"Yeah," Vega agreed. "I wouldn't mind seeing that. Hell, I wouldn't mind it if we got to go after the big shots where they fucking live! Think we could get them, Ding?"
Chavez grinned. "You shittin' me, Julio? Who you suppose they got working for them, soldiers? Shit. Punks with machine guns, probably don't even keep 'em clean. Against us? Shit. Maybe against what they got down there, maybe, but against us? No chance, man. I'm talking dead meat. I just get in close, pop the sentries nice an' quiet with my H and K, an' let you turkeys do the easy stuff."
"More Ninja shit," a rifleman said lightly.
Ding pulled one of his throwing stars from his shirt pocket and flicked it into the doorframe fifteen feet away.
"Smile when you say that, boy." Chavez laughed.
"Hey, Ding, could you teach me to do that?" the rifleman asked. There was no further discussion of the mission's dangers, only of its opportunities.
They called him Bronco. His real name was Jeff Winters, and he was a newly promoted captain in the United States Air Force, but because his job was flying fighter aircraft he had to have a special name, known as a call sign. His resulted from a nearly forgotten party in Colorado--he'd graduated from the United States Air Force Academy--at which he'd fallen from a horse so gentle that the animal had nearly died of fright. The six-pack of Coors had contributed to the fall, along with the laughter that followed from his amused classmates, and one of them--the asshole was flying trash-haulers now, Winters told himself with a tight smile--assigned him the name on the spot. The classmate knew how to ride horses, Bronco told the night, but he hadn't made the grade to fly F-15-Charlies. The world wasn't exactly overrun with justice, but there was some to be found.
Which was the whole purpose of his special mission.
Winters was a small man, and a young one. Twenty-seven, to be exact, he already had seven hundred hours in the McDonnell-Douglas fighter. As some men were born to play baseball, or to act, or to drive race cars, Bronco Winters had entered the world for the single purpose of flying fighter planes. He had the sort of eyesight to make an ophthalmologist despair, coordination that combined the best of a concert pianist and the man on the flying trapeze, and a much rarer quality known in his tight community as SA--situational awareness. Winters always knew what was happening around him. His airplane was as natural a part of the young man as the muscles in his arm. He transmitted his wishes to the airplane and the F-15C complied at once, precisely mimicking the mental image in the pilot's mind. Where his mind went, the airplane followed.
At the moment he was orbiting two hundred miles off the Florida Gulf Coast. He'd taken off from Eglin Air Force Base forty minutes earlier, topped off his fuel from a KC-135 tanker, and now he had enough JP-5 aboard to fly for five hours if he took things easy, as he had every intention of doing. FAST-pack conformal fuel cells were attached along the sides of his aircraft. Ordinarily they were hung with missiles as well--the F-15 can carry as many as eight--but for this evening's mission the only ordnance aboard were the rounds for his 20mm rotary cannon, and these were always kept aboard the aircraft because their weight was a convenience in maintaining the Eagle's flying trim.
He flew in a racetrack pattern, his engines throttled down to loitering speed. Bronco's dark, sharp eyes swept continuously left and right, searching for the running lights of other aircraft but finding none among the stars. He wasn't the least bit bored. He was, rather, a man quietly delighted that the taxpayers of his country were actually foolish enough to give him over $30,000 per year to do something for which he would have been grateful to pay. Well, he told himself, I guess that's what I'm doing tonight.
"Two-Six Alpha, this is Eight-Three Quebec, do you read, over?" his radio crackled. Bronco squeezed the trigger on his stick.
"Eight-Three Quebec, this is Two-Six Alpha. I read you five by five, over." The radio channel was encrypted. Only the two aircraft were using the unique encoding algorithm for this evening; all that anyone trying to listen in would hear would be the warbling rasp of static.
"We have a target on profile, bearing one-nine-six, range two-one-zero your position. Angels two. Course zero-one-eight. Speed two-six-five. Over." There was no command to accompany this information. Despite the secure radios, chatter was kept to a minimum.
"Roger, copy. Out."
