Strategic Moves

TWENTY-THREE

Stone, Mike, Holly, and Todd Bacon sat in the reclining chairs, and Todd unfolded a map. The first thing that struck Stone was that it was not an aeronautical chart but a Michelin road map.

“All right,” Todd said. “We’re going to land in northern Spain to extract a longtime fugitive and return him to United States jurisdiction.”

“By extract,” Stone said, “do you mean extradite?”

“Extradition is impossible,” Todd replied.

“How come?” Mike asked.

“All right, I’ll tell you the whole story,” Todd said, “or at least as much of it as I know.”

“We’re all ears,” Mike said.

“The man’s name is Erwin Gelbhardt, born in Germany sixty-eight years ago, brought to the U.S. at age eight and later naturalized. His father was a German diplomat, and the child grew up as his father served in Egypt, Spain, Saudi Arabia and Iran, and the U.S., where he retired and remained. As a result the boy, who had already displayed an affinity for languages, picked up those four languages, as well as his native German and English. He learned French in school.”

“A bright kid,” Mike said.

“Very bright. He was educated at Choate, Yale, and Harvard Business School, graduating at each school near or at the top of his classes. After getting his MBA he took a little over a million dollars, inherited from his mother, and during the next decade, turned it into more than a hundred million dollars made from various businesses in North, South, and Central America. Wherever he did business he specialized in corrupting local officials, up to and including intelligence officials and heads of state. He had a lot of cash to throw around, since he paid little or no taxes in the United States, despite his American citizenship.

“Eventually, the IRS came after him in a big way. He was arrested as his private jet landed in Key West on a flight from Cuba, and as soon as that became known, people began to come out of the woodwork with information about other crimes he had committed in the countries where he operated. A line formed for extradition to half a dozen countries.

“He was held without bail, but during a lunch break at his trial, he went to the men’s room and vanished. No one yet knows how he got out of the courthouse. He left the country on a cargo plane headed for Algeria, and, we think, on arrival there he had extensive cosmetic surgery to alter his appearance.

“After that he went into the arms business in a big way. He had money hidden in Swiss and other banks around the world to fund his enterprise, and, operating under various names, he supplied weapons, small and large, to third-world countries and insurgencies around the globe. In recent years he adopted the name Pablo Estancia and, using his language skills, affected a Spanish accent in whatever language he spoke, which by that time numbered ten or twelve, including Chinese, Arabic, Urdu, and various Middle Eastern tribal dialects. He moved across borders with impunity with multiple passports and IDs and made himself the indispensable man with Islamic insurgencies of all stripes, including Al Qaeda and the Taliban. You have a picture of him now?”

“Pretty much,” Mike said.

“Why are you holding a road map instead of an aeronautical chart?” Stone asked.

“Because we’re going to land tonight on a road.”

“A road?” Stone asked, horrified. “No ordinary road could ever support the weight of this airplane, loaded as it is.”

“That’s not necessarily true,” Mike said. “The load will be spread over triple-tandem landing gears, and many tires.”

Stone didn’t know what triple-tandem meant, but he got the idea. “And will we be able to take off, too?” he asked.

“What we will have for a landing strip will be two and a half miles of straight, newly paved, four-lane superhighway,” Todd said.

“Full of construction equipment, no doubt,” Stone said.

“All the equipment is being moved to the other side of the highway as we speak,” Todd said, “and the beginning and end of the stretch we’re looking for will be marked by cars with strobe lights. The crew has the exact coordinates and elevation of the landing end of the roadway. It is located in a fairly narrow valley, with mountains on each side, but we will have room for a long approach.”

“Swell,” Stone said. “I’m trying to remember why I came on this trip.”

“For the fun,” Holly said. “Aren’t you having fun?”

“Not yet,” Stone replied.

“We’re refueling at an American air base in Cádiz, east of Gibraltar,” Todd said. “From there, we’ll head out over the Atlantic, then turn, descend into Spain. We will be on the ground for a matter of minutes, including further fueling from two trucks, then we’ll be heading, nonstop, back to Stewart International.”

“Where we’ll all clear immigration and customs?” Stone asked.

“Nearly all of us,” Todd replied. “We’ll be at the extraction point just after midnight, local time.” Todd left the trailer.

“I told you it would be an interesting trip,” Mike said.

“I hope we’re all alive to tell about it,” Stone said.

Holly spoke up. “Lance Cabot would be very unhappy if you told anyone about it,” she said.

Stone had a meal, then stretched out for a nap. He was awakened in time to strap himself into a jump seat for the landing at Cádiz. They were on the ground for nearly an hour, then took off again, heading west and climbing.

“When do we turn around?” he asked Todd.

“As soon as we’re out of radar range of the coast,” Todd replied. “Not too long. We’ll follow a civilian flight from the Azores to La Coruña, on the northern coast of Spain. We’ll be flying closely enough behind it so that, together, the two airplanes will make only one primary target on coastal radar.”

“Will the other airplane know about this?” Stone asked.

“No. Civilian airplanes don’t have radar that can paint other aircraft, only their transponders, and ours will be off. Before the airplane reaches La Coruña, we’ll break off and head for our landing area.”

“We have only a twenty-eight-hundred-mile range, is that right?”

“Yes, and that’s plenty.”

They cleared the coast of Portugal, and Stone saw the copilot reach up and turn off some switches. He looked out the window and no longer saw the wingtip strobe and nav lights.

Stone put on his headset again.

“Other aircraft sighted,” the copilot said, checking his radar, then he looked out the windscreen and pointed. “Two o’clock and three miles,” he said, “at our altitude.”

The C-17 entered a steep bank to the right, and Stone tightened his seat belt.