by Ward Larsen
Jen was in his arms.
He would never, ever let her go.
FORTY-SEVEN
The overloaded jeep careened wildly with Kehoe at the wheel, and everyone took a handhold to keep from being tossed into the jungle. Davis sat in the back of the jeep with an arm around each of the girls—he hadn’t let go of Jen since she’d jumped into his arms.
McBain was in the front passenger seat talking on the sat-phone, struggling to keep the handset in the vicinity of his ear as the jeep bucked over massive tree roots and bottomed out on potholes.
“I knew you’d come,” said Jen.
Davis pulled her even closer. “We’re not out of the woods yet.”
She rolled her eyes at his awful joke—like she always did.
He said, “We have an airplane a few miles from here, the same dirt strip where you and Kristin were pulled off that flight.”
“Is there a pilot too?” Jen asked.
He gave his daughter a pained look. “What am I?”
“Well,” she hesitated, “it’s just that I’ve seen you fly through rough situations. Like that time in Egypt when you nearly crashed into the—”
“Trust me,” he interrupted, “I’ll get you out of here. The worst is behind us.”
“We can’t assume that,” Kehoe said over his shoulder. “We aren’t the only ones with communications gear.”
Kristin said, “Carlos’ father was supposed to come today. He must be nearby, and I’ve been told he never travels alone.”
“His father?” Davis asked. “Who’s he?”
The jeep hit a massive rut and everyone went airborne in their seats. Shouting over the engine noise, Kristin gave a rundown of her relationship with Carlos, explaining that his father commanded a paramilitary force, but also had close ties to the government.
“Any idea what the government connection is?” McBain asked.
“I don’t know, but Carlos talked to his father every day on the phone, and he always had good information. He knew all the details of my flight, including that Agent Mulligan would be on it. He also knew a lot about the crash investigation.”
“Does Carlos have a last name?” McBain asked. “His father might be somebody we’ve tracked at DEA.”
“I always thought it was Duran,” said Kristin. “That’s what he used at school. But a few nights ago I saw an old passport with a different name—Carlos Echevarria.”
“Echevarria?” said McBain. “That’s a pretty common name.”
Davis was only surprised by his lack of surprise. “Not as common as you might think,” he said, without bothering to explain.
McBain went back to his sat-phone, and soon was relaying bad news. “Kristin is right. Jorgensen says reinforcements are heading our way. There’s a group of four vehicles less than a mile away on an intersecting trail.”
“Which direction are they coming from?” Davis asked.
“East. We’re going to pass a junction any minute on the right.”
“What about the airfield? Is it clear?”
“Right now it is. Delacorte is still there with their rent-a-pilot.” McBain locked eyes with Davis, and said, “You realize the Comanche is a four seater. How the heck are we all going to fit?”
Davis was well aware of the seating limitation, but he’d once seen a Comanche rigged for six passengers. At least he thought it was a Comanche.
“What about the other airplane,” said McBain, “it’s bigger. Could you fly that one?”
“I could fly it, sure … but it would take a few minutes for me to figure things out. Same goes for convincing the other pilot to switch to our team. There’s no time for any of that.” He tried to sound confident when he said, “It’s okay, the Comanche will work. The girls can squeeze into the cargo area behind the seats.” He made no mention of weight and balance calculations—something he would have considered if they weren’t being chased by an enemy platoon.
“There’s another problem,” McBain added unhelpfully. “Our drone is nearly out of gas—if it doesn’t leave soon it’s going to turn into a glider. Jorgensen played the emergency authority card, so there’s not much more he can do. We’re about to lose our eyes.”
At that moment the intersection came into view, and everyone went eyes-right like a squad marching past a reviewing stand at a parade. Sure enough, the reinforcements were there, less than a hundred meters away. In the lead was a light troop carrier, and it made the turn with two men in firing positions at the roof of the cab. To their credit, they didn’t waste ammunition—it would take a miracle to hit anything given the speed they were all traveling and the condition of the road.
