Flash Point (30 page)

Ricketts checked the rearview mirrors on the gray panel truck. He was pulling a trailer with five new Honda motor scooters in it, two purple, one white, one red, and one black. The truck had tools, and various Honda parts. He entered the main street of the town, scanning every window, alley, and rooftop as he went, checking for security. He wished Dar al Ahmar was closer to the coast.

Ricketts was in favor of having a talk with the Sheikh. He was interested and willing to have a very personal conversation with him. To let him know how the Americans felt about his murder of one of its Navy officers. But he had been overruled in the DO. We want him brought back alive, for trial. Only in America. Capture murderers, take them to Washington, give them room and board and attorneys paid for by American taxpayers, have some ACLU asshole find some reason to call a press conference, and sue the government because the murderer was discriminated against somehow, or deprived of his rights, or “captured” illegally in Lebanon or where the hell ever. They always spoke with great offense and outrage.

Ricketts tried not to think about the U.S. side of the operation. That wasn’t his job. His job was to get the Sheikh. And he had just the plan —
if
his agents were right, and hadn’t sold him and the entire operation out to somebody else for more money. The agents who would help with the transfer were already in place. He had visited them during the night. The decoys were set, the helicopters ready, and the shooters standing by. The actual grab was the last piece, though obviously the most important.

Ricketts drove around three sheep, which were wandering through town, and manuevered his truck and trailer into a narrow street lined on both sides with two-story buildings. The motorcycle shop was on the far corner. It was small and crowded and there was no place to park in front of the shop. A large van had been waiting there and when the driver saw Ricketts coming in his mirror he pulled away from the curb. It was timed perfectly. Ricketts turned into the spot and switched off the engine. He checked his watch.

The shop didn’t open until ten. Through the shop window, Ricketts could see almost all of the inventory of motorcycles, motor scooters, and mopeds. He knew that most were used, but a few were new. He also knew that the shop had been asked to bring in several new motor scooters because Assam — an elusive man whose family had come from Dar al Ahmar and who was known mostly for his apparently unlimited influence and money — wanted to buy one for his niece for her birthday. Assam had promised to personally pick it out with her, not just to send a lieutenant to do it for him. He would be in between eight and ten that morning to choose, before the shop opened.

Ricketts stepped out of the truck and stretched. He wore old Arab clothing and moved stiffly, as if he were twenty years older than he was. His dark face was covered with what looked like a one-week beard that had a lot of gray, unlike his actual beard. As he went to the door of the shop he noticed the four armed men on the rooftops of the surrounding buildings, already in place to protect their boss, Ricketts’s target. Nice work, he thought to himself. They were exactly where they should be. The other six bodyguards that Assam would bring would undoubtedly go inside the shop with him. They had to. If they didn’t, all would be lost.

It wasn’t even seven o’clock yet. Ricketts shielded his face as he pressed against the locked glass door. He knocked loudly and shouted in perfect Arabic, “Hondas are here! Open up!”

There was no reply. He banged again, and glanced around as if concerned about waking somebody up. “Hey! You said to be here early! I’m here. Where are you!? Hey!”

Finally he heard something inside the store. He stood back and nodded expectantly. He glanced over at his Hondas to be sure someone wasn’t trying to unchain them. The shop door opened. “Yes. You made it.”

“Of course, I made it. I brought the motor scooters. Where do you want me to put them?”

“Right in the front of the store. Our guest will inspect them there, his niece can ride whichever ones she wants, and then we will do business inside.”

Ricketts nodded several times. “Coffee?”

“Of course,” the man said, indicating the inside of the shop.

They went through the door and left it standing open. In the back of the shop, the man poured steaming thick coffee out of an ornately decorated copper pitcher into a dark blue cup. Ricketts drank and took in the room. He could quickly see that everything had been prepared and all was in place. The line on the floor was almost invisible, more a line drawn in the lingering dust by a finger. He could see it clearly though, and knew the others who needed to could as well. All they had to do was get the Sheikh beyond the line toward the back of the store and they would be in business.

Ricketts looked into his agent’s eyes. “Is everything ready to close the sale?”

