Acts of Vengeance

by Robert Gandt

  They continued searching. The corpsman took more samples from likely hunks of wreckage. After half an hour, Weaver said, “That’s it. We’ve seen enough of this place.”

  After the Whiskey Cobra did another periphery search, the Huey lifted off. The helicopters skimmed the ridge, heading eastward before making the turn toward the coast.

  Weaver, standing between the two pilots in the Huey, saw it first—something metallic, glinting in the sand.

  “There.” He pointed down and to the right. “Check it out.”

  The pilot nodded and slewed the Huey around into a turn. While the Huey hovered fifteen feet over the spot, Weaver and two Marine riflemen fast-roped down.

  Even before he reached the object, Weaver knew what he was seeing. He pulled out the Nikon and began clicking.

  <>

  It was evening, and they were taking one of their walks—promenades, Claire used to call them—on the flight deck. The Reagan’s warplanes looked like museum exhibits, all tied down, intakes and tailpipes plugged with protective covers.

  “Sam, do you think we’ll get married?”

  He stopped and looked at her in surprise. It was another of those questions out of the blue. She’d been doing that a lot lately.

  “What kind of a question is that?”

  “A perfectly simple one.” She kept his hand clasped in her. “Do you or do you not think we’ll get married?”

  “I don’t. . . I guess I really haven’t given it that much thought. . .”

  “That is impossible to believe. You say you love me, but you haven’t thought about whether you want to marry me?”

  “I didn’t mean that.” He sounded flustered, and he hated it. “Where’d this come from? Do you want to get married?”

  She smiled. “Is that a proposal?”

  “No. I mean. . . it’s a question. It sounds like you’re asking me if I want to get married.”

  “Well, do you?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, yes, but not yet.”

  “You mean yes, you want to get married, but no, you haven’t made up your mind to do it.”

  He stopped and looked at her. “Did I say that?”

  “More or less. I’m just helping you out.”

  “Is this how you interview people on your television reports?”

  “No. Sometimes I have to get pushy.” Then she laughed, which was his clue that she was yanking him around again.

  For a while neither spoke, watching the brown coastline of Oman slide past the carrier’s port side. A pair of Seahawk helicopters skimmed the water between the Reagan and the shoreline.

  She took his arm. “How long will the Reagan be in Bahrain?”

  “Long enough to patch the hull. Two or three weeks, then we’ll head the states so the ship can get a major refitting.”

  She seemed to be mulling over this information. “That means, if we’re going to be together, I’ll have to be in the United States.”

  “Until the Reagan deploys again. Wherever that might be.”

  “Sam, have you ever thought of another line of work?”

  “No. Have you?”

  “No.” She waited a moment. “But I’m open to suggestions.”

  <>

  “Bandar Abbas,” said Gritti. “on the starboard side.”

  Maxwell looked through the thick panes of the flag bridge. The Reagan was transiting the narrow Strait of Hormuz, returning to the Persian Gulf. He could make out shadowed outlines on the Iranian shore—buildings, cranes, docks.

  “Do you think they’ve figured out what happened to their missing submarine?”

  “Serves them right,” said Gritti. “I hope they paid cash for it.”

  It was five past eleven, and they were waiting for the admiral to appear for the 1100 meeting he had called. On the opposite side of the compartment, Red Boyce was staring thoughtfully in the direction of Iran, a half-gnawed cigar jutting from his jaw. Guido Vitale was on the phone with Stickney, who had promised to drop into the briefing as soon as they’d passed the strait. Commander Ed Mulvaney, the Reagan’s XO, was standing in for Stickney.

  Two of Boyce’s other squadron skippers were there—Rico Flores of the VFA-34 Bluetails, and Gordo Gray, who had taken over the Tomcat squadron after the skipper, Burner Crump, was killed in Yemen. The two commanders were talking quietly by the coffee pot in the corner of the compartment.

