by Robert Gandt
“Mayday! Mayday!” Bass yelled in the radio. He reached for the ejection handle.
<>
Maxwell awoke in the early afternoon, possessed by an idea. He had a mission to perform. He would have to hurry before the market closed. He dressed in a hurry and left the hotel.
The souk in old Dubai was just as he remembered it. All the wares of the Middle East were for sale in the vendors’ stalls — carpets, gold, leather goods, T-shirts, sandals, live poultry.
Maxwell wandered through the rows of stalls, perusing the merchandise, until he found the kiosk he was looking for. He examined each of the scarves, holding them up to the light. Finally he found a scarf that was very close to the one he remembered. It was black, with gold stitching and the image of a bird in flight.
“How much?” he asked the leather-faced vendor.
“For you, three hundred Dirham.”
It was a bargain, but the vendor would be insulted if he did not at least negotiate. Maxwell countered with an offer of one hundred Dirham. The vendor came back with two-fifty. Finally a deal was struck at two-hundred Emirian Dirham, which amounted to about seventy-five dollars. For an extra ten Dirham, the vendor agreed to gift-wrap the scarf.
When Maxwell returned to the hotel, a message was waiting for him. He was to call the Air Wing duty officer.
<>
He couldn’t believe it. “Damn!” Maxwell grumbled into the phone. “Why?”
“Can’t say.” said Frisby, the duty officer. “But it’s no drill. Everyone’s due back by six o’clock.”
Something had happened. No one knew anything, only that the party was over. The Reagan was sailing.
Maxwell could imagine the groaning going on throughout Dubai at that moment. After nearly a month of continuous flight operations, working twelv and fourteen-hour days, the crew of the USS Reagan had been in port exactly three days. It was supposed to be a time for relaxation, partying, chilling out, forgetting about the requirements of the United States Navy and the USS Ronald Reagan and the politics of the Persian Gulf.
Instead, an emergency sortie. The Reagan was headed to sea.
Maxwell knew the drill. All hands ashore were being ordered back to their stations. In a mass migration toward the fleet landing, two thousand sailors and officers would come walking, riding, staggering, and in some instances being hauled comatose to the utility boats that would shuttle them out to the carrier. As always, a few enterprising sailors would get wind of the recall and lie low. No, sir, I swear. Never knew a thing about it till I saw the ship headin’ out . . .
Maxwell called Claire’s number. She didn’t answer. He left a message with the concierge, letting her know their date was on hold. He promised he would e-mail her from the ship.
He took his place in the line of disgruntled officers waiting to check out of the Hilton. No one was happy.
“Another fucking exercise,” said a pilot from the Tomcat squadron.
“It’s punishment,” said a young lieutenant. “We were having too much fun.”
“Someone probably got caught with his pants down,” said a lieutenant commander from the S-3 squadron. “This means war.”
<>
Maxwell’s taxi pulled up to the landing. More than two hundred sailors and a several dozen officers were already clustered on the concrete pier waiting for the next boat. In the evening twilight, the temperature had cooled.
Waiting on the landing when he stepped from the cab was Claire Phillips. She wore a Levi jacket over a polka-dot dress.
“You heard the news,” he said.
“I deliver the news, remember? I couldn’t let you go without saying goodbye.”
“Sorry about our date tonight.”
“I had you for one whole evening. That’s a beginning.”
She gave him an impulsive kiss. Then he noticed Killer DeLancey and Hozer Miller at the edge of the landing. They were watching him curiously.
Another gray 120-man utility boat came gliding up to the pier. A boatswain’s mate snubbed the bowline to the dock. Sailors lined up to step onto the loading ladder.
“You’re the reporter,” Brick said. “What’s going on? Did something happen?”
“Yes. Something happened. And I can guess what’s going to happen next.”
Then she leaned forward and told him, very quietly, what happened that afternoon to cause the USS Reagan to haul anchor and put to sea.
Brick listened, nodding. When she finished telling him the news, he glanced over at the crowd. Most of the clustered sailors and officers had boarded the utility boat.
