Final Flight (7 page)

“Listen, Doc, most people don’t command air wings.
I do, and I have to fly to do my job.”

“Well, I’ll have to send in a report. My
recommendation is that you be grounded, but maybe we can
get permission for you to just fly during the day.”

Jake finished dressing in silence and sat in one
of the molded plastic chairs. “That won’t
hack it,” he said at last. “I have to fly at
night and I’m going to continue to do so. This cruise will
be over in four months and I can turn in my flight
suit then. But until we get back to the States,
I have to fly at night to do this job.”

“They could send another officer out here to replace
you.”

“They could. But even if they do, he won’t be here
for a while, and I’m the man with the responsibility.”

Hartman toyed with his pen. “Are you ordering me not
to make a grounding recommendation?”

“No. I’m telling you I am going to keep
flying at night and I don’t give a damn what
you do.”

“You can’t fly if I recommend you be grounded,”
Hartman said aggressively. “I know where I
stand.”

“You know all about sore throats and clap and which
pills are which.

But you don’t know a goddamn thing about the navy.
How long have you been in? Three years?”

“Three and a half. But that’s beside the point.”

“No. That is the point. I was flying navy
airplanes and scaring myself silly coming aboard while
you were still in junior high school. I’ve
been riding these birdfarms for twenty years and know
what naval leadership is and I know my own
capabilities. The navy picked me for this job
because I know how to do it. And I intend to do this job the
best way I know how until I’m relieved
by another qualified officer.”

“I’m going to send a message to BURNED.”

“Before you do, I want you to talk to the admiral.
You give him your opinion. I work for him.”

“And you’re going to keep flying?”

“Unless Parker says not to, that’s precisely
what I will do. You whip up some of those vitamin
pills. Order the glasses and call me when they
come in.”

Toad Tarkington was standing by the wardroom door
when Jake approached carrying a helmet bag.
Toad stepped through the door and announced,
“Attention on deck.” The men were still rising when
Jake went by Toad and said loudly, “As you were.”
He still couldn’t get used to officers snapping
to attention when he entered a room.

By the time he reached the stable podium placed on a
table at one end of the room, most of the men were back in
their chairs. Jake waited until everyone was
settled before he spoke. It had been over
three hours since he had a cigarette. He
noticed that there were ashtrays on the tables and several
people were stubbing butts out.

“Good evening.” He looked at the eight
squadron skippers sitting in the front row. Have
we got about everyone?”

“Except for the guys flying, sir.”

“Fine.” Jake took an envelope from his hip
pocket on which he had made some notes. He
looked at the sea of faces looking at him. Most
of the faces were young, in their twenties. Just looking at
them made him feel over the hill. “How many of you
guys are on your first cruise?” Almost a third of the
men raised their hands. “Well, this is my ninth one,
and I have never before been at sea for three months
straight. We didn’t stay out like this during that little
fracas in Vietnam. Ain’t peace wonderful?”

Titters.

“I’m not here tonight to give you any little patriotic
pep talk. The politicians that drop in do it a
whole lot better than I could.”

More chuckles. The ship had recently been
visited by several congressmen and a senator, and those
worthies had insisted on addressing the sailors from
their home states. As they told it, the
sailors were the equals of Washington’s troops
at Valley Forge.

“A couple of guys died last night. We
don’t know why they died, and we may never know. But
they are indeed dead, and dead forever. No one shot them
out of the sky. The hazards inherent in naval aviation
killed them.

“Now that doesn’t mean that we are not going to try
to find out why they died, or that we are not going to do
everything humanly possible to prevent further
accidents. We are going to do both. I had a
discussion with the squadron skippers this morning, and they
tell me they are going to conduct safety reviews
in every squadron.” Jake had ordered them to do so.
“We’re going to ensure these planes are being
properly maintained and you guys who fly them
haven’t forgotten how.

“But what I can’t do is give you and your
sailors some time off. We’re going to have to keep our
noses to the grindstone. We’ve got to keep the
planes up, to guard this task group.”

A hand shot up several rows back Jake
pointed and a lieutenant he didn’t recognize
stood up. “Sir, we wouldn’t have to keep flying
around the clock if we pulled off a couple
hundred miles and gave ourselves some sea room.
Then we could go to an alert status. Sitting here
thirty miles off the coast just cuts our reaction
time to incoming threats.”

