Flash Point (6 page)

“Just making conversation. I’d better go brief. See you later, Skipper.”

Commander Barnett didn’t even acknowledge his departure, having already buried himself back in the message traffic on the metal board. He flipped one after another, initialing each message in the red ink only he used.

Woods wandered to the back of the ready room to the briefing area. It had charts of the Mediterranean on sliding boards next to the greenie board — where the landing grades of all pilots were kept in full view. There was an additional television for the closed circuit briefs from the carrier’s intelligence center. Wink and Vialli were already there, as was the RIO with whom Vialli flew, Lieutenant Jack Sedgwick, known simply as Sedge. Wink’s eyes began their characteristic exaggerated blinking, which had given him his name. No one in the squadron even noticed anymore. No one ever called him by his name, Kyle Martin. As a senior lieutenant, on his second squadron tour like Woods, he commanded a lot of respect, especially because he was regarded as the best RIO in the squadron. As the mission commander, Wink had arrived at the brief early and was prepared. The spare crew was there too in case Woods’s or Vialli’s plane broke and there was time to launch a replacement. They didn’t want a scheduled sortie to go unfilled. Bark would rather die.

The television jumped to life at exactly 0815. The
Washington
had gotten underway at first light and was now well out of sight of Italy. The Ensign on the screen, the Intelligence Officer from VFA-81, one of the F/A-18 squadrons, showed the ship’s position on the chart.

Woods resisted sitting down to listen to the brief. He saw the new Ensign standing behind the briefing area looking lost. Woods walked past the enormous steel and leather chairs to the large coffee urn. Removing his cup from the pegboard, he filled it with coffee. On the television the brief continued uninterrupted. Woods watched out of the corner of his eye.

“You’re the new guy,” he said.

“Yes, sir. Ensign Charlene Pritchard,” she answered, extending her hand to Woods, checking him out. She had already heard about him and saw that his looks matched what she had heard. He was about six one, and had very dark brown hair, short but still unruly somehow. She was sure he wanted it to look that way. His eyes were an intense, dark gray and she noticed a faded hole in his ear from where it had been pierced.

“You don’t have to call me sir, really,” Woods said, shaking her hand. “I know you’re supposed to, but we tend to ignore a lot of that kind of stuff around here.”

“Thank you, sir.”

He continued, not noticing. “Your name’s Charlene?” She was of average height and thin, and had the curse of looking five years younger than she was. Her brown hair was in a French braid and her face had a clean, freshly scrubbed look to it. She carried herself with a confidence that Woods didn’t expect in someone without wings.

“Yes, sir.”

“That won’t work.”

“What?”

“The name.”

“Won’t work for what?”

“For being in a fighter squadron. Can’t go around with a name like Charlene. You’ve got to have a call sign.”

She couldn’t tell if he was pulling her leg or not. She thought only aviators got call signs. “Why doesn’t it work?”

“Not strong enough.”

“You mean
masculine
enough?”

Her comment surprised him. “Did I say masculine?”

“Not in so many words—”

“Right. I said
strong
enough.”

“It has always worked for me. What woman’s name
is
strong enough?” she asked pointedly.

Woods thought for a moment. “I don’t know, maybe . . . Ethel. Or Betty. Something like that. Not Char
lene
. That won’t do at all,” Woods said. “I’ll have to give it some thought.”

“Right.” She drew some coffee from the urn into her Styrofoam cup. An idea occurred to her, a way to head off the problem. “A lot of people have called me Charlie in the past.”

He studied her with a glint in his eyes. “No, Charlie doesn’t work either. Too . . .” He struggled for the right word. “. . . Masculine.” He looked at her again. “We’ll just go with your name.”

“Charlene?” she said, pleased.

“No, your last name.”

“Pritchard?”

“Part of it. Pritch. I think that will work.”

“It rhymes with—”

“Niche. Exactly. Which is what you have here — intelligence. By the way, you need to get a squadron cup. Can’t drink out of Styrofoam. Bad for the environment.”

“Yes, sir,” she said. She looked more closely at him. “Did you used to have your ear pierced?”

“What?” he asked.

“High school, I’d bet?”

