"Hell, I told him to ease it off some, must be twenty feet away. We always fly in formation."
"Congratulations, you just got your whimper."
The flight lasted just over an hour. The Gulf of Mexico appeared first as a blue ribbon on the horizon, then grew into an oceanic mass of water as the two fighters headed down to land. Pensacola's strips were visible to the east, then got lost in the haze. It struck Ryan as odd that he feared flying less when he rode in a military aircraft. You could see better, and somehow that made a difference. But the fighters even landed in formation, which seemed madly dangerous, though nothing happened. The wingman touched first, and then Robby's a second or two later. Both Tomcats rolled out and turned at the end of the runway, stopping near a pair of automobiles. Some groundcrew men had ladders.
"Good luck, Jack," Robby said as the canopy came up.
"Thanks for the ride, man." Jack managed to detach himself from the airplane without help and climbed down. Murray was beside him a minute later. Both entered the waiting cars, and behind them the Tomcats taxied away to complete their flight to nearby Pensacola Naval Air Station.
Murray had called ahead. The officer who met them was the intelligence chief for the 1st Special Operations Wing.
"We need to see Colonel Johns," Murray said after identifying himself. That was the only conversation needed for the moment. The car took them past the biggest helicopters Ryan had ever seen, then to a low block building with cheap windows. The wing intelligence officer took them in. He handled the introduction of the visitors, thinking erroneously that Ryan was also FBI, then left the three alone in the room.
"What can I do for you?" PJ asked warily.
"We want to talk about trips you made to Panama and Colombia," Murray replied.
"Sorry, we don't discuss what we do here very freely. That's what special ops are all about."
"A couple of days ago you were given some orders by Vice Admiral Cutter. You were in Panama then," Murray said. "Before that you had flown armed troops into Colombia. First you took them into the coastal lowlands, then you pulled them out and reinserted them into the hill country, correct?"
"Sir, I cannot comment on that, and whatever inference you draw is yours, not mine."
"I'm a cop, not a reporter. You've been given illegal orders. If you carry them out, you may be an accessory to a major felony charge." Best to get things immediately on the table, Murray thought. It had the desired effect. Hearing from a senior FBI official that his orders might be illegal forced Johns to respond, though only a little bit.
"Sir, you're asking me something I don't know how to respond to."
Murray reached into his bag and pulled out a manila envelope. He removed a photograph and handed it to Colonel Johns. "The man who gave you those orders, of course, was the President's National Security Adviser. Before he met with you, he met with this guy. That is Colonel F lix Cortez. He used to be with the DGI, but now he's working for the Drug Cartel as chief of security. He was instrumental in the Bogot murders. Exactly what they agreed on we do not know, but I can tell you what we do know. There is a communications van over the Gaillard Cut that had been the radio link with the four teams on the ground. Cutter visited it and shut it down. Then he came to see you and ordered you to fly home and never talk about the mission. Now, you put all three of those things together and tell me if what you do come up with sounds like something you want to be part of."
"I don't know, sir." Johns' response was automatic, but his face had gone pink.
"Colonel, those teams have already taken casualties. It appears likely that the orders you were given might have been aimed at getting them all killed. People are out hunting them right now," Ryan said. "We need your help to go get them out."
"Who exactly are you, anyway?"
"But it's your goddamned operation!"
"No, it isn't, but I won't bore you with the details," Jack said. "We need your help. Without it, those soldiers aren't going to make it home. It's that simple."
"So you're sending us back to clean up your mess. That's the way it always is with you people, you send us out -"
"Actually," Murray said, "we were planning to go with you. Part of the way anyway. How soon can you be in the air?"
"Tell me exactly what you want." Murray did just that. Colonel Johns nodded and checked his watch.
"Ninety minutes."