“We may be thirty miles off the coast right
now,” Jake replied, “but just before dusk we were
seven miles offshore so everyone in Lebanon could
get a good look. Every wacko in Lebanon knows
we’re here. The orders to steam seven miles off the
coast came from the National Security Council.”

The lieutenant sat down and spoke from his chair.
“We’ll just get those fanatics stirred up.”

“Maybe. What’s your name?”

“Lieutenant Hartnett, sir. I just think that
if we had more sea room, we would have a little more
reaction time if and when Ahmad the Awful cranks
up his Cessna or speedboat and comes roaring out
to sink us.”

“Do you think we can handle a threat like that?” Jake
asked with a grin.

“We’ll send him to that big oasis in the sky,
sir.”

“I’ll sleep better knowing that.”

Laughter swept the room. Jake grinned
confidently, though he was well aware of the
real problems involved in defending the task group.
The admiral, his staff officers, and Jake had
spent many hours discussing alternative courses of
action in the event of a terrorist threat from
Lebanon. It wasn’t a laughing matter. The
rules of engagement under which the American ships
operated severely limited the options available.
This was the main reason Admiral Parker was rarely
more than twenty feet from Flag Ops.

“Seriously, we are here to make our presence
felt. That’s why we parade around right off the coast.
Doing damn fool things because politicians tell you
to goes with the uniform. And every man in this room is a
volunteer. But I don’t want anyone killing
himself or his crewman because he kept flying past the
limit of his own capabilities.” He unzipped
the helmet bag and took out a helmet. He held
it out by the chin strap, so it-hung upside down.

“I’m going to hang this thing in my office.
Anyone who thinks that he has had all of this
bullshit he can stand can throw his wings in it.

Put a piece of tape around your wings with your name
on it so I’ll know who to talk to.” All eyes
were on the helmet. “Flying the schedule we do
demands the best you can give it. I hate
to see guys turn in their wings, but I like it even
less when people kill themselves. Each and every one of you knows what your personal limit is. I am relying on
you to call it quits before you go beyond that limit.”

He picked up the helmet bag, tucked the
helmet under his arm and headed for the door.

“Attention on deck,” Toad roared.

Everyone in the room snapped to attention while
Jake walked out.

Up in the air wing office Jake handed the
helmet to Yeoman First Class Farnsworth.
“Get a coathanger,” he said, “and hang this thing from
the ceiling right here by the door. I want anyone who
opens this door to see this helmet.”

“Why?” asked Farnsworth, slightly baffled.

“It’s for wings,” Jake said and tossed the
helmet bag on a table. “Go get a coathanger
and do it now. Someone may want to use it sooner rather
than later.”

“Yes sir.” Farnsworth laid the helmet on
his desk and started for the door.

“Any new messages on the classified
board?” Jake asked before Farnsworth could get out
the door.

“Yes sir. A bunch. There’s even
another intelligence report about a planned raid
on the ship by some group or other using an
ultralight.”

“Again? How many air raid warnings have we had?”

“I think about nineteen, CAG. Thank God
for the CIA.” Jake waved Farnsworth out the door
and took the message board into his office. He
thought about having a cigarette. There should be a pack
in his lower right desk drawer. He remembered
putting it there two or three days ago. Well,
maybe it was still there. He opened the drawer and glanced
inside. Just papers. He stirred them. Aha, the
pack of weeds had fallen under this little report with the
blue cover. Hiding there, weren’t you, little fellow.
Don’t try to get away like that. He closed the
drawer and began thumbing through the messages, trying
to sort the important ones from the usual reams of
computerized goo that constituted the vast bulk of the
classified traffic.

He found it difficult to concentrate on the
messages with that pack of cigarettes lying down there
in the drawer, just waiting. Shit, how long had it
been? He looked at his watch. Three hours and
fifty-one minutes. No, fifty-two minutes.
Almost four hours!

The black Mercedes rolled through the dusty
streets on the edge of town as if the streets were
empty, which they most certainly were not.

Children and men leading laden mules and camels
scurried to clear the path of the speeding vehicle with
army flags on the front bumper. Dark glass
prevented anyone outside the vehicle from seeing the
passengers, but most of the people on the street averted their
gaze once they ensured they were not in danger of being
run over.

The limousine stopped momentarily at two army
checkpoints on the outskirts of the city, then rolled
through the open gate of an enormous stucco building.

