They would probably be seen if they ran through the grass—they couldn’t run bent over far enough to get beneath the top of the grass—but if they crawled through it so they would be concealed by the grass, they would crush the grass, leaving a visible path. Running through the grass, if they were lucky, would push the grass aside only momentarily and it would spring back in place, leaving little evidence that someone or something had passed through it.
“I think we better go through the grass,” Castillo said. Colonel Torine nodded. Sergeant Sherman gave Castillo a thumbs-up.
“Fernando, turn it so the door is away from the tower,” Castillo ordered. “As soon as you stop, we’ll open the door and go. You’ll have to come back here and close it.”
“Now?” Fernando asked.
“Now, please.”
“God be with all of you,” Fernando announced as the Lear started to turn.
The grass was thicker than it looked and harder to push aside. The ground was very damp, not quite mud but slippery.
There was a handle on the bottom of Sergeant Sherman ’s hard-sided suitcase—Castillo idly wondered whether it had come that way or if the bottom handle was a Gray Fox modification—that permitted Sherman and Castillo to carry it between them.
But it was a heavy sonofabitch even without the weight of the two CAR-4 rifles and the bandolier of magazines Sherman had taken out of it and hung around Colonel Torine’s shoulders.
The midday tropical heat did not help. Charley felt sweat break out before he was ten yards into the grass and he and Sherman were soon breathing very heavily. They had to stop four times and quickly swap sides as the strength of their hands on the handles gave out. The last time, when Charley scurried to get to the other side of the suitcase, his foot slipped, he fell flat onto his face through the grass onto the ground, where his knee encountered what was probably the only rock within five hundred yards.
Castillo was beginning to plan for what to do when, inevitably, the knee and/or his breath gave out and he would not be able to hold up his end of the suitcase anymore when the ground beneath his feet suddenly disappeared, he lost his footing, and started to slide downward.
There was about a fifty-foot difference between the ground—the original terrain—and the airport buildup. Castillo, Sherman, and the hard-sided suitcase were about halfway down it before they could stop their slide. They had just done so, and exchanged glances, when Colonel Torine burst through the thick grass on his way down the steep incline. He was moving headfirst on his stomach, wildly flailing his arms in an attempt to stop himself.
Sherman started to giggle, and then both he and Castillo were laughing, although, as out of breath as they were, the laughing was quite painful.
Still smiling and chuckling, they pushed the hard-sided suitcase the rest of the way down the steep incline until they reached level ground.
“Fuck it, far enough,” Castillo said, stopped pushing, rolled onto his back, and put his arm over his eyes against the bright sunlight.
A moment later, as he was still taking breaths in deep heaves, he felt a nudge against his side. From under his arm, without moving, he saw an old, battered military-looking boot.
Oh, shit! If Torine or Sherman wanted my attention, they wouldn’t nudge me with a boot. They aren’t even wearing boots.
He took his arm off his eyes.
There was a man standing over him, his face covered with green, brown, and black grease stripes.
“I understand that old Air Force fart wheezing like a rode-hard racehorse,” Lieutenant General Bruce J. McNab said, “but you and Sherman? By God, what are people going to think?”
Castillo didn’t reply. He forced himself into a sitting position. His arm was nudged, and, when he looked, McNab was holding out a plastic quart bottle of 7UP to him.
Castillo took it wordlessly, opened it, and drank from it.
“For your general information, the Air Force survived his crash landing,” McNab said. “His dignity, unfortunately, took a beating.”
“How long have you been here?” Castillo asked, finally getting his breath.
“Long enough, were I a wagering man, to lay heavy odds the 727 is here. I got a guy out there now taking a real close look.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s the one we’re looking for,” Charley said. “We taxied past it. It’s got freshly painted registration numbers, and the red, white, and blue stripes on the vertical stabilizer Pevsner’s guy saw on it in Venezuela.”
Colonel Torine and Sergeant Sherman walked up.