“This isn’t going to work,” said McBain. “Two miles to go, and they’re right behind us. We’ve got a one-minute lead, but it’ll take five for us to climb into the airplane and get airborne.”
“Three,” said Davis, already going over the Comanche’s start procedure in his head. “But you’re right—it’s not enough time.”
Kehoe was completely focused on the road, but he diverted his attention long enough to say, “I saw three vehicles, so I’d say we’re up against twenty-five men. We don’t have the firepower to suppress a unit that size, let alone stand and fight.”
With the airfield just ahead there seemed no way out. An extended pause drove home the drought of ideas as the jeep’s tiny motor strained and its suspension rattled. It was Davis who broke the silence. “We might have one more round to fire than we think—a pretty big one, actually.” He explained his idea to McBain.
“No!” said the DEA man. “There’s no way they’ll approve that!”
Davis snatched the sat-phone from his hand. “Jorgensen, you there?”
“Yeah, Jammer, I’m here,” crackled the voice over the phone.
“I need you to patch me through to the guys controlling that drone. Tell them operational command of their asset has just been chopped. They are now taking orders from General Jammer T. Davis, Commander of United States Southern Command …”
* * *
The bunker in Panama had been dead quiet at the beginning of the shift. But then it always was. The soft hum of cooling fans from the computers was barely audible, as was the gentle hiss emanating from an overhead speaker, perpetually tuned to a little-used radio frequency. Until two hours ago the biggest disturbance of this early shift had been the coffeemaker at the back of the room gurgling to the end of its brew cycle. Then came the call from Colombia.
There were three workstations in the command center, each with a driver’s seat—triple multifunction displays, a flight control joystick on the right, and a throttle on the left. Only the center station was in use tonight, the lone operator glued to his colorful screens. The largest of these displayed essential flight information and a moving map, while the others offered sensor feeds and secondary flight data. An old-fashioned dry-erase board, nailed to the wall near the operator, confirmed that there was a single mission on the schedule today—one that had actually begun yesterday. Aside from the pilot, the only other person in the bunker was a supervisor standing behind him. Both were frowning. All systems on the Predator were functioning perfectly, but it had been a trying morning, and they now faced two critical problems. One was the aircraft’s fuel state, highlighted in red on the secondary flight display. The other was the level of confusion in the bunker.
“General who?” said the drone operator, his hand briefly coming off the joystick as he turned to look over his shoulder. He was a retired Air Force pilot, twenty-two years under his belt flying six different types of aircraft. He was one of the few among his commissioning year-group to have spent his entire career in a cockpit of some sort. The last four were spent in the same seat he was in now—controlling an unmanned aerial vehicle from a great distance.
“Jammie Davis?” questioned the supervisor. “Is that right? Southern Command is a goddamn four-star general!”
“I’ve never heard of the guy,” said the operator, pulling one side of his head
set away from his ear. “But that doesn’t mean much. When I retired two years ago I could have told you my wing commander’s name, and maybe the guy who headed up First Air Force. Four star billets were never in my future, so I didn’t bother to keep up with them. I do remember that there was a change of command at SOUTHCOM a few months back.”
A brief silence ensued.
If unmanned aerial vehicles were new to the DEA, they were quickly making their mark, undertaking previously impossible surveillance missions, and guiding interdiction efforts over the jungles of South America. Yet the Predator, like any new system, was not without growing pains. Chief among them was that little consideration had been given to operational decision making. Since the DEA’s drones didn’t carry weapons, little guidance had been drawn pertaining to command authority or rules of engagement. As for what this team had just been asked to do—that wasn’t in any manual.
“Where did that message source from?” asked the operator.
“It was the secondary secure line, the regional chief operations office.”
“Which means what—that Jorgensen’s got a four-star sitting next to him?”
“Could be,” said the supervisor, “or maybe he’s patched through to the guy. This is obviously some kind of black op we’re watching.”
The men stared at the big screen where a jeep with five confirmed friendlies was being pursued by truckloads of unconfirmed hostiles.
