by Tom Clancy
What he needed was a ride, and he needed it from somewhere close.
Ahead was a section of the airport where the express package and cargo service planes were parked.
He grinned as the idea hit him.
"Good morning, sir," the manager of the freight office said. "How can I help you?" He was a kid of maybe twenty-four, twenty-five, wearing a white shirt and a blue tie.
Platt smiled. "Well, sir, I have me a little problem. My name is Herbert George Wells, I've got this big ole shipment of farm machinery sitting on a loading dock in London, England, and no way to git it home." He put a lot more grits in his accent than usual. Stupider he sounded, the better.
"That's what we're here for, sir."
"Thing is, the original airline I hired? Well, they crapped out on me, blew an engine or something, and in order to get my tax break, I needed to have spent the money for the plane by December 31st of last year."
The manager raised an eyebrow.
"See, it saves me about ten thousand dollars if I can show I paid the money about three weeks ago, you understand what I'm sayin' here?"
"I think so."
"I'd like to hire one of your planes to fly over there and pick up my machinery—nothin' illegal here, sir, I got proper papers on everything—but if I don't use my first charter, I'm gonna lose ten thousand dollars. On the other hand, I really need those parts, it's costin' me bidness every day they're sittin' in England and not in Mobile—that's where I need to get it, you see, Mobile, Alabama."
"It does appear to be a problem, sir."
"Well, yes. And since there's nothing illegal about my stuff over there, let's just say, just, you know, for instance, if you had taken this order from me, oh, say, around Christmastime, how much of a problem would that be?"
The manager looked around. Then he looked at Platt. What he thought he saw was a big, musclebound mechanic with his butt in a crack. "Well, sir, if I had taken the order and somehow forgotten to enter it into the computer, that would be my mistake. I could, ah, correct that when I filled out the paperwork, pre-date it so it matched the actual date I took the order."
Platt smiled, one man of the world to another. "Well, sir, if you was to do that, I would be mighty grateful, mighty grateful. And Mr. Franklin and a baseball team of his twin brothers would also be mighty pleased." Platt reached into his shirt pocket, looked around, then removed ten hundred-dollar bills, folded in the middle. He put the bills on the desk and slid them toward the kid.
The kid covered the bills with his hand, opened his desk drawer, raked the money off the desk, then shut the drawer. He smiled at Platt. "All right then, Mr. Wells, what kind of equipment did you have in mind?"
Platt grinned. He had his ride, and any feds looking for him wouldn't find it—since it had been booked two weeks earlier and under another name.
Once he got to England, getting a flight to Africa would be easy.
Then he and Mr. Thomas Hughes would have some words. Yes, sir, they surely would…
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Sunday, January 16th, noon Quantico, Virginia
Michaels ate takeout Chinese food at his desk, using throw-away chopsticks to fish the stuff directly from the containers, not even bothering with the paper plate that came in the lunch bag. He'd ordered hot and spicy chicken with noodles, and sweet and sour tofu, but it all seemed kind of bland, and he ate for fuel, not taste. He had other things on his mind.
Toni came into his office. He looked up. Her face, while not grim, was certainly serious. "More good news?" he asked.
"Maybe we can't wait on White's chartered jet to deliver Mr. Thomas Hughes to us after all."
Michaels put the food box down. "Never rains but it pours. What?"
"It seems that about an hour ago, FBI field agents who went to Chicago's O'Hare airport to set up a surveillance on the gate where Platt was supposed to catch a plane to England goofed up."
"Goofed up. There's a nice phrase. What does ‘goofed up' mean? And how did they know where he would be?"
"Once we knew who we were looking for, we found a couple of hidden accounts that Hughes had set up, small stuff, less than twenty or thirty thousand in each. Hughes tried to hide his connection to them, but not very hard. Platt used money from one of the accounts to book his ticket—and under a phony name."
"How do you know it was Platt?"