“You all right, Jake? Nothing broken?”
“I’m fine.”
“You okay, Charley?” Torine asked.
Castillo nodded.
“How is it that you’re here, sir?” Torine asked McNab.
“McFadden and Naylor got me on the radio and said they’d found a sandy beach not far from here. Some CIA guy had done compression tests and, theoretically, it would take a C-17. With the fingers of both hands crossed, I decided to give it a shot.”
“Obviously, it took the 17.”
“More or less. We got down all right. But stopped for more than a couple of minutes, the Globemaster starts to sink in the sand. It was a hell of a job getting the Little Birds off; we had to keep the airplane moving all the time we were unloading. It looked like a Chinese fire drill.”
“But you’re unloaded.”
“There’s two gunships and four troop carriers about five miles away. Did I mention that the C-17 is taxiing up and down the beach, back and forth, back and forth? I don’t know how long that’s going to work. Nor do I know whether or not we can get it back in the air.”
“Empty, you probably can,” Torine said. “There’s an awesome amount of thrust on a 17.”
“Empty? What am I supposed to do with the Little Birds? Torch them?”
A tall, blond sergeant first class, dressed as was General McNab in a jungle camouflage uniform, came up. He had a CAR-4 hanging from his shoulder and was carrying what looked like a laptop computer in his hands like a tray. It was open.
“Stedder’s in place, General,” he said and started to hand the laptop to McNab.
“Will you hold it, please, Sergeant Orson?” McNab said.
Castillo got quickly up.
“Careful with that 7UP, Charley,” McNab said. “This is the only one of these we have.”
“Stedder reports the Lear has taken off, sir,” Sergeant Orson said.
“Where’s he going, Charley?” McNab asked.
“Nicaragua, to report where we are and that we think we’ve found the 727.”
McNab grunted and looked at the laptop computer. It displayed an image of the 727 from the side.
Whoever’s taking these must be on the roof of that building, CENTRAL AMERICAN FREIGHT FORWARDING, whatever.
The image also showed some movement. There were a half dozen security guards in military-looking uniforms on the tarmac. When they moved, it was as if they did so in slow motion.
“Can he give us a close-up of the front door?” Castillo asked.
McNab typed rapidly on the laptop’s keyboard.
The screen went dark, then lit up with an out-of-focus view of the forward part of the aircraft, which then came into focus.
All that could be seen was the top of the movable stairway. The open door was clearly visible but nothing was visible inside the aircraft.
“I don’t suppose we’d see a hell of a lot more up the rear stairway,” Castillo said.
“Probably less, Major,” Sergeant Orson said. “The angles there are a bear.”
“Don’t call him ‘Major,’ Orson,” McNab said. “We don’t want anybody to know that he’s one of us. Didn’t you see him skiing down the hill?”
Orson chuckled.
“Let’s have another look at the whole airplane,” Torine said.
McNab typed on the keyboard again and a few moments later an image of the 727 from the side appeared. And this shot showed other movement. A
n open-bodied Ford ton-and -a-half truck, loaded high with thin cardboard boxes, moved in jerking movements toward the airplane and two men moved jerkily toward the 727, obviously intending to open the cargo doors.
“Well, there’s your flowers, Charley,” McNab said.
“Which means they’re getting ready to go,” Castillo said.
“And what would you suggest we do about that?” McNab asked. “Keeping in mind the president wants this done quietly, which would seem to rule out telling one of the gunships to put a couple of rockets in it.”
“Why don’t we steal it back?” Colonel Torine asked.
“How would you propose that we do that?” McNab asked. “Can you fly that thing by yourself, Jake?”
“With Charley in the right seat, I can,” Torine said and looked at Castillo.
“How can we do that quietly?” Castillo asked.
