“And then it turns out she wasn’t dead anyway.... So we have our theory about what Manchester is going to do. What are you going to do?”
“We.”
Molly gave him an appraising glance. “We?”
“Whatever I do, I don’t want to do it by myself.”
“What is it you don’t want to do by yourself?”
“I have no idea. I need to sleep for three or four days—”
“We should start our own law firm,” Molly said. She leaned forward. Her eyes sparkled. “We did so well for Admiral Billings, I’m sure we could get clients.”
Dillon grinned at her. “Especially if we work for free. We’d be full up with work in about a day.”
“I was thinking of actually charging for our—”
“I liked working for free,” Dillon said, drinking deeply from his water glass. “It gave me a feeling of independence.”
“Jim, you can have any job you want. Any job in the country.”
“I just want to get my life back in order,” Dillon said.
“How?”
“By figuring out a way to get you to say yes.”
“That might not be that hard,” Molly responded. “I’m done with Washington. It won’t get in the way.... I’m proud of you. You did an incredible job. Coming from the court-martial to the impeachment. Just unbelievable. Especially after Pendleton died. I wouldn’t have been able to go on.”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“You still handled it. I’m proud of you,” she said again.
“Thanks,” he said. “Let’s get out of here. I feel like I’ve been indoors for a year. Can we go for a walk?”
“Sure. Where?”
“The mall. Between the Capitol and the Washington Monument. Sort of a farewell.”
“Farewell?”
“Whatever we do, it won’t be here. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
He stood up and put money on the table to cover the check. “Let’s go look at our breath in the moonlight and think of somewhere beautiful to live, where we can raise a bunch of kids.”
“Will that be enough? Will it satisfy you?”
“It will.” He held her coat for her. “You will.”
Acknowledgments
I want to express my thanks to many people who gave me support, help, and encouragement through the completion of this book. Several people read the manuscript and gave me good advice, in particular my father, James A. Huston, Anne Marshall Huston, Dianna, my wife, and Don and Kim Chartrand. Once again Robin Ellis was invaluable, in typing the several drafts.
Invaluable technical advice was given to me by many, including Chief Warrant Officer G. Mike Johnson, U.S. Navy SEAL; GMCS Carlos Sandoval, U.S. Navy SEAL (retired); CTRC Paul Singleton, U.S. Navy (retired); Ed “Otto” Pernotto, of the Phalanx Group; and Jason S. Hadges, former Lieutenant U.S. Navy, JAG Corps. Several U.S. Attorneys were helpful, including Robert J. Conrad, Assistant U.S. Attorney in Charlotte, North Carolina; Eric Acker, Assistant U.S. Attorney in San Diego, California; and Joe Valder, Assistant U.S. Attorney in Washington, D.C., Transnational and Major Crimes Section.
Thanks also to Krister Holladay, Legislative Director for the Speaker of the House, who provided wonderful insight and assistance in understanding Washington, D.C., and the House; Kevin Cooper of Senator Glenn’s office who helped me with impeachment trial procedural rules; and Michael Gerhardt, Professor of Law at William and Mary School of Law, whose knowledge of impeachment history and procedure is unparalleled.
I want to express my deep appreciation and thanks to my agent, David Gernert, who continues to do more for me than I could ever have hoped.
I am also grateful to Paul Bresnick, my editor at William Morrow, whose insight and guidance made this a better book.
More than anything else, I thank God.
About the Author
A graduate of TOPGUN, JAMES W. HUSTON flew F-14s off the USS Nimitz with the Jolly Rogers. He served as a naval flight officer and worked in naval intelligence before becoming a lawyer and the acclaimed author of Balance of Power, The Price of Power, Flash Point, Fallout, and The Shadows of Power. He lives in San Diego, California.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.
Praise for JAMES W. HUSTON’s explosive blockbuster
BALANCE OF POWER
“If you like Tom Clancy, you’ll love Balance of Power…
Huston’s military thriller hits the ground running … The pace is fast and the suspense is gripping as his story careens toward a guns-blazing, here-come-the-marines climax.”
Washington Post Book World
“A heart-stopping story of military action combined with Washington politics and law.”
Library Journal
“A fascinating book … I heartily recommend it.”
Rush Limbaugh
“Hardball politics and deadly force—fire and gasoline in a terrific, fast-paced debut novel.”
Stephen Coonts
“A great read … fast-paced … engaging and clever … James W. Huston may be stepping into territory dominated by Tom Clancy, but Huston more than stands his ground.”
CNN online
Books by James W. Huston
SECRET JUSTICE
THE SHADOWS OF POWER
FALLOUT
FLASH POINT
THE PRICE OF POWER
BALANCE OF POWER
FLASH POINT
by James W. Huston
An early look at Flash Point by James W. Huston
The dirty white van sputtered and stalled as it approached the Gaza checkpoint. The driver looked harried as the van stalled. He leaned forward and tried to start it quickly. The engine caught, turned over, and stalled again. He glanced in his mirror and ahead of him at the other traffic.
