Pierre Armont was forty-six, with gray temples and a body appropriate
to an Olympic wrestler. He had full cheeks, a heavy mustache, and
suspicious dark eyes that constantly searched his surroundings. It was
an innate survival instinct.
He never went out without a tie and a perfect shoeshine, not to mention
a crisp military bearing that sat as comfortably on him as a
birthright. He prided himself on his ability to instill discipline
while at the same time leading his men. Although he liked to command,
he wanted to do it from the front, where the action was.
Here in Paris he ran a worldwide business from a gray stone townhouse
situated on the Left Bank in an obscure cul-de-sac at the intersection
of Saint-Andre des Arts and rue de l'Ancienne Comedie. Fifty meters
away from his ivy-covered doorway, the rue de Seine wound down to the
river, playing host to one of Paris's finer open-air produce markets,
while farther down, rows of small galleries displayed the latest in
Neo-Deconstructionist painting and sculpture. An avid amateur chef and
art collector, he found the location ideal. From his house, where the
French aviator Saint-Exupery once wrote, he could march a few paces,
along cobblestones as old as Chartres, and acquire a freshly plucked
pheasant, a plump grouse, aromatic black truffles just hours away from
the countryside, or an abstract landscape whose paint was scarcely dry.
It was the best of all worlds: everything he loved was just meters
away, and yet his secretive courtyard provided perfect urban privacy
and security, with only the occasional blue-jeaned student from the
Academie de Beaux-Arts wandering into his courtyard to sketch. He was
rich and he knew how to live well; he also risked his life on a regular
basis.
He claimed it made his _foie gras _taste even better.
He worked behind a wide oak desk flanked by a line of state-of-the-art
communications equipment, and along one walnut-paneled wall stood rows
of files secured inside teak-wood-camouflaged safes. His wide oak desk
could have belonged in the office of a travel agent with a very select
clientele. However, it served another purpose entirely: it was where he
planned operations for ARM.
Pierre Armont headed up the Association of Retired Mercenaries, and he
had been busy all day. But he was used to emergencies. What other
people called problems, ARM thought of as business.
The Association of Retired Mercenaries was a secretive but loose group
of former members of various antiterrorist organizations. The name was
an inside joke, because they were far from retired. Although they were
not listed in the Paris phone book, governments who needed their
services somehow always knew how to find Pierre. ARM took on nasty
counterterrorism actions that could not occur officially. They rescued
hostages unreported in newspapers, and they had terminated more than a
few unpleasant individuals in covert actions that never made the
evening news.
At the moment, as he was thinking over the insertion strategy for
Andikythera, he was gazing down on his private courtyard and noticing
that the honking from the boulevard Saint-Germain indicated that
Paris's mid-afternoon traffic had ground to a halt. Again. He had just
hung up the scrambled phone, after a thirty-minute conversation with
Reggie Hall, the second today. London was on board, so everything was a
go. He was looking forward to this one. Some _batards_ had mucked with
an ARM job. They had to be taken down.
Armont was retired from France's antiterrorist Groupement
d'Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale, known as GIGN, ideal
experience for his present occupation. Over the years "Gigene" had
carried out, among other things, VIP protection in high-threat
situations and general antiterrorist ops. Mostly commandos in their
twenties and early thirties, Gigene operatives had to pass a grueling
series of tests, including firing an H&K MP5 one-handed while swinging
through a window in a quick entry called the pendulum technique. Known
for their skills in inserting by helicopter, either by rappelling or by
parachuting, they could also swim half a mile under water and come out
blasting, using their specially loaded Norma ammo.
Armont's particular claim to fame was the invention of a sophisticated
slingshot that fired deadly steel balls for a silent kill. He had
trained antiterrorist units in a number of France's former colonies,
and had secretly provided tactical guidance for the Saudi National
Guard when they ejected radical Muslims from the Great Mosque at Mecca.
These days, however, he was a private citizen and ran a simple
business. And as with all well-run businesses, the customer was king.
If problems arose, they had to be resolved; if a job did not stick, you
sent in a repair team. An American member of ARM named Michael Vance,
who normally did not participate in the operations end of the business,
had turned up at the wrong place at the right time. A Reuters
confirmation of the loss of the U.S. communications ship definitely
meant some bad action had gone down in the eastern Med. Vance's
analysis that it was a preliminary to seizure of the SatCom facility on
Andikythera probably was correct. Armont's secretary had spent the day
on the phone trying to reach the island, but all commercial
communications with the site were down. There was no way that should
have happened, even with last night's rough storm.
