Clear and Present Danger

In the cockpit of the -130E, Captain Montaigne took note of the indicator light and keyed the microphone. " Ohhh! " she said in her huskiest voice. "Nobody does it like you, Colonel!"

Johns laughed out loud and keyed his switch twice, generating a click-click signal, which meant Affirmative. He switched to intercom. "Why spoil it for her?" he asked Willis, who was regrettably straitlaced. The fuel transfer took six minutes.

"How long do you think we'll be down there?" Captain Willis wondered after it was done.

"They didn't tell me that, but if it goes too long, they say we'll get relief."

"That's nice," the captain observed. His eyes shifted back and forth from his flight instruments to the world outside the armored cockpit. The aircraft had more than its full load of combat gear aboard - Johns was a firm believer in firepower - and the electronic countermeasures racks were gone. Whatever they'd be doing, they wouldn't have to worry about unfriendly radar coverage, and that meant that the job, whatever it was, didn't involve Nicaragua or Cuba. It also made for more passenger room in the aircraft and deleted the second flight engineer from the crew. "You were right about the gloves. My wife made up a set and it does make a difference."

"Some guys just fly without 'em, but I don't like to have sweaty hands on the stick."

"Is it going to be that warm?"

"There's warm, and there's warm," Johns pointed out. "You don't get sweaty hands just from the outside temperature."

"Oh. Yes, sir." Gee, he gets scared, too - just like the rest of us?

"Like I keep telling people, the more thinking you do before things get exciting, the less exciting things will be. And they get plenty exciting enough."

Another voice came onto the intercom circuit: "You keep talking like that, sir, and we might get a little scared."

"Sergeant Zimmer, how are things in the back?" Johns asked. Zimmer's regular spot was just aft of the two pilots, hovering over an impressive array of instruments.

"Coffee, tea, or milk, sir? The meals for this flight are Chicken Kiev with rice, Roast Beef au Jus with baked potato, and for the weight-watchers among us, Orange Ruffy and stir-fried veggies - and if you believe that, sir, you've been staring at the instrument panel too long. Why the hell don't we have a stewardess along with us?"

" 'Cause you and I are both too old for that shit, Zimmer!" PJ laughed.

"It ain't bad in a chopper, sir. What with all the vibration and all..."

"I've been trying to reform him since Korat," Johns explained to Captain Willis. "How old are the kids now, Buck?"

"Seventeen, fifteen, twelve, nine, six, five, and three, sir."

"Christ," Willis noted. "Your wife must be some gal, Sarge."

"She's afraid I'll run around, so she robs me of my energy," Zimmer explained. "I fly to get away from her. It's the only thing that keeps me alive."

"Her cooking must be all right, judging by your uniform."

"Is the colonel picking on his sergeant again?" Zimmer asked.

"Not exactly. I just want you to look as good as Carol does."

"No chance, sir."

"Roger that. Some coffee would be nice."

"On the way, Colonel, sir." Zimmer was on the flight deck in less than a minute. The instrument console for the Pave Low helicopter was large and complex, but Zimmer had long since installed gimbaled cup holders suitable for the spillproof cups that Colonel Johns liked. PJ took a quick sip.

"She makes good coffee, too, Buck."

"Funny how things work out, isn't it?" Carol Zimmer knew that her husband would share it with his colonel. Carol wasn't her original given name. Born in Laos thirty-six years earlier, she was the daughter of a Hmong warlord who'd fought long and hard for a country that was no longer his. She was the only survivor of a family of ten. PJ and Buck had lifted her and a handful of others off a hilltop at the final stages of a North Vietnamese assault in 1972. America had failed that man's family, but at least it hadn't failed his daughter. Zimmer had fallen in love with her from the first moment, and it was generally agreed that they had the seven cutest kids in Florida.

"Yep."

It was late in Mobile, somewhere between the two southbound aircraft, and jails - especially Southern jails - are places where the rules are strictly applied. For lawyers, however, the rules are often rather lenient, and paradoxically they were very lenient indeed in the case of these two. These two had an as - yet - undetermined date with "Old Sparky," the electric chair at Admore Prison. The jailors at Mobile therefore didn't want to do anything to interfere with the prisoners' constitutional rights, access to counsel, or general comfort. The attorney, whose name was Edward Stuart, had been fully briefed going in, and was fully fluent in Spanish.

"How did they do it?"

"I don't know."

"You screamed and kicked, Ram n," Jes s said.

"I know. And you sang like a canary."