Текст книги "Robert Ludlum's The Janson Command"

Автор книги: Robert Ludlum

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PART FOUR Ambush

Evening

29°45′ N, 95°22′ W

Houston, Texas

THIRTY-SIX

Doug Case was leading “Chair Night” at the Phoenix Boys Shelter—his halfway house for teenage gangbangers crippled in gunfights—on the south side of Houston when his cell phone buzzed with the one call he would never block, even when he was visiting the kids. The Voice was calling, sooner than five days, breaking pattern. Events must be coming to a head if even the cool, dispassionate, wise, and cynical Voice was getting anxious.

“Guys, I’m really sorry,” Case apologized. “I gotta take this call. Who’s going to fill in for me?”

He chose two from the eager hands and watched the kids proudly as he backed his own chair toward the door. Those who had already earned their superchairs presented the new kid who had earned his by painstakingly learning to master the multiple controls with the fingers of one hand. The other had been paralyzed along with his spine in a gun battle the kid had lost defending a crack-cocaine business in an abandoned house on Higgins Street.

A male nurse lifted the shrunken form, which was all that remained of a hefty teenager, out of his ordinary chair and placed him in his customized super.

Case wheeled out to the foyer. There was an armed guard at the front desk and wire mesh on the small windows to discourage attacks by gangstas not yet crippled from the shoot-outs they had fought in backyards of the Sunnyside neighborhood. Case glanced through the window at his black Escalade idling at the curb. His driver was sitting at the wheel with a pistol in his hand.

Case parked his chair in front of a glass case displaying trophies that Phoenix shelter boys had won in qualifying events for the Paralympics, wheelchair basketball, wheelchair fencing, wheelchair tennis, power lifting, judo, and archery.

“George,” he called to the guard.

“Yes sir, Mr. Case.”

“Still indulging in your coffin nails?”

George grinned. “ ’Fraid so.”

“Why don’t you step outside and have a smoke. I’ll cover for you.”

George stepped out eagerly.

Case answered the vibrating phone: “Hello, Strange Voice.”

“Took your time picking up.”

“I had to create some privacy. Sorry.”

“How are you making out with Paul Janson?”

This was a happy subject and Case answered, “Janson bought it hook, line, and sinker.”

“He really believes that you’re quitting ASC?”

“Better than that.”

“How so?”

“Janson believes I switched sides. He thinks I’m now his mole inside ASC.”

“Mole?” Digitally distorted, the caller’s laughter squeaked like a slipping fan belt. “Where’d he get that idea?”

“I let him recruit me.”

The Voice laughed harder. “Well done! Very, very well done, Douglas. You are a man after my own heart.”

“I’ll take that as high praise, sir.”

“What does he want of his mole?”

“Nothing specific, so far,” Case lied. “General observations.”

“Let me offer you a word to the wise.”

“Please do,” Case answered hastily. All the distortion in the digital spectrum could not muffle the suddenly icy tone of threat.

“Don’t get so caught up in your performance that you come to believe it.”

“I won’t.”

“What makes you so sure? Paul Janson is a man who can offer a broad array of temptations.”

“I’m not mole material.”

The Voice was not convinced. “Don’t get so caught up that you believe that becoming mole material would be in your interest. It would not be in your interest. It would lead to unbearable pain and suffering.”

Case was enraged that anyone would dare to threaten him. If he could, he would reach through the phone and crush the life out of The Voice. But when Case looked at his reflection in the trophy case, he saw a man in a chair. The poor devil mirrored back a crumbling smile of remorse and regret. The days of crushing the life out of men who challenged him were gone forever. Savagery these days would be of the mind.

As he shook with thwarted anger, it took all his strength to force himself to answer mildly, “Not to worry. I know who butters my bread. And I am grateful.”

“I’ll be in touch.”

They rang off.

Case gazed inquiringly at his reflection.

