Part 9 (1/2)

”Is she having any second thoughts?”

”Plenty, I'm sure. How about you?”

”Oh, I'm feeling fairly addled. It occurs to me that I haven't slept in three days.” He took a swallow of coffee and nudged the co-pilot with his foot. ”Want some?” ”Yes, please,” said Anspaugh. It was the first time he had uttered a word since takeoff. ”You wouldn't try to throw hot coffee at me, would you?” ”No, sir.”

Peter looked at Anspaugh for a moment, wondering what he was thinking. Whether he would, if he knew, have an opinion one way or the other about what his government was up to. ”You know what they do to people down there on Vieques?” ”No, sir, and I'm not sure I want to.”

”Well, it isn't good, and I ought to know-I used to do it. G.o.d's work, I used to think it was. Once you tell yourself that, you can get away with anything. B., would you please get this gentleman some coffee?” ”I will,” said Beatrice, ”if you'll stop annoying him.” ”Was I annoying you?” said Peter.

”No, sir.”

”It's a dangerous world,” said Peter.

”Yes, sir, it certainly is.”

”The people who say that generally want to make it more dangerous. At least in my experience. The coffee,” he said to Beatrice, who was beginning to trade looks with Elizabeth, still seated across from the unconscious Henderson, beyond the c.o.c.kpit door. As Beatrice went back into the cabin, Peter faced front again, feeling shadows move across his mind. Concentrate, he thought. Calculate. They weren't that far behind the C-20, so they had a decent chance of getting to Vieques before the operation robbed Kenner of his brain. He was determined not only to save Kenner, but deny Wolfe another fifty years. If he had that much time to continue his mischief, he might actually secure immortality for himself. But how to get from the Vieques airport and onto the base to do that? Wolfe would certainly have alerted the troops, especially once both Russell and Henderson turned up missing. That would put the entire installation on full alert. Even with an ally on the inside, it would be impossible to get past the gate. And his only ally, Alex Davies, was hiding out G.o.d knows where. ”Anspaugh,” he said, ”you can get a radio transmission from this thing onto a telephone line, can't you?” ”This aircraft has a telephone, yes, sir. ”But that would be monitored, wouldn't it?” ”No, sir. This is a secure telephone.”

”Are you trying to trick me?”

”No, sir!”

Of course he was. Peter leaned wearily toward the co-pilot. ”If you continue in this vein, I'll amputate your thumbs and big toes so that you'll reel through the rest of your life like a drunken orangutan.” ”I would never try to trick you, sir,” said the co-pilot, meaning it. ”But there's also a way through the aircraft's radio to make a phone call, isn't there?” ”Yes, sir. I would just call UNICOM and ask for a land line. That's a civilian service. They do it all the time and they have no monitoring policy.” ”Good. Do that. Get on the telephone and get me the New York Times.” ”I'll call 411, sir,” he said as he got on the radio. Within several minutes, Peter had called the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Was.h.i.+ngton Post and the Wail Street Journal. Depending on the newspaper, he was either hung up on, met with scornful laughter or, at best, treated with polite curiosity. That is, until the Post pulled his name up on their computer and noted that he had been dead for two months. Then on the last call, there was a series of mysterious cracks and sizzles on the line and he hung up. ”Somebody was just listening in. Did you tip them off?” ”No, sir, I swear to G.o.d.”

He waited for something to happen, some bolt from the sky or a voice to come over the radio, but nothing came. After a while he calmed down and let Beatrice bring the promised coffee. Jittery as he was, he took another one himself. Oddly enough, the second cup seemed to steady him, and he resumed gazing out the window, like a tourist on his first flight to the Caribbean. At Cape Hatteras the coast changed direction, receding southwest. The Learjet struck out over open water, flying a little lower than a commercial jet. The view was much more striking than anything he ever experienced before. Enjoy it while you can, he thought-you may soon be leaving this great blue planet. His scientist's eye noted the subtle differences in the ocean's surface as they pa.s.sed the edge of the Continental Shelf, saw the waters turn deeper blue and the bottom fall away to the abyss. They were pa.s.sing over the Blake and Bahama Ridges, great undersea mountain ranges he knew were as high as the Rockies. It was pleasant to know such things, he reflected. Not all his learning had been in the service of destruction. Now he could see all the way across Florida into the Gulf of Mexico and, ahead, the islands of the Bahamas stretching out like the first pearls of some great necklace extending all the way to the end of the Caribbean itself. They were almost home.

