Clear and present danger - Tom Clancy [249]
"Danger makes me thirsty," Cortez explained, passing the other bottles around.
"It has been an exciting night," Escobedo agreed, taking a long pull on his bottle.
But not for Commander Jensen and his bombardier/navigator. The first one, as with the first time for anything, had been a special occasion, but already it was routine. The problem was simply that things were too damned easy. Jensen had faced surface-to-air missiles and radar-directed flak in his early twenties, testing his courage and skill against that of North Vietnamese gunners with their own experience and cunning. This mission was about as exciting as a trip to the mailbox, but, he reminded himself, important things often go through the mail. The mission went exactly according to plan. The computer ejected the bomb right on schedule, and the B/N tracked his TRAM sight around to keep an eye on the target. This time Jensen let his right eye wander down to the TV screen.
"I wonder what held Escobedo up?" Larson asked.
"Maybe he got here early?" Clark thought aloud, his eye on the GLD.
"Maybe," the other field officer allowed. "Notice how no cars are parked near the house this time?"
"Yeah, well, this one is fused for one-hundredth-of-a-second delay," Clark told him. "Should go off just about the time it gets to the conference table."
It was even more impressive from this distance, Cortez thought. He didn't see the bomb fall, didn't hear the aircraft that had dropped it - which, he told himself, was rather strange - and he saw the flash long before the sound reached him. The Americans and their toys, he thought. They can be dangerous. Most dangerous of all, whatever their intelligence source, it was a very, very good one, and Félix didn't have a clue what it might be. That was a continuing source of concern.
"It would seem that Fuentes was not involved," Cortez noted even before the sound reached them.
"That could have been us in there!"
"Yes, but it was not. I think we should leave, jefe."
"What's that?" Larson asked. Two automobile headlights appeared on a hillside three miles away. Neither man had noticed the Mercedes pull into the overlook. They'd been concentrating on the target then, but Clark reproached himself for not remembering to check around further. That sort of mistake was often fatal, and he'd allowed himself to forget just how serious it was.
Clark put his Noctron on it as soon as the lights had turned away. It was a big -
"What kind of car does Escobedo have?"
"Take your pick," Larson replied. "It's like the horse collection at Churchill Downs. Porsches, Rolls, Benzes…"
"Well, that looked like a stretch limo, maybe a big Mercedes. Kinda odd place for one, too. Let's get the hell out of here. I think two trips to this particular well is enough. We're out of the bomb business."
Eighty minutes later their Subaru had to slow down. A collection of ambulances and police cars was parked on the shoulder while uniformed men appeared and disappeared in the pinkish light from hazard flares. A pair of black BMWs were lying on their sides just off the road. Whoever owned them, somebody didn't like them, Clark saw. There wasn't much traffic, but here as with every other place in the world where people drove cars, the drivers slowed down to give it all a look.
"Somebody blew the shit out of them," Larson noted. Clark's evaluation was more professional.
"Thirty-cal fire. Heavy machine guns at close range. Pretty slick ambush. Those are M3 BMWs."
"The big, fast one? Somebody with big-time money, then. You don't suppose… ?"
"You don't 'suppose' very often in this business. How fast can you get a line on what happened here?"
"Two hours after we get back."
"Okay." The police were looking at the passing cars, but not searching them. One shined his flashlight into the back of the Subaru. There were some curious things there, but not the right size and shape to be machine