He had liked Michael Vance the minute he met him, three years earlier.
He considered Mike reliable in completing his assignments--be they quick
access to a "secure" bank computer file or a paper trail of wire
transfers stretching from Miami to Nassau to Geneva to Bogota. Vance's
regular missions for ARM, however, were those kinds of transactions,
not the street action, and Armont could only hope he could also manage
the rougher end of the business.
The organization had checked out the man extensively, as they did all
new members, and ARM's computer probably knew as much about him as he
did himself. It was an oddball story: son of a famous Penn
archaeologist, he had been by turns an archaeologist himself, a
yachtsman, and a low-level spook. After he finished his doctorate at
Yale and had taught there for two semesters, he had published his
dissertation--claiming the famous Palace of Minos in Crete was actually
a hallowed necropolis--as a book. It had caused a lot of flap, and to
get away for a while, he had taken a vacation in Nassau to do some big-
game fishing. Before the trip ended, he had bought an old forty-four-
foot Bristol sailboat in need of massive restoration. It was a classic
wooden vessel, which meant that no sooner had he finished varnishing
the thing from one end to the other than he had to start over again.
But he apparently liked the life. Or maybe he just enjoyed giving the
academic snakepit a rest. The computer could not get into his mind.
Whatever the reason, however, the sailboat, which had begun as a
diversion, soon became something else. By the time he had finished
refurbishing her, she was the most beautiful yacht in the Caribbean,
and everybody around Nassau wanted a shot at the helm. He had a charter
business on his hands.
Then his saga took yet another turn. The Nassau Yacht Club, and the new
Hurricane Hole Marina across the bridge on Paradise Island, comprised a
yachting fraternity that included a lot of bankers. Nassau, after all,
had over three hundred foreign commercial banks, and its "see no evil"
approach to regulation and reporting made it a natural haven for drug
receipts. With a lot of bankers as clients, before long Vance knew more
than any man should about offshore money laundering. He did not like
that part of the scene, but the bankers loved his yacht, and they paid
cash.
As he once told it, he eventually found out why. At least for one of
them. One sunny afternoon the vice president of the European
Consolidated Commercial Bank, an attractive blond-haired young Swiss
mover known to Vance only as "Werner," was docking _The Ulysses_ at
Hurricane Hole, bringing her back from a three-day sail, when the DEA
swooped down, flanked by the local Bahamian police. Armed with
warrants, they searched the boat and soon uncovered fifty kilos of
Colombian export produce. Seems "Werner" had sailed _The Ulysses _to
some prearranged point and taken it on, planning to have divers stash
the packages in the rudder-trunk air pocket of one of the giant cruise
ships that tied up at Nassau's four-berth dock. Vance heard about it
when he got a call from the harbormaster advising him that his prized
Bristol had just been seized as evidence in a coke bust. He was out of
business.
That afternoon Bill Bates had coincidentally flown in on Merv Griffin's
Paradise Island commuter airline and come over to Hurricane Hole,
wanting to charter _The Ulysses _for a week of sailing and fishing.
Vance had to inform him his favorite Bahamian yacht had just acquired a
new owner.
Bates could not believe he had flown into such a screw-up. Vance was
having his own problems with disbelief, too, but paying the mortgage
was his more immediate concern. The DEA had the boat, but before long
he wouldn't have to worry about that any more. That problem, and the
boat, would soon belong to the mortgage-holding bank over on Bay
Street.
He immediately slapped the DEA with a two-million-dollar lawsuit, just
to put on some heat. His lawyer claimed he didn't have a hope in hell.
But two weeks later a Bahamian judge, after lunch with the mortgage-
holding banker, summarily ordered the DEA to release the yacht. To
Vance's surprise, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration cheerfully
complied and turned it over the same afternoon. He immediately dropped
the lawsuit, writing off the whole affair as a triumph for truth,
justice, and the Bahamian way of banking. Or so it seemed.
Only later did he unearth the Byzantine complexities of what really had
happened. The affair had somehow come to the attention of The Company,
and there had been a flurry of phone calls to the DEA in New Orleans
from Langley, Virginia. A month later, while he was in the States
attending a Yale alumni function, he'd found himself talking to two
earnest Washington bureaucrats, who congratulated him on beating the
system. Huh?
