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 Another Novel - "Fatal Impact"  Reality-based. 65 million years ago.

A Short Story - "The Radical"

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Prologue

In 1984, a prolonged and spiteful divorce interfered with the completion of my doctoral work. As a result, my one-year contract as a journalism instructor at Stony Brook wasn't renewed. To avoid bankruptcy, I returned to the work force as a reporter in Miami. My first assignment was to write a half-page on the day-to-day life of U.S. Coast Guard personnel. 

The paper was paying the mileage so I drove the 120-mile-long, two-lane road jutting over the Atlantic to Key West, the southernmost point in the United States. The U.S. Navy base at Key West at that time allotted a small plot at the land’s end to the Coast Guard, which then had only one 95-foot cutter docked alongside a small administrative office. 

The young captain had graduated just a few years before from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. He told me that their responsibilities included not only saving stranded boaters but also that of chasing drug runners. He invited me to accompany his eight-man crew for a midnight patrol.

Until that night, no mission from that base had ended in as great a disaster.

Although I came across bits and pieces of the events in this book over the next several months, I had never connected any one of those wire stories and anonymous tips with another. The full account was uncovered largely through an interview with L. Harrison Reid, the then-retired and now-deceased law partner of former Miami attorney Benjamin Charter Hayden whose story is told here. Within 6 hours thereafter, my newspaper received a visit from three dark-suited federal representatives, two men and a woman, who informed my editor that I would not be allowed to report my findings for an indeterminate time. The reason for spiking the story, the woman told him, was “national security.” 

I resolved to pursue the story only after Mr. Reid mentioned that his former partner Mr. Hayden had a daughter who had graduated from West Point. She was then an army captain and an agent with the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency. Mr. Reid regrettably had, at the time of the interview, lost all contact with Mr. Hayden and his daughter. Mrs. Hayden was then deceased.

Over the seven months following the federal spokespersons’ forewarning, I established sufficient facts and documents through other sources and little-reported news oddities to chronicle the order in which all of this occurred. Affirmation received through sources in Washington, D.C., Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula and Guatemala City, Guatemala, completed the fantastic mosaic known only to a few at that time within the National Security Agency as “Term Juris.” No one considered that the project would ultimately merge with another known to even fewer as “Inherited Trait.” 

The result would prove deadly.

To this day, I have never been officially informed that I could report what I know; but so many years have passed, that I am now writing this as it happened, to the best of my knowledge and that of my sources. For reasons that I believe will be obvious to the reader, some names and details have been altered.

My only first-hand experience with any of this was that one night aboard the Tropic Fox.

PRELUDE

11:27 p.m., June 14, 1984

Atlantic Ocean, south of Key West, Florida

A bright Caribbean moon painted silver crests upon the five-foot swells. Warm winds compelled the midnight blue waters toward Key West’s outlying coral reefs.

I stood near the captain, Jarmann Michaels, at the bridge and tried to stay out of his way while he worked. The 95-foot Coast Guard cutter Tropic Fox churned eastward, its powerful GM engines rumbling contentedly.

I noticed a crewman on deck staring into the darkness just before he shouted to the bridge. To me, his words were unintelligible but the captain evidently understood him.

Michaels turned to the seaman at the door and requested, “Lights and action” Baines.” He raised his binoculars as the halogen lamp’s beam swept a path to a distant object. A sleek black craft sped across the cutter’s bow 500 yards away. Handing the binoculars to his helmsman, he asked, “What do you think, Fowler?”

“Ten bucks says they’re drug runners, Sir.” Fowler handed me the binoculars. The boat’s bright-yellow name Delta Chekii contrasted against its night-camouflaged paint job.

Although it seems senseless now to me, I mentioned that trivia to the Captain and he replied, laughing. “I noticed. Not a very good paint job was it?” Michaels grinned and thumbed toward the thirteen marijuana-leaf appliqués pasted on the bridge and said, “We’re about to add another leaf to our collection.” Each leaf, crossed through with a red “X” signified the crew’s number of drug busts. In the short time the captain had been assigned to Key West, he had been personally responsible for five of those awards and this was becoming routine to him.

Fowler sounded the horn, summoning all available men from the coffee room below. Michaels’ received a message on his ship-to-shore at that precise moment. He responded and said to the caller that he would have to call her back. He turned to me and laughed, saying his wife wanted to give him a grocery list for his drive home after work. He pointed to the deck and said that he frequently wanted to man the portside’s 7.62mm M60 tripod, but added, “Of course that isn’t my job.”

The Tropic Fox veered westward, following the craft at full speed even as the Delta Chekii increased the distance between the two craft.

“We need Navy help,” Michaels commanded the radioman. “If they have a hydrofoil available, that’ll give’em a run for their money.” Michaels said, “Don’t put this in your newspaper article, but my command needs a boat like those of the Navy’s hydrofoils near the Key West CG station. Every day that I walk by the Navy boat’s, my irritation grows as I look up to our slower cutter.”

“The base has no working hydros in port, sir,” the radioman responded. “The President’s in Key West. Seems every crew they have is busy at other duties. They did promise to send some kind of help though.” 

Michaels was a bit startled and told me, “I wasn’t told to expect any presidential visit.” He bit his lip as if in thought and added, “When I was a cadet at the Coast Guard Academy five years ago, the former president visited our school. And no one stationed military vessels off shore for that engagement. So why, of all their craft, would hydrofoils be needed here?”

Turning his gaze back to the speeding craft, he shrugged and said, “Well no time for that now.” The Delta Chekii reduced its speed as the distant, computerized lighthouse came into that crew’s view. Michaels realized the boat was now nearing the coral reefs, which might give him a chance to attain speed parity.

Now he counted four black-suited men on its deck, perhaps one more. The men were removing canopies from waist-high objects. “It can’t be,” he muttered, knowing that it was. He shouted, “You gunners had better get serious. We may have some crazies ahead.”

The black boat’s crew was threading shells through starboard machine guns, turning the sights to the cutter.

“Incredible,” Baines responded when the captain told him what was happening. Even the most inept and desperate among drug runners should know they had no chance against Coast Guard armaments. The only busts the crew of Tropic Fox had ever missed were those, which simply outran and evaded them. “I don’t get it, Sir,” Baines said. “It’s suicide.”

“Warn the Navy about the guns,” Michaels said briskly to the radioman. The M60 was now set into place. Michaels recalled a cocaine-laden boat ramming a larger cutter off San Diego a few years before. As questionable as that action may have been, they weren’t so dim-witted as to fire on an armed Coast Guard ship.

A monstrous drone approached from behind the Tropic Fox. “We won’t have to,” the radioman shouted back. “I think it’s the Bear.” Michaels laughed, recognizing the chopper’s designation. The Navy Blackhawk helicopter pilot known commonly as “Bear” had been, for a semester, Michaels’ instructor at the Academy.

A movement aboard the long slender boat caught his attention. Something splashed overboard but neither the crewmembers observing the occurrence nor I could determine whether the object was a bale of stash or a crewmember.

The chopper swept low over the cutter toward the Delta Chekii. The boat now zigzagged desperately, followed by the helicopter. The Black Hawk circled directly above the craft. Its blades blew a hurricane’s torrents high above the boat and across its deck.

As the pilot intended, the boat’s operator was unable to handle his craft. The simple procedure worked unfailingly.

At age 46, Lt. Commander Russell Beare was older than most helicopter pilots. His hair was fully gray, at too early an age, as said by his wife Marta. He hadn’t seen the guns on the boat’s deck and had not yet received the shore warnings urged by the Coast Guard’s captain. He was enjoying the shower he was giving the boat’s crew below. Grinning, he turned to his copilot and said, “This is one of the best parts of this job.”

The young copilot shook his head, smiling back at the legendary “Bear” who’d never need to grow up. “How many times have you done this, Sir?” he inquired as he turned on the gun ship’s search lamp, casting a brilliant circle of light about the boat. He glanced below, observing the Delta Chekii swing hard to port. The machine gun barrel was turning upward. Before he could warn Beare, the gun’s explosive chatter sprayed bullets across the craft’s under-facing. The chopper’s nose shattered as the copilot’s body tugged violently against the safety straps.

Beare pulled the helicopter up and away at 18 fps as his headset picked up a shore warning of “potential hostilities,” based upon a “possibly mistaken sighting by a Coast Guard captain.”

