Fly by Night

by Ward Larsen

  Davis said nothing. He just stood there, hoping she’d see him as the strong silent type. Not the befuddled speechless type. She began twirling a pair of wet red panties on her finger. He was debating the merits of ducking when she stuffed them into the bottle and shoved the cork in place.

  “We have nothing to write with, but perhaps this will make our message clear, no?”

  “Crystal,” he replied.

  She giggled before tossing the bottle over her shoulder and out to sea.

  “Come in,” she said, “the water is wonderful.”

  “I don’t have a bathing suit either,” he reasoned weakly.

  “Precisamente!”

  Davis thought, What happens in Sudan stays in Sudan.

  He stripped off his shirt, and was reaching for the button on his trousers when a voice called from down the beach.

  “Doctor Antonelli!”

  It was a young girl Davis had never seen. She was running and waving her arms frantically. She blurted something to Antonelli in Arabic. The doctor issued what sounded like instructions, and the girl did a quick about-face and began running back to the village.

  Antonelli looked at Davis forlornly.

  “Bad news?” he queried.

  “Actually, good news. A young woman has gone into labor.”

  “Now?”

  “These things do not wait.” She pointed to her clothes lying in the sand. Davis retrieved them, rolled up the legs of his pants to the knee and walked out to sea to hand them over. There was more wriggling as Antonelli reapplied her top and bottom.

  “But …” he hesitated, “are you okay to deliver a baby?” “After a few glasses of wine, you mean? I would never do it if there was a choice. But here, and at this moment, there is not. I am the only physician they will find.” Antonelli stood up, her clothes dripping with saltwater and clinging to her body in amazing ways. “Besides,” she said, “such things have a way of sobering one up.”

  “Yeah. I’ll bet they do.”

  They waded ashore, and Antonelli started back to the village on a brisk jog. He let her go ahead, and called out, “Is this what it’s like being married to a doctor?”

  “Yes,” she shouted over her shoulder.

  Standing ankle deep in the Red Sea, half naked, Davis looked up to the sky. He saw a shooting star streak overhead.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  “Where the hell is he?” Darlene Graham shouted.

  Larry Green had been summoned to the West Wing Annex for a second time, only this meeting was distinctly less enjoyable. He’d never seen the DNI rattled before, so he was sure she was getting pressure from above. For her that meant only one person.

  “I don’t know,” Green said. “My last two calls to Davis went unanswered.”

  “Well let me give you an idea of what he’s been up to. We got a complaint from the Sudanese embassy. Apparently there was a fight at a security checkpoint outside the airport two nights ago. A big American beat the hell out of a squad of soldiers. Two are still in the hospital. The Sudanese ambassador is not happy. He insists it was the air crash investigator we sent over.”

  Green said, “Jammer would never do something stupid like that.” He thought, Damn it, Jammer. Why do you always do something stupid like that?

  “He was supposed to keep a low profile,” Graham continued. “How will he get anything done if they throw him in jail?”

  “Darlene, Jammer doesn’t see the world like we do. You have to understand how he works.”

  The director only stared.

  “Let me tell you a story. A long time ago, he and I were scheduled to fly out to the range to drop some practice bombs. In the briefing, he told me he could hit a target without even using his heads-up display. I said bullshit, so we bet a beer. We went out and flew, and sure enough on his first pass, shack. He hits the truck. Then the second and the third. I didn’t believe it, so in the debriefing afterward I looked at his gun camera film. No heads-up display data, no death dot or dive scale. No calculation of any kind. All he used was a visual sight picture and intuition. Somehow the man flew over a target at four hundred knots and dropped his bombs at precisely the right millisecond. Three bull’s-eyes.”

  “And you’re telling me that’s how he’s going to operate here? Intuition?”

  Green spread his arms, palms up. “My point is, I don’t understand how he works. All I know is that he gets results.”

  Her tone softened, “Okay, listen. We haven’t heard from our source in two weeks. Our communications link seems to have failed.”

  “Could the source have been compromised?”

