Alpha Kat

by William H. Lovejoy

  “Well,” Crider said, “we’ll have done the best we can do, under the circumstances.”

  Lujan shut down the jets, then came back from the cockpit and opened the hatch.

  O’Brian said, “Well, and now that’s settled, let’s find a hotel, hey?”

  *

  Ben Wilcox was acutely aware of the calendar on his desk. Three hours before, at exactly midnight, he had flipped the page. July 19.

  Simonson’s assets in Burma and Thailand were now saying July 27 looked like a good bet.

  Worse, his own source confirmed it.

  The White House was saying that, if civil war erupted in Burma, the CIA was to stay out of it. The President would go to the UN and raise hell, but U.S. covert actions were to be suspended.

  It was dark outside, and though there were a few hundred people still working in the building, he felt quite alone on his floor.

  The digital clock that was part of his elaborate telephone set read 3:06.

  It was six minutes after ten in Riyadh.

  Where in hell are you, Kimball?

  He got up from his desk chair and paced around the room. He started to fill his mug from the automatic drip pot on the sideboard, then put it down. Caffeine was beginning to become his life.

  The stubble on his face rasped loudly in his ears when he ran his hand over his cheeks.

  The telephone rang.

  He whipped around and went back to the desk, snatching the phone from its cradle.

  “Wilcox.”

  “You called?” Kimball asked.

  “Damned near two hours ago.”

  “My business is selling airplanes. The customer comes first.”

  “Let’s not forget, Kimball, that I’m your first damned customer.”

  “What do you want?”

  “How secure is your line?”

  “As secure as Sheraton makes it. First things first. What did you find out about my … engine problems?”

  Wilcox sighed. At least, Kimball was being circumspect on the phone.

  “I haven’t found out anything yet. I’ve got a couple people taking a look at it.”

  “I want to know what’s going on, and damned soon. If my people are in greater danger than I expect them to be, I want to know why and how.”

  “We’re doing what we can, Kimball.”

  “Do more.”

  “Damn it, we’re doing everything we possibly can,” Wilcox said, but had to go on. “You’ve got to be in Rangoon on the twenty-sixth.”

  “No way. We get into Dacca that day.”

  “Hell, no one in Bangladesh can afford to buy your aircraft.”

  “They want to look at them, and I’m going to let them look, Wilcox. Hell, for all you know, they’ve got a secret treasury stashed away.”

  “I don’t …”

  “Besides,” Kimball continued, “if I try to change the schedule for Burma and the rest down the line, somebody’s going to get suspicious.”

  Wilcox damned the lack of a secure line, but asked, “Can you make your first … priority flights out of Dacca?”

  Kimball only thought it over for thirty seconds. “That can be done, but why? What’s the sudden rush?”

  “New developments.”

  “What new developments?”

  “I can’t talk about them on the phone.”

  “Then you’d better get your ass over here and tell me in person. I’m not deviating from the original schedule unless I’ve got a damned good reason.”

  Kimball hung up.

  Shit!

  He didn’t want to go to Saudi Arabia.

  *

  A.J. Soames sat with Kimball, McEntire, and Hamilton at a linen-covered table in the hotel’s dining room. After the morning spent in the heat blistering the concrete at Riyadh International, the air conditioning was one step away from paradise.

  The waiter took away the scoured hamburger plates and delivered the bowls of ice cream with a flourish that was beyond necessity.

  Soames said, “Hell, Kim, I don’t know how great a salesman I am.”

  “You and Alex will do fine, A.J. The prince is easy to get along with, and about all you have to do is flip through the charts.”

  “And stand around during the demonstration,” Sam Eddy added. “The questions aren’t all that hard to answer. Just remember to keep a straight face when their planes go so far off the target. Smirking is off-limits.”

  “I smirk easily,” Hamilton said, scooping into his vanilla ice cream. “I’d better stay in the airplane.”

  “Who’s going to stand in as Zookeeper?” Soames asked.

  “We’ll put Vrdlicka on it,” Kimball said.

  “Are we fouling up the planned rotation just because you and Sam Eddy want to fly?” Soames asked.

  He wasn’t above adjusting to emergencies or revised circumstances, but if there was an emergency, he wanted to know about it.

  McEntire answered, “We want to be closer to the operations because of the event in Chad.”

  Hamilton asked, “Are you sure you’re going to eat your ice cream, Kim?”

  “No, you can have it.”

  “Ah shit,” Soames said. “I guess we move to public relations.”

  “You speaking for me?” Hamilton asked.

  “Damned right.”

  “You’ll probably be better at it than we are,” McEntire told them. “In fact, I’m sure you will be.”

  “If we sell some airplanes, do we get a commission?” Hamilton asked.

  “We’re all on commission,” Soames said, thinking of his stock.

  “Okay, good,” Kimball said. “How are we doing? What’s the status?”