He winced as he glanced to the young lieutenant’s blown-half-away head. Beare directed the Blackhawk eastward to the speeding boat as a roaring wind whipped through the wrecked frontage like a hurricane. He depressed the chain-guns’ buttons. The rapid rips of fire stitched the Delta Chekii’s deck from stem to stern, slicing through the bodies of three of its crew.

The cutter’s M60 shattered the boat’s starboard side, throwing its operator seaward. Yet the boat continued its full thrust run. Both Beare and the cutter’s crew had missed hitting the gunman. The Delta Chekii’s fire burped through the Blackhawk’s underbelly, slamming against the cabin’s ceiling in long fingers of sparks. The aircraft bucked from the impact.

Beare looped, roaring in again at the boat, unleashing flame-spitting ATS rockets, two of which sped directly toward the craft as others fell in sizzling yellow streaks into its wake. The boat fireballed, throwing a hundred yards of fireworks and blazing bodies across the darkling waters.

The pilot pulled up, his helicopter soaring through the demolished boat’s fiery orange ball and smoke. The eternity of a second’s distraction, he realized with the fear of doom. A brilliant beam glaringly blinded him. “Oh God, please no,” he cried as his helicopter screamed toward the lighthouse at one hundred and thirty knots. He turned, not soon enough, smashing nose-on into the towering sentinel. The helicopter separated in a luminescent yellow-white inferno, collapsing the edifice, as the aircraft’s metal ripped in a flaming spider web, far beyond the lighthouse’s tiny island.

I looked at Jarmann Michaels as he watched helplessly from the Tropic Fox’s deck. In the swift warm wind, rivulets of tears streaked his face.

And tears blurred my vision also, casting the blazing darkness as a kaleidoscope of ghastly color. At the last moment of the Delta Chekii’s life, I observed a man diving into the water and informed the captain.

Michaels nodded an acknowledgement and turned, running to his radioman.

Chapter 1

The Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico, one week earlier

The tall and slender hill formed a broad flat square at its summit. Its four sloping sides tapered sharply as an obelisk, high amid the center of the ancient Mayan city.

Now aged by sun and storms for two thousand years, the prominent mound appeared as smooth and symmetrical as when the temple at its peak had been constructed. Thick green brush and broad-leafed magueys flourished on all sides. Narrow stone steps led to its crest.

The crumbling temple at the summit had been constructed of white stone blocks, arranged in sagacious order by master architects. The hill and its temple were lasting tributes to Quetzalcoatl. Its builders would not have imagined that the structure would outlive the feathered serpent they had worshiped.

Two tropical-shirted men stood atop the hill in the temple’s shadow to escape the late afternoon sun’s glare. “Do you see him?” the dark haired man inquired of the blond man holding the binoculars.

The powerfully built blond man’s hair was tied in a ponytail. “This old village covers a lot of real estate,” he said, irritated by his partner’s impatience. “Don’t be so eager to use your rifle.” He didn’t again repeat his conviction that the rather ordinary lawyer they sought was an unlikely target. He doubted that whatever papers the attorney may be carrying could be of as much use to the KGB as Dimitri Krstulich claimed. He had a nagging feeling that Krstulich himself didn’t know precisely what they were seeking. The instructions were that, once the target was taken out, to bring back any papers appearing to be official documents or research papers in his possession.

Although they hadn’t yet been spotted, two visitors remained in the Mayan city below the watchers. A man was climbing the colossal pyramid at the city’s center. An elderly Mexican Indian stood unmoving at its broad base and watched, as if afraid the climber would break his neck at any moment.

Chapter 2

Ben Hayden grasped the heavy steel chain running the pyramid’s slanting length. He nodded below to Miguel who grinned approvingly. The Indian guide had bellowed over the distance, perhaps deferentially, “You clearly possess more strength than most turistas, Señor Hayden.” Hayden felt no need to display false modesty in reply; although he assumed the guide to be overestimating the difficulty in this task, he knew he moved with more grace than most men at age fifty. He tightened his grip on the chain and pulled nearer to the door at the pyramid’s summit. He would have preferred climbing without the chain, but common sense told him that the narrow yellow-stone blocks would likely have caused him to tumble.

Ultimately at the pyramid’s top, he released the chain at the final step. Here a doorway fronted a square room, barely perceptible from ground level. He strode to the low door, bent over and entered the dimness. The average ancient Mayans, he decided, were shorter than their descendants. A short corridor led to his right, the hallway closed off by a ceiling’s height of broken stones. Another corridor stretched to a narrow opening in a dank moss-covered wall.

Hayden’s eyes adjusted a bit too unhurriedly to the darkness and he ducked beneath the path of a bat fluttering from the restricted corridor. Had he known before Miguel had informed him of this odd bit of information, he would have brought his Maglite from his hotel. He opened the flap of his khaki shirt, pulled out a matchbook and struck a match. The yellow glow flickered shadows from a corner of the algae-green partition to another. A broad fissure in the wall had been broken through by bandits long before. Twenty years? A thousand? The pyramid’s longest held secret, he thought, as he looked down through the hole.

Of course it was no longer a secret. What he observed below was the peak of yet another pyramid, beneath the structure in which he stood. He turned, walking back out the door.

Miguel watched and ran his fingers through hair as black as the onyx trinkets sold by youngsters near the city gate. Hayden descended, gripping the chain, leaping from each worn and broken block. The agile norteamericano’s face was strong, his shoulders broad. Many turistas his age succeeded in their attempts to climb the abandoned city’s tallest pyramid, the Pyramid of the Magician, but few of those displayed the speed and agility of his current client.

Miguel had seen such men as Hayden before, likely troubled by their inevitable aging and attempting to prove they could perform rigorous feats as well as they had in their youth. He shouted, “What do you think of the Mayans’ talents as builders, Señor?”

Hayden leaped the final three steps to the sand and replied, “Inspired.” In truth he questioned the Mayans’ priorities. No one knew what had become of the people who once inhabited this city, but Hayden suspected its leaders had made mistakes similar to those of the ancient pharaohs of Egypt. Had the leaders of Kukulkan expended as much effort and wealth preserving their agricultural resources and preparing for the nation’s defense as they had in the construction of their impressive edifices, their ancestors would probably populate the city to this day. However much modern society might admire the Mayans’ achievements, their nation had been as inadequate at survival as had the Egyptians two thousand years before.

History records that the ancient Egyptians had made those missteps. Although arguably the most advanced civilization of their day, the pharaohs squandered their resources building unproductive monuments, based upon superstitions. Their realm crumbled beneath no more than a show of force by Alexander the Great and his relatively small infantry. Alexander had used his power to develop better weaponry and well-trained, mobile forces. The Egyptians had not.

 Ben Hayden raised a hand to his shirt’s epaulet and massaged a tender shoulder. He added, “The hallway was dim, but I could make out the top surface of the second pyramid inside, just as you told me.”

Recognizing the tall man’s evident soreness, Miguel grinned at his client’s refusal to complain of this minor discomfort. To Miguel, this was a sign of inner strength, more important than the physical. And he was sincere with his compliment, telling Hayden, “You are a sturdy and agile man, Señor.” 

Hayden replaced his broad brimmed hat, shielding his eyes from the Mexican sun. 

Miguel waved a hand, gestured theatrically and grinned with the pride of his knowledge as he told Hayden what he had withheld before his client had undertaken his lengthy ascent. “The second pyramid was built fifty-two years before the outer structure. Beneath the second pyramid is yet another built fifty-two years before that! Think of it, Señor! Three pyramids in one place! The outer monument is known as the Pyramid of the Magician.”

Hayden opened his shirt pocket and deposited a small stone he had taken as a souvenir from the pyramid’s hallway. He asked, “Why fifty-two years in each instance? It doesn’t seem possible the builders could have intended that. And why three pyramids?”

“No one knows, Mr. Hayden. That is as much of a mystery as the Mayan calendar. Their calendar began with the year 3114 B.C., long before the Mayans settled this area and continues to the date December 21, 2012. I have long wondered why they chose those dates, but for that span of time, their calendar is recognized as the most accurate ever devised.”

“If it’s so accurate, why aren’t we using their calendar instead of the Julian?”

“Reading and understanding the calendar are difficult. Although I’ve seen reproductions of the calendar for many years, I still do not completely understand it. The ancient priests continued their work over generations until it was so complicated that few others could understand it. Today only a few experts fully understand its complex nature.”

