Escobedo saw him to the door, then returned to his desk. Cortez entered the room from a side door.

Well?

I like Larson, Cortez said. He speaks the truth. He has pride, but not too much.

Escobedo nodded agreement. A hireling, but a good one.

. . . like you. Cortez didnt react to the implied message. How many flights have been lost over the years?

We didnt even keep records until eighteen months ago. Since then, nine. Thats one reason we took Larson on. I felt that the crashes were due to pilot error and poor maintenance. Carlos has proven to be a good instructor.

But never wished to become involved himself?

No. A simple man. He has a comfortable life doing what he enjoys. There is much to be said for that, Escobedo observed lightly. You have been over his background?

S. Everything checks out, but . . .

But?

But if he were something other than what he appears to be, things would also check out. This was the point at which an ordinary man would say something like, But you cant suspect everyone. Escobedo did not, and that was a measure of his sophistication, Cortez noted. His employer had ample experience with conspiracy and knew that you had to suspect everyone. He wasnt exactly a professional, but he wasnt exactly a fool either.

Do you think No. He was nowhere near the place the flight left from, had no way of knowing that it was happening that night. I checked: he was in Bogot with his lady friend. They had dinner alone and retired early. Perhaps it was a flying accident, but coming so soon after we learn that the norteamericanos are planning something, I do not think we should call it such a thing. I think I should return to Washington.

What will you find out?

I will attempt to discover something of what they are doing.

Attempt?

Seor, gathering sensitive intelligence information is an art You can buy anything you need!

There you are incorrect, Cortez said with a level stare. The best sources of information are never motivated by money. It is dangerousfoolishto assume that allegiance can be purchased.

And what of you?

That is a question you must consider, but I am sure you already have. The best way to earn trust with this man was always to say that trust did not exist. Escobedo thought that whatever allegiance money could not buy could be maintained with fear instead. In that sense, his employer was foolish. He assumed that his reputation for violence could cow anyone, and rarely considered that there were those who could give him lessons in applied violence. There was much to admire about this man, but so much also to merit disdain. Fundamentally he was an amateurthough a gifted onewho learned from his mistakes readily enough, but lacked the formal training that might have enabled him to learn from the mistakes of othersand what was intelligence training but the institutional memory of lessons from the mistakes of others? He didnt so much need an intelligence and security adviser as one in covert operations per se, but that was an area in which none of these men would solicit or accept advice. They came from generations of smugglers, and their expertise in corrupting and bribing was real enough. It was just that theyd never learned how to play the game against a truly organized and formidable adversarythe Colombians didnt count. That the yanquis had not yet discovered within themselves the courage to act in accordance with their power was nothing more than good fortune. If there was one thing the KGB had drilled into Cortez, it was that good fortune did not exist.

Captain Winters viewed his gunsight videotape with the men from Washington. They were in a corner office of one of the Special Ops buildingsEglin had quite a fewand the other two wore Air Force uniforms, both bearing the rank of lieutenant colonel, a convenient middle grade of officer, many of whom came and went in total anonymity.

Nice shooting, son, one observed.

He could have made it harder, Bronco replied without much in the way of emotion. But he didnt.

How about traffic on the surface?

Nothing within thirty miles.

Put up the Hawkeye tape, the senior man ordered. They were using three-quarter-inch tape, which was preferred by the military for its higher data capacity. The tape was already cued. It showed the inbound Beechcraft, marked as XX1 on the alphanumeric display, one of many contacts, most of which were clearly marked as airliners, and had been high over the shoot-down. There were also numerous surface contacts, but all of them were a good distance away from the area of the attack, and this tape ended prior to the shoot-down. The Hawkeye crew, as planned, had no direct knowledge of what had transpired after handing over the contact to the fighter. The guidelines for the mission were clear, and the intercept area was calculated to avoid frequently used shipping channels. The low-altitude path taken by the drug smugglers helped, of course, insofar as it limited the distance at which someone might see a flash or an explosion, neither of which had happened here.

