Formsby was appalled by the callous disregard for human life. “Refugees? Women and children?”
“That’s the word, Neil,” Wyatt said.
“What kind of a bastard are we dealing with?” he asked.
“The worst kind, apparently.” Wyatt briefed them on the commanders involved, referring to biographies provided by the CIA. It was always good to know one’s adversaries, and Formsby memorized the names. Ramad, al-Qati, Salmi, Ghazi.
“And,” Wyatt added, “the Langley people suspect there will be some deniability built in — such as rogue commanders acting on their own. However, they’re also certain that the great Leader and his chief advisor, Kamal Amjab, have given a thumbs-up to the plan.”
The heat was intense, and Formsby got up and crossed to his tent to get the last of the ale, a stack of paper cups, and a big jug of iced tea. He brought them back and walked around the group, pouring.
It was not high tea.
Wyatt spent forty minutes briefing the mission. Formsby could tell they had discussed it before, but Wyatt was now making some changes in timing and targeting.
“Questions, anyone?” Wyatt asked.
“The distance to target,” Hackley asked, “is five hundred miles?”
“From the staging base,” Wyatt said, “five hundred and six miles.”
“And with this bird, we’ve got a full-load combat range of five-twenty.”
“That’s right, Norm. Time over target is going to be almost nil.”
“All that means,” Barr said, “is you got to be accurate. Hit what you aimed for and skedaddle.”
“What the hell?” Gettman said. “If we run short of fuel, we’ve made plans for hitchhiking.”
“That’s doing it the hard way, Karl, but yeah, we’ve got backup,” Wyatt said.
Cliff Jordan — Formsby was concentrating on attaching faces to the names of the people he had just met — pointed at the tanker trailers. “Neil, do those rusted, broken-down buckets actually have all the fuel we need?”
Fuel — its availability and transport — was probably the most crucial aspect of this mission. Lacking a sufficient quantity in the right location meant that the ordnance did not reach its targets. Formsby was quite content with his success at producing the required amount in the correct geographical location.
“But of course,” Formsby said. “Andrew told me a minimum of thirty-one thousand gallons, forgetting that I must negotiate in litres, naturally. I have five five-thousand-gallon tankers and one eight-thousand-gallon tanker.”
“The way we’ll handle it,” Wyatt said, “we’ll refuel all of the aircraft here, which eats up twenty-five thousand gallons, and load the balance in the C-130F. After we fly to the staging base, the C-130 will top off all the fuel cells again.”
“Neil,” Barr said, “I have one little question. How’d you get all that junk here without tractors?”
Formsby explained his arrangement with the paranoid and greedy Jacque. “But that brings up a point I’d like to discuss, Nelson. Originally, I had planned to return to Rabat with Jacque and his fellow travellers. After considering the man’s demeanour and my suspicion that he may well think I have more dollars than I have, I believe the better course would be for me to accompany you to Libya.”
“Libya is safer than Jacque?” Barr asked.
“You haven’t met Jacque.”
“It’s just as well, Neil,” Tom Kriswell said. “I can use you as an assistant air controller.”
“I would be pleased to serve,” Formsby said.
“What about the fifty grand you owe Jacque?” Wyatt asked.
“Why, I’ll leave it for him. It wouldn’t do to skip out and have my reputation tarnished. And I might well have to do business with him again in the future. Especially if Andrew keeps lining up these contracts.”
Wyatt looked at his wristwatch. “All right, guys. Anything else?”
The pressing matters appeared to have been met.
“Let’s go to work,” Wyatt said.
With a few groans and a few profane comments about the temperature, the men levered themselves from the ground and spread out to the aircraft. Formsby pitched in, helping to strip the red tape, logos, and N-numbers from all of the aircraft.
