By the Rivers of Babylon (11 page)

“V-two,” said Hess with what Becker thought was just a hint of anxiety in his voice.

Becker felt the wheel loosen in his hand as the main wheels rose from the runway. He looked down at the console. Two hundred twenty knots on the air-speed gauge. The rates of climb were moving rapidly and the altimeter was winding even faster. Becker held the airplane by the palm and fingers of one hand. He smiled and cleared his throat. “Gear up.” The sound of his own voice, steady and even, seemed to chase the perverse imps from the cockpit. But he heard their familiar parting promise.
We’ll
kill you next time, Becker.
He waited out a sequence of lights, then said, almost too loudly, “Climb power.” He lowered his voice. “After-takeoff check.” He banked the aircraft slightly to follow in the flight path of his sister ship. “And when you get a chance, Peter, ring the cabin for some coffee.” He settled back and his muscles loosened. There would be a landing and takeoff at Orly and then again in New York. He would be back at Lod within twenty-four hours. Then he would resign, effective immediately. He knew it had been coming for a long time. He felt it every time his sphincter tightened on takeoff and landing,
every time his loins went loose when he hit an insignificant air pocket, every time he had to wipe the sweat from his palms when he flew through a line of thunderstorms. But it was all right. It had happened to better pilots than himself. The trick was to look it in the eye and say, “I quit.”

“Quit what?” asked Hess.

Becker swung his head and stared at him. “What?”

“Quit what? What do you quit?” Hess was going over his checklist as he spoke.

“Quit . . . drinking coffee. Coffee. I forgot. I don’t want any.”

Hess looked up from his checklist and stared at him. His eyes met Becker’s and they both knew. “Right.” He called out to Kahn. “Only two coffees, Peter.”

Becker wiped his palms and face openly. It was all right now. Hess had a right to know. He lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply.

Concorde 02 began its steep, graceful climb. The long landing gear assemblies had already risen into the belly of the craft. Hess pulled another hydraulic lever, retracting the flaps and activating the droop-nose to its streamlined position. The flight deck became very still, with only the murmur of electronic noises in the background. Becker banked the craft 30 degrees and put it on a due west heading over Tel Aviv. The dual altimeter indicated 6,000 feet and 1,800 meters and air speed was 300 knots. He lit another cigarette. So far, so good.

Becker rolled the Concorde out of its turn and sat back in his seat. His eyes took in all the instruments. The Concorde was an electronically controlled aircraft, somewhat like a space capsule. When the wheel or rudder pedals were moved, for instance, an electrical signal was sent to the hydraulic control activators. It was this, rather than cables or rods, that moved the exterior control surfaces. The computer would feed artificial stability and resistance back into the controls for the pilot to sense. Without this pressure to fly against, there would be nothing for
the pilot to feel as he moved his controls. Pilots weren’t used to that, and so the men at Aérospatiale and British Aircraft Corporation told the computer to put artificial resistance into the control movement. It was all psychological, reflected Becker, and all very strange and becoming stranger with each new technological breakthrough. Long before he felt the fear, he had felt this alienation in the cockpit. Yes, it was time to let the next generation take the controls.

They were over the beach outside of Tel Aviv. Becker took a pair of field glasses out of his flight kit and scanned the ground. Normally, the beach would he covered with thousands of bikinis, but the air-raid drill had sent everyone indoors. Becker saw his home in Herzlya, as he always did. He saw the empty chaise longue in his yard and wondered if his wife knew that he was part of the reason that everyone had to interrupt their first spring sunbathing. Ahead of him stretched the dark blue Mediterranean and a cloudless azure sky. Becker eased back on the wheel a bit more and gave it more throttle. The aircraft picked up speed and altitude.

Ahead, he could see 01. The Concorde might be an ungainly looking bird on the ground, but in flight it was the technocrats’ contribution to pure aesthetics. It was a beautiful aircraft to fly, also, but Becker always had the uneasy feeling that the computers would fail him someday. Not really fail so much as betray. Those marvelous computers that could do a thousand things simultaneously; things that three human crewmen could not do, no matter how hard they worked. Those computers would lure him up to 60,000 feet—19,000 meters—and Mach 2.2 one day, and then quit. A message would flash on the cathode tube:
Fly It Yourself, Stupid.
Becker forced a smile. Two more takeoffs and three more landings.

