Alpha Kat

by William H. Lovejoy

  “Who knows?” Kimball said. “They’ve all got our brochures and two sets of specifications. They’ve got the demonstration data, and they’ve set up an analysis committee. The committee will study the options for a couple of months, then make a recommendation to some bureau in the ministry.”

  “Yeah, but did you get any personal feedback?” Gander said.

  Sam Eddy responded to the question. “General Haraz, who I think swings a lot of weight, tried to appear neutral. On one side of it, he’s being loyal to his pilots, and maybe to the two French guys who sat through the whole show. On the other side of it, I got the feeling he was impressed. He mashed my hand when we finally said goodbye.”

  “Can we go now?” Soames asked.

  “It’s not going to be any cooler in Riyadh, A.J.,” Kimball said.

  “Not for you, maybe. I’m thinking about my hotel and my bed. Us old guys get wrinkled pretty bad if we don’t get our sleep.”

  “Well, hell,” McEntire said, “if you’re going to get cranky, we might as well saddle up.”

  “I’ll take two-seven,” Gander said, “and shake her out.”

  “She’s mine,” Sam Eddy claimed.

  “Flip you for it.”

  “Not before I flip you.”

  Kimball reached in his pocket, found a quarter and tossed it. “Call it, Jimmy.”

  “Heads.”

  The coin landed on the deck heads up.

  Gander tapped his boot toe against Walt Hammond’s left foot.

  “Come on, Walt. Find me a start cart, so I can get the air conditioner going.”

  Hammond grunted an obscene suggestion about the start cart, but rolled over and got to his feet. The other mechanics, also complaining, began to stir.

  Everybody, including himself, Gander thought, would bitch and moan about the routine duties, but when it came to staying up all night to change an engine, they all got their hands dirty and the complaints were left outside.

  He walked forward to the crew compartment, found his duffle bag, and changed out of his boots. Stripping to his shorts, he donned his Nomex flight suit and then pulled on the pressure suit.

  When he emerged into the sun wearing his Stetson and carrying his helmet, the men from the other transport were also slithering down the ramp, headed for their airplanes.

  He clambered up the ladder of two-seven, pulled the canvas from the canopy, and slid inside. He found a place behind the seat for his hat, and Hammond helped him buckle into the chute and seat harness.

  It was sweltering in the cockpit. The perspiration from Hammond’s forehead dripped on him.

  “Go easy with her, Jimmy, until you’re sure she checks out a hundred percent on all systems.”

  “Got it, Walt.”

  They took longer than usual with the checklist, making absolutely sure all of the switches were in the right position and all of the readouts were in the green.

  They had to wait for a start cart, and when they finally turned the engine, it came to life immediately.

  Gander gave Hammond a thumb’s up, and the ex-master sergeant pulled the chocks.

  McEntire was in zero-eight and signalled with his hand for Gander to pull up alongside him.

  He released the brakes and the Alpha Kat rolled ahead. McEntire pulled out of line, turned onto the taxiway, and Gander fell in off his right wing.

  Ten minutes later, they were climbing through eight thousand feet, and cool air was blasting from the vents of the air conditioning system.

  Things were looking up again.

  *

  Brock Dixon took the next call at a public phone in an Arlington Heights shopping center. Crider had a whole list of telephone numbers and calling times, and none of them were repeated.

  “Negative,” Crider said.

  “What do you mean, negative.”

  “We tried to decommission a jet engine, but they caught it and changed it out. They took off for Riyadh about an hour ago.”

  “Shit.”

  “Couldn’t be helped. Not if you want us to be subtle.”

  “I want you to be subtle.”

  “Soon as we get our flight plan filed, we’re taking off.”

  “Good. Make sure something embarrassing happens, and damned soon.”

  “Subtle, huh?”

  Dixon thought about it. “Maybe less subtle, as long as it appears to be a KAT problem.”

  “That makes it a little easier,” Crider said and hung up.

  *

  It was cooler in Saudi Arabia, but that was because the sun had gone down.