  Admiral Fletcher burst into the room, trailed by his aide, a baby-faced lieutenant named Wenck. “Sorry, gentlemen.” He tossed his hat onto the plotting table. “I just got off the line with SECNAV and CNO.” He went to the head of the conference table. “Seats, please.”

  Maxwell was struck again by the change in Fletcher. Even after the calamitous events in Yemen and the Gulf of Aden, he still managed to exude command authority. Perhaps, he mused, Fletcher was one of those officers like Grant or Eisenhower who metamorphosed into leaders in the heat of war.

  “I’ve been instructed to warn all of you, and each of your subordinates, that everything that happened during this campaign is classified. We will have selective memories about the events of the past week.”

  The officers all nodded.

  For your information,” Fletcher went on, “when the Reagan drops anchor in Bahrain, I’ll be immediately relieved of command. Until my successor shows up, Captain Stickney will be the acting Battle Group Commander.”

  This caused murmurs around the table. No one was surprised, especially after Fletcher had assumed full responsibility for the action in Yemen.

  “I’m informed that there will not be a court martial.” He paused and looked around the table. “The truth is, I was rather looking forward to testifying about what happened out here. About who was taking orders from whom.”

  Fletcher let this sink in. The unwelcome presence of Whitney Babcock still pervaded the room.

  “As it turns out, no one—not the Joint Chiefs, the Secretary of the Navy, certainly not the White House—wants the world to hear how our chain of command was short-circuited. So I will be let off with a letter of reprimand—and a peremptory retirement.”

  Boyce spoke up. “That’s a cover up, Admiral. They just want to suppress the truth about the deal between Babcock and Al-Fasr.”

  “You said it, not me. There are other things they’d like to suppress. The spy on our battle group staff, for one.”

  At this, everyone’s eyes went to the empty chair next to Fletcher—the seat usually occupied by Spook Morse.

  Mulvaney asked, “Has anyone figured why Morse sold out to Al-Fasr?”

  Guido Vitale spoke up. “The FBI is working on it. Morse became acquainted with Al-Fasr about four years ago, when he was on Fifth Fleet staff in Manama. I was there, and I remember that Spook was going through a bad time. His wife had left him, run off with some Brit she met playing tennis. About then he was passed over for promotion to captain, and he was bitter. More than bitter, as I remember. Spook had a dark side to him. That was probably when Al-Fasr got to him.”

  “He got his revenge,” said Boyce. “Sucked us into Al-Fasr’s trap.”

  “We still don’t know how much damage Morse did,” said Vitale. “We know that he gave our op plans away, and it was he who relayed our points of intended movement, which enabled Al-Fasr to position the submarine.”

  “Another lesson learned the hard way,” Fletcher said. “We spent forty years learning how to beat Russian nuclear attack submarines. Then an obsolete diesel/electric boat sneaks into our battle group and damned near sinks us.”

  “What was the point?” asked Commander Mulvaney. “What was Al-Fasr trying to accomplish?”

  “The same thing terrorists all want to accomplish,” said Fletcher. “Revenge. The old eye for an eye commandment.”

  “This time it bit him in the ass,” said Boyce. “Brick scraped him off on that ridge in Yemen.”

  Fletcher and Vitale exchanged glances. Fletcher nodded, and Vitale picked up a file folder. “Early this morning we inserted a Ma
rine recon team into the crash site of the MiG. They determined from the serial number of the that it was definitely the same one Al-Fasr was flying. They also searched the wreckage, looking for human remains that might be identifiable from the DNA. They didn’t find anything—until they were airborne and egressing the area.”

  Vitale withdrew an eight-by-ten color photograph from the folder. “Then they found this.”

  He passed the photo around the table.

  Maxwell peered at the object in the photo. A chill passed through him. He handed the photo to Boyce.

  Boyce removed his cigar and stared at the photo. “Oh, shit.”