  “It’s a possibility. But it means that right now Davis is our only set of eyes in that country, and in less than two days the most important meeting in a generation is going to take place in Egypt. If there’s something in that hangar, something that could throw a wrench in the works in any way, I have to know what it is. The president has to know.”

  “I understand. I’ll do everything I can to get in touch with Jammer. But let me make a suggestion.”

  “Go.”

  “Even if we get in touch with Jammer, I don’t know how much he can do. We should defend against the worst-case scenario.”

  “Which is what?” Graham queried.

  “Let’s assume FBN Aviation is a front for some kind of attack. We know they’ve acquired airplanes, telemetry equipment, and flight control hardware. It’s not out of the question that they’re trying to turn a DC-3 into some kind of flying bomb. Or there could be suicide pilots involved—Davis told me FBN has been training Sudanese kids from scratch. We’ve been worried about that kind of thing for a long time.”

  There was a long pause before Graham said, “What do you think the target would be?”

  “In that part of the world it seems obvious enough—something in Israel. And since terrorists love symbolism, they’ll probably hit on the very day that the Arab countries are meeting to discuss a wider peace. It would steal the headlines, trash the whole process.”

  “You’re right about that.”

  Green realized his thinking had reverted—he was talking less as a crash investigator and more as a general. “We need to put the Israelis on alert so they can establish strict air cover. They’re good at it—no sixty-year-old airplane would ever get through one of their defensive counter-air screens. Not even if FBN launches their whole fleet.”

  “All right,” the DNI said. “I’ll put that forward to the Joint Chiefs. If they agree, well pass it across.”

  “And we can help out,” Green said. “We need a carrier nearby.”

  “Two already in the neighborhood.”

  “So there you are. With all that surveillance, there’s no way anything could get into Israeli airspace without being seen. Not a chance.”

  “Where the hell is he?” General Ali’s voice cannoned over the speakerphone.

  Khoury was in his office, Hassan hovering at his side. Khoury was exhausted, having been up most of the night. A few fitful naps had done nothing to refresh his outlook. Now, at six in the morning, the general was sounding reveille.

  Khoury answered, “We have not found him yet.”

  A stream of obscenities assailed the air. Khoury waited for the tirade to pass, then said, “But we have discovered that a truck he has been using was seen a number of times at an aid clinic outside town. It is the same clinic from which your soldiers were …” he paused, “acquiring supplies.”

  “So get over there and track him down, you fool! This is no time to have an American spy running free!”

  The line went dead.

  Khoury took a long, tired breath. One word clattered in his head—spy. Could it be true? Having met Davis, Khoury had trouble envisioning the American as any kind of secret agent. A soldier, perhaps. Even a killer like Hassan. Certainly nothing more. Still, the general was in a dangerous mood, the pressure clearly getting to him. There was no choice. All it took was a nod, and the huge Nubian turned on a heel and strode purp
osefully outside.

  As soon as he was gone, Khoury began to think more positively. If Hassan could learn where Davis was, Khoury would simply forward this information to General Ali. The army was best suited for that kind of hunt. If Davis was found, they would have one more American to parade in front of the world. And if not? Nothing changed, as far as Rafiq Khoury could see. No one could stop events now.

  Hassan arrived at the Al Qudayr Aid Station in a flurry of dust and noise. He jumped out of the Land Rover and was immediately flanked by two Kalashnikov-toting young men. Hassan led to the biggest tent, where an old woman in nurse’s clothing came forward to challenge him. She was rail thin but had steel in her eyes, the kind of confidence often displayed by matrons who thought they’d seen every trouble life had to present.

  “What do you want here?” she said, her tone confrontational.

  A sea of less confident eyes watched from around the tent.

  “Are you in charge here?” Hassan asked.

  “No.”

  Hassan reached out with his massive hands and grabbed the woman by the neck. He began to squeeze and her eyes bulged, looking like they might come out of her head. She turned red, then purple. She slapped helplessly at Hassan’s massive forearms. He lifted her off the ground and looked around the tents, waiting for someone to come forward.