Ben’s brows crinkled as he considered the remark and acknowledged, “Thanks for the seminar.” He turned a full circle, looking about in recognition that there was no other place on earth to compare with this. He had seen what little rubble was left of Peru’s Machu Picchu, the western hemisphere’s oldest city, atop a tall egg of a stone mountain. Yet this city known as Kukulkan – the City of the Plumed Serpent - was intact. It lacked only the populace who inexplicably disappeared into the surrounding jungle long before Europeans set sail to the Americas.

In all directions, jutting above the rainforest, massive temples and four-sided pyramids glowed gold in the sunset. As if awaiting their creators’ return, the stone jaguars and serpents had faithfully maintained their eternal watch over the city’s interconnecting paths.

As the hours had passed earlier that day, Hayden’s eyes couldn’t adjust to the sun’s glare and now the orange ball receded halfway below the horizon. The pain in his eyes had journeyed to the back of his neck and the discomfort now distracted his attention from the guide’s instruction. Perspiration soaked his khakis. He removed a red handkerchief from his pocket and tied it about his neck.

“Too bad my wife missed this tour,” Hayden said, knowing that if truth be told she wouldn’t have cared. He strode alongside Miguel the several hundred meters back to his rented VW, beyond the city’s gate.

“She doesn’t travel with you?” Miguel responded in clear surprise. He had met other men who took separate vacations from their spouses, but his appraisal of this man didn’t fit the profile that the guide had developed from his experience and insight.

“Elaine’s either back at the hotel or shopping in Merida. She doesn’t share my enthusiasm for this. My daughter enjoyed it more, before she left home to go to a service academy some years ago.” And probably reading her Bible, he thought. Elaine was one of those people who believed the End Times would come within her life span. Had she heard Miguel Santos’ remark concerning the date the Mayan calendar would run out, she would probably have accepted that as a sign.

“Service academy? That is a college in the States?”

“She attended a military school. Some women do that in the U.S. She’s twenty-six now and an army captain.” Hayden looked toward a high gray stone structure, its walls intricately sculpted with an image of the feathered serpent-god. “Another temple?”

“That was once the pokyah court,” Miguel said. “One hundred and seventy meters long. Mayans played a fierce game with a large stone ball, somewhat of a cross between football and basketball. But their games were far more serious to them. The losing team’s captain was beheaded and his team was sent into slavery.”

“That would be a hell of a motivator for the Tampa Bay Bucs.”

Miguel laughed. “Yes, I know of the team. You live in Florida?” Many Mexicans follow U.S. football and Miguel also knew that, unlike the Miami Dolphins of that day, Tampa Bay’s record had been persistently abysmal for years.

Ben nodded affirmatively and Miguel asked, “What do you do for a living, Señor Hayden?” He leaned against the stone gate and flared up a Marlboro. Hayden suppressed a smile. Anyone in the States with a demeanor as calm as the guide’s would be assumed to use tranquilizers. Ben considered this amusing because Miguel’s manner reminded him of the laid-back crooner of his youth, Perry Como.

“I’m just a lawyer,” Ben responded. “I play at being an anthropologist a month each year on vacation.” 

The wind gained intensity and the waist high weeds along each side of their path bowed to and fro like a metronome. An iguana, frightened by rustling saguaros, scampered beneath an open-mouth stone serpent. 

Hayden handed Miguel a large U.S. bill and Miguel reached into his pocket for change, saying, “My fee is less than half that.”

Hayden offered, “Keep it Miguel. My own fees are a lot higher and I’m not sure my advice is any better than yours. Your essentials were worth every cent.” 

“Gracias, Señor Hayden,” Miguel said, waving as Ben walked to his car. In response to a question early in the afternoon, Miguel had mentioned without apparent guile that his disabled wife was his motivation to continue working at his advanced age. Ben’s outsized tip was intended as much for charity as an earned compensation.

Hayden understood that for guides like Miguel, this had been a slow day at the pyramids. In previous years, when North American tourists had enjoyed the inexpensive prices of an advantaged monetary exchange, visitors had stood in long lines to view the ancient religious and astronomy buildings. But this time, Ben had encountered few vacationers.

The glare had been brutal and Hayden felt the onset of a migraine, a monthly-recurring problem even without the intense sunlight. Ben had long believed that lawyering, with its concurrent necessity for extensive reading, had not been his best choice for a profession.

His concept of a castle in the sky had once been that he would ultimately purchase a yacht and retire early to his own Pacific Island. Now, however enviable his financial worth seemed to many, he had realized by then that such a dream would be forever beyond his reach.

He crawled inside the VW and opened the glove compartment. Pushing aside the Lomotil and Mexican Pepto Bismol, he seized a bottle of encapsulated aspirin. He walked back to a water fountain near the ancient ball court, gulped down the capsules and returned to his rental car. 

Chapter 3

He picked up a manila folder from the driver’s seat and pitched it to the back. The folder would pay for at least a portion of this trip as a business expense. Olmec Industries’ general manager had given him the folder. One of Ben’s law partners had left a message at his hotel, requesting the favor during a call from his Miami office. At his hotel room, he had dialed the number the desk clerk had handed him and dialed the 305-area code for the firm of Reid and Burke-Symond.

“Mr. Glickman left a message, Mr. Hayden,” Jennifer, the office’s stunning raven-haired receptionist, told him. “He wanted to talk to you if you called in.” Milton Glickman specialized in international law, handling a score of clientele in Latin and Central America.

“Put him on,” Ben replied.

Glickman allowed his next client to wait in the lobby, engaged in small talk with Hayden and finally said, “Ben, I need a kindness. I have a client on the Yucatan, which in this instance is fortunate, in that you’re there. Highly confidential corporate papers were to be sent to my attention. But they’re a bit paranoid about using the usual Mexican mail or courier systems.”

“And you want me to be your office runner,” Hayden chuckled. “I didn’t plan to return to Miami for another couple of weeks.”

“The delivery date isn’t important, Ben. I need to look over the papers and get the results back to them by the end of August. They’re deep into a merger negotiation with a domestic operation. Frankly the papers aren’t as important as they believe, but they want the deal kept secret. Your presence would lend an air of authority to our handling anyway.”

“Wouldn’t think of disappointing you, Milt,” Hayden grinned. “I’m in Merida. Where’s Olmec?”

“Very close. Merida places you just two hours away at the most. Everyone on the peninsula should know the company. It’s their largest employer.” Ben heard the rap of a pen on Milt’s desk and Glickman added, “And one more thing, Ben. Get a safe-deposit box at American Express for the packet until you leave. Important or not, I don’t want them to think we don’t take their work seriously.”

Elaine had been uncooperative about accompanying Ben to Kukulkan on his initial trip. And after determining that Olmec was less than five miles from the ancient city, he planned the trip around the pickup job for Milton. The guide Miguel had told him that Olmec was not a corporate acronym. The Olmeca were an ancient people who had inhabited the region before the Mayans.

Before leaving his hotel to Kukulkan, Ben had contacted the client by phone to set up the appointment. His curiosity had been piqued by the man’s apparent jumpiness over the transaction, as if he were about to acquire Xerox instead of engaging in a relatively simple merger. The general manager hadn’t wanted to meet Hayden at the plant. Instead he met him at an outlying hotel lounge for two minutes and rushed out immediately after tendering the package.

Chapter 4

From the templed hill’s top, the two men in tropical shirts watched. Heavy brown binoculars dangled from the larger blond man’s neck. “Spotted him,” the blond man muttered, pointing to Hayden and raising his binoculars. “He just climbed into his car.”

The dark haired man with the rifle squinted obliquely across the distance. “My vision isn’t what it once was. Is he in range?”

“Not now,” the blond man snapped. He turned with a gesture for his companion to follow, running to the mound’s steep steps. “Move it!” The wind blew his pony-tailed hair side to side as he rapidly descended stone by stone toward the ground far below. His companion, with rifle in hand, followed.

Hayden’s car had disappeared amid the roadside’s jungle before the blond reached the temple’s base. The man swore, knowing that, with his car parked four running minutes away; they couldn’t catch up with the tourist. He could find him, he knew and they would find the papers. 

“We wouldn’t have lost him had Beggar arrived as instructed,” the dark haired man complained. 

“Beggar will have much to answer for,” the larger man agreed, now striding through the city’s gate.

* * *

Hayden’s shoulder ached from the climb as he drove the narrow highway toward Merida. Aged, unpainted cedar houses covered by palmetto-thatched roofs spotted the landscape. The sun no longer shined brightly as gray clouds gathered above the jungle.

