Parker ran a hand over his cropped silver coloured hair. “God, what a crap job this is sometimes.” He turned to Rainer. “What do you think? Has he got any chance at all of bringing this guy Caplin back?”
Steve Rainer shrugged. “He’ll be all right, that one is like a fox, cunning and resilient. But then who knows, he may get his British head blown off?”
Parker said, “We’ve got a long wait ahead of us, let’s get some coffee.”
Fernandes said sullenly, “I’m going back to the hanger to clear my tools away.”
Parker and Rainer walked the short distance towards one of the huts. He watched the pair of them go up the steps and inside the timber building before taking out his mobile phone and dialling a series of numbers. When a voice answered he spoke rapidly in Spanish. “This is Fernandes, get me Colonel Serra.”
The clipped reply came almost immediately. “Serra.”
“This is Fernandes, I’ve got something for you Colonel. A Cessna Skyhawk has just left Johnson’s Field, two occupants, one FBI, heading for the abandoned military strip on the northeast coast. The aircraft radio has been set to your own frequency, but I’ve no doubt the Englishman will have it switched off until the very last minute.”
“Who is this Englishman, anyone we know?”
“His name Colonel, is Dillon — Jake Dillon. He’s sixtwo tall, messy dark hair, difficult to put an age on, but I’d say somewhere around forty. Very suave and charming, but the eyes they are as cold as gun metal.”
“I’ll have him checked out, you have done well Fernandes. Mr Dillon can be assured of a very warm Cuban welcome.”
Serra smiled to himself, as he replaced the receiver. The line went dead and Fernandes put the phone back into his overall pocket. He took out a single Havana cigar from a torpedo shaped tube and lit it, savouring the moment. Shame about the Englishman. He’d rather liked him, but his family’s safety came first, and he started to carefully put away his tools.
After skirting around the Key West radar zone, and two miles out from Johnsons, Dillon turned the Skyhawk onto a new course of one-nine-five degrees, next stop Cuba. But the thick cloud, and constant driving rain, was already giving him real trouble. Because of the low altitude they were flying at, he had the added problem of swirling mist that gave only an intermittent view of the ocean two hundred feet below. “What in the hell am I doing here?” he said softly.
It was Romerez who answered his question. “You’re here Jake, because you’ve got nothing better to do at this precise time — right?”
“Yes I guess so. But that’s not what I meant, what I actually meant was; what the hell am I doing flying in weather like this.” He got a cigarette out, lit it and sat back in his seat.
After an hour, Romerez tapped Dillon on the arm and pointed out of her side screen at the coast of Cuba. He switched on the radio set and immediately dropped down to one hundred feet above the choppy waters of the Caribbean, swooping low up the Clara Vista River estuary.
The accented English speaking voice that Dillon was now listening to through his headphones made the short hairs on the back of his neck stand to attention.
“Good evening Mr Dillon, Miss Romerez, welcome to Cuba.”
The Russian built Mi-8 attack helicopter took up position close to the starboard wing of the Skyhawk, the insignia of the Cuban air force boldly emblazoned on its fuselage.
The helicopter pilot spoke again. “Stay on this course, Mr Dillon, the airstrip is straight ahead, and they’re expecting you. Colonel Serra is looking forward to meeting you both. Who knows he may even invite you both to dinner.”
“Well, who am I to disappoint Colonel Serra, especially if he’s gone to the trouble of cooking?” Dillon said cheerfully. “Straight ahead to the airstrip it is.”
He continued his approach into the abandoned airstrip with the helicopter holding steady on the starboard wing. The thought of Colonel Serra, and his idea of hospitality inside a Cuban prison cell sent a shiver down Dillon’s spine. He didn’t seem to have any options open to him, and then he saw it about half a mile away, there were at least dozen-army trucks lining the runway and many soldiers climbing out of the back of them.
“What do you think of your welcoming committee?” the helicopter pilot asked. “You should be flattered, not everyone gets this much attention Mr Dillon!”
“Oh, I’m overcome with emotion.” Dillon mocked.
“Don’t let it go to your head Englishman, because after this it becomes much more basic. Now put down nice and easy, and I’ll say goodbye.”
Romerez quickly scribbled something onto a notepad and held it out for Jake to read. He looked across to her, and gave her a wide boyish grin, setting the flaps for landing and throttling back. As the rear wheels screeched on the tarmac, he spoke into the mic, “You’ve been great company, but we have an old saying where I come from. If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun.”
Pulling back on the control column and over to the right at the same time he boosted power so that the light aircraft lifted steeply, scraping the tip of the wing on the runway as he gained height quickly. The Mi-8 helicopter pilot reacted aggressively.
“Dillon, put your plane on the tarmac immediately, or I will shoot you out of the sky.”
Dillon continued to gain height, ignoring the Cuban pilot’s command, levelling out at two thousand feet. Romerez searched the sky for the Mi-8 that was already coming up fast on their tail. And, from underneath its main fuselage, tiny white flashes of light appeared, as the Cuban pilot repeatedly fired his forward machine guns at the light aircraft.
Dillon said, “Tighten up your harness, we’re going for a little roller coaster ride” and pulled sharply back on the control column, rolling the Skyhawk onto its back and banking over to the left, leaving the Cuban pilot high above him.
Dillon took the small aircraft down fast, levelling out at eight hundred feet. The helicopter pilot came in again angrily firing his machine guns, the large calibre bullets tearing through the tailplane as Dillon dipped briefly, before pulling away and downwards towards the coast. On the helicopter’s second pass the Cessna’s windscreen disintegrated, leaving Dillon with bloodied hands, and Romerez with a small cut just above her left eye from the glass splinters.
Dillon struggled to pull on a pair of flying goggles, eventually succeeded, dropped the Cessna down to two hundred feet; white capped waves crashed onto white sand beneath them, the Helicopter was still on his tail and rapidly closing the gap between them.
“Still with us?” Dillon said into his mic. “Well let’s see what you Cubans are really made of, shall we?”
He lifted the nose of the Skyhawk, and climbed steeply to three thousand feet, levelled out for a moment before going into a spiral nosedive straight down, the Mi-8 stayed right behind him. Dillon pulled back hard on the Cessna’s controls which violently shook in his tight grip, but thankfully responded, and a moment later Dillon was hurtling just above the ocean towards the shore.
He’d seen it earlier when they’d arrived, a small gully between two high cliff formations. No time to pull out now, not at the speed they were travelling, and with the helicopter right behind them.