They then described their need for a "financial consultant" in Nassau,
somebody who knew the right people. Maybe he would consider taking the
job; it could merely be a favor for--they hinted broadly--a favor.
Here was the problem: the CIA desperately needed help in trying to keep
track of the cocaine millions being laundered through Nassau's go-go
banks. The Company wanted some local assistance getting certain off-
the-record audits, from clean bankers who were tired of Nassau being a
haven for dirty cash.
He hated drugs and drug money, so he had seen nothing wrong with the
idea. He even ended up training some greenhorns out of Langley in the
subtle art of tracing wire transfers. Two years later he got his
payoff. They formed their own in-house desk to do what he had been
doing and retired him. He was, it turned out, too successful.
But the word on such skills got around, and two months later Pierre
Armont had approached him about joining ARM. They needed somebody good
at tracing hot money, frequently the most reliable trail of a terrorist
operation, and everybody close to the business had identified him as
the best around.
By that time he had formally incorporated a charter operation in Nassau
as Windstalker, Ltd., with three boats, three mortgages, and a big
monthly nut. So he had signed on, only later discovering that along
with ARM's extra cash came a lot of travel, many responsibilities, and
occasional death threats. He took them seriously enough to start
carrying his own protection, a chrome-plated 9mm Walther. Armont
approved.
Vance had always been well paid. It was expected. Anybody who hired
ARM--usually because there was nowhere else left to turn--knew the best
did not come cheap. A good two-week op could pull down fifty thousand
pounds sterling for every man on the team, which was why the boys drove
BMWs and drank twelve-year-old Scotch. But no client ever complained
about the price. Or if they did, they didn't complain to Pierre.
Payment was always cash, half up front and the rest on delivery. Any
client who welshed on the follow-through would be making a very ill-
considered career decision.
He pulled the blinds and turned to his desk. Faxes sent via ARM's
secure, encrypted system covered the surface. The team was coming
together. His secretary Emile, a young Frenchman who came in mornings
and worked in the next room, had already booked the necessary flights.
By 1800 hours tomorrow everybody would be assembled in Athens and ready
to insert.
Armont intended to lead the operation himself . . . unless Vance, as
the man on the ground, proved the logical choice. Since he was already
in place, always the best location, he would in any case have to be
point man.
He had talked the job over with "Hans" in Frankfurt at 1030 hours, just
after he had gotten the call from Athens, and together they had picked
six operatives. Vance would make seven. He calculated that would be
plenty.
"Hans" was the _nom de guerre _of a former GSG-9, Germany's green-
beret-sporting Grenzschutzgruppen 9. GSG-9, headquartered at St.
Augustin just outside Bonn, had a nine- million-dollar underground
training range that included a communications and intel unit, aircraft
mockups, an engineer unit, a weapons unit, an equipment unit, a
training unit, and a strike unit. In his fifteen years with GSG-9, Hans
had been known to achieve 95 percent accuracy with an H&K MP9 when
firing from a moving vehicle or even rappelling down a rope from a
hovering chopper. Now retired, he brought to ARM many talents: as well
as participating in the on-site op, he usually acted as liaison officer
because of his flawless English.
He also knew which old-timers from GSG-9--that was anybody over thirty-
five--were looking for an op, and if the
job required some younger talent he used his connections to get current
members temporarily released from their units. When needed, he could
arrange for special-purpose weapons otherwise "unavailable" or
restricted. Once, when a sniper-assault situation called for a hot new
IR scope, he borrowed one from the St. Augustin armory overnight, made
a drawing, then had it copied in Brussels by noon the next day. He knew
where to find ARM field operatives and what shape they were in--which
ones had been shot up, broken legs in parachute drops, or gone over the
edge with a case of nerves and too much booze.
Best of all, though, he could usually locate a wanted terrorist. GSG-9
was hooked directly into a massive computer in Wiesbaden informally
known as the Kommissar. Hans could still tap into the Kommissar, which
tracked various world terrorist groups, constantly updating everything
known about their methods, their membership, and--most importantly--their
movements.
These days he operated a rundown _biergarten_ in Frankfurt, at least as
his cover, and there were suspicions he managed to drink up a lot of
its profits. In any case, he was in ARM for the money, and he never
pretended otherwise. So when Armont rang him, he was immediately all
ears. Never failed.
"Pierre, _alio! Comment allez vous?" _Even at ten-thirty in the morning
Hans could be cheerful. Armont, definitely a night person, never
understood how he did it.