Within minutes, a pelting rain nurtured a thunderstorm and through his windshield’s battering splashes, Ben discerned a service station’s Pemex sign high above the trees. A second sign announced in Spanish and English, “Last gas for 70 kilometers.” His fuel gauge indicated less than a quarter tank and he slowed, steering the VW alongside the canopied blue and white pumps.

A young Indian attendant in blue fatigues leaned casually against the pump, patting his hand against a pocket in rhythm to a distant radio’s rock music and ignoring the station owner’s shouted warning about “smoking near the gasolina.” The young man grinned in silent defiance. He flicked his lighter with grease-stained fingers as he sucked on his cigarette and exhaled a white cloud.

Shaking his head, the thick-mustachioed owner turned and walked back inside his office, confident in his conviction that the younger generation was going to hell. Diaz would extinguish the burning ember as he attended the norteamericano and the owner had made his point. Besides, Diaz was a good mechanic, hard to find in the small community of Tolteca.

Leaning into Hayden’s window, the attendant apologized in English, “Sorry, señor. It will be a few minutes before the electricidad will be on again and the pumps aren’t working just now.”

Hayden shrugged and inquired, “How long has it been off?” When the attendant shook his head, indicating no understanding of the question, Ben repeated in Spanish, “How long have the pumps not been working?”

“Maybe treinte minutos,” Diaz estimated. “This happens once in a while. Squirrels chew on the lines, breaking the power. It should not be long before it’s fixed.”

“Gracias,” Hayden offered. Thirty minutes. Emerging from the car, he untied the sweat soaked red bandana from his neck and tossed it onto the passenger seat. He turned to reach for the manila envelope, suppressing a wince at his shoulder pain. I’m too old for this, he thought. He turned to the attendant and said, “I’ll wait. I won’t be going anywhere without gas. Fill it up when the power’s returned.”

The station’s owner busied himself with a radiator in the bay and Diaz joined him.

The rain was letting up. He walked to a rusty red and blue soft drink cooler, selected a Pepsi and plopped onto a webbed chair at the station’s door.  He dropped his car keys into his thigh pocket flap and opened Olmec’s packet.

His face creased. This wasn’t a contract. On green-and-white lined computer paper, an arched line like a Bell curve was sliced across the middle by a diagonal line. The supposedly descriptive wording was Spanish and cryptic. Computer people are a different breed, writing in codes, he assumed and then grinned. They’re like lawyers.

Fumbling deeper through the two-inch thick papers, he found only more computer graphics and code. He gave up.

A late model blue Chrysler pulled to a stop alongside the pumps to the station’s west side. The driver and passenger had each spotted the VW parked at the front pumps. Diaz crushed his Marlboro beneath his gray snakeskin boot, approached the car and recited his standard explanation.

The two large men in tropical shirts emerged from the sedan. Diaz noted the driver’s distinctive scar tissue, tracing a long white path from the driver’s right hand upward across his arm to the sleeve. The man’s hair was the color of hay and tied tightly in a ponytail. The customer’s eyes unsettled Diaz, one eye green and the other brown. The man stared at Diaz as if expecting more information.

However much he had long denied a degree of superstition, the station attendant sensed a chill beneath this pale and hardened face, as cold as death. He shuddered, lowered his gaze and walked back as the men awaited service.

Although the storm had subsided, the wind continued fiercely, flailing the blond man’s ponytail as he and his dark haired companion gazed slowly about the station’s grounds. The light haired leader chewed his thin lower lip and strode to the front of the station. The dark haired man walked toward the back.

Hayden heard the attendant talking with two customers out of his view but couldn’t understand the rural dialect. He stood from the chair, stretched and walked inside to locate a restroom key. He found it dangling from a nail affixed to the cash register desk. Walking out he noticed Diaz returning from the station’s far side, waved and walked to the stucco building’s far side to the men’s room.

The room’s lights blinked on as he pushed open the door and finding that he didn’t need a key at all. The electricity had been restored and he assumed the VW’s tank would be full when he returned. 

His foot kicked against metal. He bent to pick up the tire iron in his path and leaned it against the door. He almost entered the room’s single stall before noticing khaki pants and suede hiking boots similar to his own beneath the plywood door. He backed out and walked to the señoras’ room ten feet away, open and unoccupied. He entered and relieved himself. 

The old sink’s porcelain was clean but worn down to spots of bare metal. The four-pronged faucet turned easily but no water gushed out. Worked as well as his own office’s thirty thousand dollar restroom half the time, he recalled with a tight-lipped smile.

He walked the grass path back to the men’s room to wash. The door was open. He stopped suddenly, his gray eyes in widened astonishment at the side profile of a large man with long dark hair who was affixing a perforated cylinder to a handgun’s barrel. The man’s legs were spread as he slapped the chamber shut and gripped it with two hands, pointing its barrel at the stall’s door. 

Hayden raged, grabbing the tire iron against the door jam. 

A whumph of a detonating flash erupted from the revolver, its lead splintering the door, level with the victim’s head. The Indian slumped backward and fell from the toilet seat onto the floor, his hand twitching in dying spasms, grasping the cracked cement beneath the stall’s partition.

A crimson pool spread toward the killer as he wrapped a handkerchief about the silencer and twisted. He jerked the door hard, ripping the inner latch from its hinge and spat a curse. His gun gripped tightly against his hip, he uttered, “It isn’t you! Dammit, Beggar! Had you shown up at the old city, we wouldn’t be screwing up at each turn!” The first rule to achieve an objective is to have a plan. The second is to have two alternatives. The third is never to work without two backups. And Beggar was to have been the second backup.

He turned to the door, his head down and sighted another pair of suede boots before him. He raised his large revolver too late.

A fleeting black wand sliced through the damp air. Hayden slammed the tire iron against the gunman’s head, shattering his skull as a spurting bloody stream trailed the body like an airliner’s vapor trail, jettisoning it against the far wall. His thick broken neck draped over a yellowed porcelain urinal, its basin filling with intensely red cerebral parts. The aging wall’s stucco powder had loosened from the body’s impact and now drifted onto the man’s twisted body.

Hayden spun to the sun-bleached window to shout for someone to call the policia. He didn’t shout. Beyond the side window stood a blond man, his hand grasping an unseen object beneath his shirt, facing the station’s front as a sentry. Hayden needed no law enforcement experience to understand that the man’s purpose was as a backup, making certain that no one interfered in whatever evil deed had been intended.

The killer’s body still gripped the firearm. Hayden rejected his urge to take the weapon, realizing he had no idea how to use it. He slipped quietly out the door and walked in the opposite direction of the backup on the station’s west side.

“Your oil and battery are A-Okay, señor,” the attendant said.

Hayden pulled a fifty, U.S., from his wallet, pushed it into the attendant’s hand and mumbled, “forget the change.” The VW had been backed against a Pemex oil sign. He nodded to the stunned but grateful attendant and jogged to his rental car.

Hayden glanced to the building’s corner, observing that the blond sentry had not yet discovered his dead partner. He climbed into his sedan.

The timing was fortunate. A 40-foot Fleetwood recreational vehicle pulled into the driveway, muffling the roar of Hayden’s small sedan as he turned sharply onto the highway toward Merida. Three hundred meters from the station, he pushed the pedal to the floor as cornstalks alongside the highway bent in the passing rush of air.

Ben bit his lip, hoping he would be stopped by one of the seldom-seen law enforcement officers patrolling the jungle roads.

The dark clouds that bunched above the trees parted and the shimmering brilliance of the green horizon brightened even as the sun was setting. He immediately thought of going first to the Meridan police but discounted it until he could find some local legal counsel. Foreign laws can be intricate and tricky and Ben was unfamiliar with Mexico’s criminal statutes or legal customs.

He checked his rear view mirror for the next hour, observing few vehicles on the road. By the time he arrived at Merida, he had decided where to seek help. The events seemed so incredible. He couldn’t fathom what these men may have intended or what the killer meant when uttering that strange name to the walls as if anyone could hear him. Who, or what, is Beggar?

Chapter 5

Although late in the day, the office alongside which Hayden parked hadn’t yet closed for the day. A dozen cars remained in the lot.

Ben slammed the car’s door and breathed deeply. The United States Consulate’s white frame office resembled a small town U.S. postal office, just as Merida’s white-framed homes and mom-and-pop shops struck tourists as more a small norteamericano town than that of a Mexican village of tightly packed pueblos.

The inner shudders had subsided, replaced by sheer exhaustion. His migraine had abated but its painful residue caused him to press a knuckle against an eye.

