Silent Enemy

by Young, Tom

  “In the tail of the airplane.”

  “Have you seen it?”

  “No, but the flight engineer has.”

  Gold worried about how he would take this news, but he did not appear to react at all. Tragic, she thought, that someone so young was so used to death and violence. Mahsoud shifted his eyes from the window to the floor, like he was thinking about something.

  “Rest, Mahsoud,” Gold said. “Do you want me to find something for you to read in English?” Maybe someone had a sports magazine or something.

  “No, thank you.”

  Gold wanted to offer some kind of hope, but there seemed so little reason for it. Still, she tried.

  “I know this pilot, Mahsoud. If there is a way out of this, he will find it.”

  “How do you know him?”

  “Four years ago, I was escorting a Taliban mullah to be interrogated in another country.”

  “In Guantánamo Bay?”

  “I cannot say. But soon after we took off from Bagram, we were shot down.”

  “With this pilot?” Mahsoud asked in Pashto. “And you evaded capture?”

  “We did not evade for long. We were captured by a Taliban militia.”

  “But they did not behead you, obviously. Allah be praised.”

  “Indeed. I have no doubt they would have killed us eventually. American and Afghan soldiers tried to rescue us. They freed Major Parson, but not me.”

  “How did you survive?”

  “I do not tell this story to everyone, Mahsoud. Please keep it between us.”

  “I am honored by your trust, teacher.”

  “My captors tortured me, tried to get me to talk. All by himself, Major Parson came for me.”

  “Then he must be a formidable warrior.”

  “When he needs to be,” Gold said. “But I believe he would rather catch fish and hunt deer.”

  “That is to be admired, if he is capable of violence but does not relish it.”

  True enough, Gold thought. But she wondered if, in the end, it really mattered who commanded this airplane now. Life itself was a flight whose destination you could not know. She looked outside, and her eyes focused on nothing.

  Mahsoud looked out, too. Gold imagined his thoughts were running in the same current as hers.

  “We are trapped between heaven and earth,” he said. “For now, we belong to neither.”

  8

  Parson let his boots rest lightly on the rudder pedals. He peeled off his flight gloves, stretched his fingers wide, and looked at his hand. He thought it almost odd that his body, though very probably doomed, was still healthy and alive. Like a well-designed machine, to his aviator’s mind. Nerves transmitting signals like electrical wiring. Blood vessels carrying fluid set to a precise temperature. His heart a variable-speed, variable-pressure pump. FMC. Fully mission capable.

  Corsica lay beyond the left wingtip, surrounded by a rippling blue Mediterranean. Dots of white in the Bay of Calvi, the sails of pleasure boats. Across the airways up ahead, and getting closer by the minute, was Rota Naval Air Station, Spain. Parson already had his approach plates open to the ILS for Runway Two-Eight. He wondered if he’d ever live to intercept that approach course. And if EOD didn’t hurry up and get back to him with some kind of plan, he’d have to figure out a place to enter holding again.

  He’d also have to shut down that number four engine before descending. Dunne had found a power setting that kept its vibration within limits, so it was okay for cruise flight. But you couldn’t trust it to handle rpm changes while you jockeyed the throttles during an approach, so this would be a three-engine landing. Technically, an emergency by itself, but it was the least of Parson’s problems.

  Before things got busy again, he wanted to speak face-to-face with the MCD. “Your airplane, your radios,” he told Colman. “I’m going downstairs.”

  “Got it,” Colman said.

  In the cargo compartment, the aeromeds fussed over their patients—an Afghan in particular, a bandage over one eye. A little farther aft, Parson noticed a litter that appeared only as a mound of green blankets, the patient’s face hidden. All monitoring equipment turned off and disconnected.

  Parson felt a cold twist in his stomach. He thought he’d made the right decisions with the information he had, but it still hurt to see the consequences right there in front of him. Even if he somehow managed to get this airplane on the ground in one piece, it would mean little to that man’s family.

  The MCD turned away from the Afghan with the bandaged eye, stripped off her latex gloves.

