Shadows of War

by Robert Gandt

  Three seconds ticked by. “Copy.”

  < >

  The smoke was getting worse. It was billowing in a steady gush from beneath the console, making his eyes burn and flood with tears.

  A thought flashed across Boyce’s mind: I’m too old for this shit.

  At fifty, he was the oldest active aviator aboard the Reagan. This was Boyce’s swan song. Commanding an air wing was your last tactical flying job before they retired you or shipped you off to a padded chair behind a desk.

  During nearly three decades as a naval aviator, he had seen his share of trouble—engine malfunctions, combat damage, fires, an ejection from an A-7 with a turbine section failure. He had handled them all with professional cool.

  Yeah, but you were a young stud, not a balding old fart with weak eyes and a thick gut.

  He shook the thought from his brain. Stay focused. If you want to live through the next five minutes, fly this jet.

  His standby altimeter, which required no electrical input, showed that they were descending through 1,500 feet. The Reagan was ten miles ahead.

  He took his eyes off Flash’s jet for a moment and glanced up ahead. Through the veil of smoke in his cockpit and the haze over the Gulf, he couldn’t see anything. Just a gray murk of sea and sky. He had gone to RAM/Dump on his cabin pressure switch, allowing outside air to ventilate the cockpit. It was clearing some of the smoke, but not much.

  Blinking against the tears, he locked his eyes on Flash’s Hornet, twenty feet from his left wing. Flash was his only lifeline to the deck of the Reagan.

  Another glance inside. The standby airspeed indicator—also non-electrical—was dropping below 250 knots.

  They were getting close.

  Then he saw it, beneath the nose, the foaming white trail of a vessel. The wake of a carrier? It had to be.

  Flash was giving him a hand signal. Time for the final act.

  He reached for the ON/BATT switch, moving it to ON. He heard a Pop in his headset, then the faint crackle of the radio.

  He keyed the mike button. “Red’s up. How do you read?”

  “Loud and clear, CAG,” came the voice of Pearly Gates. “You’re two miles on final. You need to go dirty. Do you have the ship?”

  Boyce glanced through the front windscreen. Ahead lay the gray mass of the carrier, trailing a broad white wake. “I’ve got the ship.” To Flash, he radioed, “You’re cleared to detach.”

  Pearly had taken him as close as he could. Now he had to fly the final part of the approach by himself.

  As Flash’s jet peeled off to the left and accelerated away, he reached up and lowered the landing gear handle. He heard the familiar clunk of the gear locking down. Thank God. At least the hydraulics still worked.

  He lowered the flaps, then extended the tailhook.

  The smoke was getting worse. He thought about blowing the canopy off, then decided against it. He didn’t know if he could fly a carrier pass with the top popped and the wind howling past him at a hundred-fifty knots.

  Three green lights. The landing gear was down.

  The ball—the visual glide path indicator mounted at the port edge of the landing deck—was coming into view from the bottom of the lens, rising toward the green “on glide path” datum lights.

  “Runner 307, Rhino ball, fuel unknown.”

  “Roger ball, Runner,” answered the LSO. “Wind is thirty down the angle.”

  The ball rose above the datum lights mounted in the middle of the lens, indicating that he was going high. Boyce nudged the two throttles back an tiny increment, easing the Hornet back down to the glide path. Without a full electrical system, he was flying without the Super Hornet’s high tech presentation—a HUD with its superimposed velocity vector symbol that gave him a precise picture of the Hornet’s flight path.

  Just like the old days. No fancy gadgets to make it easy for him. He’d do it the old-fashioned way—airspeed, ball, and line up. Hell, he could still—

  “Pow-werrrrr,” came the urging call from the LSO. He was settling low on the glide path. Pearly was using his best sugar talk, coaxing Boyce to be smooth.

  He jammed the throttles ahead, feeling the thrust kick in—shit, too much—and yanked them back again.

  “Eaa-sssy with it.” More sugar talk.

  Boyce forced himself to lighten up his grip on the two throttles. Easy, Goddamnit. It was time for finesse, not jerkiness. He had to get this thing down on the first pass. If he blew it, missed a wire or got waved off, he was screwed. He’d pull up and punch out of the jet.

