by Robert Gandt
Maxwell thought for a second, mentally reconstructing the scene on the flight deck the night Spam Parker crashed. “So Commander DeLancey was sitting in his cockpit when Lieutenant Parker’s jet hit the ramp?”
“Yes, sir, I believe so.”
“Weren’t you there?”
“As soon as the fire broke out, I ran over to man a hose.” Ruiz looked worried. “Did somebody do something they weren’t supposed to, Commander?”
Maxwell wondered briefly how perceptive the nineteen-year-old enlisted man was. Had he read anything into the questions? “No, not at all. This is what we do when we investigate an accident.”
The young plane captain shook his head. “Do you know what happened to Lieutenant Parker? Do you know why she flew into the back of the ship?”
“Not yet, but I’m going to find out, Ruiz.” Silently he added, Even if it kills me.
With that thought, Maxwell looked up, over Ruiz’s shoulder. In the front of the ready room, DeLancey was watching them intently.
<>
Half an hour later, DeLancey stopped him in the passageway outside the Roadrunner ready room.
“You’re off the Mishap Investigation Board. As of now.”
Maxwell tried to read DeLancey’s expression. Nothing the man did surprised him anymore. “It’s not a good time, Skipper. The board is in the middle of making its report, and I’m —”
DeLancey cut him off. “You heard me. Butt out. You shouldn’t have been on the board in the first place. As executive officer, you’ve got real work to do. Right now you’re supposed to be up in strike planning putting together the coordinated ops plan.”
There was no use arguing. “Yes, sir. Who’s taking my place on the investigation board?”
“Lieutenant Cheever. Hand over all your notes and material to him. He’ll finish the report.”
Maxwell watched DeLancey walk away. DeLancey now had his acolytes, Craze Manson and Undra Cheever, on the board. It meant that he controlled the investigation.
<>
The phone in Maxwell’s stateroom rang.
“It’s B.J. Johnson, XO. Can we talk?”
Maxwell glanced at his watch. “I’ve got an intel briefing in about an hour. How about the wardroom in ten minutes?”
“Someplace more private would be better.”
He thought for a second. “Okay, the hangar deck, by the number two elevator.”
“See you there.”
In another few minutes, they were walking along the perimeter of the hangar deck. Maxwell said nothing, letting her talk.
“Spam never actually told me something was going on,” said B.J. ‘But she was my roommate, you know. You get a sense of these things.”
She paused to watch a tug hauling an F/A-18 across the deck to a maintenance bay. The Reagan was between flight operations cycles. Blue shirts were respotting jets, shuffling aircraft from the flight deck to the hangar deck, getting ready for the next aircraft recovery.
“What things? For example?”
“For example, I’d come in, and she’d be talking on the phone with someone — she wouldn’t use a name. But I could tell by her voice that it was someone. . .” B.J.’s voice trailed off.
“Someone she was intimate with?”
B.J. nodded. “That was Spam. It didn’t surprise me. She called it ‘stud du jour.’ It was just her style. Wherever she was, she had a boyfriend.”
“She never told you who it was?”
“No.”
“But you have a pretty good idea, right?”
B.J. nodded again. “It must have been after Dubai. It was like, her attitude changed. She suddenly stopped badmouthing everyone, going on about how we were being screwed over by the establishment, like she used to. She talked about how she was going to get moved up to section lead. She was really upbeat.” B.J. paused, and said, “For a while.”
“Just for a while?”
“She was having trouble coming aboard, as you know. She was blaming it on Pearly. But then she started worrying about a FNAEB. She was afraid they would take her wings. I heard her say one time, if he let them FNAEB her. . .” B.J. didn’t finish the thought.
Maxwell gave it a moment. “Who was ‘he?’”
“She never actually said. But I could guess. So can you.”
He could. “The skipper?”
“It’s just a hunch. Call it intuition if you like.”