  “Stop!” a voice shouted. A young man in doctor’s scrubs crossed over from an adjacent tent. He walked with authority, but stopped a good ten paces away.

  Hassan eased his grip ever so slightly. Gurgling noises leaked from the nurse’s gullet, like an animal in its death throes.

  “An American named Davis was here two days ago. Where is he now?”

  The doctor hesitated, so Hassan cut off the gurgling. His victim began to lose all color.

  “He went to the coast with one of our staff doctors.”

  “Where?”

  “The village of al-Asmat. Now let her go, please!”

  Hassan seemed to consider the request. He released the nurse’s neck, shifted his hands down to her waist and raised her over his head like a human barbell. Hassan sent her flying toward the doctor who, to his credit, tried to catch the poor woman. The two tumbled to the dirt in a rolling heap of hospital attire and stethoscopes.

  Hassan kicked over an empty cot and strode away.

  When Davis rose the next morning, his waking thoughts were the same as when he’d faded off. Regina Antonelli. He hoped the delivery of the child had gone well. Even more, he hoped she was free again for dinner tonight. She’d been in his mind increasingly each day, but last night had reached a new plateau. It was a nice reboot for his outlook on life, a nice diversion from his troubled investigation. Now, however, the stark reality of another day’s light was pouring into his window, and Davis was forced back to less pleasurable concerns.

  He sat up quickly, a minor mistake as his lower back clenched into a hard cramp. His head remembered the wine as well. Davis had no idea what time it was, but a look outside made it clear he’d already overslept his agreement with the old man—Meet me at the boat at sunrise.

  Davis washed in a stone basin and donned his loaner shorts. Having dried overnight, they were stiff enough to stand on their own, but that would change as soon as he jumped back in the sea. Outside he found a breezeless morning, the sea air seeming even heavier than yesterday. Davis plodded over the hot sand with bare feet, something that wouldn’t be an option in another hour. The old man was waiting, sitting on the gunnel of his boat and whittling a gnarled piece of wood with a pocketknife. Whatever he was making, it was nothing artful. Rounded and with a handle, his project had the distinct appearance of utility, perhaps a reel for hand-line fishing. The old man wasn’t the sort to waste time, something Davis appreciated.

  When he looked up and saw Davis, there was no recognizable expression, no annoyance at having had to wait. The old man simply put down his work, hopped off the boat, and went to a heavy canvas bag that was sitting on the hot sand.

  Davis stopped right in front of him, and for the second day in a row said, “Good morning.”

  The old man nodded without looking, then began extracting scuba gear from the bag. At least Davis thought it was scuba gear. There was a regulator with two accordion hoses, the kind that wrapped around both sides of your head and met in a mouthpiece. It looked like something Jacques-Yves Cousteau would have put in his garage sale fifty years ago. There was no backup octopus rig, no depth gauge or buoyancy compensator. The lone air tank, gray and corroded, didn’t even have a plastic boot on the bottom to keep it upright. Beggars can’t be choosers, Davis thought. He hooked up the regulator to the tank, opened the air valve, and heard a brief hiss as the system charged with pressure. Then he heard another hiss, this one softer. One that didn’t stop. He found the leak in the right-hand air hose, just under a stencil that warned of something in Cyrillic.

  The old man was looking at him.

  Davis lifted a foot, and used a flat hand to imitate a swimming fin. “Any fins?”

  The old man shrugged. Not a chance. There was a slight gleam of anticipation in his gaze. Davis supposed the old guy had a great time last night telling his buddies how they’d spent their day on Shark Reef. And he probably couldn’t wait to see what lunacy the big American was going to come up with today.

  Davis shut off the air and put his hands on his hips. When he’d asked for scuba gear this wasn’t what he’d had in mind. It was probably something the Soviets had left behind back in the Cold War days. Khrushchev’s Cold War days. There was no pressure gauge, so Davis didn’t know much air he had. There might be enough for an hour on the bottom, or he might have five minutes. In the end there was really no choice. This was likely the only diving gear in a hundred mile radius. For sure, the only gear he was going to find today. So Davis was committed, because even one minute with the wreckage might give him his answer, might explain why X85BG had made its last touch-down fifty feet beneath the Red Sea.