He strode to the office’s wooden porch. The motion-sensor glass door opened. A dozen folding chairs, their floral-upholstered seats worn and faded, sat evenly spaced about the waiting room.

A young bearded male in a yellow polo shirt stood at the far side of the counter separating him and two secretaries from a hallway of offices. The man bickered with an elderly Indian woman. He removed his wire-rimmed glasses and nodded an acknowledgment to Hayden that he’d be with him in a moment.

Ben plopped into a chair between a young Mexican woman and a middle-aged tourist, each holding plastic numbered cards that Hayden hadn’t noticed on the counter when he entered.

He couldn’t linger. Ignoring the clerk, he walked to the counter and addressed the nearer of two secretaries, “I’m an American citizen and need to speak with the consular. It’s urgent.”

The secretary pushed her chair from her desk and stood to lean against the counter. Her demeanor was polite tolerance as she responded, “Very urgent?”

“Literally life and death,” Hayden confirmed.

“Your name, Sir?”

“Benjamin Hayden.”

Misunderstanding the name over the drone of a fax machine behind her, she wrote the name as “Hyden” on a pad and tore the page out. She assured him in a practiced smile, “I believe we can accommodate you. Those waiting aren’t here to see the Consular.” She hefted a telephone, dialed a single number and announced that “a Mr. Hayden” requested a pressing conference.

Holding open the door alongside the counter, she offered, “Follow me, sir,” and escorted him down a narrow hall to a ceiling-high door. Knocking and having a response, she opened the door and introduced Hayden to the man behind an antique mahogany desk.

Hayden guessed the man’s age to be about the same as his own and estimated his height as a couple inches shorter. His contact lens tinted his eyes a tad too blue. Pearson’s close-cropped white hair had thinned, exposing scattered expanses of pink scalp. An ample Masonic ring glistened beneath the overhead lights.

An expensive oriental rug lay beneath a dark blue Louis XIV couch and four complementary chairs. The office was opulent, out of place in the aging building with its utilitarian exterior.

The consular greeted him, extending a hand, “Mr. Hayden, I’m Walter Pearson. Care for coffee or Pepsi?”

“A Pepsi would be fine.” Hayden shook the hand and glanced about the office. Ornate, hand-carved white oak framed a dozen wall documents testifying to the man’s State Department career. Vases and glasses from around the globe sat on a credenza and tables.

“I’ll take coffee, Mrs. Bauer,” Pearson said to the secretary who turned and closed the door behind her. He turned to Benjamin Hayden. Pearson had many years’ skill in reading people at first glance. The visitor’s eyes suggested distress but, other than apparent tiredness, otherwise the visitor’s problem either wasn’t severe or he was handling it well. “What can I do for you?”

“I need legal advice,” Ben declared, “or at the least, practical advice. I witnessed a crime.” He hesitated an awkward moment. “More accurately, I was inadvertently involved. I’m a corporate lawyer in the U.S. but have little knowledge of criminal law and procedures even there.”

“ I’m only an attorney by training, Mr. Hayden. I’ve never practiced.” He nodded to the secretary returning with coffee in a white china cup and a soft drink in a glass. He opened an envelope from his desk and removed two pages from its contents. He told the secretary, “Post these on the bulletin board. We’ve had a few visitors inquiring about traveling there over the past few days.”

Hayden noted that the first page was embossed with a blue State seal and stamped “Guatemala,” warning tourists to travel with care. The country was in yet another unstable condition due to a recently failed coup by a renegade gang of military officers.

Bauer accepted the papers and walked out.

“Go on,” Pearson said, clasping his cup with both hands.

“The local police should be contacted by someone who knows this country better than I do,” Hayden replied, pausing to arrange his thoughts. When Pearson reminded him that he yet hadn’t heard the problem, Hayden recounted the incident and concluded, “I left the crime scene under duress, self defense. The bottom line is that authorities could interpret my involvement as an act of vigilantism.”

The consular bit his lip and twirled in his chair to a window overlooking a flower garden. After a moment, he said, “We need some more information.” He pressed an intercom button and requested, “Mrs. Bauer, locate the number for the comisaria.”

She told him. Pearson dialed and requested, “Jefe de policia, por favor.” He spoke to a “Jorge,” describing the barest portions of the incident and added in Spanish, “The man’s a U.S. citizen, so I’ll come to the station with him if you find it necessary for him to appear.”

Pearson’s tongue pushed against his cheek as the voice on the line wrapped up the call. Replacing the receiver, he sighed, “Jorge Gasparri is the local police chief and one of my frequent breakfast companions. He’s surprised that he’s heard nothing about it but he’ll immediately look into your report. Communications are actually quite good on the Peninsula and the outlying patrols are under his jurisdiction. He’ll be back with us shortly.”

Hayden’s brow wrinkled. “You didn’t tell him much. Sounded as if I were innocently in the middle of a drunken brawl.”

Pearson chuckled. “Relax, Mr. Hayden. You said you wanted my assistance. If I can legally avoid your becoming involved, I’ll do it. As you suspected, Mexican laws and enforcement procedures don’t work the same as those in the U.S. A bystander can find himself sitting in a holding tank for weeks while a felony’s being investigated.”

Ultimately the phone rang. Pearson answered, listening for several minutes. “Gracias, Jorge,” he said, “Your assistance and friendship are appreciated as always.” He replaced the receiver in its cradle and asked, “Do you have a passport, Mr. Hayden?”

“It’s in a drawer at my home. Why do you ask? U.S. passports aren’t required in Mexico.”

Impatiently tapping the rubber end of a pencil against his desk, Pearson added, “I’m asking for some identification.”

Hayden’s anxiety had stirred an unnecessary irritability. Realizing this, he breathed deeply to compose himself and nodded affirmatively. He drew his Florida driver’s license and Amex card from his wallet and laid them on Pearson’s desk. As an afterthought, he threw in his business card to the mix.

The consular opened a desk drawer and grasped a yellow legal pad, making notes from the license and business card. He returned the items to the visitor and smiled, “You didn’t mention you were from Florida. So am I. My wife resides at our home in Marathon, Florida, half of each year.”

Ben recognized the town, located halfway on a small island between Key Largo and Key West. After some small talk, Hayden found himself unable to hide his impatience and asked, “What’s my legal position?”

Pearson leaned forward, his elbows on his desk and cupped his chin in his hands. “You’re a fortunate man. The Chief dispatched a motorcycle officer to make contact with the service station’s owner. He and his mechanic knew of nothing involving violence at the time you were at the station. Each recalled you and two men fitting the description you gave me at the station earlier today. The owner extended his sympathies for any discomfort you may have suffered by these thugs. The mechanic told the officer that he wasn’t at all surprised to hear that either of those men bullied you; the larger man looked ‘threatening,’ whatever he meant by that.”

He paused to determine whether an unstated message was getting through to Hayden and then added, “The officer checked the grounds and found nothing out of order except for a broken stall door and some traces of blood in various places in a restroom. Gasparri said that unless you wish to press charges and have them find the man whom ‘you fought with,’ there’s no need to contact him again.”

Astonished, Ben blurted, “But this was a major felony!”

Pearson reproached him, “You noticed, I assume, that I didn’t mention to Chief Gasparri the murder you claim to have witnessed. Do you want to argue this, or do you wish to listen to my impression of what has occurred?”

Hayden sighed in resignation and nodded a submissive “Okay.”

Pearson went on, “The episode is almost certainly drug-related. If you report the attack to Gasparri as you depicted it to me, the authorities in this small town will never find the men involved. This is the Yucatan, not Mexico City. You could be held here months under the sole authority of the police chief for a criminal investigation. Except for your own allegations, there is no evidence of any crime beyond assault and no body has been found.”  Pearson leaned back into his chair with the look of a lawyer who had just successfully wrapped up his closing argument and inquired, confident of the response, “Do you have a better idea?”

Hayden pinched his temples and admitted, “I guess not.”

“My principal job is to serve and protect U.S. citizens, Mr. Hayden. If anything develops later, I’ll know where to find you. And should such an event occur, I can assure you that you will find it far more pleasant giving testimony by phone from your office in Miami than inside a local jail.”

Hayden raised his hands as a gesture of acquiescence. “Perhaps I think too much like a States-side lawyer. Is this common advice to tourists in distress?”

