The Outlaws (Presidential Agent 6)

“One-ninety ...

“Two-ten.”

“Get the gear up, First Officer. It’s that lever with the wheel on top.”

Castillo found the lever and moved it.

“Gear coming up . . .

“Gear up.

“Jesus! Two-eighty.”

“Now let’s see how it climbs,” Torine said, as if to himself.

Castillo felt himself being pressed hard against the cushions of his seat.

Torine said, “No wonder the agency is willing to pay all that money—what was it, one hundred twenty-five million?—for one of these. This is one hell of an airplane, First Officer.”

Castillo had a very clear mental image of Sweaty—and maybe everybody else in the fuselage—all in a pile of broken bones against the closed ramp.

The pressure on his back against his seat suddenly stopped. Jake had leveled off.

“Put your goddamn harness on,” Torine ordered.

As soon as he saw that Castillo had done so, Jake dove for the surface of the water.

Castillo now had a very clear image of everybody sliding forward in the fuselage to end in a pile of broken bones against the cockpit door.

Torine read his mind.

“Now take the harness off, First Officer,” he ordered, “and go back and see how our passengers are enjoying the flight.”

Castillo found all the passengers except two were in their seats. Dmitri Berezovsky was standing beside one of the blue plastic beer barrels, examining it thoughtfully. Sweaty was on her knees beside General Yakov Sirinov, in the process of administering to him what Castillo presumed was the morphine she had promised.

Castillo went back to the cockpit and strapped himself in.

The airspeed and altimeter dials indicated that they were flying at eight hundred and forty kilometers per hour—or about five hundred knots—at a hundred meters—or five hundred feet—above the Caribbean Sea.

Fuel consumption at that speed and altitude would be horrendous, and there was of course the danger that they would go into the drink.

But, on the other hand, they didn’t have that far to go, and at five hundred feet they wouldn’t be a blip on anybody’s radar screen.

“You want to take it, Charley, while I get my laptop?”

“I’ll get your laptop. You drive,” Castillo replied.

[THREE]

Laguna el Guaje

Coahuila, Mexico

0940 13 February 2007

Jake Torine carefully nosed the Tu-934A into the cave, and turned to Charley Castillo.

“I would tell you to shut it down, First Officer, but I’m afraid you’d break something.”