  It also helped to be inside the Hilton, sitting in an easy chair, sucking on a Coke. Soames thought longingly about Chivas Regal poured over four ice cubes.

  His roommate Conrad Billingsly said, “I’m going down the hall and get another Coke. How about you?” Susan and Andrea had doubled everyone up to save on expenses.

  “You suppose the bellboy could find us something more suited to our taste, Connie?”

  “I doubt it, unless you’re talking females.”

  “I’ll have another Coke.”

  Billingsly walked out, leaving the door open a crack, and the phone rang.

  Soames got up and crossed the room to pick it up.

  “Soames.”

  “A.J., it’s Susan.”

  “Hi, Susie.”

  “I tried Kim’s room, but no one answered.”

  “They’re still downstairs, working on dinner. They’ve got a couple Saudi air force officers with them, one of whom is a prince, I think.”

  “Tell me about Chad.”

  Soames related the details of the demonstration, and being naturally circumspect, neglected to mention the sabotage of two-seven.

  “Sam Eddy felt good about it? About the reaction to the demo?”

  “Said he did.”

  “And Kim?”

  “You know Kim. He’s not very speculative.”

  She took too much time framing her next question, he thought, and made it too general. “How are they doing?”

  “About the same as the rest of us,” he said.

  “You know what I mean, A.J. They’re both under a lot of pressure.”

  “About the same as the rest of us,” he repeated.

  “A.J.”

  “Look, Susie, ask your question.”

  “Sam Eddy didn’t look at all well when he left. I thought he might be coming down with something.”

  Soames thought about it. McEntire never seemed to change, at least in any way that Soames had noticed.

  “He’s lost a couple pounds, maybe. Hell, I’ve lost five pounds in this heat, but I needed to lose it. What are you worried about, Susie?”

  “I’m as involved in the company as anyone,” she said. “Can’t I worry?”

  “Feel free,” he told her, and then they spent ten minutes on the details of what was going on in Phoenix. She had upped the working hours of several people. Some avionics systems had been back ordered on them. DJ Alloys wanted more money on account before they would ship the next order.

  “Send them a check,” Soames said. “I’ll clear it with Kim.”

  Billingsly had returned with their Cokes by the time he hung up.

  “All’s well along the Salt River?” he asked in his deep voice.

  “The normal logistics screw-ups, Connie. Abnormal concerns from Susie.”

  Billingsly kicked his shoes off and stretched out on his bed. “In what way?”

  “We both know she’s a bit of a mother to all of us —”

  “Some of us would prefer a slightly different relationship, I think.”

  “My wife has mentioned that possibility and nixed it in my case,” Soames said. “However, she seems particularly worried about Sam Eddy and Kim.”

  “You think she knows something important the rest of us don’t know?”

  “I don’t know what to think. She and Sam Eddy were divorced-almost two years ago. Lately though, she’s been watching him like a hawk.”
<
br />   “Maybe she wasn’t in favor of their divorce?” Billingsly said.

  “What? I thought it was amicable.”

  “Sam Eddy initiated it.”

  “The hell he did. I didn’t know that. With Sam Eddy, it’s usually the other way around.”

  “Yeah. He’s an unreformed womanizer, and he always gets caught. This time, though, he dumped her.”

  “Shit,” Soames said. “Tells you what kind of observer of human nature I am. I thought she’d been making eyes at Kim for the last few months.”

  “Well, that’s true, too,” Billingsly said.

  “Damn it, don’t confuse me, Connie. I thought Susan was the confused one.”

  Billingsly sipped from his can and said, “Nothing confusing about it, A.J. She’s in love with both of them. At least, that’s the way I see it from my limited perspective.”

  Soames tried to recall various interactions in the last year. “Yeah, I could maybe buy that. And Kim hasn’t figured it out.”

  “I don’t think so. Or maybe he missed seeing Paint Your Wagon.”

  “You think Sam Eddy knows?” Soames asked.

  “He knows.”

  “And that’s why he divorced her?”