Okay, said the senior one. That was well within mission parameters. They switched tapes again.

How many rounds expended? the junior one asked Winters.

A hundred n eight, the captain replied. With a Vulcan its kinda hard to keep it down, yknow? The critter shoots right quick.

It did that plane like a chainsaw.

Thats the idea, sir. I could have been a little faster on the trigger, but you want me to try n avoid the fuel tanks, right?

Thats correct. The cover story, in case anyone saw a flash, was that there was a Shoot-Ex out of Eglinexercises killing target drones are not uncommon therebut so much the better if no one noticed at all.

Bronco didnt like the secrecy stuff. As far as he was concerned, shooting the bastards down made perfectly good sense. The point of the mission, theyd told him during the recruiting phase, was that drug trafficking was a threat to U.S. national security. That phrasing made everything legitimate. As an air-defense fighter pilot, he was trained to deal with threats to national security in this specific wayto shoot them out of the sky with as much emotion as a skeet-shooter dispatched clay birds thrown out from the traps. Besides, Bronco thought, if its a real threat to national security, why shouldnt the people know about it? But that wasnt his department. He was only a captain, and captains are operators, not thinkers. Somebody up the line had decided that this was okay, and that was all he needed to know. Dispatching this Twin-Beech had been the next thing to murder, but that was as accurate a description of combat operations as any other. After all, giving people a fair chance was what happened at the Olympics, not where your life was on the line. If somebody was dumb enough to let his ass get killed, that wasnt Broncos lookout, especially if he happened to be committing an act of war against Broncos country. And that was what threat to national security meant, wasnt it?

Besides, he had given Juanor whatever the bastards name had beena fair warning, hadnt he? If the assholed thought he could outfly the best fucking fighter plane in the whole world, well, hed learned different. Tough.

You got any problems to this point, Captain? the senior one asked.

Problems with what, sir? What a dumbass question!

The airstrip at which they had arrived wasnt big enough for a proper military transport. The forty-four men of Operation SHOWBOAT traveled by bus to Peterson Air Force Base, a few miles east of the Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs. It was dark, of course. The bus was driven by one of the camp counselors, as the men had taken to calling them, and the ride was a quiet one, with many of the soldiers asleep after their last days PT. The rest were alone with their own thoughts. Chavez watched the mountains slide by as the bus twisted its way down the last range. The men were ready.

Pretty mountains, man, Julio Vega observed sleepily.

Especially in a bus heading downhill.

Fuckin A! Vega chuckled. You know, someday Im gonna come back here and do some skiing. The machine-gunner adjusted himself in the seat and faded out.

They were roused thirty-five minutes later after passing through the gate at Peterson. The bus pulled right up to the aft ramp of an Air Force C-141 Starlifter transport. The soldiers rose and assembled their gear in an orderly fashion, with each squad captain checking to make sure that everyone had everything hed been issued as they filed off. A few looked around on the way to the aircraft. There was nothing unusual about the departure, no special security guards, merely the ground crew fueling and preflighting the aircraft for an immediate departure. In the distance a KC-135 aerial tanker was lifting off, and though no one thought much about it, theyd be meeting that bird in a little while. The Air Force sergeant who was loadmaster for this particular aircraft took them aboard and seated them as comfortably as the spartan appointments allowedthis mainly involved giving everyone ear protectors.

The flight crew went through the usual startup procedures, and presently the Starlifter began moving. The noise was grating despite the earmuffs, but the aircraft had an Air Force Reserve crew, all airline personnel, who gave them a decent ride. Except for the midair refueling, that is. As soon as the C-141 had climbed to altitude, it rendezvoused with the KC-135 to replace the fuel burned off during the climb-out. For the passengers this involved the usual roller-coaster buffet which, amplified by the near total absence of windows, made a few stomachs decidedly queasy, though all looked quietly inured to it. Half an hour after lifting off, the C-141 settled down on a southerly course, and from a mixture of fatigue and sheer boredom, the soldiers drifted off to sleep for the remainder of the ride.

