Chapter 21

Artemis

Whee! This was fun.

I was sitting behind Zeus as he took off and landed and took off again in the blue and red Quicksilver GT500. He had 'us' carry some heavy payloads – meaning I had to carry some rocks in a borrowed backpack – to see how it handled. That's about when the fun stopped.

The GT500 was a tandem (fore and aft) two-seater with a range of just over 200 miles – if you traveled real slow, like 50 miles per hour. It weighed 1000 pounds and had a maximum payload of 1100 pounds, and carried sixteen gallons when full, so that was 128 pounds just for fuel.

There was no way we were going to carry anything real heavy for any distance in this thing. The maximum payload was 1100 pounds, but where would we put it? There was no baggage compartment. It would all be on my back or in my lap.

"No, we're not going to have powered flight the whole way," said Zeus. "We're going to turn this sucker into a glider whenever we can, and we'll use the thermals, too. Then we'll walk the rest of the way."

He touched his ITE connection and Io came online with both of us.

"Zeus. I have intel on the Asian drug lord. He's on his way to pick up the girls. 'On his way' from I-don't-know-where," she said before Zeus could say anything.

"That will move up our departure. We're leaving today ... Put me through to Navajo Pete, Io," he said.

We began to get ourselves unhooked from the aircraft. I waved Zeus to stay back – he probably needed to make plans – as I walked over to the twenty-something guy who was giving us the instructions.

"We'll take it. How much?" I asked him.

"Awsome, dudette. I'll get the order papers; they're in the office."

"No, you don't understand. We'll take this one, now."

"Ma'am. It's $32,000. It has to come from Temecula, California. It'll be shipped to you in less than a week. I have students coming in tomorrow and it's gonna need to be overhauled soon. There's less than fifty hours left on the engine and..."

"I'll give you $40,000 if you help me disassemble it and get it into my camper," I said.

"Uh ... Well ... I guess I can help you."

Amazing how money talks.

"I knew you were a smart guy," I grinned at him. "You can get another shipped from Temecula in less than a week, you know."

I pulled a Black AMEX card from my wallet. That's the one with no credit limit.

We arranged for spare fuel tank for an extra sixteen gallons – another 128 pounds – to be added to the tab. I walked with him to the 'office' – a desk in a corner of a small hangar.

He looked at the Black AMEX. "What's this? Is it good for $40,000?"

I smiled. "Just run it. It's good for it."

He did, and it was.

"You bought yourself an airplane, Ms Des ... Desmonoct..."

"That's all right. It's gonna be Hobart, soon. Put it all in his name: Alex Hobart."

He nodded, and I could almost hear his mind working. 'Rich people and their toys.'

I ran my hand over his bicep. He was my age, good looking, blonde with a mop of curly hair, blue eyes, tall ... even as I was giving him the once over, I knew I was much older than he was. I had been hanging out with a former SEAL, for heavens sake. I knew how to shoot a gun, had shot said gun at a person, had been shot myself, and had helped the SEAL kill terrorists. Much, much older.

But a little sexy smile would do wonders for getting the ultra light into the camper. So I smiled.

"Thanks for all your help," I said, giving his bicep a little squeeze.

"Won't take but a moment," he said. It was missing the 'Aww shucks, ma'am, ' but it was close.

I clicked my ITE back to life, in time to hear the tail end of Zeus' conversation with Navajo Pete. Then Io came on again.

"I am tracking one of Reodondo's tomato delivery trucks," Io said, "on an unimproved road, leading into the Mexican desert. I can find nothing in that general direction, except a small, one-story building, near a canyon. It is 103 kilometers southwest of Juarez."

"103 clicks is about 65 miles, right," said Zeus.

"Exactly 64.001 miles, Zeus."

"Like I said, about 65. How far from the nearest town on the U.S. side of the border?"

"There are not many towns closer than El Paso," said Io. "The southern border of New Mexico is rather sparsely populated. Remember that you will not want to be noticed at takeoff. I suggest a spot somewhere off of State Highway 9. That is the road that roughly parallels the border."

"Io," I said, "you sure you're going to be okay dealing with Sonny?"

"Oh yes," she said. "Once we get home I shall just pull up close to the trailer that Midnight and Ramon are using while their house is being built, and lower the window. Sonny will jump out."