  “I don’t think so,” Billingsly said, but he wouldn’t elaborate.

  *

  Henry Loh and Jean Franc landed their Cessna A-37 Dragonfly in Rangoon in mid-afternoon.

  The Dragonfly was a two-seater fitted out as an unarmed jet trainer, and Loh liked to fly it when he was going into populated airports. Rangoon Air Control might have rebelled if he had requested permission to land a Mirage 2000 that did not belong to an established air force.

  That would soon change.

  He did not know whether the change would be for the better or for the worse, nor did he care. Henry Loh simply looked forward to the change, to some kind of action.

  After parking the Cessna in the commercial section, he and Franc shut down the systems and opened the canopy. The air was humid and fetid with the aroma of the Irrawaddy River. Standing on the wings outside the canopy, the two of them quickly changed clothes, swapping flight coveralls for short-sleeved khaki shirts and shorts. The garb was almost, but not quite, military uniforms.

  Loh had never been enamored of uniforms, but he suspected that Lon Pot would soon expect his army and air force personnel to become more ceremonial.

  Franc disappeared to pursue one delight or another, and after closing out the flight plan, Loh found a taxi and ordered the driver to take him to the Americanized bar called the Wild West.

  The journey was more death-defying than combat flight. Drivers in Rangoon, as in most of Southeast Asia’s large cities, observed traffic laws as misguided suggestions. Pedestrians and bicyclists were less fellow travellers than targets of opportunity.

  While the streets were crowded and the storekeepers stood on the sidewalks hawking the sapphires, Sony stereos, eyeglasses, and tailored suits of their inventories, Loh thought that there were probably few buyers. The worldwide recession had cut heavily into tourism, and very few of the potential customers were Westerners. When they were, they appeared more likely to have pockets lined with hashish than with American Express cards. Then, too, the civil war had deterred many from visiting the sights of Burma.

  Loh knew that the proportion of poverty-stricken peasants was on the rise, along with inflation. The time was ripe for change, and he felt he had chosen the side that would emerge in control.

  The Wild West Saloon was set back from the sidewalk, its entranceway festooned with an unlikely mix of pepper trees, imported yucca plants, and a papier-mâché Saguaro cactus that had large holes punched in it.

  He paid off the driver with a few more kyat than necessary, walked up the flagstone path to the door, and pushed open both swinging doors.

  The interior was fogged with cigarette smoke, making the full-width bar at the back vaguely more distant. A high-wattage amplifier boomed American country music through ceiling speakers. Some male singer he had never heard before sang about lost love, a typical theme.

  The bar was crowded to overflow with Burmese cowboys, Thai and Burmese whores, ex-patriot Americans and Brits. The mob at the bar was three-deep, and the thirty-five or forty tables were all taken. More people stood around or sidled through the throng on seemingly important errands. He saw at least a dozen blond and blue-eyed giants dressed in the ancient fatigues of Vietnam veterans or deserters. Having made their decisions twenty years before, they had no other place to go now.

  There was sawdust on the floor and the smell of tobacco and marijuana and spilled beer hung in the air. Wagon wheels with lantern globes over forty-watt bulbs were suspended from the ceiling. The bar was twenty meters long, and the back wall was liberally decorated with oil paintings, prints, and photographs of nude women, all Westerners, and all large-breasted.

  Loh stood just inside the entrance for several minutes, allowing his eyes to adjust to the dim interior. When he could see clearly, he scanned the tables and found his quarry.

  There were four of them. They were dressed in slacks and white shirts, but their normal attire would be that of the Burmese Air Force. They were sipping cautiously from bottles of Budweiser beer and surreptitiously watching the entrance.

  He forced his way through the milling crowd, declining three less than suggestive offers from girls who were probably less than fifteen years old.

  Colonel Kun Mauk nodded at the chair they had saved for him, and Henry Loh sat down in it. He waved off the girl serving the table.

  No one offered a greeting. They had known each other for many years, and they knew why he was here.

  Mauk said, “Well?”

  “You will be promoted one grade immediately, and your salaries will advance by half-again what they are now.”

