The Hunters

by W. E. B Griffin

  There was another long pause before Pevsner asked, “What was this fellow’s name?”

  Castillo repeated it, then spelled it for him.

  “Where did you get this, Charley?” Pevsner asked.

  “Sorry.”

  “You don’t trust me?”

  “Why should I? A minute ago, you told me we’re no longer pals.” There was another long pause, then Castillo went on: “Alfredo knows. But since he doesn’t trust you enough to even give you a call to say, ‘Hi, Alek! How they hanging?’ I guess you’re just going to have to guess where we got it.”

  “Alfredo has no reason to distrust me and neither do you,” Pevsner said, sharply.

  “Well, truth to tell, I trust you. Up to a point. But Alfredo obviously isn’t so sure. Otherwise, he would have been in touch.”

  “I want to talk to Alfredo, Charley.”

  “Charley? I thought I was Colonel Ex-Friend.”

  “I want to talk to Alfredo, Charley,” Pevsner repeated.

  “Well, maybe when I’m down there something can be worked out.”

  “I mean right now.”

  “Give my regards to the family, Alek. And watch your back. You don’t have as many friends as you think you do.”

  [TWO]

  Midland International Airport

  Midland, Texas

  1455 12 August 2005

  “I’ve got it, Dick,” Castillo said.

  Miller raised both of his hands, fingers spread, to show that he was relinquishing control of the aircraft.

  They had been cleared for a straight-in approach to runway 34R.

  They could see the airfield clearly.

  He really hated to turn it over me, Castillo thought. At least, subconsciously. He knows it wouldn’t be safe for him to land with only one good leg. Dick really loves to fly. I’m not like that, never have been. I do it because that’s what I’m supposed to do and I try hard to do it well, because the alternative to doing it well is not pleasant to contemplate.

  I think I should be able to sit this thing down without any trouble. The approach is low and slow, and 34R is 9,501 feet long and 51 feet wide.

  But Fernando was right. I really shouldn’t be flying this by myself with only a few hours of on-the-job training.

  The approach control operator’s voice in his headset brought him to attention.

  “Gulfstream Three-Seven-Nine,” the controller said, “be advised that an Air Force F-15D has just begun his takeoff roll on 34R.”

  Before Castillo could open his mouth, Miller responded to the controller: “Thank you. We have him in sight.”

  Ahead of them, a dull-silver-painted Air Force fighter was moving with ever-increasing speed down the runway. It lifted off and almost immediately raised its nose so steeply that the entire aircraft seemed to be under them. The fuselage—just wide enough to hold the cockpit—was mounted on the leading edge of the swept-back wing between the intakes for the engines. There were two vertical stabilizers mounted on the rear of the wing.

  The pilot kicked in the afterburners and the plane began to climb at an astonishing speed.

  “Look at that sonofabitch go!” Miller said, softly, in awe.

  “What’s a D?” Castillo asked.

  “The trainer,” Miller replied. “Two seats.”

  “I wonder what it’s doing at Midland-Odessa?” Castillo said, then added, “I think this is the time we put the wheels down.”

  Ten seconds later, Miller reported, “Gear down and locked.”

  As Castillo taxied the Gulfstream up to the parking ramp before the Avion business-aviation building, Miller pointed out the window.

  “Why do I think that’s why that F-15D was here?” he asked.

  Colonel Jacob Torine, USAF, wearing a yellow polo shirt and khaki slacks, was walking from the building toward them.

  “Go let him in, Dick,” Castillo said. “I’ll shut it down.”

  Ninety seconds later, Colonel Torine stuck his head in the cockpit.

  “I don’t recall giving you permission, Colonel, to play by yourself in our airplane.”

  “And I didn’t know the Air Force let old men like you even ride in airplanes like that F-15D,” Castillo said, offering Torine his hand.

  “Only if they’re full-bull colonels,” Torine said. “You think that hard landing you just made did any serious damage?”

  “That was a greaser, Jake, and you know it.”

  “Beginner’s luck,” Torine said. “Agnes called me and said you were headed out here and probably to Gaucholand. She didn’t tell me why.”