“I don’t know …” the supervisor hedged, “we’ve been watching this whole thing spin up for hours. My guess is we’re looking at a Special Forces team that’s working with DEA. The bottom line is that known friendlies on the ground are requesting help.”
“Normally I’d say run it up to headquarters,” said the operator, “but I don’t think there’s time.” He slewed the view forward and back, measuring things out. “Two minutes max—after that they’ll be at the airport and we won’t have any decision to make. Honestly, I’m not sure we have enough fuel to do it anyway.”
“Terrific,” said the supervisor. He had an all-civilian background, thirty-one years with the DEA. He was also a GS-13 on the cusp of retirement. He’d arrived in country five days ago for a six-month temporary duty posting—his stroke of genius, figuring that a winter in Panama had to beat one in D.C. He was now revisiting that choice.
A new voice boomed in, patched over the secure link. “This is General Davis! We need that support now, dammit!”
The two men in the bunker looked at one another. The operator keyed his microphone. “Archer one copies, we are working on authorization.”
“Authorization? Did you not hear me? Look at your infrared! Lives are on the line … at … this … moment!”
The operator kept to his flying, and said in a hushed voice, “I’m glad this is your call.”
The supervisor snatched up the hotline to DEA headquarters and on the fifth ring someone answered and put him on hold. “Dammit!” He slammed down the handset. “Well, we’re gonna earn one of two things here—a medal or prison time.”
“I vote we do it,” said the pilot.
“Can you do it?”
“Never been tried as far as I know. But if I switch to the nose camera … yeah, I think I can make it happen.”
The supervisor closed his eyes for just a moment. “All right, you’re cleared in hot. And for God’s sake, make it count!”
FORTY-EIGHT
Davis told the girls to stay low in the backseat, and covered them as best he could. The convoy behind them was losing ground, though only slightly—the jeep was lighter and more nimble, yet its speed was hampered by the condition of the road. As far as he could tell, no one had started shooting, but the men with rifles remained ominously behind the rocking cab. Davis was reasonably sure he recognized Major Raul Echevarria, a distant but steady presence in the passenger seat of the lead truck.
Echevarria’s involvement made perfect sense. It explained why the Bogotá police had so quickly become engaged, not to mention the quality of information Kristin Stewart’s kidnappers enjoyed. The note Echevarria had delivered, warning Davis to go home, was the most transparent clue. Less obvious, though every bit as certain—the murder of Colonel Alfonso Marquez in the parking lot of El Centro. Echevarria was behind everything, the keystone in a very unstable wall.
Riding shotgun in the lead truck, Echevarria knew the tactical situation as well as Davis did. There was no need for the Colombians to close ground, because in minutes they would all be at the same end point, and the hundred-yard gap would disappear in seconds. Davis looked up to the sky. He saw nothing above the high trees lining either side of the road. General Jammer T. Davis, apparently, had not made an impression.
Just then a piece of paper swirled up and slapped his cheek. He looked down. Kristin and Jen, bent low for cover, had the briefcase open on the floor.
“What are you doing?” Davis asked as another piece of paper shot skyward. This one stuck to his shirt and he recognized it as a U.S. Treasury bill wrapper.
“Something that will get them off our backs,” Kristin said.
Kehoe cast an eye over his shoulder. “Hey, wait a minute! You can’t—”
Before he could finish, the girls together lifted the suitcase high over Davis’ head, and seventy thousand hundred-dollar bills flew into the air like so much confetti. Everyone watched the flurry of Benjamin Franklins rise up into the air and flutter into the path of the oncoming trucks. The convoy plowed right through the cloud.
“What?” said an incredulous McBain. “You thought they’d just stop to pick it all up?”
“Okay …” Jen said, “maybe it was a bad idea.”
“No, it was a great idea,” Kristin countered. “The last thing I want is to give that money back to my deadbeat father.”
Kehoe rolled his eyes. “I can’t wait to file that expense report.”
“The girls are right on one count,” said Davis. “This is no time to give up.” He picked up the empty briefcase and heaved it backward. It bounced once, twice, and struck the lead truck squarely in a headlight.
