His inference that the end of his journey was near proved correct. The jeeps came to a rough stop and both engines fell silent. Under the black hood, Kehoe’s senses heightened. He knew they were in the shade, and he felt the jeep rock as the driver and two soldiers in back dismounted. Someone ordered him to stay where he was. Kehoe was happy to do just that.
Then things got interesting. He heard a distant conversation in Spanish, the voices quiet but strained. Then he heard the man in charge, shout, “Cómo pudiste dejar escapar a los dos?”
Kehoe stiffened ever so slightly. There had been an escape. The girl he was sent to retrieve? Los dos implied two. A second hostage? That was news to him, but he supposed it wasn’t out of character — they were, after all, kidnappers. Get the girl back safe. That was his objective, he reminded himself — aside from getting out alive.
He heard a command to begin a search, the voice of the man who’d spoken to him at the airport. Then another order, one that froze Kehoe to the worn upholstery. “Ir a buscar el hacha!”
Go find the ax.
FORTY-TWO
McBain was the first to spot the airfield. He pointed to a gap in the trees, and said, “Yeah, that one looks familiar. We did a joint raid with the Colombian Army — two, maybe three years ago. We showed up a day late and everyone was gone. Word of our arrival often precedes us when the army gets involved. At any rate, we got the enemy to pull up stakes. It’s hard to run a processing factory when you’re moving every two weeks.”
Davis glanced at the airfield, but largely kept his eyes on the sky. There was a drone out here somewhere. According to Jorgensen it was loitering above their altitude, however, there were no air traffic controllers to sort things out, and a midair collision would ruin everyone’s day. He was flying the Comanche much like he’d flown on his first-ever lesson — a small airplane, no autopilot, and operating on the see-and-avoid concept when it came to air traffic.
The sat-phone chirped, and McBain relayed the highlights of a message from Jorgensen. “The jeeps have stopped — we know where they’re holed up. It’s about five miles south down the airfield road. There are a few secondary trails, but we shouldn’t have any trouble finding the place. It’s an abandoned plantation we’ve had our eye on before, three buildings in marginal shape. According to Jorgensen there are four vehicles altogether, roughly twenty hostiles.”
“Hostiles?” said the engineer in back. “That is not a word I like.”
“And not a number I like,” agreed Davis. He spotted the road easily because there were no others in sight — just a single brown ribbon through the carpet of green. He flew over the airfield and they all saw the single-engine Cessna that had delivered Martin Stuyvesant’s courier. It had fat tires and a big high wing, the signature features of an airframe built to operate on short, soft fields. The pilot looked up at them. He didn’t wave.
“Okay, Jammer, this is your rodeo. What now? Do we fly south for a little reconnaissance?”
“No, that would only spook them — if I take this crate within two miles of the compound they’ll hear our engines. Besides, it doesn’t add anything. As long as the drone is overhead we’ve got eyes on target. What we need is boots on the ground.”
Davis sized up the landing strip, and what he saw wasn’t encouraging. It appeared rough, certainly not the kind of surface that the engineers at Piper Aircraft had in mind when they designed the Twin Comanche. But then, a few days earlier a Colombian named Blas Reyna had landed a regional jet here, and subsequently taken off again. Davis thought, If he can do it…
He tried to get a feel for the wind at ground level, but the jungle air seemed to be only heating and rising, no measurable vector in either direction. He made one last pass over the clearing, scouting for the smoothest surface and picking an aim point for touchdown that was just beyond the most obvious obstacle — a broad puddle that was one good downpour away from pond status. The pilot of the Caravan watched them closely, standing motionless under one wing. A good sign, Davis thought. It meant he was more concerned with shade than issuing a warning with the radio in his cockpit.
He set up on final approach and cinched his seat belt tight. McBain noticed, and did the same without being told. Fifty feet above the ground Davis spotted a pair of long grooves in the surface, likely made by TAC-Air Flight 223 days earlier. He adjusted his flight path to straddle one of the tracks, reasoning that any ground solid enough to support a twenty-ton regional jet would hold up fine under the much lighter Comanche. If nothing else, a comforting thought. His touchdown was reasonably smooth, and as they coasted to a stop Davis sensed exhales of relief behind and to his right.
He did a pirouette at the far end of the field, a turn just wide enough to avoid bogging down in the soft earth. Davis shut down the engines as soon as the nose was reversed and pointed down the runway, a trick he’d picked up from an old Africa hand on an equally dodgy mission. Be ready to go on a moment’s notice.
The propellers chugged to a halt and everything went quiet, the only sounds that of cooling fans and gyros spinning down in the instrument panel. Davis actuated switches to shut off the battery, and all three men turned their attention to the other airplane. The Cessna was fifty meters away, the pilot still standing under the port wing. He looked interested but not concerned. He’d parked his own aircraft close to the road, oriented to provide the shortest possible walk for his passenger. A pilot accustomed to clients who didn’t want to get their shoes dirty. This reinforced McBain’s earlier assessment. They were looking at a local charter pilot who’d been hired for a morning’s work. He probably had no idea what he was doing here, who he was working for, and likely didn’t care. He was just out flying a charter with one eye closed, somewhere south of propriety, a guy happy with a five-hundred-dollar morning.
“How do you want to handle this?” McBain asked.
“I don’t see a lot of options,” Davis answered. He outlined a simple plan, one born quite literally on the fly. There were no objections, and they all disembarked and walked casually toward the pilot. All three men smiled, and Delacorte even waved. When they were ten steps away, McBain greeted the pilot because he was the best Spanish speaker. Davis heard something along the lines of, “Is this the road that leads to the Colombia Rain Forest Project?”
Everyone knew it wasn’t. It had been McBain’s suggestion, an airfield and service road that did exist, but one they’d missed by forty miles. The charter pilot smiled condescendingly. He looked at Davis as if he’d just met the worst navigator in the world. The mood was easy and loose when the charter pilot began to reply. Then Delacorte and Davis lunged the last few feet and trussed the Colombian firmly by his elbows.
Go find the ax.
Kehoe sat patiently with his hands crossed on top of the briefcase, perhaps subconsciously the one with the handcuff underneath. He hadn’t liked the handcuff routine to begin with, thinking it amateurish and dangerous, but Strand had insisted. Kehoe didn’t like to wear anything that restricted his movement — belts, ties, overcoats. Not in his closet. A Kevlar vest was the only exception, and that hadn’t seemed appropriate for this mission. The key to the cuffs was in his shoe. Not particularly clever, but what the hell was he supposed to do?