  “We found out who sent the money to the AALs in Pennsylvania to buy their bomb shelter,” Castillo said. “It turns out he went to Texas A&M with Fernando.”

  “Interesting,” Torine said. “I guess that explains why Fernando—and the three Secret Service guys in the Avion building—are here. What happens next?”

  “I spent most of the trip out here thinking about that,” Castillo said. “I have an idea. It’s probably not a very good idea, but it’s all I could come up with.”

  “And are you going to share this not very good idea with me?”

  Castillo finished unstrapping himself and stood up. He met Torine’s eyes. “Yeah. And after—to use fighter jock terminology—I’m shot down in flames, you can tell me where I went wrong.”

  “I don’t know,” Torine replied. “Your flying skills leave something to be desired, but every once in a good while you have a reasonably good idea.”

  Castillo motioned that they go into the fuselage.

  Miller was sitting on the edge of one of the left forward-facing leather seats near the door. Doherty was sitting across the aisle from him. Delchamps and Yung were sprawled on the couches. They made room for Torine and Castillo.

  “It’s getting a little toasty in here, Ace,” Delchamps said.

  “An air conditioner is on the way,” Castillo said, then added: “You don’t know Jake, do you?”

  “No,” Delchamps replied, “but I know he’s all right. When Two-Gun Yung here saw him coming, he raised his eyes to heaven and said, ‘Thank you, God!’”

  Miller and Torine laughed.

  “I’m about to get the others in here,” Castillo said. “But before I do, Inspector Doherty, I want you to understand that what I’m going to propose is probably—hell, certainly—illegal. I don’t expect you to go along with it. But I do expect you to keep your mouth shut. When I want your opinion, I’ll ask. Clear?”

  Doherty, tight-lipped, nodded.

  Castillo nodded back, then went to the door.

  A ground crew was installing both an auxiliary power unit and an air-conditioning hose.

  Castillo raised his voice to be heard over the tug pulling the unit. “Make sure that’s working,” he ordered. “We’re going to have a meeting in here that may take sometime.”

  Then he looked at the Avion building and waved his arm. He couldn’t see Lopez or the Secret Service agents, but a moment later his cousin pushed through the door, followed by three men in gray suits, and all started walking toward the Gulfstream.

  When everyone was aboard, Castillo closed the stair door.

  “I know it’s a little crowded in here,” he said, “but I’m pretty sure it’s not bugged.”

  This earned him a dutiful laugh.

  “I wish I could stand up all the way up in here,” he said, earning a second polite laugh.

  After a moment to collect his thoughts, he went on: “Okay, what follows is classified Top Secret Presidential, by authority of a Presidential Finding. You will never disclose anything you hear or learn in this cabin to anyone at any time without my personal permission. Everybody understand that?”

  He looked at each man in turn until he got a nod of acknowledgment.

  “Some of you are aware that American Muslims in the Aari-Teg mosque in Philadelphia—a group with known ties to terrorists—have purchased a farm near Philadelphia where they will seek shelter when a suitcase nuclear
device, called a SADM, is detonated…”

  “…And,” Castillo wound up his opening comments, “now that you know the manner in which I intend to deal with Mr. Kenyon would drive just about any civil libertarian up the wall, I’m going to give you ninety seconds to make up your mind whether you’re in or out.

  “Those who decide, for any reason, that they can’t participate in this operation are free to go. No hard feelings. But with that caveat that they are not to reveal anything they have just heard or attempt to interfere in any manner with what I’m going to do.

  “I hate to sound like a hard-ass, but we’re really playing hardball here and anyone who runs off at the mouth will be prosecuted for unlawful disclosure of Top Secret Presidential material. That prosecution will go forward no matter what happens to me.

  “And when I said you have ninety seconds to make up your mind, I meant it.”

  He raised his wrist and punched the SWEEP second button on his aviator’s chronometer.

  “The clock is running,” he announced.

  Ninety seconds passed in absolute silence. It felt like much longer.

  “Time’s up.”

