by Robert Gandt
<>
Brown.
The color du jour. It was exactly what she had told all those bored pilots in her pre-strike briefing. Earth, trees, rocks, buildings—everything in Yemen bore the same monochromatic shade of brown.
And so would she.
At the base of a hill she found a stand of six-foot tall scrub trees. She crawled into the shelter of the trees and unzipped her rucksack. Among her survival items was one she had added on her own: a tin of brown greasepaint. She smeared the stuff over her face, around her neck, on the backs of her hands. No white skin was left exposed.
Then, another extra item—the camo-colored bandana. She pulled her hair into a bun and tied the bandana tightly around her head.
When she was finished she checked herself in the signal mirror. She almost laughed out loud. You look like a snake eater. She resembled one of those action movie heroes crawling on his belly behind enemy lines. Actually, she thought, it looked pretty cool.
She was still regarding herself in the mirror when she heard the vehicle.
She clambered to the top of a rock-strewn promontory that overlooked a valley. She peered in all directions, looking for the source of the engine noise.
Then she saw them.
They were coming down the valley, in full view from either side, two men in flight gear. One, the shorter of the two, was supporting the other. He seemed to be injured. He was walking with difficulty, dragging one foot.
The idiots were still wearing their helmets and torso harnesses! B.J. wanted to yell at them: Get in the trees and hide, you meatheads!
She knew what they were thinking. They would just call in the SAR, get in the open somewhere, get picked up. No sweat, bubba.
It was stupid. These two were strolling along like tourists on a nature walk. They should have attended her in-country briefing about escape and evasion. B.J. started down from the promontory to intercept them.
Then it was too late. In the next instant she saw an armored personnel carrier burst into the valley, kicking up a column of dirt as it came churning toward the two aviators.
The two pilots turned back in the direction they had come. The crippled airman tried to run, but he stumbled and fell. Kneeling, he turned and faced the oncoming vehicle. The other pilot ran several paces, then stopped and ran back to the side of his injured companion. Both had their pistols drawn.
Brrraaaaaappppp! A single long burst of automatic fire came from the machine gun mounted on the APC. The kneeling airman toppled end over end like a rag doll.
The second pilot stood motionless, yielding to the inevitable. He made a show of dropping the pistol and raising his hands.
Brrraaaaaapppp! The bullets caught him across the chest, hurling him backward. The pilot lay spread-eagled on the dirt, blood oozing in a pool around him.
B.J. felt sick to her stomach. From her vantage point two hundred yards away, she watched the APC pull up to where the two slain airmen lay. Half a dozen troops, each wearing desert-colored fatigues and carrying automatic weapons, climbed out the back hatch. They examined the bodies, rolling them over, removing the pistols and survival items. B.J. saw them studying the pilots’ equipment, talking among themselves.
They have the radios, B.J. realized. If they knew how, the bastards could listen in on the SAR frequency.
After they dragged the bodies into the APC, two of the troops stood gazing around the valley with binoculars.
She knew what they were doing. They were searching. They knew another pilot was out there. She hunched down behind the cluster of rocks.
<>
You want a drink?” said Boyce.
Maxwell shook his head. “No.”
“Too bad. You sure as hell need one.” Boyce flopped down in one of the two desk chairs in his stateroom and motioned for Maxwell to take the other.
Boyce didn’t mind breaking the Navy’s traditional ban on alcohol aboard ship, just as he didn’t mind firing up a cigar. Too much moderation was bad for you, he always said. He considered a highball after a hairy night of carrier ops to be good therapy.
But not tonight. Boyce busied himself scribbling notes on a yellow pad. Maxwell kept his silence, waiting for the boss to unload whatever it was on his mind.
He noticed that Boyce had aged in the past week. The wisps of red hair on his pate seemed to have grown thinner, grayer. He guessed that it was the stress of commanding the Reagan’s air wing. Or the pressure of dealing with the likes of Fletcher and Babcock.
