Boyd and the G-2, Diaz, held the same rank. That, their nationality, and the uniform was about all they had in common, though. Diaz was the son and grandson of poor peasants. Short and squat compared to Boyd, and dark where Boyd was essentially white, Diaz had struggled all his life to make of himself what had been given as a free gift to Boyd by reason of his birth.
Their prior dealings had been sparse: Intelligence and logistics tended to work apart in the somewhat Byzantine structure of Panama’s Armada. Indeed, since one of the major traditional functions of the intelligence service in Panama was to prevent a coup, and since logistics — specifically transportation — was generally key to the launching of a successful coup, one might have said that the two were, or should have been, natural enemies.
Natural enemies or not, Diaz met Boyd warmly with an outstretched hand and a friendly smile.
“Señor Boyd, how good of you to come on such short notice,” Diaz offered.
“It’s nothing, señor, especially since you said you had something to show me. Your aide said it might be critical to the defense of the country.”
“Just so,” Diaz answered. “And if you will follow me into the hangar.”
Once inside, after giving his eyes a moment to adjust to the reduced light, Boyd saw what was perhaps the last thing he expected to see.
“What the hell is that?” he asked.
Diaz shrugged. “Some would call it a gamble; others a forlorn hope. Me; I call it a glider, an auxiliary propelled glider, to be exact.”
Boyd looked closer. Yes, it had the long narrow wings of a glider, and sported a propeller from its nose.
“Let me rephrase,” he said. “What is there about a glider that justified pulling me away from my job where, I have no doubt, someone is stealing the country blind and where, if I were there, I might manage to save half a gallon of gasoline?”
Diaz scowled, though not, to all appearances, at Boyd. “We can talk about the thefts — yes, I know about them. Of course I would know about them — when we have finished with this matter.
“This, as I was opining, is a glider. It is not an ordinary glider, though. It has been fitted with a good, light radio. It has a top of the line thermal imager. It has an onboard avionics package to allow it to fly in some pretty adverse weather.”
“It sounds like you’re thinking of using it for reconnaissance,” Boyd said.
“Maybe,” Diaz admitted. “It’s a gamble, though not, I think, a bad one.”
Boyd looked dubious. “I’ve been to the same briefings you have. Nothing can fly anywhere near those aliens. The life expectancy of an aircraft, even the best aircraft the United States can produce, can be measured in minutes.”
“It could be measured in seconds, señor, and it would still be worth it for the intelligence we might gain.”
“But a glider?”
“It might be that only a glider has a chance to fly over the enemy, report, and make it back. Let me explain.”
Diaz pulled a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket, offered one to Boyd and, at his refusal, pulled out one and lit it with a lighter he withdrew from the same pocket. His head wreathed in smoke, he began to explain.
“The gringos make wonderful machines, I’m sure you’ll agree. But you know, sometimes they get too wrapped up in those machines, forget the circumstances that make those machines valuable or vulnerable. How else can one explain them making single bombers that cost more than the entire Gross Domestic Product of the very countries they would wish to bomb? How else can you explain their intent to produce a new, and incredibly expensive, jet fighter when no one in the world could even touch the fighters they had?”
Exhaling a plume of smoke, and grunting in satisfaction, Diaz continued. “We think they overlooked something. We know, because they told us, that these aliens who are coming can sense powered changes in anything moving. It is possible, even, that the Posleen can sense any changes.
“And yet they do not. There are reports that birds in the areas they infest are generally unmolested. We know they do not engage any of the billions of small particles roaming through space. Maybe it is because the particles are not moving under their own power. But then, how do you explain the birds going unmolested?”
“Hell, I don’t know,” Boyd answered with a shrug.
Taking another drag, Diaz answered, “Neither do I. But a young man, a student, at the university has a theory and I think it is a good one. Certainly it explains much.
“He thinks that the reason the enemy do not engage the micrometeorites in space is because their sensors have been deliberately ‘dialed down,’ that they are set not to notice things of insufficient mass or velocity or a combination of the two. He has done the calculations and determined that if the enemy’s sensors are dialed down to where meteorites are unseen, then birds simply do not appear on their sensors. He thinks that slow, really slow, moving gliders might also go unnoticed, at least some of the time.
“He’s firmly enough convinced of this that he has talked me into raising a small force of these gliders for operational reconnaissance. He’s even joined this force.”
“ ‘Some of the time.’ You’re gambling a lot of men’s lives on the calculations of a student,” Boyd observed.
“I should hope so,” Diaz answered. “The young man of whom I spoke? He is my son, Julio.”
“Shit!” Boyd exclaimed. “You are serious. All right then. What do you need from me?”
“Not much. A certain small priority for fuel for training. Some shipping space. Maybe we can both have a word with the G-1 to assign some high quality young people to this unit.”
“We’ll need the fuel that is, if his Excellency, el presidente, doesn’t have a market for low grade aviation fuel. He might, you know. He has found a way to steal everything else.”
“Can you prove that?” Boyd asked.
“Oh, I can prove it,” Diaz answered, then shrugged. “To my own satisfaction, at least. Can I prove it to a court? Can I prove it to a legislature that is as deep into graft and corruption as the president is himself? I doubt it.”
“But you know, Señor Boyd, I’ve been thinking. The president and his cronies are able to pilfer an absolutely amazing proportion of what we bring in to defend ourselves. After all, they know exactly where everything is and where everything is supposed to go.
“I do wonder though, what they would do if we started ‘stealing’ it first.”
Boyd looked at Diaz as if he had grown a second head. That look lasted but a few moments before being replaced by something akin to admiring wonder.
“Stealing it first? What a fascinating idea, señor. Deliver it to the U.S. Army to hold for us, do you think?”
“That would help, of course,” Diaz agreed. “But I am thinking we are going to have to take control of the more pilferable items before they ever get here. Can you transship things like ammunition and fuel someplace overseas, bring them here in different ships, unload those ships here and deliver the supplies to the gringos or to some of our own more reliable people without the president knowing? Can you cover the traces of the original ships so it looks to the government as if those things are being stolen overseas?”
Boyd smiled confidently, and perhaps a little arrogantly. “Señor, I would not claim to be much of a general, but I am as good a shipper as you’ll find in the world.”
“Bill,” said Diaz, using Boyd’s name for the first time, “I have no doubt you’re a fine shipper. What you are not, however, is a thief.”