Captain Winters moved his stick left. The proper course and speed for his intercept sprang into his mind unbidden. The Eagle changed over to a southerly heading. Winters dropped the nose a touch as he brought the fighter to a course of one hundred eighty degrees and increased power a fraction to bring his speed up. It actually seemed that he was abusing the airplane to fly her this slow, but that was not actually the case.
It was a twin-engined Beech, Captain Winters saw, the most common aircraft used by the druggies. That meant cocaine rather than the bulkier marijuana, and that suited him, since it was probably a cokehead who'd mugged his mom. He pulled his F-15 level behind it, about half a mile back.
This was the eighth time he'd intercepted a drug runner, but it was the first time he'd be allowed to do something about it. On the previous occasions he'd not even been allowed to call the information in to the Customs boys. Bronco verified the course of the target--for fighter pilots anything other than a friendly was a target--and checked his systems. The directional radio transmitter hanging in the streamlined container under the fighter's centerline slaved itself to the radar tracking Beech. He made his first radio call, and flipped on his landing lights, transfixing the small executive aircraft in the night. Immediately the Beech dived for the wave tops, and the Eagle followed it down. He called again, giving his order and getting no response. He moved the button on the top of his stick to the "guns" position. The next call was accompanied by a burst from his cannon. This started the Beech in a series of radical evasive turns. Winters decided that the target was not going to do what it was told.
Okay.
An ordinary pilot might have been startled by the lights and turned to evade a collision, but an ordinary pilot would not do what the druggies did. The Beech dived for the wave tops, reduced power, and popped his flaps, slowing the aircraft down to approach speed, which was far slower than the F-15 could do without stalling out. This maneuver often forced the DEA and Coast Guard planes to break contact. But Bronco's job wasn't to follow the guy in. As the Beech turned west to run for the Mexican coast, Captain Winters killed his lights, added power, and zoomed up to five thousand feet. There he executed a smart hammerhead turn and took a nose-down attitude, the Eagle's radar sweeping the surface of the sea. There: heading due west, speed 85 knots, only a few feet over the water. A gutsy pilot, Bronco thought, holding that close to a stall and that low. Not that it mattered.
Winters extended his own speed brakes and flaps, taking the fighter down. He felt to make sure that the selector button was still in the "guns" position and watched the Head-Up Display, bringing the pipper right on the target and holding it there. It might have been harder if the Beech had kept speed up and tried to maneuver, but it wouldn't really have mattered. Bronco was just too good, and in his Eagle, he was nearly invincible. When he got within four hundred yards, his finger depressed the button for a fraction of a second.
A line of green tracers lanced through the sky.
Several rounds appeared to miss the Beech ahead, but the rest hit right in the cockpit area. He heard no sound from the kill. There was only a brief flash of light, followed by a phosphorescent splash of white foam when the aircraft hit.
Winters reflected briefly that he had just killed one man, maybe two. That was all right. They wouldn't be missed.
9.
Meeting
Engagement
"So?" ESCOBEDO EYED Larson as coldly as a biology professor might look at a caged white rat. He had no special reason to suspect Larson of anything, but he was angry, and Larson was the nearest target for that anger.
But Larson was used to that. "So I don't know, jefe. Ernesto was a good pilot, a good
student. So was the other one, Cruz. The engines in the aircraft were practically new--two hundred hours on each. The airframe was six years old, but that's nothing unusual; the aircraft was well maintained. Weather was okay all the way north, some scattered high clouds over the Yucatan Channel, nothing worse than that." The pilot shrugged. "Aircraft disappear, jefe. One cannot always know why."
"He is my cousin! What do I tell his mother?"
"Have you checked with any airfields in Mexico?"
"Yes! And Cuba, and Honduras, and Nicaragua!"
"No distress calls? No reports from ships or aircraft in the vicinity?"
"No, nothing." Escobedo moderated somewhat as Larson went through the possibilities, professional as ever.
"If it was some sort of electrical failure, he might be down somewhere, but ... I would not be hopeful, jefe. If they had landed safely, they would have let us know by now. I am sorry, jefe. He is probably lost. It has happened before. It will happen again."
