Clear and Present Danger

"Give me his number." The sergeant did so, and Ritter's next call went out on, and to, a secure line.

"I need to find Colonel Johns," Ritter said after identifying himself.

"Sir, I have orders not to give that information out to anybody. That means nobody, sir."

"Major, if he's down in Panama again, I need to know it. His life may depend on it. Something is happening that he needs to know about."

"Sir, I have orders -"

"Stuff your orders, sonny. If you don't tell me, and that flight crew dies, it will be your fault! Now you make the call, Major, yes or no?"

The officer had never seen combat, and life-death decisions were theoretical matters to him - or had been until now.

"Sir, they're back where they were before. Same place, same crew. That's as far as I go, sir."

"Thank you, Major. You did the right thing. You really did. Now I suggest that you make written note of this call and its content." Ritter hung up. The phone had been on speaker.

"Has to be Ryan," the DCI agreed. "Now what do we do?"

"You tell me, Arthur."

"How many more people are we going to kill, Bob?" Moore asked. His greatest fear now was of mirrors, looking into them and seeing something less than the image he wanted to be there.

"You do understand the consequences?"

"Fuck the consequences," snorted the former chief judge of the Texas Court of Appeals.

Ritter nodded and punched a button on his phone. When he spoke, it was in his accustomed, decisive voice of command. "I need everything CAPER has developed in the last two days." Another button. "I want chief of Station Panama to call me in thirty minutes. Tell him to clear decks for the day - he's going to be busy." Ritter replaced the phone receiver in its cradle. They'd have to wait for a few minutes, but it wasn't the sort of occasion to wait in silence.

"Thank God," Ritter said after a moment.

Moore smiled for the first time this day. "Me, too, Robert. Nice to be a man again, isn't it?"

The security police brought him in at gunpoint, the man in the tan suit. He said his name was Luna, and the briefcase he carried had already been searched for weapons. Clark recognized him.

"What the hell are you doing here, Tony?"

"Who's this?" Ryan asked.

"Station chief for Panama," Clark answered. "Tony, I hope you have a very good reason."

"I have a telex for Dr. Ryan from Judge Moore."

"What?"

Clark took Luna's arm and guided him into the office. He didn't have much time. He and Larson were to take off within minutes.

"This better not be some fucking joke," Clark announced.

"Hey, I'm delivering the mail, okay?" Luna said. "Now stop playing the macho game. I'm the spic here, remember?" He handed Jack the first sheet.

TOP SECRET-EYES ONLY DDI

IMPOSSIBLE TO REESTABLISH UPLINK TO SHOWBOAT TEAMS. TAKE WHATEVER ACTION YOU DEEM APPROPRIATE TO RETRIEVE ASSETS IN COUNTRY. TELL CLARK TO BE CAREFUL. THE ENCLOSED MIGHT BE OF HELP. C DOESN'T KNOW. GOOD LUCK. M/R.

"Nobody ever said they were stupid," Jack breathed as he handed the sheet to Clark. The heading was meant as a separate message in and of itself, one that had nothing to do with distribution or security. "But does this mean what I think it does?"

"One less REMF to worry about. Make that two," Clark observed. He started flipping through the faxes. "Holy shit!" He set the pile down on the desk and paced a bit, staring out of the windows at the aircraft sitting in the hangar. "Okay," he said to himself. Clark had never been one to dally over making plans. He spoke to Ryan for several minutes. Then, to Larson: "Let's move ass, kid. We got a job to do."

"Spare radios?" Colonel Johns asked him as he left.

"Two spares, new batteries in all of 'em, and extra batteries," Clark replied.

"Nice to work with somebody's been around the block," PJ said. "Check-six, Mr. Clark."

"Always, Colonel Johns," Clark said as he headed to the door. "See you in a few hours."

The hangar doors opened. A small cart pulled the Beechcraft out into the sun, and the hangar doors closed. Ryan listened to the engines start up, and the sound diminished as the aircraft taxied away.

"What about us?" he asked Colonel Johns.

Captain Frances Montaigne came in. She looked as French as her ancestry, short, with raven-black hair. Not especially pretty, but Ryan's first impression was that she was a handful in bed - which stopped his thought processes cold as he wondered why that had occurred to him. It seemed odder still that she was a command pilot in a special-ops outfit.

"Weather's going dogshit on us, Colonel," she announced at once. " Adele is heading west again, doing twenty-five knots."

"Can't help the weather. Getting down and doing the snatch oughtn't to be too bad."

"Getting back might be kinda exciting, PJ," Montaigne observed darkly.

"One thing at a time, Francie. And we do have that alternate place to land."

"Colonel, even you aren't that crazy."

PJ turned to Ryan and shook his head. "Junior officers aren't what they used to be."