Phantom Strike

by William H. Lovejoy

  The wide, straight runway of Nellis Air Force Base aligned itself with the C-130.

  “Outer markers,” Jordan called off. “One-two-five AGL, two-eight-zero knots. You going to use the whole damned runway?”

  “You want to do the flying?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell them we’re down, and go to Ground Control instead.”

  “We’re not down yet.”

  “Details.”

  A quarter-mile beyond the end of the runway, Ban-flared the C-130, idled the big turboprops, and settled easily onto the concrete. The main gear rumbled and vibrated through the fuselage.

  “I’ll bet they don’t often see a Herc with decorative stripes putting down here,” Barr said.

  “Let’s just hope they don’t go checking tail numbers, Bucky.”

  Like the phony Noble Enterprises logo, the Hercules transport also carried a tail number that had arisen from someone’s imagination.

  As the speed bled off, Jordan switched to the Ground Control frequency.

  “Nellis Ground Control, Lockheed two-nine checking in.”

  “Two-nine, Nellis. I’ve got your plan here. You’re not staying with us for long.”

  “Roger that.”

  “Ah, two-nine, take the second turnoff to the left, go right on the taxiway and straight to the end of the taxiway.”

  “Two-nine, wilco,” Jordan said.

  Barr eased in his brakes, and reversed the prop pitch to slow his forward speed, then turned off the runway.

  Jordan shed his headset, unbuckled his harness, and crawled out of his seat.

  “This chickenshit outfit even has Navy commanders doing loadmaster duties,” he said.

  Barr grinned up at him. “How many loadmasters get the same pay?”

  “There are compensations,” Jordan said, then went back and dropped down the ladder from the flight deck.

  As Barr neared the end of the taxiway, he saw the ramp down indicator flash on as Jordan started to lower it. Ahead, off to one side, were two Jeeps with canvas-covered trailers. After he passed them, he toed in the left brake, goosed the starboard throttles, swung the transport around 180 degrees, then idled his way back to the Jeeps and set the brakes.

  Both Jeeps, with one driver each, started their engines and drove out of his view toward the rear of the aircraft. He felt the slight jar as Jordan dropped the ramp the rest of the way to the ground.

  The fuselage tilted a little as each of the Jeeps backed their trailers into the cargo bay, unhitched, and drove out again. Loading both trailers took less than four minutes, then the Jeeps departed.

  On the intercom, Jordan told him, “Ramp’s coming up. I’ve still got to chain these babies down, but if you drive real slow, I can do it on the move.”

  “Oh, Ainsworth, here we come,” Barr sang, “right back where we started from…”

  “And don’t sing,” Jordan ordered.

  *

  Except for Ace the Wonder Cat, Janice Kramer was alone in the office. It was after ten o’clock, and outside the window, the lamps in the parking lot lit up only half-a-dozen cars, her Buick Riviera among them.

  The hangar was locked up and darkened. The only light in the office spilled from the desk lamp under which Ace rested and from the screen of her computer.

  Ace got up, turned end-for-end, flopped down again, and tucked his head under his forepaw.

  Kramer finished her last paragraph and saved everything to disk.

  “That, Ace, is a magnificent piece of writing. Creative writing.”

  Ace didn’t say anything.

  She picked up the phone and dialled the number of the Sandy Inn.

  It rang only once.

  “Wyatt.”

  “Andy, are you hooked up?”

  “Just a second, Jan.”

  While she waited for him to connect the modem of his portable computer, she called up the communications program and selected the files she would send.

  “Okay, darlin’.”

  “Coming your way.”

  She zipped the data off to Nebraska, then waited while he read it on the screen of his computer.

  “Looks good,” he said. “You do wonderful things.”

  “I can’t believe that I, a member in relatively good standing of the New Mexico Bar, wile away my nights creating illegal documents.”

  “You’re not doing it,” Wyatt said. “Somebody else will. Somebody who’s probably also a member of the bar.”

