Chopper Ops

Chapter 2

Bethesda, Maryland

Ten years later

The phone call came just after 1 A.M.

It roused Gene Smitz out of his recurring dream about playing first base in the 1986 World Series. It was raining outside and in that first groggy moment, Smitz thought the ringing was the sound of raindrops hitting his window. But there was no rain
that
hard, his sleepy brain told him. Yanking himself out of his dream just as Mookie Wilson's dribbler was heading right for him, Smitz reached over and answered the phone.

The voice on the other end was a whisper, echoing and distant. That was how Smitz knew it was from his office.

"You are needed at Bethesda Naval Hospital," the voice said. "Second floor, Room 333. It's best you don't delay."

The cab driver had no problem with that. When Smitz said he needed to get to Bethesda Hospital as quickly as possible, the Sudanese cabbie drove the twenty-two miles in eighteen minutes. The ride was so wild it gave Smitz at least one strange thought: Was his life
so
ironic that he would be killed in a taxi rushing to a hospital?

They came close—the streets had turned slick in the chilly spring downpour. But somehow he arrived at Bethesda in one piece. And while he didn't know why he was being summoned to the Navy hospital, at least he was sure it didn't pertain to any member of his family. The Office would not have called him for that.

No, this was a work-related thing.

Smitz jumped from the cab, threw the driver a twenty, and hurried inside. He was a slight, thin man, not quite wiry, and just twenty-five years old. His overgrown haircut and tortoise-shell glasses gave him a perpetual college-boy look. This was why the hospital security guards double-checked his ID badge before letting him into the private-area wing of the vast hospital. Smitz just didn't look like a CIA guy. An accountant, maybe. A junior ad executive, possibly. But not CIA. His eyes just didn't have it.

Once in, he took the stairs two at a time up to the third floor. He reached Room 333, and the small mystery was solved. A trio of CIA officers was waiting outside. They were his supervisors, three in succession, right up the ladder. This meant only one person could be behind the door: George Jacobs. The Old Man. The chief of the CIA's Special Foreign Operations Section. Smitz's big boss.

"What happened to him?" Smitz asked the three men outside.

Only one of his supervisors replied. His name was Larry Stone. He was a Grade-A prick, and an angry, bitter man. He resented the fact that Smitz was nearly as high on the pecking order as he at nearly half his age.

"He wants to see you," Stone told him. The words came in icy tones.

Smitz began to open the door, and Stone caught his arm.

"And listen, Harvard boy, it's his heart," Stone said.

"So if he has something to tell you, don't delay in letting him do it."

Smitz nodded curtly and went through the door.

The room was small, spare, white. There were no windows. No other doors. There was a bed at the far end. It was surrounded by a jungle of tubes and hoses. Green ones, white ones, blue ones. A disturbing-looking red one. Then there were the machines. Pumping. Breathing. Beeping. Beneath it all, wrapped in a single pale blue blanket, was the boss.

A shock of white hair, ruddy complexion. A big man who looked ten years younger than his sixty-five years, Jacobs managed a smile when he saw Smitz walk in.

"Sorry to get you out of bed, Smitty."

"What happened, Chief?" Smitz asked, trying not to stare at the gaggle of life-support machinery.

Jacobs laughed. "Old football injury kicking up."

"Chief, I'm sorry . . . I . . ."

Jacobs waved away Smitz's concerns.

"I don't have any regrets," he said. "Except I didn't make as much money as I wanted. You know how the government pays. But maybe where I'm going, they pay better."

Jacobs laughed. Smitz tried to.

"We have some business, though, Smitty, you and me," Jacobs went on.

Smitz turned to the nurse sitting next to Jacobs's bed and gave her a nod. She left quickly. Then Jacobs pointed to his briefcase on the table nearby.

"Red folder, white envelope inside," he said. "Everyone I know is inheriting my problems—and here's a real stinker for you. Sorry I can't leave you with something better. Believe me, if I had my way, I'd just let this one slide. But they are making me do it."

Smitz took the folder out of the briefcase. It was indeed red and sealed several times in red tape. One page was sticking out, and Smitz saw it was a letter with the Presidential seal on it.

"This is a Level Six program, Smitty," Jacobs said. "Way high on the scale. And it's a real pain-in-the-ass job. But it's something that has to be done and now it's your baby. Read the briefing papers when you can, will you?"

Smitz stared into Jacobs's eyes. He didn't look that sick. And despite the spaghetti jumble of tubes and hoses, none of them seemed to be connected to him.

"I'll handle it until you get back on your feet, Chief," Smitz told him. "Don't worry."

Jacobs just laughed at that too.

"Just remember two things about this job, Smitty," he said. "First, it's a very screwed-up program. Stitched together, interservice bullshit. The personnel are still being assembled. The training is just beginning. The equipment is still somewhere in the pipeline. But something has to happen eventually. The problem might get visible. So, do what you can, OK?"

"Will do, Chief..."

Jacobs reached up and shook Smitz's hand.

"Thanks, Smitty . . ."

Smitz hesitated.