  The smoke was thickening, obscuring his view through the windscreen. His eyes were brimming with tears, burning in the acrid cloud. He wished he had blown the canopy, gotten the smoke out. Now it was too late. He didn’t dare remove his hand from the throttles.

  Getting close. He squeezed his eyes shut for an instant, trying to clear the blur of tears. The blunt gray shape of the Reagan was swelling in the windscreen.

  The ball was swimming in his vision. Moving up? Down? Shit, he couldn’t see.

  “Don’t go high,” warned the LSO. No more sugar talk. It was a command. “Right for line up.”

  He nudged the throttles back and dipped the right wing, following the LSO’s call to stay aligned with the center line. He sensed the Hornet settling, the deck rising to meet him.

  “Attitude!”

  He pulled back on the stick, raising the nose, lowering the tailhook just enough. . .

  Whump. For a sickening moment he felt the Hornet careening down the deck, toward the far edge of the landing area. Instinctively he pushed the throttles up to the stops.

  Then the hard lurch. The Hornet shuddered to a stop, its tailhook engaged on the last wire.

  He snatched the throttles back to idle and opened the canopy, letting the smoke billow out of the cockpit. He felt the sweet, life-giving rush of wind that flowed over the flight deck.

  A flood of elation swept over him. You’re still alive, you old fart.

  He was reaching for the battery switch when he heard Bullet Alexander on the radio. “Welcome back, CAG. You had us worried.”

  “Aw, hell, son,” he sputtered. “That was a piece of cake.”

  Chapter 27 — Debrief

  USS Ronald Reagan

  1017, Wednesday, 24 March

  Like most air intel officers, Commander Harvey Wentz had a low regard for the cognitive skills of fighter pilots. They were single-purpose gladiators who were dangerous if they knew too much.

  At least that was the impression Maxwell had always received from Wentz. He wasn’t getting any different feeling now.

  They were in the Reagan’s SCIF, buried deep in the interior of the ship, guarded by emission-proof bulkheads and two armed Marines outside the door. On one side of the long conference table sat Maxwell, with Boyce at his left. Opposite them were Wentz and two unsmiling CIA specialists who had flown out from their regional office in Riyadh.

  One of the CIA men, a man named Perkins, wore tiny, round-rimmed spectacles. He scribbled continuously on a yellow pad. The other, who introduced himself as Lambert, tended a digital recording device at the end of the table.

  They let Wentz ask the questions.

  “Okay, Commander Maxwell, let’s do this again. Run through the sequence of events from the time you arrived at the village until you rejoined the TRAP team.”

  “I just ran through it.”

  “Run through it again. You may have omitted useful details the first time.”

  Or you may trip yourself up, thought Maxwell. It was an old interrogation technique—get the subject to repeat his story, catch him altering the details, find out what he’s hiding.

  He went through the events of the mission again, describing how he and Bronson delivered Al-Fasr to the village, how the firefight erupted, how he and Rasmussen escaped.

  Wentz watched him thoughtfully. “And Mr. Bronson? What happened to him?”

  Maxwell felt the eyes of the CIA officers fixed like lasers on him
. “I told you that too. When the shooting started, he was hit.”

  “By whom?”

  “By someone with a gun.”

  Wentz shook his head. “Don’t be flippant with us, Commander. Was it one of the snipers or someone else?”

  “It was dark. There were several shooters.”

  He saw the two CIA men exchange glances. Perkins jotted something on his yellow pad.

  “But you were wearing NVG, were you not?” said Wentz.

  “Over my eyes, not the back of my head.”

  “What the hell is this?” snapped Boyce. He aimed his cigar at Wentz. “Are you guys running a debriefing or a goddamn inquisition? Get to the point.”

  “With all due respect, Captain Boyce, I have to remind you that this is more than a debriefing. A covert mission was compromised, and a senior intelligence officer has been fatally wounded.” Wentz glanced at the two CIA men, who nodded back to him. “It’s critical to national security that we gather every piece of intelligence from this operation.”

