There was a change in the pitch of the Tu-934A engines and Castillo turned to see that it was moving slowly out of the hangar. Castillo took one last look around, ran to Roscoe J. Danton, and tried to lead him to the ramp of the Tu-934A.
Mr. Danton was not sure he wished to go at this time. He resisted. Castillo grabbed the strap of Roscoe’s camera, jerked hard on it, breaking it, and then, when Roscoe started to protest, grabbed the camera itself, ran to the open ramp of the Tu-934A, and threw the camera aboard. Roscoe then jumped onto the airplane to retrieve his camera.
While he was so engaged, Castillo grabbed Sweaty’s arm and led her to the ramp of the Tu-934A. She leapt nimbly onto it.
So did Max, after considering for ten seconds the wisdom of doing so. In that time, the airplane moved away, rolling faster.
For a very terrifying moment, Castillo was afraid he wouldn’t be so nimble as the love of his life and his dog. He ran after the plane and made a running dive onto the ramp, landing on his stomach.
Max got to him first and licked his face as he was trying to get up. Mr. Danton recorded for posterity Max licking his master’s face as he lay on the ramp. Then Sweaty pulled Castillo to his feet, and he moved as fast as he could toward the cockpit. Max chased after him.
When Castillo got to the cockpit, he saw that Torine had lined up the airplane on the runway. He dropped into the right seat and quickly clamped on a headset.
“Closing the ramp,” Torine’s voice came matter-of-factly over the earphones. “Throttles to takeoff power.”
The Tu-934A began to move.
“Call out airspeed for me, First Officer, if you’d be so kind,” Torine said.
Castillo found the airspeed indicator in the split second when the needle jumped off the peg and pointed to forty. The landing gear began rumbling.
That’s kilometers. The pilots told us rotation speed was one-fifty.
That’s not quite a hundred knots.
You can rotate this great big sonofabitch at a hundred knots?
Is that what you call misinformation?
Was that Russian pilot lying to us?
“Seventy,” Castillo called out. “That’s klicks, Jake.
“Ninety ...
“One-ten . . .
“One-thirty . . .
“One-fifty.”
“Rotating,” Torine said calmly.
A moment later, the rumble of the landing gear died.
“One-ninety ...
“Two-ten.”
“Get the gear up, First Officer. It’s that lever with the wheel on top.”
Castillo found the lever and moved it.
“Gear coming up . . .
“Gear up.
“Jesus! Two-eighty.”
“Now let’s see how it climbs,” Torine said, as if to himself.
Castillo felt himself being pressed hard against the cushions of his seat.
Torine said, “No wonder the agency is willing to pay all that money—what was it, one hundred twenty-five million?—for one of these. This is one hell of an airplane, First Officer.”
Castillo had a very clear mental image of Sweaty—and maybe everybody else in the fuselage—all in a pile of broken bones against the closed ramp.
The pressure on his back against his seat suddenly stopped. Jake had leveled off.
“Put your goddamn harness on,” Torine ordered.
As soon as he saw that Castillo had done so, Jake dove for the surface of the water.
Castillo now had a very clear image of everybody sliding forward in the fuselage to end in a pile of broken bones against the cockpit door.
Torine read his mind.
“Now take the harness off, First Officer,” he ordered, “and go back and see how our passengers are enjoying the flight.”
Castillo found all the passengers except two were in their seats. Dmitri Berezovsky was standing beside one of the blue plastic beer barrels, examining it thoughtfully. Sweaty was on her knees beside General Yakov Sirinov, in the process of administering to him what Castillo presumed was the morphine she had promised.
Castillo went back to the cockpit and strapped himself in.
The airspeed and altimeter dials indicated that they were flying at eight hundred and forty kilometers per hour—or about five hundred knots—at a hundred meters—or five hundred feet—above the Caribbean Sea.
Fuel consumption at that speed and altitude would be horrendous, and there was of course the danger that they would go into the drink.
But, on the other hand, they didn’t have that far to go, and at five hundred feet they wouldn’t be a blip on anybody’s radar screen.