"Who else would be tapping into a slush account to buy a plane ticket overseas right now? We tipped off the field guys. The agents got there several hours ahead of the scheduled departure time, but Platt was already there. He spotted them."
"And he got away, didn't he?"
"The field agents aren't willing to concede that yet. But he did escape from the terminal building by assaulting a ticket agent and a freight handler. Stole a freight truck and disappeared. The FBI is looking, but it's a big airport."
"Yeah, that might be called a goof-up. Best-and-worst-case scenarios?"
Toni leaned against the wall. "Best case, they find him hiding behind a shipment of lawn furniture five minutes from now and take him into custody, whereupon he spills his guts and gives the federal prosecutors enough useful data to overload and sink an aircraft carrier. Hughes comes home, we grab him, he gets fifty years, and dies in jail when he's a hundred."
Michaels smiled at her. "I like that one."
"Worst-case scenario, Platt gets away, calls—or manages to get to—Africa, where he informs Hughes the game is over and we're on to him. Hughes hunkers down behind his money and lives happily ever after in the guest room at the Presidential Palace, then dies at a hundred from eating too much caviar."
"I don't much like that story. Why is it I think it is more likely?"
"They could still catch him."
Michaels shook his head. "Somehow, my faith in the FBI's field ops is not as strong as it once was." He paused, staring at the congealing noodles and tofu. "Where is Colonel Howard?"
"In the air, on an Air Force jet. He should be here within the next couple of hours. What are we going to do?"
"Right now, if Platt wants to pick up a phone and call Hughes, can we stop him?"
"Jay says we can. If the virgil number Platt called before is the only one Hughes is using, we can jam it so it won't accept incoming calls. But there are other phones in Bissau, some of which probably even work. We can't block them all."
"Did you lay out what's going on for the colonel?"
"Not yet."
"Call him, tell him. Tell him to lay out his incursion scenarios. Find out what our chances are of going in and grabbing Hughes."
"Are we ready to take that road yet, Alex?"
"This guy terrorized the country, caused people to die, nearly gave a big chunk of a nuclear bomb to a bunch of nuts, and stole a shitload of money. I want to see him behind bars. If we do it right, we're in and out before anybody figures out what's going on, and Mr. Thomas Hughes belongs to us. I'm ready."
"I'll call the colonel."
The intercom buzzed. "Yes?"
"Sir, your wife's lawyer is on the phone."
Great. "Get his number. Then have my lawyer call him."
Toni looked at him.
"It's a long story. I'll tell you about it when we get caught up."
Sunday, January 16th, 5 p.m. Bissau, Guinea-Bissau
Hughes stood on the terraced balcony outside his room, looking over the pink buildings of the compound at the surrounding grounds. It wasn't so bad here, when you had this kind of accommodation. You could build yourself a decent house in this country for twenty thousand dollars, a mansion for less than a hundred thousand. And he had forty million. He'd manage.
He leaned against the balcony railing, watching a shirtless native gardener with a hoe dig weeds from a flower bed. You could hire a guy like that for twenty bucks a month.
Yes. He'd do all right here.
The deal with Domingos had gone as smoothly as it could have gone. A hundred million dollars had gone into El Presidente's priva
te Swiss account, and the mineral rights for the country of Guinea-Bissau now belonged almost entirely to Thomas Hughes. All the mineral rights were his, for the next ninety-nine years. The oil, bauxite, and phosphates alone were potentially worth billions—at least that was what Hughes's geologists and petroleum engineers had told him. Not to mention any gold, silver, copper, or whatever else might lay under the completely unexploited ground here. The problem was, the country had never had enough money in the till to do any serious digging, and not enough trust from the big international corporations for them to take the risks. You didn't want to spend a couple hundred million dollars to set up an operation in a place like this if you were worried about the locals putting your managers to the spear and taking over.