  “Ma’am,” Parson said, “how are things down here?”

  The flight nurse regarded Parson through her glasses, then took them off and let them hang by a beaded silver lanyard around her neck.

  “I shouldn’t have been so hard on you,” she said. “You have a lot on your shoulders.”

  “I appreciate that. So do you.”

  The MCD sighed. “These guys need to get to a real hospital.”

  “What about that patient you had to restrain?” Parson asked.

  “He’s quiet at the moment.” The MCD pointed to a man Flex-Cuffed to a litter. He seemed to be sleeping.

  “Lieutenant Colonel,” Parson said, “I guess you realize when we figure out what to do with that bomb, we’re going to have to depressurize again.”

  The MCD put her hands on her hips, stared as though she were watching something far outside the airplane.

  “Do what you have to do,” she said.

  Parson nodded. He looked at the rows of wounded, wondered which of them he’d have to hurt next. Across the cargo bay, Gold sat talking to that Afghan friend of hers. Parson stepped over cables, around Pelican cases, to get to them.

  “How is he?” Parson asked.

  “I am well, sir,” the man said. It surprised Parson to hear the Afghan answer in English. And he clearly was not well.

  “Major Parson,” Gold said, “this is Mahsoud.”

  Given the man’s injuries, Parson wasn’t sure whether to shake his hand. So he just said, “Nice to meet you. Sorry about the circumstances, though.”

  “A pleasure to make your—” Mahsoud paused.

  “Acquaintance,” Gold said.

  “Acquaintance,” Mahsoud repeated.

  “Your English is coming along,” Parson said.

  Mahsoud looked puzzled at that, but he said, “I have a good teacher.” Then he said something in Pashto. All Parson understood was Gold’s name.

  “He says if you are my friend, then you are his friend,” Gold said.

  “Likewise,” Parson said. He was trying to think of something else appropriate to say to Mahsoud when he heard his own name called.

  “Major Parson,” shouted a loadmaster wearing a headset. “Lieutenant Colman says he needs you upstairs, sir.”

  Damn, Parson thought, can’t he handle ten minutes of straight and level flight? On autopilot, no less? Maybe he should have spent less time at the Air Force Academy playing with falcons and going to football games and more time learning something useful.

  “Talk to you later,” Parson said. He tromped up the ladder, lowered himself into his seat, put on his headset.

  “What you got?” Parson asked.

  “I think you need to hear this,” Colman said. “There’s a C-17 on the way into Rota. They haven’t been able to find a bomb on board, but they took off from Bagram ahead of us. They’re talking to Rota command post on UHF2.”

  Parson pulled up his VOLUME knob for the number two UHF radio.

  “Reach Eight-Two Yankee, Matador,” the command post called.

  “Go ahead, Matador.”

  “Say again your download requirements.”

  “Reach Eight-Two Yankee will need a pax bus for thirty-one passengers,” the pilot said. “Also request a K-loader to off-load three pallets.” The voice sounded almost routine.

  “And your aircraft status, sir?”

  No answer for the moment. Then: “Ah, let’s cal
l it Alpha Three.”

  That’s what I’d say, too, Parson thought. Alpha Three, a grounding condition. Even if they land safely, that airplane needs to be inspected nose to tail with a magnifying glass. With dogs and Geiger counters, too, for that matter. It’ll likely involve every organization from the International Atomic Energy Agency to the Centers for Disease Control.

  “They sound okay so far,” Colman said.

  “Have you heard them say their altitude?” Parson asked.

  “No, but just before you plugged in your headset, they said they were fifteen minutes out.”

  “So they’re descending.”

  Parson imagined the scene on the flight deck of that C-17. Both pilots watching the altitude scroll down on their PFDs. Probably holding their breaths at each ten-thousand-foot increment.

  “Let’s see what they’re saying to ATC,” Parson said. He checked his approach plate, entered the approach control frequency for Rota.

  “Reach Eight-Four Yankee, Rota Approach,” a controller called. “Expect the ILS, Runway Two-Eight.”