  Castillo walked to the forward bulkhead and opened the door.

  No one moved.

  “Now’s the time to leave,” he said.

  No one moved.

  “You heard that, Inspector Doherty?” Castillo asked.

  “I heard you clearly, Colonel,” Inspector Doherty said.

  “Okay, then let’s get this circus on the road,” Castillo ordered.

  [THREE]

  Avion Aviation Services Transient Aircraft Tarmac

  Midland International Airport

  Midland, Texas

  1705 12 August 2005

  “Here they come,” Special Agent David W. Yung, Jr., said, gesturing out the window toward a black Mercedes-Benz S500 driving up to the Gulfstream.

  “Wind it up, Jake,” Castillo ordered as he walked to the switch that controlled the opening and closing of the stair door.

  “Midland Ground Control,” Torine said, “Gulfstream Three-Seven-Nine at Avion. Request taxi instructions for immediate departure.”

  Castillo stood in the passage between the cabin and the cockpit and watched as the Mercedes pulled up close to the aircraft.

  The Mercedes stopped. The front passenger’s door opened and Philip J. Kenyon III—a large, stocky man wearing a white polo shirt, a linen jacket, khaki trousers, and tan western boots—got out as Fernando Lopez stepped out from behind the wheel.

  Kenyon, perspiring in the Texas summer heat that baked the tarmac, looked admiringly at the Gulfstream. Then, smiling, he started walking toward the stair door as two men got out of the rear seat of the Mercedes.

  Kenyon did not seem to notice as a black GMC Yukon XL approached the Mercedes and the aircraft and pulled to a stop, effectively screening the activity near the plane from any possible onlookers.

  As Kenyon got close to the stair door, the man who had been riding in the left rear seat of the Mercedes took what looked very much like a black semiautomatic pistol from under his jacket, rested his elbows on the Mercedes hood, took aim, and fired.

  There was no loud sound, as there would have been had the man fired a firearm, but instead there was a barely audible pop, as that of an air rifle firing. Kenyon made a sudden move with his hand toward his buttocks as if, for example, he had been stung by a bee. Then he fell to the ground and appeared to be suffering from convulsions.

  The man who had fired what looked like a pistol tossed it to the man who had gotten out of the right rear seat of the Mercedes and then got behind the wheel.

  The man who now had what looked like a pistol went to Kenyon and tugged at something apparently embedded in Kenyon’s buttocks. Then Fernando Lopez bent over Kenyon and—with some effort, as the big man was still convulsing—picked him up over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry and started to climb the stair door.

  There was a whine as one of the G-III’s engines began to turn.

  Castillo came to the head of the stairs, got a firm grip on Lopez’s polo shirt, and hauled him and Kenyon into the fuselage as the man who now had the pistol-like device pushed Lopez from the rear.

  As soon as everyone was inside the Gulfstream, the Mercedes and then the Yukon drove off.

  The stair door began to retract and the Gulfstream began to move as its other engine was started.

  “Put him facedown on the couch,” Castillo ordered, then had a second thought: “after you take his clothes off. Being in your birthday suit surrounded by half a dozen ugly men with guns usually tends to make interrogatees very cooperative.”

  “You’re bad, Ace,” Edgar Delchamps said.

  “Oh, shit!” Yung said, then chuckled and added: “Literally. Charley, he’s crapped his pants!”

  “Is that what they call an unexpected development, Ace?” Delchamps asked.

  “Put him in the aft crapper,” Castillo ordered.

  Philip J. Kenyon III returned to full consciousness to find himself sitting on the floor of a plastic-walled cubicle that smelled of feces. An Asian man—in shirtsleeves with an automatic pistol in a shoulder holster and holding what looked like another pistol in his hand—looked down at him.

  “What the hell?” Kenyon said. “What happ—”

  Yung put the index finger of his bandaged hand in front of his lips and said, “Sssshhh!”

  “What the—”

  Yung raised the pistol-like device and pointed it at Kenyon’s chest.