Except DeLancey. He was still there, staring at them.
Suddenly, Maxwell remembered the package. He pulled it from his carry-all bag. “I, uh, was going to give you this at dinner tonight. I know it’s not your birthday.”
She felt the package, recognizing its contents. “It will be. Come back to me in one piece, Sam.”
Chapter Twelve
Jabbar
(Syndicated Wire Service, 17 May, Baghdad)
by Christopher Tyrwhitt
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraqi military officials reported the downing of an American Air Force F-16 Viper Friday morning during a pre-dawn incursion of Iraq’s air space near the southern No Fly Zone. An Iraqi official declared that the American jet was destroyed by an anti-aircraft missile battery, which returned fire when attacked by the American jets. The only reported damage, the official said, was to a clearly marked school building.
A U.S. State Department spokesperson has confirmed the loss of the jet, adding that the pilot safely ejected and was rescued soon after the incident.
Tensions have heightened along the United Nations-imposed No Fly Zone since the downing last month of an Iraqi MiG-29 interceptor jet by U.S. Navy jets flown from the aircraft carrier, USS Ronald Reagan. The fate of the Iraqi pilot has not been disclosed.
Since the imposition of the No Fly Zones after the end of the Gulf War in 1991, American and British warplanes have frequently targeted Iraqi air defense sites. Today’s action was apparently a continuation of the stepped-up pressure on the Iraqi air defense system.
President Saddam Hussein has sworn retaliation for such hostile acts by United States forces, and the downing of the American fighter was hailed in Iraq’s press as a confirmation of his resolve.
<>
It was incredible, thought Colonel Jabbar. He was alive.
Not only was he alive, he was flying.
Had Jabbar been a true believer, which he was not, he might have attributed this miracle to the Divine Being. This would seem to be an undeniable instance of intervention by Allah. That Colonel Jabbar’s life had been spared at the very moment of his execution by firing squad was simply too miraculous for any other explanation.
Except, of course, for one. The sudden reversal of his fate as he stood facing the loaded carbines of the Republican Guard was exactly the sort of capricious melodrama that Saddam loved to orchestrate. Immediate death sentences, instant reprieves — all were rendered and reversed in the presidential court of Saddam Hussein like alternating weather reports.
But here he was, alive. And flying again.
Jabbar nudged the MiG’s throttles forward a notch. Beneath him swept the monotonous brown desert of western Iraq. To his right, stepped up a thousand feet, was his wingman, Captain Suluman Faisal.
They were flying low and fast, skimming the floor of the desert at a speed of over 800 kilometers per hour. Faisal was his safety pilot, peering out ahead for danger while Jabbar concentrated on low-level navigation. Faisal was a competent airman, unlike the hapless Captain Al-Fariz, deceased nephew of Saddam.
Faisal, of course, was not happy about today’s training mission. He had been told nothing about the purpose of the mission, or what sort of munitions delivery they were simulating. Like most fighter pilots, Faisal preferred to be up in the stratosphere where they were supposed to engage enemy fighters. Instead, they were hurtling across dunes and dwarf trees like lowly air-to-g
round attack pilots.
“Be alert, Red lead,” came Faisal’s voice on the tactical frequency. “Vehicles ahead, twelve o’clock, three kilometers.”
“Red lead is looking.”
Jabbar peered through his windscreen. What were they? Military trucks? One of the Shiite caravans on the move. . .
He spotted a column of dust. Half a dozen rickety trucks with home-made containers strapped to the beds were bumping down the unpaved road. Smugglers, probably, hauling contraband on their return trip from the Kurdish-held territory near the Turkish border.
Jabbar dipped the MiG’s right wing, altering course just enough that he would go blasting directly over the column. The trucks were moving eastward. They wouldn’t see the fighters bearing down on them from behind.
Jabbar dropped the MiG down until he was no more than fifty feet over the tops of the trucks.
Closer. . . closer. . . Jabbar saw a passenger in the back of the truck look up, suddenly spot the fighters. His mouth opened. . ..
