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"I heard you were at Bragg. Any word about General McNab ?”
“He’ll probably be back here about six in the morning, sir.”
“See what he has to say and call me as soon as you can.”
“Yes, sir. There have been two developments, sir.”
“Let’s have them.”
“I heard from my friend Kennedy. He believes the 727 is headed for someplace in South America, if it’s not already there. It was in N’Djamena, Chad, took on a load of fuel, and filed a flight plan to Murtala Muhammad International Airport—Lagos, Nigeria—and took off. It never landed there ..."
“Does it have the range to make it across the Atlantic from N’Djamena?” Secretary Hall interrupted.
“It might if those fuel bladders were installed,” Charley said. “I just don’t know. Kennedy thinks it probably went to Yundum International, in Gambia.”
“Where?”
“On the west coast of Africa, about a hundred miles south of Dakar, Senegal.”
“He say why there?”
“Kennedy said it’s a convenient jumping-off place to cross the Atlantic to South America, which I suspect means he knows—probably from experience—that they don’t ask too many questions of transient aircraft.”
“He doesn’t know or wouldn’t tell you where the airplane is headed?”
“I think if he knew, he would have told me. He did tell me that it’s been painted with the color scheme of Air Suriname, so it may be going there, operative word may. I have the new registration numbers.”
“Let me have them. Wait ’til I get something to write with.”
Charley covered the microphone with the heel of his hand and turned to Captain Brewster.
“When you report this conversation to General Gonzalez —and that had better be on your agenda—I’m talking to my boss, Matthew Hall, the secretary of homeland security. How much have you been able to overhear?”
Brewster looked uncomfortable but said, “Most of it.”
“Okay, Charley,” Hall’s voice came faintly but clearly over the cellular, “let’s have the numbers. You said Air Suriname, right?”
“Yes, sir. The numbers are P as in Papa, Z as in Zero, 5059. Fiver-Zero-Fiver-Niner.”
“Pee-Zee-fifty-fifty-nine?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll get this to the CIA right away. Maybe, now that we have the registration numbers, their satellites may have a location on the plane.”
“Sir, I just talked to Miller. He said he’s come up with connections, plural, in Philadelphia.”
“He say what they were?”
“We don’t have secure phones, sir. He thinks I ought to hear what he’s got in person. I’d like to go back up there.”
“We need to know for sure what General McNab found out.”
“Sir, what I was thinking was talk to General McNab, then go to Philadelphia.”
“It would take you all day to go up there and back, Charley. And I agree with the secretary of defense that you should be at Bragg. Whatever happens, it will involve Gray Fox. Maybe all of Delta. You should be there, if for no other purpose than staying in the loop—and keeping me in it.”
“Yes, sir. I agree. And I agree going commercial wouldn’t work; it would take too long, and we’re running out of time, but . . .”