Boyce ripped off the yellow page and handed it to Maxwell. “That’s the air plan for tomorrow. Starting at sunup, we’re gonna keep jets over the area full time. HARM shooters, EA-6 jammers, a rotating CAP. I’m putting a Tomcat with a TARPS package over the area once an hour.” Each TARPS pod contained two cameras and an infra-red scanner.
Maxwell studied the sheet. “Did the admiral sign off on this?”
“He doesn’t have a choice. Fletcher is a political animal, and he knows he can’t appear to give up on missing pilots, especially when the word gets out that one of them is a woman. I’m gonna keep reminding him of that.”
“What if Al-Fasr starts shooting again? What are the rules of engagement?”
“Anybody lights up—radar, SAM site, AA guns— we come down on them like the hammers of hell.”
“Babcock is not going to like that. It wouldn’t fit in with his negotiated settlement.”
“Maybe not, but he’s savvy enough to know how it will play on the evening news when America learns that one of our girl pilots might be held by a band of terrorists and we’re not doing anything about it.”
The thought of B.J. Johnson in the hands of Al-Fasr sent another surge of dread through Maxwell. “How long are we prepared to keep it up?”
A somber look came over Boyce’s face. He leaned back in his chair and rolled a cigar between his fingers. “You and I came up believing that nobody got left behind. We don’t give up on our people. We didn’t do it in Vietnam, not in Desert Storm, not in Bosnia, and as long as I’m running the air wing, we’re not gonna do it in Yemen. If I send pilots into harm’s way, then they have to believe that I’ll come and get them if they get shot down. I’ll stay until we find them.”
“That may not be what they’re thinking up on the flag bridge right now.”
“Maybe not, but it’s our duty to do what’s right. Even if it means pushing the envelope a little.” His eyes narrowed and he looked at Maxwell. “Maybe more than a little. Do you read me?”
Maxwell nodded. Boyce was an old warhorse from another era. He had risen through the ranks in a time when orders were clear, missions were specific, and the enemy was identifiable.
Well, times had changed. Red Boyce had not. Thank God for that.
“Yes, sir,” he said. “Perfectly.”
<>
Spook Morse knew what was coming. He could see it in Fletcher’s face, the way he sat there drumming his fingertips on the table surface.
Fletcher waited until the air wing officers, Boyce and Maxwell, had both left. The only ones left in the flag intel compartment were Fletcher and Babock, Captain Vitale, and Spook Morse.
“Explain yourself, Commander Morse,” said Fletcher. “What the hell are you saying? Al-Fasr has an informer aboard the Reagan? You mean—”
“A spy? Yes, sir. I’m sure of it.”
The admiral’s face hardened. “May I ask why you haven’t bothered to inform me, the battle group commander, about such a matter?”
Morse took his time. He knew Fletcher. He was blustering, making a show of gruffness to impress the civilian, Babcock.
“Until now it was only a suspicion, Admiral. For that matter, I still have no proof, just some deductive reasoning and circumstantial evidence.”
“Don’t give me that intelligence community line about deductive reasoning. I’m your boss and I want some straight talk. Do you know who the informer is?”
“I can narrow it down to a dozen candidates.”
“How would somebody get
classified information off a carrier at sea without our knowing it?”
Morse wondered again how someone as clueless as Fletcher rose to flag rank. Idiots. “Lots of ways, Admiral. Using our own comm gear, if he knew what he was doing. Several million bytes of data get transmitted from the Reagan every day, and much of it is classified.”
“Who are these suspects you have in mind?”
Morse didn’t answer for several seconds. His eyes moved around the table, pausing on Vitale, then dwelling for several seconds on Whitney Babcock. Babcock returned his gaze while he played with a ball point pen.
“The list includes everyone who sits in on our top secret briefings. That includes me, of course, and you, Admiral Fletcher, Mr. Babcock, Captain Vitale, Captain Boyce, and the strike leader, Commander Maxwell. Beyond us, there are half a dozen possible suspects who work in sensitive jobs.”