Wharrrrooom! The MiG-29 roared over the truck column at nearly supersonic speed.
Jabbar pulled up and rolled the MiG into a vertical bank so he could look back over his shoulder. The lead truck had careened into a gully beside the road. The other trucks in the column were stopped. Their occupants were sprinting into the desert like ants from a mound.
Jabbar had to laugh. That would give them some excitement, he thought. Smuggling had become a routine business in Iraq since the sanctions. Now the terrified buggers would think that Saddam had sent attack jets out to seek and destroy their miserable vehicles. They wouldn’t stop running until they’d put several kilometers between them and the convoy.
Jabbar returned his thoughts to the training mission. Back to low-altitude navigation, flying over the floor of the desert. Back to training for the real mission. Jabbar eased the MiG down again to a hundred feet above the sand.
Too bad, he thought, focusing his gaze on the landscape blurring past him. Too bad that the real mission wouldn’t be as easy as sneaking up on smugglers. The real enemy would not be so easy to surprise. And most certainly the real enemy would not run for the desert like a frightened rabbit.
The thought filled Colonel Jabbar with a cold dread. It was why he had been spared from the firing squad. He had been given an assignment that was as deadly as standing before a squad of Republican Guard riflemen.
Jabbar still didn’t know what weapon — or weapons — would be mounted on his MiG-29. But already he had managed to piece together parts of the puzzle, like an elaborate mosaic. He could deduce that it was almost certainly an air-launched missile. He was sure that it was a weapon that could be deployed from very low altitude at a distance of at least three hundred fifty kilometers from the target.
Now he was certain of another fact: The weapon possessed massive destructive power. Enough to obliterate a hundred-thousand-ton warship.
<>
Walking toward the ready room, Maxwell could feel the movement of the ship under him.
The recall of the Reagan’s crew had been very successful. Fewer than a hundred sailors were unaccounted for, a statistic that amazed old hands who could remember when a recalled aircraft carrier would head to sea leaving a quarter of its complement behind in local brothels and bars.
One more way in which the New Navy was different, thought Maxwell.
When he entered the Roadrunner ready room, Undra Cheever, the squadron duty officer, was chewing on a doughnut. His face lit up when he saw Maxwell come into the ready room. “The skipper wants to see you in his office ASAP.”
Maxwell nodded. It meant that DeLancey was back in attack mode.
After a quick coffee, he checked his mail, then headed up the passageway to DeLancey’s office.
As usual, DeLancey didn’t invite him to sit. He got right to the point. “You’re a security risk, Maxwell. I’m going to have you relieved.”
Maxwell had no idea what he was talking about. This was DeLancey’s style, to lead with an outrageous statement. Throw you off balance before getting to the point.
“May I ask how you’ve determined that I’m a security risk?"
A knowing smile spread over DeLancey’s face. “The Phillips woman. You’ve been screwing someone known to be anti-military, then spilling classified information to her.”
Maxwell nodded. It explained the peculiar look DeLancey gave him while they were waiting back at the fleet landing for the boat. It was absurd.
“I presume you can prove this?”
“I don’t have to. She’s getting information from someone. It’s you she’s been with. That makes you a security risk. You can save yourself and the Navy a lot of trouble by simply resigning.”
Maxwell was getting the picture. DeLancey wanted him to cave in and quit. He considered for a moment, then he reached for the telephone on DeLancey’s desk. “Do you want to call the Judge Advocate General’s office now?”
“JAG? Why?”
“You’re going to be a defendant in a defamation case. If Miss Phillips doesn’t do it, I promise you I will.”
“This is the United States Navy. You can’t sue your commanding officer.”
“And you can’t have an officer relieved because of your own perverted suspicions. I’ll remind you, Killer, slander is a violation of the military code of justice.” He picked up the phone and held it out it to DeLancey. “Want me to make the call? Might as well get started.”
The smile was gone from DeLancey’s face. “Don’t pull that lawyer shit with me. We both know that you’re banging that reporter. And we both know that one way or another, I’m gonna get you busted out of here.”