  “I thought you could use this.”

  Davis turned and saw an angel carrying a big cup of coffee.

  He took it with reverence. “Bless you.”

  “Sleep well?” Antonelli asked.

  “Always.” He took a long hearty sip. “So did the village population go up by one last night?”

  “Two.”

  “Twins? Good thing you were there.”

  “There are midwives. That’s how it’s been done for a long time. But yes, a little training always helps.”

  He sipped again while he looked over the scuba gear. “So how much did I pay to rent this stuff?”

  “One hundred U.S.”

  Davis shook his head. “I guess the pirate culture is alive and well in the Horn of Africa.”

  The old man said something to Antonelli.

  She relayed to Davis, “He says you must go soon. The air is heavy today, and rain may come in the afternoon.”

  “Rain? It does that here?”

  “On occasion.”

  “Tell him I need a few things before we go. Half a dozen plastic jugs, empty, the bigger the better. A screwdriver, a hacksaw, and maybe a claw hammer.”

  Antonelli stared at him quizzically.

  “Hand tools work just as well underwater. The jugs act as salvage buoys. If I find something I want to bring up, I can tie them on and fill them with air.”

  As Antonelli passed on the request, Davis picked up two fist-sized lumps of coral from the beach and dropped them into the boat. The old man didn’t bat an eye as he walked off. He was probably having great mental fun picturing what Davis was going to do fifty feet underwater with saws and hammers and rocks.

  “So are you free for dinner tonight?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “Barring any new arrivals. But there is one bit of sad news.”

  “What’s that?”

  “There will be no wine. Apparently we drank all they had in the village.”

  “Wow. I’ve never single-handedly drunk a town dry before.�
��

  “You had my help.”

  “Right.”

  “Will you be long?” she asked.

  “Five hours, maybe six. It depends on how much air is in this tank.”

  Antonelli studied the equipment. “It looks quite old.”

  “It belongs in a museum.”

  “Is it safe?”

  “About as safe as the airplanes I’ve been flying lately.”

  She gave him a rueful glare.

  Twenty minutes later Davis was seated backward in the boat, the old man steering by Mr. Gamun’s instructions. Back on the beach, he saw Antonelli give a subdued wave. Davis returned it. He liked the doctor. Liked her a lot. In some strange corollary, he even found himself wondering if Jen would like her. But that was a question for another day. Right now Davis had to plan.

  Not knowing how long he would have on the bottom of the sea, it was important that he prioritize his inspection of the wreckage, consider which parts of the airplane to study first. The cockpit was high on the list because he needed to know who’d been flying X85BG. He suspected it was a pair of Sheik Khoury’s Sudanese contingent, although according to Boudreau and the others no crewmembers other than the Ukrainians had gone AWOL. Still, somebody had flown the airplane from Khartoum to its watery grave. Hopefully somebody with a wallet or a passport, something to explain who they were and what they’d been doing. Davis also had to look at the configuration of the airplane. Were the gear and flaps extended? Had the engines been shut down? He’d look for obvious signs of distress, like a damage pattern from a missile strike, or soot from a fire. Anything to tell him what tragedy had befallen the last flight of X85BG.

  More importantly, anything that would tell him what the hell Rafiq Khoury was up to.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  When they arrived at the crash site, the old man tossed over an anchor—actually a concrete block on a rope—and Davis dove in with only the mask. He spotted the wreckage instantly. Mr. Gamun had them right on the spot. Davis clambered back into the boat and began to don the scuba gear. The harness consisted of a collection of straps and a metal ring to hold the tank in place. Sized medium at best, the rig fit over Davis’ shoulders like a dog bridle on a horse. Even with the straps fully extended, he had to leave two buckles unlatched, flapping by his hips. He decided it was secure enough to keep everything in place for one dive.