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“Well?” he demanded.
“Sir?”
“You said General Naylor called while we were gone.”
“Yes, sir, he did.”
“And did he call just to say ‘howdy’ or did he have more on his mind than that?”
“General Naylor said that he has established contact with D’Alessandro; explained the situation to him; that the helicopter from Fort Campbell was expected momentarily and that as soon as we tell him where D’Alessandro is supposed to go, he’ll send him on his way.”
“Where is D’Alessandro and the helicopter that’s expected momentarily?”
“In El Paso, sir.”
“What’s the status of that?” the President asked.
“The status of what, sir?”
“Finding out where my friend Martinez wants D’Alessandro to meet the Mexican cop?”
“I don’t know, sir. We haven’t heard from Secretary Cohen about that.”
“Well, Clemens, how about getting her on the phone and asking her?”
“Yes, sir.”
“On second thought, Douglas, you call her,” the President ordered. “Clemens here seems to be having trouble keeping up with all this.”
“Yes, sir.”
“If she hasn’t heard from my friend Martinez, tell her to call the sonofabitch.”
“Yes, Mr. President,” Special Agent Douglas said.
“I want to get this show on the road, and I don’t want any surprises,” the President said. “And I’ve got a couple of questions, which occurred to me as we were flying over the Pentagon. Has it ever occurred to anyone else that the more you’re told, the more you learn, the more questions come up?”
“I’ve had that experience, Mr. President,” General O’Toole said.
“Okay. Now, Colonel Kingsolving told me that while the Night Stalker birds can make it from El Paso to this prison, they don’t have the range to make it back without being refueled. Okay. Tell me how that’s going to happen.”
“There are several options, Mr. President—” O’Toole began to answer for Kingsolving.
“I was asking Colonel Kingsolving,” the President cut him off.
“Sorry, sir.”
“The first option, sir, is the simple one,” Kingsolving said. “They will refuel at Xoxocotlán airfield, which is the closest airfield to the Oaxaca Prison.”
“I was just starting to be awed by your all-around knowledge,” the President said. “That answer just blew that. I can see a number of problems with that, starting with how do we know there would be enough fuel at Xoxocotlán airfield to fuel four Black Hawks, even if they were willing to do so?”
“That is a problem, sir, obviously. We don’t.”
“Other options?”
“In-flight refueling, sir. Have one or more KC-130J tankers rendezvous with the Black Hawks shortly before they reach Oaxaca-Xoxocotlán. The Black Hawks then would have full tanks on landing, and be prepared to fly back to the States.”
“That strikes me as almost as stupid as Option One,” the President said. “What do you think the goddamn Mexicans are going to think when they see one or more . . . what’s the nomenclature of that tanker?”
