Whirlwind (41 page)

“Dad?” Scott asked, sounding worried. “Are you all right?”

No, I’m nutty as a fruitcake. He started to reply, suddenly couldn’t, felt the breath sucked from his lungs, wanted to fall limp to the cockpit floor. Doc Howard’s painkillers were wearing off. An express train of unalloyed agony roared up his leg, through his stomach, next station stop: the brain. Crystalline and pure, he’d never known hurt that hurt like this. His vision blanked, and for a dizzy moment he truly feared he’d fainted.

But he held. His old man’s old body held, and after a moment it passed, and he was back to where he’d been. Pulling himself straight, praying that no one noticed, he bit back a groan. “Okay, look … I mean, look…” He took a deep breath before continuing softly, almost in reminiscence. “Not so long ago Death gave your mother his black rose. There wasn’t a goddamned thing I could do about it. Nothing. It was totally beyond my power to influence. Do you know what that felt like? What it felt like for a guy like me? I never met a problem I couldn’t finagle my way around or bull my way through. Not ever. Me, I’m the guy who gets the job done. One way or another, that’s what I do, and I do it very well.” He wiped a hand across his clammy forehead. “Only not that time. That time I was impotent. All I could do was wait helplessly for the end. Do you understand how I felt, Scott? Do you understand, Major? Colonel?”

The two officers exchanged glances.

“I failed my wife. That’s what it felt like. It felt like there had to be something I could have done. The thought that there might have been will haunt me ‘til the day I die. No way in hell am I letting it happen this time because this time there is something I can do, and I’ll fight to get it done as long as I have a breath left in my body, and ten minutes after I stop breathing I’ll still be fighting. Have you got that, Major? Colonel, do you read me? At the moment, that girl down there in San Carlos is what my life is about the only thing it’s about so just shut to hell up and let me get on with my job.”

The copilot gave him a psychiatric ward look. “I think I understand, sir.”

“I doubt it.”

“Whether I do or I don’t isn’t the issue. The issue is whether or not you want to live long enough to help your lady friend. Or would you prefer to die?”

“Maybe later. Not just now.”

“Then,” the major shouted, “I respectfully recommend that your son get-this-GODDAMNED-PLANE-INTO-THE-SKY!”

He’s losing it Any minute now and all that Right Stuff veneer is going to flake right off of him, and he’s going to go postal. “Take her up a bit, Scott.”

The copilot blew a breath between tightly compressed teeth. “What I don’t understand is what you hope to accomplish. Even if you spot her and in this weather the odds of that are nil the nearest airport is sixty miles away.”

The man has a point. Damn me, but he has a point. I still haven’t got a clue as to what to do. “Signal her. At a minimum I can let her know I’m here. Wiggle the wings or something. Somehow or another tell her to get out of that town, get back to the highway. We could land on Route 1, couldn’t we? If she knows I’ve come for her, we could touch down and “

Total disgust: “That is such an exceptionally bad idea.”

He’s right. “Traffic. Yeah.” The coastal road was packed. High summer, and vacationers taking the scenic drive up and down Big Sur cars, vans, campers, you name it, it was rolling on Route 1, daddy driving, and mommy pointing the camcorder at everything that looked interesting. “Okay, Major, I’m open to suggestions. There’s a young woman in that village who is in deadly danger. As of noon today, there’s a price on her head and a lot of people wanting to collect. If I… if we don’t extract her, she will be killed. I repeat: killed. It is a certainty. Equally certain, she will be tortured in ways you don’t want to know about. If I told you, you’d puke. The thugs who are after her want information, and cutting it out of her is just one of the ways they’ll get their jollies. So, Major and you too, Colonel give me some ideas. Help me out here. Do that, and you have my word, once I get that young woman out of trouble, I’ll surrender.”

“I wish I could believe that, sir.”

Charlie laid his hand on the copilot’s shoulder a gentle squeeze of sincerity, then words calculated to convince: “You can. On my honor, as soon as she’s safe, the cuffs come off you. I’ll lay down my gun. You can tie me up and turn me in. Hell, you can shoot me where I stand. I honestly don’t care. Just as long as we save that lady’s life, I don’t give a good goddamn about anything else.”