More than a hunch, Maxwell knew. They both knew she was right. He was shocked but not surprised. It wasn’t unheard of in the Navy that a senior officer, even a squadron commander, might become involved with a female subordinate. It would explain DeLancey’s coddling of a weak pilot.
B.J. was looking at him. “What do you think? Could it have had anything to do with her getting killed?”
“I don’t think so,” he said, trying to sound sure of himself.
He could see by her expression that she didn’t believe him.
<>
“When?” CAG Boyce said, repeating the question. “That’s up to the President. Could be as soon as tomorrow. Or the day after.”
On the bulkhead behind him was an illuminated map of Iraq. All his strike leaders were assembled in the intelligence briefing space.
Boyce went on. “It seems that our intelligence assets in Baghdad have been compromised. But they sent an alert that Iraq has completed its weapons assembly project and is ready to push the button. The United Nations is now going through all the usual posturing. They’ve issued a forty-eight-hour ultimatum to Saddam to open up all his weapons facilities and submit to inspection.”
A Hornet pilot piped up, “Hey, great. Saddam’s gonna invite the inspectors over to his palace for tea and then give them all his new toys. We can all go home.”
A ripple of laughter ran through the room. Boyce said, “Yeah, right. What it means is he gets two free days to hit us before we hit him. And we can forget the element of surprise. He’s gonna know we’re coming.”
Boyce walked over to the map. “Strike leaders, I want each of you to finalize your strike plans. Re-plot all your run-in lines according to the latest threat assessments. These will be updated hourly based on satellite and recon data.”
“What about the air-to-air threat?” asked a Tomcat pilot.
“Al-Taji and Al-Taqqadum still have small units of flyable MiGs, but they shouldn’t have any ground-controlled intercept capability left. Anyway, the Brit Tornadoes are tasked with eliminating the interceptor threat on the ground before we get there.”
<>
It was a place only bats could love.
The Carrier Air Traffic Control Center was as dark as the inside of a cave. What little light there was in CATTC came from the greenish glow of the radar scopes and the large lucite grease board that covered the opposite wall.
Chief Petty Officer Mark Williams, the senior enlisted controller, greeted Maxwell. “Good morning, Commander, how can I help you?”
“I’m looking for tapes from the ship’s air traffic control communications on the night of the Hornet crash, Chief.”
“We’ve already made copies of all that for the Aircraft Mishap Board, sir.”
“I know, but we don’t have anything with the mishap aircraft’s tactical communications. You know, transmissions made on the squadron discrete frequencies.”
Chief Williams scratched his chin. “I’m sure we made copies of your squadron’s tac freqs—both of them—for the board. You say there was nothing on them from the mishap aircraft?”
“Hardly anything. Maybe they were using another freq.” Maxwell was fishing now.
“If they were, we wouldn’t be taping it down here. Maybe she was just using good radio discipline that night.”
Maxwell had to smile at that one. One thing Spam Parker had never been known for was radio discipline. “Yeah, maybe so. Well, thanks for your help anyway.”
A dead end, he decided. He walked back toward the lighted passageway.
Williams called after
him. “Just a minute, sir.”
“Yeah, Chief?”
“Sometimes the spooks down in Surface Plot monitor the Battle Group’s transmissions to make sure we aren’t breaking EMCON or broadcasting any classified information. They’re the guys who monitor the spectrum and report EMCON violations. Maybe they could help.”
“Good call, Chief. Thanks a lot.”
Maxwell’s mind went into high gear. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? The spooks were equal opportunity spies, he thought. They didn’t just eavesdrop on the enemy; they did it to everyone.
<>
Surface Plot was almost as bad as the CATCC cave — dark and lit mostly from the glow of the various wall-sized electronic boards. Maxwell asked a dungaree-clad petty officer where to find the surface watch officer.
“Through that hatch, sir, and buzz in at the entry portal. He’s back in the SCIF.” SCIF stood for Special Compartmentalized Information Facility. It meant beyond Top Secret classification. Eyes only, need-to-know.