  “How about the roster?”

  “It’s still the same. Go ahead and send it all to the number.”

  “What if I’m ever asked to testify against you, Andy?”

  “We’ll just have to get married.”

  “You said you weren’t ever getting married again.”

  “It’s better than jail,” he said.

  But not much better, from his point of view, she knew. He was perfectly happy with their relationship, roaming when he wanted to roam, or had a contract to chase, and spending as much time in her condo as he did in his own. She had thought that it would work for her, also, but sneaky bits of doubt had been creeping into her mind in the last few months.

  Maybe she wasn’t truly a ’90’s woman.

  “When do I see you again?” she said.

  “I’ll try to get back in the next couple of days.”

  “I miss you.”

  “Me, too.”

  She hung up, then used the computer to dial the 202 area code number. When she had the connection, she began sending each of the files to the Washington computer.

  There was a file for each man taking part in the operation. In addition to a passport photograph, the file provided a short biography of the man along with his vital statistics, address, phone, and occupation.

  The photo and statistics were correct, but everything else was the product of her imagination.

  The last file provided a detailed cover story, what the spooks called a legend. From all of the information, whoever was the expert in this sort of thing would develop the necessary documents: passports, credit cards, driver’s licenses, Social Security cards, purchase orders, aircraft paperwork, insurance coverage, and probably even matchbook covers that agreed with particular hometowns.

  Kramer had done this ten or eleven times before, but never on such a scale. Usually, it was a team of two or three. She had the distinct impression that the larger the operation was, the greater were the odds of something going wrong.

  This one didn’t feel good.

  Somebody wasn’t coming back.

  And she loved them all.

  Especially Andy.

  *

  Formsby wore a pale blue Oxford broadcloth shirt of soft cotton, khaki slacks, and a khaki Safari jacket. His low-cut leather boots had cost him ninety pounds Sterling, but then his footwear was always expensive, handmade so that the left shoe or boot supported his ankle adequately.

  He thought he was dressed appropriately for Rabat. Later he would prowl the marketplaces for souvenirs or perhaps even something useful. In the afternoon, he would stroll the waterfront, taking in the sights, and adding to his knowledge. He wished he had time to go to Casablanca, simply because he had never been there before.

  If Formsby had a stated goal in life now, it was to go where he had never been before. At one time, the objective had been to fly anything and everything with a wing and a power plant. That was no longer to be, and he was fairly successful at erasing the desire from his mind.

  His travel goals were well supported by his salary, and he was grateful for that. On top of which, his job did not interfere unduly with his life.

  Today, he had two tasks.

  He approached the first by sitting on the edge of his bed in his hotel room, picking up the telephone, and asking the operator to place a call for him.

  Fifteen minutes ticked by before the connection was made. The telephone rang, and the operator told him in broken English that he might proceed.

  “Hello?” the v
oice on the other end asked.

  “Carrington-Smyth here.”

  “Ah, yes. How are you?” Muenster asked.

  “Quite well, thank you. I’m calling to see if the pieces have fallen into place.”

  “Finally, yes. A couple of the pieces were difficult to find, but I have succeeded.”

  “And the paperwork?”

  “Is all but complete,” Muenster said.

  “It is trustworthy?”

  “To the highest scrutiny.”

  “And the cost?”

  “It will come to one-point-eight. American, of course.”

  “Of course. However…” Formsby let his voice trail off.

  “Ah,” the German laughed, “there is always a ‘however.’ Did you have another figure in mind?”

  “I did indeed. My mind was firmly set at one-point-two.”

  “That is, I am afraid, quite impossible.”

  They haggled for a quarter hour before arriving at one-and-a-half million dollars. Muenster gave him a long number that Formsby recognized as a Swiss bank account number. He knew also that it would be only a receiving account, and the funds would be immediately transferred out of it, floating off to an account whose number was far more secret.

  “Half-and-half,” Formsby said.

  “That is agreeable. And the destination?”

  “The location will be forwarded along with the first payment.”