  “The ejection seat,” said Admiral Fletcher. “Notice that it’s been used. Successfully, according to the experts who analyzed this photo. It was found about a mile from the main crash site.”

  Maxwell’s thoughts were already back in the late afternoon sky over Yemen. He could see the canyon, the eye of the needle, the shadow flitting over his canopy that saved his life. In his mind he relived the vertical scissors engagement, the energy-depleting maneuver that brought both their fighters perilously close to the earth. Pulling out of the dive, the older Fulcrum was unable to match the pull-out radius of the F/A-18.

  Al-Fasr’s jet struck the ground. The wreckage was scattered over a square mile.

  He couldn’t have survived.

  Or could he? Maxwell had not seen the final impact. His own jet had been pointed away, turning back to counter the scissoring MiG.

  At the instant the Fulcrum scraped the ridge, the pilot, if his reactions were quick enough, might have realized his jet was doomed and pulled the ejection handle.

  The Zvezda K-36 ejection seat was good, better perhaps than anyone else’s. At the 1989 Paris Air Show, a Russian demo pilot ejected at 250 feet while his jet was in a vertical dive. He survived.

  Maxwell placed the photograph back on the table. For a moment he stared out the window at the dark coastline passing on the starboard side.

  “He’s still out there,” he said to no one in particular.

  <>

  Claire needed a nap. The stress and fatigue of the past week was weighing on her like a leaden mantle.

  When she let herself in the stateroom she noticed the thick manila envelope atop the fold-out desk. She wondered who had placed it there. The room steward? He had a key for all the staterooms.

  She kicked off her shoes, noticing again the gray sterility of the stateroom. If she had to spend any more time aboard Navy warships, she would decorate. Oriental carpets, some decent prints on the bulkheads, photographs for the desk. And she’d have music, not that stuff they played on the ship’s entertainment channel for the teenage sailors. She would bring CDs of light classical and soft jazz like Sam had in his stateroom.

  She popped open a warm Diet Coke and settled into the straight-backed desk chair. That was another thing she hated—this Spartan damned furniture. She’d get a decent padded chair, one with a little fashion to it that she could get comfortable in and do some serious reading.

  The manila envelope lay in front her. It was sealed, no address, no marking.

  She ran her fingernail under the flap and opened it. The stack of paper was half an inch thick. Each page bore a copy of a stamp: SECRET. RESTRICTED DISTRIBUTION. She found nothing to indicate the source of the document.

  Not until she was through the second page did she realize what she was reading. It was a transcription of some kind of message traffic. By the conversational dialogue, she guessed that the parties were communicating via a telephone or radio. She also guessed the identity of the speakers.

  “You have not kept your word,”

  “I gave my word that we would not retaliate after the air strike if you did not send in an assault force. But then you sent in an assault force.”

  “That was not an assault. You already know that the Marine team was sent in for no purpose except to retrieve the downed pilots. They had no other objective. Now the situation has become very complicated. The President has authorized a strike.”

  Claire felt her skin prickle. The document in her hand was potent enough to destroy a political career. Perhaps an administration.

  She read on.

  “This can still be resolved. My agents in Sana’a report that they are almost ready to initiate the coup. When they give the signal, my troops will immediately seize the military headquarters and the government broadcasting station. We expect no resistance. I will control the Republic of Yemen.”

  “That is good. What about our marines on the ground? They have to be lifted out.”

  “Soon. It will be possible within a day or so.”

  She lowered the sheaf of papers for a moment. Vince Maloney’s words came back to her: We protect his new government from all his resentful Arab neighbors, and Yemen becomes an American colony. Does that make sense?

  Yes, it made sense now. Vince had it right, and it cost him his life.

  Al-Fasr wanted Yemen, and someone in a high office was helping him get it. None of the material was date-stamped, which meant that authentication would be impossible. She couldn’t prove anything. All she had was paper, copies of documents without attribution, nothing verifiable.

