Vanishing Point - Marc Cerasini [2]
Jack took a few seconds to process this. He leaned forward, resting his forearms over the threat assessment file. "Christopher, that can't be the work of the Rojas gang. They're too small time to hold sway in Cali, Bogota, or Barranquilla. They couldn't act on rival turf without cooperation. A deal of some kind must have been made..."
Henderson nodded but hesitated before saying more.
"What do you know?" Jack pressed. "I need all the facts before I can help. Are the Rojas consolidating power? Going national? International? Is this a political situation?"
Henderson moved to the edge of his chair. "The target of these raids was my agent. The Rojas family and its rivals are desperate to find him. They're trying to recover what Gordon stole from them."
"But you don't know what he has," Jack assumed.
"That's not... precisely... true." Henderson stared at Jack, unblinking. The mask was back. "Guiterrez contacted me again last night, through a... back channel connection."
Jack didn't care for Henderson's sudden vagueness of wording. It smacked of legalese. "What kind of 'back channel' connection?"
Henderson lowered his voice. "He called me on a sat phone I maintain privately."
Jack didn't know why Henderson was sidestepping Agency monitoring, but he didn't ask. If anyone understood the occasional need to violate protocol, Jack did.
"Gordon told me what he'd grabbed, and I understood why he had to get out, and take it with him. He snatched a prototype of a portable electronics device that can render an airplane virtually invisible to conventional radar."
Jack blinked. "Is that possible? I thought an aircraft's stealthy characteristics came from its shape... along with the composite materials used in its construction?"
Jack knew all about the Hopeless Diamond configuration of the F-117 Stealth fighter, and the flatsurfaces, angular design and non-reflective fuselage of the Raptor. The shape and materials of both aircraft were engineered to deflect radar, rendering them practically invisible.
Henderson nodded. "Our advanced fighters do rely on materials and shape, but they also have electronic sub-systems that can generate a field around the aircraft. This field effectively absorbs, deflects, or dissipates radar waves. Guiterrez claims the prototype he snatched can make any aircraft appear to vanish — even one without the stealthy materials or shape."
"My god..." Jack rubbed his neck as he considered the possible uses of a handy little package like that one. "If smugglers can use this technology to fly across America's borders undetected, then so can terrorists. Only they'll be delivering weapons of mass destruction, not nose candy."
"That's affirmative."
"No cartel could have invented something like that." Jack stared at Henderson, waiting for him to say more, but he simply shrugged. "Where did it come from, Christopher? The Pentagon? A foreign defense lab?"
"We'll know more once we get hold of the device. We can take it apart, analyze its components, reverse engineer the little sucker if necessary..."
Jack considered pressing harder, but instead took another tack. "Do you know where Gordon Guiterrez is now?"
Henderson shook his head. "On the run, somewhere in Colombia... I had to come up with an extraction plan on the fly. Guiterrez is paranoid — not that I blame him — but he gave me less than five minutes before he broke off communication and went dark, this time for good."
"A rural extraction would be best," Jack noted. "Far away from the urban areas a strike team could move without detection. We wouldn't need much.
A Delta squad, a Pave Low helicopter, a Little Bird, maybe a reconnaissance team on the ground to secure the perimeter..."
Henderson waved aside Jack's suggestions. "No can do. Security all over Colombia has been compromised. Half our agents are dead or on the run, the rest we can't trust for fear they're under surveillance — or on the cartel's payroll."
Jack released a breath. He wanted to help his old mentor, but... "This is a job