When he finally dozed off, he was wondering if he should write Karen and tell her what he had learned. Maybe not, he thought. What good would it do if he couldn't prove anything? At any rate, he would have to wait for Lila to send him their new address. She and her mother had just moved to the Washington area, where she had landed a teaching job. Renee, who had finished college two years earlier, lived in the Virginia suburbs with her new husband, a young lawyer on the staff of Florida's senior senator.
27
When Roddy arrived at the operations counter in the Aeronautica Jalisco hangar one afternoon the following week, María, an attractive black-haired girl with a perennial smile, informed him there was a "gringo writer" in the lounge who wanted to look around Tequila. He found a short, chubby man in his mid-thirties waiting. Obviously no sun worshipper, he had a pale white complexion and an upturned nose that went along with a skeptic's questioning gaze. His eyes were hidden behind dark glasses he had donned to cope with the glare of the blazing Mexican afternoon sun.
Roddy approached with an outstretched hand. "I'm your pilot, Roddy Rodman."
"Bryan Janney," the plump man said with a pouting sort of frown. "They told me you were former military. Army?"
"Air Force."
"Rescue?"
"Nope. The other kind."
"Meaning special operations, clandestine variety." Janney nodded knowingly.
"Sounds like you know your Air Force, Mr. Janney. I understand you're a writer. That takes in a multitude of sins."
"I was the top investigative reporter in New York City," he said with no hint of humility. "That was before I got too deeply into the wrong story."
"What was wrong with it?"
"It was one the paper didn't want to pursue. I thought they were idiots. When I found out the real reason, I quit in disgust. But it made me more curious than ever."
"What did you find out?"
"That it was killed by the publisher."
Roddy frowned. "Why'd he do that?"
"He was a member of the organization I was looking into. Obviously I was hitting too close to home."
Janney jerked a map from his briefcase, held it out for Roddy to see and jabbed a beefy finger at a red "X" marked in the mountains a little more than 100 kilometers northwest of Guadalajara. "Here's where I want to look around, just from the air."
Roddy studied the map. He knew the area, higher up in the southern stretches of the western Sierra Madres, but had only flown over it a few times. It was rugged country, with peaks above 8,000 feet. He wondered what Janney was looking for, but true to his spec ops training kept his questions to himself. If the man wanted him to know, he would tell him.
"Okay," Roddy said. "Let's go."
He did a thorough preflight of the small chopper, checking fuselage, fuel, engine and controls. When he was satisfied everything was functioning properly, he climbed in beside his passenger, gave him a set of headphones with a mike, showed him how to use it and fired up the engine. He had already checked the weather and found it clear and sunny within 200 kilometers of Guadalajara. It stayed that way virtually year-round, except for brief afternoon or evening periods during the rainy season, which was now just beginning. With clearance from the tower, Roddy throttled up and lifted directly off the ramp like a buzzing insect.
Janney grinned as they made a tight turn and headed away from the airport at low altitude. "This is the way to see the countryside," he said over the intercom.
"It's old-fashioned, 'seat-of-the-pants' flying," said Rodman. "Good for rubber-necking. When we get where we're going, I can drop right down on the deck if you'd like." His eyes swept the area as they crossed the teeming southwestern suburbs.
"Not too low at first, thanks. Depends on what we see. Could be some people around, in which case we don't want to put them on alert."
Roddy leveled off below 1,000 feet and headed in the direction of Highway 15, the main route that led up the west coast to the U.S. border at Nogales, Arizona. He took up a course paralleling the highway and the railroad. Just west of Guadalajara, they passed the 8,500-foot Volcano Colli. Soon they were flying over the low hills of tequila country, where rolling fields spread out below with row after row of the bluish, bayonet-like leaves of the agave maguey cactus, producer of the sap from which Mexico's national beverage was distilled. There were a few ranches around as well, and herds of cattle grazed leisurely in the sprawling countryside as the mountains rose dramatically beyond.
Roddy described what they were seeing as Janney soaked up the view and the rotor blades whacked noisily overhead. He finally lapsed into silence and began to chew over the writer's earlier comment concerning not putting people on alert. He hadn't heard remarks such as that since back in the days when he flew Pave Lows. It usually meant avoiding situations that might draw hostile fire.
He wasn't getting paid enough to risk another ambush. If that was what lay at the end of this flight, he was prepared to abort now. "I hope your comment about putting people on alert doesn't mean somebody's liable to take a shot at us," he said.
Janney shrugged his rounded shoulders. "I hardly think so. But I really don't know what they have going on. A source tipped me that something important would be taking place around there. He said it was of vital interest to a guy named Adam Stern and his employers at the Foreign Affairs Roundtable. That's the organization I've been gathering information on. Stern flew in here shortly before I did."
"I'm not familiar with that outfit," Roddy said with a shake of his head.
"Most people aren't. But they damn well will be when I get this book written. It's an organization supposedly dedicated to studying foreign policy issues and their ramifications. But the picture I'm getting is of an outfit with a hidden agenda. It's dominated and controlled by international bankers and industrial monopolists. They're what I call cartel capitalists and corporate socialists. Their goal appears to be control of the world economy through manipulation of governments around the globe. Manipulating them into the socialist camp."
"Manipulating governments? That sounds pretty heavy. I trust they don't plan to try anything like that in the good old U.S. of A.?"
Janney gave him an indulgent smile. "We're their major practice field."
"You're kidding."
"Hardly. FAR members have been key advisers in the past several administrations. They dominate the State Department. They include some of the top military brass."
"Like who?"
"General Wing Patton for one, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Matter of fact, his father-in-law, who died recently, was one of their ringleaders. General Frederick Parker Strong, former JCS chairman, former Secretary of State, elder statesman par excellence."
"Damn. I wouldn't put it past that bastard Patton."
Janney suddenly began to contemplate Roddy with a new intensity. Then his eyes slowly widened with the dawning of understanding. "You're Colonel Warren Rodman."
Soberly, Roddy cut his eyes toward his passenger. "You were expecting maybe Mrs. Nussbaum?"
Janney grinned. He had a twisted way of smiling that came close to a sneer. "The pilot of the Easy Street mission. Hell, yes. The man General Patton accused of causing the mission's failure. As I recall, something about tuning to a malfunctioning communications satellite."
"FLTSATCOM. He never told me about that damned channel switch," Roddy said, suddenly serious. "He flat lied on the witness stand."
"I can believe it. You were the fall guy, weren't you? You took the heat off the General. That's the sort of manipulation I'd expect from Adam Stern."
"The guy you mentioned while ago?"
"Right. He does most of the dirty work for the Roundtable."