What did he say? Mecca? What the hell is that all about?
"Excuse me, sir?" Castillo said.
Torine's face showed I have just let my mouth run and he looked with some embarrassment at McNab.
"Tell him," McNab said, and then before Torine could open his mouth, went on: "General Naylor, probably because he thought I didn't have the need to know, did not elect to share with me why we were looking for the 727 in Chad, but:"
He gestured with his hand for Torine to pick up the story.
Torine looked at Castillo.
"You know who General McFadden is?"
"General Naylor's deputy commander at MacDill?" Castillo replied.
"Right," Torine said. "We go back a long way. When General McFadden called me to lay on the support of the C-17 for the McNab mission, he told me, out of school, that despite the current wisdom at CentCom that the 727 was going to fly to Philadelphia and crash into the Liberty Bell he thought that there was a good chance it was going to be flown to Mecca and be crashed into the ka'ba, thereby really enraging the Muslim world. It's an American airplane; they would probably find the body of the American pilot:"
"Jesus!" Castillo said.
"Which made a lot more sense to both of us than the Liberty Bell," McNab said. "And still does."
"General, I really think Philadelphia is the target," Castillo said.
"Far be it from me to question the judgment of the president's personal representative," McNab said. "Tell us about the fuel bladders, Torine."
God knows I am an expert on McNabian sarcasm, and, again, there's more to that crack than what it sounds like. What the hell is he hinting at?
"Okay, where was I?" Torine asked, consulting his computer again. "Okay. A bladder holds five hundred gallons. We don't know how many bladders were loaded aboard in Abeche':"
"I can find out, probably, when I get to Cozumel," Castillo said.
": but more than one. So let's go with what we know. Two bladders, 1,000 gallons," Torine went on, stabbing at his pocket computer with his stylus. "Figuring. 226 nautical miles per gallon, that's: an additional 226 miles of range-2,170 plus 226 is 2,396. They'd run out of fuel 59 miles out of Georgetown."
"Factor in another couple of bladders," McNab ordered. "Tell me how many bladders it would take to give them the fuel they need. For that matter, tell me how many bladders they can get on that airplane."
"Okay," Torine said. "Two more bladders would give them another 226 miles. That'd get them across the drink with 160-odd miles to spare. Six would get them there with almost 400 miles to spare."
"We better figure they had eight," McNab said. "What about the weight?"
"I don't think it would be a problem," Torine said. "Let me check."
There was a knock at the door. D'Alessandro went to it and opened it.
A Special Forces master sergeant was standing there.
"You're wanted on the secure line, Mr. D'Alessandro," he said.
D'Alessandro opened the drawer of a desk and took out a telephone. He spoke briefly into it and then extended it to Castillo.
"Castillo."
"Dick, Charley," Major H. Richard Miller, Jr., said. "We have confirmation that the two guys who were at Britton's mosque were also at Spartan. Where they were certified in the 727."
"Great. That pretty much settles it, wouldn't you say?"
"It looks that way," Miller said. "There's something else, Charley."
"Okay. Go ahead."
"Betty Schneider said to give you a message."
"Equally great. What is it?"
"She said to give this to you verbatim, Charley," Miller said, uncomfortably.
"Well, let's have it."
"She said, 'Don Juan: I should have known better. Signature, Sergeant B. Schneider.' "
"Oh, shit!"
"What the hell did you do to her, Don Juan?"
"Is that all, Dick?"
"Yeah."
"I'll be in touch," Castillo said and handed the telephone to D'Alessandro.
I guess that Highway sergeant finally got around to telling Frankie Break-My-Legs, 'Ha-ha, you know what the Secret Service calls Castillo, Lieutenant? 'Don Juan.
Goddammit to hell!
Castillo sensed McNab's eyes on him.
"That was Miller, sir," Castillo said. "We have confirmation that the two Somalis who were in Philadelphia were at Spartan-the Spartan School of Aeronautics-in Tulsa and are qualified in 727s."
"Well, then I guess the ka'ba's safe from these lunatics," McNab said. "Is that good or bad?"
"I crunched the numbers for ten 500-gallon bladders, 5,000 gallons," Colonel Torine said. "At 7 pounds a gallon, that would be 35,000 pounds. That would add 1,130 nautical miles of range-a total of 3,305-and still leave it 22,295 pounds under max gross takeoff weight."
"So they can fly just about any place they damn well please," McNab said. "What about direct to Philadelphia?"
"No," Torine said. "That's about 3,500 nautical miles. But let's be sure." He stabbed at the computer with the stylus. "3,361 nautical miles. Too far. Not even factoring in a reserve, that's 65 miles short. And even factoring in more bladders, why would they want to arrive in Philadelphia with nearly empty tanks?"
"Good point," McNab said. "Presuming they learned from 9/11, they want to arrive with as much fuel, as an explosive, as possible. Or possibly-always look on the dark side-with as much trinitrotoluene as they can carry."
Torine started stabbing with the stylus again.
"Hold off on that," McNab ordered, touching his arm. "Okay, let's go with the assumption the airplane is somewhere in the upper east quarter of the South American continent, maybe even in Suriname. I'm presuming the CIA has been told what your friend the ex-FBI agent told you, Mr. Castillo?"
"They haven't been told where it came from."
"Okay, they already have egg on their face about this, so I think we can assume there's been satellites all over that part of the globe, just as soon as they could be redirected. They were probably spinning their wheels during the night, but at daylight I think we can assume they're going to find it."
"Kennedy says he knows where it is and will tell me when I go down there."
"Go down where?" McNab asked.
"Cozumel, off the Yucatan Peninsula."
"I know where it is," McNab said. "Why won't he tell you on the telephone?"
"I don't know," Castillo replied. "But we have to play under his rules."
"When are you going down there?" McNab asked.
"As soon as we finish here," Castillo said, "and I report to Secretary Hall how you plan to neutralize the 727."
McNab looked thoughtful for a moment and then said, "Gentlemen, will you give Mr. Castillo and me a moment alone?"
Not looking very happy about it, everybody filed out of the room. McNab closed the door and turned to Castillo.
"The problem is not how to neutralize it, Charley," he said, "but how quickly we can do so."
We're back to "Charley"?
"I'm not sure I follow you, sir."
"What did you do, forget everything you learned in the stockade?" McNab asked, not very pleasantly.
"Okay," McNab went on and looked at his watch. "It's oh-seven-fifty-five. Let's assume that at this very moment analysts at Langley and Fort Meade are going over the first of the daytime imagery downloads. It would be nice if they came up with a nice clear photo of this airplane sitting on an airfield in Suriname, but I don't think we better count on that. Realistically, what they're going to come up with is half a dozen images which might be-even probably are-of our 727. But they're not going to pass that on to the DCI, much less the president, until they're sure. They'll direct the satellites for better pictures, and if they have assets on the ground-do you think there's much of a CIA operation in Suriname, for instance? I don't-they'll send him word to make a visual. How long is that going to take?"
"Hours," Charley said.
"How long is it going to take you to fly to Cozumel in that pretty little airplane of yours?"
"It's 930 nautical miles. A little under two hours. Maybe a little less; when Fernando checked the weather a half hour ago, there were some favorable winds aloft."