"We can, however, use the allegations of drug trafficking to confuse the Federated States, to make them ambivalent about both Balboa and the partition they inflicted on us some years ago in the interests of peace."
The conference room, though large, was empty but for Janier and Villepin . . . and the fly. Air conditioners hummed at two of the windows. It was as well they were working, since Janier was wearing his favorite uniform, the reproduction blue velvet and gold-embroidered informal dress uniform of a marshal of Napoleonic France. Hundreds of golden oak leaves covered the facings, the collar, the shoulders, and ran down each sleeve. But for the air conditioning, the combination of velvet and beastly-uncomfortable, stiff, high collar would have made the thing life threatening in Balboa's tropical clime.
Idly, Janier tapped his, likewise reproduction, marshal's baton, with its thirty-two gold eagles, on the broad, wooden conference table.
"Do you think that will work?" Janier asked, "Do you really think it will work when, if anyone is trafficking in drugs, it is our allies in the old government, cowering in fear in their little quarter and desperate for money?"
Villepin nodded. "Mon general, it is precisely because the rump government is involved in the trade that I am most confident that they can arrange to make it look as if it is Parilla and his government, aided in every particular by the Legion del Cid, that is running the whole enterprise."
Janier stopped tapping the table with his baton, raising the thing to rest against his shoulder and cheek. "It is elegant, I admit."
The baton began to tap again, this time against the Gallic general's cheek. He chewed on his lower lip while slowly nodding. Plainly he was weighing the pros and cons of Villepin's plan.
"All we really need," the general finally said, "is to get the Federated States or one of the TU's high courts to take out drug trafficking charges against either Parilla or Carrera. Both would be nice but either will do. At that point, the FSC's hands are tied while ours will be left free." Tap. Tap. Chew. Chew. Tap. Chew. Mull. Ponder . . .
"Do it. Set it up. As quickly as possible." Janier mused a bit more. "It would really be a help, you know, if somehow we could split the enemy's ranks, so that it looked as if he were falling apart and we, and our clients of the old government, would have to step in for the sake of law and order."
Villepin answered, "Well, it's still a bit uncertain but now that you mention it . . ."
BdL Dos Lindas, Mar Furioso, Terra Nova
The ship was moving fast enough to cause spray to rise and wet the bronze figurehead that graced the bow under the flight deck. There was a popular theory that the ship's name, "Dos Lindas," came from the figurehead's two perfect breasts. The setting sun, reflected from the waves, danced and played over the bronze of the figurehead, making it seem a thing not merely alive but divine. That an artificial rainbow from the spray framed the bronze only added to the illusion of divinity.
Higher than the figurehead, and much further back, on and around the rear elevator that connected the hangar deck with the flight deck, a well-rehearsed deck crew worked under an awning preparing an auxiliary-powered glider for flight. Above the deck, on the fenced open space atop the conning tower, Legate Fosa and Warrant Officer Montoya watched final preparations.
"Remember," Fosa cautioned Montoya, though his eyes remained fixed on the glider, "you're job isn't really to map a bloody thing. If this works, we'll be sending more missions out to recon the place. You have only to get there, overfly the island, and see if they notice you."
"I'll know that they'll have noticed me when they blast me out of the sky, right?" Montoya chided. He, too, had eyes only for his aircraft.
"We'd prefer that didn't happen," Fosa answered, still serious as cancer. "Now what do you do if they do notice you and happen to shoot your ass down? Assuming you live, of course."
"I push the button on my global locating system that will change its settings to make it appear to have malfunctioned," Montoya answered without hesitation. "I try to ditch at sea, and swim ashore. Thereafter, I try to avoid capture. If captured, I insist I was on a counter drug reconnaissance mission, suffered a malfunction and was blown off my patrol route. The prevailing winds will support that story. I tell them I tried to avoid capture because people who shoot down an aircraft engaged in legitimate law enforcement mission are unlikely to treat the pilot of that aircraft too very well."
"Very good," Fosa answered. "Now go do it."
The two turned to face each other, Montoya tossing off a typically ragged Air Ala salute, which salute Fosa returned with the comment, "Fucking aviator slobs. Git!"
* * *
The sun was just down. None of the moons had yet risen. In the darkness, with a headwind of eleven knots, and the carrier doing another eighteen, take off wasn't a question of speed to become airborne. It was a question of the deck crew removing the lashings that held the Condor to its cradle on the flight deck and jumping back. Montoya's Condor, with its fifty feet of wingspan, instantly lifted above the flight deck.
It was then that he gave a little gas to the engine, just enough to stay well above the flight deck as it moved out from underneath him. This was a little tricky as the sheer bulk of the Dos Lindas, moving underneath, displaced enough air to tug at the broad-winged glider, pulling it downward.
Despite the turbulence, Montoya kept well above the flight deck until the carrier was safely away. Although he kept his aircraft aloft easily enough, the pilot's spirits sank as the carrier left him to his mission. Indeed, seeing through his night vision goggles as the stern of the ship rapidly moved away gave Montoya one of the loneliest feelings he'd ever had in a life that had had its share of loneliness.
"Nothing for it, though," he said to himself, pulling his stick back and to the left to turn toward the southern coast of the western triangle of Colombia del Norte. It was there that he would find the updrafts from breezes blowing across the Mar Furioso and up the great chain of mountains they called the Atacamas. Those, if taken both ways, would extend his fuel to the UEPF lodgment on Atlantis Island and, "God willing, back again."
It was over a hundred and fifty miles before the Condor would cross the coast.
Two hours, near enough, Montoya thought. And, if I learned nothing else during Cazador School it was, 'don't sleep when you're tired; sleep when you can.'
Montoya's fingers played over his control panel, setting a wakeup call for an hour and a half and confirming his preprogrammed flight plan. The autopilot then took over, throttling down the engine to a speed of seventy knots and settling in to a flight altitude of one hundred meters over the sea. The pilot released the stick as soon as he felt the autopilot take control. Tossing his head to move the night vision goggles, or NVGs, up on their frame, he then settled back, crossing his arms over his chest.
Gonna be a looong flight, was Montoya's last thought before sleep took him for, at least, a short time.
* * *
Before the third wake-up ping, Montoya's hand was reaching for his stick even as he tossed his head down to reposition his NVGs. His left hand sought out and found the on switch for the goggles, twisting a quarter turn clockwise to turn them on.