Hobbes looked at Riley. "I'll have to take your word on that. Can you tell me where we're going?"
"You got a chart of the Caribbean?" She nodded and pulled one out of her map case. Riley pointed. "Right there."
The captain exploded upon seeing the location. "Bullshit! What the hell is this? You guys come waltzing off this plane like you own the goddamn place. No uniforms. You introduce yourself without any rank. You're carrying weapons and equipment I've never seen before. You start rigging up our aircraft with some piece of shit I've never heard of. And now you want us to fly you to just off the coast of Colombia? No way. I'm not going to fly with that thing under the bird. Something will go wrong with it and it'll kill us all. I'm going to call the colonel and tell him what's going on."
Powers had wandered over during the exchange, leaving Partusi in charge of the rigging. Riley looked at the team sergeant, who shook his head slightly. Riley stepped in front of the captain. "I'm sorry. For security reasons we can't let you talk to anyone now. I believe your orders were to do what I said. I understand that this is very unusual, but all you have to do is fly us to that point and drop us off."
Riley sighed when he saw that reason wasn't going to work with this officer. That was all he needed right now — some asshole to get stupid. The captain grabbed his hat from out of the aircraft and turned for the base ops building, only to find Powers standing in front of him.
"You ain't going nowhere."
Hobbes quickly tried to defuse the situation. "Everyone calm down." She looked at Powers. "It takes two of us to fly and if you hurt him we aren't going anywhere."
Powers shrugged. "I didn't say anything about hurting him. I just said he wasn't going anywhere — and he isn't."
She turned to Davidson. "Sir, the colonel told us to do what these men say. As PIC I'm willing to give it a shot, flying with the boat." She turned to Riley. "Would it be all right if we tried lifting here, so we can check out how the aircraft feels and reacts with that thing under it?"
Riley was willing to be reasonable. "Sure. You're the pilot."
Hobbes went over to the captain and Riley smiled when he overheard what she whispered to him. At least she had some common sense. "Sir, in case you haven't noticed, these guys have magazines in their weapons and they don't have any blank adapters. Those are live grenades on their harnesses. This is the real thing and I for one don't want to stand here arguing with them."
Davidson gave in. "Fine. Fine. Let's get the show on the road."
Hobbes came back over to Riley. "There will be no trouble."
Riley gestured at the captain. "What's his problem?"
Hobbes leaned closer so Davidson wouldn't overhear. "His dick gets shorter when he has to fly with a woman. He loses an inch or so of his manliness. Makes him irritable."
Maria was in the shower getting ready to leave for work and Rich Stevens was relaxing, lying on his bed, when the noise of someone knocking on the door disturbed his reverie. Stevens was irritated. Who the hell could that be? Tonight was his night off. He had told everyone on the staff that he didn't want to be disturbed today because he needed to rest after all the night work he'd been doing.
Stevens glanced toward the partly open bathroom door. The knocking came again, more insistent. He jumped up and closed the bathroom door all the way. He grimaced as he realized the noise of the shower still came through. He threw on a robe and went over to his door and opened it a crack. "Yeah?"
One of the staffers from the embassy communications room stood there. "You got a call from the States."
"So what? I left word not to be disturbed. I've been busting my ass working all these nights and you wake me up to tell me I got a phone call? Couldn't you have just taken a message?"
The man was trying to see past him and was obviously confused by the sound of the shower in the background. Stevens had tried to be as careful as possible about having Maria in his room, although the fact that he had to sign her in and out of the embassy compound precluded him from being totally discreet. He didn't need someone prying into his personal life. He knew Washington would take a dim view of a married agent sleeping around, although Stevens found that superior attitude ridiculously hypocritical based on his observations of the marital merry-go-round in Washington.
The office clerk rolled his eyes. "Hey, don't get on my case. No, I couldn't just take a message. Not on a Flash priority call over the STU-III. The caller is still on hold, waiting for you, so you'd better get your ass in gear." The man turned and walked away.
Stevens shut the door and quickly put his pants on, his mind working as he tried to figure out why he'd be getting a Flash call today on the secure phone. It had to be about the hit the next night. He hadn't even told Maria that he would have to work the next evening. He had been waiting until she got ready to go to work this evening. As he finished dressing, she came out of the bathroom, drying herself. As always the sight of her naked took his breath away. He couldn't believe his luck in finding her.
"What is it?"
Stevens strode over to the door. "I've got to take a priority call from the States. I'll be right back." He opened the door and left.
Five minutes later he was back and in an even worse mood. Maria was dressed and ready to leave. She nuzzled up to him as he came in. "I must go to work now but I will be back early, say at eleven tonight?"
Stevens shook his head. "I'm sorry. Something just came up. I won't be able to see you tonight."
Maria looked surprised. "Why not?"
"I have to work again. Just like last night."
Maria seemed confused. "But I thought you were done with that."
Stevens glanced up in surprise. Why would she say a thing like that? "Why did you think I was done working at night?"
Maria seemed flustered. "Well, I, well, you did not tell me that you work at night again, so I thought you not work anymore at night." She looked concerned. "You not going to do anything dangerous are you? Not like on "Miami Vice" show. What do you call it — undercover?"
Stevens laughed. "No. I'm not going undercover. All I do is sit right here in the embassy and listen to radios. Just like I've done the last two nights I worked."
Stevens appreciated Maria's concern. He was edgy about having the schedule moved up one night and being notified at the last minute. They must have known about the change all day, yet they had held off on calling him until now. He was trying to sort out the reasons for that as he said goodbye to Maria.
Once she was gone, Stevens went back into the main embassy building to the communications room. The NSA communications specialist acting as duty officer spoke up as Stevens came in. "Don't tell me you're going to be here all night again."
Stevens nodded glumly. "Yep." He handed the comm man a list. "Could you punch me up that frequency and azimuth and direction on the SATCOM? Hook it into booth one. I'll work out of there again."
The man twirled the dials on one of the many machines set up in the room. He looked up. "You got the KAK?"
Stevens pulled out of his pocket the small metal plug holding the encryption and decryption codes that he had just retrieved from the embassy vault and handed it to the man. The comm specialist took it and checked to see that it was labeled for the proper time period. Then he plugged it into a small black scrambler. He pushed a button and the machine hummed. He pulled the KAK back out and handed it to Stevens. "All right. You're all set to go. Freq'd on the radio and coded on the scrambler. Have fun."
Stevens went into booth one and turned on the terminal. He put on his headset and keyed the mike. "Hammer Base, this is Lantern. Over." He waited a few seconds and then the answer came.