The MH-53J left Eglin Air Force Base at about the same time, all of its fuel tanks topped off after engine warm-up. Colonel Johns took it to one thousand feet and a course of two-one-five for the Yucatan Channel. Three hours out, an MC-130E Combat Talon tanker/support aircraft caught up with the Pave Low, and Johns decided to let the captain handle the midair refueling. Theyd have to tank thrice more, and the tanker would accompany them all the way down, bringing a maintenance and support crew and spare parts.

Ready to plug, PJ told the tanker commander.

Roger, answered Captain Montaigne in the MC-130E, holding the aircraft straight and level.

Johns watched Willis ease the nose probe into the drogue. Okay, we got plug.

In the cockpit of the -130E, Captain Montaigne took note of the indicator light and keyed the microphone. Ohhh! she said in her huskiest voice. Nobody does it like you, Colonel!

Johns laughed out loud and keyed his switch twice, generating a click-click signal, which meant Affirmative. He switched to intercom. Why spoil it for her? he asked Willis, who was regrettably straitlaced. The fuel transfer took six minutes.

How long do you think well be down there? Captain Willis wondered after it was done.

They didnt tell me that, but if it goes too long, they say well get relief.

Thats nice, the captain observed. His eyes shifted back and forth from his flight instruments to the world outside the armored cockpit. The aircraft had more than its full load of combat gear aboardJohns was a firm believer in firepowerand the electronic countermeasures racks were gone. Whatever theyd be doing, they wouldnt have to worry about unfriendly radar coverage, and that meant that the job, whatever it was, didnt involve Nicaragua or Cuba. It also made for more passenger room in the aircraft and deleted the second flight engineer from the crew. You were right about the gloves. My wife made up a set and it does make a difference.

Some guys just fly without em, but I dont like to have sweaty hands on the stick.

Is it going to be that warm?

Theres warm, and theres warm, Johns pointed out. You dont get sweaty hands just from the outside temperature.

Oh. Yes, sir. Gee, he gets scared, toojust like the rest of us?

Like I keep telling people, the more thinking you do before things get exciting, the less exciting things will be. And they get plenty exciting enough.

Another voice came onto the intercom circuit: You keep talking like that, sir, and we might get a little scared.

Sergeant Zimmer, how are things in the back? Johns asked. Zimmers regular spot was just aft of the two pilots, hovering over an impressive array of instruments.

Coffee, tea, or milk, sir? The meals for this flight are Chicken Kiev with rice, Roast Beef au Jus with baked potato, and for the weight-watchers among us, Orange Ruffy and stir-fried veggiesand if you believe that, sir, youve been staring at the instrument panel too long. Why the hell dont we have a stewardess along with us?

Cause you and I are both too old for that shit, Zimmer! PJ laughed.

It aint bad in a chopper, sir. What with all the vibration and all . . .

Ive been trying to reform him since Korat, Johns explained to Captain Willis. How old are the kids now, Buck?

Seventeen, fifteen, twelve, nine, six, five, and three, sir.

Christ, Willis noted. Your wife must be some gal, Sarge.

Shes afraid Ill run around, so she robs me of my energy, Zimmer explained. I fly to get away from her. Its the only thing that keeps me alive.

Her cooking must be all right, judging by your uniform.

Is the colonel picking on his sergeant again? Zimmer asked.

Not exactly. I just want you to look as good as Carol does.

No chance, sir.

Roger that. Some coffee would be nice.

On the way, Colonel, sir. Zimmer was on the flight deck in less than a minute. The instrument console for the Pave Low helicopter was large and complex, but Zimmer had long since installed gimbaled cup holders suitable for the spillproof cups that Colonel Johns liked. PJ took a quick sip.

She makes good coffee, too, Buck.