He hit the transmit button on his console and spoke into his headset microphone. “Air Traffic Control, this is El Al Concorde 02. Over.”

“Go ahead, 02.”

“Roger. Company aircraft in sight. I’m at 380 knots, indicated. Accelerating to point-eight-zero, Mach.”

“Roger. Level off at 5,000 meters.”

“Roger.” He pushed the selector switch to the company frequency. “El Al 01, 02 here. I have you dead ahead, I’m about eight kilometers back. I’ll close to about five and get a little below you. Don’t stop short.”

Avidar acknowledged. They spoke for a while and coordinated speeds.

Becker got to 5,000 meters and closed in on Avidar. He spoke to Air Traffic Control. “El Al 01 and 02 in formation. Holding at 5,000 and now at point-eight-six, Mach. Waiting for unrestricted clearance to 19,000.”

“Roger. Stand by. There’s an Air Iran 747 at flight level six-zero-zero. Maintain 5,000 meters.

Avidar called Becker on the company frequency. “El Al 02, this is 01. See if you can raise our sheep dog. I don’t see him.”

Becker switched to 134.725. “Gabriel 32, this is Emmanuel.”

Teddy Laskov had been monitoring the El Al and ATC frequencies and switched to channel 31 to meet Becker. “Emmanuel, this is Gabriel 32. I hear you fine. I can see you and Clipper at my eleven o’clock low position. Leave one radio on this frequency.”

“Roger, Gabriel. When we get unrestricted clearance from ATC, we’re climbing to 19,000 and accelerating to Mach 2.0 on a heading of 280 degrees.”

“Roger. I’ll be with you. So far, so good.”

“So far. I’m going back to company frequency. The copilot will monitor you.”

“Roger—break—Hawkeye, this is Gabriel 32. How are your blips?”

The E-2D Hawkeye was almost five kilometers directly above the Concordes and F-14’s. It had been simultaneously monitoring all three frequencies. The Air Control officer on board picked up his radiophone. “I have you all spotted and plotted, Gabriel. Do you see a craft approaching from a bearing of 183 degrees? About 180 kilometers distance from you? Not a scheduled airliner.”

Laskov spoke into the intercom to his flight officer behind him. “See anything, Dan?”

Daniel Lavon looked down at the combined television and cathode ray tube. “Possible. Something’s at the southwest edge of our radar. A little over 160 kilometers and approaching our intended flight path at right angles.”

The E-2D Hawkeye, with a crew of five and a cabin full of the latest electronic equipment, was in a better position to detect and classify aircraft than the F-14’s. The flight technician on the Hawkeye spoke to Laskov. “We’re trying to contact this craft, but we can’t raise him.”

Laskov acknowledged.

The E-2D command information controller got on the phone. “Gabriel, the unidentified craft is moving at approximerely 960 kilometers per. He is on a course and speed that will bring him across your intended flight path, but at 1,800 meters below you and Emmanuel and Clipper at your present altitude.”

“Roger, Hawkeye. Contact the son-of-a-bitch and tell him to change course and speed, or both.”

“Roger, Gabriel. We’re trying.”

Laskov considered. In about a minute, the unidentified craft would be within the 160 kilometer range of his Phoenix. If this craft had a pair of Russian Acrid missiles, it couldn’t engage the Concordes until it was within 130 kilometers. This 30-kilometer difference in range between the Russian Acrid and the American Phoenix was all the difference in the world. It was the reason why the F-14 was king of the sky. It had a longer reach. It was like two knights, one with an eight-foot lance and one with a ten-foot lance. In a few more minutes, though, Laskov would no longer have the advantage. “Hawkeye, I’m going to engage this target before he gets within 130 kilometers, unless you can identify him or he identifies himself.”

General Talman rose from his chair in the Operations Room of The Citadel. He grabbed a radiophone and cut in quickly. “Gabriel, this is Operation Control. Look—you’re the man on the spot. You have to make the decision, but for God’s sake, consider all the angles.” He paused. “I’m behind you, whatever happens. Out.” Talman didn’t want to tie up the radio net with a political discourse. It had all been argued long before this. He stood and watched the converging radar blips on his screen as he stroked his mustache.

What Laskov had wanted from Talman was an unequivocal order to fire at will. But he knew better.

“Gabriel, this is Hawkeye. Listen. He is not—repeat, not—military because we do not pick up any sophisticated radar emissions from him.”

“Then what the hell goes 960 kilometers per hour?”