One other possibility was that Ernesto and Cruz had made their own arrangements, had landed somewhere other than their intended destination, had sold their cargo of forty kilograms, and had decided to disappear, but that was not seriously considered. The question of drugs had not even been mentioned, because Larson was not really part of the operation, merely a technical consultant who had asked to be cut out of that aspect of the business. Escobedo trusted Larson to be honest and objective because he had always been so in the past, taking his money and doing his job well, and also because Larson was no fool--he knew the consequences of lying and double-dealing.
They were in Escobedo's expensive condominium in Medellin. It occupied the entire top floor of the building. The floor immediately under this was occupied by Escobedo's vassals and retainers. The elevator was controlled by people who knew who could pass and who could not. The street outside the building was watched. Larson reflected that at least he didn't have to worry about somebody stealing the hubcaps off his car. He also wondered what the hell had happened to Ernesto. Was it simply an accident of some sort? Such things had happened often enough. One reason for his position as flying instructor was that past smuggling operations had lost quite a few airplanes, often through the most prosaic of causes. But Larson was not a fool. He was thinking about recent visitors and recent orders from Langley; training at The Farm didn't encourage people to believe in coincidences. Some sort of op was about to run. Might this have been the opening move?
Larson didn't think so. CIA was years past that sort of thing, which was too bad, he thought, but a fact nonetheless.
"He was a good pilot?" Escobedo asked again.
"I taught him myself, jefe. He had four hundred hours, good mechanical skills, and he was as good on instruments as a young pilot can be. The only thing that worried me about him was that he liked flying low."
"Yes?"
"Flying low over water is dangerous, especially at night. It is too easy to become disoriented. You forget where the horizon is, and if you keep looking out of the windows instead of checking your instruments.... Experienced pilots have driven their airplanes right into the water that way. Unfortunately, flying very low is fun and many pilots, especially the young ones, think that it is also a test of manhood. That is foolish, as pilots learn with time."
" 'A good pilot is a cautious pilot'?" Escobedo asked.
"That is what I tell every student," Larson replied seriously. "Not all of them believe me. It is true everywhere. You can ask instructors in any air force in the world. Young pilots make foolish mistakes because they are young and inexperienced. Judgment comes with experience--most often through a frightening experience. Those who survive learn, but some do not survive."
Escobedo considered that for a few seconds.
"He was a proud one, Ernesto." To Larson it sounded like an epitaph.
"I will recheck the maintenance log of the aircraft," the pilot offered. "And I will also review the weather data."
"Thank you for coming in so quickly, Senor Larson."
"I am at your service, jefe. If I learn anything, I will let you know."
Escobedo saw him to the door, then returned to his desk. Cortez entered the room from a side door.
"Well?"
"I like Larson," Cortez said. "He speaks the truth. He has pride, but not too much."
Escobedo nodded agreement. "A hireling, but a good one." ... like you. Cortez didn't react to the implied message. "How many flights have been lost over the years?"
"We didn't even keep records until eighteen months ago. Since then, nine. That's one reason we took Larson on. I felt that the crashes were due to pilot error and poor maintenance. Carlos has proven to be a good instructor."
"But never wished to become involved himself?"
"No. A simple man. He has a comfortable life doing what he enjoys. There is much to be said for that," Escobedo observed lightly. "You have been over his background?"
"Si. Everything checks out, but ..."
"But?"
"But if he were something other than what he appears to be, things would also check out." This was the point at which an ordinary man would say something like, But you can't suspect everyone. Escobedo did not, and that was a measure of his sophistication, Cortez noted. His employer had ample experience with conspiracy and knew that you had to suspect everyone. He wasn't exactly a professional, but he wasn't exactly a fool either.
"Do you. think--"
"No. He was nowhere near the place the flight left from, had no way of knowing that it was happening that night. I checked: he was in Bogota with his lady friend. They had dinner alone and retired early. Perhaps it was a flying accident, but coming so soon after we learn that the norteamericanos are planning something, I do not think we should call it such a thing. I think I should return to Washington."
"What will you find out?"
"I will attempt to discover something of what they are doing."
"Attempt?"
"Senor, gathering sensitive intelligence information is an art--"
"You can buy anything you need!"