Then he looked out the side window and nearly jumped out of his seat. He was staring at another human being. It was a pilot, no doubt scrambled from Homestead Air Force Base outside Miami, in a heavily armed F-15C Eagle fighter. The airplane couldn't have been more than fifty feet away; Peter could see the pilot's helmet with a jagged streak of lightning across it. In fact, he could almost read the name on his G-suit. The fighter itself bristled with rockets and guns. A flat Midwestern voice boomed over the radio. ”h.e.l.lo Learjet niner-four-eight-three-eight, do you read me?” Peter turned and put the knife to Anspaugh's ribs. ”Don't make me do it.”

”What should I do, sir?”

”Ignore him,” said Peter.

Suddenly Anspaugh lost all his previous shyness. ”Ignore an F-15? Sir, that's the same as saying you're a marauding aircraft. You know what he's got on that thing? Twenty-millimeter Vulcan cannons, probably four AIM-7 Sparrows, four more Sidewinders. He can take us out in the blink of an eye.” ”Can you outrun him?” said Peter, hoping the women were missing what he was seeing and wondering if Henderson had regained consciousness. ”Outrun him? We make 540 knots tops-he does Mach 2.5 plus! He could knock us down just with his sonic boom!” ”Then tell him who you are,” Peter ordered, ”and say that every-thing's all right.” Anspaugh gaped at him, convinced now that the man was insane. The radio voice crackled on again. ”Lear niner-foureight-three-eight, please respond or be considered hostile.” The fighter was drifting closer, the pilot literally peering in their window. Peter waved. ”Say h.e.l.lo,” he said through his teeth to Anspaugh. Anspaugh keyed the mike. ”Learjet niner-four-eight-three-eight.” ”Niner-four-eight-three-eight, say your destination.” ”Destination Roosevelt Roads Naval Air Station, Vieques Island.” ”Do you have a Dr. Peter Jance aboard?”

Anspaugh looked at Peter for help. ”No,” Peter told him. ”That is negative,” said Anspaugh.

There was some static while the pilot gave them another once-over. ”Who is the gentleman sitting to your right in the c.o.c.kpit?” Peter felt the sweat beading on his upper lip and hoped it didn't read across forty feet of troposphere. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Beatrice moving up from the cabin, curious to see what was going on. He waved her back, keeping his hands low ”Say I'm Colonel Oscar Henderson,” Peter said. ”That would be Colonel Oscar Anderson,” said the terrified copilot. ”Henderson,” said Peter.

”Henderson,” said Anspaugh.

More static. ”I am being asked to speak directly to Colonel Henderson. Could you give him the mike, please?” The co-pilot looked at Peter, who breathed deeply and took the mike. ”What the h.e.l.l's the meaning of this?” he demanded in the best Henderson growl he could summon. ”You are dangerously close, cowboy! You want to cause a midair? Who's your commanding officer?” ”I am Colonel Howard Price, United States Air Force, and the commanding officer of this wing,” said the voice from the fighter. ”These men are under my command.” What men? Peter thought. He leaned closer to Anspaugh's window and looked up. His heart missed a beat. There were three more fighters flying in echelon above them. ”Colonel Henderson, I have been instructed to request your mission code. Could you give that to me, please?” Mission code? Oh Jesus, thought Peter.

”We are Operation Fountain Society,” he bluffed. Static. Then: ”And your mission code?”

Now Peter's face was drenched with sweat. ”It's in my briefcase. I don't have it with me here.” ”I formally request you retrieve that from your briefcase, sir. I need to confirm the code.” His fear was so intense he could barely move without jerking like a marionette. He had once been invited to witness strafing practice on Vieques and he knew what these aircraft and their guns could do. Targets didn't just get shot full of holes, they flew apart into redhot shrapnel and were unrecognizable afterward. ”Stand by,” Peter said. He turned and looked helplessly at his wife. ”What are you going to do?” she asked.

”He doesn't know s.h.i.+t what to do,” an all-too-familiar voice boomed from the cabin. Christ, thought Peter.

It was Henderson, awake and laughing at them. Peter rose from his seat and started back. ”It's basic fail-safe procedure,” Henderson snarled. ”You don't have the code, you're Swiss cheese.” Peter grabbed him by the lapels. ”Then you're going to give it to me.” ”No, I'm not, and you know why?”

”Why?”

”Because you tie a lousy knot,” said Henderson matter-of-factly, lunging up, wrists bleeding and chafed, hands free. He threw Peter against the bulkhead with such brute force he was knocked senseless. Behind him, Elizabeth fumbled for the Beretta. ”Put that down before you hurt yourself,” Henderson sneered, kicking backward without looking, catching Peter in the groin even as he tried to struggle up. Elizabeth fired.

