Flash Point (37 page)

“That’s incredible,” Big said, feeling somehow betrayed, looking at Woods, who was fighting the chill that had settled over most of the officers in the room.

“There are books on it. Read for yourself. Israel said it was a
mistake
and they were
really
sorry.”

“What do you think, Skipper?” Big said, anger inside him.

Bark stared at him. “Would
you
make a mistake like that? Dropping iron bombs on the wrong ship? If you weren’t sure, would you drop? And they had boats out there
machine gunning
it. Visual range.”

Big shook his head.

“Me neither. I think the official U.S. policy is to accept the Israeli explanation. Well,” Bark continued, “go about your business. Lieutenant fitness report inputs are due to the department heads by Friday, and in final form to the Ops O, our pinch hitting XO, by the next Friday.” He hesitated as they all thought of the XO and Brillo. Woods tried to keep the image of Brillo’s scalp on the airplane tail from leaping into his mind but was completely unsuccessful. “First class evals are due to you in draft from your division chiefs by the end of the month. I still need Sailor of the Quarter nominations, and we have a surprise health and safety inspection scheduled for tomorrow morning. Any other questions?”

There weren’t any.

Kinkaid put the photographs up on the screen. There were three of them, the three views from the accessible sides of the building. There were white arrows on the photographs next to two individuals who were barely noticeable otherwise. It was a grainy, fuzzy photograph, obviously taken through a thermal site. “We just got these in,” he said. He turned the lights down to make the room even dimmer than it already was. All they could see clearly were the computer screens, lights from the equipment, and the photographs on the screen in front of them.

Kinkaid continued, his voice tired from years of tracking people who were hard to find and harder to deal with. “These are from the embassy in Rabat, Morocco. Maybe a couple of thieves. Or, they may be something else. They were standing outside the embassy at two in the morning. They were very hard to see, because they’re very good at what they’re doing—”

“How do we know they’re not just thieves?”

“They may be. That’s what I
just
said, if you would listen,” he replied annoyed. “But in this case, our officers on the ground say this is a little out of the ordinary. It’s their job to spot the anomalies, and they say this is out of the ordinary. Plus, if you thought about it, thieves don’t usually case an embassy. Not a good target for theft, what with Marines and all.

“I wanted us all to be aware of this. You can see what the concern is. If someone’s watching an embassy, the obvious question is why and the obvious answer is to conduct some kind of attack on the building.”

He showed an overhead diagram of the location of the embassy in Casablanca, another larger one of the city, and a smaller one of the blocks immediately around the distinctive three-story structure. “As you can see, the possible approaches for a truck bomb are numerous. There has been some progress made in blocking off the parking near the building, but we’re not free of risk.”

“He wouldn’t use a truck bomb against an embassy,” Sami said.

Kinkaid stared at Sami, put off by his tone. “How do you know that?”

“It’s not their style.”

“So that’s the end of our analysis? ‘It’s not their style’?”

Sami was stung. “I just don’t think they will. His Assassins operate based on a different set of criteria. He doesn’t seem interested in large bombs that blow up hundreds of people. I think there might be some — I hesitate to call it wisdom — but thinking there. If it’s a big explosion and a hundred people are killed, all we see is a pile of dead people, but it isn’t really personal. So far, at least, he’s gone for the dramatic impact.”

“So don’t worry about a large attack or truck bomb because Sami says?”

“No, sir, we should take precautions, absolutely, I’m just telling you that I don’t think it’s very likely.”

“I’m sending out Snapshot Teams,” Kinkaid said with finality. “Anybody disagree with that?”

Cunningham spoke reluctantly. “Why would he be after us? Unless he knows Ricketts was there, the only American he’s encountered was the Navy officer. By accident. So why would he start on us?”

“Maybe we’ve been his target all along, and now he’s just getting started.”

Cunningham nodded. He and the others knew better than to disagree with the head of the task force, at least when he had declared what he had decided to do. And it did make sense. It was something that should be done, even if they found nothing. The riskier course would be not to send the teams, and have something happen.

