by Gordon Kent
Alan turned the plane again, looking down at the sunlit plains rolling into Same, and the mountains beyond.
“I’d rather not get killed here, Mike,” Triffler said. “And I don’t really see any way this will come out happy. I think we should abort.” Triffler sounded like the voice of reason, calm and solid. Dukas ignored him and leaned forward until he was looking into Alan’s eyes.
“I followed you into Sudan on less than this.”
Alan kept glancing away, looking out of the cockpit and then back at Dukas. It made him look shifty, which he wasn’t. He was worried about the plane, and something else was nagging at him. He was surprised at his own lack of response to the crisis. Something profound had changed. He wondered if he was getting old.
“Okay, Mike. I’ll try. Harry will try. But if it won’t go, you have to back off. Think of your career, if that helps.”
“I can’t believe I’m hearing this from Mr. Gung Ho.”
“You are. There’s more here than just the mission.” He put his headphones on and called Harry again. “Alpha?”
“Go ahead.”
“We’re a go. Stay with them. I’ll be back in three hours, maybe less. We’ll keep trying to reach you on the phone.”
“Try in an hour, then. I’m worried about the battery.”
“Roger that. Stay safe, Alpha.”
Harry laughed.
It was a little more than an hour before Alan was in the pattern for Dar. “You better call the carrier and change the plane.”
Dukas nodded. He seemed deep within himself. Alan wondered if five years of shared dangers hadn’t finally stretched them to where the ties would begin to fray.
“What’s the earliest you might have him on the spot?”
Alan looked at the map and did the numbers again. “Sunset. We’ll call the plane in, just the way we planned. I’ll get there first and put out some lights. Then Rafe brings the plane in and we’re done.”
Triffler barked, a short laugh that took them all by surprise. “You guys make it all sound so possible.”
Mike smiled back at him. “We’ve done worse, with less.”
Ten minutes later, MIKE was standing on the general-aviation tarmac at Dar. The wind from the propeller whipped his clothes tight around him, and he held his baseball cap on with his free hand. He made a move to shut the door, then pulled it back and leaned in close to Triffler and shouted so both men could hear, “Oh, by the way, Ray Suter’s dead! I got the word just before I left Nairobi!”
Alan looked at him, blank. Triffler wrinkled his nose. “Well, that solves a big problem for the Agency, doesn’t it!”
“Yeah. Funny coincidence, huh?”
He slammed the door and the little aircraft rolled.
USS Thomas Jefferson.
Everyone on the boat knew that something was going down, because there was an alert S-3 on the cat early in the morning, and most of the air wing couldn’t remember the last time there had been an alert S-3. They made jokes about it. Some word of the presence of a potentially hostile submarine had leaked out of the ASW module, though, because as the day wore on without a launch, scuttlebutt had it that the plane was carrying a live torpedo.
LTjg Evan Soleck was too deep in his own personal gloom to hear much about the plane. He was in a special hell reserved for aviators who can’t land; most of the other pilots couldn’t meet his eye in the dirty-shirt wardroom, and no one sat with him. He was beyond being joked with. He was beyond a slap on the back. Most of the pilots knew he was close to losing his wings. He wandered to the library and got a book he didn’t read, and then he lay on his rack, waiting for the call. He knew the call was coming. He was almost past the tears and the frustration, although every time he let his mind go, he relived every missed landing he had had in the last two weeks. He flew them all again. He saw where he’d overcorrected. He saw things he could have done better. He cursed some private bad luck, he cursed a call or two by LSOs, but he was an honest young man, and mostly he cursed himself.
He wondered if the CAG was waiting for him to do the right thing and call it himself. He thought it might be better that way.
He’d always taken pride in the ribbing from other aviators. They joked that he was so good at intel he ought to consider it as a designator change. EW guys joked that he had a better grasp of electronic warfare than they did. Even Alan Craik had suggested to him once that he might be happier in a more intellectual part of the Navy.
None of that seemed funny now. Here, at the bitter end, he knew he could hand in his wings and be accepted as an intel guy or something else, and he knew he never could take it. He loved to fly. It was all he’d ever really wanted to do, and if he didn’t fly, he’d just sit on a succession of boats, eating his heart out that he was a ground-pounder and not a man with a plane. He wondered how long it would take to get free of the Navy, and what the hell he’d do with his life. Maybe he’d have time to date, or something. He couldn’t see it. He couldn’t really see anything.
Ring.
Ring.
He picked it up. Not answering wouldn’t delay the inevitable. Now that it was on him, he wished he’d done the deed himself.
“Soleck?” The voice on the other end had a very stopped-up nose. Everybody did. Everybody but Evan Soleck.
“Speaking.”
“This is Captain Rafehausen. Please come up to my cabin.”
“Yes, sir. On my way.”
He didn’t linger. He even nodded to some guys he knew. Campbell smiled back, already suited up to go flying. Soleck turned his head away, afraid that emotion was going to get the better of him in front of all these guys. He knocked at Rafehausen’s door. He felt as if every eye in the passageway were watching.
“Lieutenant Soleck reporting as ordered.”