"_Bien_, considering." Armont knew Hans was more comfortable in English
than in French, and he hated speaking German. "What're you doing for
the next couple of days?"
"Got something?" The German's interest immediately perked up.
"There's a little cleanup . . ."
After he gave him a quick briefing on the situation via their secure
phone, Hans was extremely unhappy.
"Dimitri screwed up. It's not our problem."
"I say it's our problem," Pierre replied. "We guarantee our work and
you're either in, or you're out. Permanently. Those are the rules."
"All right." Hans sighed. "Can't blame me for not liking it, though."
"So who do you think we need?" Armont asked. Hans knew the people
better than he did.
"Well, we definitely should have Reggie," he replied straightaway.
"He's the best negotiator we've got, and also he can get us some of the
hardware we'll be needing."
The man in question was Reginald Hall. Just under fifty, he was a
stocky ex-small-arms instructor, regimental sergeant major, retired, of
the SAS, Britain's Special Air Service. In the old days he headed up a
unit known in the press as the CRW, Counter Revolutionary Warfare
section, called "the special projects blokes" by those on the inside.
He finally quit after successfully leading an assault on the Iranian
embassy in London on 5 May 1980--which, to his astonished dismay, was
televised live. He'd gotten famous overnight, and after thinking it
over for a weekend, he decided the time had come to cash it in. These
days he ran a small company that purportedly bought and sold used
sports firearms. That was a polite way of saying he dabbled in the
international arms trade, though not in a big way. But whenever ABM
needed a special piece of equipment, as often as not Reggie found a way
to take care of it.
He did not do it for love. Even though he was happily retired down in
Dorset, Thomas Hardy country, with a plump Welsh common-law wife, he
occasionally slipped away--much to her chagrin--to take on special ops
for ARM. Maybe his neighbors thought he had bought their matching
Jaguars with his army pension or the sale of used Mausers.
"I'll call him as soon as we hang up. He spent some time in the
Emirates or some damn place and claims to speak a little Arabic." He
was thinking. "Okay, who else could we use?"
"How about the Flying Dutchmen?" Hans said.
He was referring to the Voorst brothers, Willem and Hugo, both former
members of the Royal Dutch Marines' "Whiskey Company." That was the
nickname of a special group officially known as the Marine Close Combat
Unit. Both bachelors, though never short of women, they lived in
Amsterdam and took on any security job that looked like it would pay.
They also ran a part-time aircraft charter operation.
"We might need a chopper for the insert. Think they can handle it on
such short notice?"
The Voorst brothers would occasionally arrange, through their old
connections, for a Dutch military helicopter to get lost in paperwork
for a weekend. Whiskey Company was a club, and everybody was going to
retire someday. What went around came around. Besides, there was plenty
of spare change in it for those who made the arrangements.
"With nobody paying? It'll take some fast talking."
"So far, this thing's being done on spec. We're just making good on a
job."
"Don't remind me," Hans groaned. "Don't want to hear it. I think we'd
better just rent something in Athens." He paused. "But I also think we
ought to take along the Hunter. He'd be the man to handle grenades. He
loves those damned things better than his wife."
They were both thinking of Marcel, formerly of the Belgian ESI,
Escadron Special d'lntervention. While with ESI, he had fathered their
famous four-man units, pairs of two-man teams, and had come up with the
idea of carrying a spare magazine on the strong-side wrist to
facilitate rapid mag change. ESI was known informally as Diana Unit,
and since Diana was the huntress of mythology, Marcel had become known
as the Hunter. But not till after he had earned the sobriquet. A former
Belgian paratrooper, ex-Angola, he got the nickname after a special op
there, when he had saved an entire ARM team by taking out a room of
terrorists with three stun grenades, tear gas, and an Uzi--while wearing
an antiflash hood called a balaclava plus a gas mask, a little like
working under water. Marcel liked the nickname.
"I'll see if I can reach him. The Antwerp number."
"Well, we'll probably need him." Hans paused. "And Vance is already on
site. That'll make all the difference."
"He's good. If you can get all the others, I think we'll have what we
need."
'Then, let's get started. I'll try to reach everybody and have them in
Athens by late tomorrow. Fax me an equipment list and I'll talk that
over with Spiros. See what he can get together for us down there and
save having to ship it."
"You know, _mon cher_," Hans had said, "this is no way to start a day."