  They all looked at each other, then back to Loh.

  “And there is a bonus.”

  He reached inside his shirt and withdrew four envelopes, somewhat dampened by contact with his skin.

  He glanced around the room, then divided the envelopes and slid them across the table to each man.

  Each slit his envelope and peered within. Loh watched them closely.

  At the sight of the American dollars, no one smiled, but the lines around their eyes eased considerably.

  Mauk asked, “When?”

  “Very, very soon. I will notify you.”

  Mauk looked to the others and received curt bobs of the heads in reply.

  “We are committed,” Mauk said.

  “You have chosen the correct path,” Loh said.

  “If it is not, we will make it so.”

  The statement was one that Lon Pot would enjoy, Loh thought.

  He also thought that his air force had just expanded by sixteen fighter aircraft.

  Twelve

  The Saudis were much better organized, and their military had a great deal more discipline than the Chadians. The military section of the airport, where the Kimball Aero aircraft had been parked, was under constant surveillance by army units patrolling on foot and in jeeps.

  It was a large complex, with long rows of first-class aircraft. Crider recognized Northrop F-5E Tiger IIs, McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagles, Lockheed C-130 Hercules, and some British Aerospace Strikemasters. The activity level was high, with flights of aircraft constantly on the move, taxiing, taking off, landing.

  The Learjet’s twin engines were toned down to a muted roar as Lujan taxied slowly toward the spot where he’d been told to park.

  Crider, Gart, and O’Brian were settled low in their seats so they could get decent views of the ramp where the Alpha Kats were parked. Wheeler and Adage were on their knees in the aisle, peering over their shoulders.

  “Security’s damned tight,” Del Gart said.

  “And it’s a big fucking base,” Alan Adage added.

  His beard could use a shampoo, Crider thought.

  “One of the largest airports in the world,” Crider told him. “The Saudis
have to spend their bucks somewhere.”

  “They could have spent it somewhere other than in the middle of the damned country,” Wheeler said.

  “Christ! I haven’t seen so much nothing in my life.”

  Saudi Arabia was one fourth the size of the United States in land area, but not much of the land area was hospitable. Twentieth Century warplanes broke the sonic barrier directly over nomadic tribes whose routines and way of life had not advanced much past what they were at the time of Jesus Christ. Or of Mohammed, Crider reminded himself.

  The KAT planes slid out of view as Emilio Lujan turned the Lear into a parking place.

  “Any ideas?” Crider asked.

  “We can get plastique?” O’Brian asked.

  “Yeah, I’ve got some contacts around the Gulf. Shouldn’t be too difficult.”

  Gart turned around in his seat to look back at Corey O’Brian. The two munitions experts stared at each other for a few minutes.

  “Fuel tank?” Gart asked.

  “That would be the best and quickest by far, I think,” O’Brian said.

  “No,” Crider told them. “Any goddamned plane can have a fuel tank explode. This has to be a problem peculiar to Kimball’s airplane.”

  “We tried the engine,” Adage said.

  “Control, then,” Gart said.

  “They’re fly-by-wire,” Crider said.

  “What we want,” O’Brian said, “is just the teeniest little charge placed against the electronics box, wherever it is. At speed, the pilot won’t even hear it before he loses control. He may then broadcast his sudden new problem over the air, so everyone knows.”

  “We don’t want it discovered during the post-crash investigation, Corey,” Crider insisted.

  “We’ll give it a couple minutes delay, then the fuel tank goes,” Gart said. “That should obliterate any evidence.”

  “Or fatalities, Del,” Crider reminded him. “We’re supposed to avoid fatalities.”

  “Give it five minutes, then,” the Irishman said. “The pilot can eject, and the plane blows up on crashing. For certain.”

  “I like it,” Crider said.

  “One problem,” Wheeler said.

  “What’s that?”

  “If the guy’s at ten thousand feet, he’s got time to eject. If he’s showing off, flying fifty feet off the sand, that son of a bitch is going to dig a hole immediately.”