Читаем Clear and Present Danger полностью

"They shut us down," the senior communicator answered.

"Who shut you down?"

"Look, I can't say, all right, I got orders that we're shut down. That's it. You want answers, go see Mr. Ritter."

Clark walked right up to the man. "He's too far away."

"I got my orders."

"What orders?"

"To shut down, damn it! We haven't transmitted or received anything since lunchtime yesterday," the man said.

"Who gave you the orders?"

"I can't say!"

"Who's looking after the field teams?"

"I don't know. Somebody else. He said our security was blown and it was being handed over to somebody else."

"Who - you can tell me this time," Clark said in an eerily calm voice.

"No, I can't."

"Can you call up the field teams?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Their satellite radios are encoded. The algorithm is on computer disk. We downloaded all three copies of the encryption keys and erased two of 'em. He watched us do it and took the third disk himself."

"How do you reestablish the link?"

"You can't. It's a unique algorithm that's based on the time transmissions from NAVSTAR satellites. Secure as hell, and just about impossible to duplicate."

"In other words those kids are completely cut off?"

"Well, no, he took the third disk, and there's somebody else who's -"

"Do you really believe that?" Clark asked. The man's hesitation answered the question. When the field officer spoke again, it was in a voice that didn't brook resistance. "You just told me that the commo link was unbreakable, but you accepted a statement from somebody you never saw before that it had been compromised. We got thirty kids down there, and it sounds like they've been abandoned. Now, who gave the orders to do it?"

"Cutter."

"He was here ?'

"Yesterday."

"Jesus." Clark looked around. The other officer couldn't bring himself to look up. Both men had speculated over what was really happening, and had come to the same conclusion that he had. "Who set up the commo plan for this mission?"

"I did."

"What about their tactical radios?"

"Basically they're commercial sets, a little customized. They have a choice of ten SSB frequencies."

"You have the freqs?"

"Well, yeah, but -"

"Give them to me right now."

The man thought to say that he couldn't do that, but decided against it. He'd just say that Clark threatened him, and it didn't seem like the right time to start a little war in the van. That was accurate enough. He was very much afraid of Mr. Clark at this moment. He pulled the sheet of frequencies from a drawer. It hadn't occurred to Cutter to destroy that, too, but he had the radio channels memorized anyway.

"If anybody asks..."

"You were never here, sir."

"Very good." Clark walked out into the darkness. "Back to the air base," Clark told Larson. "We're looking for a helicopter."

Cortez had made it back to Anserma without note having been taken of his seven-hour absence, and had left behind a communications link that knew how to find him, and now, rested and bathed, he waited for the phone to ring. He congratulated himself, first, on having set up a communications net in America as soon as he'd taken the job with the Cartel; next on his performance with Cutter, though not as much for this. He could scarcely have lost, though the American had made it easier through his own stupidity, not unlike Carter and the marielitos , though at least the former President had been motivated by humanitarian aims, not political advantage. Now it was just a matter of waiting. The amusing part was the book code that he was using. It was backwards from the usual thing. Normally a book code was transmitted in numbers to identify words, but this time words indicated numbers. Cortez already had the American tactical maps - anyone could buy American military maps from their Defense Mapping Agency, and he'd been using them himself to run his operation against the Green Berets. The bookcode system was always a secure method of passing information; now it was even more so.