“In time. There are preliminaries.” The commander nodded to his men, and two closed in on Kehoe. The American assumed the stance, legs wide and arms outstretched, and took a head-to-toe pat down. They would be looking less for weapons than wires or tracking devices. Holding the briefcase at arm’s length, an impatient Kehoe said, “Please hurry — this is a lot of money and it’s very heavy.”
The men stepped back, and one nodded to say they were finished. At that point one of the soldiers produced a black hood. Kehoe had been expecting it, so he made no protest as the man drew it over his head. He imagined everyone else ripping off their own sweater-knit masks with blessed relief. From this point forward, if anyone was going to be uncomfortable, it was him.
Someone took his elbow and guided him toward the jeep. He was pushed left and right, and could tell by the feel of the sidewall that he was being backed into a front passenger seat, almost certainly the second vehicle.
Sound became more important than sight. A pair of soldiers murmured, the words unintelligible, and rifle butts clanked to the jeep’s metal floorpan. Waiting for the engines to crank to life, Kehoe thought he heard another faint sound, vaguely familiar, like the buzz of a distant insect. There was a hopeless urge to look up at the sky, and in a mischievous moment, as he sat baking in a black hood, he wondered if he could manage some kind of stretch that would appear as a wave from above. He knew it was a drone, likely under the command of some distant Air Expeditionary Group tasked to monitor his progress. Kehoe had been specifically briefed to expect no support, but it didn’t surprise him that someone was watching. Yes, he thought, the admiral leaves nothing to chance. All the same, it wasn’t much comfort. If things went badly, there was no chance of the drone facilitating a rescue — the cameras overhead would only record his demise.
If the Colombians knew what was in the sky above them, Kehoe heard no mention of it. As the Cessna pilot had noted on their arrival, the visibility in the valley was marginal, the low morning sunlight diffusing like a veil in the still, humid air. Even if they heard the drone, they could never see it.
The jeeps came to life, rattled into gear, and soon they were splashing with purpose into the heart of the jungle.
THIRTY-NINE
“Track them!” said Davis.
“I will,” Jorgensen replied. “But the drone only has enough fuel to stay on station for another twenty minutes. Let’s hope they’re not going far.”
“The guy who just arrived had something in his hand,” said Davis. “Could have been a suitcase.”
“What are the chances of us stumbling onto the payoff?” said a skeptical McBain.
“If the girl who could decide our next presidential election is being held hostage nearby? I’d say the chances are extremely high. We narrowed it down to two airstrips, and then we guessed right. If you think about it, the timing is perfect — a few days for Stuyvesant to worry, come to the right conclusion, and raise a lot of cash. This has payoff written all over it. Those jeeps are going to lead us right to the girls.”
“Hang on,” said McBain. “That little prop job didn’t fly here all the way from the States. If this is the transaction, then the guy carrying the briefcase switched airplanes somewhere — probably right under our noses in Bogotá. If we maneuver the drone and get the tail number of that Cessna we might be able to verify where it came from. I’m thinking a jet landed at the same airport this morning after a long flight from the States.”
“Maybe,” said Davis, “but this is no time to overanalyze. We’re too close, with eyes on target right now — I say we shadow the jeeps and nothing else.”
All three men watched the display. The two vehicles disappeared under the jungle canopy, then reappeared a quarter mile later. The road was no more than a worn path through the forest that was lost occasionally under foliage. The hard part would be forks or intersections — if the jeeps made a turn under cover they could lose contact. Davis kept his eyes locked to the screen, his hands gripping the table every time they lost sight. Passive surveillance required considerable patience — never one of his virtues.
“Do you guys have an airplane?”
Jorgensen looked at him skeptically. “An airplane? We’ve got a fleet, but not in Bogotá.”
“Do you have anything here?”
“Jammer, if you’re thinking about—”
“I’m not thinking, I’m acting. If you don’t have an airplane, I’ll go to the airport and steal one. I only wanted to give you the chance to keep me from embarrassing our country again.”
Jorgensen shook his head dismissively.
McBain smiled. He said, “There’s a Twin Comanche we confiscated, keep it in a hangar we share with the government. It’s nothing tactical, we just use it for shuttling personnel. No surveillance suite in the electronics bay, no hardened floor.”
“Hardened floor?” Davis repeated.
“Certain farmers don’t like airplanes nosing around their crops, for obvious reasons. They have a tendency to take potshots at anything flying low.”
“But it runs?”
“Usually,” Jorgensen said. “Unfortunately, we don’t have a pilot. The guy who’s checked out is on temporary duty in Panama.”
“Do you have the keys?”
Jorgensen gave him a look that asked if he was serious.
Davis shot one back that said: Stay out of my way.
McBain broke the impasse. “Jammer’s right, we need to do something. There’s no telling how this will play out. We have to get both girls. They might or might not be released safely in the next hour, but this is our chance to get close, to have some insurance. If the exchange doesn’t go well, this group is going to vaporize into the jungle. We got lucky once, but finding them a second time could prove way harder.” He addressed Davis. “Have you flown a Twin Comanche?”
“Of course.”
“That settles it,” said McBain. “I’ll come with you.”
Both of them looked at Jorgensen, who relented. “All right, it’s your funeral. I’ll stay here and keep the surveillance for as long as I can. But like I said, we have less than twenty minutes of fuel — then the drone goes home.”
McBain was already packing, stuffing a sat-phone and binoculars into a duffel bag.
“How long does it take for the drone to get back to its home station?” Davis asked.
“We fly it out of a remote strip west of Cali — about thirty minutes from where it is now.”
“So you can stay on station for an hour, maybe more. There’s got to be an emergency reserve padded into the fuel numbers.”
Jorgensen, who was legally in charge and therefore responsible for the asset, said, “Are you suggesting we run this bird out of fuel and let it crash?”
“If that’s what it takes to get this mission done,” Davis said, “then, yes, that’s exactly what I’m suggesting.”
“We’re talking about a three-million-dollar aircraft.”
“No, we’re talking about two young girls. Anyway, my boss will cover it.”
McBain went to a closet across the room and pulled out a pair of lethal-looking weapons — black Heckler & Koch MP5s. “You ever used one of these?” he asked Davis.
“Hasn’t everybody?”
McBain reared back and threw one of the guns at him from across the room.
“What the—” Davis reached with a long arm, but the throw was terrible and he barely touched the stock before the gun thudded to the floor. “Is that damned thing loaded?”
McBain laughed. “Easy, big guy. It’s a fac.”