Dawson was only a year older than the veteran warplane he flew. He’d been born in 1961, when the Buccaneer was a prototype. It began its extraordinary career the following year when it entered operational squadron service with the British Fleet Air Arm. Originally designed to challenge the Soviet Sverdlov-class cruisers, it turned out to be so good at its job that it remained in service until 1994.
The Fleet Air Arm flew it off carriers until 1978. By 1969, the envious Royal Air Force had developed the shore-based version, which finally was eased out in 1994. In the meanwhile, South Africa had bought sixteen, which flew operationally for them until 1991. What even aircraft buffs seldom knew was that it was the vehicle that carried South Africa’s atomic bombs until, by the eve of the “Rainbow Revolution,” white South Africa had destroyed all six of them (apart from three gutted as museum pieces) and pensioned off the Buccaneer. What Guy Dawson flew that January morning 2011 was one of the last three flying in the world, rescued by warplane enthusiasts, maintained for tourist rides and kept at Thunder City.
Still climbing, Dawson turned away from the blue South Atlantic and headed almost due north toward the barren ocher sands of Namaqualand and Namibia.
His ex-Royal Air Force S.2 version would climb to 35,000 feet and fly at Mach .8, drinking eighty pounds of fuel every minute. But for this short leg, he would have plenty. With eight inboard tanks full, plus the bomb-bay-door tank and two more underwing fuel tanks, his Bucc could carry her full load of 23,000 pounds, giving her a range at optimum power setting of 2,266 nautical miles. But Windhoek was well under 1,000.
Guy Dawson was a happy man. As a
young pilot in the South African Air Force in 1985, he had been assigned to 24 Squadron, the cream of the cream despite the faster French Mirage fighters also in service. But the Buccs, already veterans of twenty years, were special.
One of its strange features was its totally enclosed bomb bay with its rotating door. On a light bomber that size, most ordnance was carried under the wings. Having the bombs inside left the exterior clean of drag and improved range and speed.
What the South Africans did was to enlarge the bomb bay even more and install their atom bombs, secretly prepared over years with Israeli help. A variation was to incorporate a huge extra fuel tank in that hidden bay and give the Bucc unmatchable range. It was the range and endurance, giving the Bucc hours of “loiter time” high in the sky, that had clinched it for the noncommittal, wiry American named Dexter who had visited Thunder City in October.
Dawson did not really want to lease his “baby” at all, but the global credit crunch had reduced his pension investments to a fraction of what he had expected for his retirement and the American’s offer was too tempting. A one-year lease agreement was clinched for a sum that would get Guy Dawson out of his hole.
He had chosen to fly his own plane all the way to Britain. He knew there was a private group of Bucc enthusiasts based at the old RAF World War II field at Scampton, Lincolnshire. They, too, were restoring a couple of Buccaneers, but they were not ready yet. This he knew because the two groups of enthusiasts were always in touch, and the American knew it, too.
Dawson’s trip would be long and arduous. The former navigator’s cockpit behind him had been used for fee-paying tourists, but thanks to GPS technology he would fly alone from Windhoek far out over the South Atlantic to the tiny speck of Ascension Island, a British-owned outcrop in the midst of nowhere.
An overnight and a second refuel would see him heading north again to the airport at Sal in the Cape Verde Islands, then to Spanish Gran Canaria and finally to Scampton, UK.
Guy Dawson knew his American patron had set up lines of credit in each stopover to cover fuel and overnight expenses. He did not know why Dexter had chosen the veteran Navy attack plane. There were three reasons.
Dexter had searched high and low, and especially in his native America, where there was an entire culture of enthusiasm for old warplanes that were maintained in flying condition. He had finally settled on the South African Buccaneer because she was obscure. She would pass for an old out-of-commission museum piece being ferried from one place to another for display purposes.
She was simple to maintain and rugged to the point of being almost indestructible. And she could stay up there for hours on end.
What only he and the Cobra knew, as Guy Dawson brought his baby back to the land of her birth, was that this Buccaneer was not going to a museum at all. She was going back to war.
WHEN SEÑOR Julio Luz landed at Terminal 4, Barajas Airport, Madrid, in February 2011, the reception committee was somewhat larger.
Cal Dexter was already there idling in the concourse with Inspector Paco Ortega, quietly watching the stream of passengers emerging from the customs-hall doors. Both men were at the newsstand, Dexter with his back to the arriving target, Ortega riffling through a magazine.
Years earlier, after the Army, after the law degree, working as a Legal Aid counselor in New York, Cal Dexter had found he had so many Hispanic “clients” that it would be useful to master Spanish. So he had. Ortega was impressed. It was rare to find a Yanqui who spoke decent Castilian. It made it unnecessary for him to struggle in English. Without moving, he murmured:
“That’s him.”
Dexter had no problem with identification. His colleague Bishop had downloaded a membership portrait from the archives of the Bogotá Law Association.
The Colombian stuck to his normal procedure. He boarded the hotel limo, clung on to his attaché case, allowed the chauffeur to stow the grip in the trunk and relaxed on the drive to Plaza de la Cortés. The police unmarked vehicle overtook the limo, and Dexter, who had checked in earlier, was at the hotel first.
Dexter had brought to Madrid a team of three, all borrowed from the FBI. The Bureau had been curious, but all questions and objections were overridden by presidential authority. One of the team could go through any locking system. And fast. Dexter had insisted on speed. He had described the sort of problems they might meet, and the lockpicker had shrugged in dismissal. Was that all?
The second man could open envelopes, scan the contents in seconds and reseal the envelope invisibly. The third was just the sentinel. They were not billeted at the Villa Real but two hundred yards away, on permanent call by cell phone.
Dexter was in the lobby when the Colombian arrived. He knew the lawyer’s room and had checked out the access. They were lucky. It was at the end of a long corridor from the elevator doors, lessening the chance of a sudden and unexpected interruption.
When it comes to watching a target, Dexter had long known the clichéd man in the trench coat pretending to read a newspaper in the corner or pointlessly standing in a doorway was as noticeable as a rhino on the vicarage lawn. He preferred to hide in plain sight.
He was in a loud shirt, hunched over his laptop, taking a cell phone call in too loud a voice from someone he called “honey bunny.” Luz glanced at him for a second, summed him up and lost all interest.
The man was like a metronome. He checked in, took a light lunch in his room and remained there for a good siesta. At four he reappeared in the East 47 café, ordered a pot of Earl Grey and reserved his table for dinner. It seemed the fact that there were other superlative restaurants in Madrid—and that the October evening, though crisp, was fine—eluded him.
Minutes later, Dexter and his team were on his corridor. The sentinel remained by the elevator doors. Every time one came up and stopped with doors open, the men would indicate he was heading down. With polite smiles all around, the doors would close. When the elevator came down, the theater was in reverse. There was no pathetic tying and retying of shoelaces.
It took the locksmith eighteen seconds and a very clever piece of technology to penetrate the electronic door to the suite. Inside, the three worked fast. The grip had been neatly unpacked and its contents hung in the closet or laid carefully in drawers. The attaché case was on a chest.