“Except for the resort areas like Cancun, trouble isn’t yet common on the eastern side of Mexico,” Pearson replied. “The only firearms I’ve heard about in civilian hands have been those of U.S. hunters who go through State Department channels to have their rifles shipped in for pickup at a local army post. The only handguns I’ve seen belong to the police.” He grinned, reaching into his center desk drawer. Waving his chrome plated Colt 38 Special, he added, “Not counting this, which belongs to me.”

Hayden bit his lip. “You said that violence isn’t ‘yet’ common here.”

“I’ve seen it coming for years, Mr. Hayden. Drugs are rampant in most of Mexico and south through Central America and South America. The proliferation of illegal narcotics breeds violence, which you have undoubtedly read about to some extent within the United States. I am certain that within the next few years, the sort of incident you experienced today will be common in this community and in every U.S. city, beginning with the border states. You soon may expect your home state of Florida to be a major way-station from the Gulf and Caribbean.”

Ben at first thought Pearson’s recent history to be lacking in that he hadn’t recalled the cocaine cowboy wars in South Florida during the late 60’s and early 70’s. But after a moment’s consideration, he assumed the man was predicting that the situation could be worse. He conceded, “I can’t thank you enough. Is there any way that this could adversely affect you?”

Pearson replaced the handgun in his drawer and grinned. “I can’t imagine any problem from this matter. However, in the event someone digs up some little known statute, diplomatic immunity is a helpful advantage to people like me.” He stood from his chair, signaling the meeting ‘s end. “I assume you’ll be returning to Florida sooner than anticipated?”

“Tomorrow,” Hayden acknowledged. “If I get back to Merida, I’ll buy you a drink.”

“And I’ll accept it,” the consular replied, shaking Hayden’s hand and passing him his business card.

Escorted by Pearson to a side exit, Ben avoided a longer walk through the reception area. The clouds he observed upon his arrival had vanished, but the sky was darker. Someone turned on a light at the veranda.

He prepared a mental note to send the consular a generous gift upon his return to Miami. Admittedly, the consular’s conclusion that the matter was drug-related made some sense. Yet Hayden remained skeptical. Perhaps he hadn’t fully described the events to Walter Pearson, yet he was unable to reflect at the moment upon what he may have omitted from his account.

Uneasily, he considered Elaine’s reaction at being told of the day’s events. He could offer going to Acapulco instead of returning to Miami, assuming hotel reservations were available. She would likely be pleased.

As Hayden fumbled for his ignition key, a barely perceptible movement of a figure at the consulate’s front door diverted his attention. A blond pony-tailed man, attired in a blue suit and open-collared white shirt, walked out. Upon spotting Hayden, he immediately reentered the building.

Hayden’s jaw sagged. Leaping form his car, he bolted for the office door. The man had passed the reception area. Two doors led from the lobby. Hayden twirled to the counter and blurted, “A large man just went through here. Which door did he take?”

“Don’t know,” the clerk in the polo shirt stammered.

“I didn’t pay attention,” the secretary said.

Hayden pushed through the counter door and scurried through the corridor where he had previously walked. All doors leading from the hallway other than Pearson’s were open. Surprised personnel stared blankly as he checked the several offices.

Knocking on Pearson’s door and hearing no reply, he threw the door open. The office was unoccupied. He ran back through the hallway and lobby to a restroom. The startled consular looked up from a sink in which he was washing his hands.

“A tall blond male walked out of the building, caught sight of me and hurried back inside. I can’t find him.”

Pearson rushed out behind Hayden. They searched the building together, encountering two personnel and a visitor who had observed the man walking through a hallway. Yet none knew his identity or where he had exited the building.

Hayden and Pearson stood on the white wooden veranda. Stars blinked against a deep blue sky as a thin red glow gleamed at the distant mountain’s peak.

With a sigh, Hayden inquired, “Your advice would be, ‘Don’t call the police?’”

“To be frank,” Pearson told him, “had this matter happened before I last called, this wouldn’t have helped your situation.”

Ben slumped his back against a wall. “I just realized that I failed to ask if you had ever seen anyone fitting that description.”

“Bernie, the clerk at the counter, is the only blond man I’ve seen today.” Pearson’s brow wrinkled as he laughed, “Surely, you don’t think I’m harboring criminals.”

The chuckle was infectious and Hayden grinned, “Sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. I know that I didn’t need to ask. The clothing was not the same as I saw earlier and I’m not even certain he was the same man. But how many men in this area could be blond with hair fashioned in a ponytail?”

“We get a lot of people in here. Locals, salesmen, tourists, even people who think they’re entering a gift shop. A few weeks ago, a confused man came in and asked Bernie if we sold bowling balls. Bernie’s quite a character. He asked if he wanted ‘two fingers’ or ‘three fingers.’ The man told Bernie that he wasn’t ready to buy just yet, that he’d come back later with his wife. Never saw him again.”

Hayden laughed and walked with Pearson to his VW.

Pearson said with a slap to Ben’s shoulder, “If I see any blond males with hand scars, I’ll phone the police and then I’ll call you.” Leaning against the door, he looked down at Ben in the driver’s seat and reminded him, “When you return, you owe me a drink.”

Yellow streetlamps illumined the few blocks from the consulate’s office to the hotel. Hayden pulled the VW into a dark parking space. Few other vehicles were in the lot and the attendant was absent from his post. Hayden couldn’t shake the mood that Pearson had handled the affair oddly and could not dismiss the coincidence of the presumed pursuer showing up at the consulate. And yet Pearson seemed a trustworthy professional who had served Hayden’s best interests.

At that moment he realized his room key was no longer in the passenger seat. He checked between the seats, the floor and the back seat. No matter. He could look for it some other time. 

The desk clerk at the Palacio del Sol recognized Ben and told him, “Not a problem, Mr. Hayden. Our guests often lose their keys.” Handing him a duplicate key, he added, “Oh yes, I almost forgot. Your friends from Wisconsin have arrived.”

His throat tightened in panic. “I don’t know anyone from Wisconsin.”

The clerk, clearly frustrated, said, “They asked that I not notify you, that they wished to surprise you. I thought you were upstairs, but now that I recall, I saw only your wife come in earlier.”

Ben spun and ran from the oak counter. Bypassing the elevator, he raced for the second floor two steps at a leap, rounding the corner at the top of the stairs.

Pounding steps receded with two large shadows to the dimly lit corridor’s distant end. The nearer man turned to look behind, veering to his right. He smashed into a flickering electric hall lamp protruding from the corridor’s floral papered wall, his feet violently slipping on the carpet. His body crashed to the floor, a heavy metal object slipping from his hand.

The second man in a dark blue suit scurried beneath the lamp, revealing his blond ponytail.

Speeding toward them, Ben shouted for the man to stop. The fallen man stood to recover the object he had dropped. Blood ran from a deep gash above his right eye. The man confronted Hayden’s hurtling hulk with grasping fingers curled around a hunting knife.   

Ben’s slammed a hiking boot against the man’s head, tearing a gaping wound at his forehead like an opened can of soup. The body thudded against the floor.

Another boot smashed hard across the thick neck. The spine snapped. Hayden turned for the rear stairway. The blue suited man veered right at the wooden stairs with a clamorous stride. He cleared the final step of the stairs’ second tier as Hayden turned the corner, his hip hammering a handrail.

The man reached beneath his coat and spun, raising his fist wrapped about a forty-five and aimed between Hayden’s widened gray eyes.

Dropping hard against the wall, Hayden avoided the gun sights as the man’s arm tracked his move in a downward arc.

Holding his breath, the man squeezed his forefinger to instant thunder. The lead blew the handrail to splinters that flew to Ben’s midsection. Realizing his prey as trapped, the gunman gripped the pistol and walked back up the creaking steps.

Ben paced back, realizing the man would soon again be in sight. For a fleeting moment, he considered picking up the knife but instead lifted the lifeless body now at his feet.

Forcing its bulk forward, he whirled at the corridor’s corner and pressed his boot against the body’s lower back. As the gunman rounded the corner of the stairs, Ben shoved the body down the stairs.

The plunging mass astonished the gunman. Beneath the single-second descent, he had neither room nor time to dodge the oncoming locomotive, its arms and legs spread wide. The fleshy missile hit him with breath-taking force, smashing his bulk half through the wall. Falling plaster crashed over the gunman and the dead body.

Ben ran to the lamp’s broken glass for the knife just as the parking lot attendant and the evening chef entered the rear door at the lower floor.

The pony-tailed man struggled beneath his partner’s body and shoved it away. Cursing, he ran to the unsuspecting visitors who gave him a wide berth upon seeing the automatic. The blond bolted through the exit, turning at the building’s dark corner.