“You want to take it, Charley, while I get my laptop?”
“I’ll get your laptop. You drive,” Castillo replied.
[THREE]
Laguna el Guaje
Coahuila, Mexico
0940 13 February 2007
Jake Torine carefully nosed the Tu-934A into the cave, and turned to Charley Castillo.
“I would tell you to shut it down, First Officer, but I’m afraid you’d break something.”
“After that hard landing, I expect a lot of it would break easily,” Castillo replied.
“That was a greaser and you know it. And did you notice the thrust reversers?”
Castillo had had another vision of everybody in the fuselage slamming into the cockpit wall when he’d activated the thrust reverser controls. The Tu-934A had slowed as if it had caught the cable on the deck of an aircraft carrier.
“I noticed,” he said.
“The agency will be getting a hell of a bargain when the LCBF Corporation sells this to them for a hundred and twenty-five million,” Torine said. “Have you considered asking for more?”
“Don’t be greedy, Jake,” Castillo said. “Where’s the ramp lever?”
General Allan Naylor, Lieutenant General Bruce J. McNab, Lieutenant Colonel (Designate) Allan Naylor, Jr., Uncle Remus Leverette, Vic D’Allessando, Lester Bradley, Frank Lammelle (now wearing shoes and socks, and no plastic handcuffs), Aloysius F. Casey, and a burly man in a business suit were all standing at the foot of the ramp.
Max raced down the ramp, barked hello, and headed for the landing gear.
Salutes were exchanged, as a Pavlovian reaction. Even the burly man in the business suit saluted. With his left hand.
What the hell is that? Who’s that guy? Castillo wondered.
He asked, “So, what’s happened?”
There had been radio silence during the flight from the island. That had been Castillo’s decision. Once everybody was airborne, they were on their own. They could neither help—nor be helped by—anyone else. That being the case, there was nothing to talk about.
“What else has happened? About what?” General McNab asked innocently, and then took pity on him. “All aircraft having been recovered—including one Mexican UH-60 flown by an officer whose ass I will have just as soon as I can get my hands on him—the USS Bataan is proceeding at best speed consistent with available fuel to Norfolk.”
Castillo smiled. “Then it looks like we got away with it.”
“God answered our prayers,” Sweaty said.
“You have the Congo-X?” General Naylor asked.
“Yes, sir. And General Sirinov.”
“You got away with Phase One, Colonel,” General Naylor said. “The military part. Phase Two, the political part, now begins. I suspect that will be more difficult, and our chances of success less in Phase Two.”
Castillo looked at Lammelle.
“Hey, Frank, I see they turned you loose. More or less. How the hell are you? And what do you think of this airplane the agency is about to buy?”
“Leave him alone, Charley,” McNab said.
“Congratulations, Charley,” Lammelle said. “That was—”
“What did you do, Frank, change sides?” Castillo said. “The last I heard, you were going to shoot me with your air pistol and load me on an Aeroflot flight to Moscow.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Dennis!” General Naylor said.
The man in the business suit took a step forward, came to attention, and barked, “Sir!”
“Colonel, this is Master Sergeant Dennis. He is Colonel Hamilton’s principal assistant. He will tell you what he wants done with the Congo-X.”
Castillo took a closer look at Master Sergeant Dennis.
No wonder he salutes with his left hand—he doesn’t have a right arm.
“What do you need, Sergeant?” Castillo asked.
“Sir, Colonel Hamilton sends his best regards.”
“Thank you.”
“Sir, where is the Congo-X?”
Castillo gestured up the ramp. “In there. Behind that front-loader, or forklift, whatever it is. There are three barrels of it.”
“Is there any more of it, Colonel?” General Naylor asked. “Were you able to determine that?”
“According to General Sirinov, sir, that’s all of it. I believe him.”
“He’s telling the truth,” Sweaty said.
General Naylor looked at her. “How do you know that?”
“Because he knows that if I find out he’s lying,” Sweaty said, “he will die a very slow and painful death. This time with no morphine.”
