"Tell me about 'thus and so,' Howard," Castillo said.

Kennedy put up both hands, palms outward, signaling, Not from me, Charley.

"Tell me, Charley," Pevsner asked, "do you think the government of Venezuela would admit to any knowledge of a stolen airplane, possibly in the hands of terrorists, having flown to a private landing strip near Lake Maracaibo?"

Castillo met his eyes but didn't say anything.

"Or," Pevsner went on, "that while it was there, it took on new registration numbers-a fresh identity-and a great deal of fuel, much of it loaded into fuel bladders, and then took off again?"

"Took off for where?" Castillo asked, softly.

"I've got a good idea but I don't want to tell you until I'm sure," Pevsner said.

"I have to know what you think," Castillo said.

"Let me run an off-the-wall scenario past you," Kennedy said. "With the understanding that you know that this is not what Mr. Dondiemo and I are telling you is likely to happen. Just for the sake of conversation, all right?"

"Okay."

Charley saw Fernando walk over to inspect the breakfast buffet. Then he found himself a chair, carried it to the table the waiters had set up, and then began to help himself to the food.

Colonel Torine was apparently inspired by Fernando's hunger. He got a chair and pulled it up to the table and then started filling a plate from the buffet.

"The eggs Benedict here are really quite nice, Charley," Pevsner said. "Why don't you join them?"

"Maybe because I would feel I was chewing while Rome burns?" Charley replied.

Pevsner chuckled.

Oh, to hell with it. I am hungry.

He found a chair and put it beside Fernando's and then went to the buffet.

Kennedy picked up another chair, wordlessly offered it to Pevsner, who smiled and shook his head. Kennedy then put the chair beside that of Colonel Torine and went to the buffet table and poured himself a cup of coffee.

Charley, on tasting the eggs Benedict, smiled.

"I'm pleased that you are pleased, Charley," Pevsner said. "They are to your satisfaction, no?"

"They're fine," Charley said. "Okay, Howard, shoot."

"This scenario needs to take certain things as given," Kennedy began. "One of them is that the people who have this airplane are considerably more skilled than those who flew the 767s into the World Trade Center. These guys are pilots, skilled enough to fly-navigate-a 727 across the Atlantic:"

"Supposition granted," Castillo said. "They're graduates of the Spartan School of Aeronautics in Tulsa. What else?"

"You know who these people are?" Pevsner asked, surprised.

Castillo nodded. "We even have their names and photographs."

"How do you know?" Kennedy asked, almost openly suspicious.

Well, what the hell, he used to be an FBI agent; good cops check.

"I'll admit it's circumstantial. Two guys from Somalia, mullahs, were in Philadelphia at a Muslim temple. The Philadelphia cops-their counterterrorism people-took their pictures and gave them to the FBI to run. The FBI ran them and hit. They were legally in the States to go to flight school. We have confirmation from Spartan."

"So there is a Philadelphia connection," Pevsner said.

"Circumstantial or not, that sounds solid," Kennedy said. "The one thing the bureau is good at is making IDs. They can do that with a computer; no original thought required." He paused as if gathering his thoughts and then went on, "And, knowing this, it would be reasonable to assume several more things. They may not know how close we are to them, but they know we're looking for the airplane. So how would intelligent pilots get a 727 to Philadelphia?"

"It's your off-the-wall scenario, Howard. You tell me."

Kennedy had just opened his mouth to speak when there was a faint musical rendition of the opening bars of Strauss's Weiner Blut. Pevsner took a cellular telephone from his trousers pocket. He spoke in Russian.

"Yes? "TI? That's all he got-"

"Call him back and make sure that's all he got."

He punched the hang up key and put the telephone back in his pocket and looked between Castillo and Kennedy.

"I'm making up my mind whether I should tell you what that was," Pevsner said. "I'm concerned that Charley might act impulsively."

Everyone waited while he made up his mind. It took no longer than thirty seconds, but it seemed longer.

"The pilot of an aircraft that had to make an unscheduled stop-a warning light on the instrument panel suggested a hydraulic pressure problem-at El Vigia," Pevsner said, finally, "reports that while the problem was being attended to he happened to see a 727 aircraft in a hangar. Registration numbers and other painting were going on. Unfortunately, all he could see was the TI prefix. He said it was still dark."

"Damn!" Charley said. "What's 'TI' mean?"

"And that they were pulling masking tape from freshly painted red, white, and blue stripes on the vertical stabilizer," Pevsner added.

"When was this?" Charley asked.

"About four hours ago," Pevsner said. "He had to wait until he got to Bolivia-La Paz-before he could call."

"TI is the Costa Rican registration suffix," Colonel Torine said. "This pilot, Mr. Dondiemo:"

"If you call me 'Mister,' " Pevsner said with a smile, "I'll think you're suggesting I call you 'Colonel.' "

"Not at all, sir. Alex. How reliable is this pilot? Does he work for you?"

"He flies for an air cargo company with which I have a certain relationship. All of their pilots are reliable. As a matter of fact, now that I think about it, this one's an American."

"So they're painting red, white, and blue stripes on the vertical stabilizer of a Costa Rican 727, so what?" Charley said.

"El Vigra is not a maintenance facility, Charley," Kennedy said. "But if you want to change an airplane's identity without anybody seeing you or asking questions:"

"Okay," Castillo said, looking out the window at the ocean view then turning to the others, "Let's go with our 727 now flying Costa Rican colors. How does that fit in with your off-the-wall scenario?"

"I think it fits in very nicely, now that I've a moment to think," Kennedy said. "Okay, let's pick up the scenario:"

He stopped when Sergeant Sherman, trailed by the large East European Charley thought of as the guy who suckered me in the men's room came into the apartment.

"Pretty soon, Major," Sherman said as he sat down at the table where he'd put the control box and the special laptop computer. He plugged in the tan cable.

"One possibility, Charley," Kennedy went on, "that you might wish to consider is that these people are going to substitute the airplane they've stolen for an airplane that can approach Philadelphia without causing suspicion; an airplane that routinely goes to Philadelphia."

"Jesus," Charley said.

"For the sake of argument, let's say a 727 belonging to a Costa Rican airliner. All that they would have to do would be make sure that the bona fide Costa Rican airplane wasn't in United States airspace at the same time."

"How would they do that?" Castillo asked, and the answer, Sabotage the clean airplane, quietly sabotage the clean airplane, came to him as he spoke.

"How do you think a mechanic in, say, San Jose, Costa Rica," Pevsner asked, slowly, "would react to an offer often thousand dollars to do something to an aircraft that would take it out of service for twenty-four hours? Not blow it up, nothing that would cause suspicion, just take it temporarily out of service for a day?"

"What was Marlon Brando's line in The Godfather, 'Make him an offer he can't refuse'?" Kennedy asked. "In this case, he would probably have the choice between taking the ten thousand, doing what he was asked to, or having his wife and children disemboweled."

Castillo looked over at Sergeant Sherman, who sat wearing a small headset in front of the control device.