  “Then I suggest you act like an intelligence gatherer instead of a prosecutor. Brick isn’t on trial here.”

  Wentz looked exasperated. They all knew that Boyce wasn’t supposed to be a participant in the debriefing, but he had inserted himself over Wentz’s objections. Wentz was also a pragmatist. Boyce was a Navy captain who happened to be the Air Wing Commander. He could turn Wentz’s life into a living hell.

  “Okay,” said Wentz. “Let’s try this again. Who fired the first shot?”

  “They did,” said Maxwell. “A sniper on one of the buildings.”

  “And what was your response?”

  “I shot one of the Sherji who had brought Raz. Bronson took out the two snipers with his SMG.”

  “So what happened to Al-Fasr?” asked Wentz.

  “Someone shot him.”

  “Someone? Who?”

  Maxwell hesitated, feeling the penetrating stares of the two CIA men. He had a clear vision of Al-Fasr’s shattered skull, Bronson standing over him with the Glock in his hand.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Someone who wanted him dead, I suppose. Who do you think that would be?”

  Wentz shot him a baleful look. “What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean, Bronson and company”—he nodded toward the CIA men— “were not thrilled about having to give Al-Fasr back, were they? Since Al-Fasr happened to get shot while we were giving him back, it might have some connection with Bronson getting shot in turn.”

  “What are you suggesting?” Wentz removed his glasses and peered at Maxwell. “That Bronson shot Al-Fasr?”

  Both CIA officers were leaning forward over the table, watching him. Maxwell hesitated. Careful, he told himself. Don’t go too far. “No, just postulating. Trying to make sense out of what happened.”

  “So are we. We’re still trying to learn something from the bodies.”

  Maxwell felt his heart quicken. “Bodies?

  “The TRAP team commander sent a squad to recover Bronson and Al-Fasr’s bodies.”

  Maxwell felt his heart quicken. He should have known. Of course, they’d try to recover the bodies. He wanted to know more, but he made himself remain quiet.

  Wentz resumed the interrogation, but he said nothing more about the bodies. His questions seemed to lose their belligerence. The subject of Ted Bronson’s death didn’t come up again.

  Finally, he announced that the debriefing had ended. The CIA men rose and shook Maxwell’s hand, then Boyce’s.

  Boyce ignored Wentz’s outstretched hand as he led Maxwell to the door. He glanced back inside the SCIF, then closed the door behind him. “Dipshits,” he said.

  < >

  Manama, Bahrain

  Claire awoke feeling the pangs of remorse and a searing headache. The events of last night were replaying in her mind like a bad movie.

  Oh, damn. Why did I do that?

  Rays of sunlight were streaming through the blinds, filling the bedroom with a painful yellow luminescence. For a while she didn’t move. Finally she forced herself to look to the other side of the bed.

  It was empty.

  Thank God. That was another thing about Chris Tyrwhitt. No matter how much he’d had to drink or how little sleep he’d gotten, he rose early. To his credit, he’d had the decency to get up and leave her alone this morning.

  She went directly to the shower, trying to shut out the images of the previous evening. It didn’t work. Chris Tyrwhitt’s hypnotic voice kept inserting itself back into her mind.

  Just like old times, darling.

  Why not? After all, we’re husband and wife.

  Her mistake was in letting herself fall under Tyrwhitt’s spell again. Her original assessment was correct. He was dangerous. Chris Tyrwhitt could charm the knickers off the Queen.

  Admit it. You didn’t resist.

  Not enough, anyway.

  And that was the part that was causing her all this bad feeling. She didn’t love Chris Tyrwhitt, at least not in the way a wife loved a husband. She was finished with all that. Tyrwhitt was trouble. He was an ex-husband in every way except by signed and stamped divorce papers, and those were in process.

  So why did you sleep with him?

  That was what bothered her. Maybe, just maybe, she thought, there was still a tiny grain of love for the man who used to be her husband.

  Love? Or plain old-fashioned lust?

  She wrapped herself in the big white terrycloth robe and then ordered coffee from room service. Her headache was fading. So was the remorse, replaced now by a sober recounting. She had to give the guy credit, he still knew how to disarm her. It was classic Tyrwhitt—the drinks, the funny stories, the easy charm. And then, the pièce de résistance.