“There’s only one solution,” said McBain. “When we reach the airfield, we’ll park the jeep to block the road. Jammer, you and the girls make a run for the airplane. Kehoe and I will hold them off.”
“Hold them off?” Davis questioned. “With what? You’ve got an AK with a partial mag, an empty Beretta that misfires, and a pair of rubber MP-5s that don’t even make good clubs. How long are you going to make a stand against two dozen armed men?”
“Hopefully long enough,” said Kehoe, “unless you have a better plan. They don’t know what we’ve got, so they’ll be cautious. It might buy enough time for you to get airborne.”
“What if I stayed and—”
“No!” argued McBain. “There’s no time to debate. You’re the pilot, Jammer, so you have to take the girls.”
Davis looked at Kehoe, who didn’t hesitate a beat before saying, “It stinks, but he’s right. That’s how we do it.”
From a tactical viewpoint Davis knew they were right. It was the only way to get the girls to safety. He also realized that McBain and Kehoe were prepared to risk their lives to make it happen. In times like this you learned a lot about people.
The airfield came into view in the distance, and Davis was about to give the plan his okay when his eye caught a glint in the sky. He searched above the horizon until his view was interrupted by a pair of towering trees. When the sky opened up again, Davis definitely saw a black speck. It was getting bigger, gaining definition. Soon he could make out a central body and two long, thin wings.
“There!” said McBain, who saw it as well.
Everyone watched the drone. It seemed to be coming right at them, no more than a few hundred feet above the treetops. It didn’t appear to be flying fast, but drones weren’t built for speed. Davis saw distinct oscillations in the aircraft’s path, jerky corrections that suggested it was flying above VNE—the “never exceed” speed. He watched the aircra
ft pitch and buck, and he wondered if it had run out of gas. For an instant it steered right at them, then the Predator lurched upward and screamed over their heads. The powerplant was loud and clear at full power.
Everyone, Kehoe included, turned to watch the drone as it leveled for an instant, then pitched down in a violent maneuver aimed squarely at the lead truck behind them. The driver swerved, and Davis was certain he saw Echevarria duck in the final milliseconds.
None of that made any difference.
For all his experience in investigating air crashes, Davis had never witnessed one from such an intimate perspective. He knew jet fuel was an accelerant, and that it was at its most deadly form in what brewed in the nearly empty wing tanks of the Predator—a vast reservoir of fuel vapor waiting for a spark.
The initial explosion was immense, and the aircraft and truck both disappeared in a cloud of fire that boiled above the tree line. Davis saw the next truck in line veer sharply to avoid the inferno before toppling on its side and skidding to a stop in the middle of the road. The third truck T-boned the second, and any subsequent disasters could only be imagined as a thick cloud of black smoke enveloped everything. Next came the secondary explosions—ammunition in the burning vehicles detonating like firecrackers. There were plenty of survivors, and they ran and crawled away from the flames like vermin from a burning building. A hard-core pair stumbled forward out of the cloud, as if trying to keep the chase alive, but gave up when the trailing man’s camouflaged trousers caught fire.
With half a mile to go they were nearly in the clear, but Kehoe’s foot stayed hard on the accelerator. They broke into the airfield clearing to find Delacorte and the charter pilot staring at the cloud of black smoke in the distance. Both had something in their hands. Davis couldn’t tell what it was at first, then Delacorte took off at a run toward the Comanche, and a fistful of playing cards fluttered to the ground.
The overtasked Comanche lumbered down the airstrip three minutes later. Even with the disaster a mile away, no one wanted to wait to see if the survivors had the wherewithal to organize a last-ditch assault. Davis used every bit of dirt to accelerate before milking the overloaded twin into the sky. The Comanche climbed out slowly, clawing at the heavy air, and Davis made one lazy orbit over the airstrip. The key to the chartered Cessna Caravan was still in his pocket, and Davis instructed McBain to tie it securely it to the pitot tube cover of their own aircraft, which had a long red streamer and block lettering that read: REMOVE BEFORE FLIGHT.