In the courtyard two men stepped from the rear of the
car. Both wore Western clothes. A waiting
officer wearing a major’s uniform led them through a
small door and up a flight of stairs lit only
by a naked bulb hanging above each landing. High,
narrow windows without glass lined the lengthy
corridor at the top of the stairs. Dirt from the
desert lay accumulated in corners. Their
footsteps echoed on the slate floor.

After several turns, the major opened a door and
stood aside. The two men from the Mercedes
entered a well-furnished apartment. The late afternoon
sun shone in the one window, a window in which glass had
been installed at some time in the past but which had
apparently never been washed.

“Colonel Qazi, Sakol is in the
next room. Is there anything further you need?”

“Tell me about Jarvis, the weapons expert.”

“Your instructions have been followed precisely.
He was examined by a physician while still sedated
after his journey. The physician found him in fair
health with no apparent abnormalities, although
seventeen kilos overweight. He has been kept
naked in solitary confinement and fed precisely one
thousand calories a day, with all the water he can
drink. The bucket in his cell is never emptied.
The light there remains on continuously. No one
has spoken to him.”

“Very well. Has Sakol been any trouble?”

“No trouble, sir, although he has asked several
times when to expect you.

“You have guarded him well?”

“Of course. His guards are unobtrusive, but
he cannot leave the apartment area where he is staying.”

“Thank you, Major. Bring Sakol in.”
Qazi selected a stuffed chair and
sank into it. His companion stood against the wall, a
man of medium height with short, dark hair and
olive skin. He wore dark blue trousers, a
white shirt open at the collar, and a lightweight
Italian sport coat that had lost its shape at
some point in the distant past.

He had a large, square jaw which he
unconsciously clenched and unclenched rhythmically,
making the muscles in his cheeks pulsate. His
restless black eyes scanned the room, then steadied
on the door through which Sakol, the ex-CIA agent,
would enter.

Qazi placed a pack of American
cigarettes and some matches on the table before him, then
studied his fingernails.

The door opened and a bearded man in his fifties
entered. He had the broad chest and heavy arms of the
serious weightlifter, but now the muscles were covered
with a layer of fat that made him look even more
massive. He stood at least six feet tall.
“Ah, Sakol. So good to see you,” Qazi
said in English.

Sakol stopped three steps into the room and
studied the man against the wall. “Why did you bring this
son of a dog?” Sakol asked in
Arabic.

The expression of the man against the wall did not
change.

“Sit here, Sakol.” Qazi pointed to a
chair beside him. The American turned the chair so
he could see both Qazi and the man against the wall
and sat. “You know Ali is indispensable to me. I
cannot do everything myself.” English again.

Sakol sniffed several times and said in Arabic,
“Ah, yes, I can still smell him.”

“English please,” Qazi said firmly and
offered the American a cigarette, which he accepted.
Qazi had gone to great lengths in the past to ensure
Sakol thought Ali could speak only Arabic, and
he was not yet ready to drop the deception.
Conspirators felt most comfortable when their secrets
appeared safe.

“You have succeeded brilliantly with the Jarvis
recruitment. I’ve had good reports.”

“I took a lot of heavy risks pulling it
off Qazi, and earned every goddamn dime of the
money you agreed to pay. I assume the money is
where it’s supposed to be?”

Oeaeaazi extracted a bankbook from his jacket
pocket and passed it to Sakol, who
examined the signatures carefully, then placed it
in his trouser pocket without comment.

“That’s a lot of money, Sakol.”

“I’ve supplied things you could purchase nowhere
else. I risked my butt doing it. I earned the
fucking money.”

“Indeed. Have you enough money now?” Sakol pursed
his lips momentarily. “Jarvis is a nuclear
weapons expert.” He smoked his cigarette while
Qazi sat in silence and watched the dust swirl in
the sunbeam coming through the one window.

“Your help on my next project would be worth
one million dollars,” Qazi said when the
burning tip of Sakol’s cigarette had almost
reached the filter. “Half in advance.”

“The agency and the Mossad are after us both. They
want us dead. Ding dong dead. Blown away.

“Indeed! What did you expect? Why do you think
we paid you so much money?”

“I want two million, half in advance. You
Arabs always like to haggle.

People eventually forget about stolen antiaircraft
missiles and kidnappings, but they won’t forget about
anything that smells of nuclear weapons. Not ever.
“One million real American dollars
in your numbered Swiss account, Sakol, and if you
are very lucky, you will live to spend it.”

Sakol threw back his head and laughed harshly.
“You amaze me, Qazi.

