Russ climbed into the truck, parked a few feet away.
“Shall we head back up to U.S. 40?”
“Hell no,” said Bob, looking at a map. “We’ll go back the scenic way. I got some thinking to do. We’ll head down to Hawthorne and then over to Talihina. There’s a real pretty road down that way, takes us back over the mountains to Blue Eye. The Taliblue Trail. You’ll like it. We’ll be home for supper.”
Around noon, Red filed a flight plan that set him on a course of 240 degrees south-southwest toward Oklahoma City. It took him another half an hour to fuel up the Cessna 425 Conquest and ten minutes after that for a takeoff clearance, as American Eagle’s 12:45
The plane surged upward as Red eased the stick back, seemed to catch a little thermopane and rushed even faster skyward. He leveled out at 7,000 feet, well below commercial traffic patterns, scudded southwest toward the green mounds on the horizon that were the Ouachitas. The first leg all twenty minutes’ worth, was easy flying; beneath him the land was a blue haze, rolling and vague, without true detail, not particularly revealing.
He loved to fly and was quite a good pilot: perfect solitude, the fascinations of the intricate machine that held him aloft with its clever compromise of dynamic forces and its endless stream of numerical data. Yet at the same time, as mechanistic an equilibrium as it was, there was still the wildness of the unpredictable, the sense of being a true master of one’s fate. Also, it was for rich people mainly, and Red liked that quite a bit.
When he got ten miles north of Blue Eye, he dropped down to 4,000 feet and the details sharpened considerably; he had no problem picking up the parallel roads of 270 and 88 as they plunged westward from just above Blue Eye, which itself looked like a scatter of dominoes, blocks, cards and toys against the roll of the earth. As he flew west, the town disappeared and below him were just two roads cutting across the rolling mountains and valleys. Traffic on both of them was very light.
He leaned to his radio console, switched to the security mode in the digital encryption system and keyed in the code he’d selected from the 720 quadrillion possibilities, the same code selected in de la Rivera’s radio on the ground; the radio was now secure from intercept.
He picked up the microphone, punched the send button and said, “Yeah, this is Air, come in, please.”
The radio fizzed and crackled and then de la Rivera’s slightly Hispanic tones came back at him.
“Yes, I have you loud and clear.”
“That extender is working nicely,” said Red, “I have you loud and clear. No trouble installing it?”
“No sir. One of the boys did army commo.”
“Good. Position report, please.”
“Ah, I have you visually, you just buzzed my position. I’m at the wayside just inside Oklahoma. I got a car with three men with me. I got my other two units about twenty-five miles ahead, right where 259 cuts across 1.”
“What units are those?”
“We’re just calling them Alpha and Baker. My car here is Charlie, I’m Mike.”
“Alpha and Baker, you there?”
“Yes sir,” came a voice.
“You got me visually?”
“I see you on the horizon. You’re still a few miles away.”
“Okay, I’m going to buzz to Talihina and back. That’s where I’ll be. When I get a visual, I’ll confirm. Then I’ll trail him into your range. When you see me, you’ll know he’s coming.”
“Yes sir,” came the replies.
Red dropped down a thousand feet. At his altitude, the cars on the mountain road were easily recognizable by type and color, though not by make. He was looking for a green pickup with one unpainted fender. Suppose he found one and directed it into the ambush and it was some Mexican family traveling from bean harvest to bean harvest or some group of tender young college girls going to the Little Rock Pearl Jam concert? He had a set of Zeiss 10?50 binoculars, the finest that could be found in Fort Smith on a crash basis, and from 3,000 feet up he found he could get a very solid up-close and personal view of the vehicle. There wouldn’t be any mistakes.
He flew onward, enjoying the freedom and the sense of the hunt. Off far to the left and a thousand feet higher, he made out another flight, a Lear, obviously headed south to Dallas; there was no other air traffic. The road below was equally empty, though he made out a station wagon pulling tourists along the vividly beautiful road as it rolled along the crest of the green mountains, one of those ludicrous camper things, a couple of private automobiles and one black and white Oklahoma Smokey pulled off by the side of the road, on watch for speeders or merely dozing in the sun. He switched from his secure channel to the Oklahoma Highway Patrol frequency and heard nothing except the odd exchange between troopers somewhere in the area, nothing of note.
He passed over the 259 crossroads and the possibility of contact drew him ever lower, down to 2,500 feet. Maybe too low; he didn’t need FAA complaints against his license. But there were no other flights in view. The road beneath him, bright in the afternoon sun, was a ribbon. Onward he flew, all the way to Talihina, spotting nothing.
He veered and headed back along the highway, now having risen to 4,000 feet, and raced back toward the ambush kill zone. He could monitor the road just in case he’d missed something, but there were no green trucks.
“Okay, boys,” he said into the radio when he was in range, “so far I got nothing. You all okay?”
“We’re fine,” said de la Rivera.
“No police interest or anything?”
“Haven’t seen a cop all day, sir.”
He glanced at his Rolex. It was 3:30 by this time. Where the hell were they? It was beginning to look like a wash. He’d guessed wrong.
He used some left rudder, then dropped back down to 2,000 feet and began to zoom up the road, eyes peeled. The traffic had really thinned out by now. It wasn’t—
Green vehicle.
He dropped a little lower.
Pickup truck.
He overflew it and got on the radio.
“I got a possible. Got a possible.”
“Copy you, Air.”
“Okay, let me just check this out.”
He banked wide to the left, left wingtip falling, right rising, the world going giddily topsy-turvy as the two big engines drove the props through the air, and came around again level-out about a half mile to the right of the road and saw the truck ahead of him. He reached for the throttles, eased them back; the sound of engines racing could be heard for several miles and he didn’t want to alert them at all.
Gradually, he gained on them, trying not to force it or rush or anything.
When at last he was nearly parallel, he set the plane on autopilot and drew the binoculars into position and diddled with focus.
Green pickup. Unpainted left front fender. Dodge.
He applied a touch of right rudder, a little aileron, and gently banked to the right, settling on a course of 180 degrees due south. He held the course for one minute, loafing at eighty knots, looking innocent, putting distance between himself and the target. Two minutes. He drummed his fingers on his thighs. Two minutes forty seconds. Red could take no more. He quickly reset the trim tabs, increased the pitch and pushed the throttles forward.
As the revs came up he executed a hard climbing turn to the left, straining for altitude. He was sweating.
“Air to Mike, Air to Mike. Are you there, are you there?” he said, hoping he was still in range.
“Yes sir,” said de la Rivera.
“I have them confirmed, about twenty miles west of the 259 cutoff. They’re coming your way. ETA 3:55
