Authors: Gordon Kent
Alan had to assume that he was now part of a conspiracy to keep his plane’s landing from Captain Lash on the
Fort Klock.
Alan thought of an old CIA joke—
We’re in a conspiracy to do our jobs.
“Roger that, Captain.”
“The sea between us and the coast is crawling with SOE-controlled ships. They lit up one of our Hornets last night, so look sharp and stay south of us on your way in.”
“They’re east of you?”
“They’re headed for the coast,” Hawkins said. “At least, that’s what our intel people think. They changed course a couple of hours back.” Alan could hear the rustle of papers through the phone. He thought he had it all, now.
“Sir, can you give me their ETA if they were headed for the port of Quilon?”
“Wait one, Commander—0700 tomorrow if they don’t change speed. You there?”
That’s when the sub is coming out, then.
Alan thought he had the whole picture now. The SOE-controlled surface ships were moving to the coast to cover the departure of the sub. The sub would be vulnerable until it crossed the hundred-fathom line; after that, it could go anywhere. For all he knew, there was a tanker out on the ocean somewhere to refuel it.
“Captain, can you ask your intel guys to get me the latest imagery of Quilon? I asked for some yesterday; Dick Lapierre ought to have it at Fifth Fleet.”
“I’ve seen it; Agency sent it from the National Reconnaissance Office. Got it. Anything else, Commander?”
“Yes, sir. How’s the admiral?”
“Not as bad as we feared. You guys are friends?”
“I’ve known him since my first squadron.”
“He may be medevaced to Trin tomorrow morning.”
“I’d like to see him while I’m aboard.”
“I’ll do what I can. He was good today; he had some energy and he got a whole brief on the situation from me when I went off watch.”
“Thanks, sir.” Alan looked at his watch, counted twice. “I should be there in six hours.”
“Good luck. Out here.”
Alan unfolded himself from Harry’s bed and closed the case carrying the encrypted phone. His head was full of plans—he needed a good chart of the western Indian Ocean; he needed stuff for his helmet bag; he needed to draw far-on circles for a lot of ships.
Harry was standing just outside the room, his bag in his hand. He reached out a hand, but Alan swept him into an embrace. They pounded each other’s backs in silence for a few seconds.
“Take care of yourself,” Alan said.
“You too, my friend.”
And then Harry was gone, and Alan focused on the next step.
* * *
“Det Trincomalee, commanding officer.”
The warm voice on the other end washed away Alan’s fatigue. “Hey.” He didn’t get any further than that before his voice caught.
“You!” Rose laughed and then gasped. “You!” she said again.
A moment of static silence passed between them.
“I should have called—”
“No, me. Oh, shit, Alan—”
“You okay?” Even as Alan said the words, they sounded insipid to him, useless, a replacement for an hour of questions. Instead, they spent a minute talking about the kids that neither of them was with. And then Alan got down to business; he needed a plane, an escort, weapons.
Rose switched gears; professional, on the ball. “I have three S-3 pilots; two nuggets and Soleck. I’ll send you Soleck. He’s had his crew rest. One of the nuggets will have to learn to play with the big boys and girls. I’ll put two Hornets on alert. I’m short on weapons—you know that, right? I have one Hornet with a full missile load and everyone else has Sidewinders and guns.”
He still had a list in his hand. “Got any Harpoons?”
“No.”
“HARM?”
She laughed. “What is this, Let’s make a deal? I have one HARM. It’s on one of the birds. I’ll try and put it up for you. Anything else, Mister Craik?”
“I love you, Rose. Stay safe.”
“It’s not me I’m worried about,” she said. “Wait! I’ve got something to say and it’s stuck—Jesus.” She almost sobbed. “This isn’t the time.”
Alan caught the change in tone; not the commanding officer, but his wife, with something. “It’s never the time, Rose. Tell me.”
“Now I feel dumb.” She was choked; maybe crying.
“Damn it, Hon! Let’s not play ‘wait till your father gets home.’ What’s the matter?”
Silence.
“I’m—pregnant,” she said, her voice rising and her words tumbling out faster and faster. “I’m three months pregnant and I didn’t want to say in case I—miscarried—you know—again, fuck, okay? And I made two high-G turns and she doesn’t seem to mind so I think she’s going to stick.”