The man’s eyes flickered knowingly. “Yes.”

“Are you sure our friend will come?”

“I am never sure of anything.”

Ricketts poured himself more coffee. “I drove a long way with my new Hondas. I don’t want to waste the trip.”

“He does what he wants. If he decides not to buy the motor scooter for his niece, then that will be that. We cannot tell him what to do. We were fortunate to get the notice we did.”

“Do you have any more information on when he will be here?”

“He will be here when he wants to be here.”

“Before the store opens. Yes?”

“That is what he said. He might come today or another time. We will see.”

“So we wait,” Ricketts said, sipping his thick coffee.

“We wait.”

“Here we go,” Woods said, going hot mike as they taxied toward the catapult. The two Tomcats were to be the first planes to be shot off on the earliest launch of the day, just west of Israel.

Wink was studying the chart he had been given an hour before the brief. He was starting to get anxious.

The sun was rising over the horizon on a spectacular morning. The calm Mediterranean lay in peaceful surrender underneath the
Washington
, gently holding it up. The water was an uncharacteristically dark purplish blue, with occasional foam.

Since waking Pritch, Woods had been up planning the flight. He had gone over all the information the Major had given him until he had everything memorized. The schedule, the frequencies, everything.

“Tiger know what he’s supposed to do?” Woods asked as he turned the nosewheel toward the catapult with the rudder pedals.

“He just hopes nobody looks too close.”

“Don’t we all,” Woods said, his voice revealing some tension.

They taxied to the catapult and stopped. They put their hands up while the ordnancemen removed the pins from the six missiles they carried on nearly every flight: two Phoenix, two Sparrow, and two Sidewinder. The ordie gave them a thumbs-up and showed them the long red flags attached to the safing pins they had pulled from the weapons and counted them for Woods to see. Woods inclined his head, and the ordie turned away. They taxied forward and kneeled the Tomcat. The airplane was ready and so were they. Woods stole a quick glance forward to cat two; Big and Sedge were ready, wings forward, engines at full power. He watched as their catapult jerked. The nose of the Tomcat went down toward the deck, then raced toward the bow. Big rotated the Tomcat as it left the deck, sucked up the gear, and climbed away in a right-hand clearing turn. After a quarter of a mile he turned left to parallel the ship’s course.

Woods felt tension go into the catapult as the shuttle pulled on the nosewheel launch bar. He hurried through the final items on his takeoff checklist with Wink. The radios were silent.

“Ready?” Woods asked quickly. “Ready,” answered Wink just as quickly. Woods saluted and put his head back. The Tomcat jerked downward, then shot down the deck.

“Good speed,” Wink called calmly the way he always did as the Tomcat flew off the end of the carrier.

Woods automatically raised the landing gear, pulling up and away from the carrier in his left-hand clearing turn. He climbed to five hundred feet and leveled off. He felt exhilaration; he was full of coffee and energy. The weather was spectacular, the water was beautiful, and the plane was performing perfectly. He was finally doing what he had been training to do for years. He felt calm and completely alive. He accelerated and caught up with Big, who tapped his helmet and pointed to Woods, giving him the lead. As they passed seven miles away from the ship, Woods pulled back steadily on the stick until they were climbing quickly away from the water.

Woods returned overhead the ship and orbited at six thousand feet for five minutes waiting for the S-3 tanker to arrive at its station. It felt like an hour and a half. His heart was beating rapidly and his breathing was deeper and faster than he was used to.

“Where’s that stupid S-3?” Woods said, frustrated.

“He was sitting on the deck when we launched. You really think he’s gonna get here before we do?” Wink replied.

Woods scanned the sky anxiously.

“Got him,” Wink said. “Forty left, four thousand feet, climbing.”

Woods looked to his left. “Tallyho,” he said as he brought the Tomcat sharply left to head for the S-3.

“Better let him get to altitude or he’ll yell at us,” Wink cautioned.

“We don’t have a lot of time to screw around today, Wink.”

“I know that, Trey. Just lighten up.”