The chef and attendant glanced from the door to Hayden in stunned confusion.

Running to his room, Hayden tossed the knife against a wall. The door was open. His eyes glazed in horror at the bloodied room. His wife’s half-clothed body lay face down across the rumpled bed, her left leg dangling to the bed’s near side. The red-stained sheets tangled beneath her as her blood pooled onto the floor.

Evidential crimson streaks traced her deadly struggle, from an opened ravaged dresser in a torturous path on the wall and curving onto the bed. A smashed camera, toiletries and personal articles lay amid clothing strewn about the floor. The intruders had stumbled through the blood and mass of articles to and from her body.

The room key that Ben had left on the passenger seat now lay just inside the room’s door.

His aching head pounded. Iced helplessness spread through his body. Not enough was left of her slashed chest for any hope that she might be breathing. Blood had bubbled to her mouth, still open from dying screams.

Tears burst from Ben’s eyes as he ran his rigid fingernails hard through his hair, drawing blood from his scalp. He fell howling across Elaine’s body, forcing back the bile churning from his stomach.

He heard distant screams. In his psychic haze of insanely jumbled images, sirens wailed from varied distances. The wail of the sirens increased in intensity, closing rapidly on the Palacio Del Sol.

Under those circumstances, Ben did not consider his daughter’s reaction to her mother’s death. When the responsibility occurred to him the following day, he didn’t know her current location. Following Stacey’s graduation from the United States Military Academy at West Point, she had entered the U.S. Army and was then frequently transferred from one post to another around the world. The last time Ben had spoken with his daughter three weeks before, she had been in Costa Rica.

Chapter 6

City of Secrets

The Army sergeant turned his unmarked sedan from the Baltimore-Washington Parkway onto Savage Road and glanced to the rearview mirror’s reflected image of his passenger. “Welcome back to Fort George Meade, Captain Hayden.”

The blond woman in a green officer’s uniform leaned forward from the back seat and acknowledged, “I’m gone three weeks and things are changing already.” Her captain’s bars gleamed beneath the morning sun.

A triangular structure surrounded a taller building. Several rows of high barbed wire and electrically charged fencing encircled the thousand acres comprising the National Security Agency’s headquarters.

Although summer, this early morning remained cool from the previous evening’s rain, its reflective traces still evident on the gray pavement.

Blue-uniformed Federal Protective Service guards, accompanied by attack dogs, stood between the double-fence and observed the approaching vehicle. The nearest guard tightened his grip on his auto-rifle.

The sergeant pulled alongside the gatehouse from which a guard emerged. The man leaned to the window and, recognizing both passenger and driver, waved them through.

The sedan passed the mammoth NSA central building, its size more than twice that of the U.S. Capitol, on through the small city’s mall-enclosed post office, barber shop and retail stores. Since the NSA’s 1957 charter, none without the strictest clearance had ever toured this area. Its population of over fifty thousand military and civilian personnel had passed the most exacting security examinations U.S. intelligence agencies could devise. Few of its residents knew the total extent of its activities.

This city was the epicenter of the country’s espionage networks.

Parking alongside the curb, the sergeant offered, “I’ll help with your luggage, Captain.”

“No chance,” she grinned, “but thanks anyway.” She opened her door and walked to the car’s rear where the sergeant opened the trunk. She glimpsed the dark exhaust fumes merging with the morning’s mist and said, “I thought I’d heard a rattle in your engine earlier. Looks like you’re due for the motor pool.”

The sergeant laughed, “Weeks overdue, but I appreciate the reminder.” His hand tapped his forehead.

Returning his salute, she grinned, “Thanks for the ride, Sergeant.”

Replacing her uniform hat, she turned as the sedan purred and receded into the bright fog. Although she understood the necessity of the rule, Captain Stacey Elaine Hayden had thought it a shame on previous occasions she had been driven by Sergeant William Myers that the Army frowned upon relationships between officers and enlisted personnel. Myers was perhaps only slightly older than her twenty-six years and rather better than average looking.

She strode to the steel and glass building in which she had begun her adult life four years earlier. She couldn’t imagine why her next mission was passed along to another or why she had been immediately recalled here to U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency’s Maryland headquarters. She had been told only that she was to leave Panama immediately, just one night following a prior mission and return to Ft. Meade.

Before entering, she glanced up at the large circular emblem of the Defense Intelligence Agency and, following an odd habit so old that she couldn’t recall how long she had possessed it, superstitiously saluted it for luck.

She boarded an elevator to the sixth floor and walked a path through twenty banks of occupied cubicles to the Caribbean Intercept Operations office.

The ID scanner wasn’t working. Three passes of her security card were necessary before the blip preceded a loud click. She plopped her bags just inside as the door closed behind her.

A large green-uniformed figure stood alongside an older man in a dark gray suit and leaned his hands onto a desk as he conferred with a young analyst. Stacey, although recognizing both men, was surprised to see them together. On the other hand, after a moment’s consideration, perhaps she shouldn’t have been surprised.

General Thomas Osborne thanked the man at the desk and turned to see Stacey advancing toward him. “Captain Hayden!” 

Osborne had attained the age of 60 the previous week. Although Stacey knew well the man standing alongside him, she could only guess his age to be anywhere from 70 to 80. What made his age difficult to judge was that Martin Eberling was relatively agile and mentally alert. She had loved both men since first meeting them but was unaware that either knew the other.

Stacey approached the general with a salute, which he returned, followed by a hug, raising the eyebrows of analysts sitting nearest the three. Years before, Osborne had been her “fave,” as cadets used the term at West Point. He had been, and remained, her model of the ultimate gentleman soldier and towered above her 5’6” of lithe muscle. When Stacey was a plebe, his hair was mostly black. And no matter how closely he had shaved, the trace of a beard on his square jaw appeared blue-black. Now the short-cropped hair was utterly white and his face a leathery tan.

The older man alongside him was known to anyone who read financial magazines. Martin Eberling was one of the seven wealthiest men in the country. He was precisely the height of Stacey but Eberling’s influence cast a shadow across the globe. Long an economic advisor to presidents, he remained a frequent visitor at the White House, yet persistently refusing a stay in the Lincoln Bedroom. The Wall Street Journal once quoted him as explaining, “I can afford to pay for a night in one of my own hotels and the taxpayers shouldn’t be supporting me.” The man was one of only a few on earth who had attained the status of a thirty-third degree Mason, an honor he shared with 14 former U.S. presidents.

Among his few hobbies was that of visiting West Point twice a year only for the reason that he enjoyed the conversation and company of cadets. Stacey Hayden was one of the fortunate few selected to accompany him to a dinner during her sophomore November at the Academy.

Eberling’s chauffer had escorted him and four cadets to a magnificent French restaurant at one of his many New York hotels. “I spend my money at my own establishments whenever I can,” he told them in his backwoods West Virginian accent. And when dinner was over and the maître d’hôtel told him there would be no charge, he scolded the man, “Nobody eats free in my place. If you start allowing that, I’ll go broke.” He paid the bill out of pocket.

But Eberling was also a collector of rare artifacts. Beginning with her final two years as a cadet and thereafter having been selected as a DIA deep-cover agent, Stacey visited the man at his upstate New York home twice each year, always bringing with her some artifact she had acquired in her journeys and insisting no payment was necessary. Of course, Eberling had never believed that other than for charity anyone should work for free.

Although Stacey cared little for treasures, several of those relics were rare and valued highly to collectors. Stacey had calculated that her mutual funds, bolstered by his generous disbursements, could make her a financially independent woman by age 40. Each of the two, now as close as grandfather and granddaughter, understood their arrangement was to remain unknown to others.

Eberling hugged her tightly. “How’s my babe? I didn’t know you knew Tommy.”

“I didn’t know you knew General Osborne,” she said.

Osborne grinned broadly and added, “This relationship is a shock to me. Marty and I have been thick as thieves for twenty years and I’ve never heard a word about you.”

Marty winked and raised his eyebrows suggestively with a randy-old-man expression, telling Osborne, “I never kiss and tell.”

The general chuckled, knowing well that Eberling didn’t mean a word of it and Marty added, “I met her at the Point. We hit it off immediately and we keep in touch. She’s been to my upstate home almost as often as you have, Tommy.”

“You guys have time for coffee?” Osborne asked, replacing his billed cap. Both simultaneously agreed.