“She?” Alan said, delight cutting through fatigue. “She?”
“Go get it done. Love you.”
“She?” Alan said again. Then, “Love you both, Rose.”
“Out here,” she said finally, and the connection was cut.
Rose put the phone down and shouted, “Donitz!”
“Ma’am?” Donitz was outside her office, wrangling with the flight schedule.
“Donuts, I’m taking you off this event.” She was working out which planes to send, scribbling notes in pencil on a yellow legal pad. She glanced up.
Donuts stood there, arms crossed, deflated. “Yeah?” and, as an afterthought, “Ma’am?”
“I’m putting three pilots and two planes on alert. It probably won’t go until 0500 tomorrow. You can take your own plane and 206 with the HARM.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He looked interested, maybe even excited.
“Al’s doing something later tonight, maybe tomorrow. He wants a CAP to cover him. This is harm’s way, and you’re the best I’ve got. Okay? I’m pulling you off this event to keep you in crew rest for 0500.”
Before she was done speaking, his arms uncrossed and went to his hips. “Oh,” he said. He fidgeted with a ring on his right hand. “Oh. Yeah, I get it. I thought you were grounding me to do—you know. Paperwork.” Donitz said “paperwork” like it was a dirty word.
“Besides, you’ve pulled Al’s nuts out of the fire before. And you’ve shot down a MiG-29.”
“Well—an Su-27. Maybe a couple.” His grin flashed and went away. “Where’s he going?”
“Indian coast. He’s going after a sub that might have a nuke on it, Donuts. And the sub’s going to have support.”
“Do I get a brief?”
“I’ll have somebody give you one when Al’s on the boat. But the stuff about the nukes stays between you and me, okay?”
“Roger that, Rose,” he said. “Al’s goin’ to the boat? Is the deck open?”
“They think they’ll be ready to take him aboard by midnight local.”
“Why can’t we get some air power?”
“I gather that it’s all still hypothetical and cat one is only up to full steam every fifteen minutes. If they get an open deck, this could all change.” She looked over her notes, wondered what Alan would do if the deck stayed closed. “Who do you want as your wingman?”
“Give me Snot. I’m used to him. And he’s seen a MiG before.” Snot was in fact a veteran pilot now, with two cruises under his belt. He’d been in combat as Donitz’s wingman before, when they had bagged two Su-27s in ‘99. The recollection made Donitz smile.
He headed out the door, but a hand caught at the frame and his head reappeared. “Thanks, skipper.”
Rose smiled broadly and went back to work.
The Lear jet’s windows were bright, and light flooded from the hatch over the folding stair.
“You could tell me I’m doing a great job.” Mary had turned from the second step, thus to look down on Harry.
“I could.” He made shooing gestures to get her to move
inside. She sighed too loudly and went in. Harry ducked his head to look under the plane at the glow of a flashlight. “All in. Close her up and roll when you’re done.” Moad grunted and went on with his preflight.
Djalik was forward in the copilot’s seat doing something on a kneepad. Bill was in a club seat on the right side, already asleep. Mary was halfway down on the left, cheek on hand, eyes exhausted and pissed off. “Seat belt,” Harry said.
“You’re the flight attendant, too?”
“I push a drinks cart up the aisle soon as we’re airborne.” He leaned on the back of the seat opposite hers. “I’m tired of this operation, Mary. It’s been screwed up from the beginning. We missed the big chance; I’ve left an agent supposed to meet me tomorrow and I’m not going to make it—it’s crap. I don’t like being a NOC and I don’t owe you compliments for passing an intelligence coup back to Washington and violating an agreement a friend of mine had made. But I think I know where SOE headquarters is now, and the sooner I get there, the better. You don’t like it, get off the plane.”
“You’ll do your job!”
It was Harry’s turn to sigh. “I told you—I don’t have a job. And frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” He walked back to the double club seat at the rear and fell backward into it and stared out at the night. Seconds later, Moad came in and raised the stair and closed the hatch.
Harry looked at the lighted windows of the hotel, frowning at the illusion of pleasure, the reality of suffering in there. The plane started to roll, and he put his head back to sleep.