Woods sat in front of the computer screen dealing with the e-mails he looked at every day. In fact, in many ways they made his day. He stayed in touch with his mother, his brother, his friends from college, and Navy pals whom he had met at various points in his Navy career. He stared at the in box, surveying the return e-mail addresses for the new e-mails he had received. He noticed one he didn’t recognize — “[email protected].” What the hell is that? he thought to himself as he scrolled down and hit Enter to retrieve that e-mail first. It came up and he read it:

Dear Lieutenant Woods: We’ve never met. I am the Legislative Director on Admiral Brown’s staff. I’m the one who received your letter recommending we declare war against Sheikh al-Jabal. I am also the one who sent you the form letter, saying essentially that we shared your concern with international terrorism, and that the Admiral was supporting this or that.      I’ve felt bad ever since that letter went out. I wanted to tell you that the form letter didn’t truly reflect the interest your letter generated in this office.      You probably don’t know Admiral Brown. He is bright, energetic, and most of all, willing to listen to the ideas of his subordinates. That distinguishes him from a lot of his fellow members of Congress, believe me. But he was willing to listen to you too. That’s what I wanted you to know. I personally talked to him about your idea. He was fascinated. We talked at some length about whether it was possible, legal, etc. Good stuff. The staff has been talking about it ever since. He’s even got some people looking into it further, including me. It just seemed unfair to let you continue to think that no one here paid any attention to it all. There are enough cynics there who think nothing that a constituent says has any value at all. I guess sometimes that does seem to be the case. But at least as far as your letter is concerned, it has stimulated a lot of thought and I wanted you to know.      Let me know if there is anything I can ever do for you. I feel like I owe you one.
Sincerely,      Jaime Rodriguez

Woods couldn’t believe his eyes. He read the e-mail again and again. He sat back in his chair and stared at the screen. Suddenly he yelled, “Big!”

Woods and Wink were elected by Bark to be the first aircrew to sit alert five. During the transit west, while there wasn’t going to be any flying, the carrier still had to protect itself from an unexpected attack. It was one thing that all carrier Captains and Air Wing Commanders had in common — an aversion to being attacked by surprise. Pearl Harbor had changed everything. If there was even the remotest possibility of a threat, pilots sat in airplanes on alert, ready to take off on a moment’s notice. With Israel and Syria having at it, it was decided to keep fighters in alert five until the flight schedule picked up again in the afternoon.

Alert five simply meant they had the ability to get airborne with live missiles and defend the carrier battle group from any attack in five minutes. The aircrew had to be strapped into their seats, airplane plugged in, sitting on the cat, alignment set, ready to go. All they had to do was start the engines and get shot off the catapult.

Woods and Wink sat in the Tomcat on catapult three in the middle of the landing area of the flight deck. The canopy was open to the warm beautiful Mediterranean day. The sun was overhead, the sea swept by at thirty knots.

Woods concentrated and moved the buttons quickly with his thumbs. He had done it hundreds of times and was ready. He knew the limited time he had, about thirty seconds. He moved buttons furiously, frustrated, an occasional curse coming from his mouth. The thirty seconds passed, and the ship’s radar antenna came around again, wiping out the electronic football game he was manipulating. “Fourteen points,” he called to Wink as he passed the football game back to him.

Wink grabbed it and checked the location of the rotating radar. Thirty seconds. He worked the game frantically, passing, carrying the ball and scoring, again and again. He was much better at it than Woods. He could see the radar approaching. He worked faster. The radar beam passed through them and wiped out the game. “Seventeen points!” he announced.

He reached forward with his right hand and passed the portable game back to Woods. “You cheated,” Woods accused. “No way you could score that much in one pass of the radar.”

“You just can’t stand losing.”

Woods was so intent on the game he didn’t see their relief approaching the plane. The two officers began their own preflight. Each new alert crew took the opportunity to check the airplane themselves. Not that they didn’t trust their squadron mates. They wouldn’t have trusted themselves. When they were done, they called up to Woods and Wink. “Okay,” they said. “You can come down.”

