Clear and Present Danger

'Then you find somebody who does, and you get him here.'

The captain was frightened enough that he took the route of least resistance. He called a major, who lived on post and was in the office in under eight minutes.

'What the hell is this?' the major said on the way through the door.

'Major, I am what's going on here,' Cutter told him. 'I want to know where Colonel Johns is. He's the goddamned CO of this outfit, isn't he?'

'Yessir!' What the hell is this ...?

'Are you telling me that the people of this unit don't know where their CO is?' Cutter was sufficiently amazed that his authority hadn't generated immediate compliance with his orders that he allowed himself to bluster off on a tangent.

'Sir, in Special Operations, we -'

'Is this a fucking Boy Scout camp or a military organization?' the Admiral shouted.

'Sir, this is a military organization,' the major replied. 'Colonel Johns is off TDY. I am under orders, sir, not to discuss his mission or his location with anyone without proper authority, and you are not on the list, sir. Those are my orders, Admiral.'

Cutter was amazed and only got angrier. 'Do you know what my job is and who I work for?' He hadn't had a junior officer talk to him like this in over a decade. And he'd broken that one's career like a matchstick.

'Sir, I have written orders on this matter. The President ain't on the list either, sir,' the major said from the position of attention. Fucking squid, calling the United States Air Force a Boy Scout camp! Well, fuck you and the horse you rode in on - Admiral, sir , his face managed to communicate quite clearly.

Cutter had to soften his voice, had to regain control of his emotions. He could take care of this insolent punk at leisure. But for now he needed that information. He started, therefore, with an apology, man to man, as it were. 'Major, you'll have to excuse me. This is a most important matter, and I can't explain to you why it is important or the issues involved here. I can say that this is a real life-or-death situation. Your Colonel Johns may be in a place where he needs help. The operation may be coming apart around him, and I really need to know. Your loyalty to your commander is laudable, and your devotion to duty is exemplary, but officers are supposed to exercise judgment. You have to do that now, Major. I am telling you that I need that information - and I need it now.'

Reason succeeded where bluster had failed. 'Admiral, the colonel went back down to Panama along with one of our MC-130s. I do not know why, and I don't know what they're doing. That is normal in a special-ops wing, sir. Practically everything we do is compartmented, and this one is tighter than most. What I just told you is everything I know, sir.'

'Exactly where?'

'Howard, sir.'

'Very well. How can I get in touch with them?'

'Sir, they're out of the net. I do not have that information. They can contact us but we can't contact them.'

'That's crazy,' Cutter objected.

'Not so, Admiral. We do that sort of thing all the time. With the MC-130 along, they're a self-contained unit. The Herky-bird takes maintenance and support personnel to sustain the operation, and unless they call us for something, they're completely independent of this base. In the event of a family emergency or something like that, we can try to contact them through Howard's base ops office, but we haven't had to do so in this case. I can try to open that channel now for you, if you wish, sir, but it might take a few hours.'

'Thanks, but I can be there in a few hours.'

'Weather's breaking down around that area, sir,' the major warned him.

'That's okay.' Cutter left the room and walked back to his car. His plane had already been refueled, and ten minutes later it was lifting off for Panama.

Johns was on an easier flight profile now, heading northeast down the great Andean valley that forms the spine of Colombia.

The flight was smooth, but he had three concerns. First, he didn't have the necessary power to climb over the mountains to his west at his present aircraft weight. Second, he'd have to refuel in less than an hour. Third, the weather ahead was getting worse by the minute.

'CAESAR, this is CLAW, over.'

'Roger, CLAW.'

'When are we going to tank, sir?' Captain Montaigne asked.

'I want to get closer to the coast first, and maybe if we burn some more off I can head west some more to do it.'

'Roger, but be advised that we're starting to get radar emissions, and somebody might just detect us. They're air-traffic radars, but this Herky-bird is big enough to give one a skin-paint, sir.'

Damn! Somehow Johns had allowed himself to forget that.

'We got a problem here,' PJ told Willis.

'Yeah. There's a pass about twenty minutes ahead that we might be able to climb over.'

'How much?'

'Says eighty-one hundred on the charts. Drops down a lot lower farther up, but with the detection problem... and the weather. I don't know, Colonel.'

'Let's find out how high we can take her,' Johns said. He'd tried to go easy on the engines for the last half hour. Not now. He had to find out what he could do. PJ twisted the throttle control on the collective arm to full power, watching the gauge for Number Two as he did so. The needle didn't even reach 70 percent this time.

'The P3 leak is getting worse, boss,' Willis told him.

'I see it.' They worked to get maximum lift off the rotor, but though they didn't know it, that, too, had taken damage and was not delivering as much lift as it was supposed to. The Pave Low labored upward, reaching seventy-seven hundred feet, but that was where it stopped, and then it started descending, fighting every foot but gradually losing altitude.

'As we burn off more gas...' Willis said hopefully.

'Don't bet on it.' PJ keyed his radio. 'CLAW, CAESAR, we can't make it over the hills.'

'Then we'll come to you.'

'Negative, too soon. We have to tank closer to the coast.'

'CAESAR, this is LITTLE EYES. I copy your problem. What sort of fuel you need for that monster?' Larson asked. He'd been pacing the helicopter since the pickup, in accordance with the plan.

'Son, right now I'd burn piss if I had enough.'

'Can you make the coast?'

'That's affirmative. Close, but we ought to be able to make it.'

'I can pick you an airfield one-zero-zero miles short of the coast that has all the avgas you need. I am also carrying a casualty who's bleeding and needs some medical help.'

Johns and Willis looked at each other. 'Where is it?'

'At current speed, about forty minutes. El Pindo. It's a little place for private birds. Ought to be deserted this time of night. They have ten-kay gallons of underground storage. It's a Shell concession and I've been in and out of there a bunch of times.'

'Altitude?'

'Under five hundred. Nice, thick air for that rotor, Colonel.'

'Let's do it,' Willis said.

'CLAW, did you copy that?' Johns asked.

'That's affirm.'

'That's what we're going to try. Break west. Stay close enough to maintain radio contact, but you are free to evade radar coverage.'

'Roger, heading west,' Montaigne replied.

In back, Ryan was sitting by his gun. There were eight wounded men in the helicopter, but two medics were working on them and Ryan was unable to offer any help better than that. Clark rejoined him.

'Okay, what are we going to do with Cortez and Escobedo?'

'Cortez we want, the other one, hell, I don't know. How do we explain kidnapping him?'