankle around one leg of the fastened-down desk. Twisting his body to latch his arm over the desk leg, he held on grimly. An unsecured file cabinet fell past him, and from somewhere below he heard an agonized scream that died away into a bubbling whimper, then silence.

  “We’re going down! We’re going down!” Captain O’Neal’s Mayday screamed over the intercom.

  Incredibly, the emergency power was still functioning, but Johnny didn’t dare loosen his grip even to glance around.

  The plane twisted in a sideways roll, ripping the workstation from his grasp. Thrown across the cabin, he landed painfully against the bank of windows that now were beneath him as the floor of the cabin tilted to become a wall. He slid helplessly downward, past one porthole, then another, scrabbling for a hold, the G-forces pressing his face to the glass and the air from his lungs. Beyond the glass was relentless black, with no hint of stars or moon or the reaching arms of the hardwood giants plunging up now to meet them.

  Then, incredibly, Johnny saw something move on the other side of the window, a shape so dark it had to be an illusion. It flickered and vanished. Then it wavered into shadow again. The breath so painfully gained left Johnny in a rush as his eyes widened with unbelieving horror against the glass.

  Somehow, he managed to push himself to his hands and knees.

  “Major, they—it—Major, that’s got to be one of ours!”

  He might have been in a dead ship for all the answer he received. The plane yawed again, rolling sharply in the other direction before tilting even more steeply downward. Tossed away from the windows, Johnny clawed at the deck. Grabbing on to something he had no time to inspect, he pulled himself upward. Whatever had happened to the rest of the crew, he had a job to perform.

  Inch by inch, as though scaling a cliff, Johnny pulled himself up what had been the floor of the plane, digging fingers and boots into the carpet, hauling himself from one bolted-down piece of furniture to another. He was reaching for the desk leg of what had been another workstation when he saw the body. The vacant gaze and unnatural angle of the neck made it painfully clear he could expect no assistance from Major Sanchez. Blanking the grisly image from his mind, Johnny focused doggedly on his climb, sometimes sliding backward more than he advanced but propelled steadily upward by all the muscle and stubbornness a farm upbringing and two hard years in Uncle Sam’s army had instilled.

  Endless minutes later—or maybe it was only seconds—his hand clamped down on the leg of his own work station. Hooking one arm to lock himself into place, Johnny fumbled for his computer keyboard, now dangling down over the side but miraculously still attached. Laboriously, he began typing in commands. The cameras—all of them. Daylight. Infrared. Multispectral. Low-light television. He grunted in satisfaction as one by one they came on line. Now the satcom
uplink. This had to reach Southern Command even if no one and nothing else did.

  Lieutenant Jonathan Hilgeman was just punching at the Enter key when his world disintegrated around him.

  * * *

  With the jerk of a startled deer, the young soldier lifted his head, his eyes straining at the looming blackness of the jungle beyond the perimeter floodlights. He could see no apparent reason for his uneasiness. The night was quiet, a heavy downpour earlier in the evening having sent the monkeys scampering for cover and dampened even the incessant serenade of the tree frogs. On the far side of the main gate, the relaxed silhouette of his fellow sentry evinced none of his own alarm.

  Reassured, the sentry adjusted his rain poncho against the continuing drizzle and turned his head for a slow scan of the base behind him. The cuartel was a new one, the cinder block rectangles of barracks and command quarters still gleaming with fresh whitewash, the cleared field that was the parade ground not yet worn down to dusty earth. There were those who said it was foolishness to build a new cuartel on the very boundary of the demilitarized zone. Others argued that the cowards in Bogotá had signed away enough of their country’s patrimony. Why should the rebels be allowed the satisfaction of driving loyal Colombians from one more meter of their soil?

  The hundred-man contingent of the cuartel paid little attention to such arguments. Most were teenage conscripts putting in their required two years of military service, and their biggest concern was simply to survive long enough to hand off to others the unpleasant chore of defending their nation from its more rebellious citizens. Whatever the politicians said, the guerrillas had never respected boundaries any more than they did the frequently called cease-fires. Here or a hundred kilometers away, they were still a target. If not today, then tomorrow or next month.