  “Excellent, Mr. Carrington-Smyth. It has been a pleasure.”

  “Quite,” Formsby said and hung up.

  He stood and straightened the hem of his jacket. Now, he would walk the bazaars in search of something useful.

  Perhaps one hundred thousand litres of JP-4 petrol for jet engines.

  And tanker trucks to haul it.

  And someone to drive the trucks several thousand miles into the desert.

  It was not an insurmountable problem.

  He had solved similar ones in the past, and as Director of Logistics for — whatever it was this time, Noble Enterprises? — he had no doubt whatsoever that he would find that for which he was searching.

  *

  Newly promoted Lieutenant Colonel Ahmed al-Qati bought some new uniforms before he left Tripoli. He had left almost everything he owned in El Bardi, and he did not want to get caught somewhere in the desert without a change of uniform.

  He thought about calling Sophia, the Italian girl he had met in Tobruk, then decided against it. She seemed to him to be very sophisticated, and he did not want to appear too eager.

  Al-Qati had a military truck take him to the airport in time to catch a ride on the weekly Aeritalia G222 transport to Marada. It was over six hundred kilometres away, and the flight took two hours. At the small airfield in Marada, he was met by a driver with another truck, and they drove for another two hours to the northwest over roads that were barely defined from the surrounding desert.

  Twice, he saw mounted Bedouins topping dunes on their camels and was reminded of his heritage, now withered and gone, if not forgotten.

  The Marada Base, which was actually 120 kilometres from Marada, was difficult to pick out as they neared it. The only visible signs were the small concrete bunkers containing antiaircraft guns, surface-to-air missiles, and radar and radio antenna complexes, along with the single wide and long runway. The runway was finished in camouflage colours that matched the desert surrounding it, but al-Qati was certain that America and Europe knew exactly where it was as a result of their satellite surveillance.

  The base was not hidden, but it was protected.

  Marada Base was underground.

  From the runway, the taxiways led to slanted ramps that allowed the aircraft to descend some twenty meters below ground level. They were parked in caverns protected by blast-resistant doors and hardened steel-and-concrete roofs covered with many kilotons of sand.

  Al-Qati had toured the facility once, and he knew that the Libyan Republic Air Force had deployed to the base its twelve Sukhoi bombers, as well as two squadrons of MiG-23 interceptors and MiG-27 strike aircraft.

  His driver pulled directly onto a taxiway, scooted across it, and followed the ramp downward to pass through the huge doorway created by the shunting aside of the thick steel sliding doors.

  He braked to a stop next to what, after his briefing, al-Qati now very well knew was a Sukhoi bomber. The driver pointed to a doorway in a concrete wall.

  “The headquarters is through that door, Colonel.”

  “Thank you.”

  He climbed down from the truck, taking his canvas carryall with him. Compared to being in the direct sun on the desert floor, it felt relatively cool, inside the hangar. Banks of fluorescent lights bathed the bunker in non-glare light. A large contingent of specialists of one kind or another moved among the four fighter-bombers in this hangar, performing maintenance chores.

  Moving to the steel-clad door, he pulled it open and entered a hallway. There was a rudimentary air-conditioning system in use, and the corridor was perhaps ten degrees cooler than the hangar.

  Halfway down the hallway, he found the operations room, peopled with air controllers and radar operators. Next to it, set off by a window wall, was Ramad’s office. Al-Qati left his bag in the hall, crossed the operations centre, and knocked on the glass door.

  Colonel Ibrahim Ramad was at his desk, his head bent low over the papers spread across it. Al-Qati thought the man was probably a bit near-sighted, but too vain to acknowledge the deficiency. He was, to be kind, portly. His waist approximated his chest in circumference. His uniform, though crisp, did not seem to fit him well.

  Ramad’s face was moon-shaped, and he wore a moustache and goatee in the attempt to elongate it. The hair on his face and on his head was thin and brown. His nose was hooked and dominant, and his eyes were brown, but in the right light, appeared to flame with redness and lack of sleep.

