"You're in luck," he told them. "We're taking a couple of Tomcats down to Pensacola. The Admiral called ahead, and they're preflighting the birds already. I, uh -"

Another officer came into the room. "Cap'n Jackson? I'm Joe Bramer," the lieutenant said. "I hear we're heading down south, sir."

"Correct, Mr. Bramer. These gents are going with us. Jack Murphy and Dan Tomlinson. They're government employees who need some familiarization with Navy flight procedures. Think you can rustle up some poopy suits and hard hats?"

"No problem, sir. Be back in a minute."

"You wanted covert. You got covert," Jackson chuckled. He pulled his flight suit and helmet from a bag. "What gear you guys bringing along?"

"Shaving kits," Murray replied. "And one bag."

"We can handle that."

Fifteen minutes later, everyone climbed up ladders to board the aircraft. Jack got to fly with his friend. Five minutes after that, the Tomcats were taxiing to the end of the runway.

"Go easy, Rob," Ryan said as they awaited clearance for take-off.

"Like an airliner," Jackson promised. It wasn't quite that way. The fighters leapt off the ground and streaked to cruising altitude about twice as fast as a 727, but Jackson kept the ride smooth and level once he got there.

"What gives, Jack?" he asked over the intercom.

"Robby, I can't -"

"Did I ever tell you all the things I can make this baby do for me? Jack, my boy, I can make this baby sing. I can turn inside a virgin quail."

"Robby, what we're trying to do is rescue some people who may be cut off. And if you tell that to anyone, even your Admiral, you might just screw things up for us. You ought to be able to figure it out from there."

"Okay. What about your car?"

"Just leave it there."

"I'll get somebody to put the right sticker on it."

"Good idea."

"You're getting better about flying, Jack. You haven't whimpered once."

"Yeah, well, I got one more flight today, and that one's in a fucking helicopter. I haven't ridden one of those since the day my back got broken on Crete." It felt good to tell him that. The real question, of course, was whether or not they'd get the chopper. But that was Murray's job. Jack turned his head to look around and was stunned to see the other Tomcat only a few feet off their right wingtip. Murray waved at him. "Christ, Robby!"

"Huh?"

"The other plane!"

"Hell, I told him to ease it off some, must be twenty feet away. We always fly in formation."

"Congratulations, you just got your whimper."

The flight lasted just over an hour. The Gulf of Mexico appeared first as a blue ribbon on the horizon, then grew into an oceanic mass of water as the two fighters headed down to land. Pensacola's strips were visible to the east, then got lost in the haze. It struck Ryan as odd that he feared flying less when he rode in a military aircraft. You could see better, and somehow that made a difference. But the fighters even landed in formation, which seemed madly dangerous, though nothing happened. The wingman touched first, and then Robby's a second or two later. Both Tomcats rolled out and turned at the end of the runway, stopping near a pair of automobiles. Some groundcrew men had ladders.

"Good luck, Jack," Robby said as the canopy came up.

"Thanks for the ride, man." Jack managed to detach himself from the airplane without help and climbed down. Murray was beside him a minute later. Both entered the waiting cars, and behind them the Tomcats taxied away to complete their flight to nearby Pensacola Naval Air Station.

Murray had called ahead. The officer who met them was the intelligence chief for the 1st Special Operations Wing.

"We need to see Colonel Johns," Murray said after identifying himself. That was the only conversation needed for the moment. The car took them past the biggest helicopters Ryan had ever seen, then to a low block building with cheap windows. The wing intelligence officer took them in. He handled the introduction of the visitors, thinking erroneously that Ryan was also FBI, then left the three alone in the room.

"What can I do for you?" PJ asked warily.

"We want to talk about trips you made to Panama and Colombia," Murray replied.

"Sorry, we don't discuss what we do here very freely. That's what special ops are all about."

"A couple of days ago you were given some orders by Vice Admiral Cutter. You were in Panama then," Murray said. "Before that you had flown armed troops into Colombia. First you took them into the coastal lowlands, then you pulled them out and reinserted them into the hill country, correct?"

"Sir, I cannot comment on that, and whatever inference you draw is yours, not mine."

"I'm a cop, not a reporter. You've been given illegal orders. If you carry them out, you may be an accessory to a major felony charge." Best to get things immediately on the table, Murray thought. It had the desired effect. Hearing from a senior FBI official that his orders might be illegal forced Johns to respond, though only a little bit.

"Sir, you're asking me something I don't know how to respond to."

Murray reached into his bag and pulled out a manila envelope. He removed a photograph and handed it to Colonel Johns. "The man who gave you those orders, of course, was the President's National Security Adviser. Before he met with you, he met with this guy. That is Colonel F lix Cortez. He used to be with the DGI, but now he's working for the Drug Cartel as chief of security. He was instrumental in the Bogot murders. Exactly what they agreed on we do not know, but I can tell you what we do know. There is a communications van over the Gaillard Cut that had been the radio link with the four teams on the ground. Cutter visited it and shut it down. Then he came to see you and ordered you to fly home and never talk about the mission. Now, you put all three of those things together and tell me if what you do come up with sounds like something you want to be part of."

"I don't know, sir." Johns' response was automatic, but his face had gone pink.

"Colonel, those teams have already taken casualties. It appears likely that the orders you were given might have been aimed at getting them all killed. People are out hunting them right now," Ryan said. "We need your help to go get them out."

"Who exactly are you, anyway?"

"CIA."

"But it's your goddamned operation!"

"No, it isn't, but I won't bore you with the details," Jack said. "We need your help. Without it, those soldiers aren't going to make it home. It's that simple."

"So you're sending us back to clean up your mess. That's the way it always is with you people, you send us out -"

"Actually," Murray said, "we were planning to go with you. Part of the way anyway. How soon can you be in the air?"

"Tell me exactly what you want." Murray did just that. Colonel Johns nodded and checked his watch.

"Ninety minutes."

The MH- 53J was far larger than the CH-46 that had nearly ended Ryan's life at twenty-three, but no less frightening to him. He looked at the single rotor and remembered that they were making a long, over-water flight. The flight crew was businesslike and professional, hooking both civilians up to the intercom and telling them where to sit and what to do. Ryan was especially attentive to the ditching instructions. Murray kept looking at the miniguns, the impressive six-barrel gatlings set next to enormous hoppers of live shells. There were three for this flight. The helicopter lifted off just after four and headed southwest. As soon as they were airborne, Murray had a crewman attach him to the floor with a twenty-foot safety line so that he could walk around. The hatch at the rear of the aircraft was half open, and he walked back to watch the ocean pass beneath them. Ryan stayed put. The ride was better than the Marine Corps helicopters he remembered, but it still felt like sitting on a chandelier during an earthquake as the aircraft vibrated and oscillated beneath its enormous six-bladed rotor. He could look forward and see one of the pilots, just sitting there as comfortably as though at the wheel of a car. But, Ryan told himself, it wasn't a car.