Harris asked, “Is it illegal, Andy?”
“Get right to the point, don’t you, Lefty? Let’s just say that anything you’ll be doing is not illegal. You might, however, see some things that skirt the boundaries in a civilian sense. I won’t elaborate beyond that.”
“Who are we working for?” Gering asked.
“You don’t want to even speculate about that, Arnie. Not with anyone.”
“Are some of the other guys working on this?” Harris asked.
“Yes. And we work strictly on a need-to-know basis. Some people will know more than you, and they know less than others. But no one talks about it.”
“I don’t suppose there’s some kind of overtime pay involved?” Gering asked.
Wyatt grinned at him. “We’re looking at about four weeks work, Amie, but I’ll only need the two of you for around ten or twelve days. For that, you get a flat two thousand dollar bonus, and you can’t talk about that, either, because people might want to know how you earned it.”
“I’m in,” Gering said.
“This wouldn’t be considered hazardous duty pay, would it?” Harris asked. He had served in Vietnam as a Marine.
“No, Lefty. Just the same risks you take working around volatile fuels and fluids normally. We take the same precautions as we ever do.”
“Well, I’ve got to call my wife and tell her something.”
“The cover story we’re using is the salvage and rebuild of a corporate jet that belly-landed in North Dakota. We’re not close to telephones.”
“I’d better call Jackie, then,” Gering said. “She’d be too happy to think I ran off with some new chick. Come to think of it, she’ll probably worry about the farmer’s daughter. They have farms in North Dakota, Andy?”
“A few. But tell her the closest one is seventy miles away.”
“That’ll do it.”
Las Vegas looked dusty and washed-out under the midday sun; the glare was subdued, but it always was from fifteen thousand feet.
Barr made a wide, left-hand circle of the city, losing altitude and coming back to the east. Ahead of them, Lake Mead was a shimmering mirror dropped on the beige earth.
Cliff Jordan was in the co-pilot’s seat. He was a compact man at five-eight, with steady hazel eyes and a ruddy complexion marred by a three-inch scar on his left cheek. There were more scars on his left arm and torso, the result of pancaking his F-14 Tomcat onto the deck of the America. The crash occurred after a sortie over Baghdad when he had taken some triple-A hits in the aft end of the plane. Until he slammed the fighter into the arresting cable, he didn’t know the landing hook had been damaged. The Tomcat hit the wire, hesitated, then broke free, slewing sideways, collapsing the landing gear, and then rolling up on its left wing. The plane didn’t go over the side of the carrier, but it tore up Jordan and his backseater.
After the Iraqi war, and as the Navy downsized, Lieutenant Commander Jordan opted for an early retirement arranged by some shadowy people who knew Andy Wyatt.
Barr heard himself called on the radio. “Lockheed two-nine, you have a Continental seven-six-seven coming out of McCarran. Hold your present altitude for one minute and give him about five thousand.”
“Roger, Nellis. Two-nine copies,” Jordan said as Barr eased the throttles forward.
Barr leaned forward to peer downward through the windscreen. He found the Boeing 767 as it cleared the outer markers of the civilian airport. As he continued his turn, the passenger liner passed beneath.
“Lockheed two-nine, you are cleared for descent and landing.”
“Two-nine, Nellis. Roger.”
Barr scanned the instruments, then turned his head and looked back at the flight engineer’s station and checked the readouts there.
“Hey, Cliff, we forgot the engineer.”
“Little late to worry about it, don’t you think?”
“Problem with our air force, it’s not fully staffed.”
“I agree. The Navy was so much more efficient.”
“More efficient than what?”
“Than Congress, for one.”
“You got a point.”
Barr kept backing off the throttles and losing altitude. The C-130 came around to a northerly heading and he levelled the wings.
“Think we ought to use the landing gear, Cliff?” Barr asked.
“I’m all for it. Maybe some flaps, too.”
“If you insist, and whenever you’re ready.”
Jordan deployed the gear and flaps, and Barr felt the big transport bounce upward with the added lift. He drained off more power with the throttle levers.
The wide, straight runway of Nellis Air Force Base aligned itself with the C-130.
“Outer markers,” Jordan called off. “One-two-five AGL, two-eight-zero knots. You going to use the whole damned runway?”
“You want to do the flying?”
“Yes.”
“Tell them we’re down, and go to Ground Control instead.”
“We’re not down yet.”
“Details.”
A quarter-mile beyond the end of the runway, Ban-flared the C-130, idled the big turboprops, and settled easily onto the concrete. The main gear rumbled and vibrated through the fuselage.
“I’ll bet they don’t often see a Herc with decorative stripes putting down here,” Barr said.
“Let’s just hope they don’t go checking tail numbers, Bucky.”
Like the phony Noble Enterprises logo, the Hercules transport also carried a tail number that had arisen from someone’s imagination.
As the speed bled off, Jordan switched to the Ground Control frequency.
“Nellis Ground Control, Lockheed two-nine checking in.”
“Two-nine, Nellis. I’ve got your plan here. You’re not staying with us for long.”
“Roger that.”
“Ah, two-nine, take the second turnoff to the left, go right on the taxiway and straight to the end of the taxiway.”
“Two-nine, wilco,” Jordan said.
Barr eased in his brakes, and reversed the prop pitch to slow his forward speed, then turned off the runway.
Jordan shed his headset, unbuckled his harness, and crawled out of his seat.
“This chickenshit outfit even has Navy commanders doing loadmaster duties,” he said.
Barr grinned up at him. “How many loadmasters get the same pay?”
“There are compensations,” Jordan said, then went back and dropped down the ladder from the flight deck.
As Barr neared the end of the taxiway, he saw the ramp down indicator flash on as Jordan started to lower it. Ahead, off to one side, were two Jeeps with canvas-covered trailers. After he passed them, he toed in the left brake, goosed the starboard throttles, swung the transport around 180 degrees, then idled his way back to the Jeeps and set the brakes.
Both Jeeps, with one driver each, started their engines and drove out of his view toward the rear of the aircraft. He felt the slight jar as Jordan dropped the ramp the rest of the way to the ground.
The fuselage tilted a little as each of the Jeeps backed their trailers into the cargo bay, unhitched, and drove out again. Loading both trailers took less than four minutes, then the Jeeps departed.
On the intercom, Jordan told him, “Ramp’s coming up. I’ve still got to chain these babies down, but if you drive real slow, I can do it on the move.”
“Oh, Ainsworth, here we come,” Barr sang, “right back where we started from…”
“And don’t sing,” Jordan ordered.
Except for Ace the Wonder Cat, Janice Kramer was alone in the office. It was after ten o’clock, and outside the window, the lamps in the parking lot lit up only half-a-dozen cars, her Buick Riviera among them.