Woods frowned under his visor and oxygen mask as he rendezvoused with the tanker. He motioned for the pilot to deploy the basket and moved quickly back when it was in place. After both the Tomcats had taken as much gas as they could hold they broke off from the tanker and headed for their air intercept station to practice intercepts.

Wink switched to button eight on the radio in the backseat, and Woods changed to the radio frequency in the front that he and Big had agreed on, Jolly Roger common — the frequency used by the squadron, but they added one digit in case anyone else was listening.

“Big, you up?” Woods asked.

“Two,” Big replied.

Wink consulted his card to see what the
Washington
was calling itself and what the squadron’s code name was for the day. “
Gulf November, this is Bright Sword 211
.”

“Bright Sword 211, Gulf November, your station is 020 at 30. Who wants to go first?”

Woods checked his clock. They had to go now.

“
211 will be the first fighter, and 207 will be the bogey
,” Wink transmitted to Tiger, the familiar voice of the controller. They had met at 0300 that morning.

“Roger 211, squawk 3234. Take station 020 for 60. Break — 207, squawk, 3353. Take station 020 at 30.”

“
211
,” Wink said.

“
207
,” Sedge transmitted.

They headed out the 020 radial as they climbed out toward their stations. Big kept his place on Woods’s starboard wing waiting for the signal. They approached thirty miles and Woods leveled off at fifteen thousand feet.

“
Thirty miles
,” Wink transmitted.

“Roger, 207, you can orbit there, and 211, continue outbound.”

Woods nodded and the two F-14s pitched over and headed toward the ocean. Wink and Sedge turned off their IFFs — Identification, Friend or Foe — and changed the Link 11 frequency that allowed automatic communication for data link from that of the
Washington
to the frequency Trey had given them of the Israeli Air Force E-2C Hawkeye, the radar plane identical to those on the
Washington
. It was orbiting somewhere in northern Israel.

“Should be getting their picture any minute now,” Wink told Woods as he switched the displays in the back cockpit and Woods adjusted his own displays so he could see Wink’s radar picture. They descended rapidly to the water with Big on their wing. Wink looked around for airplanes, but saw none. The radar showed no ships or airplanes in any direction closer than twelve miles.

Woods turned east, heading 086. It was 0715. They were a couple of minutes behind the rigid schedule Woods had set for them in his planning. They had no room for error. “We may be late. I’m going to push it up a little.”

“Whatever you do, don’t go super.”

“Don’t worry,” Woods said, advancing the throttles to military power as he leveled off at fifty feet. The sea raced by, a dark purple comforting blur. Big stayed above Woods, long ago having learned the lesson that when flying very low the wingman should stay above the lead or risk being scraped off the ground or a tree. “Head 080,” Wink said.

“How do you know that?” Woods asked without looking into the cockpit. He was concentrating to keep from flying into the sea. If he sneezed, they’d hit the water going five hundred knots.

“We’ve got good data link. They’re showing Ramat David, and all the airplanes that are airborne.” Wink leaned forward and raised his hand above the green on black screen to block out the reflected sunlight. “I’m going lead nose. No radar from here on.”

“Don’t turn it on accidentally, Wink. That’s all we need is for someone to detect our radar.”

“Don’t worry,” he replied. “I’ll set the frequency to sniff in case I hit the switch.”

“
211, come south to 200, Bogey 200 at 30, angels 15
,” Tiger transmitted.

“
Roger. 211 coming to 200
,” Wink replied. “Sounds like Tiger’s on board.”

“Think he’ll pull it off using fake symbols?”

“He thought so. We’ll soon find out.”

“You didn’t tell him where we were going, did you?”

“No. Don’t want them to run out of room at Leavenworth. Less he knows the better.”

“What if he doesn’t pull it off?”

“We’re cooked,” Wink said, shrugging. “We could still say we were doing unauthorized dogfighting. Didn’t want Admiral Sweat dirtying his shorts.”

“Good idea.”

“Radar altimeter set?”

“Forty feet.”

“That should keep us dry.”

“How far to the shoreline? I think I can just make it out.”

“Without the radar it’s hard to tell, but about fifteen miles.”