The threat was not characteristic. The Voice had never threatened him so openly. Even when the mysterious caller had risked his first overture, he had never tried to control Case by sowing terror. He had a funny feeling—a gut feeling born of a lifetime of plots and counterplots—that The Voice had inadvertently revealed that he was deep inside ASC, not outside. Inside and very, very high up. Why else would he be so paranoid that Case might betray ASC’s strategy to Paul Janson?

Then a funnier feeling hit Case. Was the revelation not inadvertent, but deliberate? Was The Voice subtly signaling that he trusted Douglas Case more than ever by revealing more about himself? Were they nearing the time when they would deal face-to-face as equals?

There was a way to find out.

Case made two quick calls, then stared into the trophy case, waiting for his phone to ring. It did. The Voice.

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ve just received word that Iboga was snatched from Securité Referral.”

The glass trophy case reflected a wide smile. “As I predicted, SR has proved to be a disappointment.”

“But we’ve lost Iboga just when we need him most.”

“I would not call Iboga lost,” Doug Case replied with another smile for his reflection.

“What the hell would you call him?”

“Temporarily misplaced.”

“You sound damned sure of yourself.”

“I am in this instance, sir. Please don’t worry.”

“Don’t you think you should get yourself to Isle de Foree ASAP?”

“I already have an ASC Gulfstream gassing up at Hobby Airport. I’ll be aboard in twenty minutes.”

“I think you should go in force.”

“I’ve already beefed up security on the Vulcan Queen.”

“As a precaution?”

Doug Case went for broke.

It was time to claim his rightful role. Before the coup.

“Not a precaution. In anticipationof when you ask me to remove Chief of Staff Mario Margarido.”

The distorted voice made a noise that was probably a chuckle. “I admire you, Douglas. You do stay on top of things.”

“Thank you.”

“Are you ready to remove Margarido?”

“Of course, as I promised. Everything is set.”

“Do it!”

“Consider it done.”

“And when you get to Isle de Foree?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Do everything in your power to support Kingsman Helms.”

That came as fast and final as a red-hot sword in the gut.

Case ran the possibilities: The Voice was Kingsman Helms himself, ensuring Case’s support. Or The Voice was the Buddha, who had chosen Helms as his successor. Or the Voice was an outsider, a board member or a rival who wanted his man Helms in charge of ASC.

A sword in the gut any way Case looked at it.

“Douglas, are you still there?”

“I will do everything in my power to support Kingsman Helms.”

“Excellent. I knew I could count on you.”

THIRTY-SEVEN

Dawn

39°55′ N, 09°41′ E

Tortoli Airport, Sardinia, 820 miles south-southeast of The Hague

Iboga was seasick. He had gotten queasy in the RIB during the short run through the surf from the cliffs of the Vallicone peninsula to the cigarette boat waiting offshore. On the cigarette, he had groaned loudly and drunkenly as it sped him to the freighter cruising the Strait of Bonifacio. Hoisted aboard in a cargo net, the dictator proceeded to vomit wine on the deck.

In the bright light of the ship’s galley, which smelled of grease and coffee, Janson and Kincaid inspected every item that Kincaid had taken from the dictator. A thick, new lizard skin travel wallet contained authentic-looking French, Russian, and Nigerian passports, an international driver’s license, and Visa and American Express credit cards in the name of N. Kwame Johnson. There was a gold money clip full of euros, an old-fashioned Zippo cigarette lighter, the latest iPhone with a treasure trove of contact numbers, a beautifully crafted French shepherd’s folding knife, a gold and diamond Rolex watch, a plastic Baggie of loose pills, including oxycodone, aspirin, and Viagra, and several mini-Baggies, each holding a half a gram of a black powder, which Janson assumed was Iboga’s namesake hallucinogen extracted from the Tabernanthe iboga rain-forest shrub. He uplinked the data on the iPhone SIM card to the forensic accountants, along with the credit card numbers and passport numbers, with instructions to pass on to Research anything that did not serve their hunt for the money.

Iboga was too seasick to interrogate, shaking with dry heaves. Janson knelt beside him, coaxing him to drink water so as not to become dangerously dehydrated. There would be time on the plane to talk about the money. And more time, if necessary, parked on a runway in friendly territory.