  “We’ll look for the ILS to Two-Eight,” the pilot acknowledged.

  A few moments later, the controller called, “Reach Eight-Four Yankee, fly heading two-four-zero and intercept the localizer. You’re cleared for the ILS to Two-Eight.”

  No answer.

  “Reach Eight-Four Yankee, fly heading two-four-zero for the localizer.”

  Static.

  “Reach Eight-Four Yankee, Rota Approach. Radar contact lost. Squawk ident, please.”

  Nothing.

  “Reach Eight-Four Yankee, do you read?”

  Parson looked across the console at Colman, who stared back. The copilot looked shaken. Dunne leaned back in the engineer’s seat, clicked a ballpoint pen, slapped a clipboard down on his table. The sky outside seemed to burn, the richest blue Parson had ever seen.

  A call on interphone interrupted the silence in Parson’s headset: “Pilot, MCD.”

  “Ma’am?” he said.

  “I heard that radio traffic. Let’s just keep this quiet.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Parson said. Then he added, “All right, crew, you heard the lieutenant colonel. If you were on headset for what just happened, don’t spread it around. There’s nothing anybody can do about it now, anyway.”

  MAHSOUD WAS SLEEPING AGAIN. Gold took the blanket that covered his good leg and pulled it up farther, across his chest.

  She pondered that news report about how the Taliban said it had infiltrated the police. Such a bitter disappointment to hear the attackers might have had help from the inside, but Gold knew she shouldn’t be surprised. Her literacy classes were part of a larger program to professionalize the National Police. However, she sometimes wondered if the culture of corruption and incompetence was just too pervasive. How much good could a recruit like Mahsoud do if no one else cared? And even if you made some progress, as she thought she had, it was so easy for the enemy to destroy it. The work of years set back by the flip of a switch.

  Out the window, sunset smoldered on the horizon. Gold felt the plane turn, and she hoped that meant they were getting close to Rota. Maybe Parson would get some instructions from EOD and this thing would be over. The wings leveled for a while, banked, leveled. The sunset drifted by again. So we’re flying in circles, Gold surmised. Dear God, will this never end?

  Mahsoud stirred, opened his eyes. “Hello, Sergeant Major,” he said in English.

  “Hello, Mahsoud.”

  “You look troubled, teacher.”

  “I will be all right.”

  “Has your friend, this pilot—” Mahsoud switched to Pashto. “Has your pilot friend let you tour the aircraft?”

  “He has.”

  “I wish I could see it. I have never flown before.”

  What an awful shame he can’t go upstairs, Gold thought. He’d be so fascinated. Mahsoud seemed to be interested in everything.

  That gave her an idea. She went to the baggage pallet, found her backpack, took out her digital camera. If she couldn’t bring Mahsoud to the cockpit, she could bring the cockpit to him. A weak gesture, but maybe it would give both of them something to think about, something to put into their minds to dilute the dread. Parson had already said it was all right to take pictures. There was probably not much classified equipment in an airplane this old.

  Up on the flight deck, the crew seemed intent on their tasks, but their motions conveyed little urgency. Without hearing the conversations on headset, Gold considered, one might think this all looked routine. Parson was talking on the radio, looking back at Dunne’s panel. Dunne scanned gauges, read from a manual the size of the Boston phone book. Colman sipped water from a bottle.

  Gold didn’t want to interrupt them, so she just raised her camera and took a photo. When the shutter clicked, Dunne looked at her as if she had lost her mind, but he did not object. He was probably wondering why anyone would take photos at a time like this, Gold thought.

  The aircraft was over land now. On the ground below, Gold saw a black ribbon of highway. Cars like ants. A train inched along, a brown caterpillar on rails.

  Gold snapped another photo, then another and another: the view out the windscreen. Parson, with his hand turning a knob on the center console. Colman, backdropped by cockpit windows. Dunne at his flight engineer panel, with its scores of switches and indicators.

  As long as they don’t mind, Gold thought, it doesn’t matter if they think it’s weird. Mahsoud would enjoy seeing the photos if he felt like sitting up. But Gold was starting to worry about the pain he sometimes had breathing.

