“Okay,” Brightling told them, with a beaming smile. “It’s been a long day. Let’s all bed down and get some rest. Tomorrow morning, I’m going out in the forest to see an ecosystem that we all want to learn about.”
The applause moved him. Yes, all of these people cared as much as he did, shared his dedication-and, who knew, maybe there was away for Project 2 to happen.
Bill Henriksen came up to John and Carol during the walk to their rooms. “There is one other potential problem.”
“What’s that?”
“What if they send a paramilitary team here?”
“You mean like the Army?” Carol Brightling asked.
“That’s right.”
“We fight them,” John responded. “We have guns here, don’t we?”
And that they did. The Project Alternate armory had no fewer than a hundred German-made G-3 military assault rifles, the real sort, able to go full-automatic, and quite a few of the people here knew how to shoot.
“Yes. Okay, the problem with this is, they can’t really arrest us legally, but if they do manage to apprehend us and get us back to America, then the courts won’t care that the arrests were illegal. That’s a point of American law once you’re in front of the judge, that’s all the judge cares about. So, if people show up, we just have to discourage them. I think-”
“I think our people won’t need much in the way of encouragement to fight back after what those bastards did to the Project!”
“I agree, but we’ll just have to see what happens. Damn, I wish we’d gotten some radar installed here.”
“Huh?” John asked.
“They will come, if they come, by helicopter. Too far to walk through the jungle, and boats are too slow, and our people think in terms of helicopters. That’s just how they do things.”
“How do they even know where we are, Bill? Hell, we skipped the country pretty fast and=”
“And they can ask the flight crews where they delivered us. They had to file flight plans to Manaus, and that narrows it down some, doesn’t it?”
“They won’t talk. They’re well paid,” John objected. `How long before they can figure all that out?”
“Oh, a couple of days at worst. Two weeks at best. I think we ought to get our people trained in defense. We can start that tomorrow,” Henriksen proposed.
“Do it,” John Brightling agreed. “And let me call home and see if anybody’s talked to our pilots.”
The master suite had its own communications room. Project Alternate was state-of-the-art in many ways, from the medical labs to communications. In the latter case the antenna farm next to the power-generating facility had its own satellite-phone system that also allowed e-mail and electronic access to Horizon Corp.’s massive internal computer network. Immediately upon arriving in his suite, Brightling flipped on the phone system and called Kansas. He left instructions for the flight crews, now most on the way back home, to inform Alternate if anyone tried to interrogate them regarding their most recent overseas trip. That done, there was little else left to do. Brightling showered and walked into the bedroom and found his wife there.
“It’s so sad,” Carol observed in the darkness.
“It’s goddamned infuriating,” John agreed. “We were so fucking close!”
“What went wrong?”
“I’m not sure, but I think our friend Popov found out what we were doing, then he killed the guy who told him about it and skipped. Somehow he told them enough to capture Wil Gearing down in Sydney. Damn, we were within hours of initiating Phase One!” he growled.
“Well, next time we’ll be more careful,” Carol soothed, reaching to stroke his arm.Failure or not, it was good to lie in bed with him again. “What about Wil?”
“He’s going to have to take his chances. I’ll get the best lawyers I can find for him,” John promised. “And get him the word to keep his mouth shut.”
Gearing had stopped talking. Somehow arriving back in America had awakened in him the idea of civil rights and criminal proceedings, and now he wasn’t saying anything to anybody. He sat in his aft-facing seat in the C-S, looking backward at the circular seal that led into the immense void area there in the tail, while these soldiers mainly dozed. Two of them were wide awake, however, and looking right at him all the way while they chatted about something or other. They were loaded for bear, Gearing saw, lots of personal weapons evident here and others loaded into the cargo area below. Where were they going? Nobody had told him that.
Clark, Chavez, and Stanley were in the compartment aft of the flight deck on the massive air-lifter. The flight crew was regular Air Force-most such transports are actually flown by reservists, mainly airline pilots in civilian life-and they kept their distance. They’d been warned by their superiors, the warnings further reinforced by the alteration in the aircraft’s exterior paint job. They were civilians now? They were dressed in civilian clothes so as to make the deception plausible to someone. But who would believe that a Lockheed Galaxy was civilian owned?