Well, that was a lie. He gave a good goddamn about much more than Irina. Top priority: seeing to it that his son wasn’t punished for his father’s misdeeds. Then too, there was a computer disk that could not be allowed out of the country. Add to that Sam, still pinioned to his seat; Charlie wanted the truth, and if he had to carve it out with a knife, well, it wouldn’t be the first time.

Plus Schmidt. His bill was overdue. It was time to collect.

Surrender? In your dreams, Major!

“You have my word,” he lied piously, “as soon as we get Irina to safety, I’m your prisoner.”

Oome men were rattled when they saw a comrade take a bullet. Those men were weaker men than Johan Schmidt. Calm and collected, he whispered into his radio, “Pit Viper, do you read me?”

“Roger, Cobra. What’s your status?”

“Kolodenkova is in my ops zone. Pass the word up and down the line. I want all units converging on this town.”

“Nearest squad’s an hour away, sir.”

“I am aware of that. Tell them to move as briskly as they can.”

“Will do.”

Schmidt peered into, but not through, a maddening fog. Where was she? Hard to tell. He’d parked to the left of her Camry. Milksnake exited the NJercedes’s passenger side, circled the Toyota, and had been standing to its right when nice shooting, young miss she’d switched off his lights. Odds were, she was somewhere in a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree arc beginning at the Camry’s front bumper, and ending at its rear. She couldn’t be to his left. His M-Class would have blocked her line of fire. Nor, now that he thought about it, was she behind him. There was nothing there but the flat expanse of a parking lot under Python’s surveillance and if Python had seen her, he most certainly would have opened fire.

“Python, Milksnake is down. Did you happen to see a gun flash a few seconds ago?”

No answer.

“I repeat. Python, did you observe a muzzle flash?”

Something’s not right A warrior’s instinct, a chilly tickle along the spine, the stuff of which goose bumps are made. You didn’t know what was wrong. You only knew danger was near. That’s when your testicles tightened up.

Schmidt slid down in his seat. “Python, I asked you a question.”

He fingered the radio from its cradle, clipping it to his belt. Raising his right hand, index finger stretched, he drew two circles in the air, first pointing to a fog-shrouded picnic bench, second to a fire-charred driftwood log a dozen yards away. The Mercedes rear door snicked open; Bushmaster and Krait slid to the ground, preparing to dash for cover.

“Python, please respond.”

He slipped his pistol into his belt a Beretta U22 Ncos with an extended barrel. It would give him the accuracy he wanted, nail-driving accuracy, but not the knock-over power he needed. Carrying low-caliber weapons on this mission had been a mistake. Thank Samuel for that.

“Python?”

Pumping his fist three times, Schmidt whispered, “Go!” Bent low, two mercenaries darted into a broken field run. As they did, he threw open his own door, rolled prone on wet asphalt, snaking out of sight beneath the Mercedes.

He listened.

Listening was an art. What you could not see, you might hear. All he desired was single telltale footstep on wet pavement. Instead he heard … … a dispute of seagulls, birds bobbing in the marina’s water…. .. the cow bell clang of loose boat fittings blown in a rising wind …. .. snapping signal flags hung from a pretentious yachtsman’s mast.. …. a woman’s voice, almost musical, crooning from his radio. “Hello. You must be Johan Schmidt.”

Well now, that’s an unwelcome surprise. “Where’s Python?”

“A big man? Not so good-looking? Is this the one you call Python?”

“Yes.”

“You will not be speaking to him again.”

No longer a tingling down his backbone, but rather a skeletal finger drawing its nail from his neck to his buttocks. “Pit Viper, I need you here. I need you now.”

“Sir, I must be four miles from your position “

“On the double, Pit Viper. You know I don’t like repeating orders.”

“I’m on it, sir.”

“Mr. Schmidt, he will not get here fast enough, I think.”

Good voice. She probably sings well. A mezzo, I should say. “You would be Irina Kolodenkova, would you not?” His mind raced, sifting alternatives, choosing the psychological weapons he needed rather badly at this particular moment.

“I am she.”

Paul Linebarger, 1954. Psychological Warfare. The definitive text. Rule one: use courtesy to unbalance your enemy. “Irina … I may call you Irina, may I not? … I have all the time in the world.”

“There were five of you in your car. Now three remain. It took me only a minute. I think the rest of you will not take much longer.”

The guard shack! How clever. She was hiding inside. When Python entered… what did she use? .. . a knife, perhaps, although a handgun pressed against the chest produces a sufficiently muffled report that I would not have heard it, not in this fog. And then … why then, when Milksnake stepped out on recon, she had a sweet shot from a concealed position.

