There was a short pause. "I think we should be leaving," Kippmann said. "Our Air Force transportation is waiting even now."
Pitt leaned down and kissed Tidi and then shook Lillie's hand. "Look after yourselves. I'll be expecting an invitation to that party soon." He turned his palms upward and shrugged helplessly. "God only knows where I'll be able to find a date who'd be seen in public with a battered face like this."
Tidi laughed at that. He squeezed her shoulder and then turned and left the room.
In the car on the way to the air base, Pitt stared out the window, his eyes unseeing, his mind back in the hospital. "He'll never walk again, will he?"
Kippmann shook his head sadly. "It's doubtful… very doubtful."
Fifteen minutes later, without a further word being spoken, they arrived at the Keilavik Air Field to find an Air Force B-92 reconnaissance bomber waiting by the terminal. Another ten minutes and the supersonic jet was speeding down the runway, soaring out over the ocean.
Sandecker, alone in the terminal, watched the plane lifting into the azure sky, his eyes following it until it disappeared into the distance of the cloudless horizon. Then, wearily, he walked back to the car.
Chapter 19
Because of the seven-hour time gain in flying from east to west and the twelve-hundred-mile-per-hour-plus speed of the jet bomber, it was still on the morning of the same day he left Iceland when a bleary-eyed Pitt yawned, stretched in the confined limitations of the tiny cabin, and looking idly out the navigator's side window, watched the tiny shadow of the aircraft dart across the green slopes of the Sierra Madre mountains.
And what now? Pitt smiled wryly back at his reflection in the (tiass as the bomber now swung out of the foothills and across the smog-blanketed San Gabriel Valley. Gazing down at the Pacific Ocean as it came into view, he cleared his mind of the past and directed it on the immediate future. He didn't know how nor did he have even a remote scrap for a plan, but he knew, no matter the obstacles, he knew he was going to kill Oskar Rondheim.
His mind abruptly returned to the present as the landing gear thumped down and locked into place at the same moment that Dean Kippmann nudged him on the arm.
"Have a nice nap?"
"Slept like the dead."
The B-92 touched down and the engines screamed as the pilot threw the thrust into reverse. The day outside looked warm and comfortable and the California sun gleamed blindingly on the long rows of military jets parked along the taxiways. Pitt read the twelve-foot-high letters painted across a giant hangar: WELCOME TO EL TORO MARINE AIR STATION.
The bomber's engines slowly died and an automobile sped over the apron as Pitt, Kippmann and the Air Force crew climbed down a narrow ladder to the concrete. Two men unreeled from a blue Ford stationwagon and approached Kippmann. Greetings and handshakes were exchanged. 'Then they all walked back to the car. Pitt, left standing with nothing to do, followed them.
Beside an open car door the three men huddled together and conversed in undertones while Pitt stood several feet away and enjoyed a cigarette. Finally Kippmann turned and came over.
"It seems we're about to crash a family reunion."
"Meaning?
"They're all here. Kelly, Marks, Rondheim, the whole lot."
"Here in California?" Pitt asked incredulously.
"Yes, we had them traced as soon as they left Iceland. The serial number you found on that black —,jet came home a winner. Hermit Limited purchased six of the same model with consecutive numbers from the factory. We have every one of the remaining five planes under surveillance at this moment."
"I'm impressed. That was fast work."
Kippmann dropped a smile. "Not all that tough. it might have been if the planes had been scattered around the globe, but as it is, they're all sitting neatly side by side exactly eight miles from here at the Orange County Airport."
"Then Kelly's headquarters must be nearby."
"In the hills behind Laguna Beach, a fifty-acre complex," Kippmann said, pointing in a southwesterly direction. "Incidentally, Hermit Limited has over three hundred employees on the payroll who they're doir, classified political anaivsis for their own government."
"Where do we go from here?"
Kippmann motioned Pitt into the car. "Disney land," he said solemnly, "to stop a double murder."
They pulled onto the Santa Ana Freeway and headed north, weaving in and out of the light morning traffic. As they passed the Newport Beach tumor, Pitt couldn't help wondering if the beautiful redhead he had met on the beach just a few days ago would still be there waiting at the New ' Porter Inn.
Kippmann produced two photographs and shoved them in front of Pitt. "Here are the men we're trying to save."
Pitt tapped the face in one of the photos. "This is Pablo Castile, President of the Dominican Republic."
Kippmann nodded. "A brilliant economist and one of the leading members of the Latin American right Since his inauguration he has begun an ambitious program of reforms. For the first time the people of his country are projecting an atmosphere of confidence and optimism. Our state department would hate like hell to see Kelly screw things ut) just when there's hope of the Dominican Republic becoming economically stable."
Pitt held up the other photo. "I can't place him."
Juan De Croix," Kippmann said. "A highly successful doctor of East Indian ancestry. Leader of the People's Progressive Party-won the election only six months ago, Now President of French Guiana."
"If I remember my current events, he's got problems."
"He's got problems, all right," Kippmann agreed.
"French Guiana is less prosperous than the British or Dutch Guianas. A movement for independence developed five years ago, but it was only under the threat of a revolution that the French permitted a new constitution and a general election. De Croix, of course, walked off with the votes and oroclaimed total independence.
He's got an uphill battle. His country suffers from tropical diseases of every type and from chronic shortages of domestic food. I don't envy him; no one does."
"De Croix's government is vulnerable," — aid Pitt thoughtfully. "But what of Catde's cabinet, aren't his ministers strong enough to survive his death?"
"With the people, maybe. But the Dominican army isn't too faithful. A military junta would no doubt take over, except in this case Kelly has obviously bought off the generals."
"How is it both of these men are at the same place at the same time?"
"If you'd read the papers, you'd know the leaders of the Western Hemisphere have just finished a conference in San Francisco for the Alliance of Economic and Agricultural Progress. De Croix, Castile and several other Latin leaders are doing a little sightseeing on the way home. it's that simple."
Why didn't you stop them from entering the park?
"I tried, but by the time our internal security forces could act, it was too late. De Croix and Castile have already been in the park for two hours and both refuse to leave. We can only keep our fingers crossed that Rondheim's killers stick to their time schedule."
"Cutting it a bit fine, aren't you?" Pitt said slowly.
Kippmann shrugged indifferently. "Some things YOU can Control, others you can only stand by and watch."
The car turned off the freeway onto Harbor Boulevard and soon pulled up to the employees' gate, and while the driver showed his credentials and asked directions from the guard, Pitt leaned out the window and watched the monorail train pass overhead. they were at the north end of the park and all he could see over the landscaped mounds that surrounded the buildings was the top half of the Matterhorn and the turrets on the Fantasyland castle. The gate was pushed open and they were passed in.