She missed Henderson, but the window next to him cracked vertically and a jagged hole in its center emitted a horrendous screech of wind and decompression. Beatrice and Elizabeth clutched their ears as the atmospheric pressure plunged, shooting subzero air through the cabin at tremendous velocity Distracted by the agonizing sound, Elizabeth swung around, too late, as Henderson, bulling forward, twisted the pistol from her hand and knocked her sprawling. He wheeled, intending to level it at Peter, but the tilt of the plane, now climbing at a fearful angle, spilled Peter against the seats and sent Henderson reeling back against the shattered window. There he stuck, with a look of horror on his face. In the next instant his abdomen caved in, the window turned red and blew out altogether. Henderson's body was sucked into it with monstrous force. His spine snapped loudly, the body folded double, jamming into the aperture even as his viscera ballooned into his trousers outside the windows. His eyes glistened a moment, then eerily withdrew into his skull. He was slowly imploding, but his body, for the time being at least, had effectively sealed the gap. ”Take us down or we'll blow!” screamed Peter at the co-pilot. He wheeled on Beatrice and Elizabeth. ”Strap in!” The stall-warning horn blared as he clawed his way toward Anspaugh, who was struggling to level the plane while the radio crackled, the voice on the other end demanding to know what was going on. Peter flung himself back into his seat. A loud crunch echoed from the cabin. ”He's not going to stay in that window much longer!” Elizabeth yelled. ”Then hang on!” Peter shouted, as Anspaugh shoved the stick forward in a dive. ”Niner-four-eight-three-eight, respond, respond!” Peter swore and grabbed the mike. ”Mayday, Mayday!” he called. ”We are experiencing explosive decompression and are diving to lower alt.i.tude. Please advise as to nearest base. This is not an evasive action-repeat-this is not an evasive action!” The wind howled past the canopy, screaming through the cabin as the altimeter spun down like a mad, backward clock. Peter could see the fighters diving with them, flaps down. They leveled off at three thousand feet. Moments later, the remains of what had once been Oscar Henderson shook loose from the Learjet's window and fell like a spinning husk toward the sea below. Then the radio crackled again. ”Niner-four-eight-three-eight?” Peter's hands shook convulsively as he picked up the mike. ”Ninerfour-eight-three-eight.” ”Confirm that was a fatality.”

”Confirmed.”

”Identify?”

”.... Dr. Peter Jance,” Peter said.

”Roger that. Did you get that code?”

”Blew out the window with my briefcase,” said Peter. There was a long string of static. ”Advise turn west to two hundred sixty degrees, make landing Guantanamo. They are rolling emergency equipment.” ”Roger that,” said Peter. He keyed the mike twice to say goodbye. As Anspaugh eased the plane into a twenty-degree bank, Peter watched the compa.s.s come around. ”Where are we going?” Beatrice asked.

She was just behind him. Elizabeth was back in the cabin, hugging herself to stop the shaking. Anspaugh stared at him, white-faced, mute, waiting for instructions. ”Guantanamo Marine Base, Cuba. Beatrice, you should strap in. Elizabeth, too.” ”Why Guantanamo? Isn't the Dominican closer?” ”The Dominican would be civilian. I think they want us down on a military base.” ”Better emergency equipment?”

”1 hope that's it. Or else it's because there'll be no witnesses who aren't working for the government.” He saw her tighten, then smile, pretending to look far less worried than she felt. ”I think I'm over my fear of turbulence,” she said. ”Trauma therapy,” said Peter, trying to remain calm by calming her. ”So what are we going to do, I wonder?” he said, patting her hand. She looked at him a long moment. ”Peter, I love you very much.” ”I love you, too. Always have and always will.” ”And Elizabeth?”

He looked out into the deep blue of the sky. ”Yes. She's you and you are her, and I guess I love her a great deal. It's just that she and I haven't gone through what you and I have.” Beatrice nodded. ”I always did like your honesty,” she said. ”And you know what I've realized in talking with her?” No , what?''

”If our situations had been reversed? If I had been twenty-four and had met you as you are now? I'd have fallen in love with you, too.” ”I see,” he said. Did that mean he was a better man today? He hoped so. ”I've always liked your honesty, too.”

Beatrice sighed. ”I think you should talk to her.” ”Elizabeth? Why? Is she coming unglued?” Beatrice shrugged. ”She's got more to lose, but she's not coming apart. In fact, our Elizabeth has an extremely interesting idea.” 20 VIEQUES.

