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By Root 1117 0

crackled in Bright's ears. The major answered it, then spoke to his passenger. "Grab your balls, sir. It is now post time." The Eagle taxied to the end of the runway, where it sat still for a moment while the pilot brought the engines to full, screaming, vibrating power, and then slipped his brakes. Ten seconds later Bright wondered if a catapult shot off a carrier could be more exciting than this. The F-15E held a forty-degree angle of climb and just kept accelerating, leaving Florida's gulf coast far behind. They tanked a hundred miles offshore - Bright was too fascinated to be frightened, though the buffet was noticeable - and after separating, the Eagle climbed to forty thousand feet and the pilot punched burners. The aft cockpit was mainly concerned with delivering bombs and missiles on target, but did have a few instruments. One of them told the agent that they had just topped a thousand miles per hour.

"What's the hurry?" the pilot asked.

"I want to get to Panama ahead of somebody."

"Can you give me some details? Might help, you know."

"One of those business jets - G-Three, I think. Left Andrews eighty-five minutes ago."

The pilot laughed. "Is that all? Hell, you can check into a hotel 'fore he gets down. We're already ahead of him. We're wasting fuel going this fast."

"So waste it," Bright said.

"Fine with me, sir. Mach-2 or sittin' still, they pay me the same. Okay, figure we'll get in ninety minutes ahead of your guy. How do you like the ride?"

"Where's the drink cart?"

"Should be a bottle down by your right knee. A nice domestic vintage, good nose, but not the least pretentious."

Bright got it and had a drink out of sheer curiosity.

"Salt and electrolytes, to keep you alert," the pilot explained a few seconds later. "You're FBI, right?"

"Correct."

"What gives?"

"Can't say. What's that?" He heard a beeping sound in his headphones.

"SAM radar," the major said.

"What?"

"That's Cuba over there. There's a SAM battery on that point that doesn't like American military aircraft. I can't imagine why. We're out of range anyway. Don't sweat it. It's normal. We use them to calibrate our systems, too. Part of the game."

Murray and Shaw were reading over the material Jack had dropped off. Their immediate problems were, first, to determine what was supposed to be going on; next, to determine what was actually going on; next, to determine if it was legal or not; next, if not, then to take appropriate action, once they could figure what appropriate action was. This wasn't a mere can of worms. It was a can of poisonous snakes that Ryan had spilled over Murray's desk.

"You know how this might end up?"

Shaw turned away from the desk. "The country doesn't need another one." Not by my hands, he didn't say.

"We got one whether we need it or not," Murray said. "I admit, part of me says, 'Right on!' about why they're doing it, but from what Jack tells me, we have at the very least a technical violation of the oversight laws, and definitely a violation of the Executive Order."

"Unless there's a classified codicil that we don't know about. What if the AG knows?"

"What if he's part of it? The day Emil got hit, the AG flew to Camp David along with the rest of 'em, remember?"

"What I want to know is, what the hell our friend is going to Panama for?"

"Maybe we'll find out. He's going down alone. No security troops, everybody sworn to secrecy. Who'd you send over to Andrews to choke it out of 'em?"

"Pat O'Day," Murray answered. That explained matters. "I want him to handle the liaison with the Secret Service guys, too. He's done a lot of work with them. When the time comes, that is. We're a mile away from being ready for that."

"Agreed. We have eighteen people working ODYSSEY. That's not enough."

"We have to keep it tight for the moment, Bill. I think the next step is getting somebody over from Justice to cover our asses for us. Who?"

"Christ, I don't know," Shaw replied in exasperation. "It's one thing to run an investigation that the AG knows about but is kept out of, but I can't remember ever running one completely