Two men went from plane to plane with a large roll of brown paper and masking tape and masked off canopies, air intakes, exhausts, and the lower side of the wings and fuselage. Two more men rolled compressors and gasoline generators from the cargo bay of the Hercules. Stepladders with broad plates on their legs, to prevent them from sinking into the earth, were carried out of the C-130, and the two men — Littlefield and Cavanaugh, Formsby thought — donned face masks and began to spray paint the first F-4.
Not much effort was given to precision and finish for this paint job. Random patterns of brown, tan, and beige were sprayed over the original cream, mixed with drops of perspiration from the two artists. With the low-visibility grey of the undersides, the new camouflage colours would make the F-4s hard to pinpoint from above or below. The C-130F would also get camouflage, but the transport was being left in its prim, unadorned aluminium finish.
Nelson Barr ran back and forth, supervising the spray job, claiming he was in charge of decorations. Littlefield tried to shoot him with a spray gun, but Barr dove beneath a wing just in time.
Two more teams of men laid out hoses between the fuel trailers and aircraft, powered up the pumps, and started refuelling. The mixed aromas of JP-4 and catalysed paint drifted on the breeze.
Jim Demion and two others hauled tools from one airplane to another, making adjustments and quick-fixes listed on a clipboard he carried.
Formsby gathered all of the red tape remnants and stacked them in a pile.
Then he went to help Wyatt and Ben Borman pull the tarpaulins from the ordnance pallets. With tin snips, they went around each pallet, cutting the steel strapping that held the crates and cradles in place.
Wyatt and Formsby used crowbars to pry the lids off crates while Borman climbed into the Hercules, then returned with a small tow tractor pulling a train of mobile bomb cradles and a small crane. He started transferring bombs from the pallets to the cradles with the crane.
As soon as all of the aircraft were masked off, those two men — Maal and Vrdla? — started hauling weapons pylons from the C-130, distributing them to the Phantoms.
Formsby was suitably impressed by the efficiency of Wyatt’s team. No one complained, except good-naturedly, and generally the complaints were related to the heat. All had a job to do, or a series of jobs, and all took on their chores without orders from a superior.
As the crates came apart, revealing missiles, bombs, and countermeasures pods, Formsby carried the cast-off crates over to his pile of tape and stacked them on top. Just before they took off, he would set fire to the stack.
The pylons were mounted, including a pair each on the underside of the wings of both Hercules aircraft. Wyatt explained to him that the upgraded Phantoms had internal countermeasures derived from the F-15. The C-130s were each designated for a pair of countermeasures pods, and Kriswell and Vrdla dropped what they were doing to inspect and test the ALQ-72 countermeasures pods after they had been hoisted into place and fastened to the pylons.
By four o’clock, they had accomplished all they were going to accomplish in Algeria.
Each F-4, with paint barely dry to the touch, was outfitted with six five-hundred-pound bombs on the pylons and four Super Sidewinder missiles semi-recessed on the underside of the fuselage. With the external fuel tanks in place, they appeared almost too heavy for take-off.
All that was left on the pallets were ninety kilograms of plastic explosive and cotton-packed detonators, and they were carefully loaded aboard the transport by Borman, who had the experience with ordnance-handling.
Formsby had saved his best for last. At three o’clock he had wrapped big Idaho potatoes in tinfoil and shoved them into newly fired charcoal briquettes. He served them at four-thirty wit
h fresh butter, sour cream, and chives, alongside sixteen-ounce sirloin steaks, grilled to perfection.
He thought it was very American.
They got to wash it down with two cases of Coca-Cola that had been on ice for four hours.
“Neil,” Barr asked, “how would you like to move to America?”
*
Colonel Ghazi, the army commander, arrived at Marada Air Base at five o’clock.
Ahmed al-Qati walked up the long ramp from the hangar to meet his airplane. He wanted a private discussion with his superior before the two of them met with Ramad.
The airstairs were lowered from the door of the Lockheed JetStar, and al-Qati climbed them quickly, before Ghazi could deplane.