“This time?” General Naylor asked.
“Colonel Alekseeva shot General Sirinov in the foot,” Castillo said. “And later took pity on him and gave him a shot of morphine.”
“She was aiming for his foot, right?” McNab asked. “I mean, that wasn’t a near miss or anything like that?”
“No, sir. She was aiming for his foot.”
“I knew she was my kind of girl,” McNab said.
Naylor glared at him.
“Where is General Sirinov?” Naylor asked.
“Plastic-cuffed to the first barrel behind the cockpit,” Castillo said.
“Allan, get in there, free the general, and see what attention he needs,” Naylor said.
“You can go get him,” Sweaty said. “But do not take off his cuffs. And take someone ... No. I will go with you. He is a very dangerous man.”
“You want me to go get him, Charley?” Uncle Remus asked.
“No,” Castillo said. “Go see if you can operate that forklift, or whatever it is. Sweaty, take Lester with you. Tell General Sirinov that Lester’s the fellow who took out Lieutenant Colonel Yevgeny Komogorov, and he would like nothing more than putting a bullet in his eye.”
Two minutes later, General Sirinov, obviously in pain, limped down the ramp, supported by Allan Junior and trailed by Lester Bradley, who held a 1911A1 Colt .45 pistol at his side, and by Sweaty.
“Okay, Frank,” General McNab said.
Lammelle walked to Sirinov.
“General,” he said in Russian, “my name is Lammelle. Does that mean anything to you?”
“I know who you are, Mr. Lammelle,” Sirinov said in English.
“Are you going to answer my questions, General? Or should I—for the time being—simply have you confined?”
Castillo wondered: How did Lammelle get in the act?
What the hell’s going on with him?
“Under the circumstances, Mr. Lammelle, answering whatever questions you have for me seems to be the obvious best option of those pointed out to me by our mutual friend Svetlana.”
“Can you make it to the elevator?” Lammelle asked, pointing to it.
Sirinov nodded.
“Do you want to go with them, Colonel?” Castillo asked Sweaty.
“Of course,” she said.
“Stick with them, Lester,” Castillo ordered.
“Yes, sir.”
There came the sound of a diesel engine starting, and a moment later Uncle Remus drove the forklift down the ramp.
“With your permission, Colonel?” Master Sergeant Dennis said, and when Castillo nodded, walked up the ramp into the Tu-934A.
[FOUR]
With great skill—and very carefully—Uncle Remus lowered one of the blue beer barrels onto a layer of insulated blankets in the bottom of a pit dug in the floor of the cave.
When Master Sergeant Dennis unfastened the web straps around the barrel and gave Uncle Remus the “up” signal, Uncle Remus raised the arms of the forklift, and then backed away from the pit.
Then he stood up and took a bow.
“What would we do without you?” Castillo asked.
“I shudder at the thought,” Uncle Remus said, and then turned to Master Sergeant Dennis. “What do you want me to do, Sergeant? Get another barrel, or help you load the helium on top of this one?”
Dennis thought it over before replying.
“It would be better if we got all the barrels in the ground first,” he said. “And then put the helium packages, the bags, on top. If one of the bags got ripped, and the helium contacted the arms of the forklift, they would shatter. Helium makes a witch’s teat look like the sun.”
“You got it, Sarge,” Uncle Remus said, and steered the forklift back to the ramp of the Tu-934A.
[FIVE]
“What we did in the lab, Colonel,” Master Sergeant Dennis explained in the dining room of the house, after taking a swallow from a bottle of Dos Equis beer, “that killed that shit, was to expose it to the helium—at minus two-seventy Celsius for fifteen minutes.”
“And that killed it?” Castillo asked.
“Dead as a fucking doornail, Colonel,” Dennis confirmed, then drained his bottle. “Do you suppose I could have another one of these?”
“Give the nice man another beer, Uncle Remus,” Castillo ordered.
“And then we let it thaw,” Dennis went on. “It took eight hours and twelve minutes at seventy degrees Fahrenheit.”