“Quietly is a relative term,” McNab said. “Not very quietly would be to put a couple of rockets in it, which would leave a burned-out airplane for the television cameras of the world to see proof of our arrogant invasion of friendly Costa Rica. A little less quietly would be having the Air Force take it out after it gets in the air. A lot of airplanes—and who knows who else—are going to hear our pilot order the airplane to return here or get shot down. How the hell are we going to be able to deny that if he has to shoot it down?”
Torine grunted.
McNab added, “There’s a flight of F-15s on their way from Eglin, by the way. Hell, they may even be here, out over the Pacific.”
“They’ve probably built some sort of framework over the fuel bladders,” Castillo said.
“What?” McNab asked.
“There’s thirteen fuel bladders in the passenger compartment, ” Castillo said. “They’ll have to be hidden from the customs guys at Tampa. So they will cover them with flowers. Hence, a framework.”
“Okay, so?” McNab said.
“Which means they will have to be placed on that framework by the guys who stole the airplane, not by ground handlers, who would want to know what’s up with the fuel bladders.”
“Major,” Sergeant Orson said, “when Sergeant Stedder was getting into position he said it looked to him as if there was a crew of four.”
“They must have brought two guys to help carry the flowers up the back stairs,” Torine said. “And protect the airplane. ”
“Making a total of four we have to take out if we’re going to take over the airplane. Figure it’s going to take them forty minutes to load all those flowers, six boxes at a time, up the front and back stairways.”
“So that’s how much time we have,” McNab agreed.
“We don’t know all they have is two more guys,” Castillo said. “The sergeant said he saw four. There could be more.”
“And they all have to be taken out, right?” Torine asked.
McNab grunted. “Odds are, we can’t have a little chat with them and explain the futility of their position. We have to take them out quickly and then get that airplane off the ground quickly.”
“How is Gray Fox equipped for snipers, sir?” Castillo asked.
“Well, there’s one really good one, Major Castillo,” Sergeant Orson said. “If I do have to say so myself. And Sergeant Stedder thought it would be a good idea if he took his rifle along when he went out to climb on the roof. How many do you think you’re going to need?”
“What I’m thinking . . .” Castillo said and stopped when he saw the look on McNab’s face.
“Go on, Charley,” McNab said. “Let’s see how much you remember of all that you learned with me as your all-wise mentor.”
“What I was thinking, sir, is that I don’t think the other two are pilots. Which means if we can take out the two pilots, the airplane couldn’t be flown.”
“And how do we get the pilots—or any of these people— to obligingly line themselves up for the attention of Sergeants Orson and Stedder?”
“A diversion,” Castillo began, thoughtfully.
XIX
[ONE]
Tomas Guardia International Airport Liberia, Costa Rica 1415 10 June 2005
Major C. G. Castillo, now wearing a black flight suit with subdued insignia that included the wings of a master Army aviator and identified him as CWO-5 B.D. SHINE, lay beside a small concrete-block building hoping he was further concealed by a fifty-five-gallon drum full of aromatic waste. His face was streaked with brown, black, and green grease. He had binoculars to his eyes and wore a headset, putting a small receiver in his right ear and a microphone at his lips. A CAR-4 lay on the ground beside him.
Immediately to his left, the other side of the reeking garbage drum, was Sergeant First Class Paul T. Orson, who was armed with a dull black bolt-action rifle based on the Remington Model 700 .308 Winchester caliber hunting rifle. About the only things that hadn’t been changed were the caliber —known in the Army as “7.62×51mm NATO”—and the action. It now had a carefully chosen and tested barrel and, in place of glossy walnut, a matt black stock made up of fiberglass, Kevlar, and graphite. A dull black 10×42 Leupold Ultra optical sight was mounted on top.
Immediately behind them—literally, behind the garbage drum—and also armed with a CAR-4, was Colonel Jake Torine, USAF, now wearing a black flight suit whose subdued insignia identified him as CWO-3 P.J. LEFKOWITZ, a senior Army aviator.
