"Uh- huh." Bright was struggling to adjust his helmet. It didn't fit very well. It was also quite warm in the cockpit, and the air-conditioning system hadn't taken hold yet. "What if the other tanker doesn't show up?"

"The Eagle is a very good glider," the major assured him. "We won't have to swim too far."

A radio message crackled in Bright's ears. The major answered it, then spoke to his passenger. "Grab your balls, sir. It is now post time." The Eagle taxied to the end of the runway, where it sat still for a moment while the pilot brought the engines to full, screaming, vibrating power, and then slipped his brakes. Ten seconds later Bright wondered if a catapult shot off a carrier could be more exciting than this. The F-15E held a forty-degree angle of climb and just kept accelerating, leaving Florida's gulf coast far behind. They tanked a hundred miles offshore - Bright was too fascinated to be frightened, though the buffet was noticeable - and after separating, the Eagle climbed to forty thousand feet and the pilot punched burners. The aft cockpit was mainly concerned with delivering bombs and missiles on target, but did have a few instruments. One of them told the agent that they had just topped a thousand miles per hour.

"What's the hurry?" the pilot asked.

"I want to get to Panama ahead of somebody."

"Can you give me some details? Might help, you know."

"One of those business jets - G-Three, I think. Left Andrews eighty-five minutes ago."

The pilot laughed. "Is that all? Hell, you can check into a hotel 'fore he gets down. We're already ahead of him. We're wasting fuel going this fast."

"So waste it," Bright said.

"Fine with me, sir. Mach-2 or sittin' still, they pay me the same. Okay, figure we'll get in ninety minutes ahead of your guy. How do you like the ride?"

"Where's the drink cart?"

"Should be a bottle down by your right knee. A nice domestic vintage, good nose, but not the least pretentious."

Bright got it and had a drink out of sheer curiosity.

"Salt and electrolytes, to keep you alert," the pilot explained a few seconds later. "You're FBI, right?"

"Correct."

"What gives?"

"Can't say. What's that?" He heard a beeping sound in his headphones.

"SAM radar," the major said.

"What?"

"That's Cuba over there. There's a SAM battery on that point that doesn't like American military aircraft. I can't imagine why. We're out of range anyway. Don't sweat it. It's normal. We use them to calibrate our systems, too. Part of the game."

Murray and Shaw were reading over the material Jack had dropped off. Their immediate problems were, first, to determine what was supposed to be going on; next, to determine what was actually going on; next, to determine if it was legal or not; next, if not, then to take appropriate action, once they could figure what appropriate action was. This wasn't a mere can of worms. It was a can of poisonous snakes that Ryan had spilled over Murray's desk.

"You know how this might end up?"

Shaw turned away from the desk. "The country doesn't need another one." Not by my hands , he didn't say.

"We got one whether we need it or not," Murray said. "I admit, part of me says, 'Right on!' about why they're doing it, but from what Jack tells me, we have at the very least a technical violation of the oversight laws, and definitely a violation of the Executive Order."

"Unless there's a classified codicil that we don't know about. What if the AG knows?"

"What if he's part of it? The day Emil got hit, the AG flew to Camp David along with the rest of 'em, remember?"

"What I want to know is, what the hell our friend is going to Panama for?"

"Maybe we'll find out. He's going down alone. No security troops, everybody sworn to secrecy. Who'd you send over to Andrews to choke it out of 'em?"

"Pat O'Day," Murray answered. That explained matters. "I want him to handle the liaison with the Secret Service guys, too. He's done a lot of work with them. When the time comes, that is. We're a mile away from being ready for that."

"Agreed. We have eighteen people working ODYSSEY. That's not enough."

"We have to keep it tight for the moment, Bill. I think the next step is getting somebody over from Justice to cover our asses for us. Who?"

"Christ, I don't know," Shaw replied in exasperation. "It's one thing to run an investigation that the AG knows about but is kept out of, but I can't remember ever running one completely unknown to him."

"Let's take our time, then. The main thing right now is to figure out what the plan was, then branch out from there." It was a logical observation from Murray. It was also wrong. It was to be a day of errors.

The F- 15E touched down at Howard Field right on time, eighty minutes before the scheduled arrival of the flight from Andrews, Bright thanked the pilot, who refueled and took off at once for a more leisurely return to Eglin. The base intelligence officer met Bright, along with the most senior agent from the legal attache's office in Panama City, who was young, sharp, but too new in his post for a case of this sensitivity. The arriving agent briefed his two colleagues on what little he knew and swore both to secrecy. It was enough to get things going. His first stop was the post exchange, where he got some nondescript clothing. The intelligence officer supplied a very plain automobile with local tags that they left outside the gate. On base they'd use an anonymous blue Air Force sedan. The Plymouth sat near the flight line when the VC-20A landed. Bright pulled his Nikon out of the bag and attached a 1000mm telephoto lens. The aircraft taxied to a stop at one of the hangars, and the stairs folded down with the hatch. Bright snugged his camera in and started shooting close-ups from several hundred yards away as the single passenger stepped out of the plane and into a waiting car.

"Jesus, it's really him." Bright rewound and removed the film cassette. He handed it to the other FBI agent and reloaded another thirty-six-frame spool.

The car they followed was a twin to their Air Force sedan. It drove straight off post. Bright and the rest barely had time to switch cars, but the Air Force colonel driving had ambitions to race the NASCAR circuit and took up a surveillance position a hundred yards behind it.

"Why no security?" he asked.

"He generally doesn't bother, they told me," Bright told him. "Sounds odd, doesn't it?"

"Hell, yes, given who he is, what he knows, and where the hell he happens to be at the moment."

The trip into town was unremarkable. The Air Force sedan dropped Cutter off at a luxury hotel on the outskirts of Panama City. Bright hopped out and watched him check in, just like a man on a business trip. The other agent came in a few minutes later while the colonel stayed with the car.

"Now what?"

"Anybody you can trust on the local PD?" Bright asked.

"Nope. I know a few, some of them pretty good guys. But trust? Not down here, man."

"Well, there's always the old-fashioned way," Bright observed.

" 'kay." The assistant legal attach reached for his wallet and walked to the registration desk. He came back two minutes later. "The Bureau owes me twenty bucks. He's registered as Robert Fisher. Here's the American Express number." He handed over a crumpled carbon sheet that also had the scrawled signature.

"Call the office and run it. We need to keep an eye on his room. We need - Christ, how many assets do we have?" Bright waved him outside.

"Not enough for this."

Bright's face twisted into an ugly shape for a moment. This was no easy call to make. ODYSSEY was a code-word case, and one thing that Murray had impressed on him was the need for security, but - there was always a "but," wasn't there? - this was something that needed doing. So he was the senior man the scene and he had to make the call. Of such things, he knew, careers were made and broken. It was murderously hot and humid, but that wasn't the only reason Mark Bright was sweating.