“Have a seat.” Rafehausen blew his nose, powerfully and repeatedly, and then drank some tea. He gulped it.
“I’m supposed to be the pilot on the alert 60 S-3,” he said. He sniffed experimentally. “Goddam I hate this cold.” He blew his nose again.
Soleck only nodded.
“I need you to do it.”
Soleck didn’t really even hear the words. He was in a bad place. He wasn’t really listening, simply hoping it would all go by.
“I need you to take the flight.”
“Me?” The second time, something in his brain made contact.
“No one else sitting here. You. You are the last healthy S-3 jock on this boat. Your landing grades suck. I have a flight laid on that has the CNO’s attention, and the flight plan says ‘national security.’ So you have to fish or cut bait right now. Can you fly?”
Soleck looked at the floor. It looked really different. He’d never noticed that the O-3 decks had white flecks in the blue. The bad place fled away. “Yes, sir.”
“Good. I’m not going to give you any shit. Just go fly. You’ll have to land on some pissant road in Africa, get whoever is there, and bring ’em back here. The weather is still breezy. I don’t want to hear about it. I don’t really give a shit how often you look at the deck as long as you get that plane aboard. Got me, mister?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Because I’ve got to have a nap. I’ve pretended all day I could take this flight. I can’t. Go get your flight suit on and get ready. If we’re a go, you’ll be off the deck in two hours.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t sit there beaming, Soleck. Go.”
Captain Rafehausen hadn’t even got into his rack before his phone rang.
“Captain Rafehausen?”
“Shoot.”
“The Esek Hopkins reports a possible surface contact bearing east-northeast. Might be the cigarette boats.”
Rafe blew his nose. “I’m on my way.”
33
Tanzania, Over the Same Road.
Alan came out of the sun at the road, trying to stay invisible to Harry’s targets. He was guessing at Harry’s location and he guessed wrong, because after two
passes he had no radio contact.
He went high and started back up the Same Road, already worried that Harry had passed his intercept position and that he was now flying the wrong way. They didn’t have any time to waste. Beside him, Triffler was silent. Alan had been surprised when Triffler had climbed back into the plane in Dar, but he hadn’t made a comment. Alan thought that perhaps Triffler just couldn’t leave a job until it was finished.
Too high, and every vehicle looked the same. The dust they raised hid them, and Alan tried to get behind them before diving, still trying to hide his presence from Lao’s captors. Intellectually, he knew that most people never look up, but the big sky over Tanzania felt naked. There were no clouds. He fought the occasional wind gust, the last remnants of the storm, and scanned the road again.
They flew up the road for twenty minutes, well over an hour of car travel. Time was leaking away.
“Everything’s always slower than you think,” he said to himself. Triffler had told him that, about surveillance. If he turned back now and was wrong, by the time he recorrected, it would be too near dark.
“I think that must be them,” Triffler said.
On the last shoulder of the Pare range were two trucks. Well behind them was another. Alan turned out to the west and tried to be patient, flying to the west before he turned the nose of the plane back to the east and started to call.
He was still high, almost directly behind Harry and less than two miles away, when he got an answer. It didn’t sound like Harry at first, and it took him a moment to realize that he must have someone with him.
“Eight, this is Bravo. Go ahead.”
Bravo?
“Bravo, can you see Alpha?”
“He’s right beside me.” Alan could imagine Harry, driving with both hands on the wheel for the treacherous road. They had twenty kilometers of hill country left, and then they’d be on the coastal plain.
“Go ahead, Eight.” That was Harry.
“I can see you, and I can see them.”
“Roger.”
“Can we take them?”
“What do you think?”
Alan looked at Triffler, who gave him a slight nod.
“I think we can take them. I have a spot in mind.”
“Tell me.”
“Just before you come down from the hills at Lushoto there’s a straight stretch. Then another five kilometers of broken country, and then, bang, you’re on the plain. Copy?”
“Roger, Eight.”
“Just before the straight stretch is a long climb. I’ll land on the straight, walk up the hill, drop a tree just over the top so they never see it coming. You come up behind them.”
“That’s the best you can do?”
“Pretty much.”
“Better than my idea, anyway. Let’s do it.”
“You start calling as you move uphill, and I’ll talk back if I can.”
“Roger.”
“Fifteen minutes or less, Alpha.”
“Roger, copy all.”
Alan went west again, using the last ridge of the mountains to hide his plane. He came back low and crossed the road, then turned back from the east. He was going to treat the road as if it were a carrier. Closer up, he could see the potholes and the two elevation changes on the “flat” stretch, but there was no time to make a new plan. He went into a break over the road and turned downwind, racing along the road at six hundred feet. Just before the last hill he turned again, powering through 180 degrees with his throttle at full and then using his flaps and easing the throttle until he was all but gliding. His angle of attack was too slow, but he had the whole of two kilometers of road to cover and it would be easier in the air than walking.
“Extend,” he muttered to himself, as if he were his own LSO and this were really the boat. Triffler was holding the instrument panel with both hands. The nose obscured the road, and dust began to rise. There were trees on both sides, though thankfully several meters beyond the wingtips. He pulled out the throttle a little more, and his wheels touched. He skipped, right at the top of one of the invisible gentle rises. He let the plane sink away, and it went down farther than he expected, so that he was almost ready to give it more power when the wheels touched again.