You could have killed me anytime, and only now you
threaten me. My sheep-fucking Arab friend, you can
kiss my ass. I’ve taken precautions.”

“Ah, yes. The letters to be mailed in the event of
your death. The ones you gave your sister in Chicago,
which she keeps in a safe deposit box at the
State Street National Bank. Box number
One Five Oh Eight.”

Sakol helped himself to another cigarette. He
struck a match and held it to the cigarette with
twisted and gnarled fingers without nails.

The flame did not waver. He inhaled deeply,
then blew the match out with a cloud of smoke that
engulfed Oeaeaazi. “Two million. You know
damn well I’m not scared of you.”

“One million, one hundred thousand. Half in
advance. The Americans will learn of your aid to our
cause.

Henry Sakol laughed, a harsh guttural
laugh that filled the room. “You really know your
bastards, don’t you, Qazi? That’s
right! I want those arrogant, snot-nosed, Ivy
League pig fuckers to know I helped you screw
‘em. Right in their tight little cherry asses. He
slapped the bankbook on the arm of his chair, then
handed it over. “What’s the job?”

“Has Jarvis seen you?”

“No, he hasn’t. The guys you sent to help were
competent.”

“Then I’ll explain.” Qazi talked while
Sakol chain-smoked. The sunbeam coming through the one
window crept up the wall and finally disappeared,
leaving the room in growing darkness.

The phone rang. “Captain Grafton.”

“Jake, this is the Admiral. I’m here in
Flag Ops with Captain James and Doctor
Hartman. Would you come over, please.”

“I’ll be right there, sir.”

Jake gave the message board to Airman
Smith to lock away and rooted in his desk drawer
for his baseball cap. He needed to be covered
to salute the admiral, and aboard ship everyone
routinely wore ball caps. He found his and
settled it on his thinning hair.

In Flag Ops, the commanding officer of the United
States, Captain Laird James, was
discussing a mechanical problem in the forward
reactor with Admiral Parker when Jake arrived.
Laird James was in his late forties and tall and
lean, without an ounce of fat. In those few times
Jake had dined with him, James had only picked
at his food. His hair was shot through with gray and the
skin of his face was stretched tightly around a small
mouth. He never smiled, or at least he never had
in Jake’s presence.

The doctor was looking over the shoulders of several
members of the watch team as they worked the displays on
the Navy Tactical Data System (Ntds)
computer. Jake stopped several steps short of the
admiral’s raised padded chair and waited. When
Parker nodded toward Jake, he stepped over and
saluted. The doctor joined them.

“Doc Hartman wants to ground you,” Cowboy
Parker said without preliminaries. “He says that your
night vision is unacceptable.”

“Yes sir.”

“Why don’t you want to be grounded?”

“Admiral, we’ve got these flight crews
stretched as tight as rubber bands. We’re getting
all the flying out of them that anyone has a right
to expect. We lost one crew last
night. And no matter how careful we are, we may
lose another. These men all know that. I can’t ask
them to keep flying unless I put myself on the flight
schedule. It’s that simple.”

“How long would it take to get a new CAG out
here from the States,” Parker asked Captain
James.

“A couple months, if we’re lucky,”
James said gloomily. Parker shifted in his chair
several times, then stood up and stretched.

“What do you think, Doc?”

“Sir, the regulations say…

“How many times did you check Captain
Grafton’s eyes?”

“I didn’t, sir. A first-class corpsman
did.”

“So you don’t even know if the corpsman’s
result, or diagnosis, is correct?”

“Well .

“Assuming the corpsman is correct, could this be
a temporary condition that might clear up?”

“I suppose anything’s possible, but…

“He said that maybe nicotine is contributing to the
vision loss,” Jake put in quickly. “I got a
bottle of vitamin pills to take. And
maybe quitting smoking will help.”

Parker looked at the doctor with one eyebrow
raised. “It’s possible nicotine is contributing
to the loss,” the doctor said.

“You personally recheck Captain Grafton’s
eyes in two weeks,” Parker said, “and let me
know the results.”

“Yes sir.”

“Can you live with that, Laird?” Captain
James had been ordered aboard the United
States while she was still under construction, so he knew
every frame, every space, almost every bolt and rivet,
all ninety-five thousand tons worth. He knew
all the systems in the ship better than any other
living human. He had no time for incompetents or
fools, preferring instead to transfer those officers
whom he concluded fell into one or both
categories with fitness reports that ensured they were
professionally doomed. His department heads scrambled
to match his knowledge of their domain and lived in terror of his
wrath. Jake doubted that Captain James could
lead a horse to water, but as the chief
administrator of a fifty-six-hundred-man
institution, he was ruthless efficiency incarnate. In
short, he was a perfect bastard.