Off the east coast of Sardinia, they lowered him into another RIB to slip ashore at Tortoli Airport. The RIB motored quietly through the last wisps of night, steered by Daniel. Iboga retched over the side.

“God punishes in mysterious ways,” Janson told Kincaid.

They were seated on the inflated tubes where they joined to form the bow. She couldn’t see his expression in the dark, but she heard a faint grin in his voice that relieved her deeply. This was the first he had spoken other than to issue quiet orders since they had left Corsica the night before. “How are you?”

“Hanging in there.”

“Like you told him, Paul. He gave you no choice.”

“Doesn’t mean I enjoyed it.”

Kincaid took his hand. There was a softness to it that always surprised her. “Janson Rules,” she said. “ ‘No killing anyone who doesn’t try to kill us.’ He would have killed you and killed everything you hope for.”

“Still didn’t enjoy it. But thanks for the thought.”

“Don’t blow me off! It’s not a goddamned thought. I’m trying to screw your head back on straight.”

“Well, thanks for the head screwing. I mean it. Thank you.” He patted her arm distractedly, dialed his cell phone, shielding the light in his palm, listened to it ring, and hung up. “Still can’t raise the boys.”

Ed and Mike had reported earlier in the night that they had landed the Embraer at Tortoli Airport and parked as out of the way as they could. It was a tiny field outside the town of Tortoli—trees around the control tower, in Ed’s words—that handled a couple of tourist charters a day. The single runway ran from a bare-bones terminal to the beach, which the RIB was approaching. With the prevailing wind from the east, the Embraer had descended over the hills and would take off over the water, which meant hiking six thousand feet from the beach dragging Iboga in the dark.

They heard him retching into the gentle surf.

“Good thing we brought the dolly.”

The rubber boat ground ashore on the sand. Daniel helped them shoulder Iboga across the beach and went back for the dolly. They strapped him to it standing up. Its fat pneumatic tires rolled easily on the asphalt runway.

“Good job,” Janson told Daniel, shaking his hand.

“Get home safe.”

Each gripping a handle, Janson and Kincaid started rolling Iboga toward the distant control tower, which was invisible against the dark hills behind it. Janson flipped down his panoramics. There it was, a squat structure in a clump of trees. Parked near it was a plane—not the Embraer. Its engines were wing mounted. Hauling on the dolly handle, jogging beside Kincaid, he scanned the area around the buildings. There was the Embraer, showing no lights of course but pointed straight down the runway, with its door open for them and boarding stairs extended.

“I see the plane.”

The night glass’s infrared enhancement showed the bright bulge of the big Rolls-Royces on its tail. They appeared brighter than the buildings and the other plane, which meant that Ed and Mike had the engines warm, ready to take off in a flash.

Iboga stopped groaning. As was common with seasickness, the restorative effect of being on dry land was rapid. Suddenly he spoke.

“Where take?”

“Holland. The Hague. International Court.”

“I pay bribe. Let me go.”

“How much?” asked Janson, without slackening pace.

“Ten million euros.”

“Where are you going to get ten million dollars?” Kincaid asked scornfully.

“I get.”

“Hundred million,” said Janson.

“Seventy,” Iboga shot back. And Janson felt his hopes soar. Iboga was bargaining like a man who had no doubt he could raise the money. Nor did he sound concerned by the amount, as if he could easily afford it and have plenty, the lion’s share, left for himself. Unless he was scamming them, angling to distract them, looking for a chance to break away.

“Where?” Kincaid demanded. “How do we get the money?”

“You take me. I get.”

“Where?”

“First you say yes. And you give me back my stuff.”

“I’m not saying yes until you tell me where. And I’m damned sure not giving you anything back until I have the seventy million in my hands.”

After a moment of rolling in silence, Iboga caved. “Zagreb.”