He reached into his briefcase and pulled out a spiral note pad. He ripped off the top sheet and handed it to the admiral. “These are listed in order of likelihood. For your information, I’ve had each of their phones and their e-net lines monitored. Not that that will turn up anything unless our player turns out to be a total amateur.”
Babcock spoke up from the end of the table. “I don’t like the sound of this. Does this mean you’re eavesdropping on us?”
“It’s the system, Mr. Babcock. Nothing is exempt in counter-espionage. I didn’t say that any of us was a suspect, but no one should be off limits.”
“Including you, Commander Morse.”
“Yes, sir, including me. I have more access to classified data than anyone aboard the ship.”
At this, Babcock became silent. He sat at the end of the table, seemingly deep in thought.
Fletcher put on his reading glasses. After he perused the list, he said, “This is hard to believe. Why would any of these people be working for Al-Fasr?”
Morse shrugged. “If we figured out what turned people into agents and double agents, we could identify spies before they did us any damage. Some do it for money, obviously, but usually it’s more than that. They see as a romantic cause, or some sort of idealistic crusade. Sometimes they just get blackmailed into it.”
Fletcher was still staring at the list. “What do we do about them?”
“Well, as a stopgap, we can reassign them while we keep monitoring their activities. Five work in sensitive intel and comm areas. Three officers, two senior enlisted, one warrant.”
“What about the media people? Aren’t they possible suspects?”
“We can’t rule them out. None have access to discrete communications facilities that we know of, but one could have his own dedicated transmitter.”
Babcock came out of his reverie and said, “They shouldn’t be allowed this close to the operation. Even if they’re not giving away secrets, they’ll put their own spin on things, and we’ll get smeared in the press just like they did to us in Somalia.”
Vitale said, “We’ll get smeared if we throw them off.”
“It’s the lesser of the evils.”
“What do we tell them?” asked Fletcher.
“The truth. This is war and we’re offloading all non-combatants.”
Fletcher nodded and turned to Vitale. “You heard him. Do it.”
<>
Claire stepped onto the flight deck. Even through the padded cranial protector and the float coat, she could hear the thunder of the jet engines, feel the thirty-knot gale that swept over the bow. The C-2 Greyhound turboprop was parked beside the island, its back clamshell door open and waiting for her. The other reporters had already boarded.
“I’ve never been kicked off a carrier before,” she said. “Was it Babcock?”
“Probably,” said Maxwell. “The actual order came from Admiral Fletcher. He says no more media coverage of the Yemen operation.”
“Until something happens that makes him look good.”
“You said it, not me.”
“There’ll be another strike, won’t there?”
Maxwell put on his blank face. “I don’t know.”
She studied him for a moment. There was that hard look, his eyes glowing like coals. He was burning inside.
“You still want revenge,” she said. “An eye for an eye.”
His expression didn’t change. “I do what I’m ordered to do.”
She saw the crew chief waving to her from the back of the C-2. “Sam, please get over it. You can’t bring Josh back. Come back to me alive, promise?”
He looked at her, and for a moment the hard lines in his face seemed to soften. He smiled and said, “Okay. I promise.”
She gave him a quick kiss, then trotted to the C-2 and climbed aboard.
<>
It was nearly dark when she spotted him. Or when he spotted her. Each was taken by surprise.
B.J. was trotting along a path that traversed a cultivated hillside. Halfway down the hill she noticed rows of some sort of scrawny crop—sorghum, millet, something like that. She tried to remember from her homework what kind of subsistence farming they did up here in the highlands.
When she glanced up from the terraced hillside, back to the path ahead—there he was. Twenty yards away, he wore the ubiquitous kaffiyeh and a baggy shirt and trousers made of coarse sackcloth. Dangling from his belt was a scabbard, which she knew contained his jambiyya, the curved dagger Yemeni men carried in this part of the country.