"There you are incorrect," Cortez said with a level stare. "The best sources of information are never motivated by money. It is dangerous--foolish--to assume that allegiance can be purchased."
"And what of you?"
"That is a question you must consider, but I am sure you already have." The best way to earn trust with this man was always to say that trust did not exist. Escobedo thought that whatever allegiance money could not buy could be maintained with fear instead. In that sense, his employer was foolish. He assumed that his reputation for violence could cow anyone, and rarely considered that there were those who could give him lessons in applied violence. There was much to admire about this man, but so much also to merit disdain. Fundamentally he was an amateur--though a gifted one--who learned from his mistakes readily enough, but lacked the formal training that might have enabled him to learn from the mistakes of others--and what was intelligence training but the institutional memory of lessons from the mistakes of others? He didn't so much need an intelligence and security adviser as one in covert operations per se, but that was an area in which none of these men would solicit or accept advice. They came from generations of smugglers, and their expertise in corrupting and bribing was real enough. It was just that they'd never learned how to play the game against a truly organized and formidable adversary--the Colombians didn't count. That the yanquis had not yet discovered within themselves the courage to act in accordance with their power was nothing more than good fortune. If there was one thing the KGB had drilled into Cortez, it was that good fortune did not exist.
Captain Winters viewed his gunsight videotape with the men from Washington. They were in a corner office of one of the Special Ops buildings--Eglin had quite a few--and the other two wore Air Force uniforms, both bearing the rank of lieutenant colonel, a convenient middle grade of officer, many of whom came and went in total anonymity.
"Nice shooting, son," one observed
.
"He could have made it harder," Bronco replied without much in the way of emotion. "But he didn't."
"How about traffic on the surface?"
"Nothing within thirty miles."
"Put up the Hawkeye tape," the senior man ordered. They were using three-quarter-inch tape, which was preferred by the military for its higher data capacity. The tape was already cued. It showed the inbound Beechcraft, marked as XX1 on the alphanumeric display, one of many contacts, most of which were clearly marked as airliners, and had been high over the shoot-down. There were also numerous surface contacts, but all of them were a good distance away from the area of the attack, and this tape ended prior to the shoot-down. The Hawkeye crew, as planned, had no direct knowledge of what had transpired after handing over the contact to the fighter. The guidelines for the mission were clear, and the intercept area was calculated to avoid frequently used shipping channels. The low-altitude path taken by the drug smugglers helped, of course, insofar as it limited the distance at which someone might see a flash or an explosion, neither of which had happened here.
"Okay," said the senior one. "That was well within mission parameters." They switched tapes again.
"How many rounds expended?" the junior one asked Winters.
"A hundred 'n eight," the captain replied. "With a Vulcan it's kinda hard to keep it down, y'know? The critter shoots right quick."
"It did that plane like a chainsaw."
"That's the idea, sir. I could have been a little faster on the trigger, but you want me to try 'n avoid the fuel tanks, right?"
"That's correct." The cover story, in case anyone saw a flash, was that there was a Shoot-Ex out of Eglin--exercises killing target drones are not uncommon there--but so much the better if no one noticed at all.
Bronco didn't like the secrecy stuff. As far as he was concerned, shooting the bastards down made perfectly good sense. The point of the mission, they'd told him during the recruiting phase, was that drug trafficking was a threat to U.S. national security. That phrasing made everything legitimate. As an air-defense fighter pilot, he was trained to deal with threats to national security in this specific way--to shoot them out of the sky with as much emotion as a skeet-shooter dispatched clay birds thrown out from the traps. Besides, Bronco thought, if it's a real threat to national security, why shouldn't the people know about it? But that wasn't his department. He was only a captain, and captains are operators, not thinkers. Somebody up the line had decided that this was okay, and that was all he needed to know. Dispatching this Twin-Beech had been the next thing to murder, but that was as accurate a description of combat operations as any other. After all, giving people a fair chance was what happened at the Olympics, not where your life was on the line. If somebody was dumb enough to let his ass get killed, that wasn't Bronco's lookout, especially if he happened to be committing an act of war against Bronco's country. And that was what "threat to national security" meant, wasn't it?
Clear and Present Danger (1989) Page 19