Zagreb made sense, thought Janson. Zagreb was the capital of Croatia, among the most corrupt countries in eastern Europe, the kind of nation where transnational criminal organizations like Securité Referral could play a powerful role. He imagined the enormous kickback SR would have received from the Croatian bank, and even the government itself, for steering Iboga’s stolen money to them.

Suddenly Kincaid whispered, “What’s that?”

Janson heard it, too, from behind them, the rumble of heavy engines, approaching from the sea. He flipped up the panoramics. The control tower had grown visible in the predawn light.

“Turboprops.”

The aircraft engines rumbled overhead and faded toward the hills. Then they heard the plane turn around and the sound grew louder.

“Descending.”

The tower windows were dark, the field closed for the night. Whoever was approaching was coming in without air controller assistance. Janson and Kincaid picked up the pace so as not to be exposed in the landing lights. They followed the plane by its sound. Suddenly they saw its profile silhouetted against the graying sky, a high-wing, twin-engine transporter.

“Weird,” said Janson.

Kincaid agreed. It looked like a C-160 Transall, the twin-engine turboprop that they had seen flown by the Deuxième Régiment Étranger des Parachutistes rapid-intervention units exercising in Corisca. It came down fast and skillfully. Landing lights blazed on at the last second, revealing a camo-green fuselage. The massive tricycle landing gear absorbed the impact. Propellers reversed with a roar and the Transall slowed so quickly that it was able to turn around in less than a third of the runway. With another roar, it came straight at them, landing lights aglare.

“What?” yelled Iboga, blinking, struggling to shield his eyes with his trussed hands. Janson and Kincaid had already flipped down their night gear, which neutralized the glare.

When they saw the rear cargo door spilling paratroopers onto the tarmac, they had only seconds to escape. But that would mean abandoning their prisoner and drawing fire at Ed and Mike on the Embraer.

“It’s the goddamned French Foreign Legion.”

“This is Italy. They can’t come here.”

“Looks like no one told them.”

A stentorian voice amplified by a bullhorn bellowed French.

“He’s saying, ‘Hands in the air.’ ”

“I got that.” They raised their hands. “Now what’s he saying?”

“Uhhmm … ‘We arrest Iboga … taken illegally from France.’ ”

Two soldiers ran up, grabbed the dolly’s handgrips, and wheeled Iboga to the Transall.

“Here come the cops.”

An Italian police car squealed around the terminal, past the control tower, and raced onto the runway with flashing blue lights. Two Carabiniere officers jumped out, straightened their black tunics, and swaggered toward the Transall. A French paratrooper stepped forward and fired a long, loud burst with his assault rifle. Bullets whistled past the police and blew out all the windows in their patrol car.

Kincaid said, “Since when does the French Army issue AK-47s?”

A second burst over their heads sent the Italians running into the dark.

Janson counted paratroopers. “That Transall holds eighty. I see ten.”

“They’re not Legionnaires. They’re as phony as ours were. Jesus, who the hell are they?”

“Just hope they keep the act up and don’t strafe us. Those AKs aren’t phony.”

“And just let them take Iboga?”

“We’ll follow them,” said Janson, with little hope. “If they don’t shoot our tires out.”

The gunmen in paratroop gear unstrapped Iboga from the dolly and helped him up the Transall’s steps.

At the top, the wary-looking Iboga suddenly broke into a grin so broad that it showed his pointed teeth.

“What is going on?” said Kincaid. “He looks happy as hell.”

“Wait,” said Janson. “It’s going to get worse.”

One of the phony Legionnaires presented Iboga with a bright yellow scarf, his signature Arab kaffiyeh. Iboga gathered it around his enormous skull. For a long moment he stood proud as a king. Then he gestured imperiously for the trooper to shoot Janson and Kincaid, who were still holding their hands in the air.

The trooper did not pull the trigger but with help of the others urged Iboga into the transport. He argued and kept pointing at Janson and Kincaid. It took four strong men to shove Iboga in the door. To Janson’s surprise, the last man up the ramp did not strafe the Embraer’s landing gear with his assault rifle. Instead, he threw a mock salute as the airplane started rolling down the runway, and pulled the door shut.