He stood transfixed, staring as if he were seeing an extra-terrestrial. She returned his gaze. For nearly a minute they stood like that, neither moving, regarding each other warily. He was a farmer, she guessed. Maybe a shepherd. One of those dudes she warned the other pilots about in her briefing. Don’t expect the peasants to be friendly. Their only loyalty was to themselves and their families and to whatever small-caliber sheik ran their local village.
She wondered if he had another weapon, a revolver or an automatic pistol inside his baggy clothes. Guns were a way of life here. That was in the briefing too. Peasants who couldn’t afford shoes here owned AK-47s.
She thought about the Beretta in her shoulder holster. He could see the pistol. And he could figure by her costume where she had come from. Everyone who lived in these hills had seen and heard the air battle that raged over their heads this afternoon.
Okay, let’s break the stalemate.
She smiled at him.
He stared back, his face expressionless.
She took a step toward him, holding her hands in front of her so he could see she meant no harm. She tried to recall one of her Arabic expressions. Maybe she could persuade him to—
He turned and ran.
Wait, she wanted to call out. Maybe she should run after him. She would make the dumb sonofabitch understand that she was friendly.
Forget it. What would she do if she caught him? Wherever this guy was running to, there would be others like him, armed to the teeth. In any case, the word would spread like wildfire about the woman snake-eater running loose in the hills. There might even be a reward for her.
She turned and trotted back down the path she had come. She kept up a brisk pace, staying in the shadows, pausing every few minutes to listen for pursuers. When she came to a dry streambed, she turned and followed the twisting, sand-filled bottom. After a mile, she left the streambed and began climbing the steep, brush-covered slope of a towering promontory. From such a high perch, she could survey the best routes out of this place.
Most of the hillside was in shadow now. The setting sun bathed the landscape in an orange-brown hue. The temperature had dropped by a good ten degrees. When darkness came, it would get cold.
When she was still a hundred yards from the summit of the promontory, she heard something. She stopped, crouching in the shadow of a rock formation. For half a minute she sat motionless, listening. At first she heard only the wind, the low buzz of insects in the brush. Then, something else.
The distant whop-whop of rotor blades. A helicopter.
Ours or theirs?
The whop-whopping grew more distinct, coming from the north.
B.J. was getting a bad feeling. North was not a good direction. The good guys would not come from the north.
Without warning the helicopter burst over the ridge, flying directly toward her. As she rolled into a fetal position, trying to meld herself into the rocks, she glimpsed the streamlined profile. It wasn’t one of the big Sikorsky SAR helos. This was a French-built Dauphin.
She saw the gunner in the open hatch. He was wearing the same desert-colored fatigues as the troops who killed the Tomcat crew. She prayed that her own camo flight suit, the glop she had daubed on her face, the nylon scarf over her head would make her invisible.
The noise of the rotor blades became a throbbing pulse. The concussion hammered on her ears like giant drums.
She lay motionless. The scrub brush around her flapped in the downwash from the blades. Puffs of brown dirt kicked up like miniature dust devils.
She closed her eyes. The throbbing pulse changed in intensity.
The rotor noise lessened. The scrub brush stopped flapping.
Keep going, B.J. prayed. Please go away.
The sound didn’t change. They weren’t going away.
She forced herself to look. There it was, no more than fifty yards away, hovering over a flat clearing on the hillside. As she watched, men in camo fatigues jumped from the hovering helicopter onto the ground. One, two, three in all. Each carried an automatic weapon.
The leader peered around, checking his bearings, then looked in her direction. He barked an order at the other two, then they trotted single file away from the helicopter.
Toward her.
B.J. sprang from her hiding place. Down the hillside she bounded, taking great flying leaps, somehow keeping her feet beneath her as she landed, bounding again.
Behind her she heard the men pounding down the hill. The throb of the helicopter intensified again. They were coming after her.