The Outlaws (Presidential Agent 6)

The operations scenario had used that term, but the “manacles” actually used to restrain the locals was a plastic version of the garrote.

The locals were frightened, of course, but none of them seemed on the edge of hysteria, which was often a problem with women and children.

Another potential problem, language, didn’t arise. The team leader had been told to expect the locals might speak only the local languages, and the team had been issued hastily printed phrase books in Daza, Maba, Gulay, and Sara.

The trouble with phrase books was that while they permitted you to ask questions, they were not much help in translating the answers.

All four of the men the sniper had “manacled” in the living quarters spoke French. And so did most of the thirteen women and children, to judge by their faces and whispered conversations.

One of the men was a tower operator, and another was in charge of the generator. The former reported that the radios in the tower seemed to be operable, and that the runway lights could be turned on and off from the tower. The latter reported that if he had his hands free, he could have the generator started in three minutes.

The team leader signaled one of the operators to cut the plastic handcuffs from both. The sniper took the generator man to wherever the generator was, and the team leader took the tower operator to the tower.

He had just about reached the top of the ladder to the control tower when he heard the rumble of a diesel engine starting, and as he put his shoulders through the hole in the tower floor, the incandescent lightbulbs began to glow and then came on full.

There was a screeching sound from the roof as the rotating radar antenna began to turn.

All the avionic equipment in the tower was of American manufacture, and both the team leader and his number two were familiar with it. Nevertheless, the team leader ordered the control tower operator to get it running.

Dual radar monitors showed a target twenty miles distant at twelve thousand feet altitude. Just the target. No identification from a transponder.

“Light the runway,” the team leader ordered.

The tower operator threw a number of switches on a panel under the desk which circled the room. As the sound of the diesel engine showed the addition of a load, the lights on the runway and two taxi strips leading from it glowed and then were fully illuminated.

Number two dialed in a frequency on one of the radios.

“Activate transponder,” he said in Russian.

Thirty seconds later, a triangle appeared next to the target on the radar screen.

“I have you at twelve thousand, twenty miles. The field is lit. The runway is clear. Land to the south.”

The target blip on the radar screen began moving toward the center of the screen. The numbers in a little box next to the transponder blip began to move downward quickly from 12000.

The team leader pointed to something under the desk.

The tower operator looked confused.

Impatiently, the team leader pointed again.

The tower operator dropped to his knees to get a better look at what was under the table that he was supposed to see.

The team leader put the muzzle of the .22 caliber submachine gun against the tower operator’s neck at the base of his skull and pulled the trigger.

The short burst of fire made a thump, thump sound, and the tower operator fell slowly forward on his face. Then his legs went limp and his body completely collapsed.

There was no blood. As often happened, the soft lead .22 bullets did not have enough remaining velocity after penetrating the skull to pass through the other side. They simply ricocheted around the skull cavity, moving through soft brain tissue until they had lost all velocity. There might be some blood leakage around the eyes, the ears, and the nose, but there seldom was much and often not any.

A team member entered through the tower floor hole. The leader ordered: “Stay until the plane’s on the ground. Then set these to twenty minutes.”

“These” were four thermite grenades. Each had a radio-activated fuse, and, for redundancy, in case the radio detonation failed, a simple clock firing mechanism.

The team leader set the thermite grenades in place, two on the communications equipment, one on the radar, and the last on the spine of the tower operator near the entrance wounds made by the .22 rounds.

He took a last look around, and then spoke to his microphone.

“Commence cleanup,” he ordered. “Acknowledge.”