  The roses.

  She looked around. They were still there. She picked them up and smelled them again. The note from Chris lay on the sideboard.

  She had to admit, it was a nice touch. Very romantic, very thoughtful.

  And then she saw something else. On the floor, almost beneath the sideboard. Something crumpled.

  She picked up the wadded-up card, smoothed it out, and read the note from Sam Maxwell.

  In the next instant, all the charitable thoughts she had for Tyrwhitt vanished in a flash of rage.

  That sonofabitch! That devious, sleazy bastard! That no good lying, deceitful asshole. That miserable, two-faced. . .

  She slumped into a chair, clutching the card in her hand. She didn’t know whether to give way to uncontrollable weeping, or to laugh.

  I can’t believe I’m still such an idiot. After all these years, I fell for it again.

  She let several minutes pass. Gradually she regained control of her emotions. She was thinking again.

  She rose and walked to the window. The sun was glinting off the white plaster of the buildings outside. The light no longer hurt her eyes, and her headache was receding.

  Out of every bad experience, she believed, something good had to come. If anything good came from her dalliance with Tyrwhitt, it was this new clarity of thought.

  It all seemed perfectly obvious. Tyrwhitt hadn’t changed. He would never change. He would always be the same charming lowlife weasel that he had been last night.

  Nor would Sam Maxwell change. He was still the dashing, duty-bound, inarticulate guy she loved.

  And had always loved.

  Now she knew. Too bad she didn’t figure it out before last night. She hoped it wasn’t too late.

  < >

  USS Ronald Reagan

  Something was wrong with Manson’s jaw.

  Maxwell listened, trying to follow Craze Manson’s rambling story, but he couldn’t keep his eyes off his jaw. It was swollen, turning an ugly shade of purple.

  “Seventeen years,” Manson was saying. “No retirement, no benefits. I’m throwing away seventeen years of my life. I hope you’re satisfied.”

  Actually, thought Maxwell, he was very satisfied, but he just nodded and said, “Go on, Craze. Explain
why you’re resigning.”

  Manson gave him a baleful look and went on. “I don’t owe you any explanation. That letter on your desk says it all. I’m resigning from the Navy as of today. End of story.”

  They were in Maxwell’s stateroom. He and Alexander were seated at the desk, while Manson stood facing them. He was wearing his service khakis, cap tucked in his belt.

  Maxwell wanted to get this over with. Fatigue was oozing through him like a drug after the stress of the prisoner exchange mission. He was still in the camo flight suit he’d worn into Iran. In a corner stood his mud-caked flight boots.

  Alexander had been waiting for him when he emerged from the intel debrief. The word had already spread around the squadron. Splat DiLorenzo and Petty Officer Carson were under arrest. Carson was in the brig and DiLorenzo was confined to quarters. Craze Manson was leaving the Navy.

  Maxwell looked at Manson. “You may be called to testify at DiLorenzo’s court-martial.”

  “I’ve got nothing to say.”

  “Well, I guess that’s something.”

  “The deal is, I resign, I won’t be charged.”

  “The deal is, you won’t be charged with a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. That doesn’t mean you won’t be subpoenaed by DiLorenzo’s counsel.”

  Manson shrugged. “If they expect me to tell them I knew about the corrosion inspection sign offs, they can go piss up a rope. I had no knowledge, and they have no evidence.”

  Maxwell glanced over at Alexander, who was doodling on a yellow pad. They both knew Manson was probably right. The case against him was circumstantial, nothing more than DiLorenzo’s word that he had been following Manson’s orders. Court-martialing Manson would be a waste of manpower.

  Alexander, for his part, was still furious about the deal. “That lying sonofabitch tried to kill me and the CAG,” he roared when he heard about it. The only good thing was that Manson would be gone from the squadron, which was a blessing.

  Carson was another matter. The petty officer had let himself get sucked into helping DiLorenzo—and at the eleventh hour had searched inside himself and found a sense of honor. Carson was worth saving.