"How about the other thing, Chief?" he asked Jacobs. "The second point about this program?"

Jacobs had to think a moment.

"Oh, right," he finally said. "The other thing is, you might find yourself doing a lot of flying for this one."

"OK. So?"

Jacobs motioned for him to get a little closer.

"If you do," Jacobs said in a whisper, "try like hell to stay out of the helicopters."

*****

Smitz left the room, brushed by his supervisors, and retreated to a nearby waiting area. It was deserted, safe enough for him to read the file.

He bought a cup of bad coffee from a nearby vending machine and sat down to read.

The file was barely an inch thick. The first bunch of pages contained a slew of PALs—Presidential Action Letters. They were addressed individually to the personnel ordered to work the program. Most of these people were military. Many of them were Marine Corps. Four were from Army Aviation. Four more were from the Navy SEALs' medical personnel section. Four letters still had their addressee lines blank. Smitz groaned. Jacobs didn't have to warn him about this. From experience he knew that any program involving interservice "cooperation" seemed cursed from the start.

It got worse. The next page displayed the PS2, the personnel selection sequence, which was a fancy way of documenting in graph form both how and why the civilian and military personnel selected for the program had been chosen. But the PS2 sheet was nearly blank; its graph lines were limp and flaccid. Many names had been scratched out; still others were of personnel not even contacted yet. With the exception of the Marines, it was as if someone was simply picking names out of a hat, instead of trying to collect a cohesive group of individuals whose talents would interact for the greater good. This didn't make any sense to Smitz. He could only hope someone up top understood it.

The next part of the file contained a series of satellite photos with map grids superimposed on them. Most were identified as being from the Persian Gulf region, specifically Iraq. They showed what appeared to be sites of recent combat damage. Villages, convoys, oil-storage facilities—all of them torn up, burned, or flattened. In many photos, bodies were in evidence. Smitz's first thought was that the photos had been taken during the Gulf War, nearly ten years before. But each of the pictures carried a date much later than 1991. The most recent one was marked with a date from just a few months ago.

Only two photos depicted places located outside the Persian Gulf region. One of these showed an enormous black hole in a field near a town in Bosnia identified as Crztia. The caption for the second photo said it was taken near Dishu Bur, Somalia. It showed a large portion of slum-like neighborhood simply vaporized.

The third document in the file was actually an envelope containing the Action Paper, essentially the background on why this particular program had been put together. Smitz took a deep gulp of the putrid coffee and opened it.

He expected to find reams of pages explaining what the program involved and what he was supposed to do. Instead, he found just four meager information sheets. The first showed a very blurry photocopy image of what Smitz recognized to be a C-130 cargo plane. It had no markings or insignia, however, seemed bigger than a normal C-130, and appeared to be painted a light shade of camouflage gray. There was a caption attached to the bottom of the photocopy, but most of it had been inked out. The only thing Smitz could make out were a few words directly underneath the airplane's image. They read: "ArcLight 4. Last known radio call sign: Alpha One Blue."

The second sheet had three other photographs attached, none of which had captions. The first showed an aerial photograph of a small airfield Smitz guessed was somewhere in the Caribbean. He'd been in that area enough times to recognize the fauna and the water color. The place looked tiny, with one short airstrip and a few buildings. It also appeared to be deserted. The second and third photos showed the same place, just as empty, taken through a Starscope camera at night.

The third page told Smitz what he should bring for the environment he was going to. Pack light summer wear and nothing else. An index card stapled to the fourth page said Smitz was to report to Andrews Air Force Base within twenty-four hours to get transport to his new assignment. Once he was on-site, further information on the program would be waiting for him.

And that was it. No more photos, no more background. Nothing.

Smitz closed the file and resealed it. Two things began bothering him immediately. First, this seemed to be a big project for someone like him who was still pretty low in rank in his section. Rarely did his assignments take him away from Washington, D.C., or its close environs. This one, though, seemed to indicate he'd be going somewhere hot and humid and be there for a long period of time.

But secondly, never had he read an action report with such a paucity of information. Usually a project folder was
too
thick with paperwork. This one was abnormally thin. Something had to be missing here. Perhaps there was more information in another file in Jacobs's briefcase. Smitz threw the coffee cup away and walked back down the hallway to Jacobs's room.

Only Stone was waiting outside the door now. The other two supervisors had left. Smitz tried to push by him, but the man stopped him.

"You're too late," Stone told him. "He's gone."

"Gone? Gone where?" Smitz asked. "Another room? Another floor?"

"Gone as in 'dead,' " Stone told him coldly. "Ten minutes ago."

Smitz thought he was kidding.

"But I only
left
here ten minutes ago," he said.

Stone didn't blink. "Take a look for yourself," he said.

Smitz went through the door and stopped after two steps. Jacobs
was
gone, as were the tubes and the machines. Only the unmade bed remained.

Stone was right behind him. He handed him a small white card with an address on it.

"This is where you can send flowers," he said.

Smitz looked at the card and then back at Stone, then at the empty room again.

Then without another word, he turned on his heel, went out the door, and took a cab home.