  Upon hearing his knock, Ramad looked up, smiled, and waved him in. He stood up to come around his desk and embraced al-Qati as if they were long-lost brethren. Or even friends.

  “Ahmed, it is good to see you.”

  “As it is to see you, Colonel.”

  “Nonsense! I congratulate you on your well-earned promotion, and you must call me Ibrahim.”

  Al-Qati nodded his thanks.

  “I have, naturally, been notified that we will work together to coordinate air and ground movements, and I am excited at the prospects.”

  “As am I,” al-Qati lied.

  “Come. I must show you what we have, and then we will find a room for you. Tonight, you will meet my staff officers at dinner.”

  Ramad led him back out of the operations room, back down the corridor, and back into the hangar. Crossing the floor between the aircraft, they reached yet another steel door — this one some two meters wide — in the back of the hangar.

  On the other side of it was another corridor. It was five meters wide and four meters tall. On the right, it was dead-ended. Spaced along the opposite wall were more doors. On al-Qati’s left, it seemed to go on forever, the walls narrowing with perspective, and the end a pinpoint never to be reached.

  “This leads to the factory,” Ramad said, “twenty kilometres away.”

  “An amazing achievement,” al-Qati said and meant.

  “All open excavation work was accomplished at night, so that surveillance satellites would not detect the activity. I am very proud of what we have accomplished.”

  “As well you should be, Ibrahim. Why did you make it so large?”

  “We have electric-powered transports, and the tunnel had to be wide enough to allow them to pass each other. Otherwise, we would get bottlenecks.”

  “I understand. It is well-done.”

  “Come.”

  Ramad crossed the tunnel to another wide steel door imprinted with Arabic lettering: “Entrance denied to non-authorized persons.”

  He produced a key and unlocked one of the double doors.

  They stepped inside.

  Rama
d turned on overhead lights.

  It was a large room, dismal in its concrete finish. The air carried a sour odour.

  Around its perimeter, resting on wheeled cradles, were dome-nosed canisters.

  Al-Qati recognized the yellow skull-and-crossbones symbol stencilled on them.

  He stepped close to the nearest canister and read the legend: “Poison Gaseous Elements. Extremely Hazardous. Move with Extreme Caution.”

  “Are they not lovely?” Ramad asked him.

  Five

  After five days, they were settled into the routine that was necessary to accomplish the job, They were up by five, had breakfasted at the Rancher’s Cafe and Lounge on pork sausages, bacon, eggs, pancakes, waffles, wheat toast, muffins, hash browns, orange juice, and gallons of coffee, and carrying their large boxes of lunch, were ensconced in the hangars by six. At seven or eight o’clock at night, they trooped back into the Rancher’s Cafe to order stacks of hamburgers, or steaks, or chicken, or veal cutlets surrounded by baked potatoes, homemade fries, and Texas toast. Not many in Wyatt’s work force were fans of green peas, com, or broccoli. Max Jorgenson doubled his order with the Budweiser route delivery truck. When they came in at night, they were sweaty and tired and ragged, and most ambitions were aimed at showers and clean sheets.

  Bucky Barr was getting to know Julie Jorgenson well. She wasn’t nervous around him anymore, and after they had eaten, she would sit with him and talk about her life in Ainsworth, her hopes, and her dreams. Barr was a good listener.

  Out at the old bomber base, the locals who hung around the airport office had become accustomed to having them down the way, and if they were still curious, were polite enough to not press inquiries into the activities at Hangars Four and Five.

  The Cessna Citation and the Aeroconsultants C-130 were parked in front of the hangars, and their thin blue fuselage stripes had disappeared, replaced by two parallel and wider, bright scarlet stripes that zipped along the fuselages, then swooped at a steep angle up the vertical stabilizer. The Noble Enterprises logos on the tails were also in red. The Hercules tanker was parked next to them, but it still wore its Air Force uniform.