Woods and Wink unstrapped, gathered their navigation information and flight bags, and climbed down to the flight deck. “All yours,” Woods said. “I wish we could stay and sit in this plane longer, but I guess we can’t have all the fun.”

Lieutenant Commander Paulson looked at Woods with a smile. “You may not be winning this deal. There’s another officers’ meeting in five minutes. That’s why we decided to relieve you just a little early. Now
you’ve
got to go.”

“Ohhh, not another one. What about?”

Paulson shrugged. “CAG’s on the warpath. He’s running around all over the ship with his hair on fire. Something’s up.”

Woods looked at Wink, who was trying not to throw up. “You guys want the football game?” he asked finally.

“No thanks. I brought a book.”

“You’re not supposed to read,” Woods said.

“I know. I’d better be careful, or they’ll give me a
time out
and strap me into a seat in a small confined place for two hours.” He shrugged. “What are they gonna do? Send me home?
Hurt
me,” he said as he climbed into the front cockpit.

“See you guys,” Wink said. He glanced at Woods and saw the concern on his face. They walked across the flight deck to the starboard side by the arresting wires and stepped onto the short ladder leading below to the O3 level. As they stepped off the ladder, Wink asked Woods, “You worried?”

Woods took longer to answer than he usually did. “I feel like a criminal hoping the police don’t find the evidence I know is there.”

“I still can’t believe we did it,” Wink said, pursing his lips as he moved through the hatch to the passageway. “But I’d do it again.”

“Do what again?” asked Bark, standing in the passageway waiting to go into the ready room.

“Kick his butt in the portable football game,” Wink replied quickly.

“That all you guys do on alert is play that stupid football game? You don’t ask each other NATOPS and safety questions? You don’t review airplane systems?” All the systems were explained in Naval Air Training and Operational Procedures Standardization manuals on which they were tested regularly. Failure meant you were grounded.

“Guilty, Skipper,” Woods added. “Paulson says there’s yet another meeting. What’s the deal?”

“I don’t know. It’s CAG’s show. I’m just an attendee, like you. I guess we’ll soon find out. But this one’s just for our squadron. In five minutes — actually, right now,” he added, checking at his watch.

Woods and Wink followed Bark into the ready room. The Jolly Rogers were sitting in their assigned ready room chairs. Woods made his way to his seat in the second row. Wink took a chair farther back.

Officers were talking quietly to each other, but their attention rarely diverted from CAG, who was standing in front of them waiting for something. Nervousness was universal. No one knew why they should be nervous, but they all knew they should be.

CAG looked at Bark, sitting directly in front of him in the front row chair. “Everyone here?” CAG asked him.

“Yes, sir, except for the alert.”

CAG started without any preliminaries. “You heard what I said on the television this morning. There was a large battle between Israel and Syria, and we didn’t want to be anywhere near it. It was bad enough for us to have been in Israel the day before. They should have told us not to come knowing what they were going to do the day we left — but we can’t change that now. The reason I wanted to talk to you, our one and only F-14 squadron, is because it has turned ugly. Israel has been sending continuous raids all day. They’re not letting up this time.”

The officers glanced at one another, relieved to hear it wasn’t about them.

“But there has been a new development that has really got me frosted,” he said, scanning the faces in front of him. “This is really about VF-103. I just hope there has been some . . .
mistake
.”

Woods involuntarily gripped the armrests of his chair. He tried to continue to breathe through his nose. He could feel Wink’s eyes burning holes in the back of his head.

“I was just called on the carpet by Admiral Sweat. Syria has lodged a formal protest against the United States. Actually, against
us
. Their Ambassador called on the Secretary of State this morning, in Washington, to accuse
us
of assisting the Israeli attack on the Syrian Air Force, and of actually
participating
in the attack.”

The officers, murmured about how ridiculous that accusation was.

“According to Syria, their pilots reported seeing U.S. Navy Tomcats during the air battle.”