“Thanks for the warning, Skipper. Will that be all?”
DeLancey glowered at him in silence.
Maxwell turned on his heel and left.
<>
“When?” Tyrwhitt asked.
“Soon. Two weeks. Perhaps a month.”
“That’s pretty indefinite.”
“What do you expect?” the man snapped. “A printed time table? This is Iraq.”
“Of course. I’m sorry.”
Tyrwhitt reminded himself to be careful. Don’t push too hard. The man was obviously sensing danger. He might get spooked and run.
As arranged, they met in the old souk, the one in the north part of the city near the B’aath building. This time the man was already in the stall, examining carpets. He had purchased one cheap Persian and was fiddling with another.
He seemed more edgy this time. Tyrwhitt gave him a moment to calm down. “Do you know the source?”
“North Korea. Probably by way of Afghanistan.”
The usual suspects, thought Tyrwhitt. The fraternal brotherhood of terrorist countries.
“How are they delivered?” asked Tyrwhitt.
“Overland, by truck at night. You know about Iraq’s oil business?”
“I thought Iraq was forbidden to export oil.”
“It’s quite clever, really,” said the man. “They use these trucks with tanks welded to the long flat beds. Every night they transport the refined oil across the desert. They deliver it to the Kurds in the north, Shiites in the south, to the Iranians in the northeast.”
“Iraq’s sworn enemies?”
The man shrugged. “Capitalism thrives in strange circumstances.” Tyrwhitt thought he glimpsed a wry smile beneath the man’s cloaked face. In the shadowed stall, he couldn’t see the man’s face clearly, but that voice — yes, it could be. The colonel he met at the minister’s reception.
“They sell it at one-quarter the world price,” the man went on. “The oil is forwarded to depots in Turkey and Jordan and Iran and resold at twice the amount. Everyone makes money. For the return trip, the tanker trucks are flushed and converted to dry cargo carriers. The trucks haul goods over the desert back to Baghdad.”
“What goods?”
“Items that the sanctions have denied Iraq. Everything from canned food to drugs to ammunition.”
Tyrwhitt was beginning to get the picture. “And missiles?”
“Of course.”
It was so obvious — and workable. High tech weaponry was being smuggled along the same ancient routes used by nomadic traders for the past thousand years.
“Do you know what type?” Tyrwhitt asked.
“Kraits. The new, long range version, manufactured in China. They now have at least ten with mobile surface launchers. I know of two more that have been prepared for air launch.”
Tyrwhitt tried to fix the numbers in his mind. The information was too vital for him to get it wrong. “What about warheads? Do they have any?”
The man didn’t answer right away. “Everything the coalition suspected that Saddam had, he has.”
“You mean —”
“Anthrax. Sarin gas. Botulinim toxin. Aflatoxin. Weaponized and ready for munitions delivery.”
Tyrwhitt nodded. It was worse than he expected. Everyone knew that Saddam had biological weapons, despite the efforts of the United Nations inspection teams. But no one seriously believed that he had the means to deploy them. How could this be going on without the coalition’s intelligence services picking it up? Or had they?
Great Christ almighty, thought Tyrwhitt. Biological weapons, deployed aboard missiles. That meant urban and industrial targets. The populated centers of Iraq’s enemies — Tel Aviv, Kuwait City, the military and commercial complexes of Saudi Arabia — all within range of the Krait missiles.
To use such weapons against civilians would be the most heinous crime in history. Surely Saddam knew that retribution would come from —
Tyrwhitt caught himself. There had to be more. Of course there was. Biological weapons would not be effective against well-prepared military sites, especially armored and moveable sites like aircraft carriers.
There was more.
Tyrwhitt had to force himself to ask the next question. “You said ‘everything the coalition suspected.’ Does that mean Iraq possesses —”
“Nuclear warheads?” For the first time the man looked directly at Tyrwhitt’s face. The intense brown eyes seemed to peer right into Tyrwhitt’s thoughts. “Certainly. And he will use them.” The man sniffed and turned his face away. “Tyrwhitt, must you always stink of whiskey?”