Iron Gate

by Richard Herman

  ‘It’s a condition that comes ... and goes,’ he said. ‘You do make it hard ... to carry on a casual conversation.’

  Elena tilted her head to one side and looked him in the face. ‘Americans,’ she fumed. ‘I told you before that I hate clothes. Now concentrate ...’

  ‘I am,’ he promised her.

  ‘... on the subject. A woman like Elizabeth Gordon is complex. She is very capable and determined to be successful. But she is still a woman. At one moment she will be all business, doing what is demanded by her work, doing her best. But at another moment, and with the right man, she wants to be romanced, touched, petted, and made love to. In Gordon’s case, it becomes complicated because she uses sex, or the image of sex, to get what she wants.’

  ‘What does that make her?’ Pontowski muttered.

  ‘Men use money and force to get what they want,’ Elena replied. ‘What does that make them? Matt, never confuse money, lavish dinners, or sex for that matter, with power. You must read every situation correctly and never be confused.’

  ‘Like now?’ he asked. Elena did not respond, letting him sort out his confusion. ‘By the way,’ he grumbled, ‘what does all this have to do with you arranging an invitation for Gordon?’

  ‘Because like most of us she wants to be included, not excluded. Once included, she becomes a friend and ally. Did you see the crushed look on your little camerawoman’s face ...’

  ‘She’s not my camerawoman,’ Pontowski interrupted.

  ‘... when she was excluded?’ Elena finished.

  Pontowski’s blood pressure skyrocketed into the stratosphere as Elena stood up and walked to the big window. ‘Come here,’ she murmured. He was across the room in a few easy strides. She came close, facing him, almost touching. He felt a bare foot move briefly against his right calf. Her hands moved into his jacket and she pushed it off his shoulders, letting it fall to the floor. He felt her fingers tug at his shirt buttons.

  ‘You’re wrong. She is very much yours.’ Her hands were on his chest, rubbing him. ‘Like now,’ she whispered.

  *

  The aroma of freshly brewed coffee nudged Pontowski awake. He fought the irritation that always came with the morning and tried to go back to sleep. Then he realized where he was and sat up, looking for his clothes. They weren’t in the room and for a moment, he couldn’t remember where he had left them. By the fireplace, he told himself.

  Elena padded into the room wearing a man’s white shirt and carrying a silver tray with the coffee. ‘Relief,’ he muttered.

  ‘They tell me you are a bear in the mornings,’ she said, sitting down on the side of the bed.

  ‘Who told you that?’ he grunted. ‘It’s not true.’

  She arched an eyebrow at him, poured a cup of coffee, and handed it to him. ‘And you don’t take cream or sugar.’ Her intelligence was accurate. ‘Matt, we do need to talk.’

  ‘Like last night?’

  ‘I hope you remember what it was about.’

  He sipped at the coffee, in desperate need of a caffeine jolt. ‘Elizabeth Gordon,’ he mumbled.

  She crossed her legs and watched the sheet covering his body. She was getting the wrong reaction. ‘Matt, concentrate.’

  ‘I’m trying. It helps when you wear clothes.’

  ‘Favorable media coverage is essential if we are to succeed. Gordon does not like you and will be a problem.’

  ‘That’s an understatement.’

  ‘Matt, you must control her or we will fail.’

  ‘How do you propose I do that?’

  Elena sighed. He wasn’t paying attention. ‘By including her.’

  ‘And that will do the trick?’ He made no attempt to hide his sarcasm.

  ‘There is also her photographer,’ Elena said. ‘The one with the unfortunate name. You must use her.’

  It all came together for Pontowski. ‘I get the message. Like you’re using me.’ He stared out the window. ‘Elena, I’ll cooperate with Gordon, but that’s as far as it goes.’

  Elena sighed. Americans were so naive. She reached over and touched his chin. Her touch was warm and soft as she turned his face to hers and kissed him lightly on the lips. ‘Matt, I am very fond of you.’ She stood and dropped her shirt to the floor. ‘Come, let’s take a shower. It’s Sunday and I want to show you the Cape of Good Hope.’

  *

  Elena stood by the wall overlooking the South Atlantic. The wind whipped at her dark hair, captivating Pontowski. My God, he thought, she’s so beautiful. She pointed to the south, her hand gracefully sweeping the far horizon. ‘The next land is Antarctica,’ she told him. ‘Over two thousand miles to the south.’ She pointed to her left, to a spur of land jutting into the ocean. ‘That is Cape Point. There’ — she pointed to her right, to the west, to another point of land — ‘is the Cape of Good Hope.’