Rattner and Greenbaum were sitting in Rattner’s Taurus in the Fifth Fleet HQ parking lot. It wasn’t yet dark but it soon would be, and neither was happy about having to surveil Spinner once darkness fell. Between them, the cell-phone scanner blinked its array of LCDs and picked up the odd call—but not the one they wanted.
“He’s coming out,” Rattner said after they had been there for an hour. He was in the passenger seat, wearing a headset. He pressed a throat mike. “Two, you get that?”
“Got it.” Dukas was in his own car near the base gate.
“Three?”
Leslie’s voice sounded thin and far away, but Rattner heard her well enough. “Yeah.” She was in a borrowed SUV about a hundred yards beyond the gate.
“He’s been sitting on this hot piece of news for a fucking
hour,”
Greenbaum said.
“Forty minutes.”
“You’d think he’d be hot to pass it to Daddy.” Greenbaum was nervous. Rattner chuckled, because Greenbaum had said he had done lots of stakeouts in his cop days and now he was as nervous as a rookie. “Well, what the hell,” Greenbaum said when he heard Rattner laugh, “I want this to go down smooth—I’d like Dukas to think I can do my job, okay?”
“You pee?” Rattner said.
“Yeah, yeah. I told you, I’ve done lots of stakeouts. Anyway, I got an iron bladder.”
“Wait until you’re fifty.” Greenbaum had an empty gallon jug in the back seat. He started to explain the strategies of over-fifty urination when a voice in his ear squawked, “He’s coming out into the parking lot.”
“He’s coming out.”
“I awready got him—see him, the tall guy, carries his head funny? I was in there this aft, got a look at him. Boy, do people hate his guts! We nail him, they’re gonna take up a collection to buy us a medal.”
“What’d they hate him for?” Rattner was watching Spinner pick his way among the cars as he headed for his BMW.
“He’s a politician. Also sort of a far-right hard-on. Also makes remarks about the admiral, and Pilchard’s a popular guy. Plus he can’t stop telling them how important his old man is.”
Greenbaum touched his throat switch. “Two, Three, he’s at his car. He’s getting in.”
They watched Spinner settle behind the wheel. They waited for him to take out his cell phone.
“Make the call, you prick,” Greenbaum muttered. “Make it—”
“Oh, shit.”
Spinner’s car backed out of its parking space and whipped past them.
The trucks came back after darkness fell. The maharajah was waiting outside in the warm, scented dark, his hands joined in front of him as if he were a host waiting for some late but much-loved guest. Khan waited with him. The secretary came out several times, murmured, went back. Alan, busy now with his plans, had only glimpsed the silent, waiting figures.
Now, feet pounded down the corridors, then a gurney, three servants running with it and men in loosened body armor running ahead and behind.
Alan got up and went out. The doctor who had tended his back was walking in the path of the gurney, but more slowly. He was wearing bloody hospital greens, tying a mask as if preparing for surgery. Seeing Alan, he stepped a little aside; their eyes met, and the doctor shook his head and went on.
Preparing to operate, even though it was too late.
Alan remembered the image on the computer screen.
Like Kennedy in Dallas. It was too late even while you were looking at it.
The maharajah came last, alone. Alan stood back against the wall to let him pass, but the maharajah stopped and folded his hands together and remained there. Alan, embarrassed, moved, said, “I’m very sorry about your nephew, sir.”
The maharajah inhaled deeply, exhaled. “He isn’t my nephew, actually. He’s my son.” A smile flitted over the lower part of his face. “What the English used to call a ‘by-blow.’ But still—my son.” He stared into the billiard room. “You will be leaving tonight, Commander?”
“If you’ll allow a Navy plane to land here.”
“Of course. But your friend with the aircraft—?”
“Has gone. Separately.” Alan felt the need to say something that didn’t sound as if they were abandoning him. “We’re going after the Servants of the Earth in different ways.”
The maharajah nodded. “They are appalling people. I don’t even understand what they want.” He paused, looked at the lights in the billiard room. “You and your people have behaved well. I want to thank you.”
“I think we have to thank you, sir. For trying.”
The older man said nothing. He was shorter than Alan by several inches, so he had to reach up to rest a hand on his shoulder. “Good luck.” He walked away.
Rattner and Greenbaum were in the Bahrain mini-mall parking lot.