“When I was young and impetuous.”

“You still wear an earring on liberty?”

“You gotta be kidding me,” he replied.

“Do you think we’ll be able to go to Israel?”

“Already worried about port calls?”

“I’ve always wanted to go to Israel.”

“Never been?”

“No. Have you?”

He drank from the heavy white porcelain cup that had the Jolly Rogers insignia on it — the skull and crossbones — and gold pilot wings and his call sign, “Trey,” on the other side. “Once. Another cruise. I don’t know if they’ll still let us go. Last time we went, there was a terrorist bomb in Jerusalem. They delayed our visit by a month, but we went. We may be far enough out that the Gaza thing won’t matter at all. Plus it wasn’t really in Israel. I think we’ll be okay.” He looked at the Intelligence Officer on the television completing his section of the brief. “Why don’t you join us in the brief so you can see how it’s done?”

“Thanks,” she said as they walked slowly toward the chairs. She leaned over to Woods. “Who’s the other pilot there?”

“Boomer. Tony Vialli.”

“Why do they call him that?”

Woods put his finger to his lips so he could hear the weather portion of the brief, then turned toward Pritchard. “Came into the break at the ship supersonic once. He was late. Busted a window on the bridge. That’s the kind of thing you don’t live down.”

“Why do they call you Trey?”

“When I CQ’d in F-14s, I got all three wires.”

“What’s CQ?”

Woods tried not to roll his eyes. “
Carrier
quals. Landing on the carrier to qualify in that airplane.”

“What are three wires?”

“Later,” he said, listening to the television suddenly. He started writing information down on a five-by-eight card.

“What kind of flight are you going to do?”

Woods looked at Pritchard with an expression of curiosity, as if the question hadn’t occurred to him, and then shrugged. “Don’t know. Wink’ll take care of it. I’m just driving. He’s the mission commander.” He paused. “Have you done your squadron check-in card yet?”

“Just started.”

“Don’t forget to get Lieutenant Curly Crumpacker’s signature.”

“Who’s he?”

“Lots of hats. RIO to the Air Wing Commander, Squadron Morale Officer, F-14 Simulator Officer, lots of things.”

“I’ll get him.”

Woods nodded and sat down. He looked across at Vialli and said quietly, “Did you hear from her?”

Vialli smiled and nodded. “E-mail. Confirmed she’ll be there in Venice.”

“I
knew
I shouldn’t have left you alone with her for even a minute.”

“She’s interested.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing.”

Boomer got up to fill his coffee cup. “Hey,” he said to Pritchard.

“Hi,” she replied.

When he returned, she asked, “You know where Lieutenant Crumpacker might be?”

“Huh?” he said. “Trey tell you to find him?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m not sure where he is. He’s awfully hard to find. Busy guy. I’d look in the forecastle.” He just couldn’t tell her Crumpacker was a longstanding squadron fiction used against all kinds of people who were unsuspecting, especially new officers.

“Thanks,” she said, truly grateful. “By the way, what’s a three wire?”

He raised his eyebrows, surprised she didn’t know. “Third of four arresting wires on the flight deck. The one we aim for. Why?”

“I asked Trey how he got his call sign.”

“What did he say?” Vialli asked skeptically.

“During carrier qualifications, CQ, I think he called it, he got all three wires.”

“Hah!” Vialli guffawed. “How about he didn’t get
any
three wires! Take
everything
he says with a grain of salt.”

When the intelligence brief was concluded and the television went dark, Wink stood behind the lectern. “We’re event One Alpha . . .”

The men walked slowly through the path in the boulders so narrow their shoulders rubbed both sides. Their black attire was hot, but caused them no more discomfort than they were used to. There was no way off the path once on it; it was a mile long and required dedication to reach the end. No one would venture down the path without knowing where it led — it was too claustrophobic. The path wound through craggy rocks that jutted upward at odd angles. At almost every step, anyone walking could be observed by someone in the right position higher up in the rocks. And there was always someone in the right position. This path had been perfected through centuries of use.

After thirty minutes of walking through the labyrinth the men reached their destination. They waited outside an opening in the stone wall that was hidden by the angle of the opening, almost going back the same way they had come. A man approached them speaking softly in Arabic.