  On a yellow legal pad, she drew a time line, beginning with the killings of Admiral Dunn and Admiral Mellon and Ambassador Halaby, connecting them with all the events in Yemen. Then she began overlaying them with the transcribed conversations.

  When she was finished, she was sure. The connection was unmistakable. Even if the documents did not provide legal proof, the circumstantial evidence was overwhelming. The sequence of transcriptions matched the events perfectly.

  An anonymous donor had just delivered to her the most explosive news story of her career.

  Why?

  As she thought more about it, the answer came to her, like the pieces of a mosaic. She knew who had sent the documents, and she understood what she was supposed to do with them.

  Thank you, Admiral, Claire said to herself.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Yellow Ribbons

  Washington, D.C.

  1850, Thursday, 8 August

  That bitch, thought Whitney Babcock.

  He was into his third scotch, no ice, when the special segment of “The Nightly Report” began. When the face of Claire Phillips appeared on the television screen, Babcock felt his migraine intensifying. I should have thrown her off the ship when I had the chance.

  He was alone in his Georgetown apartment. Outside, long shadows of evening covered the tree-lined street. Ten minutes into the program, during the first commercial break, his telephone rang. It was the line used by the White House staff.

  “Are you watching?” asked Dan Summerville, White House chief of staff.

  “I am.”

  “It’s worse than we expected.”

  Babcock’s eyes stayed riveted to the flickering screen. The break was over and the Phillips woman was back. The camera switched from her face to a map of Yemen. She was talking about a place called Al-Hazir.

  “Why didn’t someone stop it?” Babcock said. “One phone call from the White House to the television network would have squashed it.”

  “You still don’t get it, do you, Whit? Do you really think the President would let himself get implicated in a scandal like this?”

  Babcock remembered that he had never liked Summerville. He was the President’s crony and long time hatchetman.

  “Scandal? That woman doesn’t have anything—”

  “She has the biggest terrorist story of the year. In a few minutes, you’re going to see a recently retired two-star admiral give his version of what happened in Yemen.”

  “Fletcher?” Babcock’s voice cracked. “He doesn’t have a clue about what was going on.”

  “Keep watching. In front of eighty million viewers, he’s going to say that someone colluded with a terrorist who killed two hundred Americans and torpedoed our mightiest aircraft carrier.”

  With a mou
nting sense of dread, Babcock was getting the picture. After the bin Laden attacks, the American public was in no mood to hear about deals made with terrorists. Instead of blaming the Yemen debacle on the President, or the Battle Group Commander, or the Joint Chiefs, the administration had selected another scapegoat.

  “I need to see the President right away,” said Babcock. “I’ve got to talk to him.”

  “Forget it.”

  “Dan, please. This is my career on the line. I should at least have a chance to offer my resignation.”

  “That’s not an option. You were fired at four o’clock this afternoon.”

  Babcock felt a fresh stab of pain emanating from somewhere behind his eyes. He took a long pull from the glass of scotch. “Why wasn’t I told?”

  “You can read the President’s statement in the paper tomorrow. But it won’t be exactly what he said in private to the National Security Council.”

  Babcock hated to ask, but he had to know. “Uh, what did he say, exactly?”

  “He was pretty explicit.” Summerville paused, and Babcock could tell that he was enjoying himself. “He said—and I’m quoting verbatim here—‘Inform that supercilious little prick that he is going to swing in the breeze. This administration will have nothing to do with him.”

  The words penetrated Babcock’s brain like hammer blows. He wondered if the President really said that. Summerville was a sadistic bastard.

  It didn’t matter. He lowered the telephone and stared at the television. He could hear Summerville still talking. He had heard enough.

  On the screen was the face of Langhorne Fletcher. He looked different out of uniform. He no longer had that avuncular image, but looked more like a rumpled academician. He was talking about chains of command and presumptive authority and deadly force. As Fletcher spoke, the image switched to a map of the Gulf of Aden.