Maxwell was out of his element. He was far below decks, down in the spaces of the carrier’s Surface Plot, called Alpha Sierra. They called this black shoe country, and it was occupied by surface navy officers, who wore black shoes with their khaki uniforms. The black shoes looked in disdain at the brown-shoed aviators who, they were convinced, were incapable of rowing a canoe.
Maxwell stood in front of the remote camera and pressed the buzzer.
A voice from an invisible speaker said, “May I help you ?”
“Commander Maxwell, VFA-36. I’d like to see the Surface Watch Officer.”
“Present your ID card.”
Irritated, Maxwell removed his ID. He wondered if the spooks knew the carrier had been under way now for three weeks and that not a single spy had been seen swimming out from the shore.
“Place the card in the drawer.”
Maxwell placed his card in the drawer next to the buzzer switch. After several seconds, the voice said, “You may enter, Commander.”
The door buzzed and popped open as the electronic latches released.
It was chilly inside the darkened space, and Maxwell rubbed his arms for warmth. A bespectacled, khaki-clad commander strode up and extended his hand. “Chris Foley, Surface Watch Officer,” he said. “What brings an airedale down into the bowels of the Reagan? Too hot on the flight deck?”
“We ran out of ice cubes and heard this was the coldest place on the ship.”
“You heard right.” He smiled and waved his arm. “This stuff is extremely temperature-sensitive. What can we do for you?”
“We’re investigating the F-18 mishap the other night. I heard that you sometimes monitor the Battle Group radio frequency emissions, for content and such.”
“We monitor a lot of frequencies — and not just our battle group.”
“Do you keep track of airborne transmissions from our aircraft?”
“Sure. Especially when the BG is under emissions control. The admiral wants to know if we’re keeping strict radio silence, and if anyone breaks it, he wants to know who. The command ship Blue Ridge does most of it, though. We’re sort of the auxiliary.”
“Were you guys keeping track of the upper UHF spectrum the night of the Hornet crash?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. You’re the second air wing officer to ask that question today.”
Maxwell stared at the watch officer. “Someone else was down here?”
“Your skipper, I think. You know, the one who shot down that MiG —”
Maxwell felt sick to his stomach. “DeLancey?”
“Yes, that’s the one.”
“What did he want?”
“Same thing you’re looking for.”
“Did you give it to him?”
“The tape? Oh, sure. We were about to throw it out anyway.”
Maxwell tried to sound calm. “You mean you didn’t keep a copy?”
“No, we don’t keep that stuff unless there’s some level of intelligence interest.”
Maxwell felt a pall of gloom descend over him. He knew he had been on the right trail, but he was too late. The trail had gone cold. Now he was out of ideas.
He thanked the watch officer and left.
Outside the frigid Surface Plot area, the air seemed hot and stagnant. As Maxwell turned down the long passageway he saw DeLancey standing four or five hatches away. DeLancey nodded and gave him a smile.
<>
Maxwell returned to his room. He put on a Vivaldi CD, then turned on the computer and checked his email.
Nothing. No surprise, he thought. It was over.
He tried again to make sense of the Spam Parker accident. He remembered again what he had learned about accident investigations when he was in test pilot school. They liked to compare an investigation to an archeological dig. You worked with an event that was frozen in time, and you tried to recreate what actually happened. It was like looking at the remains of a fossilized dinosaur and guessing how it died. You could invent theories about why this or that happened, but in the final analysis that’s all you really had — theories.
But this wasn’t archeology, he reminded himself. They weren’t dealing with ancient history. This was a recent event, and they damned sure ought to be able to come up with credible evidence. The trouble was, you could gather as much good evidence as you wanted — and still come up with the wrong answer. Especially if someone was hiding the critical piece of evidence. Or planting a red herring.
For a while Maxwell ruminated, listening to the bright, warbling sound of the baroque music. Then, abruptly, something else came to him. It was an old adage — one they used to teach back in test pilot school about accident investigations: Remember your first impression; it’s almost always the right one.