Janson vaulted up the Embraer’s steps, with Kincaid right behind him.

“Fire ’em up, boys! Follow that plane —Oh, God!”

Ed’s and Mike’s seat belts held their bodies in the pilot and co-pilot chairs. Their throats had been cut and the cockpit stank of blood.

THIRTY-EIGHT

Vicious, senseless…” Kincaid’s voice was cracking, her mouth trembling. “Why didn’t they just kill us instead?”

“Ed and Mike were easier to kill.”

There were times, Janson thought, that he was ashamed to be a human being. These two men, these gentle men, so precise in their skills, so quietly proud of the partnership they forged daily with the elegantly engineered Embraer, so ready to whisk Janson anywhere in the world, to change course without hesitation, to be always loyally at his service, to risk their licenses to play fast and loose to serve him, did not deserve to be murdered.

“Senseless,” Kincaid repeated. “They’re just pilots. They’re not– Oh, God, they were always so nice to me.”

Not quite senseless, thought Janson. There was purpose behind the murders. The phony Legionnaires had left him and Kincaid holding the bag, stuck on the ground, on foreign soil, with two dead men to account for. They would be tied down for weeks explaining to the Italian authorities. Under Italian law they could be held without charges for two years.

He was heartsick. The inner circle of CatsPaw and Phoenix was small, very small. His family. Jesse, Quintisha, his pilots. He stared out the windshield. How many miles had Ed and Mike looked through it taking him places he had to go? The Embraer was pointed east down the runway. The sky was brightening over the sea. The Carabiniere would be radioing reinforcements.

“I’ll get towels and blankets,” he said. “We’ll lay them out aft.”

Kincaid followed him to the back of the plane, stumbling like a woman wrenched from sleep. They got blankets and towels from the linen locker and hurried forward, Janson moving with increasing urgency. He stopped to retract the stairs and lock the door. He found Jessica on her hands and knees in the cockpit, toweling blood off the deck. They wrapped Ed and Mike as best they could in the blankets, carried them aft, and strapped them into the fold-down bunks.

“Iboga looked surprised. He didn’t expect to be rescued.”

“Yeah, I saw that. Fucking SR.”

“These guys weren’t necessarily SR. SR would have shot everyone in sight. Cops, us.”

“They did Ed and Mike.”

“They did the bare minimum to leave you and me holding the bag so the Italians will hunt us instead of them. We can spend a year in Italy. Or we can try and get out of here so we can track down Iboga and his money.”

“And get who did this to Ed and Mike?”

“Have you been practicing takeoffs on the simulator?”

She tore her eyes from the shrouded bodies. “Yeah, Ed set it up. Mike sat in with me.”

“How’d you do?”

“Aced it. Second try.”

Janson said, “It’s been a while since I’ve flown and I expect you’re better at it than I am.”

“Not saying much.”

“I’ll lay smoke. You get us out of here.”

* * *

KINCAID WIPED MIKE’S blood off the left-hand chair, climbed in, and adjusted it forward so she could reach the rudder pedals. Ed had taped a card to the throttle on which he had written “V ₁114” and “V _R130.”

V ₁was her all-important takeoff-decision speed, which Ed had based on the weight of the aircraft, the length of the runway, the temperature, and the speed of the wind. It told Kincaid that she had until the fifty-thousand-pound jet plane was hurtling at 114 knots—130 miles per hour—to decide notto take off. If she lost an engine slower than that she had to abort. Above 114 knots, she had to try to take off. She showed Janson the bud that Ed had set on the airspeed indicator at 114 knots. It would be Janson’s job, as the one not flying the ship, to call out, “V ₁.” At V _R, rotation speed—which Ed had written as “130 knots”—Janson would simply call out, “Rotate,” so Kincaid would know when to draw back on the control yoke to elevate the nosewheel off the runway.

Janson climbed into the co-pilot chair, slipped on the headset, and turned his attention to the electronics. “Laying smoke” meant using the Embraer’s defensive aid suite to make Air Traffic Control think that the twin-engine passenger jet was either elsewhere or nowhere at all.