  Pontowski stood there, possessed by the sight. ‘Can you imagine,’ he said quietly, ‘how Vasco da Gama must have felt when he turned eastward? When he finally made it after all the others had failed and after years of trying?’ For a brief moment, he was there, standing on the deck as the little ship came about, turning from south to east, its yards creaking in the wind and the bow plowing through the deep blue water.

  ‘Matt, you’re a romantic.’

  He grinned. ‘Yeah, I guess so.’ Then the moment was gone and they walked down the long flight of steps to the parking lot below.

  *

  It was dark when they returned to Elena’s apartment and the light on her answering machine was flashing, demanding her attention. She hit the playback button and they listened. ‘This is Captain van der Roos calling for General Pontowski. It is 6.45 Sunday evening. The general is needed at the air base. It is an emergency.’

  What happened to my radio? he thought. He checked it and discovered it was turned off. ‘Oh, no,’ he moaned. ‘Elena, I need to get to the base ASAP.’

  ‘I’ll drive you,’ she said. For once, he was glad she had a heavy foot.

  The base was alive with activity when they drove through the gate. Ground crews had already uploaded two Warthogs with three external fuel tanks, giving the A-10s an extended range, and a full-scale weapons generation was underway for the remaining ten birds. A small group of South African Air Force officers and sergeants were watching the hectic, but very controlled, minuet as dozens of maintenance and weapons personnel performed what looked like a miracle. They had never seen so many warbirds made ready for combat so quickly.

  Tango Leonard was waiting for Pontowski and Elena inside the COIC. ‘What’s going down?’ Pontowski asked.

  ‘The Blue Train is under attack,’ Leonard told them. ‘It’s stopped somewhere south of Bloemfontein. That’s all we know. When I couldn’t find you, I ordered a load out and called the aircrews in. Intelligence is trying to talk to their South African and UN counterparts, but no one’s answering the phone since it’s Sunday.’

  ‘How did you find out?’ Pontowski asked.

  ‘Piet called. He was looking for you and trying to find de Royer too. Apparently, the general went horseback riding and is out of radio contact. That was an hour ago.’

  ‘Damn,’ Pontowski muttered, disgusted with himself. He had been distracted by lust and not paying attention to business. He should never have been out of radio contact with the command post. He thought for a few moments. ‘Elena, see what you can find out. Use our phones in the command post.’ Leonard called the new pilot, Waldo Walderman, over to escort her into the command post. Waldo was more than happy to oblige. Pontowski motioned for Leonard to follow him into Intelligence.

  ‘Technically,’ Pontowski told Leonard, ‘this is none of our concern and it’s a matter for the South African government. But they’re afraid of a mutiny if they order their forces to fight other South Africans. And according to the ROE, we can’t do a damn’ thing anyway.’

  ‘We can always do a visual recce,’ Leonard replied.

  ‘Good thinking,’ Pontowski told him. ‘Let’s
do something, even if it’s wrong. Get two Hog drivers in here and a C-130 pilot.’ Leonard made it happen and within minutes, two A-10 pilots, Jim ‘Bag’ Talbot and Diego ‘Gorilla’ Moreno, were in Intelligence. Lydia Kowalski was right behind them.

  ‘Brenda Conklin,’ she told Pontowski, ‘is getting my crew together and they’ll be right in. We brought night vision goggles and flares with us. Give the word and I’ll have Maintenance rig the flare ramp.’

  ‘Where the hell did you get flares and a flare ramp?’ Leonard asked.

  ‘It’s part of our WRM,’ Kowalski told him. WRM, or war reserve material, was part of every wing’s essential go-to-war capability. ‘We’ve been stuck with it since the end of the Vietnam war. It was taking up space in a warehouse and our Resource Manager was more than glad to send it with us.’

  ‘Whose idea was that?’ Pontowski asked.

  ‘Mine,’ Kowalski answered.

  ‘Get it loaded,’ he ordered. Kowalski grabbed a phone and made the call.

  Leonard shook his head. ‘It’s almost the twenty-first century and we’re using 1950s technology.’

  ‘That’s what you get when you fight a war on the cheap,’ Pontowski told him.