One of the Palestinian security guards watched him out of the corner of his eye as he waved two, then three, cars through the border checkpoint without looking at the occupants. He was concerned the van would block the morning’s commuting traffic, the thousands of Palestinians who crossed into Israel every day to work the menial jobs the Israelis were unwilling to do. Less well known was the fact that Palestinians also held important positions in Israel—in management, technical, and professional positions—which brought a lot of money to the struggling Palestinian state.
The Israeli soldiers on the other side of the border were much more serious about the traffic crossing into Israel. Exhausted from unending vigilance in the face of interminable boredom, they imagined a mad bomber in every car. They carried their M-16s in their hands ready to fire and sweated under their bulletproof vests. To them Gaza was just a large Trojan horse.
The van had created a gap between it and the border. Only a lonely Fiat stood between it and the checkpoint, which was close enough that no one else could go around. The Palestinian guard glanced toward the checkpoint and walked to the van. The van lurched, then started to move, inching along. It sat with its engine chugging reluctantly, waiting for the Fiat to pass through, which was now thirty feet in front of it.
The rusty Fiat passed through and the van was next. The van shuddered and the engine quit. The driver turned the key and the starter noisily cranked the engine. It wouldn’t catch. Again and again he tried, without success. The engine turned over, but there was no spark. The Palestinian guard angrily approached the window. “What is the problem?” he asked gruffly in Arabic.
“I’ve had some engine trouble—” the driver replied, also in Arabic.
“Move it or we’ll push it into the ditch! You’re blocking the road!” The road into Israel was crowded. The bright morning sun was low in the eastern horizon, in the eyes of the Palestinian guards.
“Yes, yes. I’m trying…” The driver leaned forward as if lending his own energy to the van. He turned the key with his right hand, and reached subtly under the dash with his left and flipped a switch. The van chugged to life with half its
cylinders working. The driver smiled at the guard in apology and began moving slowly toward the checkpoint. It was clear it would take him a long time to make it.
“Get this thing off this road!” the guard finally yelled, exasperated with the slowness of the stupid white van that was blocking the entire checkpoint. The Israelis watched and waited with concern. Anything out of the ordinary received humorless, intense scrutiny; any problem, any angry outburst, anything.
The driver nodded, surrendering, and began a Y turn to go back the way he had come, hoping the van wouldn’t stall. The Palestinian guard stood with his rifle in one hand and the other hand on his hip watching in disgust. The driver turned the van around and headed back toward Gaza City, apparently abandoning his hope of driving all the way to Tel Aviv. He reached under the dash again, and the van’s engine coughed and died. The guard approached from the right side of the van and was about to yell at him when the driver raised an enormous handgun and fired through the guard’s bulletproof vest. The guard was thrown back from the van onto the dirt next to the road, where his legs jerked involuntarily.
The rear doors of the van flew open and eight men rushed out with large machine guns. Each bullet made a distinctive, unusual sound as it flew toward the Israeli and Palestinian guards. The guards fell quickly as the bullets tore through their bulletproof vests. The eight men fanned out and fired precisely, aiming at the targets each had been briefed to hit. The Israeli guardhouse on the other side of the border was splintered, the guards inside shredded. The cry went out for Palestinian and Israeli reinforcements on both sides of the border. Six Palestinian guards lay dead on the Gaza side.
The shooters stood staring at the dead guards, as if waiting for something. An Israeli Armored Personnel Carrier raced toward the border from its safe point a half mile away. There was a loud metallic sound inside the van and the shooters stepped away from the opening. A TOW missile flew out of a tube bolted to the deck inside the van. The wire that carried the guidance information to the missile trailed behind it as the shooter who fired the TOW guided it to the Israeli APC. It slammed into the belly of the armored vehicle, sending flame and debris into the desert air and killing the Israeli soldiers inside instantly.
The eight shooters were unharmed. The Palestinian and Israeli soldiers at the checkpoint were dead, but dozens of others were rushing toward the border from their safe positions. The shooters ran back to the van and drove through the closing rear doors. The driver threw the two switches under the dash and the finely-tuned, eight-cylinder engine roared to life. The van sped off toward Gaza City.
An Israeli truck neared the border. Several soldiers were standing in the back and began firing at the van. The M-16 bullets, small but fast, slammed into the back of the van but fell harmlessly as they bounced off the van’s inner lining of Kevlar. Small chips of rubber flew off the solid tires as the bullets hit, but it didn’t slow the van at all.
The van sped down the highway toward Gaza, back the way it had come, as a Palestinian security truck raced toward the border and the retreating van. Too late, the truck driver realized the target was the van that was about to pass them. The truck slowed but the van raced by, untouched. It reached the outskirts of the city and made a sharp turn into an alley. Another van pulled in front of the entrance to the alley, blocking it completely.
The white van stopped deep in the alley and the eight men and the driver walked quickly away blending in with the other passers-by who were completely unaware of what had happened. Each of the shooters now wore clothes different than he wore during the attack, and each left his weapon lying on the floor of the van next to the TOW launcher. They climbed into waiting, unremarkable sedans and disappeared.
“Hey Wink,” Lieutenant Sean Woods said into his oxygen mask.
“What.”
“This our last intercept of the night?”
Wink looked at the clock on the instrument panel in the back seat of the F-14. “Probably.”
