Maitland laughed. What the hell do you get paid for?
Oh, lots of things, Kozlowski said lazily, ducking past Valdez and through the cockpit door. Eatin. Sleepin. Tellin dirty jokes
His last words were cut off by a deafening blast that shattered Maitlands eardrums. The explosion sent Kozlowskior what was left of Kozlowskiflying backward into the cockpit. Blood spattered the control panel, obscuring the altimeter dial. But Maitland didnt need the altimeter to tell him they were going down fast.
Kozy! screamed Valdez, staring down at the remains of the copilot. Kozy!
His words were almost lost in the howling maelstrom of wind. The DeHavilland shuddered, a wounded bird fighting to stay aloft. Maitland, wrestling with the controls, knew immediately that hed lost hydraulics. The best he could hope for was a belly flop on the jungle canopy.
He glanced back to survey the damage and saw, through a swirling cloud of debris, the bloodied body of the Lao passenger, thrown against the crates. He also saw sunlight shining through oddly twisted steel, glimpsed blue sky and clouds where the cargo door should have been. What the hell? Had the blast come from inside the plane?
He screamed to Valdez, Bail out!
The cargo kicker didnt respond; he was still staring in horror at Kozlowski.
Maitland gave him a shove. Get the hell out of here!
Valdez at last reacted. He stumbled out of the cockpit and into the morass of broken crates and rent metal. At the gaping cargo door he paused. Maitland? he yelled over the winds shriek.
Their gazes met, and in that split second, they knew. They both knew. It was the last time theyd see each other alive.
Ill be out! Maitland shouted. Go!
Valdez backed up a few steps. Then he launched himself out the cargo door.
Maitland didnt glance back to see if Valdezs parachute had opened; he had other things to worry about.
The plane was sputtering into a dive.
Even as he reached for his harness release, he knew his luck had run out. He had neither the time nor the altitude to struggle into his parachute. Hed never believed in wearing one anyway. Strapping it on was like admitting you didnt trust your skill as a pilot, and Maitland kneweveryone knewthat he was the best.
Calmly he refastened his harness and grasped the controls. Through the shattered cockpit window he watched the jungle floor, lush and green and heartwrenchingly beautiful, swoop up to meet him. Somehow hed always known it would end this way: the wind whistling through his crippled plane, the ground rushing toward him, his hands gripping the controls. This time he wouldnt be walking away
It was startling, this sudden recognition of his own mortality. An astonishing thought. Im going to die.
And astonishment was exactly what he felt as the DeHavilland sliced into the treetops.
Vientiane, Laos
AT 1900 HOURS THE REPORT came in that Air America Flight 5078 had vanished.
In the Operations Room of the U.S. Army Liaison, Colonel Joseph Kistner and his colleagues from Central and Defense Intelligence greeted the news with shocked silence. Had their operation, so carefully conceived, so vital to U.S. interests, met with disaster?
Colonel Kistner immediately demanded confirmation.
The command at Air America provided the details. Flight 5078, due in Nam Tha at 1500 hours, had never arrived. A search of the presumed flight pathcarried on until darkness intervenedhad revealed no sign of wreckage. But flak had been reported heavy near the border, and .57-millimeter gun emplacements were noted just out of Muong Sam. To make things worse, the terrain was mountainous, the weather unpredictable and the number of alternative nonhostile landing strips limited.
It was a reasonable assumption that Flight 5078 had been shot down.
Grim acceptance settled on the faces of the men gathered around the table. Their brightest hope had just perished aboard a doomed plane. They looked at Kistner and awaited his decision.
Resume the search at daybreak, he said.
Thatd be throwing away live men after dead, said the CIA officer. Come on, gentlemen. We all know that crews gone.
Cold-blooded bastard, thought Kistner. But as always, he was right. The colonel gathered together his papers and rose to his feet. Its not the men were searching for, he said. Its the wreckage. I want it located.
And then what?
Kistner snapped his briefcase shut. We melt it.
The CIA officer nodded in agreement. No one argued the point. The operation had met with disaster. There was nothing more to be done.
Except destroy the evidence.
Chapter One
PresentBangkok, Thailand
GENERAL JOE KISTNER did not sweat, a fact that utterly amazed Willy Jane Maitland, since she herself seemed to be sweating through her sensible cotton underwear, through her sleeveless chambray blouse, all the way through her wrinkled twill skirt. Kistner looked like the sort of man who ought to be sweating rivers in this heat. He had a fiercely ruddy complexion, bulldog jowls, a nose marbled with spidery red veins, and a neck so thick, it strained to burst free of his crisp military collar. Every inch the blunt, straight-talking, tough old soldier, she thought. Except for the eyes. Theyre uneasy. Evasive.