“And it was then really dead?” Castillo said.
“Dead fucking dead,” Dennis confirmed. “But what we don’t know, Colonel, is how cold the helium we used just now was. It was way the fuck down there, but it may not have been all the way down to minus two-seventy Celsius. So what Colonel Hamilton told me to do was give it a thirty-minute bath. We did that. And more. The helium is still on the barrels.”
“Makes sense. What are you going to do about thawing it?”
“We also don’t know about the thawing. If we took the helium off now, it’s seventy-four Fahrenheit in the cave—probably seventy-six or -seven by now—so it would thaw faster. But it might not be all the way dead, if you take my meaning, when it’s thawed faster.”
Castillo had a sinking feeling in his stomach.
“So, then what do we do?”
“It’s ninety-two Fahrenheit in the sun outside,” Dennis said. “Or was, just before you landed. It’s probably a little hotter now.”
“What are you suggesting—that we thaw it in the sun?” Castillo asked, confused. “Wouldn’t that increase the risk that it wouldn’t be ‘all the way dead’?”
“It may be dead now, and we’re just wasting time thawing it.”
“What are you suggesting, Sergeant Dennis?” Castillo demanded.
Dennis looked very uncomfortable.
Castillo had an epiphany, and softly asked, “What does Colonel Hamilton think will happen if Congo-X is thawed rapidly?”
Dennis didn’t immediately reply.
“Goddamn it, Sergeant! What did Colonel Hamilton say?”
“He said that when magicians freeze goldfish with dry ice and then bring them back to life, they can do that because they were never completely dead. He said that he thinks when you get something down to minus two-seventy Celsius, it’s completely dead, and you couldn’t bring it back even by thawing it in a microwave.”
“Did he tell you not to tell me this?”
Dennis nodded.
“Did he say why?”
“He said if you heard he said it, you would treat it like he was talking in a cathedral—I don’t know what the hell he meant by that—and base your decisions on that.”
“Speaking ‘ex cathedra,’ Sergeant?”
“Right.”
“If we put one of those kegs in the sun for as long as it takes to thaw it, could you determine if the Congo-X was dead here?”
“I’ve got stuff with me that’ll let me test it so I’ll know with ninety-percent certainty whether or not that shit is still alive or not. To be absolutely sure, we’d have to test it in the lab at Fort Detrick.”
“How did you get here, Sergeant?”
“Mr. Casey picked me up in his airplane at Baltimore/Washington. Nice airplane!”
“And Colonel Hamilton didn’t come. Why?”
“We don’t trust the people in the lab. They would tell somebody—probably those fuckers in Las Vegas—that he was gone. So I went to the PX, called the lab, and asked for the day off. Then I got on the bus and went out to Baltimore/ Washington.”
“If we put one of those beer kegs in the sun, how long would it take to thaw?” Castillo asked. “Let me put that another way: How long would we have to leave one of those kegs in the sun before loading it on Mr. Casey’s G-Five to fly it to Fort Detrick, so that it would be thawed, or damned near thawed, when it got there?”
“I been thinking about that, Colonel. It’s about seventy Fahrenheit in the airplane. I suppose you could up that some, if you wanted to?”
“Probably to eighty, maybe a little higher,” Castillo said.
“We’d have to leave the keg in the sun for two hours fifteen. Better yet two hours thirty. I think it would be pretty well thawed by the time we got it into the lab.”
Castillo looked at Leverette, and said, “Uncle Remus, will you please help Sergeant Dennis move one of those beer barrels into the sun—somewhere no one will see it? And then you two sit on it.” He heard what he had said, and added, “Correction. You don’t have to actually sit on it, but I want eyes on it all the time.”
“You know what you’re doing, Charley?”
“Hoping that I’m right, that Colonel Hamilton is right, and that Master Sergeant Dennis is right. Is that enough for you?”
“I always like you better when you admit you don’t really know what the fuck you’re doing,” Uncle Remus said. “Let’s go, Dennis.”
The Outlaws: a Presidential Agent novel Page 51