“Well, at least we learned that he’s having KFC for dinner.”
Spinner had parked below Colonel Saunders’s benign smile.
But he didn’t get out of the car. Then they saw that he had his cell phone held to his ear.
“The sonofabitch is doing it!” Rattner cried.
The cell-phone scanner winked and a male voice said, “—please. This is, uh, his son. Urgent, okay?” Rattner hit a key on the scanner to hold the frequency and said into his throat mike, “He’s making a call—”
“He didn’t want to call from the HQ parking lot!” Greenbaum hissed.
“You’re smart, that’s why we brought you along.” Rattner turned up the volume. “Now shut up.”
A female voice had asked the caller to hold, and then there had been crackling, prickly silence. Rattner was noting the frequency and the caller’s cell-phone number; Greenbaum kept saying, “You sure it’s him?” and Rattner nodded and took notes and made sure the tape recorder was turning.
“John Spinner speaking.”
Greenbaum punched the air with a fist.
“Dad!”
“Hey, boyo. Good to hear your voice. I’ve got a client.”
“I’ll make it quick. I got something hot for you.”
“Shoot.”
They bent over the scanner. The tape recorder turned. Greenbaum shook his head as if he couldn’t believe it—the poison pill was passing from son to father as if it was a Father’s Day gift. The tale that the flag captain had told Spinner, in strictest confidence, was that Pilchard had ordered the
Jefferson
to change its destination from Colombo to Diego Garcia, another twelve days’ sailing away, there to offload
all its aircraft. In Washington, Dad thought that was pretty juicy news.
Rattner was on the headset again. “Two, Three, acknowledge.” When they had checked in, he said, “Our guy has made his call—repeat, he has made the call. Daddy ID’d himself, and we’ve got it on tape. Over.”
Dukas’s voice growled in his ear. “Stay on him. I want to know he’s tucked into his little beddy-bye, then we trade off outside his place. Got me?”
“Yeah, got you, Two.” Rattner looked at Greenbaum, who had his eyes on the KFC restaurant, into which Spinner had now disappeared. Rattner switched channels and checked with somebody at Fifth Fleet HQ and said to Greenbaum, “Security officer’s already grabbed his office computer. Marines have orders to pull him over at the gate and keep him at least ten minutes and secure his laptop; by the time he gets home, they’ll have his home computer. FBI bugged his home phone an hour ago.”
“So what d’we do?”
“We sit and watch him scarf down chicken and then we follow him. Might be an interesting night once he realizes what’s going down. Now put the fucking car in gear; our guy is leaving.”
By 2130, Alan knew that Soleck was on his way from Trin. He had a route to the boat and a comm plan and some fuel figures that Soleck would have to re-do. By 2300, Soleck was only a few minutes out, and he’d planned what he could do; he’d calculated the enemy’s moves as much as the data allowed; and now he was standing in the situation room, his butt on a billiard table covered in maps, watching other people work. He was done.
Ong and Clavers were typing away at intelligence reports based on the data they had gleaned from all the sources they
had found. Benvenuto and Fidel were choosing still images from the digital video and turning them into useable data files to attach to the reports. Whether Alan’s next moves succeeded or failed, the reports would matter to the other men and women who would have to deal with the Servants of the Earth.
“Folks?” Alan said. “Can I have a minute?”
They all looked up; Ong’s face in the soft light of a desk lamp looked older and harder. Benvenuto rocked back in his seat and stood as if to face a blow, and Fidel’s eyes narrowed as he turned in his chair.
Alan cleared his throat and stood away from the billiard table. “I’m leaving. You people have behaved in what we call ‘the best traditions of the naval service,’” he said. “I left a quick report on Ms Ong’s computer, in case—in case I don’t have time to write more.” He thought about all the things he couldn’t say, like
Some of you grew up a lot,
and
I underestimated you.
Not for the first time, he understood why most command speeches were bland, the real praise almost too harsh to say. Unconsciously, he spread his hands. “You were superb,” he said. He looked at Ong, who smiled back, and then at Benvenuto, who was grinning so hard his ears moved. “We all have to keep going for a bit. Sometimes the end game is the hardest. It’s easy to sag.”
Who am I talking to? Me?