Bam!
He had to compensate for the first pothole, which tried to turn the whole weight of the plane. But he was just touching the top of the road after that, and he slowed the plane gradually over the second kilometer, taking his time. He expected the Chinese to come over the hill at any moment, but he kept his mind on the landing. When the plane was taxiing well below seventy kilometers an hour, the bumps turned into a jolting accordion, and Triffler began to bounce in his seat. Alan finally used the brakes and brought them to a stop, afraid for his landing gear. He powered down the engine, but left it idling.
He was out in a moment, grabbed his bag from the back, and ran once around the plane, looking for cracks or danger signs. The plane seemed to have held together. Alan gave the plane a slap. Then he took an ax and a saw from the emergency bag and pulled on his backpack. He grabbed the spare chocks from the cockpit and put them under the wheels.
“Coming?” he shouted at Triffler. By his calculations, they had eight minutes.
Triffler started to run up the road toward the big hill. He took the saw from Alan and powered along, breathing through his nose and running like a champion. Alan couldn’t keep up. Triffler simply ran by him and went straight up the hill as if he were running on flat ground. Alan put his head down and followed.
Viewed from the plane, the hill looked small, the last outrider but one of a mighty range of hills. Closer up, the steepness had been clear, but with his feet on the road, Alan felt as if he were trying to run up a cliff. Any moment he expected to hear the clash of gears coming up the other side. He looked up. Triffler was at the crest, his hands on his knees. Next moment, he was off the road and cutting with the saw. Alan concentrated on his legs. Left, right, left, right. He remembered being at officer candidate school, and how he had hated to run, and a Christian officer had run along beside them saying, “Oh, Lord, thou art my hope of Glory” to the rhythm of the feet. He hadn’t let them sing the usual songs, which he proclaimed “profane.” The man had been a great instructor, though. Alan had forgotten him, but the running brought him back.
Hope of Glory, he said to himself. Left, right, left. He looked up again. There was something droning in the distance. He plodded on. He had a hundred meters to go, and then fifty.
Hope of Glory. Left, right, left.
He was there. He was shaking all over, bathed in sweat. Triffler had a tree wavering. Alan plodded to the other side of the road and tried to remember everything he knew about cutting wood. He chopped at the base of a big African softwood tree. It was soft and pulpy, and three bites of the ax cleared a third of its diameter. He missed a swing and wiped the sweat from his eyes. The droning was a little louder. Behind him, he heard Triffler’s tree fall with a crash. He kept cutting, missed again, and then got the head of the ax just where he wanted it. He moved around behind and cut again. The ax stuck in the soft stuff and he couldn’t get it free, couldn’t seem to concentrate on pulling the handle. It came free after what seemed like minutes.
The tree moved. He cut again. The road noise was louder. He wanted to peel the headphones off because they were hot as hell, but the static noise promised him an instant’s warning when Harry was in range.
If they were even listening to the right cars. He tried not to think of what would happen if they drove a car full of innocent Tanzanians off the road. He cut again and his tree stirred, and he breathed, aimed, and cut again. And again.
Crack.
It was going. He jumped clear and watched it. It fell across Triffler’s tree, completely blocking the road just over the crest.
“In the ditch,” he panted.
Triffler, apparently unwinded, nodded.
Alan tried again. “We get in the ditch right at the crest. The moment they
stop, we’re at the doors. Never let them think.”
“What about the second car?”
“You take the first car. I’ll take the second. Harry’ll be here before they have time to react.” He leaned over and dripped perspiration on the road, gasping. Then he climbed the last few feet of the hill and got in the ditch.
“Eight—”
“Roger, Alpha. Trees are down. We’re a go. Do you copy?”
“Copy go.”
“How far are you from the crest?”
“Can’t—”
“How long?”
“—come!”
Alan could hear the cars. He didn’t feel any surge of adrenaline. He was too tired. He just lay in the ditch as the afternoon became evening all around him. There were ants in the ditch and he watched them, because he didn’t want to move his head. He heard a truck shift gears, and then another shift.
“They’ll be on you in less than a minute.” Harry’s partner. It must be Alice, because the voice sounded English.
“Still a go,” he said clearly. His heart began to beat hard. So the adrenal gland still worked. He pulled out his pistol, a Smith and Wesson nine-millimeter automatic, and wondered how the FBI would feel about the use he was about to make of it. They’d be heroes if it worked. They’d be fired if they failed and lived. He worked the slide. The first truck seemed to be right on top of him.
And the noise continued to grow. The trucks must have been farther away than he thought. Now he could hear the second gear change, and the sound of the tires on gravel, and then the first vehicle was there at the top and saw the tree. He heard the brakes go and the spray of gravel and a crash, and the second vehicle was on him, skidding past, trying to stop, visible even from the ditch, and he was up and after it as it rammed into the first and stopped. Triffler was ahead of him and Alan got up to the door of the second truck, the Isuzu, and pushed his pistol into the cab at the driver.