But first he switched off the transponder, which replied to radar queries from ground control and other airplanes. Then he shut down the AFIRS (Automated Flight Information Reporting System) air-to-ground data link service that had recently replaced the antiquated “black box” onboard flight data recorder. Now they would leave no electronically enhanced trail in the sky.

He checked the flight plan in the computer. Ed had filed for The Hague, Holland, eight hundred miles to the north. That was now out the window.

“We’ll hang a right, shoot low and fast as we can down the coast past Sardinia and out of Italian territory into Mediterranean Free Flight Airspace.”

“Let’s see if I can get off the ground, first.”

Kincaid touched the left-hand engine master switch, then the start lever. Number One engine’s compressor started cranking on battery power. Janson watched her eyes flicker between controls and monitors. The Embraer’s automatic engine start sequencer made it slightly similar to starting a car in that she did not have to decide when the turbine was spinning fast enough to introduce fuel and when to ignite it. The engine caught immediately. She let it spool up as she used its generator to crank the Number Two engine’s compressor. Number Two was balky. The sequencer refused to ignite the fuel.

Janson saw flashing lights through the branches of the trees around the control tower. “If we’re going we better go now.”

Number Two engine hadn’t fired yet, but without hesitating Kincaid released the brakes and throttled Number One. The plane began rolling. A police car careened around the control tower. The driver started to pull in front of the moving Embraer. The sudden howl of Number Two engine finally churning to life made him think better about it and the car veered away. The FADEC (Full Authority Digital Engine Control) speed synchronized Number Two revolutions with Number One.

“The good news,” Kincaid muttered, testing flaps, slats, and rudder, “is Ed and Mike had her ready to fly. They did their checklist and kept the motors warm. We’re going to find out how warm. The other good news is idle to takeoff thrust spool-up time is quick on these Rolls-Royces.”

“What’s the bad news?”

“It’s a short runway. I have to turn around and go back to the beginning.”

Janson nodded reluctant agreement. The plane had taxied several hundred meters already and the sea at the end of the runway looked remarkably close in the early light. Kincaid turned the nosewheel, pivoted the plane 180 degrees in its own length, and steered back at the police car. Janson flicked on the powerful landing lights, blinding the police. The police car careened out of Janson and Kincaid’s way and scurried behind the terminal.

At the beginning of the runway Kincaid pivoted the plane again, set the brakes, and smoothly slid the throttles forward until they clicked into the indent marked: “TOGA” (takeoff/go-around). The engines screamed as they spooled up toward takeoff power. The plane began to shudder. Kincaid reached for the brake release. She paused to check that the engines were turning at the same speed. It was not necessary, Janson knew, as the sequence synchronized them automatically, but she had picked up habits of caution from Mike and Ed, whose flying careers predated automation.

Kincaid released the brakes.

Nine tons of thrust shoved the Embraer forward. Janson felt the chair press hard into his back. Already the ground was moving fast beside them. The airspeed indicator numbers rolled like a slot machine. Janson watched anxiously for the little bud that marked 114 knots. The Embraer felt heavy on its tires, rumbling over the worn tarmac. The beach was racing at the windshield, the surf bloodred as the sun broke the horizon. His hand, unbidden, inched toward the landing gear switch.

“Not yet,” Kincaid said coolly.

“V ₁,” said Janson.

They were committed.

Janson watched for VR. At last, 130 knots indicated airspeed.

“Rotate.”

Kincaid hauled back on the control yoke. “Here we go, my friend.”

The Embraer rotated, raising its nose centimeters before the tires hit the beach and canting the wings to an angle to the wind that gave them lift. The main gearwheels swirled a rooster tail of sand and surf. But now the wings were carrying the Embraer and the engines thrust the ship to safety speed.

“Gear up.”

* * *

JANSON IGNORED REPEATED radio hails from Italian Air Traffic Control.

“Take her back down to the deck,” he told Kincaid. Ground radar antennas, going round and round, could track them three hundred miles from land. They had to fly under the radar.