Well, he remembered his first impression about this accident, unthinkable as it was. He had nothing else to go with it, just an impression—a hunch, really. It was too bizarre, too inconceivable to even discuss it with the other members of the board.
No evidence, no clues. Just an impression.
His mind was clicking forward again. Maxwell turned off the CD player and picked up the phone.
Chapter Twenty-One
The Noose Tightens
Baghdad
2130, Wednesday, 28 May
Tyrwhitt was afraid.
He had been afraid before, but this time was different. In every situation before, he had possessed a sort of cockiness. He knew he could outwit them. It was all a game, and he was a superior gamesman.
But now the game had changed. Before, it had been easy to lose the mush-witted agents assigned to tail him. They were amateurs, always attired in the same drab safari suits, too slow to anticipate his sudden detours through the teeming marketplaces and whorehouses. Sometimes he would let them stay on his trail just to lull them into thinking he was unaware.
No more.
The agents who were trailing him this afternoon from the Rasheed Hotel weren’t wearing the same old brown safari suits. And they hadn’t been fooled by the sharp turn at the whore house. These were trained operatives. They were watching every move he made.
Why?
Darkness had settled over Baghdad. The streets were bathed in a dirty yellow light. Tyrwhitt hailed a passing taxi, a beaten-up Toyota. He jumped in and urged the driver to move out, leaving the two Bazrum trailers gawking from the sidewalk. Seconds later, he saw a black Fiat swing out of the alley across the street and fall behind.
Tyrwhitt directed the taxi driver across town, all the way to the northern souk, then southward again toward downtown and the Ba’ath building. The lights of the Fiat remained behind them, several hundred meters in trail. They passed over an ancient arched bridge that spanned the Tigris River. The bridge was narrow, with barely enough room for two opposite-direction vehicles. Looking back, Tyrwhitt saw the Fiat slow to allow a rickety panel truck to pass.
At the end of the bridge, the road made a hard right turn. For the moment the taxi was hidden from t
he Fiat’s view. Tyrwhitt crammed a fistful of dinars into the driver’s shirt pocket. “Go!” he yelled at the driver. “Keep driving. Go fast!”
He opened the door and jumped out.
Ducking into a darkened portico, Tyrwhitt watched the taxi pick up speed and clatter away. A few seconds later, the Fiat rounded the corner. Tyrwhitt could see three men hunched inside the black car. They were all peering ahead, watching the taxi.
Still in the darkness, Tyrwhitt pulled on a black, loose-fitting cotton jacket, then put on the kaffiyeh. He removed the Beretta from his ankle holster. He chambered a round, then slipped the pistol into his jacket pocket. From his trouser pocket he removed a Buck switchblade and inserted it in a strap around his right wrist.
The black Fiat did not return, but he knew it would be back when they realized he had abandoned the taxi.
He was a good three kilometers from the dead drop — the pre-arranged location where his contact was supposed to leave the packet of information. They had agreed that it was too dangerous to conduct any more meetings in the souk. The contact — the anonymous Iraqi officer — suspected that he was being tailed. Tyrwhitt had already noticed the stepped-up surveillance of his own activities, the replacement of the gum-shoed safari suits with grim-faced men in black. The game was nearly over.
Tyrwhitt stayed to the darkened side streets. It took fifteen minutes, zigzagging at right angles along the narrow streets, before he came to the Mirjan Mosque. It was an ancient building, erected in the fourteenth century, and now in a state of preserved decrepitude.
He looked out over an empty plaza at the front door of the mosque. It was surrounded by a high wall with a wooden gate in front. Minarets rose from each of the four corners. A pair of yellow streetlamps illuminated the large wooden front door.
Tyrwhitt remembered what the officer had told him: “Look for the southern wall of the courtyard. In it is a niche, indicating the direction of Mecca. Directly beneath the niche is a stone box, half a meter high. It contains a stone that supposedly came from the Kaaba, the central Muslim shrine in Mecca. There you will find the packet containing the information you have requested.”
