The two men in the bunker looked at one another. The operator keyed his microphone. “Archer one copies, we are working on authorization.”
“Authorization? Did you not hear me? Look at your infrared! Lives are on the line… at… this… moment!”
The operator kept to his flying, and said in a hushed voice, “I’m glad this is your call.”
The supervisor snatched up the hotline to DEA headquarters and on the fifth ring someone answered and put him on hold. “Dammit!” He slammed down the handset. “Well, we’re gonna earn one of two things here — a medal or prison time.”
“I vote we do it,” said the pilot.
“Can you do it?”
“Never been tried as far as I know. But if I switch to the nose camera… yeah, I think I can make it happen.”
The supervisor closed his eyes for just a moment. “All right, you’re cleared in hot. And for God’s sake, make it count!”
FORTY-EIGHT
Davis told the girls to stay low in the backseat, and covered them as best he could. The convoy behind them was losing ground, though only slightly — the jeep was lighter and more nimble, yet its speed was hampered by the condition of the road. As far as he could tell, no one had started shooting, but the men with rifles remained ominously behind the rocking cab. Davis was reasonably sure he recognized Major Raul Echevarria, a distant but steady presence in the passenger seat of the lead truck.
Echevarria’s involvement made perfect sense. It explained why the Bogotá police had so quickly become engaged, not to mention the quality of information Kristin Stewart’s kidnappers enjoyed. The note Echevarria had delivered, warning Davis to go home, was the most transparent clue. Less obvious, though every bit as certain — the murder of Colonel Alfonso Marquez in the parking lot of El Centro. Echevarria was behind everything, the keystone in a very unstable wall.
Riding shotgun in the lead truck, Echevarria knew the tactical situation as well as Davis did. There was no need for the Colombians to close ground, because in minutes they would all be at the same end point, and the hundred-yard gap would disappear in seconds. Davis looked up to the sky. He saw nothing above the high trees lining either side of the road. General Jammer T. Davis, apparently, had not made an impression.
Just then a piece of paper swirled up and slapped his cheek. He looked down. Kristin and Jen, bent low for cover, had the briefcase open on the floor.
“What are you doing?” Davis asked as another piece of paper shot skyward. This one stuck to his shirt and he recognized it as a U.S. Treasury bill wrapper.
“Something that will get them off our backs,” Kristin said.
Kehoe cast an eye over his shoulder. “Hey, wait a minute! You can’t—”
Before he could finish, the girls together lifted the suitcase high over Davis’ head, and seventy thousand hundred-dollar bills flew into the air like so much confetti. Everyone watched the flurry of Benjamin Franklins rise up into the air and flutter into the path of the oncoming trucks. The convoy plowed right through the cloud.
“What?” said an incredulous McBain. “You thought they’d just stop to pick it all up?”
“Okay…” Jen said, “maybe it was a bad idea.”
“No, it was a great idea,” Kristin countered. “The last thing I want is to give that money back to my deadbeat father.”
Kehoe rolled his eyes. “I can’t wait to file that expense report.”
“The girls are right on one count,” said Davis. “This is no time to give up.” He picked up the empty briefcase and heaved it backward. It bounced once, twice, and struck the lead truck squarely in a headlight.
“There’s only one solution,” said McBain. “When we reach the airfield, we’ll park the jeep to block the road. Jammer, you and the girls make a run for the airplane. Kehoe and I will hold them off.”
“Hold them off?” Davis questioned. “With what? You’ve got an AK with a partial mag, an empty Beretta that misfires, and a pair of rubber MP-5s that don’t even make good clubs. How long are you going to make a stand against two dozen armed men?”
“Hopefully long enough,” said Kehoe, “unless you have a better plan. They don’t know what we’ve got, so they’ll be cautious. It might buy enough time for you to get airborne.”
“What if I stayed and—”
“No!” argued McBain. “There’s no time to debate. You’re the pilot, Jammer, so you have to take the girls.”
Davis looked at Kehoe, who didn’t hesitate a beat before saying, “It stinks, but he’s right. That’s how we do it.”
From a tactical viewpoint Davis knew they were right. It was the only way to get the girls to safety. He also realized that McBain and Kehoe were prepared to risk their lives to make it happen. In times like this you learned a lot about people.
The airfield came into view in the distance, and Davis was about to give the plan his okay when his eye caught a glint in the sky. He searched above the horizon until his view was interrupted by a pair of towering trees. When the sky opened up again, Davis definitely saw a black speck. It was getting bigger, gaining definition. Soon he could make out a central body and two long, thin wings.
“There!” said McBain, who saw it as well.
Everyone watched the drone. It seemed to be coming right at them, no more than a few hundred feet above the treetops. It didn’t appear to be flying fast, but drones weren’t built for speed. Davis saw distinct oscillations in the aircraft’s path, jerky corrections that suggested it was flying above VNE—the “never exceed” speed. He watched the aircraft pitch and buck, and he wondered if it had run out of gas. For an instant it steered right at them, then the Predator lurched upward and screamed over their heads. The powerplant was loud and clear at full power.
Everyone, Kehoe included, turned to watch the drone as it leveled for an instant, then pitched down in a violent maneuver aimed squarely at the lead truck behind them. The driver swerved, and Davis was certain he saw Echevarria duck in the final milliseconds.
None of that made any difference.
For all his experience in investigating air crashes, Davis had never witnessed one from such an intimate perspective. He knew jet fuel was an accelerant, and that it was at its most deadly form in what brewed in the nearly empty wing tanks of the Predator — a vast reservoir of fuel vapor waiting for a spark.
The initial explosion was immense, and the aircraft and truck both disappeared in a cloud of fire that boiled above the tree line. Davis saw the next truck in line veer sharply to avoid the inferno before toppling on its side and skidding to a stop in the middle of the road. The third truck T-boned the second, and any subsequent disasters could only be imagined as a thick cloud of black smoke enveloped everything. Next came the secondary explosions — ammunition in the burning vehicles detonating like firecrackers. There were plenty of survivors, and they ran and crawled away from the flames like vermin from a burning building. A hard-core pair stumbled forward out of the cloud, as if trying to keep the chase alive, but gave up when the trailing man’s camouflaged trousers caught fire.
With half a mile to go they were nearly in the clear, but Kehoe’s foot stayed hard on the accelerator. They broke into the airfield clearing to find Delacorte and the charter pilot staring at the cloud of black smoke in the distance. Both had something in their hands. Davis couldn’t tell what it was at first, then Delacorte took off at a run toward the Comanche, and a fistful of playing cards fluttered to the ground.
The overtasked Comanche lumbered down the airstrip three minutes later. Even with the disaster a mile away, no one wanted to wait to see if the survivors had the wherewithal to organize a last-ditch assault. Davis used every bit of dirt to accelerate before milking the overloaded twin into the sky. The Comanche climbed out slowly, clawing at the heavy air, and Davis made one lazy orbit over the airstrip. The key to the chartered Cessna Caravan was still in his pocket, and Davis instructed McBain to tie it securely it to the pitot tube cover of their own aircraft, which had a long red streamer and block lettering that read: REMOVE BEFORE FLIGHT.