Funny how things work out, isnt it? Carol Zimmer knew that her husband would share it with his colonel. Carol wasnt her original given name. Born in Laos thirty-six years earlier, she was the daughter of a Hmong warlord whod fought long and hard for a country that was no longer his. She was the only survivor of a family of ten. PJ and Buck had lifted her and a handful of others off a hilltop at the final stages of a North Vietnamese assault in 1972. America had failed that mans family, but at least it hadnt failed his daughter. Zimmer had fallen in love with her from the first moment, and it was generally agreed that they had the seven cutest kids in Florida.

Yep.

It was late in Mobile, somewhere between the two southbound aircraft, and jailsespecially Southern jailsare places where the rules are strictly applied. For lawyers, however, the rules are often rather lenient, and paradoxically they were very lenient indeed in the case of these two. These two had an as-yet-undetermined date with Old Sparky, the electric chair at Admore Prison. The jailors at Mobile therefore didnt want to do anything to interfere with the prisoners constitutional rights, access to counsel, or general comfort. The attorney, whose name was Edward Stuart, had been fully briefed going in, and was fully fluent in Spanish.

How did they do it?

I dont know.

You screamed and kicked, Ramn, Jesus said.

I know. And you sang like a canary.

It doesnt matter, the attorney told them. Theyre not charging you with anything but drug-related murder and piracy. The information Jesus gave them is not being used at all in this case.

So do your lawyer shit and get us off!

The look on Stuarts face was all the response either man needed.

You tell our friends that if we dont get off on this one, we start talking.

The jail guards had already told both men in loving detail what fate had in store for them. One had even shown Ramr a poster of the chair itself with the caption REGULAR OR EXTRA CRISPY. Though a hard man and a brutal one, the idea of being strapped into a hard-backed wooden chair, then having a copper band affixed to his left leg, and a small metal cap set on a bald spot that the prison barber would shave on his head the day before, and the small sponge soaked in a saline solution to facilitate electrical conductivity, the leather mask to keep his eyes from flying out of his head . . . Ramn was a brave man when he had the upper hand, and that hand held a gun or a knife directed at an unarmed or bound person. Then he was quite brave. It had never occurred to him that one day he might be the helpless one. Ramn had lost five pounds in the preceding week. His appetite was virtually nil and he took an inordinate interest in light bulbs and wall sockets. He was afraid, but more than that he was angry, at himself for his fear, at the guards and police for giving him that fear, and at his former associates for not getting him free of this mess.

I know many things, many useful things.

It does not matter. I have spoken with the federales, and they do not care what you know. The U.S. Attorney claims to have no interest in what you might tell him.

That is ridiculous. They always trade for information, they always Not here. The rules have changed.

What do you tell us?

I will do my best for you. Im supposed to tell you to die like men, Stuart could not say. There are many things that can happen in the next few weeks.

The attorney was rewarded with skeptical expressions not entirely devoid of hope. He himself had no hope at all. The U.S. Attorney was going to handle this one himself, the better to get his face on the 5:30 and 11:00 Eyewitness News broadcasts. This would be a very speedy trial, and a U.S. Senate seat would be available in just over two years. So much the better that the prosecutor could point to his law-and-order record. Frying some druggie-pirate-rapist-murderers would surely appeal to the citizens of the sovereign state of Alabama, Stuart knew. The defense attorney objected to capital punishment on principle, and had spent much of his time and money working against it. Hed successfully taken one case to the Supreme Court and on a five-to-four decision managed to get his client a new trial, where the death sentence had been bargained down to life plus ninety-nine years. Stuart regarded that as a victory even though his client had survived precisely four months in the prisons general population until someone who disliked child-murderers had put a shank into his lumbar spine. He didnt have to like his clientsand most often he didnt. He was occasionally afraid of them, especially the drug runners. They quite simply expected that in return for however much cashit was generally cashthey paid for his services they would get their freedom in return. They did not understand that in law there are no guarantees, especially for the guilty. And these two were guilty as hell. But they did not deserve death. Stuart was convinced that society could not afford to debase itself to the level of . . . his clients. It was not a popular opinion in the South, but Stuart had no ambition to run for public office.