He found the colonel still seated in one of the plushly cushioned swivelling chairs. His uniform shirt appeared freshly pressed, and it was pressed also from the inside-out by his large torso.
“Good, Ahmed. I am glad you came to meet me. Please take a seat.”
Al-Qati sat across the aisle. “I thought perhaps we should have a few moments to talk between ourselves, Colonel.”
“Yes, I had thought the same thing.”
Al-Qati leapt right into what was bothering him. Bothering him? It was nearly killing him. Only Sophia helped him keep his sanity.
“This… this Test Strike is foolishness beyond comprehension. I fear the outcome will not be what is envisioned.”
“The leadership feels otherwise, Ahmed. They firmly — very firmly — believe that the Israelis and Americans will view our country with heightened respect. Even with dread, which the Leader appears to desire more than respect.”
“The world will damn us, Colonel Ghazi.”
“I doubt the world will ever know. The Leader is certain that the Israelis will want to bury the incident. They are so beleaguered now, they will not want to admit publicly to another threat. And we know that the United States always goes along with them.”
“But, the Ethiopians…”
“Will say nothing. Theirs is a chaotic administration, and, if anything, they will be relieved that the draw on their food and medical resources will be lessened. I think you worry unduly,” Ghazi said.
“In recent years, all countries run to the United Nations the minute they perceive a threat against them.”
“So? Should it come out, we are only following orders.”
“That excuse did not go over well at Nuremberg,” al-Qati said.
“Nevertheless, we do have our orders, and we will follow them.”
The army commander must be under a great deal of pressure to go along with this fantastic scheme, al-Qati thought. He had always respected Ghazi for his rationality under stress, but this was completely irrational.
“Colonel, I appeal to…”
“In vain, I am afraid, Ahmed. We are committed.”
Ghazi did not say that he was committed, but he had grouped himself with the powers that were.
“As you say, Colonel,” al-Qati said. There was no other place to go, no other person to hear his argument.
“Now,” Ghazi said, “let us proceed to what I wished to discuss with you. The People’s Bureau,” — which was what the Leader had re-termed all of the embassies and consulates — “in Athens has forwarded to the intelligence bureau an interesting item.”
Al-Qati waited with the appearance of attention, even though his stomach churned.
“The Bureau has several agents in Washington, of course, and one, a student at Georgetown University, collected a rumour that may concern us. There are several reporters from different newspapers, and from the Cable News Network, dashing around the city asking questions about a group of F-4 Phantom fighter aircraft.”
“F-4 fighter airplanes?” al-Qati asked, just to be asking something.
“Indeed. Apparently, some men have prepared six of the airplanes for a special mission. The reporters appear to be grasping at straws, asking their sources what possible use the fighters could be put to. One theory in circulation concerns the chemical plant north of Marada.”
“That is speculation.”
“Very probably, Ahmed. And yes, rumours of other targets abound — Syria, the Bekaa Valley, some in China. Still, it is interesting that our fertilizer factory is mentioned prominently, is it not?”
Al-Qati did not think it interesting. He thought it irrelevant.
“What is of greater interest, Ahmed, is that these airplanes disappeared from wherever they were being held shortly after the Leader took his decision on Test Strike.”
Now, it was relevant. In al-Qati’s world, timing was everything.
“Do you think, Colonel, that news of the strike plan has leaked?”
“It is possible, Ahmed. More and more people have acquired knowledge since the decision was taken.”
“And the Americans will intervene?”
“I think not. Not as they did before. If it is to happen, it will be a covert operation, and that makes this rumour of unaffiliated fighter aircraft all the more suspicious.”
“What do you wish me to do, Colonel?”
“Ramad listens primarily to himself. When I bring up the matter in our meeting, I would like to have your support.”
“Of course. My support of you, or of my country, has never been in question.”
Al-Qati meant that sincerely, but he was beginning to question just how blindly he was to follow the instructions issued in Tripoli.
