“You want me to handle her?”
“No! Not yet. But I want you close enough to deal with her and your contact quickly. If the need arises.”
“Uh-huh.”
“If the need arises,” al-Bashir repeated. “You are not to act unless I tell you to.”
“So why I gotta go to Matagorda, then?”
He could hear the irritation in al-Bashir’s voice. “So that you can be close enough to strike quickly, if and when I tell you to!”
Roberto nodded. “Okay, I’ll go down there tomorrow.”
“Just lay low. Stay at the motel. Don’t draw attention to yourself.”
“Yeah, okay.” But Roberto heard the words strike quickly repeating over and over again in his mind. He had seen Randolph’s secretary. Kinsky was a wimp; taking care of him would be a snap. But the secretary was something else. Taking care of her would be fun.
In his palatial home on the outskirts of Tunis, al-Bashir put down the phone, his thoughts swirling. Randolph has the spaceplane ready to launch. But his top engineer and some of her crew have left Matagorda. Why? What is Randolph up to?
He picked up the phone again and jabbed at one of the buttons. The phone buzzed four times before a sleepy voice answered, “Yes, sir?”
One-twenty-three in the morning, al-Bashir saw from the ornate clock on the wall opposite his desk.
“Wake up, Ali,” he snapped.
“I’m awake, sir. Fully awake, sir.”
“Listen carefully,” said al-Bashir. “I want you to contact each member of my special operation team. Tell them they must be ready to move to Marseille within a moment’s notice. Do you understand?”
“A moment’s notice, yes, sir.”
“At eight o’clock this morning you will phone the operations center outside Marseille.”
“Eight o’clock, yes, sir.”
“Tell them to prepare for receiving my team. Find out how long they will require to be fully operational.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m going to bed now. When I awake I will expect you to have done these tasks.”
“They will be done, sir.”
“I will expect a full report from you.”
“Yes, sir. I will be prepared whenever you call.”
“Good.”
“Have a pleasant night’s sleep, sir.”
Al-Bashir detected just the slightest hint of irony in the voice of his faithful servant. Well, he thought, Ali isn’t going to get much sleep tonight. He’s entitled to a little resentment, I suppose. But heaven help him if he hasn’t completed his tasks to my satisfaction.
With that, al-Bashir got up from his desk and headed for his bedroom, trying to decide which of his women he wanted tonight.
Flying thirty-seven thousand feet above the Gulf of Mexico, Lynn Van Buren cranked her seat as far back as it would go and tried to get some sleep. But she was far too excited even to close her eyes. She had never been to Venezuela. Only two of her five-person crew spoke any Spanish at all.
Dan’s going to outfox all of them, she thought. He’s going to launch the spaceplane, fly several orbits, and land it in Caracas. Hot spit! He’s got more balls than the Mongol hordes and the U.S. Marines put together.
The twin-jet Citation couldn’t make it all the way from Matagorda to Caracas without a refueling stop in Florida. Van Buren gave up any pretense of sleeping and peered out of the plane’s tiny round window at a tropical Moon riding along silvered clouds. Down in the plane’s cargo hold was the guidance and control equipment that they would use to monitor the spaceplane’s landing. If the bird deviated from its preset flight plan Van Buren and her people could take active control from the ground.
Dan had at first told Van Buren that they would have to work from a boat out in the harbor of La Guaira, the port city for Caracas. But apparently Dan’s Venezuelan contact, somebody high up in the local government, had promised them tight security at the airport itself. They could handle the flight much better from the airport, Van Buren knew. Besides, she didn’t relish the idea of trying to handle the mission while bobbing up and down in some boat.
The Citation landed at Florida’s Southwest International Airport just outside Fort Myers, refueled, and then took off for its run to Caracas. Van Buren finally fell asleep and only woke up when the sudden thump and rushing wind noise of the landing gear being lowered startled her out of a pleasant dream about a picnic with her kids. As she rubbed the sleep from her eyes the plane landed with a screech of tires on the long concrete runway.
Craning her neck to look out at the Caracas airport in the early morning sunlight, Van Buren saw that the plane was taxiing to a remote corner of the facility, far from any buildings or other planes. The only thing out there was a tall wire mesh fence topped by razor wire. And a big, square army truck in chocolate-chip camouflage. As the plane squealed to a stop, a full squad of young soldiers piled out of the truck, automatic rifles in their hands, and formed up in a straight line.
“What’s going on?” one of her technicians asked.
“Don’t worry,” Van Buren assured him. “It’s okay. Nothing to worry about.” She hoped she was right.
The captain came out of the cockpit, stooped over because of the cabin’s low ceiling, and swung the hatch open; a metal stairway automatically unfolded from the plane’s fuselage. A trim-looking young soldier immediately clambered up the steps, looking very serious. He had some sort of insignia on the collar of his shirt, a thick dark moustache, and a pistol holstered on his hip.
“Señora Van Buren?” he called out.
“That’s me,” she replied, heading up the cabin’s central aisle toward him.
The soldier was short enough to stand erect at the hatch. “I am Capitan Esteban Guitterez, commandante of your security detail,” he said in heavily accented English. Then he smiled brilliantly. “Welcome to Venezuela!”
Len Kinsky wasn’t exactly panicked, but he certainly felt nervous. His date with April had been a total waste of time. They spent the whole evening fencing verbally: he tried to find out from her what Dan was up to and gradually realized that she was trying to find out what he was doing. She knows! Kinsky realized, halfway through his bland chunk of dead fish at Lamar’s fanciest restaurant. She’s trying to pump me!
By the time he got home that evening there was a message on his answering machine from Roberto. The big mook was coming down to Matagorda. Great! thought Kinsky. He’d only met Roberto in the flesh once, but that was enough. Plenty, in fact. The guy looked like he should be playing linebacker for some prison football team. Scary.
Roberto wasn’t satisfied with the flow of information Kinsky was providing him. Kinsky had to admit that he hadn’t much information to pass on. And now April was probably on to him. What to do?
As he drove to the ferry that morning, Kinsky wished he’d never met Roberto, never gone for the money the big lug offered. All they’d wanted was a pipeline into Dan’s office. Industrial espionage. Happens all the time. With Astro going down the toilet and his job going with it, Kinsky figured a little extra money on the side was a good bet. Insurance for that inevitable day when Dan called him in and sadly told him he was laid off.
Yeah. Good bet. Kinsky sat and fidgeted while the ferry chugged across the bay. Maybe I ought to just pull up stakes and go back to New York. I can sell some freelance magazine articles if nothing else pans out.
The ferry docked. As he drove the last few miles to the office Kinsky formed a plan of action. Roberto wants the inside poop on what Dan’s up to. Otherwise he’s going to get nasty. Maybe he was involved in Tenny’s death. Kinsky didn’t like to think of that. Focus on the here and now, he commanded himself. Figure out what you’ve got to do and then do it.