“Want to have some fun?” Woods asked mischievously.
“Always.”
Woods glanced at his fuel indicator. They were fat. “You ready?”
“I’m ready,” Wink replied, then immediately transmitted, “Two Zero Seven’s ready.”
“Roger. Victory 207 your bogie is 284 for forty two, angels unknown,” Tiger replied. The bad guy—their wingman—bore 284 degrees from them, forty-two miles away, and the controller didn’t know their altitude.
Wink slaved his radar toward the left side of the Tomcat’s nose as Woods pulled around hard to the west in a three G turn. Wink picked out their wingman while still in the turn: “207, contact 284 for forty. Judy,” Wink transmitted, taking control of the intercept. Lieutenant Vialli and Sedge, his RIO in their F-14, were forty miles away and advancing at the same speed.
“Roger, out.”
The radio went silent. Woods changed the mode on his Horizontal Situation Display to show the radar picture Wink was seeing in the back seat. He immediately knew what kind of intercept Wink would run. He checked his fuel ladder, a group of boxes he had drawn on his knee-board to keep track of how much fuel he would need to get back aboard the carrier. They had fuel to burn.
“What’s his altitude?”
Wink ran the joystick forward and hooked the target on the round computer screen. “Twenty-three.” Twenty-three thousand feet above the ocean.
Woods pushed the throttles forward to the stops—as hard as the engines could work without afterburner—and pulled the nose of the Tomcat up ten degrees above the horizon.
The green glow of the screens reflected on their clear visors. The night was as dark as any could be and still be illuminated by stars. Moonrise wasn’t for another hour. The overcast cloud layer below blocked any light from the sea, not that there was much in the middle of the Mediterranean.
“Want to take him down the throat?” Wink asked.
“May as well since we’re coming in high, but we’ll need a little angle.”
The F-14 climbed hungrily into the cool night sky. “Think they’ve got us?”
“Sure,” Wink replied.
“Then they’ll know what we’re up to?”
“If they’re paying attention. But it’s the last one; they’re the bogie. May not notice our altitude. Starboard to 300 to build up some aspect angle.” Wink wanted to come in from the side so they could roll out behind their target.
Woods turned the F-14 gently as he continued to climb. He steadied on a heading of 300.
“Okay, come port to 278.”
Woods complied as they passed through thirty-four thousand feet, still climbing. He instinctively looked behind him to see if they were leaving contrails. He quickly realized he couldn’t see them in the darkness even if they were there. They continued to climb straight ahead without speaking until they were at forty thousand feet.
“Ten miles,” Wink said. “We’ll start our normal intercept turn to kick him out about seven miles or so, then back in around five.”
“Roger,” Woods said, leaning forward to see down but unable to pick out his wingman far below. “What are their angels now?”
Wink looked again. “Ten.” Five miles below them.
“That asshole,” Woods said smiling under his mask. “They’re sitting on the overcast.”
“We’ll just have to start down earlier, and watch our speed.”
“Piece of cake,” Woods said, grinning at the thought of screaming down thirty thousand feet in the dark upside down.
“Starboard hard,” Wink called.
Woods turned the F-14 steeply but carefully in the thin air. After passing through whatever heading Wink was watching for, he called for a hard port turn.
Woods pushed the stick hard left until the Tomcat was on its back. He pulled back on the stick and let gravity pull them down toward the earth. He looked up through the canopy toward the darkness below and saw Vialli’s red anti-collision light. “Tallyho,” Woods said.
“Got him,” Wink said
looking up. “We’re nearly on his line. Pull straight.”
“Roger,” Woods said, leveling the wings upside down. He pulled back on the stick harder until they were pulling four Gs. Their speed increased through six hundred knots as the nose of the Tomcat pointed straight at the ocean. Woods pulled the throttles back, no longer needing the full pull of the engines; gravity could do most of the work. “Think he’s got us?”
“They may be wondering what the hell we’re doing up here.”
“I doubt it,” Woods said, grunting against the G forces. “How far behind them we going to be?”
“About a mile if you hold this.”
“Perfect.”
“Watch the speed,” Wink said as they passed through 625 knots. Woods brought the throttles back more and pulled a little harder on the stick.
“Passing through twenty,” Wink called calmly.
“You got him locked up?” Woods asked.
“Yep. Why don’t we pull up at fifteen thousand feet, then we can descend to their altitude.”
“Okay,” Woods answered, taking a quick look at the engine instruments. They were still ahead of their fuel ladder. He pulled back harder on the stick and held five Gs to increase their altitude on pull-out. Woods watched the nose of their Tomcat come through the horizon and back up toward the east. The artificial horizon told him he was approaching level flight again. He relaxed the back pressure on the stick and felt the bladders of his G suit deflate against his abdomen and thighs.
“Dead ahead, one mile, two hundred fifty knots closure,” Wink said to Woods, then on the radio: “Fox Two.” The last transmission let everyone know they had completed the intercept and simulated the launch of an AIM-9 Sidewinder heat-seeking missile.
“Want to thump him?” Woods asked excitedly.
“Could get in trouble for that,” Wink said warily.
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