"Ground control, LA-9021 understands Four South to Four South right three."

"Affirmative, 9021."

MacIlhenny looked over his shoulder at the man with the Uzi, who nodded. MacIlhenny released the brakes and reached for the throttle quadrant.

LA-9021 began to move.

"Turn onto the threshold," the man with the Uzi said thirty seconds later. "Line it up with the runway and immediately commence your takeoff roll."

"Without asking for clearance?" MacIlhenny asked.

"Without asking for clearance," the man with the Uzi said, not pleasantly, and brushed MacIlhenny's neck, below his ear, with the muzzle of the Uzi.

As MacIlhenny taxied the 727 to the threshold of the main north/south runway, he looked out the side window of the cockpit and then pointed out the window.

"There's an aircraft on final," he said. "An Ilyushin."

It was an Ilyushin II-76, called "the Candid." It was a large, four-engine, heavy-lift military transport, roughly equivalent to the Lockheed C-130.

The man with the Uzi pressed the muzzle of the Uzi against MacIlhenny's neck as he leaned around him to look out the window at the approaching aircraft.

"Line up with the runway, Captain," he ordered, "and the moment he touches down begin your takeoff roll."

"Line up now or after he touches down?"

"Now," the man with the Uzi said and jabbed MacIlhenny with the muzzle of the Uzi.

MacIlhenny released the brakes and nudged the throttles.

"LA-9021, ground control," the radio went off. The voice sounded alarmed.

The man with the Uzi jerked MacIlhenny's headset from his head.

MacIlhenny lined up 9021 with the runway and stopped.

A moment later the Ilyushin flashed over, so close that the 727 moved. It touched down about halfway down the runway.

The Uzi muzzle prodded MacIlhenny under the ear.

He understood the message, released the brakes, and shoved the throttles forward.

My options right now are to pull the gear, which will mean I will have my brains blown all over the cockpit a full twenty seconds before the gear retracts. Or I can do what I'm told and maybe, just maybe, stay alive.

"Will you call out the airspeed, please?" MacIlhenny asked, politely.

"Eighty," the copilot said a moment later.

Unless that Ilyushin gets his tail off the runway, I'm going to clip it.

"Ninety."

"One-ten."

"One-twenty."

"Rotate," MacIlhenny said and pulled back on the yoke.

"What you will do now, Captain," the man with the Uzi said, "is level off at two-five hundred feet on this course."

"That's going to eat a lot of fuel," MacIlhenny said.

"Yes, I know. What I want to do is fall off their radar. The lower we fly, the sooner that will happen."

MacIlhenny nodded his understanding.

Five minutes later, the man with the Uzi ordered, "Maintaining this flight level, steer zero-two-zero."

"Zero-two-zero," MacIlhenny repeated and began a gentle turn to that heading.

That will take me over the ex-Belgian Congo. I wonder what that means?

Ten minutes after that, the man with the Uzi said, "Ascend to flight level two-five thousand, and turn to zero-one-five."

"Course zero-one-five," MacIlhenny repeated. "Beginning climb to flight level two-five thousand now."

"Very good, Captain," the man with the Uzi said.

Not quite two hours after they left Luanda, the man with the Uzi said, "Begin a thousand-feet-a-minute descent on our present heading, Captain."

MacIlhenny nodded his understanding, adjusted the trim, retarded the throttles, and then said, "We are in a thousand-feet-a-minute descent. May I ask where we are going?"

"We are going to take on fuel at an airfield not far from Kisangani," he said. "Once known as Stanleyville. Kisangani has a radar and I want to get under it, so level off at twenty-five hundred feet."

"Yes, sir."

MacIlhenny checked his fuel. His tanks were a little under half full.

Kisangani is in the northeast Congo, not far from the border of Sudan.

We could have made it to Khartoum – almost anywhere in Sudan – with available fuel. Sudan has a reputation for loose borders, and for not liking Americans. So why didn't we go there?

If we keep on this northeasterly flight path, we'll overfly Sudan. And on this heading, what's next is Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Israel.

The Americans are all over Saudi Arabia and Israel with AWAC aircraft.

They're sure to see this one.

For that matter, it's surprising that there hasn't been a fighter – or three or four fighters – off my wingtip already.

You can't just steal an airplane and fly it a thousand miles without somebody finding you.

Where the hell are we going?

Lease-Aire 9021 had been flying at twenty-five hundred feet at four hundred knots for about fifteen minutes when the copilot adjusted the radio frequency to 116.5 and then called somebody.

Somebody called back. With no headset, MacIlhenny of course had no idea what anybody said. But a moment after his brief radio conversation, the copilot punched in a frequency on the radio direction finder and then pointed to the cathode display.

"Change to that heading?" MacIlhenny asked, politely.

"Correct," the man with the Uzi said. "We should be no more than 150 miles from our refuel point."

Twenty minutes later, MacIlhenny saw, almost directly ahead, a brown scar on the vast blanket of green Congolese jungle beneath him.

The copilot got on the radio again, held a brief conversation with someone, and then turned to MacIlhenny.

"The winds are negligible," he said. "If you want to, you can make a direct approach."

"How much runway do we have?"

"Fifty-eight hundred feet," the copilot said. "Don't worry. This will not be the first 727 to land here."

MacIlhenny brought the 727 in at the end of the runway. He could see some buildings, but they seemed deserted, and he didn't see any people, or vehicles, or other signs of life.

He touched down smoothly and slowed the aircraft down to taxi speed with a third of the runway still in front of him.

"Continue to the end of the runway, Captain," the man with the Uzi said.

MacIlhenny taxied as slowly as he could without arousing the suspicion of his copilot or the man with the Uzi. He saw no other signs of life or occupancy, except what could be recent truck tire marks in the mud on the side of the macadam runway.

"Turn it around, Captain, and put the brakes on. But don't shut it down until we have a look at the refueling facilities."

"Yes, sir," MacIlhenny said and complied.

"Now, here we're going to need your expert advice," the man with the Uzi said. "Will you come with me, please?"

"Yes, sir," MacIlhenny said.

He unfastened his shoulder harness, got out of his seat, and saw that the man with the Uzi had put the jump seat back in the stored position and was waiting for him to precede him out of the cockpit and into the fuselage.

"In the back, please, Captain," the man with the Uzi said, gesturing with the weapon.

MacIlhenny walked into the passenger compartment.

The local pilot was still sitting taped into one of the seats.

MacIlhenny glanced down at him as he walked past. It looked as if something had been spilled in his lap.

Spilled, hell. He pissed his pants.