  Brenda Conklin came in with the C-130 crew. Except for the navigator, all were women. ‘Okay, troops,’ Pontowski said, ‘here we go. We know the Blue Train is stopped and under attack someplace south of Bloemfontein. We’re launching a recce package of two Warthogs and one Herk to get a UN presence in the area. Tango, I want you on board the C-130 as the airborne commander. You run the show from up there and use the SatCom radio to downlink with us.’

  ‘What about the ROE?’ Bag Talbot asked. ‘Other than look, we can’t do squat all up there.’

  ‘I’ll try to get it changed and relay through Tango,’ Pontowski replied.

  ‘How we gonna find the train?’ Gorilla Moreno asked.

  ‘Follow the railroad tracks,’ Kowalski muttered.

  ‘With that piece of shit you call a radar?’ Gorilla replied.

  ‘Stan can,’ Brenda told him, pointing at her navigator, Stan Sims.

  ‘If we had Mavericks,’ Gorilla said, ‘we could use its IR.’ The Maverick was a guided anti-tank missile with a cooled infrared tracking and guidance head. Until the Maverick was launched, a video monitor in the cockpit displayed whatever the Maverick saw. It was a poor man’s forward-looking infrared that could see into the night.

  ‘Get a training Maverick with no warhead uploaded,’ Pontowski said. ‘Launch in thirty minutes. Work out the details once you’re airborne. Get going.’ He motioned for Leonard to wait while the others filed out.

  ‘You’ll have to play this one by ear, Tango. That’s why I want you up there. Just don’t make the situation worse than it is.’

  Leonard looked at him, very worried. ‘Boss, this has all the potential to be a real goat rope.’

  ‘Tell me,’ Pontowski muttered. Then, more hopefully, ‘Be flexible.’

  ‘The key to air power,’ Leonard quipped.

  *

  Bag and Gorilla clambered down from the crew bus and walked toward their waiting jets. ‘I feel sorry for that poor bastard flying as Kowalski’s navigator,’ Bag said.

  ‘Why’s that?’ Gorilla answered.

  ‘Shit-oh-dear, the crew’s all wimmen. How’d you like to be in a flyin’ whorehouse?’

  Gorilla laughed. ‘Sounds good to me.’

  *

  Sunday, March 8

  Near Colesberg, South Africa

  *

  The radio calls sounded crisp and professional as the formation headed north, toward the city of Bloemfontein. Kowalski’s C-130 led with the two A-10s loitering along in trail. Below the aircraft, the Great Karoo had struck an alliance with the night and swallowed up most traces of life. But at rare intervals a cluster of lights contended with the dark, fighting the primeval force of the land. High above, the sky shimmered with unfamiliar constellations and held the promise of a new day.

  Leonard stood behind the navigator on board the lead Hercules, impressed with Stan Sims’s radar technique. What looked like a faint string of lights etched a path from the top of the scope to its center. ‘This is the railroad track,’ the navigator said, tracing the string with a pencil. ‘These bright returns’ — he pointed to a cluster of pinpoint lights — ‘are buildings. Hold on ...’ He played with the controls. ‘Tallyho the train.’ A bright return at the top of the scope was snaking down the string. The navigator stomped the intercom button on the floor. ‘Found the train,’ he announced to the crew. ‘On the nose at twenty miles.’

  Leonard picked up his night vision goggles and moved behind Conklin who was flying in the right-hand seat as copilot. ‘I don’t think those will do much good until we get a lot lower,’ she told him.

  Leonard thought for a moment and called the A-10s. ‘The train is twelve o’clock at twenty. Anything on your RHAW?’ The RHAW, or radar homing and warning gear, warned them of any radar activity, hostile or friendly.

  ‘Negative,’ Bag answered. ‘Too far out for the Maverick.’ The IR on the Maverick was short-ranged, good for six to seven miles at the most.

  ‘Time to earn our flight pay,’ Kowalski told Leonard. ‘Let’s take ’er down for a look-see.’

  ‘Hold on,’ Leonard said, considering his options. He wasn’t ready to put any aircraft at risk for a reconnaissance mission. ‘Lay down a string of flares and put some good old-fashioned light on the situation. See if you can raise Groundhog on the SatCom and advise them we’ve found the train.’

  Kowalski started the descent while Conklin radioed Ysterplaat. Groundhog answered with the inevitable reply of all command posts. ‘Standby one.’

  *

  Sunday, March 8

  Ysterplaat Air Base, Cape Town

  *

  Pontowski and Elena were in the command post talking to de Royer on the telephone when the C-130 reported it was in radar contact with the train. ‘Any instructions for Colonel Leonard?’ the command post controller asked.

