Clear and present danger - Tom Clancy [356]
The flight was smooth, but he had three concerns. First, he didn't have the necessary power to climb over the mountains to his west at his present aircraft weight. Second, he'd have to refuel in less than an hour. Third, the weather ahead was getting worse by the minute.
"CAESAR, this is CLAW, over."
"Roger, CLAW."
"When are we going to tank, sir?" Captain Montaigne asked.
"I want to get closer to the coast first, and maybe if we burn some more off I can head west some more to do it."
"Roger, but be advised that we're starting to get radar emissions, and somebody might just detect us. They're air-traffic radars, but this Herky-bird is big enough to give one a skin-paint, sir."
Damn! Somehow Johns had allowed himself to forget that.
"We got a problem here," PJ told Willis.
"Yeah. There's a pass about twenty minutes ahead that we might be able to climb over."
"How much?"
"Says eighty-one hundred on the charts. Drops down a lot lower farther up, but with the detection problem… and the weather. I don't know, Colonel."
"Let's find out how high we can take her," Johns said. He'd tried to go easy on the engines for the last half hour. Not now. He had to find out what he could do. PJ twisted the throttle control on the collective arm to full power, watching the gauge for Number Two as he did so. The needle didn't even reach 70 percent this time.
"The P3 leak is getting worse, boss," Willis told him.
"I see it." They worked to get maximum lift off the rotor, but though they didn't know it, that, too, had taken damage and was not delivering as much lift as it was supposed to. The Pave Low labored upward, reaching seventy-seven hundred feet, but that was where it stopped, and then it started descending, fighting every foot but gradually losing altitude.
"As we burn off more gas…" Willis said hopefully.
"Don't bet on it." PJ keyed his radio. "CLAW, CAESAR, we can't make it over the hills."
"Then we'll come to you."
"Negative, too soon. We have to tank closer to the coast."
"CAESAR, this is LITTLE EYES. I copy your problem. What sort of fuel you need for that monster?" Larson asked. He'd been pacing the helicopter since the pickup, in accordance with the plan.
"Son, right now I'd burn piss if I had enough."
"Can you make the coast?"
"That's affirmative. Close, but we ought to be able to make it."
"I can pick you an airfield one-zero-zero miles short of the coast that has all the avgas you need. I am also carrying a casualty who's bleeding and needs some medical help."
Johns and Willis looked at each other. "Where is it?"
"At current speed, about forty minutes. El Pindo. It's a little place for private birds. Ought to be deserted this time of night. They have ten-kay gallons of underground storage. It's a Shell concession and I've been in and out of there a bunch of times."
"Altitude?"
"Under five hundred. Nice, thick air for that rotor, Colonel."
"Let's do it," Willis said.
"CLAW, did you copy that?" Johns asked.
"That's affirm."
"That's what we're going to try. Break west. Stay close enough to maintain radio contact, but you are free to evade radar coverage."
"Roger, heading west," Montaigne replied.
In back, Ryan was sitting by his gun. There were eight wounded men in the helicopter, but two medics were working on them and Ryan was unable to offer any help better than that. Clark rejoined him.
"Okay, what are we going to do with Cortez and Escobedo?"
"Cortez we want, the other one, hell, I don't know. How do we explain kidnapping him?"
"What do you think we're going to do, put him on trial?" Clark asked over the din of the engines and the wind.
"Anything else is cold-blooded murder. He's a prisoner now, and killing prisoners is murder, remember?"
You're getting legal on me, Clark thought, but he knew that Ryan was right. Killing prisoners was contrary to the code.
"So we take him back?"
"That blows the operation," Ryan said. He knew he was talking too loudly for the subject. He was supposed to be quiet and thoughtful now, but the environment and the events of