“It looks pretty straightforward,” Chavez observed. It was interesting to be an infantryman again, again a Ninja, Ding mused, again to own the night-except they were planning to go in the daylight. “Question is, will they resist?”
“If we’re lucky,” Clark responded.
“How many of them?”
“They went down in four Gulfstreams, figure a max of sixteen people each. That’s sixty-four, Domingo.”
“Weapons?”
“Would you live in the jungle without them?” Clark asked. The answer he anticipated was, not very likely.
“But are they trained?” Team-2’s commander persisted.
“Most unlikely. These people will be scientist-types, but some will know the woods, maybe some are hunters.
I suppose we’ll see if Noonan’s new toys work as well as lie’s been telling us.”
“I expect so,” Chavez agreed. The good news was that his people were highly trained and well equipped. Daylight or not, it would be a Ninja job. “I guess you’re in overall command?”
“You bet your sweet ass, Domingo,” Rainbow Six replied. They stopped talking as the aircraft jolted somewhat, as they flew into the wake-turbulence of the KC-10 for aerial refueling. Clark didn’t want to watch the procedure. It had to be the most unnatural act in the world, two massive aircraft mating in midair.
Malloy was a few seats farther aft, looking at the satellite overheads as well, along with Lieutenant Harrison.
“Looks easy,” the junior officer opined.
“Yeah, pure vanilla, unless they shoot at us. Then it gets a little exciting,” he promised his copilot.
“We’re going to be close to overloading the aircraft,” Harrison warned.
“That’s why it’s got two engines, son,” the Marine pointed out.
It was dark outside. The C-5’s flight crew looked down at a surface with few lights after they’d topped off their tanks from the KC-10, but for them it was essentially an airliner flight. The autopilot knew where it was, and where it was going, with waypoints programmed in, and a thousand miles ahead the airport at Manaus, Brazil, knew they were coming, a special air-cargo flight from America which would need ramp space for a day or so, and refueling services-this information had already been faxed ahead.
It wasn’t yet dawn when they spotted the runway lights. The pilot, a young major, squirmed erect in his front-left seat and slowed the aircraft, making an easy visual approach while the first lieutenant copilot to his right watched the instruments and called off altitude and speed numbers. Presently, he rotated the nose up and allowed the C-5B to settle onto the runway, with only a minor jolt to tell those aboard that the aircraft wasn’t flying anymore. He had a diagram of the airport, and taxied off to the far corner of the ramp, then stopped the aircraft and told the loadmaster that it was his turn to go to work.
It took a few minutes to get things organized, but then the huge rear doors opened. Then the MH-60K Night Hawk was dragged out into the predawn darkness. Sergeant Nance supervised three other enlisted men from the 160th SOAR as they extended the rotor blades from their stowed position, and climbed atop the fuselage to make sure that they were safely locked in place for flight operations. The Night Hawk was fully fueled. Nance installed the M-60 machine gun in its place on the right side and told Colonel Malloy that the aircraft was ready. Malloy and Harrison preflighted the helicopter and decided that it was ready to go, then radioed this information to Clark.
The last people off the C-5B were the Rainbow troopers, now dressed in multicolor BDU fatigues, their faces painted in green and brown camouflage makeup. Gearing came down last of all, a bag over his head so that he couldn’t see anything.
It turned out that they couldn’t get everyone aboard. Vega and four others were left behind to watch the helicopter lift off just at first light. The blinking strobes climbed into the air and headed northwest, while the soldiers groused at having to stand in the warm, humid air close to the transport. About that time, an automobile arrived at the aircraft with some forms for the flight crew to fill out. To the surprise of everyone present, no special note was made of the aircraft type. The paint job announced that it was a large, privately owned transport, and the airport personnel accepted this, since all the paperwork seemed to be properly filled out, and therefore had to be true and correct.