  ‘Tell him I’m working the problem.’ Pontowski spoke into the phone. ‘General, we found the train. It’s a hundred nautical miles south of Bloemfontein. But according to Pendulo, we have no authority to intervene. So unless there is no change to the ROE, I’m going to tell the A-10s to do one pass, visually check out the train, and return to base.’

  ‘Pendulo is on the train,’ de Royer told them. ‘My staff was able to contact him by telephone before they found me. Unfortunately he had lost control and made no sense. He only screamed for help until the connection was broken.’

  Pendulo feels differently when it’s his skinny ass getting shot at, Pontowski thought. But there is absolutely no way I’m going to stand around and listen to politicians Monday morning quarterback this and claim we committed an act of war against the South Africans. ‘How long ago did you lose contact with Pendulo?’

  ‘Over an hour,’ de Royer answered.

  ‘And no one in the government has responded?’ he asked. Elena told him she couldn’t get past the single operator on duty. ‘Then someone had better make a decision,’ Pontowski told them. ‘Because without a change to the ROE, I’m recalling my birds and throwing the entire matter in the government’s lap.’

  ‘What do you want?’ Elena said.

  ‘The right to self-defense,’ he answered. ‘Someone shoots at us, we shoot back. Period.’

  ‘D’accord.’ Agreed, de Royer confirmed.

  ‘I can’t allow that without talking to Minister Pendulo first,’ Elena said.

  ‘So be it,’ de Royer said, his words frozen in ice. ‘General Pontowski, recall your aircraft immediately. Madame Martine, you can discuss the matter with Monsieur Pendulo’s successor next week.’

  Well, well, Pontowski thought. De Royer is an equal opportunity employer. He treats everyone the same.

  A long pause. ‘I agree,’ Elena finally said. She put the phone down and walked out of the command post.

  �
�Thank you, General,’ Pontowski said. But the connection had been broken. He turned to the command post controller. ‘Tell Colonel Leonard he has the right to self-defense and can return fire if anyone shoots at them.’

  The controller gave him a thumbs up as he passed the word to Leonard.

  *

  Sunday, March 8

  Near Colesberg, South Africa

  *

  Bag Talbot watched the flashing red anti-collision light on Kowalski’s C-130 as she maneuvered for a flare run over the train. He called his wingman, Gorilla Moreno, over to a discrete radio frequency. ‘I’m surprised they found the train,’ Bag conceded.

  A string of six flares illuminated the sky. Each of the five-foot-long tubes hung from a parachute and its magnesium core burned with three-million candle power. The lay down was good and the flares drifted downwind, illuminating the train. ‘Now look at that,’ Bag said. ‘The flyin’ whorehouse did good.’

  ‘Roger on the good,’ Gorilla replied. They switched back to the C-130’s frequency.

  ‘I’m at ten thou,’ Kowalski transmitted, ‘in a left-hand racetrack pattern. I’ll come around for another flare drop.’

  ‘Roger that,’ Bag answered. ‘We’re at fourteen thousand, in a right-hand racetrack.’

  On the second pass, Kowalski had the wind drift killed perfectly and the flares kept the train illuminated for a longer time. Below them, the Blue Train was framed in the light and appeared to be undamaged. But its last car had been cut loose and was standing alone, a mile back down the track. ‘The train is backing up,’ Conklin said over the radio. ‘Probably trying to get that car.’

  ‘They’re under attack,’ Kowalski replied.

  ‘How can you tell?’ Bag asked, very frustrated. He wanted part of the action and all he heard were two women talking about it.

  ‘Old-fashioned binoculars work fine,’ she answered. ‘Someone is throwing a lot of smoke down there. The train has stopped moving.’

  Leonard made his decision. ‘Tell Bag and Gorilla to go down for a low-level visual recce.’ Kowalski relayed the order.

  Bag’s voice came over the UHF radio. ‘Rog. I have you in sight. I’ll lead, Gorilla, cover.’ Leonard watched the two red anti-collision lights on the Warthogs as they dropped out of the sky. When they were through the C-130’s altitude, the trailing light split off — Gorilla maneuvering for separation. It was a tactic they had practiced many times. Gorilla planned to run in behind Bag and cross his track at a thirty-degree angle. If a gunner was foolish enough to launch a missile or shoot at Bag’s back as he pulled off the target. Gorilla would call for evasive action and then use his own 30mm cannon to encourage the shooter to cease and desist in his actions.