“Let me guess. Laszlo Szabo?”
“How did you know?”
“Let’s just say you can’t mention ‘Budapest’ and ‘double-cross’ in the same sentence without Szabo’s name coming up.”
“Can you get some men to his address in Pest?”
“Of course. Is it just Laszlo or does he have security?”
“It’s more complicated than that. Szabo also turned Court in to the CIA. They have a team racing to the location now. Supposedly they are an hour out.”
Riegel sighed, resignation now in his voice. “He falls into CIA hands, and the Lagos contract is history. If they take him, we won’t be able to prove to Abubaker if he’s dead or alive by Sunday.”
“Then we can’t let that happen. Right?”
“You want to send a team to shoot it out with American intelligence? Are you insane?”
“The CIA will think they’re men working for Gentry or working for the kidnapper. If your guys are any good, they won’t hang around to explain their motivation.”
Riegel thought a moment. When he finally spoke, it sounded to Lloyd as if the German was formulating the plan as the words left his mouth. “The Indonesian hit team is in the air at this moment. They are heading to Frankfurt, but they should be over south Central Europe right about now. Maybe we can divert them, get them on the ground and into the city in the next hour. We’ll be cutting it razor close, but it’s our only chance.”
“Are they any good?”
“Yes. They are Kopassus, Group Four. The best shooters Jakarta has to offer. Let me get to work.”
Captain Bernard Kilzer checked the altitude on the radio altimeter. It was a Wolfsburg model he was not entirely familiar with, as this plane was rented and not his normal craft. He was flying west-northwest at 37,000 feet. The Bombardier Challenger 605 was state-of-the-art, fly-by-wire technology. His duties and responsibilities as a pilot were great, but at this point, seven hours into his nine-hour flight from New Delhi to Frankfurt, there was little for him and his copilot to do other than stay awake, monitor the onboard systems, and scan the afternoon skies.
The two pilots had been flying, nearly nonstop, for sixteen hours. Their route had originated in Jakarta, Indonesia, at two a.m. local time. They’d flown west, stopped for fuel in New Delhi, and then immediately returned to the sky.
Normally, Captain Kilzer and his copilot, First Officer Lee, flew corporate heads around Southeast Asia. They also transported LaurentGroup scientists, critical IT personnel, anyone who was needed in any one of fifteen corporate facilities from the southern tip of Japan to the eastern edge of India.
In addition to these work-related trips, Kilzer and Lee also ferried executives and their wives on island-hopping vacations or to lavish parties in Brunei with the sultan himself. He’d once even shuttled company clients and Philippine call girls to a secluded tropical isle populated by French chefs and Swedish masseuses for a week of indolent debauchery.
Kilzer had flown all manner of LaurentGroup employees, but he’d never transported a group like the one he was hauling now.
Behind him in the cabin were six men. Indonesians, they looked to be young military types, but they wore civilian clothing. The cargo hold of the Challenger was full of green canvas rucksacks. The men kept quiet for the most part. On Kilzer’s trips out of the cockpit to the lavatory he’d glanced into the twenty-eight-foot cabin and had seen darkness perforated by penlights, some men poring over maps while others slept.
They seemed a disciplined group, heading out on some important mission, and Kilzer did not have a clue why he’d been tasked with ferrying them.
The bald-headed thirty-eight-year-old German pilot reached behind himself to retrieve his lunch box. The multifunction display flashed. His copilot said, “Ground-to-air call coming through for you from the home office on the secure link.”
“Roger.” Kilzer turned away from his meal and flipped a switch on the center console to send the impending transmission into his ears alone.
“November Delta Three Zero Whiskey, over?”
“This is Riegel speaking, do you read me?”
Kilzer knew Riegel was the VP of security operations for the entire corporation. The German was known as an incredibly tough bastard. Suddenly Kilzer had a better idea about the mission of the fit young men in the cabin behind him. “Loud and clear, Mr. Riegel. How can I help you, sir?”
“How close are you to Budapest?”
“Just a moment.” Kilzer looked to the copilot, an Asian with a British accent. “It’s Riegel. Wants to know how far we are from Budapest.”
First Officer Lee checked his flight’s location on the navigation management system. He typed into the keypad on his left and in a few seconds responded. “We are one hundred seven kilometers south-southeast and twelve kilometers above.”
Kilzer relayed the information, and Riegel said, “We have a change in plans. I need you to land there as soon as possible.”
Kilzer felt the sting of sweat on the back of his neck. He did not feel good about disappointing the chief of security ops. “I am sorry, sir, that is not possible. We haven’t filed a flight plan for Hungary. We will have serious problems with immigration and security.”
“Don’t tell me what is possible. Put the airplane on the ground, distribute to the Indonesians their gear, and then get out of there.”
Captain Kilzer did not back down immediately. “How are we supposed to get out of there? We’ll be thrown in jail if we land without authorization, if we—”
“Declare an emergency. Surely you can find a reason to land the plane wherever you want. If you get detained for questioning, I’ll pay your way out. We can smooth things over with the Hungarians after the fact. That’s not your concern. Just make sure the Indonesians are off the plane before you taxi to the tarmac.”
“There is too much security at Budapest Ferihegy. They will surround the aircraft, and we will—”
“Then don’t land there. Find a little regional airport nearby, land the plane, and let loose the men in the back. Do I make myself clear?”
The captain frantically flipped through pages on his multifunction display. He scrolled through electronic charts of all the region’s airports.
“Tokol is forty minutes’ driving time from the city center. Its runway is long enough.”
“Too far! I need the Indonesians in the city center in under an hour!”
Kilzer kept looking. “There is Budaörs. It is half the drive time, but the runway is not paved, and it is too short.”
“How short?”
“This aircraft with this load requires one thousand meters on a paved runway in perfect conditons. Budaörs is one thousand meters exactly, but there is heavy rain and, as I said, it is unpaved. It will be like mud!”
“Then you should have no problems slowing down before you run out of runway. Land the plane!”
“You are demanding a crash landing, sir! It will be very unsafe.”
“If you want to be safe from me, Captain, you will land that plane in Budaörs. Am I clear?”
Kilzer gritted his teeth.
Riegel said, “I’ll have a coach and a driver there to pick them up.”
“Sir, I need to stress again, this will create an incident.”
“Let me worry about that.”
“Roger, sir.”
Kilzer disconnected the call. He squeezed his hands on his control column in frustration.
The copilot asked, “What’s going on?”
“Apparently, Lee, you and I are about to help Indonesia invade Hungary.”
The first officer turned white. “Riegel is an asshole.”
“Ja,” said Kilzer. He then flipped a few switches on his center console, took the jet off autopilot, and slowly pushed the controls forward. He spoke into his headset. “Mayday, mayday, mayday. November Delta Three Zero Whiskey—”