Code of Honor полностью

The Hawker screamed past less than a hundred feet off the left wing, thirty-eight minutes after the Piper Cheyenne departed Manado. The stubby jet’s lights cut a trail in the darkness over the ocean. Chavez crouched between the pilots at the rear of the cockpit. Adara knelt on the aft-facing seat on the right side of the airplane, bracing herself on the backrest behind the copilot. She was just far enough from Chavez to split the pilots’ attention, helping to keep them in line, with the added stress of having the Hawker find and intercept them. It was imperative that they remain more afraid of Chavez and Adara than they were of Habib and the other men on the Hawker.

A scant half-mile ahead, the blinking lights of the Hawker cut directly in front of the Cheyenne’s flight path, then broke right, making a tight circle to come straight at them, this time on the left side of the airplane.

“That son of a bitch is trying to fly a business jet like a fighter,” Adara said.

Chavez felt the Hawker roar by, this time off the left wing.

“And doing a good job of it, too,” he muttered to himself.

The aircraft had a closing speed of roughly eight hundred miles per hour. The wake turbulence of the passing Hawker threw the Cheyenne around like a rag doll.

The copilot sputtered in his right seat, trying to contain his nervous laugh. Deddy had sweated completely through his shirt. He looked like he might get sick to his stomach at any moment as he glanced up at Chavez. This Habib guy had gotten into his head somehow.

The radio crackled to life, spewing what sounded like very angry Bahasa Indonesian.

“He is ordering me to return to Manado,” Deddy said.

“Tell him you’re unable,” Chavez said. “Tell him his shipment will remain intact, but you have a stop to make first. Tell him in English. Do it now.”

Deddy tentatively relayed the information. He released the mic and shook his head. “Habib is from Maluku. People from that island can be very rough. He is a pilot, but he is also — How do you say it? — an enforcer. If he had guns he would shoot us down right now.”

“Well, he doesn’t,” Adara said.

Chavez squeezed Deddy’s shoulder. He was shaking like an aspen leaf in the wind. “We’ll be fine as long as you fly this airplane. Why are you so scared of this Habib character?”

Deddy took a deep breath. “He is my brother-in-law.”

“That’s good,” Adara said. “He won’t harm family, right?”

“He has never liked me,” Deddy said. “This will be a good excuse. Whatever happens, I am dead.”

Chavez wanted to say, That’s what you get for peddling the shit you have in the back of the plane, but he kept it to himself.

“One thing at a time, Deddy,” he said instead. “Worry about flying the plane for now. I don’t want to have to depend on Chuckles over there if I don’t have to.”

Chavez keyed the mic, transmitting on Guard — a frequency military and civilian aircraft alike would monitor. He spoke rapid-fire English using the hey-you-this-is-me pattern aviators and war-fighters understood.

“Justice One, Cheyenne. You have an ETA?”

The leader of two F-15 Eagles answered quickly. “Cheyenne, Justice One.” The pilot sounded young, maybe thirty, but probably not even that. Young and earnest. The mixture of cocky humility common to most pilots Chavez had ever encountered came through clearly in his voice. Just a kid, really, but an old soul, living his dream entrusted with a multimillion-dollar airframe over a dark and lonely ocean on the far side of the world. Chavez imagined him building models of F-15 Eagles a decade before. Hell, he was not likely much older than Chavez’s son in the great scheme of things.

“We’re four minutes, your position,” Justice One said. “Radar shows you have company.”

“Roger that, Justice,” Chavez said. The two fighter pilots knew they were to have picked up a high-value item in Manado, and now that item was with Ding and Adara. Chavez had been able to brief them on the threat of the Hawker without talking about Calliope on an open radio frequency.

The F-15 leader spoke again. “Cheyenne, squawk 1500 for me so I know who’s who.”

Chavez bumped the seat back until Deddy adjusted the transponder.

“Tally ho,” the flight leader said. “I have you. We’re three minutes…” He paused. “Tricky. The other aircraft just squawked 1500 as well, and then disappeared from my screen.”

Adara moved to look out the right window, then the left window, before turning to shake her head at Chavez. “I don’t see it.”

Chavez pointed up. “I think he’s flying above us.”

“Or below,” the younger Indonesian pilot said between nervous hiccups.