The Phoenix Affair

by Paul Clark

  *****

  Afterword

  I’ve been working on this thing off and on for a long time, primarily as a way of entertaining myself on business and Air Force travel. Before the age of eBooks, it could be tough to find something to read just before every flight, favorite authors might not have anything new available, and lugging 2 or 3 books along to get me back and forth across the great water was, well, a challenge. A flight longer than an hour without something decent to read is a hell too awful to contemplate, and it turns out that writing is just as good as a diversion.

  Some of my friends will recognize Paul Cameron, more than a little bit I’m afraid. To those, I apologize if it seems I’ve been overly generous, which is probably true. But it is fiction after all. I discovered right away when I started writing that making everything up from scratch was kind of challenging, but using a few things I already knew and embellishing them was easier. I’ve always admitted that fighter pilots as a species are both brilliant and intellectually lazy, I’m no better.

  Other friends may vaguely recognize a few other characters, but I hope very few and then only a very little. Any resemblance is again a casualty of that fighter pilot syndrome. I’m grateful to anyone who’s unwittingly lent me something of themselves, and I hope I’ve been just as generous to them. If you figure out who you are, drop me a note at Paul Cameron’s Facebook page or on the Book’s Facebook Web Page for Paul Cameron.

  Readers in general may have the sneaking suspicion that there were some learning points in the book. Again, guilty as charged. As I tinkered with trying to paint the background picture, develop characters’ unspoken thoughts or the dialogue, it became useful to be “instructive” when it came to Islam and a little of what I know of Arab culture and thought. Both are extraordinarily complex, rich, and above all diverse, and I’ve tried to portray the complexity, richness, and especially diversity here. I was amazed on my first trip to Bahrain to find Saudis in the Irish Pub at the Hyatt Hotel, and women in high heels and short skirts, and women driving, and all sorts of very normal, Western things that many Americans in particular would not associate with Islam or a Muslim country. The fact is that they are quite normal in Muslim countries generally, but the Arabian Peninsula is much more conservative. Even this is changing, though.

  A few words are in order on the variation in the observance of the Muslim characters in the book. I’ve often explained this variation (which absolutely exists) to fellow Americans using the following comparison. Most Americans, perhaps as many as 90-95%, were raised as some sort of Christian until they decided for themselves to either stay as practicing Christians, or became non-practicing. So most of us know people in our lives who span the spectrum from still attending daily Mass every day (very good Catholics), through those of us who make it most Sundays, to the CEOs (Christmas and Easter Only), to folks who never bother at all. All of us are People of the Book, some just more committed to faith than others. If you recognize that in your own experience, then when I ask you “why would you expect Muslims to be any different?” you’ll find you have the reaction I usually get. I have Muslim friends who never, ever miss a prayer, every day of their lives, five times a day. I have friends on the other end who, just as Muslim, will have a beer or a drink if we’re together in the US or Europe, or even Bahrain or Dubai. The point is this is entirely normal, and if the Book has taught folks just a little, that’s good for everyone. All of us must find our own equilibrium with God.

  Lastly, to my friends in Saudi Arabia and other Muslims, and my teachers everywhere: I hope you’ll forgive me for any excesses or errors you may perceive. I’ve been very careful I think, and I’ve deliberately painted the “bad guys” as the least observant Muslims, and the “good guys” as the most observant. I think this is consistent with all you’ve taught me about your religion, although admittedly with a bit of emphasis added to drive home the point. I hope we’ll find the occasion for you to correct any egregious errors I’ve made over gawa and dates sometime soon. In the meantime, thanks for your patience and understanding, and I hope you enjoyed the read.

  About the Author

  Paul Clark is a retired Air Force Colonel, fighter pilot, and commander. He is now a Consultant and continues to travel widely across Europe and the Middle East. He lives with his wife in the United States.

  An Excerpt from The next book in the Paul Cameron Series

  I. Asheville, North Carolina

  “November Three-Oh-One-Uniform -Zulu, cleared direct Asheville, North Carolina, descend and maintain niner-thousand, altimeter three-zero-one-zero. Contact Asheville approach on one-two-four-point-six.”

  “Three-Oh-One-Uniform -Zulu, direct Asheville, out of one-one for niner-thousand. Approach on one-two-four-point-six. Good day sir”.

  The Mooney Ovation 3, white with blue trim, with the marking "N301UZ" on the aft fuselage, was already thundering along at nearly 200 nautical miles per hour. It nosed over slightly from eleven thousand feet, and accelerated to around two hundred ten knots. It turned slightly right from its original course and pointed at the horizon where Asheville lay, nearly fifty miles ahead.

