"Yes?"
"Flying low over water is dangerous, especially at night. It is too easy to become disoriented. You forget where the horizon is, and if you keep looking out of the windows instead of checking your instruments… Experienced pilots have driven their airplanes right into the water that way. Unfortunately, flying very low is fun and many pilots, especially the young ones, think that it is also a test of manhood. That is foolish, as pilots learn with time."
" 'A good pilot is a cautious pilot'?" Escobedo asked.
"That is what I tell every student," Larson replied seriously. "Not all of them believe me. It is true everywhere. You can ask instructors in any air force in the world. Young pilots make foolish mistakes because they are young and inexperienced. Judgment comes with experience – most often through a frightening experience. Those who survive learn, but some do not survive."
Escobedo considered that for a few seconds.
"He was a proud one, Ernesto." To Larson it sounded like an epitaph.
"I will recheck the maintenance log of the aircraft," the pilot offered. "And I will also review the weather data."
"Thank you for coming in so quickly, Señor Larson."
"I am at your service, jefe. If I learn anything, I will let you know."
Escobedo saw him to the door, then returned to his desk. Cortez entered the room from a side door.
"Well?"
"I like Larson," Cortez said. "He speaks the truth. He has pride, but not too much."
Escobedo nodded agreement. "A hireling, but a good one."
… like you. Cortez didn't react to the implied message. "How many flights have been lost over the years?"
"We didn't even keep records until eighteen months ago. Since then, nine. That's one reason we took Larson on. I felt that the crashes were due to pilot error and poor maintenance. Carlos has proven to be a good instructor."
"But never wished to become involved himself?"
"No. A simple man. He has a comfortable life doing what he enjoys. There is much to be said for that," Escobedo observed lightly. "You have been over his background?"
"Sí. Everything checks out, but…"
"But?"
"But if he were something other than what he appears to be, things would also check out." This was the point at which an ordinary man would say something like, But you can't suspect everyone. Escobedo did not, and that was a measure of his sophistication, Cortez noted. His employer had ample experience with conspiracy and knew that you had to suspect everyone. He wasn't exactly a professional, but he wasn't exactly a fool either.
"Do you think–"
"No. He was nowhere near the place the flight left from, had no way of knowing that it was happening that night. I checked: he was in Bogotá with his lady friend. They had dinner alone and retired early. Perhaps it was a flying accident, but coming so soon after we learn that the norteamericanos are planning something, I do not think we should call it such a thing. I think I should return to Washington."
"What will you find out?"
"I will attempt to discover something of what they are doing."
"Attempt?"
"Señor, gathering sensitive intelligence information is an art–"
"You can buy anything you need!"
"There you are incorrect," Cortez said with a level stare. "The best sources of information are never motivated by money. It is dangerous – foolish – to assume that allegiance can be purchased."
"And what of you?"
"That is a question you must consider, but I am sure you already have." The best way to earn trust with this man was always to say that trust did not exist. Escobedo thought that whatever allegiance money could not buy could be maintained with fear instead. In that sense, his employer was foolish. He assumed that his reputation for violence could cow anyone, and rarely considered that there were those who could give him lessons in applied violence. There was much to admire about this man, but so much also to merit disdain. Fundamentally he was an amateur – though a gifted one – who learned from his mistakes readily enough, but lacked the formal training that might have enabled him to learn from the mistakes of others – and what was intelligence training but the institutional memory of lessons from the mistakes of others? He didn't so much need an intelligence and security adviser as one in covert operations per se, but that was an area in which none of these men would solicit or accept advice. They came from generations of smugglers, and their expertise in corrupting and bribing was real enough. It was just that they'd never learned how to play the game against a truly organized and formidable adversary – the Colombians didn't count. That the yanquis had not yet discovered within themselves the courage to act in accordance with their power was nothing more than good fortune. If there was one thing the KGB had drilled into Cortez, it was that good fortune did not exist.
Captain Winters viewed his gunsight videotape with the men from Washington. They were in a corner office of one of the Special Ops buildings – Eglin had quite a few – and the other two wore Air Force uniforms, both bearing the rank of lieutenant colonel, a convenient middle grade of officer, many of whom came and went in total anonymity.
"Nice shooting, son," one observed.
"He could have made it harder," Bronco replied without much in the way of emotion. "But he didn't."
"How about traffic on the surface?"
"Nothing within thirty miles."
"Put up the Hawkeye tape," the senior man ordered. They were using three-quarter-inch tape, which was preferred by the military for its higher data capacity. The tape was already cued. It showed the inbound Beechcraft, marked as XXI on the alphanumeric display, one of many contacts, most of which were clearly marked as airliners, and had been high over the shoot-down. There were also numerous surface contacts, but all of them were a good distance away from the area of the attack, and this tape ended prior to the shoot-down. The Hawkeye crew, as planned, had no direct knowledge of what had transpired after handing over the contact to the fighter. The guidelines for the mission were clear, and the intercept area was calculated to avoid frequently used shipping channels. The low-altitude path taken by the drug smugglers helped, of course, insofar as it limited the distance at which someone might see a flash or an explosion, neither of which had happened here.
"Okay," said the senior one. "That was well within mission parameters." They switched tapes again.
"How many rounds expended?" the junior one asked Winters.
"A hundred 'n eight," the captain replied. "With a Vulcan it's kinda hard to keep it down, y'know? The critter shoots right quick."
"It did that plane like a chainsaw."
"That's the idea, sir. I could have been a little faster on the trigger, but you want me to try 'n avoid the fuel tanks, right?"
"That's correct." The cover story, in case anyone saw a flash, was that there was a Shoot-Ex out of Eglin – exercises killing target drones are not uncommon there – but so much the better if no one noticed at all.
Bronco didn't like the secrecy stuff. As far as he was concerned, shooting the bastards down made perfectly good sense. The point of the mission, they'd told him during the recruiting phase, was that drug trafficking was a threat to U.S. national security. That phrasing made everything legitimate. As an air-defense fighter pilot, he was trained to deal with threats to national security in this specific way – to shoot them out of the sky with as much emotion as a skeet-shooter dispatched clay birds thrown out from the traps. Besides, Bronco thought, if it's a real threat to national security, why shouldn't the people know about it? But that wasn't his department. He was only a captain, and captains are operators, not thinkers. Somebody up the line had decided that this was okay, and that was all he needed to know. Dispatching this Twin-Beech had been the next thing to murder, but that was as accurate a description of combat operations as any other. After all, giving people a fair chance was what happened at the Olympics, not where your life was on the line. If somebody was dumb enough to let his ass get killed, that wasn't Bronco's lookout, especially if he happened to be committing an act of war against Bronco's country. And that was what "threat to national security" meant, wasn't it?