Chavez, Vega, and Le n took the cue. They started checking their gear. There was enough room in the van to strip and clean weapons. Clark pulled into Anserma at sundown. He found a quiet spot about a mile from the house and left the van. Clark took Vega's night goggles, and then he and Chavez went out to take a walk.

There had been farming here recently. Clark wondered what it had been, but that and the fact that it was close to the village meant that the trees had been thinned out for cooking fires. They were able to move fast. Half an hour later they could see the house, separated from the woods by two hundred meters of open ground.

"Not good," Clark observed from his place on the ground.

"I count six, all with AKs."

"Company," the CIA officer said, turning to see where the noise was coming from. It was a Mercedes, and therefore could have belonged to anyone in the Cartel. Two more cars came with it, one ahead and one behind. A total of six guards got out to check the area.

"Escobedo and LaTorre," Clark said from behind the binoculars. "Two big shots to see Colonel Cortez. I wonder why..."

"Too many, man," Chavez said.

"You notice there wasn't any password or anything?"

"So?"

"It's possible, if we play it right."

"But how..."

"Think creatively," Clark told him. "Back to the car." That took another twenty minutes. When they got there, Clark adjusted one of his radios.

"CAESAR, this is SNAKE, over."

The second refueling was accomplished within sight of the beach. They'd have to tank at least once more before heading back to Panama. The other alternative didn't seem especially likely at the moment. The good news was that Francie Montaigne was driving her Combat Talon with her usual aplomb, its four big propellers turning in a steady rhythm. Its radio operators were already talking to the surviving ground teams, taking that strain off the helicopter crew. For the first time in the mission, the air team was allowed to function as it had been trained. The MC-130E would coordinate the various pieces, coaching the Pave Low into the proper areas and away from possible threats in addition to keeping PJ's chopper filled up with gas.

In back, the ride had settled down. Ryan was up and walking around. Fear became boring after a while, and he even managed to use the Port-A-Pot without missing. The flight crew had accepted him at least as an approved interloper, and for some reason that meant a lot to him.

"Ryan, you hear me?" Johns asked.

Jack reached down to the mike button. "Yeah, Colonel."

"Your guy on the ground wants us to do something different."

"Like what?"

PJ told him. "It means another tanking, but otherwise we can hack it. Your call."

"You sure?"

"Special ops is what they pay us for."

"Okay, then. We want that bastard."

"Roger. Sergeant Zimmer, we'll be feet-dry in one minute. Systems check."

The flight engineer looked down his panel. "Roger that, PJ. Everything looks pretty solid to me, sir. Everything's green."

"Okay. First stop is Team OMEN. ETA is two-zero minutes. Ryan, you'd better grab hold of something. We're going to start nap-of-the-earth. I have to talk to our backup."

Jack didn't know what that meant. He found out as soon as they crossed the first range of coastal mountains. The Pave Low leapt up like a mad elevator, then the bottom dropped out as it cleared the summit. The helicopter was on computer-assisted-flight mode, taking a six-degree slope-it felt much worse than that-up and down the terrain features, and skimmed over the ground with bare feet of clearance. The aircraft was made to be safe, not comfortable. Ryan didn't feel much of either.

"First LZ in three minutes," Colonel Johns announced half an eternity later. "Let's go hot, Buck."

"Roger." Zimmer reached down on his console and flipped a toggle switch. "Switches hot. Guns are hot."

"Gunners, stand to. That means you, Ryan," PJ added.

"Thanks." Jack gasped without toggling his mike. He took position on the left side of the aircraft and hit the activation switch for the minigun, which started turning at once.

"ETA one minute," the copilot said. "I got a good strobe at eleven o'clock. Okay. OMEN, this is CAESAR, do you copy, over?"

Jack heard only one side of the conversation, but mentally thanked the flight crew for letting the guys in back know something.

"Roger, OMEN, say again your situation... Roger that, we're coming in. Good strobe light. Thirty seconds. Get ready in back," Captain Willis told Ryan and the rest. "Safe guns, safe guns."

Jack held his thumbs clear of the switch and elevated the minigun at the sky. The helicopter took a big nose-up attitude as it came down. It stopped and hovered a foot off the ground, not quite touching.

"Buck, tell the captain to come forward immediately."

"Roger, PJ." Behind him, Ryan heard Zimmer run aft, then, through the soles of his feet, felt the troops race aboard. He kept his eyes outboard, looking over the rotating barrels of his gun until the helicopter took off, and even then he trained the mini down at the ground.

"Well, that wasn't so bad, was it?" Colonel Johns observed as he brought the aircraft back to a southerly heading. "Hell, I don't even know why they pay us for this. Where's that ground-pounder?"

"Hooking him up now, sir," Zimmer replied. "Got 'em all aboard. All clean, no casualties."

"Captain...?"

"Yes, Colonel?"

"We got a job for your team if you think you're up to it."

"Let's hear it, sir."

The MC- 130E Combat Talon was orbiting over Colombian territory, which made the crew a little nervous, since they didn't have permission. The main job now was to relay communications, and even with the sophisticated gear aboard the four-engine support aircraft, they couldn't handle it from over the ocean.

What they really needed was a good radar. The Pave Low/Combat Talon team was supposed to operate under supervision of an AW ACS which, however, they hadn't brought along. Instead a lieutenant and a few NCOs were writing on maps and talking over secure radio circuits at the same time.

"CAESAR, say your fuel state," Captain Montaigne called.

"Looking good, CLAW. We're staying down in the valleys. Estimate we'll tank again in eight-zero minutes."

"Roger eight-zero minutes. Be advised negative hostile radio traffic at this time."

"Acknowledged." That was one possible problem. What if the Cartel had somebody in the Colombian Air Force? Sophisticated as both American aircraft were, a P-51 left over from the Second World War could easily kill both of them.

Clark was waiting for them. With two vehicles. Vega had stolen a farm truck big enough for their needs. It turned out that he was quite adept at rewiring ignition systems, a skill about whose acquisition he was vague. The helicopter touched down and the men ran out toward the strobe light that Chavez still had. Clark got their officer and briefed him quickly. The helicopter took off and headed north, helped by the twenty-knot wind blowing down the valley. Then it looped west, heading for the MC-130 and another midair refueling.

The Microvan and the truck drove back toward the farmhouse. Clark's mind was still racing. A really smart guy would have run the operation from inside the village, which would have been far tougher to approach. Cortez wanted to be far from anyone's view, but failed to consider his physical security requirements in military terms. Cortez was thinking like a spy, for whom security was secrecy, and not a line-animal, for whom security was a lot of guns and a clear field of fire. Everyone, he figured, had his limitations. Clark rode the back of the farm truck with the OMEN team group around him and his hand-drawn diagram of the objective. It was just like the old days, Clark thought, running missions on zero-minute notice. He hoped that these young light-fighters were as good as the animals in 3rd SOG. Even Clark, however, had limitations. The animals of 3rd SOG had been young then, too.