“Yes, sir,” Laird James said sourly.
Although Jake was not under his command-indeed, under the new
air wing system, James actually needed Jake’s
permission to fire the ship’s weapons-still, it was his
ship, and if Jake crashed coming aboard, James
would be splattered with his share of the blame.

“Thanks, Doctor. And Laird, I’ll
talk to you later.” Both the doctor and the CO
saluted and left the space.

“Can you still see to fly at night, Jake?”

“Yes sir. Not as well as I used to, but
well enough. If I couldn’t, I’d be the first
to know.”

“I’m banking on that. Just go easy on yourself. Do
most of your flying in the daytime. Are you flying tonight?”

“No, sir.”

“How did it go this evening with the helmet?”

“You should have seen them looking at it. They’re
thinking. A man or two may quit, but most of
‘em will stick like glue since they’ve been offered an
out. They wouldn’t be here if they weren’t stubborn as
hell; they’d have washed out long ago.

“Go get a decent night’s sleep.”

“Thanks, Cowboy.” Jake saluted and Parker
returned the salute with a smile.

Jarvis was led into the room naked and blindfolded, in
handcuffs, and a rope was lashed around his ample middle
to hold him to the chair. A lamp had been placed
on the table and shone directly in his face. Qazi
and Ali stood in the shadows until the guards
closed the door behind them. Sakol was not in the room.

“Welcome Jarvis.” Qazi came forward and
sat in the same chair that he had occupied when
Sakol was in the room. A portion of his lower legs
was in the lamplight, but he knew from careful
experimentation that his face was hidden. He crossed his
legs and began moving his toe back and forth
slightly. He nodded and Ali stepped forward and
untied the blindfold. Jarvis screwed up his face
in the light and narrowed his eyes to slits.

“We know your little secrets, Jarvis. All of them.”

“Who are you? Where am I?” The voice was soft,
hesitant, fearful.

Qazi uncrossed his legs, leaned forward and
slapped him soundly. The man in the chair began
to cry.

“All your little secrets, Jarvis. Each and every
one of them.” Qazi slapped him again.

“Please …” Another slap.

“Get a grip on yourself, Jarvis, or this will go
on all night.” Sniff.

Sob. Sniff.

“You are here to help us, Jarvis, and you shall. If
you do your work diligently and well, you may live
to return to your wife in Texas and your Tuesday
evening meetings with the woman who supplies you with little
boys. If you fail us, well … I need not go
into that.”

Jarvis was at least sixty, with several long
strands of brown hair which he normally combed over his
bald pate but which now hung at odd angles and
made him look pathetic. His jowls quivered when
he breathed.

“You won’t tell my wife about … Will you?”
Qazi slapped him again.

“You fool. Your wife is the least of your
problems.” Wrong response, he thought. He
changed tactics instantly. “You will do as we say,
or indeed, we will tell your wife, we will send her
pictures of you and several of your little friends, then we
will pass the photographs to several newspapers.
Every man, woman, and child in Texas shall know of your
perversions and your wife’s shame. Do you understand me?”

Jarvis blinked continuously and his jowls
quaked as he nodded his head.

“Answer me!”

“I understand.”

“Very good.” Qazi leaned back in his chair and
crossed his legs again.

He sat silently for a moment as Jarvis
squinted to see his face, but finally began speaking when
the prisoner began watching the foot that was in the cone
of light. Qazi moved his toe rhythmically.

“I want you to build me seven instruments,
Jarvis. These instruments shall be used to bypass the
safety devices in Mark 58 nuclear weapons.

“I don’t …” The toe stopped and Jarvis
ran out of steam. “If you were going to tell me that you
know nothing of these weapons, it is well you saved your
breath.” Qazi got the toe in motion again. “Your
position as a design engineer at the factory that
assembles these devices is your finest credential.
We did not bring you here because you disgust us. You will
build seven instruments that will bypass the safety
devices in Mark 58 nuclear weapons. These
instruments shall contain a source of electrical power
that will energize the weapon and trigger it. One of these
instruments will contain a radio receiver that allows it
to be triggered from a distance. Do you understand?”
The toe stopped again.