But with Hughes owning the rights, it would be different. He was an educated American, somebody that the big oil and mine companies could deal with. He had plenty of experience in high-level negotiations, courtesy of his work for White. He'd tell his potential partners he had resigned to come here and make his fortune. Hell, even if they knew he'd ripped off the banks, it wouldn't matter. If a man thought you were going to make him billions on a business deal, he'd likely be willing to overlook a few shady things in your past. There were folks wanted for crimes in the States who had gone on to lucrative careers in other countries. Who was that movie director who had run off to France or somewhere and stayed there because the locals admired his work and refused to extradite him?
Money was money. And in the billion-dollar range, ethics got real rubbery.
Hughes had scanned fully legal electronic copies of the freshly signed hardcopy agreements already stored where there was no chance of them getting lost.
He also had half-a-dozen major corporations falling all over themselves ready to drop planeloads of money on him for exploration leases.
Of course, Domingos would get a piece of that too, to go along with the "advance" he'd just collected. But when you were talking about billions, there was enough to go around. Besides, Domingos would probably have a heart attack or a stroke in the not-too-distant future, given his excesses. And if not naturally, something could be… arranged.
If ever a man had been in the driver's seat and in control of the bus, it was Thomas Hughes. Things were almost perfect.
When Platt showed up, he'd be getting a little surprise too. Domingos would be happy to furnish a well-trained shooter who would just as soon blast Platt as look at him. And even if Domingos hadn't been eager to help, as poor as most of the people in this country were, you could hire a small army of locals who'd be willing to put a knife into somebody—and for less than the cost of dinner for two in a good Washington restaurant.
Platt was going to become past tense within hours of his arrival. He was expecting to come and collect twenty million dollars, then vanish.
He was half right anyway.
Hughes straightened, and turned to head back into his room. Monique would be arriving soon for a little afternoon delight.
It was good to be the king, but being the man behind the king was almost as good—and certainly it was a lot safer.
Sunday, January 16th, 3 p.m. In the air aver the North Atlantic Ocean
Platt had the 767 to himself, save for the flight crew. Wasn't any stewardess to offer him drinks or membership in the Mile High Club, but he could stretch out in a nice hammock somebody had rigged in the empty cargo bay, and that was a plus. He was on his way to Merrie Olde England, and practically home free. Even if the feds happened across the kid in the freight office and questioned him, the kid had a thousand bucks he'd lose if he gave Platt up, plus some explaining as to why he had forged a date on a rental agreement.
Platt had hit a cash machine just outside the office, so he had money left, plenty enough to catch a flight to Senegal, rent a car, and buy himself a few toys. He didn't want to be landing at the Bissau airport—no, not hardly. That would get back to the Presidente pretty quick, and from the Presidente's lips into Hughes's ear, and that wouldn't do at all. Hughes expected him to be in the federal pokey by now; Platt wanted his appearance to be a real surprise.
Course, it might be tricky sneaking into the guarded compound, but even jigs couldn't see in the dark. Platt had learned how to move in the woods when he'd been a kid, and some African forest couldn't be much worse than the swamps back home. Once he was over the wall, the rest of it would be a walk.
It would be real tempting to break Hughes into itty-bitty pieces once he got to him, but all he really wanted was his twenty million. Well, okay, maybe a little extra for his aggravation and all, that would be fair. If Hughes didn't want to pay him, why, then he'd have to convince him, but that was the last resort. Push came to shove, he could kill the bastard and walk, but that wouldn't be good, he'd be broke and the law looking for him. Any way you looked at it, laying low in
Hawaii running his own gym was a lot better than being on the run.
Yep, that was how he planned it. Get some gear, sneak across the border, have a little chat with Mr. Hughes, finish this whole biz in the green. Course, he might have to find himself a can of shoe polish to blend in with the locals.
That was funny. Him, disguising himself as a darky.
He smiled. The more he thought about that, the better it got. Wouldn't that let the air out of Hughes's tires, he looked up and saw a giant spook who looked just like Platt coming in through the window?
