The Air Force officer trotted after General McNab and caught up with him just as he reached the hangar.
Castillo saluted. McNab returned it.
"Forgive me for mentioning this," McNab said, "but you're not supposed to do that, you know. I've just finished telling Colonel Torine how honored we are to have such a high-ranking civilian, the personal representative of the president, here to guide us in the accomplishment of our assigned tasks."
Castillo felt like a fool for saluting-it had been a Pavlovian reaction-but, on the other hand, sensed there was something in McNab's tone of voice that gave meaning-other than sarcasm-to what he'd said.
"Welcome home, sir," Castillo said.
"Goddamn, two senior civilians here to meet us," McNab said, spotting Vic D'Alessandro. "I didn't know you got out of bed this early these days, Mister D'Alessandro."
"Good morning, General."
"You got a secure place for us, Vic?" McNab asked.
D'Alessandro pointed to the door of the hangar's interior office.
"Last swept half an hour ago, General."
"Okay, let's go swap war stories," McNab said. "D'Alessandro, Torine, the generals, and, of course, Mr. Castillo."
Fernando looked at Charley, wordlessly.
Fernando gets left out here with the aides? No fucking way!
"Unless there's some reason he shouldn't, I'd like Mr. Lopez with me," Charley said.
"Yes, sir, of course," McNab said, putting out his hand. "My name is McNab, Mr. Lopez."
"Yes, sir"? What the hell is that all about?
"How do you do, sir?" Fernando said.
I may nave to kill mm, General, D'Alessandro said as they walked across the hangar. "Charley's told him everything."
"Hold off on that until we don't need him anymore," McNab said.
The Air Force officer-the leather patch on his flight suit was silver-stamped with command pilot wings and the legend COL J.D. TORINE, USAF-smiled and shook his head.
When they were inside the office, McNab sat down at a desk as D'Alessandro closed the door.
"For the benefit of Mr. Castillo and Mr. Lopez," McNab began, "Colonel Torine commands the Seventeenth Airlift Squadron at Charleston Air Force Base, South Carolina. Before the Air Force-scraping the bottom of the barrel-promoted him, he was in charge of our C-22 here. When General Naylor laid this requirement on the 117th, Torine couldn't find enough sober Air Force types to drive the C-17 and had to do it himself."
Torine put out his hand to Castillo. "Were you really the worst aide-de-camp in the Army?" he said with a smile.
"If General McNab said so, it must be true, sir," Castillo said.
Torine and Fernando shook hands.
"I like your airplane, Mr. Lopez," he said.
"Thank you," Fernando said.
"If you would, Mr. Castillo," McNab said, "fill us in. General Naylor being General Naylor, we're all still pretty much in the dark."
What's with the "Mr. Castillo"? Everybody knows I'm a major.
"The airplane you were looking for in Abeche, sir, was-we're pretty sure-stolen by a Somalian terrorist group called the 'Holy Legion of Muhammad:"
"The name doesn't ring a bell," McNab interjected. He looked at the others, all of whom shook their heads.
": who plan on crashing it into the Liberty Bell."
"Where'd you get this, Mr. Castillo?" McNab asked.
"From a Russian, an arms dealer. One of the names he uses is Aleksandr Pevsner. Another is Vasily Respin."
"I know the gentleman by both names. He's a genuine rascal," McNab said. "This sounds like a CIA fantasy. You said you got it? Where?"
"From Pevsner. In Vienna."
"What's in it for him? Don't tell me altruism."
"He wants attention diverted from some of his business activities."
McNab grunted.
"Anyway," Castillo went on, "the last word we had was that the airplane-now repainted with the registration numbers of Air Suriname-was last seen in N'Djamena, Chad, after a flight from Khartoum. Khartoum has no record of Air Suriname 1101 in Khartoum in the last six months."
"That could happen," Colonel Torine said and made a gesture with his fingers suggesting a bribe.
Castillo didn't respond, instead going on: "The airplane took on fuel, and filed a flight plan to Murtala Muhammad International, in Lagos, Nigeria. And never got there."
"Where do you think it is?" Colonel Torine asked.
"Kennedy thinks it's in South America," Castillo said, "by way of Yundum Internationaclass="underline" "
"Kennedy, who's Kennedy?" General McNab interrupted. "And where is Yundum International?"
"In Gambia, a hundred miles south of Dakar," Colonel Torine answered. "Another place where the more generous you are, the fewer questions are asked about where you really came from, or are really going."
"Who's Kennedy?" McNab pursued.
"Pevsner's guy. American. He's ex-FBI," Castillo said.
"First name Howard?" McNab asked.
Castillo nodded.
"He's renegade FBI, if it's the same guy I think it is," McNab went on. "A guy from the FBI was here, asking that if we ran across him anywhere to please let them know right away."
"That's a whole other story, sir, but I've seen his dossier. He hasn't been charged with anything."
"And I'm sure he gets a nice recommendation from Pevsner, right?" McNab said.
Castillo didn't reply.
"Where in South America?" McNab asked.
"I'm not sure it could make it across the drink to anywhere in South America from Yundum," Colonel Torine said. "Or from anywhere else on the West Coast of Africa. How is it configured?"
"It came out of passenger service with Continental Airlines," Castillo said. "All economy class, 189 seats."
"That probably means the short-haul configuration," Colonel Torine said as he took a pocket-sized computer from the pocket on the upper left sleeve of his flight suit. He started tapping keys with a stylus. "Typically, that would mean a max of about 8,000-there it is, 8,150 gallons. Giving it a nominal range of 2,170 nautical miles. That's without a reserve, of course."
He rapidly tapped more keys on the computer with the stylus.
"Suriname isn't in here," he announced. "But Georgetown, Guyana, is. That's right up the coast-no more than two hundred miles from Paramaribo, the only airport I know of in Suriname that'll take a 727. It's 2,455 nautical miles from Dakar to Georgetown. A standard configuration just couldn't make it."
"The fuel bladders," Castillo said.
"Okay, let's factor that in," Colonel Torine said, rapidly tapping the stylus. "A standard U.S. Army fuel bladder-that's another assumption we'll have to go with, that the bladders are Army bladders-holds five hundred gallons:"
"How did the 727 get to Africa in the first place if it doesn't have the range to cross the Atlantic?" McNab asked, and then, as the answer quickly came to him, added, "Sorry, dumb question."
Torine answered it anyway.
"More than likely via Gander, Newfoundland, to Shannon, Ireland. That's the longest leg-about seventeen hundred nautical miles, well within the range of a short-haul 727. Then down across France to North Africa, and so on."
Castillo had several unkind thoughts, one after the other. The first was that General McNab's question was, in fact, dumb. McNab rarely asked dumb questions.
Well, Jesus, he's just flown back and forth to North Africa and run a Gray Fox operation that went down perfectly. He's tired. I know how that is.
And while I'm still impressed with Torine's pocket computer, and with his dexterity in punching the keys with that cute little stylus, this is a little late in the game to start figuring how far the 727 can fly.
As if he had read Castillo's mind, Colonel Torine looked at him and said, "I guess I should have done this earlier, but, frankly, I've been working on the assumption that the 727 was headed for Mecca."