*
At one o’clock in the morning, Janice Kramer parked her Riviera in the parking lot of the Four Seasons Motel, locked it, and entered the lobby. She was wearing Levi’s and a red, low-cut Mexican peasant blouse, and three guys in the lobby, who had struck out earlier in the evening, instantly started to get out of their chairs. She chilled them with an icy glare of her green eyes.
What she ought to be, she thought, is home, curled up on her couch with a brandy snifter, revelling in her future prospects as Mrs. Andrew Wyatt. Her elation, so far, had been curtailed by her worry.
What she ought not to be doing was running Martin Church’s errands for him. He didn’t even pay her. Except indirectly, maybe.
She damned sure wouldn’t be here if the outcome wouldn’t help Andy.
She crossed to the lounge, which wasn’t being heavily utilized, and stood in the doorway for a few seconds, looking around.
“Hey, Jan!”
Arnie Gering raised his hand high from a booth on the sidewall.
She walked over to it, waving off the waitress, and sat across from him.
He eyed her blouse.
“Good to see you, Jan. I was sure glad you called.”
“I have a proposal for you, Arnie.”
“Yeah?”
“First, I need to know who you’ve talked to.”
“About the Nebraska thing?”
God, he was dense.
“Yes, Arnie. About the Nebraska thing.”
“Well, you know, I got hold of a reporter.”
“Just one?”
“A couple, maybe.”
“How many, Arnie?”
“Three.”
“Newspaper reporters?”
“Oh, and one guy from CNN.”
“Tell me what they said.”
He squirmed on his bench seat. “Well, they were, I guess, sceptical.”
“I can see why they would be.”
“They wanted documentation. With documentation, they said, I could get some big bucks.”
“How big?”
“Well, we haven’t gotten to that stage yet. You know, you could print out some stuff from the computer for me, Jan. We could split it, like, sixty-forty.”
“I get the sixty?”
“Well, I’m the one who made the calls, after all.”
“What else did they say?”
“Just that they’d look into it. Ask around.”
Church had told her that they were, indeed, asking around, but that they weren’t finding anything substantial enough to go to p
rint with. Unless they got curious enough to give Gering a first-class ticket to Washington.
Kramer pulled the stack of bills from her purse. They were bound with a rubber band, and she had been so angry with Church’s suggestion that she didn’t even put the sheaf in an envelope. He had called it “damage control,” but she called it bribery. She laid it on the table and kept her hand on top of it.
Gering’s eyes left her breasts and landed on the bills. “That’s ten thousand,” she said.
“It’s damned good-looking. Can I count it?”
“Trust me. You can have it.”
Immediate suspicion crossed his face. “Yeah, but what’s it cost me?”
“Your signature.”
From her purse, she took the single sheet of paper and passed it across to him.
He struggled with it for a while, then said, “This is all legalese. What’s it really say?”
“That you go to jail for fifteen to twenty years if you say one more word about… the Nebraska thing. It has to do with national security, Arnie.”
He looked up at her then, and she saw the worry in his eyes. That made her feel better.
“Uh, they wouldn’t…”
“They might pick you up any day and hold you for arraignment. What they’re suggesting here is that it might be simpler to just make a deal.”
She made liberal use of that magic “they.” Everybody always worried about “them.”
“I sign this, and I get the ten thou?”
“That’s right. Then, if you say word one to anyone, you go right to Leavenworth. There won’t be any trial involved.”
She had written the agreement, following Church’s suggestions, and used as much gobbledygook language as she could. It wouldn’t stand up for more than thirty seconds in any courtroom in the land.
“And if any of those reporters call you back, you say you were having a bad dream or you were drunk.” Gering eyed the letter of agreement, then the stack of green.
“Got a pen?” he asked.
She found one, and he signed the agreement with a flourish. She took the paper, folded it, and put it in her purse. “This will be kept in Washington, in the Department of Justice probably.”
In their trash can.
Phantom Strike Page 18
