His senses were still keen under the hood. He heard shuffling nearby, multiple sets of boots, and suddenly Kehoe was dragged off the jeep and thrown to the ground. The case flew from his grasp, and at least two men held him down. He saw little point in resisting — not until someone took his arm, the one chained to the briefcase, and forced it out wide. The briefcase was pulled until the chain went taut, and then everything stopped moving, his forearm pinned to the ground. The next Spanish command he translated instantly. “Do it — cut it off.”
“Wait!” Kehoe yelled. “I have a key! Let me—”
His protest was cut short by a boot to the head. An instant later, he was sure he heard a whoosh of air as the ax swung down.
The Cessna pilot didn’t bother to struggle, in Davis’ view a display of sound judgment as he was outweighed by a hundred pounds on either side. The look on his face was one of intense concentration, the factors of his situation no doubt multiplying in his head. Delivering an American passenger with a heavy briefcase. Two jeeps full of paramilitaries. Another airplane with three men, also American, but who were clearly on a different team. Men whose mission did not dovetail with his own. That fast, like flying into a box canyon, his easy money trip had disappeared.
McBain patted him down, but found nothing. The DEA man stood with his hands on his hips, a dubious look on his face. “No,” he said. “Nobody flies to a place like this without protection.” He went to the airplane, and in five seconds found what he was looking for under the left seat — a 9mm Beretta. McBain turned the piece in his hand and said, “Now we have a real gun.” His expression of victory evaporated when he ejected the magazine and pulled back the slide. “One round,” he announced weakly.
“One?” repeated Davis. He looked disbelievingly at the Colombian. “Don’t you know there are dangerous people out here?”
McBain said roughly the same in Spanish, and the pilot only shrugged. He didn’t look worried, which Davis took to mean that he either had faith that someone would come to his rescue, or that he’d been in difficult situations before. The latter seemed more likely.
McBain went over the airplane more thoroughly, but found nothing useful. “Now what?” he asked. “We’ve got one bullet, one gun, and five miles between us and twenty heavily armed soldiers.”
“No,” said Davis, “we’ve got five miles between me and my daughter. That’s the closest I’ve been in a long time.”
“So, how do we get her back?” Delacorte asked.
“We wait,” McBain said. “That guy delivering the ransom will be back soon. His airplane and pilot are right here, which means he’s leaving the same way he came in — delivered by two jeeps and a half a dozen guys. He’ll have his girl, and maybe your daughter too.”
Davis had already made similar calculations, only to hit a stop when it came to Jen. “I don’t think so. If he’s delivering a payoff, it’s for the vice president’s daughter. There’s no incentive for these people to release Jen. And if that’s the case, as soon as Kristin is clear, they’re going to move. I say we go in now while we know where she is.”
Davis looked at Delacorte, then McBain. Both nodded.
Delacorte said, “How will we do it? If we leave this pilot alone he might create trouble. He could make an unwanted radio call or disable our airplane.”
“We have one bullet,” said McBain.
Davis looked at him closely and saw the threshold of a smile. At least he thought it was a smile.
“Okay, just kidding,” said McBain. “We don’t have anything to truss him up with, and there’s a chance somebody else might show up. One of us has to stay here to watch him, make sure he behaves.”
They both looked at Delacorte.
“D’accord,” the Frenchman replied. “It only makes sense that I am the one to stay.”
“All right, tell him,” Davis said. He released the pilot’s arm and Delacorte did the same. McBain began talking, and pointed to Delacorte. The pilot looked at the Frenchman who was ten inches taller, twice his weight, and staring with a newfound menace. The pilot’s expression said he wished he’d stayed home today.
Davis retrieved the canvas bag with the facsimile MP-5s, tossed in the sat-phone, and on a whim added the Comanche’s government-issue survival kit. Finally, he took in hand the flight control locking bar and key. The Colombian watched closely as they went to the Caravan’s cockpit and tried to secure the bar across the control yoke. Unfortunately, the design was different and the locking bar didn’t fit. Davis backed outside, put his hands on his hips, and soon saw a better solution. The pilot protested vehemently as Davis secured the locking bar around a very expensive Hartzell propeller.
Davis said, “Tell him we’ll be back in an hour with the key. All he has to do is sit tight and relax with his new friend from France.”
McBain translated, and the pilot acquiesced by sitting on the ground.
“You sure you’re okay with this?” Davis asked Delacorte.
“Absolument!”
With that, Davis and McBain moved out, the DEA man shouldering the canvas bag. The sun was getting higher, the temperature rising. Davis felt his shirt already clinging to his back, and sweat beaded his forehead.
“How far did you say it was?” he asked.
“According to Jorgensen, five miles.”
“Sounds like about half an hour.”
“Half an hour?” McBain repeated. “How the heck can we—”
Davis broke into a run before he could finish.
Kristin started to cry out when the ax came down, but squelched her outburst. The girls froze in place, as still and silent as twin toppled statues, fearful that their concealment had been compromised. They waited for a finger to be pointed in their direction, for a shout of alarm. None came.
After a full five minutes Jen, who was unable to see outside, asked what had happened. Kristin gave a hushed account, and Jen maneuvered onto one side, a tolerable position from which she could glimpse the scene outside. She saw six soldiers standing in a semicircle, all of them laughing. A man wearing a hood was seated on the ground, rubbing one hand over his opposing wrist where half a set of handcuffs dangled. She saw the other silver cuff and a severed chain on the handle of a suitcase. Carlos had it on the hood of one of the jeeps and was trying to pry it open with the ax.
“That’s Carlos,” Kristin whispered.
Jen said, “I’ve met him. He came to the room where they were holding me yesterday.”
“What did he want?”
“First he told me about the airplane crash, probably to frighten me. Then he said he needed information. He wanted something only my father and I would know, details to convince him I’m still alive.”
“And did you give it?”
“I did, but for my own reasons. My father is an aircraft accident investigator. If that airplane crashed, and my dad believed I was on it — I’m sure he’s in Colombia right now trying to find us.”
“Does he have a strange first name?”
“His name’s Frank, but everybody calls him Jammer.”
“That’s it,” said Kristin. “I heard Carlos talking to his father on the phone. There’s a big guy stirring up trouble in Bogotá.”