  The airplane was only 50 hours out of the factory in Kerrville, Texas, where Mooneys have been built since the mid-sixties. From the beginning, the Mooney has been the fastest single-engine piston-powered production airplane on the planet. Since the late nineties, there have been challenges to this distinguished mark from other manufacturers and some kit-built airplanes. These are all fixed landing gear machines, made of exotic composites. But the Mooney has retractable gear, is made of aluminum with a steel cage around the cockpit, and is built like a tank while it looks like a Ferrari with wings and a propeller. And it’s fast, which is why its owner was flying one from Washington to Asheville.

  Paul Cameron turned the last dial on the radio that selected the Asheville approach control frequency and reported in to the controller. Then he busied himself with his descent checklist: he checked the weather and notices to airmen for the Asheville airport using his second radio, he turned a few more dials next to the 11-inch glass panel display on the right of the instrument panel and a diagram of the approach procedure for the airport filled the screen. He studied this for a few moments, continuously monitoring his speed and altitude and heading. And then he did something he always did, which was a bit odd since much of it did not apply to this airplane, but it was his habit pattern from nearly 3000 hours flying F-15s for the US Air force. He recited aloud to himself: “Visor down, lights on, fuel balance checked, crossfeed off, defog and temperature set, pitot heat on, anti-ice we don’t need, altimeter set.” He wasn’t wearing a helmet so there was no visor, a Mooney had no crossfeed in the fuel system, but this was his habit, and breaking good habits got you killed in the flying business, so he had always done it this way and always would. Now he was ready for the approach into Asheville.

  The Controller instructed him to continue his descent to four thousand feet: he’d be on the ground in about 10 minutes. He looked again around the immaculate, shining new cockpit of the Mooney, listened to the velvety almost turbine-smooth hum of the huge 550 cubic inch Continental six-cylinder engine. He was doing nearly 215 knots, and he thought “isn’t this just about the next best thing to heaven on earth?”

  It was a clear day, not a cloud in the sky and the sky itself a deep cerulean blue, a feature of the unusually low humidity in North Carolina today. None of the usual haze, just a high, crystal-clear sky and visibility limited only by the curvature of the earth. Cameron would not really need the instrument approach into the Asheville airport, that was only required if the weather was bad. So he looked out ahead through the Plexiglas of the windscreen, across the airplane's sleek cowling and through the arc of the prop, searching the horizon for the outskirts of Asheville town and ultimately, for the airport itself. He'd fly a visual approach once he had the airport in sight.

  About eight miles out and descending through four t
housand feet he saw it. He thumbed the transmit button on the left grip of the control yoke and said: "Asheville, approach, November Three-Oh-One-Uniform -Zulu, passing four thousand, airport is in sight. Cancel IFR, switching to Tower. Good Day sir."

  He waited for the immediate reply "November Three-Oh-One-Uniform -Zulu, Asheville, roger, you're cleared the visual approach runway three-four at Asheville Regional, contact the Tower one-twenty-one-point-one" and then pressed the button next to the big display to switch to the pre-programmed Tower frequency.

  Cameron's left thumb reached for another switch on the left yoke handle, and clicked it aft. The speedbrakes on the upper surface of each wing immediately deployed into the slipstream, and with the throttle set at just 1700 rpm the airplane began slowing quickly toward the target speed of 120 knots for the initial approach. Things would happen fast from here. "Tower, November Three-Oh-One-Uniform -Zulu, eight miles to the northeast for the visual approach to runway three-four, with information delta."

  The Tower controller responded, "November Three-Oh-One-Uniform -Zulu, Asheville Tower, you're number two to follow traffic at one o'clock and four miles, a Cessna 206 on a right base leg to runway three-four. Report that traffic in sight please."

  Cameron acknowledged, and looked a little more than ten degrees to the right of the center of his prop arc, and along the horizon, searching four miles ahead of for what should be a white spec on a 90-degree dogleg to the south end of runway, which he could see at about 2 o'clock relative to his position. Got him. "Tower, Three-Oh-One-Uniform -Zulu, tallyho."

  "Three-Oh-One-Uniform -Zulu, Roger," the Tower controller replied. "You are cleared for the visual approach runway three-four, maintain visual separation, you are number two to land."

  "One-Uniform-Zero wilco".

