"I'm in, Ace," Delchamps said.
"Me, too," Darby said.
Castillo looked at Davidson.
"Jesus Christ, Charley! Do you have to ask? Yes, sir, Colonel, sir, I will go with you to see the President, sir. Not only that, I will bring Uncle Remus and this bald, fat, ugly old man with me, and do my best to keep them sober."
[THREE]
Cozumel International Airport
Cozumel, Mexico
2005 5 January 2006
Castillo saw that Miller had a hard time getting out of the co-pilot seat--that it was painful for him--but pretended not to notice.
It was understandable. Castillo was a little stiff, too, and during the long flight often had been reminded of his wounded buttocks and leg.
And it had been a long one indeed: Six hours fifteen minutes from Punta del Este across the South American continent to Quito, Ecuador, and then after an hour for fuel and a really bad chicken supper, another three hours and something from Quito to Cozumel.
On both legs he had sent Miller back to the passenger compartment so that he could stretch out on one of the couches with his knee unbent for an hour or so. And on both occasions, Svetlana had come forward and sat in the co-pilot seat. They had tried to hold hands, but the Gulfstream flight deck had not been designed for romance, so they just sat there and watched the fuel gauges drop and the GPS image of the Gulfstream inch its way across the map.
There had been plenty of time to think, and a lot to think about, and a number of decisions to be made, one of which he thought of as Step One of Biting the Bullet.
Castillo started to implement Step One of Biting the Bullet now, after Miller left the cockpit and he heard the whine of the stair-door motor.
As he reached for the AFC handset in its rack beside the co-pilot seat, Svetlana again came into the cockpit. She asked with her eyebrows what he was doing.
To hell with it; she'll learn what's going to happen soon enough anyway.
He pointed to the handset. She handed it to him, then slid into the seat and listened to his side of the conversation.
"C. G. Castillo," he said to the handset.
"Yes, Colonel Castillo?"
The voice-recognition circuit reacted more quickly, he thought, than a human operator would have answered.
And it doesn't sound at all like a computer-generated voice.
"General Bruce J. McNab. Encrypted Level One."
"One moment, please."
Then McNab's voice: "Thank you ever so much for checking in, Colonel. I was beginning to wonder if you had decided to retire earlier than scheduled."
"Good evening, sir."
"Or if you were in the arms of the Argentine cops in Gaucho Land. I presume you're aware of the FBI backgrounder?"
"Yes, sir. You've seen it?"
"Oh, yes. And the 'locate but do not detain' message."
"I didn't hear about that one, sir."
"Well, if you ever try to come to the United States, you'll know why the Border Patrol is so fascinated with your passport."