A good deal was about to happen—Sergeant Orson thought of this as all hell was about to break loose—but there was no indication of this on the tarmac in front of them.
Another open-bodied Ford one-and-a-half-ton truck was pulled up close to the 727. A man on the truck handed down, four at a time, long, thin cardboard boxes to two men on the ground. They carried the boxes to the movable stairs rolled up to the front door and to the lowered rear stairway of the airplane. There they were passed to men wearing short-sleeved white shirts with captain’s and first officer’s shoulder boards and quickly carried up the stairs into the airplane.
Castillo had recognized the face of one of the aircrew as the guy had run up and down the stairs. He had seen his photographs in Philadelphia. He had not seen the second Philadelphia mullah nor had he recognized the two men who had also carried flowers into the aircraft up the rear stairs. But they had intelligent faces and he wondered if he had been wrong, that everybody was a pilot.
How the hell can you calmly load an airplane—with flowers, for Christ’s sake—knowing you’re going to die in it?
“Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one,” General Mc-Nab ’s voice said in Castillo’s earpiece. “Showtime!”
“Heads up,” Castillo said softly and, a moment later, realized it was entirely unnecessary. Sergeant Orson had his eye to the Leupold scope and the rifle was trained on the rear stairs of the 727.
The first thing to disturb the peace and tranquillity of Tomas Guardia International Airport was that of artillery simulators detonated near a small concrete-block building, painted in a red-and-white-checkerboard pattern, to one side of the runway. The simulators were intended to sound exactly like that of a 105mm howitzer shell coming through the air and detonating on contact. And they did.
At precisely that moment, two Little Birds popped up past the end of the runway where Castillo, Sherman, and Torine had fallen down the hill. Rocket fire exploded from the left Little Bird and a stream of 40mm grenades from the other. The rockets struck a fuel truck parked out of line of sight of the 727, causing an immediate explosion, and the grenades exploded in a line parallel to, and a few feet the other side of, the runway.
The face of the man near the bottom of the rear stairway was familiar to Castillo through his binoculars.
“Take him,” he ordered.
There was an immediate crack as the sniper rifle fired. There was no question in Castillo’s mind that Orson would hit his target.
I have just killed that guy as surely as if I had pulled the trigger myself.
This philosophical observation was immediately challenged whe
n the man in his binocular view, though obviously disturbed and surprised by what was happening—he was now looking up the stairs—was obviously still very much alive.
I’ll be a sonofabitch, he missed!
Castillo looked over at Sergeant Orson just as the rifle fired again.
Castillo hastily put the binoculars to his eyes again.
The man on the rear stairway was now sliding, facedown, down the stairs.
“There was another one, farther up on the stairs,” Sergeant Orson said. “I figured I’d take him first.”
Four unarmed Little Birds now suddenly appeared, from four different directions, and rapidly approached the 727. There were six Gray Fox soldiers on the outside platforms of each, all dressed in black outfits topped with black balaclavas.
The Little Birds had made a “fly the needles” approach to the 727. Their onboard computer-directed navigation systems, knowing within six feet both their position and that of the 727, had provided the pilots with indicators—“the needles ”—on the control panel. So long as the pilots kept the needles where they were supposed be—increasing or decreasing airspeed, changing direction or altitude caused the needles to move—all four of the Little Birds were able to arrive, from four different directions, at a little better than seventy-five miles per hour, within seconds of one another.
The Gray Fox soldiers dropped nimbly from the benches before the skids of the Little Birds actually touched down. Some of them fired close to—not at—the security personnel, which caused the defending force to immediately raise their hands, fall to their knees, or both.
One special operator dashed to the flower truck, somewhat rudely removed the driver from behind the wheel, got behind the wheel, started the truck, drove toward the Central American Aerial Freight Forwarding building, and then jumped out, leaving the truck on a collision course with a Peugeot sedan parked in front of the building, which, in fact, occurred some thirty seconds later.
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