The C-20 returning from New York hearing Frederick Wolfe and the semi comatose Phillip C. Kenner was met by considerably more vehicles than had attended Hans Brinkman's arrival from Zurich. In addition to the usual Humvees, there were two APCs, light-armored troop vehicles mounted with 50-caliber machine guns, each carrying ten heavily armed young men a.s.signed to cover the perimeter of the base from both ends of the airstrip. The plane touched down in the glow of a setting sun, and Kenner was wheeled to the ambulance, Wolfe trotting behind like a mother hen. The medics, he realized, must have miscalculated the anesthesia dosage because Kenner was twisting against the restraints, evidently in the throes of some abduction nightmare. The soldiers watching from the APCs sat silently, some looking away. G.o.d only knew what the old man they called The Reaper was going to do to the poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d on the stretcher. They had been ordered never to discuss anything they witnessed on these missions, but after seeing so many Arabs and, more recently, Caucasians arrive in this condition, they all had to wonder. The whole business had gotten so distasteful that the Special Forces troops had taken to drawing straws to determine who would pull the duty. ”Go, go, go!” Wolfe was shouting now, hurriedly scanning the skies as he ran, as though some lightning bolt of judgment was about to strike from the deepening gloom. He had been informed by radio while still in the C-20 that Russell was dead in Kenner's Manhattan apartment, his brains blown out, apparently with his own pistol. He had also been told that their errant Learjet, which had earlier disgorged Henderson's evacuated body from one of its side windows, had-until fifteen minutes ago-been heading straight for Vieques. As the ambulance sped toward the Fountain Compound, a lieutenant colonel, whose name Wolfe had never bothered to learn, gave him a full briefing. ”The pilot identified himself as Henderson but was unable to give his mission code. The speculation is it's Jance.” ”That's impossible,” Wolfe a.s.serted.

”Apparently not, sir.”

”Where's the Learjet now?”

”It was ordered to Guantanamo, but it deviated. It's over Cuban airs.p.a.ce. NASA monitored a telephone call between an unidentified woman and a General Jesus Pinar del Rio.” ”A Cuban? A Communist? What the h.e.l.l do they have to do with this? Who was this woman?” ”As I say, we don't know. The Learjet now appears to be tailgating a Cuban airliner-Cubana de Aviacion Flight 1204.” ”Shoot them down!”

The lieutenant colonel shook his head.

”Not an option. They're flying too close to the airliner, apparently very skillfully; too. We can't risk an international incident.” ”Jesus Christ. It's not Jance, we can be certain of that. He might have managed to kill Russell, but Peter couldn't possibly fly a Learjet. I don't care how much cellular memory he has.” ”He's not flying the plane. There's a pilot on board.” ”Well, Jesuswhat's a few Cubans, for G.o.dsakes!” ”Excuse me a second,” said the lieutenant colonel, unsnapping his ringing cellular. Furious and shaken, Wolfe eyed Kenner on the gurney. Despite the efforts of the ambulance medics, he was quickly regaining consciousness, twitching and moaning. It put Wolfe in mind of a heart-lung lab in first-year physiology, the poor TAs running around with hypodermics like demented plates-and-sticks jugglers, trying to keep the d.a.m.n experimental dogs from whimpering. He heard Kenner breathe the word ”Mafia,” and then he heard the colonel curse. ”What's up?” he demanded, sensing more bad news. ”Now the Learjet's got an escort. Four MiG-23 MLDs, flogger cla.s.s, armed with Aphid air-to-air missiles.” ”Jesus Christ. It's not Jance, it's the b.l.o.o.d.y Red Cubans.” ”We can't be sure of that.”

”I'm sure,” said Wolfe. ”I'm d.a.m.n sure.” Yes, and he should have foreseen it. Black ops security was a famous sieve and Castro had enough dope money to buy any secret he wanted. Well, he thought wildly, this is why we started all this: to keep b.a.s.t.a.r.ds like him in their place. He knew if he were Castro and learned that the U.S. was about to keep its power elite alive for centuriesthe very leaders who had squeezed him all these years while he aged and went infirm-then he would sure as h.e.l.l try to sabotage the effort. It would const.i.tute a grand, heroic last gesture. Kenner mumbled again, something about hit men and mercy. Wolfe thought he might not want to involve the mob, but otherwise it all made perfect sense. He sighed heavily. The next possibility was far more troubling. ”And what about Mrs. Jance?”

”Mrs. Jance?” said the lieutenant colonel. ”Dr. Beatrice Jance, wife of the fugitive Dr. Peter Jance. Has she returned to the base?” ”No, sir apparently not.”

His heart fluttered darkly. ”You're sure?” ”We would know, sir.”

”Her last known whereabouts?”

”Miami International.”

”She was supposed to be helping us spot the Parker girl.” ”Yes, that's right, she was.

”Any idea where she is?”