In any case, he was their lawyer, and his job was to provide them with the best possible defense. Hed already explored the chances of a plea-bargain; life imprisonment in exchange for information. Hed already examined the governments case. It was all circumstantialthere were no witnesses except his own clients, of coursebut the physical evidence was formidable, and that Coast Guard crew had scrupulously left the crime scene intact except for removing some evidence, all of which had been carefully locked up for a proper chain-of-evidence. Whoever had briefed and trained those people had done it right. Not much hope there. His only real hope, therefore, was to impeach their credibility. It was a slim hope, but it was the best he had.

Supervisory Special Agent Mark Bright was also working late. The crew had been busy. For starters there had been an office and a home to search, a lengthy procedure that was just the opening move in a process to last months, probably, since all the documents found, all the phone numbers scribbled in any of eleven places, all the photographs on desks and walls, and everything else found would have to be investigated. Every business acquaintance of the deceased would be interviewed, along with neighbors, people whose offices adjoined his, members of his country club, and even parishioners at his church. For all that, the major break in the case had come in the second hour of the fourth home search, fully a month after the case had begun. Something had told them all that there had to be something else. In his den, the deceased had a floor safewith no record of its purchase or installationneatly hidden by an untacked segment of the wall-to-wall carpeting. Discovering it had required thirty-two days. Tickling it open took nearly ninety minutes, but an experienced agent had done it by first experimenting with the birthdays of the deceaseds whole family, then playing variations on the theme. It turned out that the three-element combination came from taking the month of the mans birth and adding one, taking the day of his birth and adding two, then taking the year of his birth and adding three. The door of the expensive Mosler came open with a whisper as it rubbed against the rug flap.

No money, no jewels, no letter to his attorney. Inside the safe had been five computer disks of a type compatible with the businessmans IBM personal computer. That told the agents all they wanted. Bright had at once taken the disks and the deceaseds computer to his office, which was also equipped with IBM-compatible machines. Mark Bright was a good investigator, which meant that he was a patient one. His first move had been to call a local computer expert who assisted the FBI from time to time. A free-lance software consultant, hed first protested that he was busy, but hed only needed to hear that there was a major criminal investigation underway to settle that. Like many such people who informally assist the FBI, he found police work most exciting, though not quite exciting enough to take a full-time job for the FBI Laboratory. Government service didnt come close to paying what he earned on the outside. Bright had anticipated his first instruction: bring in the mans own computer and hard-disk.

After first making exact copies of the five disks using a program called CHASTITY BELT, he had Bright store the originals while he went to work on the copies. The disks were encrypted, of course. There were many ways of accomplishing that, and the consultant knew them all. As he and Bright had anticipated, the encrypting algorithm was permanently stored on the deceaseds hard disk. From that point it was merely a question of what option and what personal encrypting key had been used to secure the data on the disks. That took nine nonstop hours, with Bright feeding coffee and sandwiches to his friend and wondering why he did it all for free.

Gotcha! A scruffy hand punched the PRINT command, and the office laser printer started humming and disgorging papers. All five disks were packed with data, totaling over seven hundred single-spaced pages of text. By the time the third one was printed, the consultant had left. Bright read it all, over a period of three days. Then he made six Xerox copies for the other senior agents in the case. They were now flipping through the pages around the conference table.

Christ, Mark, this stuff is fantastic!

Thats what I said.

Three hundred million dollars! another exclaimed. Christ, I shop there myself . . .

Whats the total involved? a third asked more soberly.

I just skimmed through this stuff, Bright answered, but I got close to seven hundred million. Eight shopping malls spread from Fort Worth to Atlanta. The investments go through eleven different corporations, twenty-three banks, and My life insurance is with this company! They do my IRA, and The way he set it up, he was the only one who knew. Talk about an artist, this guy was like Leonardo. . . .

Sucker got greedy, though. If I read this right, he skimmed off about thirty million . . . God almighty . . .