“Hiccough,” Maal said.
“Easy, Bucky.” From Borman.
Centred the stick.
“A tiny goose of the throttle; come to Thirsty,” Borman said.
Nudge.
The hose slid overhead.
“You hang tight, right there,” Borman said.
He centred the stick and watched the wings of the C-130, ready to match any change the tanker might make.
“Gotcha!”
He felt the hose connector make contact with the airframe, but he kept his eyes riveted on the airplane above him, taking quick glances at Borman behind his protective window.
“Do you want to catch the windshield while you’re at it, Ben?”
“Sure thing. You using a credit card? I got a four percent discount for cash.”
“Guy behind me is picking up the tab. Ask him.”
It didn’t take long. He flicked the rotary switch to check fuel loads on the main and external tanks.
“That’ll do it, Ben.”
“Roger. I’ll be seeing you again soon.”
Barr eased off the throttles and the C-130 pulled away. He closed the receptacle, did a half-wingover, and slid away from the tanker.
“Eighteen hundred and forty gallons doesn’t go very far, does it, Bucky?” Zimmerman asked.
“Hell, man, we’re getting almost a mile to a gallon.”
“Don’t tell the EPA,” Gettman said. “They’ll want us to change to four-cylinder engines.”
As was typical, Martin Church arrived at his office at seven in the morning. He was barely into his third cup of coffee when the first call was passed through by his secretary at eight o’clock.
“Good morning, Mr. Director. This is Cal Norman at the Post.”
“Good morning, Cal. How are you?”
“Fine, sir. I’m trying to get confirmation on an item that landed on my desk. Or my phone.”
“What is that?”
“There’s this guy out in New Mexico somewhere that…”
“A guy? Does he have a name, Cal?”
“Uh, yeah, he gave me his name, but I’m supposed to keep it confidential.”
“That’s understandable,” Church said. “So he gave you a hot tip?”
“That’s what he says. Something about a clandestine air force operating out of Nebraska. His guess is that the CIA has to be involved.”
“His guess?”
“Well, there’s not too many groups have themselves six F-4 fighters,” Norman said.
“F-4s? Those are all but obsolete, aren’t they, Cal?” Church was fond of talking to reporters in question marks.
“I don’t know. I haven’t looked into this too far just yet.”
“How about survivalists? Or white extremists? Those groups are building some fascinating armouries, Cal.”
“But airplanes?”
“Hell, I don’t know. Maybe the FBI does. What does your informant have to do with it?”
“He said he worked on the planes.”
“And did what with them?”
“Painted them, for one thing.”
“What colour?”
“Colour? Cream with red stripes.”
“Those aren’t the colours I’d use on warplanes, Cal.”
“That’s a fact, Mr. Director.”
“What kind of ordnance did he report?”
“Ordnance?”
“Weapons.”
“Well, he didn’t mention any weapons.”
“I’m sure you’re aware of this, Cal, but your informant seems to be a little short on facts. Did he say anything about a use for the planes? Have they got targets?”
“Well, a couple of my colleagues are checking with Nebraska and with some of the Middle East people in the city.”
“Why Middle East, Cal?”
“Uh, given the current world conditions, that seemed the most obvious. Don’t you have some ideas, Mr. Director?”
“I’ve been trying to give you some leads here, Cal. How about the DEA?”
“DEA?”
“The drug enforcement people might use airplanes like that for interdiction. Hell, I don’t know. I’m just trying to help you out.”
“Well, I appreciate it,” Norman said.
“Maybe they tossed him out of the group, or something. Maybe he’s got a grudge? If I were you, I’d call him back and ask about weapons. Or if he got himself blackballed from the group.”
“Yeah, maybe I’ll do that. Thanks, Mr. Church.”
They took on the last of their fuel two hundred miles off the coast and two hundred miles south of the Canary Islands. Wyatt then ordered all of the aircraft into a tight formation, the C-130s flying nearly wingtip-to-wingtip, and the Phantoms flying in a compressed diamond beneath the transports. On any radar in the area, they would be picked up as one blip, a single airplane on its way to somewhere.
One unknown airplane is much less threatening than eight unknown airplanes.
Once they were grouped up, Wyatt ordered a gradual descent, conserving fuel as much as possible.
The formation crossed the coastline at one thousand feet of altitude, one hundred miles north of Dakhla, Western Sahara. The next northern city of relative importance, Laayoune, was nearly three hundred miles away.
The Western Sahara Desert, once they were past the tiny bit of green along the coast, was dismal and forbidding. At their low altitude, it seemed to go on forever. Millions of square miles of rolling, undulating, almost colour-free blandness.
Wyatt had flown in North Africa before, but never in this region. He had studied the maps, but the maps were short of landmarks and population centres. No one wanted to live here, and he couldn’t blame them.
He checked the chronometer. 0912 hours local.
He looked up. Jim Demion was holding the Hercules steady two hundred feet above him.
“Wizard, Yucca One.”
They had agreed to use only call signs after violating the airspace of Western Sahara.
“Go, One.”
“Give it about ten more miles, then start gaining altitude at a hundred feet per minute. We want to get up where the fuel consumption reads a little better.”
“Roger, One. We’ll do it.”
They were at fifteen thousand feet, idling along at 350 knots to stay with the transports, an hour and forty minutes later. The landscape hadn’t changed much at all, though the sun was higher. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and though that generally was a positive sign for pilots, Wyatt missed the clouds.
“Yucca One, Four,” Gettman said.
“Go.”
“You suppose we’re within fifty miles of where it is we want to be? At that time, I begin to go into my famous panic routine.”
“Let me check on it, Four.”
Wyatt spun in the frequency on his Tac One radio. “Degas.”
He waited for a count of ten, then tried again. “Degas.”
One thousand one, one thousand two, one thou… “That you, Yucca?”
“Roger that, Degas. I need a signal for my ADF.”
His Automatic Direction Finder needed a radio transmitter emitting a signal in order to be useful.
“Yucca, I hate to get mean about it, but you’re a couple days off schedule, you know that?”
“I know it,” Wyatt said.
“This mean I have to get rid of my harem?”
“Just give me the damned signal.”
“Ah, roger the signal, Yucca. Coming up.”
Twelve
When he heard the first faint drone of airplane engines, Neil Formsby finished his glass of iced tea, donned the shirt he had prepared, rose from his cot, and left the tent.
There was a light breeze blowing out of the southwest, but it was not strong enough to raise a lot of dust or sand.
For some unfathomable reason, he had been enjoying his solitude. There was nothing like being by one’s self a thousand kilometres from anywhere to enforce introspection. Jesus Christ in the wilderness. He felt as if he needed another thirty-five days, and he halfway resented Wyatt showing up early. And contrary to the careful planning, they had arrived during daylight; he would not be allowed to demonstrate his jury-rigged runway lights.