Vance leaned back against the scrub cypress and listened to the whistle
of the light wind through the granite outcroppings. He had perched
himself on one of the rugged cliffs, from which he could see virtually
everything that went on aboveground. Around him ants crawled, oblivious
to the heat of the sun, which now seared the bone-colored rocks on all
sides, while down below the languorous surf beckoned. How ironic, and
tragic: all the violence and killing, right here in the middle of
paradise.
He had managed to remove the battery-powered radio from the Hind; it
would serve as his lifeline to the rest of the world. The military
channels were all scrambled now, which told him that plenty was going
on out there over the blue horizon. Trouble was, all communications had
been secured. He had no idea what was happening.
What the hell to do next? He was barefoot--with nothing but an Uzi, a
9mm, and a radio.
He felt waves of grogginess ripple over him as the sun continued to
climb. He was dead tired, and in spite of himself he sensed his mind
drifting in the heat, his body losing its edge. Pulling himself
together, he snapped alert. This was no time to ease up. He noticed
that some of the men had left the command section and gone down to
Launch Control, the flight-prep sector. They were carrying AK-47s now.
Much better for sniper work.
They know I've only got an Uzi, he reminded himself, which is why they
realize they're in no danger. From up here it'd be next to useless. But
with a scope, those Kalashnikovs are bad news. . . .
At that moment he heard a dull roar, coming in from the south. Was it
somebody who'd picked up his radio Mayday? He squinted against the sun
and tried to see. As he watched, a dark, mottled shape appeared over
the blue horizon. It was another helicopter--not a Hind this time.
As it came in for a landing at the pad down by Launch Control, Vance
checked it over. It was a Sikorsky S-61R, military, with a main rotor
almost sixty feet across, a retractable tricycle landing gear, and a
rear cargo ramp. It went back to the sixties--the U.S. had used them to
lift astronauts from the sea--but it was a warhorse and reliable as
hell. It had an amphibious hull, twin General Electric turboshaft
engines located up close to the drive gearbox, and an advanced flight-
control system. Whether or not this one had the latest bells and
whistles, he did know its speed was over a hundred and sixty miles per
hour and its range was over six hundred miles.
What's that all about? he wondered. Is this the getaway car?
Whatever it was, they were not landing on the regular pad; they were
putting her down as close as they could to the vehicles.
No, he decided, what they're doing is setting up something, getting
ready for the big show.
He already had a feeling he knew what it was going to be. The modus was
standard operating procedure. But this was going to be a waiting game,
at least for a while, and he thought about trying to catch a couple of
winks. There was nothing to be done now. He'd have to wait till dark.
To pass the time, he clicked on the radio again, to see if they were
using walkie-talkies. After scanning the civilian channels he finally
got a burst of traffic. They were chatting, all right--a lot of coded
talk in a mixture of German, English, and French.
He paused a minute, even picked up the mike, attached by a coiled black
cord to the radio, and pushed the red button. But then he thought
better of it and clicked it off. The time would come soon enough to get
in on the fun, but not yet.