W. Griffin - By Order of the President

"What are you going to do, Charley?" Colonel Torine had asked.

"If it's not here, it has to be at the other airport, Tomas Guardia."

"Or it's not here at all. You're still betting on Pevsner? He obviously doesn't know where it is or we'd have gotten the in-flight advisory or one of those numbers you called would have paid off."

"Or something happened. Maybe his people here couldn't find it here and he couldn't get anybody to the other airport to see if it was there. Or he did and there's a communications problem. But he was pretty sure the 727 is in Costa Rica and I think we have to go on that. And if it's not here, then it has to be at Tomas Guardia."

"How are you going to handle it?" Colonel Torine asked.

"We go to Tomas Guardia. Fernando gets permission to box his compass, we go to the threshold of a runway, and Sherman and I get out with the radio, go hide in the grass, and hope nobody sees us. You take the Lear to the nearest airport in Nicaragua, where you can call MacDill and tell them where we are in case Sherman can't get the radio up. And then we see what happens. We may get lucky-and, God knows, I'm not counting on that-and actually find the sonofabitch. If it's there and it looks as if it's going to take off, Sherman and I can probably disable it."

"Why don't we just park the Lear and all of us get out?" Fernando said. "That would give us four people on the ground."

"Because somehow we have to get word to MacDill, and the only way to do that-we can't count on Sherman's radio-is for you to go to Nicaragua."

"Now that they're this close, they probably have some pretty good perimeter defense around the airplane," Fernando argued. "And Special Forces hotshots or not, you and Sherman adds up to two people."

"What I think we should do is split the difference," Colonel Torine said. "I get out of the airplane with you." He looked at Fernando and smiled. "That would make it two Green Beanie hotshots and one Air Commando hotshot. The bad guys won't have a chance."

"I don't like this, Gringo."

"Colonel, Sergeant Sherman and I can handle this," Castillo said. "It doesn't take much skill to shoot holes in airplane tires, but I suspect it's really going to piss off the local authorities. Why don't you go with Fernando? You'll be better at getting through to MacDill than he will."

"I don't know about that," Torine replied. "For one thing, he speaks much better Spanish than I do; he's going to have a lot of talking to Nicaraguan authorities to do. And, for another, this is more fun than I've had in years. I've always wanted to shoot holes in an airplane tire."

Fernando looked between them, shrugged, and then spoke to his microphone.

"Tomas Guardia ground control. Lear Five-Oh-Seven-Five. I've got a compass I don't trust. Request permission to go to the threshold of two-eight and box my compass."

The problem was how to get from the Lear where it sat on the threshold of the runway to a point two hundred yards north of the threshold, where the built-up area leading to the threshold and the runway suddenly dropped off precipitously.

There was waist-high grass on either side of the threshold. The area leading up to the threshold was paved with macadam for about a hundred yards. It would be easier, and faster, to run down the macadam and enter the grass where it ended. On the other hand, they would almost certainly be seen if they ran down the macadam.

They would probably be seen if they ran through the grass-they couldn't run bent over far enough to get beneath the top of the grass-but if they crawled through it so they would be concealed by the grass, crawling through it would crush the grass, leaving a visible path. Running through the grass, if they were lucky, would push the grass aside only momentarily and it would spring back in place, leaving little evidence that someone or something had passed through it.

"I think we better go through the grass," Castillo said. Colonel Torine nodded. Sergeant Sherman gave Castillo a thumbs-up.

"Fernando, turn it so the door is away from the tower," Castillo ordered. "As soon as you stop, we'll open the door and go. You'll have to come back here and close it."

"Now?" Fernando asked.

"Now, please."

"God be with all of you," Fernando announced as the Lear started to turn.

The grass was thicker than it looked and harder to push aside. The ground was very damp, not quite mud but slippery.

There was a handle on the bottom of Sergeant Sherman's hard-sided suitcase-Castillo idly wondered whether it had come that way or if the bottom handle was a Gray Fox modification-which permitted Sherman and Castillo to carry it between them.

But it was a heavy sonofabitch even without the weight of the two CAR-4 rifles and the bandolier of magazines Sherman had taken out of it and hung around Colonel Torine's shoulders.

The midday tropical heat did not help. Charley felt sweat break out before he was ten yards into the grass and he and Sherman were soon breathing very heavily. They had to stop four times and quickly swap sides as the strength of their hands on the handles gave out. The last time, when Charley scurried to get to the other side of the suitcase, his foot slipped, he fell flat onto his face through the grass onto the ground, where his knee encountered what was probably the only rock within five hundred yards.

Castillo was beginning to plan for what to do when, inevitably, the knee and/or his breath gave out and he would not be able to hold up his end of the suitcase anymore when the ground beneath his feet suddenly disappeared, he lost his footing, and started to slide downward.

There was about a fifty-foot difference between the ground-the original terrain-and the airport buildup. Castillo, Sherman and the hard-sided suitcase were about halfway down it before they could stop their slide. They had just done so, and exchanged glances, when Colonel Torine burst through the thick grass on his way down the steep incline. He was moving headfirst on his stomach, wildly flailing his arms in an attempt to stop himself.

Sherman started to giggle, and then both he and Castillo were laughing, although, as out of breath as they were, the laughing was quite painful.

Still smiling and chuckling, they pushed the hard-sided suitcase the rest of the way down the steep incline until they reached level ground.

"Fuck it, far enough," Castillo said, stopped pushing, rolled onto his back, and put his arm over his eyes against the bright sunlight.

A moment later, as he was still taking breaths in deep heaves, he felt a nudge against his side. From under his arm, without moving, he saw an old, battered military-looking boot.

Oh, shit! If Torine or Sherman wanted my attention, they wouldn't nudge me with a boot. They aren't even wearing boots.

He took his arm off his eyes.

There was a man standing over him, his face covered with green, brown, and black grease stripes.

"I understand that old Air Force fart wheezing like a rode-hard racehorse," Lieutenant General Bruce J. McNab said, "but you and Sherman? By God, what are people going to think?"

Castillo didn't reply. He forced himself into a sitting position. His arm was nudged, and, when he looked, McNab was holding out a plastic quart bottle of 7UP to him.

Castillo took it wordlessly, opened it, and drank from it.

"For your general information, the Air Force survived his crash landing," McNab said. "His dignity, unfortunately, took a beating."

"How long have you been here?" Castillo asked, finally getting his breath.

"Long enough, were I a wagering man, to lay heavy odds the 727 is here. I got a guy out there now taking a real close look."