  He thumbed the speedbrakes closed as the airplane leveled off at 3500 feet and 120 knots. The blue knob that controlled pitch of the propeller went full forward, then the red mixture control knob did the same, and he eased the throttle in just a tad to maintain airspeed. The Cessna was now approaching about 2:30 on the clock and making his turn onto final to line up with the runway on a heading 20 degrees to the left of due north, and about 2 miles away from the Mooney. Cameron banked right onto his 90 degree "base" leg, simultaneously reaching for the flap switch and moving it to the 50% setting. The electric motors whined and he felt the nose try to pitch up slightly, a quirk of all Mooneys. He countered this with his left thumb again, pressing forward on the center switch on the left yoke grip. The airplane was now trimmed for 110 knots and the yoke was light in his left hand, no pressure required to hold it, up or down. He eased the throttle back now as, looking to his right at the runway 3 miles away, he perceived that he was on the glidepath. The nose dropped of its own accord, trading away altitude to maintain the 110 knots. Cameron reached up to the center of the upper instrument panel, put his right hand on the landing gear handle, paused to verify that this was what he wanted to do, and lowered the handle. Again electric motor whine, as a screwjack under the cabin floor turned and all three wheels were powered down electrically. They thumped into the locked down position and three green lights illuminated to the right of the gear switch.

  "One, two, three green, good pressure, and flaps are down," Cameron said aloud to himself, simultaneously placing the flap switch to 100% and watching the indicator track all the way down. This was another relic litany from his fighter days, where the landing gear was always hydraulic and you checked the pressure gauge to make sure it was in the "normal" range multiple times before landing. His left thumb again trimmed nose down as the additional lift from the flaps tried to force the nose up. The airplane steadied at 90 knots for final approach as he completed the last 90 degree turn to align with the runway. The Cessna was just touching down two miles ahead. He was on glidepath and reduced power just a little more by screwing the throttle knob counterclockwise a half turn.

  "Three-Oh-One-Uniform -Zulu, you are cleared to land, wind three-three-zero at five knots" the Tower announced.

  "Three-Oh-One-Uniform -Zulu, roger, cleared to land" Cameron replied.

  The sleek little Mooney drifted right down the optimum glidepath, crossed the overrun and then the runway threshold, the power came all the way off, the nose came up, the airplane flared to arrest the descent just a foot or two above the concrete, then settled gently with a "chirp-chirp" as the main wheels touched down 750 feet from the threshold, a perfect landing.

  Cameron slowed the airplane, taxied off the runway about midfield, switched to the Ground controller and got clearance to taxi to the General Aviation ramp where he'd turn the machine over to his mechanic. Meanwhile he went through the after landing checklist, finishing just before reaching the parking spot the crewman indicated on the ramp. He parked, then set the parking break, went through the shutdown checklist, and finally switched off.

  It took him a few minutes to put all his gear into the flight bag, unstrap and climb out the door on the right side of the airplane, and then he was on the ground running his hand through his hair. It was warm for late April, and low humidity or not, he was sweating a little.

  "Welcome home Colonel," the crewman said in greeting. "Any problems with the airplane?"

  "Afternoon, Mickey. Nope, everything's great, gotta love a brand new airplane. But, she did go over 50 hours on this leg, so please ask Tim to give it a careful checkout in the next few days. I may have to go back up to Washington again at the end of the week. And fill her up, of course. See you then, and thanks."

  "Yessir, you too, and say hello to Mrs. Cameron."

  "Will do. Thanks again Mickey, Bye now." Cameron grabbed his flight bag and headed into the terminal, walked straight through and out the doors on the other side into the parking lot. He paused just outside the door, put the bag down, and made a show of removing his sunglasses, placing them in a case he found in the bag, and then cleaning his regular glasses before putting them on his nose. All the time he smiled as he took in his surroundings, looking like he was casually relaxing and enjoying the day, which he was.

  He was also completing a ritual, one that was key to his continued survival. He'd just done a very thorough scan of the parking lot and the surrounding area, ensuring that there was nothing out of the ordinary. Nobody loitering, nobody obvious that he could see sitting in a car for no good reason. Nobody waiting for him. Nobody watching. Satisfied, he walked quickly to his vehicle, a shiny black GMC Yukon Denali.

  He tossed the flight bag onto the front passenger seat, closed his door and fired up the truck. Before he fastened his seatbelt, he reached to the small of his back and withdrew the Glock 19 9mm pistol from its holster there, and inserted it into a similar one mounted between his driver's seat and the car's center console. "That's better" he sighed. The air conditioning was already making things much more comfortable as he backed out of the spot and then drove out of the parking lot.