  “The next time you open your mouth, you’ll get it again,” he said almost conversationally. “What you are going to do now is take off your clothing and clean yourself. Put your filthy shorts in this and hand the rest of your clothes to me.”

  He handed Kenyon a gallon-sized plastic zipper bag.

  Philip J. Kenyon III, naked, his handcuffed hands before him holding a small towel over his groin, came down the fuselage aisle.

  “Lay the towel on the seat, Tubby,” Castillo ordered. “And sit on it. I don’t want you soiling my nice leather upholstery.”

  “God, he smells!” Delchamps said.

  Kenyon did as he was ordered.

  “Feeling a little disoriented, are you, Tubby?” Castillo asked.

  “Jesus Christ!” Kenyon said.

  “You have been Tazed,” Castillo said. “Or is it Tasered? In any event, what that means is that we have caused fifty thousand volts and one hundred thirty–odd milliamperes of electricity to pass through your body. You may have noticed that this is some what incapacitating.

  “If you show the slightest indication of being difficult, or if you refuse to answer completely and without hesitation any questions that I or any of these other gentlemen ask you, you will be Tasered again. You understand?”

  Kenyon nodded.

  “When you are asked a question, you will respond by saying, at the minimum, ‘Yes, sir’ or ‘No, sir.’ Understand?”

  Castillo noticed more than a little anger in Kenyon’s eyes. But his fear clearly was far worse.

  Kenyon nodded and said, “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you have any questions, Tubby?”

  It took Kenyon thirty seconds to respond, enough time for him to pick up a little bravado.

  “I’d like to know what the hell is going on here, Castillo,” he said, stiffly. “And where I am, where we’re going. I was told I was just coming out to see your new airplane.”

  “That’s three questions,” Castillo said. “From now on, when I say you may ask a question, that means one question. But since you were unaware of the rule, I will answer your three questions.

  “Where are we? We are at approximately twenty thousand feet in a climbing attitude on a course of approximately three hundred forty degrees. We are headed for Florence, Colorado. We’ll get to what the hell is going on here in a bit. Another question?”

  “Florence, Colorado? What’s in Florence, Colorado?”

  “That’s two questions, Tubby
. I’m not going to tell you again. The next time he asks two questions at once, Special Agent Yung, Taser him.”

  “Yes, sir,” Yung said.

  “But since your questions are some what related, I will answer them. Florence, Colorado, is home to the Federal ADMAX prison, ADMAX meaning ‘Administrative Maximum Security Prison.’ Are you familiar with the Florence ADMAX, Tubby?”

  “No,” Kenyon replied, some what impatiently.

  Castillo held up his index finger.

  “No, sir,” Kenyon said, quickly.

  “The Florence ADMAX confines very bad people—and I mean really confines: Prisoners are not allowed contact with any other prisoners and are released from their one-man cells for exercise for one hour per day. They are allowed one-hour family visits every other month, provided, of course, their behavior has earned them that privilege.

  “And by very bad people, I mean, for example, Robert Hannsen, the FBI agent who was caught spying for Russians, and—of special interest to you—both Omar Abdel-Rahman and Ramzi Yousef, the Islamic terrorists who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993. They are all going to spend the rest of their lives without the possibility of parole in the Florence ADMAX. Personally, I think all traitors and terrorists, or those who help them, should be executed, but the court showed those scumbags leniency. Perhaps they will, too, in your case.

  “I wouldn’t bet on that, though, Tubby. You’re an Aggie. You were an Army officer. You knew better than to do what you did. I really can’t see a jury—especially a Texas jury—recommending clemency for you. Question?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Kenyon said, having mustered just a little more bravado.

  “The next time he volunteers a mistruth, Yung, Taser him.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Tubby, you’re not actually going to deny, are you, that you sent $1,950,000 from accounts you probably thought no one knew you have in the Caledonian Bank and Trust Limited in the Cayman Islands to the Aari-Teg mosque in Easton, a religious group with known connections to Muslim terrorists?”

  Kenyon’s skin paled. His eyes widened.

  “Are you?” Castillo pursued.

  Kenyon sat up abruptly and vomited on the floor.