Platt laughed aloud. Oh, yeah, it would.
Sunday, January 16th, 3:35 p.m. In the air over Virginia
Still flying home on the Air Force transport, Howard opened a shielded com with Julio Fernandez at Net Force HQ.
"I can't go off and leave you alone even for a couple of days, can I, Sergeant?"
"No, sir, Colonel. Cat's away, the mice'll have a field day."
"Let's hear it on all this African stuff, Julio. Is this serious?"
"Far as I can tell, yes, sir. About time too. It's been pretty dull around here lately."
"Talk to me."
The sergeant rattled off a bunch of background about the country, the language, the people, the geography. A minute into it, Howard said, "Look, just upload all that into my mailbox and I'll scan it later. Let's get down to the nitty-gritty. What are we going to run into if we drop in unannounced on the Republic of Guinea-Bissau?"
"Sir. The country is defended by something called the People's Revolutionary Armed Force, called the FARP locally. They have a small Army, about nine boats worth of Navy, and an Air Force consisting of a few prop planes and surplus helicopters—if you don't count the President's unarmed Learjet. They've got a paramilitary militia, and while they supposedly have maybe a couple hundred thousand able-bodied men who could be drafted, the standing army is a twentieth of that, poorly armed and uneducated. Probably half of them could figure out how to tie their shoes—if they had shoes."
"I see. What else?"
"They got zip railroads, under three thousand kilometers of paved road in the entire country, and thirty-five airports, two of which have enough runway to allow anything bigger than a crop duster to land. We'd have to put our transport down in Senegal, to the north, and go in either via copter, or overland—or maybe with an airdrop and parachutes.
"There are fewer than four thousand telephones in the country, maybe three for every thousand persons, and half those don't work."
"The phones don't work, Sergeant? Or the people."
"Both, sir. Average income is a couple hundred dollar per year."
"I see."
"They've got three FM radio stations, four AM stations—they like rock and country and western, and a lot of trash talk. There are two TV stations, one of which doesn't sign on until dark. That's because there are maybe as many TVs as there are telephones. And probably half that many personal computers total, of which maybe a third have web access."
"Sounds like a place to do my next survival trip."
"If we cruise in over ‘em anymore than a hundred feet up, we'll be safe, ‘cause no
ne of the locals can throw their spears that high. Me and a company of our second-teamers could parachute in after dark one night and be running the country by morning, without breaking a sweat."
"Lack of confidence has never been one of your failings, Julio."
"No, sir."
"You sound awfully happy for a man stuck on a dull base recovering from a shot-up leg. I recognize that tone. Who is she?"
"I'm sure I don't have any idea what the colonel is talking about."
"You'll go to Hell for lying like that, Sergeant."
"Yes, sir, and I'll have your landing site secured when you arrive."
Howard laughed. "All right. I'm going to scan in the stuff you're sending and run scenarios on my S&T system. I should be landing in"—he glanced at his watch—"about half an hour. Meet me there."
"Yes, sir."
"Pack your tropical-weights, Sergeant, and kiss your girlfriend good-bye."
"Not a problem, sir." He laughed.
"Something funny I missed?"
"Oh, no, sir. I just remembered an old joke."
"In thirty minutes, Julio."
"Sir."
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Monday, January 17th, 11 a.m. Quantico, Virginia
Michaels said, "All right, I think that's it. Questions?"
He looked around the conference room at the others: Howard, Fernandez, Winthrop, Gridley, and Toni.
Toni said, "Have we cleared this with the Director?"
"Currently the Director is in a don't-ask-don't-tell frame of mind," Michaels said. "If we deliver Hughes, he won't much care what we had to do to get him. And certain members of the Senate who might ordinarily scream to high heaven will be, I expect, very quiet about this particular detention." He grinned. "We also have some off-the-record help from the CIA. About as much as we want. Anything else?"
Nobody spoke.
"Good. You all have your assignments. Better go and get started."