"And they won't find it strange that the car is sitting there, by itself?"

"Remember that Midnight already knows it is a self-aware car. I can probably get him to plug me in, although I do not need that, since I can operate out of the University of Minnesota. You and Zeus will not require too much interaction from me, while you are in Mexico, so I will not need much of my fuzzy logic routines. Gas may be a problem, though."

By 1400 hours, or two p.m. in 'civilian, ' the GT500 was disassembled and stored in an untidy heap inside the camper. We tied it in place with a series of bungee cords and some clothes line.

Following Zeus' directions, Io led us to 'Paintballs R You, ' a supply store for those who want to go out into simulated combat situations and 'kill' each other with mini-explosions of colored paint. We weren't interested in the simulations, but the supplies would still work.

We found a light weight camo net that would break up the silhouette of the plane, some ghillie suits for Zeus and me, and got some MREs, extra canteens and a couple of big cans of water. The ghillie suits were basically brown/tan/green camo outfits that seemed to be made of rags. The idea was that it would disguise you into looking like a clump of desert.

One last stop to make, at a place recommended by Navajo Pete. After a lengthy to and fro (establishing that we weren't Feds, but were real friends of Peter Soaring Eagle), we bought a highly illegal, but very effective thermal imaging monocular that could 'see' through walls, at a distance of two hundred feet.

Now all we had to do was get to within two hundred feet of the targets. Yeah. I had changed to thinking of them as targets instead of men. They didn't warrant inclusion in the human race.

It was about 400 miles to the spot in the New Mexico desert we'd chosen. Then we'd have to get off the highway sufficiently to be not seen, assemble the plane and take off for parts unknown. Allowing for the distance, the extra weight in the camper, the fact that we were not exactly driving on interstate quality roads, some pit stops, and the change of time zones, we got there by about 2030 hours, and that was having Io push it.

Putting together the GT500 for the first time, by flashlight and lantern light, was not an easy task. It took two hours to disassemble it, with the help of a guy who knew where everything was supposed to go and where the fittings were. Putting it together again was not so easy – and putting it together knowing that we'd be hanging our lives on the line at an unknown distance in the air was downright scary.

We got it all assembled by 0200 the next morning, according to the manual we had, with only two changes of batteries to the flashlights. The LED lanterns fared better: they were still blazing away. Unfortunately, we had two parts left over, and neither Zeus nor I were willing to fly off into the night with parts in our hands, parts that belonged somewhere on the plane.

By 0330, we had determined that they weren't really necessary parts. One controlled the fuel feed into the engine, and the other was part the rudder steering assembly. We didn't really need them, if we wanted to spiral into the ground at a high rate of speed.

One of the things about taking something apart, in the dark, was: where did you put everything? EXACTLY where. Or else you'd have left over parts at the end. Again.

But we did it. By 0400 we had a fully complete airplane. At least, all the parts that came out of the camper were now on the plane. Which raised a salient point.

Zeus went back to the camper to take a close look and make sure there weren't any parts left in there. I spent the time he was gone trying to cram the camo net, ghillie suits, spare gas, spare water, and etc., around and under the passenger seat. Good thing I'm an excellent packer, 'cause in the end I'd only have to keep the gas cans, water cans, and some food in my lap.

And the gun. Zeus returned with the gun and my targeting equipment. That'd be another thirty-five pounds and a big clumsy thing to have on my lap.

"Zeus, there's a lot of stuff and..." I started to say.

"Forget it," he interrupted. "You're going. We can fit some stuff up front if we have to. I ... uh ... need you to be with me. You're my lucky charm."

I brightened at that. "Oh? Am I the green clover or the yellow moon or the pink heart?"

It took Zeus a moment to decode my reference. "The pink heart, I guess ... or the green clover."

I crammed myself into the seat, and buckled myself in. By the time everything was packed around me, there was no room – and I mean absolutely No Room – for anything else. As it was, I had to strap the gun case in with me, and I couldn't look forward any more.

We had spare batteries for everything stuffed into our pockets, and I put some energy bars in my pockets. Zeus took spare guns and knives. Go figure. We're only going into enemy territory, planning to kill a bunch of bad guys ... and he wanted to take weapons, of all things. Well, I had my Glock and some spare clips for it, if truth be told.