  He’d probably have to talk about the photos in Pashto, since his English wasn’t yet fluent enough to cover higher concepts and unfamiliar objects. It always amused her the way he’d switch between English and Pashto in the middle of a conversation. He’d pause to reset his mind, then continue. It was like watching the hourglass symbol on a laptop screen as the computer searched its files. Gold understood why he did that. A foreign language wasn’t just a different set of words; it was a different way of thinking.

  Back downstairs, Gold found Mahsoud raised up on his elbow. Wide awake apparently, perhaps feeling better. She pressed the REVIEW button on her camera and showed him the shot of the ground.

  “That’s what Spain looks like,” she said. “Or maybe it’s southern France.”

  “Beautiful,” he said in English.

  Gold advanced the camera and showed him the photo of Parson. Mahsoud studied it with interest. Then the photo of Colman and his side of the cockpit.

  “A marvelous piece of machinery,” Mahsoud said. Pashto now. “But can you go back to that photograph of the earth?”

  Gold returned to the first photo.

  “It is so very green,” Mahsoud said. “Is it always this way?”

  “No. In the winter it is brown, but before that comes the fall. The leaves turn red and orange. It is even more beautiful. My home, called New England, is known for these colors.”

  “I cannot imagine anything finer than this green.”

  At first, Gold was surprised that Mahsoud showed more interest in the photo of the ground than the pictures of the cockpit. But she remembered he was from Helmand province. Though northern Afghanistan was mountainous and somewhat green in summer, southern Afghanistan’s desert, including parts of Helmand, could look like the moon.

  “This place you are from in America,” Mahsoud asked, “why is it called New England?”

  “The first settlers came from England and that is what they named it.”

  “And your pilot friend. Where is he from?”

  “Major Parson is from the American West. A state called Colorado.”

  “Ah,” Mahsoud said, “a cowboy.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And what about the other fliers? Where are they from?”

  “I do not know.”

  Mahsoud looked at her strangely. She thought she knew why. To an Afghan, home and tribe defined you. Anyone
you met on friendly terms would tell you about his home. Mahsoud could no more imagine American rootlessness than she could imagine a life of illiteracy spent under a burka.

  The sunset came around again. Mahsoud looked out at it and said, “It is time to pray.” Then he added, “May I ask a favor, Sergeant Major? Could you bring my Quran?”

  “Certainly.”

  Gold found Mahsoud’s duffel bag and brought the silk-wrapped book, careful to hold it with her right hand. She knew Mahsoud could read only a little of its Arabic, but he seemed to enjoy merely running his eyes and fingers over words given to Muhammad directly from God. Perhaps now he might find in its suras something he could understand well enough to bring him comfort.

  Gold gave Mahsoud a few feet of space for privacy and watched him while he prayed. She had no trouble reconciling her own religious beliefs with her admiration for traditional Islam. God revealed himself to different people in different ways. Gold loved the English prose of the King James Bible, translated from Greek and Hebrew. And though she was not fluent in Arabic, she knew enough to grasp some of the Quran’s poetry. How marvelous it must be to a native speaker.

  When Mahsoud finished praying, he began to leaf through the Quran. Then he stopped, looked down, and picked up Gold’s camera. He began reviewing the photos again, and Gold moved closer to see. Now he was looking at the cockpit shots. He stopped on the one with Dunne at the flight engineer’s panel.

  “What is that on his table?” Mahsoud asked. “It looks like the portable computers all you Americans carry.”

  “I do not think it belongs to Sergeant Dunne,” Gold said. “It is part of the airplane, and I believe it is affixed to that table.”

  “Can it send and receive things on electronic mail?”

  “It can. It has brought us a lot of bad news today.”

  “Teacher,” Mahsoud said, “I have an idea.”

  9

  The fighters flew above and ahead of Parson now. They appeared so small he could hardly distinguish them from blemishes on the windscreen until they turned in their own holding pattern. Then their wing flash revealed them as a pair of scythes arcing through the sky.