“LT Ong will be in charge of getting these reports out to the fleet. When you’re done, get some sleep. By the time you wake up, Fifth Fleet should have some transports together to take you home.”
He tried to smile at them all. None of them needed to ask where he was going. So he looked around, making eye contact one more time. “That’s it, folks. I’ll see you in Bahrain in a day or two.” He felt tight with emotion and nerves. “Thanks.” He picked up his helmet bag and pushed through the door, surprised to find his throat closed and his hands a little shaky.
Somebody came out into the corridor right behind him, and he turned, expecting Ong or Benvenuto. Instead, he found Fidel.
“I’ll walk you down,” he said.
“Sure.” Alan didn’t know what to say to Fidel, never did. So he walked along in silence with a fortune in ancient rugs muffling their footsteps and into the lobby.
“I’m headed to the kitchen,” Alan muttered. “Coffee.”
“Yeah,” Fidel said.
Through the process of getting his thermos washed and filled by too-attentive staff, Fidel stood behind him in silence. Alan couldn’t find anything to say, his thoughts either far away or inconsequential. Alan didn’t turn, but the silence got to be too much. “Always hungry in planes, you know? And food is sleep—”
“Yeah,” Fidel said, nodding hard. “Yeah.”
Then they were outside, standing in the warm dark listening to the
whooost, whooost
sounds of Soleck’s engines on final, and they still hadn’t said anything. The S-3 appeared in a burst of light and motion, cleared the jungle at the far end of the runway and was down and taxiing before Alan could think of a way to say goodbye.
Suddenly Fidel grinned at him as if he’d found the answer to a difficult question. “How’s your back?” he asked, his voice rising against the engine noise.
Alan nodded back. “It’ll be okay.”
“Ejection seat’s gonna be a bitch. Eat some more of that ranger candy before you do the deed.”
Alan nodded along as if receiving wisdom from a guru. In front of him, two more men in turbans used paddles and flashlights to taxi Soleck to the apron, and the sandwich carts began to roll to the plane.
Fidel reached up, put one hand on Alan’s good shoulder, and took his right hand with the other one—not quite a hug, more than a handshake. “Stay safe, skipper,” he said.
Spinner had been in a sweat since he had been stopped at the gate of the naval base after he’d called his father from the Kentucky Fried Chicken place. When two Marines had searched his car, he had warned them that they were in for real trouble, but they had gone on, and, when they said they were done, they had handed him a receipt for his laptop, which they had kept.
Spinner had made a stink. He had telephoned the three people he thought might help him—the flag captain, Shelley Lurgwitz, who hated his guts but had a responsibility to help him; the flag security officer, who had no reason to love him but had a responsibility to protect him; and a senior commander in the supply office who was impressed by his being his father’s son. But nobody would help him, no way. People seemed, in fact, unaccountably cool.
Spinner’s hands had trembled as he had driven away from the base, and he had almost had a fender-bender at the first intersection. After years in the Navy, he knew its politics but was ignorant of its ways. Still, he saw that the seizing of a personal laptop had serious implications.
The implications had got suddenly worse when he got to his apartment and found a warrant officer he’d never seen before waiting at his door with a receipt for his desktop computer.
From his apartment!
Spinner had come very high over the guy, but the warrant officer, who had been in the Navy longer than Spinner had known where to find his dick, introduced a shore patrolman with a sidearm and a warrant from Fifth Fleet JAG.
“Suspicion of violation of security,” the warrant officer said, and he’d asked for—and got, because he and the SP both looked as if what they’d really like to do for amusement that evening was use Spinner as a crash dummy—his base pass, his passport, and all the cards that got him into all the places in Bahrain that were classified, restricted, interesting, or important.
Spinner had gone from the warrant officer straight to his bathroom and upchucked his Kentucky Fried Chicken. Then he had lain down, trembling. Then he had tried to call his father and was told that Mr Spinner was in a meeting and was accepting no calls at present.
So it was a while before he talked to his father, and only then because his father called him. And all his father said was, “Call me at Effie’s on a public phone. Don’t use your cell phone and don’t use your home phone!” And then his father broke the connection.
By then, Spinner’s eyes were red because he had actually wept. He had also soiled his J. Press boxer shorts, because Spinner had never in his life before been in a spot where he couldn’t get to his father to be saved.