The leader of the group, which had obviously traveled a long way, nodded wearily. “Please tell him we have returned.”

“He said you should spend some time in the garden. He will call for you.”

The man nodded again. Then to the others with him, “Come,” he said, gesturing with his left hand, something not done in the Arab world — the left hand was for other things, and never part of conversation or polite gesturing.

They followed him into another opening in the rock face, walking in near darkness through a tunnel, wet with condensation. They could hear the underground river below them, the river that no one outside knew about, which had sustained those who had come here through the centuries — the flowing water feeding the lush gardens hidden in the inner paths of the mountain.

Coming out of the tunnel, they entered a green garden filled with waterfalls and ponds. Tired, their black robes dusty from their travels, they sat heavily on the stone ledge surrounding one of the fountains and waited. Two of the men drank from a spigot that spilled water into the fountain.

When a man appeared the group stood as one and followed him, moving across a small entrance so low they were forced to duck down. The room into which they were ushered was light and dry, its openings and doors facing a deep cavern. The only approach to the room, the central space of this invisible fortress, was through the small cave and garden from which they had just passed.

Here were thirty or so men, dressed in black like the newcomers, standing quietly around the room’s walls. A man in the middle of the room sat at the table studying a map. He made one final notation and rose. Six feet tall and solidly built, his weathered face was covered by a closely cut, stiff beard that was mostly black but had a hint of brown. His eyes were black and hidden in a shadow of his heavy brow. In his forties, he commanded the attention of everyone in the room, without protest or doubt. He spoke in beautiful Arabic, addressing the leader of the group that had just arrived. “Welcome back, Farouk. Your mission was a success. The reports preceded you.”

“Thank you,” Farouk said. He looked directly at his leader, his gaze intense. “It went better than we had hoped. We lost no one.”

“Excellent,” the bearded man replied. He glanced around, making sure no ears were present that shouldn’t be there. Satisfied, he continued. “You must rest and recuperate. In a very short time, I have another mission for you.”

Farouk waited.

“We have located the one about whom we spoke. We must strike first.”

Farouk nodded. “When?”

“Soon. And then it will be time to tell the world who we are. They must know. If they don’t fear us, we will never accomplish our goals.”

“We will leave now if we must.”

“Not yet. Perhaps tomorrow, but today, rest, refresh. For this will be the hardest thing I have yet asked you to do.” He pointed to the map on the table. “The plan is ready.”

Woods and Wink stepped onto the flight deck and lowered their dark visors at the bright sunshine reflecting off the blue Mediterranean. The
George Washington
(CVN-73) moved slowly westward through the water away from the climbing sun. Woods handed his knee board to the plane captain who stood by the ladder to the Tomcat.

“Morning, Benson,” Woods said, as he ducked under the wing to begin his preflight.

“Morning, sir,” replied Airman Reece Benson.

Woods knew Benson well. He was highly regarded in the squadron even though he was only nineteen. He cared a lot about his plane and the people who flew it. He took Woods’s knee board and Wink’s helmet bag, which never carried his helmet, just charts, navigation books, and knee board, and climbed up the ladder to store their gear in the cockpits.

The wheels of the Tomcat straddled the centerline stripe at the very aft point of the flight deck, the round down. The back third of the plane protruded past the deck and hung over the sea. Woods checked every panel, every hole, every place where something might go wrong. He bent over and continued aft as far as he could go on each side without falling into the water. He ran his hands over the live missiles and checked the long, red safety tags that were in place to prevent an accidental firing on the deck. Woods climbed up the ladder and once on top worked his way to the back of the plane. He moved toward the twin black tails that jutted majestically into the beautiful sky, checking the exterior panels, the spoilers on the wings, and the overall airworthiness of the plane. He saw nothing to worry him. His Tomcat was pointed straight down the flight deck. The ship had increased its speed to twenty-five knots to generate more wind for the pending launch. The wind swirled around Woods as he thought of the power under his feet, the Tomcat, the carrier. He made his way forward along the back of the plane and stopped next to his ejection seat.