McGarvey shook hands with the taller, leaner man, but turned back to Herring. “I assume that you have a chopper standing by.”
“It’s under cover,” Herring said.
The Venezuelan air force jet had turned and was trundling back down the ramp toward the active runway. McGarvey glanced back at it. “You don’t trust them very much, do you?”
“The tanker is one of theirs, for all I know the crew is Venezuelan too.”
“They got me here with no questions asked,” McGarvey said.
“Yeah, just what we need tonight, a civilian,” Kulbacki muttered, but loudly enough for McGarvey to hear.
“I don’t trust anybody, Mr. McGarvey,” Herring said.
“That include CIA?”
Herring nodded tightly. “Anyone who has to use the big dogs to throw his weight around.” He gave McGarvey a very hard look. “Like I told you on the phone, we don’t need civilian interference. Just get the hell out of our way, and let us do the job we’ve been trained for.”
“Lieutenant, I assume that the Apurto Devlán is already under way.”
“She pulled up anchor ninety minutes ago,” Herring shot back. He glanced at Kulbacki. “We could have resolved the situation by now.”
“In that case we’re running out of time,” McGarvey said. “As much as I’d like to continue our pleasant little chat, I suggest that we get started. I’ll brief you on the way down.”
Herring was clearly frustrated, but he nodded. “Get in,” he said. He turned, climbed behind the wheel of the Humvee, and immediately took off, not bothering to see if McGarvey or Kulbacki had gotten aboard.
He drove with a vengeance a hundred yards along a line of hangars, making a sharp right behind what might have been some sort of an administration headquarters, closed at this hour of the night. An H-60 Seahawk, no lights other than a dim red glow from the cockpit, was parked beneath camouflage netting, in the shadows behind the building.
Several men in black were lounging beside the chopper. Even before Herring pulled up, they scrambled inside the machine, and the rotors began to turn.
McGarvey was dressed in jeans, a dark, short-sleeved polo shirt, and boat shoes. He grabbed his bag and followed Herring and Kulbacki across to the chopper, where they climbed aboard. Herring went forward to talk to the pilot while the assistant fire team leader helped McGarvey strap in. The other six operators, all dressed in black, and equipped with night vision goggles and a variety of weapons ranging from Beretta auto-loading pistols with silencers in chest holsters, Ithaca Model 37 short-barreled semiautomatic shotguns, and Heckler & Koch M8 carbines, were strapped in and ready to go.
“We’ve got a set of camos for you, and a Colt Commando if you need them!” Kulbacki shouted over the rising noise.
“No thanks,” McGarvey said. He took his 9mm Walther PPK out of his bag, checked the load, and stuffed the weapon in his belt. Next he took out a spare magazine of ammunition and put it in his trousers pocket. No one cracked a smile, but they all watched him. “What’s our flying time to the locks?”
“Fifteen minutes!” Kulbacki shouted.
Herring came back and strapped in beside McGarvey as the helicopter accelerated from beneath the netting. As soon as her tail rotor was clear, she lumbered into the air, swinging toward the north, but keeping low.
“The Apurto Devlán has already made it to the first lock!” he shouted to McGarvey. “So now you have my undivided attention. What do you want to do?”
“Are we carrying a gun crew?” McGarvey asked.
“Yes. The chopper’s equipped with a pair of 7.62 machine guns.”
“It’s my guess that Graham killed the original crew and replaced them somewhere between here and Maracaibo.”
“Your guess,” Herring said pointedly.
“That’s right,” McGarvey shot back. “But I’m not guessing when I tell you that Graham will not become a suicide bomber unless he’s given no other options. He’ll get off the ship, and once he’s clear he’ll detonate the explosives. The ship, the locks, and everyone close will be destroyed.”
“They’re all nuts.”
“From our point of view, you’re probably right,” McGarvey said. “But get one thing straight: They might be nuts, but they’re not stupid. Graham was a trained Royal Navy officer, he’s operated as a pirate in the South China Sea, and since 9/11 has been working for bin Laden. Interpol and every intelligence service in the world have been looking for him for more than five years. From what I’ve learned this is the nearest anyone’s gotten.”
“Well, he made a big mistake this time,” Herring said. “We’re going to take him down.” He glanced at his operators. “My people will not let him get away. No chance in hell. Guaranteed.”
McGarvey was beginning to lose his patience. “Graham won’t be impressed by a stealth operation.”
“I think he will be,” Herring said. He grinned. “We’ll disarm the explosives before he gets a chance to pull the trigger.”
“As long as we can keep him aboard in the meantime,” McGarvey said. “If he gets clear he’ll push the button.”
Kulbacki was following the conversation. He leaned closer to McGarvey. “Won’t matter, sir. We can block his radio signal. Most of them use a simple garage door opener code. We’ve got a high-power transmitter that blankets their signals.”
“We learned that the hard way in Iraq,” Herring said.
“I hope you’re right,” McGarvey said. “But if at all possible I want to take the man alive.”
“We’re going to be pretty busy,” Herring said. “I can’t guarantee that we’ll have the time to take prisoners.”
“I only care about Graham. Once we show up he’s going to jump ship. I want to take him before then.”
“I’m listening,” Herring said.
“We go in fast and noisy,” McGarvey said. “But there’ll be a civilian pilot on the bridge. So everyone has to be careful. I don’t want any civilian casualties. And the same goes for workmen ashore. No collateral damage.”
“We’ll do our best—”
“You’ll do better than that, Lieutenant,” McGarvey said. Before Herring could object, McGarvey cut him off. “I don’t want to come on strong. We’re on the same side; fighting the bad guys for the same reasons. But I’m here and I’m not going away. And that’s a fact.”
Herring held himself in check with a visible effort. “Go ahead, sir, I’m listening.”
“Assuming you can either find and disarm every explosive package they’ve set in place, and/or block the remote detonator signal, there are still two worst-case scenarios concerning Graham. One, he gets away. If that happens he’ll be even more strongly motivated to hit us, maybe with another 9/11. Maybe something worse.”
“What’s the second?” Kulbacki asked.
“That somebody kills him.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“If we can take him alive, I think he might be the key to finding bin Laden,” McGarvey said. “And that’s one man I’d very much like to get close to again.”
Herring exchanged a glance with Kulbacki. “Okay, Mr. McGarvey, you have my attention now. How do you propose we handle this?”
“Graham’s not going to be impressed by anything we do, but his crew will react to a shock-and-awe strike, which is exactly what I want your people to give him.”
“And what happens if you’re wrong?” Herring asked. “What happens if Graham isn’t aboard, and we start shooting at innocent Venezuelans?”