Walking to the lounge, Stacey explained to Eberling, “The general recruited me. He knows that I’m not sucking up when I admit that he was my favorite USMA instructor.”

“She was a track and swimming star,” the general told him. Turning his head to Stacey, he said, “I heard you were tagged by DIA shortly after graduation, but I didn’t know you were at Caribbean Intercept. I’m here today just to pick up some background for another project.” He didn’t elaborate and each of the other two knew not to ask.

“I’m on special assignment to CI for an indeterminate time,” she said.

Each poured their coffee into Styrofoam cups and sat across from the others at a circular laminated table. Knowing that Marty always wanted to be entertained by some current military story, he looked to Stacey and inquired, “How’d you like the DIA operative training?”

She answered soberly, “Sheer hell, even compared to airborne school. Most difficult months I’d ever spent.” She could have added, “until then,” but instead said with a smile, “Being a woman, you know.”

Both men roared. “Uppity women,” Osborne declared. “Those smart-alecky feminist comments were common when this gal was at the Academy. But I know it was tough, kid. I was once in the Rangers. A former sergeant under my command was selected for DIA ops training. He later told me that those days were the worst of his career.”

She went on to tell them of diverse unclassified portions at the school. Running twenty miles in falling snow, her ankles deep in muddy slush. Armed with an Ingram auto-pistol and grenades, she had crawled numerous times through a grainy three-hundred-yard infiltration course amid live explosives and sprays of 50-calibre machine gun fire in driving rain. Scaled three-story buildings at the course’s end. And months after that, her skin blistered from hours in Maryland’s summer sun, she achieved more pushups than a majority of the squad’s men. The instructors on each occasion terminated the sit-up counts long before she stopped, rolling to her side with the burning taste of bile on her tongue.

Marty rolled his eyes to Osborne and drawled, “My Momma in West Virginia would’ve said that gal there has grit in her craw.”

Osborne held a napkin to his mouth to keep from spitting up the coffee as he and Stacey howled at the comment. Stacey giggled, “You’re always doing that, with those down-home sayings.” Marty could easily keep up an air of sophistication when necessary, but he’d often said he wanted to “bear in mind” his roots.

“Yeah, she does, Marty,” Osborne responded, laughing. “ I’m amazed that women can handle jump school. That’s still new for me. We wouldn’t have believed in ‘my day.’ And, Marty, you need more coffee.”

“I’ll get it,” Stacey said, standing and turning to the dispenser.

“Now that’s my idea of woman’s work,” Osborne grinned. “Make mine black.”

“You’re hopeless, General,” she said. Handing off the cups, she added with a faux submissiveness to their fun-loving chauvinism, “Anything else, sirs?”

“Most perfect meeting I’ve had in months,” Eberling chortled. “I couldn’t have imagined a better reunion.”

Osborne glimpsed two uniformed men coming through the far door, a chaplain and a major who served as the wing’s psychologist and grief-counselor. “Uh-oh,” he said, “seems someone has bad news.”

The three watched the men approach, a bit stunned as the men with grim stares stopped at their table. “What’s up?” Osborne asked.

Major Harbin told Stacey, “We need to talk.”

Her two companions remained at the table as the major and chaplain informed her of her mother’s death in Mexico. The chaplain interjected that she had not been told of this before her arrival in Maryland because of her position’s sensitive nature within the Agency. The major undertook to describe the particulars of her mother’s injuries until the chaplain laid a hand on his arm.

Both men extended their hands to her shoulders as Stacey sobbed, her face against her crossed arms upon the table. Osborne glared at the psychologist. He had laid out too much detail too soon.

Shuddering, she straightened her back against the chair and said, “I’ll be okay. I should leave immediately.”

Marty and Osborne hugged her and expressed their condolences. As she walked away, Osborne turned angrily to the major and said, “I want an item to go into her file and flag it ‘Red,’ Major! If another tragedy occurs to any member of that woman’s family, or to her, I want to be the first to know. She’s one of the best I’ve known and I can break it to her or her family more gently than the best of you guys!” And turning to the chaplain, he added, “Sorry, Lieutenant, I wasn’t including you in that remark.”

Osborne slapped Eberling on the shoulder and said, “Let’s go, Marty. Strange isn’t it, how one of the best days can turn on a dime into one of the worst?”

“Tommy, did you know that her mother didn’t want her to attend West Point? Stacey had talked about it with her for months, but her mom didn’t really believe she would do it. When she entered DIA training, Elaine was appalled. Not only was her mother a pacifist, she had been concerned that her daughter would meet some violent end.”

“Yeah, I heard that years ago. What’s so damned ironic is that the woman’s life was taken amidst as great a jungle as Stacey will likely ever face. I’m more pleased than I can express that you know her so well.”

Eberling blinked and lowered his head as they walked to the door. Since childhood, he had been obsessed with the Biblical Book of Revelations. As evil as so much of this world seemed at the time, he sincerely believed the End of Days might come within the time span of many living this day. He accepted the solace in this faith that all perpetrators of wickedness would someday soon answer for their deeds.

Those watching the two walking away couldn’t have imagined two men more unalike, the tall brooding figure of Thomas Osborne, the shorter slender man in the charcoal suit. Like Mutt and Jeff, for the few who could recall the old newspaper cartoon strip.

Because the matter was classified, Osborne was unable to tell his old friend the most intriguing aspect concerning his former cadet. He hadn’t known exactly what the Army had planned for her, but he had guessed that the unusually wide-ranging recruitment during the young woman’s high-school years had been experimental. Fifty such people as Stacey Elaine Hayden were found throughout the country.

Five years passed from the day he met her before he learned she wasn’t normal. The psychologist had termed her as “fearless,” among other characterizations. Her traits had placed her in a position few people could handle. She was not only a special operative but also an ongoing experiment! He assumed that in all likelihood Stacey herself would never be told.

“I’ll make arrangements to attend the funeral,” Marty promised and the general asked to accompany him. “Sure,” he agreed and asked, “How’d you recruit her anyway?”

Chapter 7

Miami, Florida, September 1975

More juniors and seniors turned out for the second annual Kennedy High Career Night than had attended the previous year’s cross-town basketball game. The brightly lit cafeteria had been cleared to make room for college and business recruiters. The various representatives sat behind makeshift booths separated by wood-framed paper walls. Four hundred students and their parents shuffled through colorful stacks of brochures and catalogs piled on the representative’s tables.

Stacey lifted an application from the University of Florida table near a green-uniformed colonel who had watched her every move since noticing her walking into the building without her parents. As she walked past his table, Colonel Thomas Osborne leaned over the table and pressed a form into her hand. He offered, “Could I help in any way?”

“Sir?” the 17-year old Stacey responded and twirled about to face the black haired hulk.  She wore a blouse as gray as her eyes and a blue skirt. Her blond hair touched her shoulders.

Colonel Thomas Everett Osborne had not been told just why he was looking for a certain personality type. He was informed only of the probable behaviors manifested by any likely prospect. The girl had walked about the room with grace and poise. She was confident but not cocky. She displayed none of the nervousness common to teens. Alertness, innocence and intelligence blazed in her eyes.

Osborne sensed something else in her eyes as well, none of which were found in the documents he had been assigned. The only word he could think to describe the feeling was, well, “comfortable.”

A student bumped her from behind. The tall, unapologetic boy strode past as he continued his conversation with an attractive girl alongside him. As if oblivious to his rudeness, she sat down at the table facing Osborne, her eyes not once leaving those of the colonel.

“You seem to be looking for something,” Osborne smiled. “I know where every college rep is located here. Perhaps I can help.”

Glancing at the name and rank on the small sign before him, she extended her hand and said, “I’m Stacey Hayden. Thanks. I’m not looking for any particular college. Maybe I’m looking for … a purpose in life.”

“I know the feeling. I’ve been in the Army for more years than I can remember. It was all for a purpose. How are your grades, Ms. Hayden?”

“Almost perfect,” she replied. His comment raised her level of curiosity, but of course this was a recruiter after all. She certainly had no interest in the Army.

“Any extracurriculars?” he persisted.

“Swimming, three years and track, two. Letters and medals. I was in the school’s drama club a year and won a public speaking contest for our school last year.” Although she hadn’t meant to boast, she realized that what she had just said would be interpreted that way. She added, “It’s just that I wanted a purpose in high school also. I feel like a lost soul.”

She didn’t bother mentioning a long-held fantasy of becoming a track or swimming star at a college. She imagined someday returning to hometown cheers. In this dream, her parents and former classmates would be in the c