Belly-crawling toward the Mercedes’ rear axle, he spoke softly and politely, “I know it is trite of me to say this, Irina, but in all candor things will go better for you if you surrender now.” The kiosk was twelve yards away, Python’s lower legs slack through its open door. She’s long gone. Once she had Python’s radio, once she saw us ducking for cover, she darted off somewhere. Where? Anywhere. Step a few paces back in the fog, and you’re invisible. Right now she’s out there circling. Ah, but circling in which direction?

, “Surrendering when you have your opponent where you want him this is poor practice, is it not?”

Artificial. Her English is a little too perfect. She doesn’t use contractions. That’s a flaw although not one I can use to my advantage.

“I hope you won’t hold this against me, but you’re being foolish. I… we … my men and I have tracked you down, Irina. You thought you were running for a place where we couldn’t find you. But instead, we were right behind you, knew exactly where you were going. We’ve been a step ahead “

“You have made a mistake, Mr. Schmidt.”

He didn’t like the way she said that. It sounded as if she thought she was the one in control here. He’d need to disabuse her of that fallacy. “Oh?” he asked sharply.

“You have come to the place where I wanted you. You have come as I planned. Everything you have done has been anticipated. You behaved as I wanted you to, doing what I knew you would.”

“That’s absurd.” She’s taunting me, trying to prick my temper. Well, child, two can play that game.

“Do you think that I am so simple a little girl as to have left a clue to my whereabouts on Charlie’s answering machine? If so, you insult me. I said what I said for your benefit, Mr. Schmidt, not Charlie’s. I chose the words Saint Charles quite carefully. It was rather subtle of me, do you not think? A phrase that might be innocent, or might contain a hidden meaning did you not feel quite proud of yourself when you deciphered it, Mr. Schmidt? Did you not say: ah-ha, now I have her?”

Was she really so cunning? Or was she merely improvising?

“You think yourself the hunter. This is not correct, Mr. Schmidt. You are the hunted.”

y 7JNB, this is San Luis Obispo Control. I want an explanation of your shenanigans, and I want it now!” That, thought Charlie, is one air controller who definitely is not cool, calm and collected.

“San Luis,” Scott replied, slow and easy, “my apologies. I’ve got an aunt in San Carlos and was just doing a flyby to say hello.”

The controller’s voice evidenced neither belief nor patience. “Bullshit! The coast is socked in. Pea soup fog.”

“So I’ve noticed.”

“57JNB, either you will give me an explanation or I will scramble a Marine Corps intercept.”

“Well, it’s like this-“

“My radar shows you turning over the Pacific. Your altitude is … good God, man! What the hell is going on up there?”

“I can explain “

“Explain it to the marines, Captain. I just hit the red button.”

Oft, hell! There’ll be no sweet-talking our way out of this.

“But-“

“But me no buts. Barnstorming at unsafe altitudes in IMC conditions near restricted airspace you’re in deep shit, buddy. You’re going to a military base under F-l 5 Eagle escort. Now get that plane up above the weather pronto.”

“I don’t think I want to do that, San Luis.”

“Tour alternative is an AIM-120 up the tailpipe.”

“They can’t see me in the fog, I’ll be “

Charlie lunged for the microphone. His son had made a fatal mistake. An AIM-120 was a fire-and-forget air-to-air missile. Initially guided by inertial data from the aircraft that launched it, once it was in range of its target, its onboard radar kicked in. Visibility was not an issue. The pilot didn’t have to see his foe, didn’t have to get closer than forty-six miles before bang, you’re dead! The air traffic controller would know that and, therefore, know he was not talking to the Air Force colonel who was designated as captain of this aircraft.

“You’re not the pilot!” the ground controller hissed. “You’re a fucking hijacker!”

Charlie, hoping for the best but expecting the worst, answered, “Technically speaking ‘commandeer’ would be a more accurate “

The man in the control tower wouldn’t let him finish the sentence. Charlie couldn’t blame him. “Okay, Mohammed, or Osama, or whatever the hell your name is, kiss your rag head butt good-bye.”

I have to play my high cards. Correction, high card. Singular. “Check my flight designation. I’m carrying a level-three passenger. The White House national security advisor is aboard this plane.”