  However, it'd been an educational year since he got into this business, "the spook business" as he sometimes joked, so it wasn't yet time to go directly home. In that year, since his "spook baptism" had taken him on a wild ride from Paris, to London, to Amman, Jordan and then across the northern half of Saudi Arabia, he'd acquired new skills at the insistence of his new boss, Randy Anderson. Anderson was the sitting Deputy Director, Operations, or "DDO," of the Central Intelligence Agency. And Brigadier General Paul Cameron, USAF, was not comfortably retired in rural North Carolina as Mickey and all his pals at the airport supposed he was. He was actually still on active duty, a serving Brigadier General, on assignment with a very secret CIA counter-terrorism team. He’d managed to convince Anderson to keep the promotion secret, though, and he thought it helped to be low profile as a retired Colonel. People would be more interested in a General, and he didn’t want people interested.

  So, as he'd been trained, Cameron came up with a roundabout way to get home. It had to involve at least one full stop. As he drove southwest
away from the airport he scanned his rearview for anyone who might be following, and decided that 2:45 in the afternoon was a good time for a coffee break. He made the next right turn, drove two blocks and made a left, one block and another left, and slipped into a parking spot in front of the Starbuck's shop in the strip mall. He sat in the car, watching to his left through the tinted glass to see if anyone came tearing by wondering where he'd gone. Thirty seconds and he was satisfied.

  The idea of concealed carry was cool for a while, but after a year it was both just normal and just uncomfortable. Handguns are heavy, and bulky, and they have sharp angles that simply don't blend in well with the human body when you're trying to carry one around without it being obvious. Therefore the Glock 19. His initial plan was to carry his personal Browning Hi-Power, an item he'd owned since he was an F-15 pilot during the Cold War, back when the USAF-issued sidearm was a .38 Police Special revolver. A girly gun. Unacceptable. The Browning was a great pistol, a classic, modeled on the Colt .45 but smaller, holding 13 9mm rounds in the magazine. It packed a wallup and could keep shooting for a long time. But when it came to carrying it around concealed, it was a bitch. The exposed hammer and slide guard on the back end, and the sharp angles on the business end, made it absolute agony to carry at the small of the back, or anywhere else for that matter except for a shoulder holster. And a shoulder holster was only practical when you could wear a jacket to cover it up with, which wasn't often enough here in North Carolina, even in the mountains. Enter the Glock. Largely made of plastic, except for those parts that had to obviously be steel. It was light, it was rounded off everywhere it could be, it had no exposed hammer. It had no safety, either, and it was double action. So it could safely be carried "hot," with a round in the chamber, ready to point and shoot with one long squeeze of the trigger. And the Glock 19 held 15 rounds of 9x19mm parabellum ammo, two fewer than it's bigger cousin the Glock 17. It was smaller but still very deadly.

  Cameron reached for the gun by reflex and replaced it at the small of his back. Then he got out of the car and went in to enjoy his iced coffee and wait to see if anybody got interesting or impatient.

  Twenty-five minutes later he approached his "choke point", the place on his way home where there were no more ways to alter the route, no alternate ways to come to the destination. He was already out in the country, open farm fields to his left as he drove southwest, the hills and ridgelines completely forested rising on his right. Up ahead the road came to a "Y" intersection, and he'd take the right fork. The danger lay in someone waiting further ahead on the left fork, watching for him to come this way and take the left. Some days he'd continue straight ahead on the left fork and go a mile beyond his turn to make sure nobody was there, then double back. Today he just made the turn when he could not see another vehicle ahead waiting: with the leaves all still off the trees, he could see all the way to the bend in the road, and it was unlikely that anyone was there anyway.

  This road was narrow and wound back and forth between two ridges that rose up right and left of the slim valley, barely three hundred yards wide in places. It was a dead end, too, ending two miles farther into the hills at a blank, forested hillside. After about a mile Cameron slowed and turned off to the left onto a narrow dirt track that anyone who wasn't looking for it would likely miss. A hundred yards into the trees and out of sight of the road he came to a gate, which opened when he pressed one of the garage-opener buttons on the lower edge of his rearview mirror. He pulled through and it closed behind him. Now the track widened and was made of compressed gravel, although in places it was a little rutted by the heavy equipment that came this way. The track began to wind back and forth across the slope of ridge line, up out of the narrow valley. After three switchbacks he'd climbed the 300 feet or so to the top, the ground leveled, the track turned 90 degrees right, and there, beyond the final gate, in a large rectangular clearing atop the ridge, men, machines and massive piles of materials were busy building a castle.

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