“Probably a civilian jet, Gabriel. Wait one. I have something coming in on the radio.”

Laskov shouted into his microphone. “I don’t give a good goddamn if it
is
a civilian jet. A civilian jet can be fitted to fire an air-to-air missile, too. Get me an I.D. on this guy, or he goes!”

There was no reply.

Danny Lavon spoke into the intercom. “General, this is a lot of bullshit. I’ll take the responsibility. You can say I panicked and pushed a button. I’ve got him locked in now on—”

Laskov broke squelch on the intercom and cut him off with an electronic whine. When he released the squelch button, Lavon had stopped speaking. “Listen, son. You just follow orders. No more of that.”

The Air Control officer came back on the air. “Gabriel, this is Hawkeye. Listen, we just spoke to Air Traffic Control in Cyprus. Our unidentified is a civilian Lear jet, Model 23, with a French registration. He filed a flight plan from Cairo to Cyprus to Istanbul to Athens. Six on board. Businessmen. French passports. We have their frequency and call sign. Trying to raise them now.”

Laskov wasn’t satisfied. “Trying to? Bullshit. They are within 130 kilometers and you have their frequency and you have the best radios made. What’s the problem, Hawkeye?”

“It might be theirs, Gabriel.”

“Roger.” Laskov let out a long breath. He looked out of his plexiglas windshield. The two Concordes floated below him like paper airplanes. “Clipper and Emmanuel, this is Gabriel. Are you monitoring all of this?”

Becker and Avidar responded affirmatively.

“All right. Tell ATC you want to change to a due north heading and you want permission to climb unrestricted to 19,000,
now.
”

Becker and Avidar acknowledged. Avidar called Air Traffic Control and he received word that there was a TWA 747 and a Lufthansa 707 above them and that they would have to wait five minutes for their unrestricted climbs.

Laskov didn’t think he wanted to wait even five seconds. He spoke to Lavon on the intercom. He didn’t speak to the rest of the squadron on the radio because he didn’t want Talman or anyone else to hear. “Arm the Phoenix, Daniel. Prepare to engage the target.” He thought of Miriam Bernstein.
Even if you
should see Satan himself on your radar screen . . . don’t shoot
him out of the sky with one of your missiles.
And Richardson.
Listen, don’t get trigger-happy up there. We don’t want any
incidents.
Then, he thought of what lousy jobs he had had all his adult life. “Hawkeye, this guy has about sixty seconds to live unless he speaks to us.”

It was the Hawkeye pilot who responded this time. “Roger,
Gabriel. We can’t raise him. I’m sorry. I can’t do anything else. I understand your position. Do what you think is best.”

“Thanks.”

Talman broke into the net. “I’m with you, Gabriel.” Talman was beginning to think there was something wrong. If the Lear’s radios were bad, he would probably have headed back and landed at Alexandria. If they weren’t bad, why wasn’t he answering? He’d heard the Hawkeye call on Lear’s frequency. Hawkeye had spoken to the Lear in French, then English, the international language of flight, and finally, even Arabic. Talman spoke into the radio. “It stinks, Gabriel.”

“Right.” Laskov spoke into the intercom. “Where is he?”

Lavon glanced at his radar. “About sixty-five kilometers— and climbing.”

It was already too late for the Phoenix. “Arm the Sparrow and . . . engage the target.”

“Right, General.” Lavon moved an electrical switch and then slid back a small plate on the armament console. Under the panel was a red button. He put his finger on it.

“Gabriel, this is Emmanuel.” Becker’s voice sounded strained.

Laskov held up his hand to stop Lavon and acknowledged Becker.

“The Lear is calling us on company frequency.”

“Roger.” Laskov quickly turned up the radio on the El Al frequency. Lavon called the rest of the squadron and instructed them to monitor also.

“El Al Concorde 01 and 02. This is Lear number five-four. Can you hear me?”

Laskov felt a cold chill run down his spine. The accent was unmistakably Arabic.

Becker and Avidar acknowledged.

The Lear spoke again. The voice was slow and precise. “Listen very carefully. We have important information for you.”

Becker and Avidar again acknowledged. There was an apprehensive tone in their voices.

Laskov realized that the Lear was stalling for time. He spoke to Lavon. “When I raise my hand, fire.”

Talman stood motionless in the center of the Operations Room. He stared in disbelief at the radio speakers. He whispered to himself, “What the hell . . . ?”