“A hundred feet suit you?” Proud of her takeoff, she had high color in her cheeks and fire in her eyes.

“Try not to hit any boats.”

They streaked south, ten miles off the coast, two hundred feet above the waves, startling fishermen and yacht captains.

Janson was hoping that the early hour, territorial jealousies, and general confusion would make Air Traffic Control hesitate before requesting the Italian Air Force to scramble Panavia Tornado interceptors. Time to ratchet up the chaos: He typed a private code on the co-pilot’s keyboard that unlocked alternate transponder options. The transponder was supposed to identify the Embraer and reveal their flight plan and their altitude when queried by ATC radar. The alternates—violating every civil aviation rule in the world—would answer ATC radar queries with false data about a phantom Embraer flying an illusionary flight plan.

In twenty minutes they rounded the southern tip of Sardinia and angled westward into the Mediterranean. “Up,” said Janson.

Kincaid set the auto throttle and autopilot for climb-out and asked, “Above or below one-eight-oh?”

Flying above eighteen thousand feet mandated instrument flight rules.

“Above,” said Janson, placing a heavy bet on their false transponder signals and EUROCONTROL’s latest experiment with a Mediterranean Free Flight scheme that allowed aircraft flying the lightly trafficked airspace above the sea between Europe and North Africa to manage their own separation instead of maneuvering at the specific orders of Air Traffic Control. Permission to fly as an “autonomous aircraft,” not being required to report every move, should make it easier to disappear.

He was hoping, too, that the situation on the ground at Tortoli was so confusing that the police might not have distinguished the fake French Foreign Legion Transall from the Embraer. The Italian police at Tortoli Airport whose vehicle was shot to pieces would have already reported a French Foreign Legion Transall C-160 with French markings.

The sky was blue and empty in every direction, the rising sun behind them and a vast stretch of the Mediterranean ahead. But this was still Europe of the European Union, where it seemed that half the adult citizens worked for one regulatory agency or another. And Janson could do little about that but pray the Italian government would spend the next three hours expressing outrage to the French through diplomatic channels, time to get past the Strait of Gibraltar and out over the high seas of the Atlantic Ocean.

“Where are we going?”

“The only place I can think of that will take us in without questions is Isle de Foree. How are you doing on fuel?”

“Ed and Mike topped off in Rome, but it won’t get us near Isle de Foree.”

The first officer’s Multifunction Control Display Unit confirmed they hadn’t the fuel. Janson played with the functions to put together a flight plan. “Figure two thousand miles to the Canary Islands if we can get past Gibraltar.”

“Big if.”

The narrow choke point between the coasts of Spain and Morocco was guarded by Spanish, Moroccan, U.S., and British military bases.

“As long as no one is really hunting us I can fake our way through. It’s not like trying to sneak up the English Channel dodging fleets of transatlantic jets leaving and arriving in northern Europe. So we fuel up in the Canaries and then clear sailing three thousand, six hundred miles on a dogleg around the bulge of Africa to Isle de Foree.”

“Thirty-six hundred miles is pushing it. When we flew up to the Mediterranean, Mike was practically tacking into crosswinds.”

“If it looks hairy, we can take our chances in Praia or Dakar, but I’d rather not. Freddy’s people can help us in the Canaries, but we don’t have any special friends in the Cape Verde Islands or Senegal.”

Janson tapped in another private code that revealed the chaff and flare operating manual. He regarded the Embraer’s chaff and flare dispenser hidden under the fuselage as an absolute last resort. The main purpose of electronic countermeasures was to trick enemy missiles—which was not the case here. There was no way a high-end business jet was going to tangle with fighter planes. The task Janson required was to confuse ATC radar and, worst case, failing that, to confuse air force fighter jets sent up to intercept the unidentified target. But before they deployed electronic countermeasures, the best chance was to remain unidentifiable by leaving the transponder off. Which meant keeping a sharp eye peeled for other aircraft on a collision course, unlikely as it was in lightly trafficked skies.