  “The birds are all pre-flighted,” Soames said. “Most everyone is on a sleep-or recreation-break right now.”

  “You mean there’s recreation somewhere around here?” Sam Eddy asked.

  “If you look for it,” Soames said. “The Saudis have the base well-secured, but I’ve got Perry Vance and Dave Metger standing afternoon guard on the aircraft. We won’t load weapons until just before the demonstration.”

  “We want an intense inspection of all aircraft before takeoff,” Kimball said.

  “I’ve got it on my chart.”

  “And then, at three o’clock, during our afternoon exercise, the prince is taking a little joy ride.”

  “Oh, damn!”

  “I couldn’t very well refuse him,” Kimball said. “He’s an active air force pilot, he’s rated in F-15s and F-16s, and he’s loaded up with flying time in both. Plus, he’s got combat experience in the Gulf war.”

  “I don’t think he’ll break the airplane,” McEntire said, “and if he does, he can afford to pay for it.”

  “You’ll go with him, Kim?” Soames asked.

  “Sam Eddy’s going to fly his wing.”

  “Don’t shoot him down or do anything silly, Sam Eddy,” Soames said.

  “I know a golden goose when I see one, A.J.”

  *

  Derek Crider’s credentials and business cards, describing him as an assistant vice president and a field engineer for Rockwell International, worked very well.

  Twice.

  Along with Del Gart, who carried a similar set of forged documents, he whisked through a chainlink gate manned by a Saudi military policeman. Corey O’Brian had stayed behind because they thought his maimed hand, with its missing three fingers, might have drawn too much attention.

  They were dressed almost alike in sturdy work shoes and khaki cotton pants. Gart wore a pastel blue shirt with a half-dozen pens and pencils in a pocket protector. Crider thought it might have been over-kill. He himself wore a white shirt and an open tan safari jacket that whipped in the light breeze. He had an expensive Hewlett-Packard calculator clipped to his belt.

  Gart wore a beat-up straw hat, an essential ingredient of his uniform.

  The two of them approached a short slim man sitting on the lowered ramp of a C-141. The guy lolled there, a black Los Angeles R
aiders baseball cap pulled low over his eyebrows, and watched them approach. He had an M-16 with a clip in place leaning against the ramp beside him. A trickle of sweat ran down the side of his face, and he wiped it away.

  Pulling out his wallet and offering the credentials, Crider said, “Good afternoon.”

  “Afternoon,” the man said, pushing himself to his feet. “What can I do for you guys?”

  “We’re with Rockwell, been working on a Saudi air control project for the past eighteen months.”

  “Chip Block,” Gart said, offering his hand. “It’s a nickname, for the obvious reason.”

  “Dave Metger,” the guy said and shook Gart’s hand, then Crider’s.

  “Bill Torrington, Atlanta,” he identified himself with a drawl he had spent half of his life trying to lose. “You working on the base?”

  “Yeah, back theah at the main towah.” Crider flipped a thumb over his shoulder.

  “And you’ve been here a year and a half?”

  “Hard to believe, isn’t it?” Gart said. “Another six months, and I’ll go nuts.”

  “What it was,” Crider said, “we all saw fellow Americans with their own planes, ya know, and we thought we’d walk over and see if ya’ll didn’t have somethin’ ta wet a whistle with.”

  Metger grinned. “Yeah, I’ll bet you’ve been here a long time.”

  “Long damned time.”

  “But I can’t help you out. Unless you want a cup of iced tea.”

  Gart made a long face. “Well, we didn’t hold out much hope. Thanks, anyway.”

  Crider turned to look at the row of Alpha Kats. “Nice lookin’ planes.”

  “Thanks. We’re kind of proud of them.”

  “Ah worked the B-l bombah program till Jimmy Carter dumped all over us.”

  “The hell you did? That was a nice airplane.”

  “SOB was a fellow Georgian, too. But that’s how come I ended up playin’ with ground computers.”

  “You mind if we take a look?” Gart asked.

  “Oh, hell no! Come on, I’ll take you around.” Metger loosened the sling on his assault rifle and draped it over his shoulder, then led them across the tarmac to the Alpha Kats.

  He was a right proud airplane salesman. Opened access panels and showed them the kinds of things engineers would be interested in. Helped Crider up a ladder to peer into the cockpit. Ignored Gart as he wandered around to the other side of the aircraft.

  Metger showed them the other planes and the Kappa Kat, explaining the tactics briefly.

  They spent twenty minutes on the tour, then Gart said, “Damn, Bill! We’d better get back before the royal family crawls all over us.”

  Crider lifted his wrist and looked at his watch. “No shit. Hey, Dave, we all ’preciate the tour.”

  “No sweat. Come back and meet some of the others when they’re here. We’re going to be hanging around for a couple days.”

  “We all will just do that,” Gart said and offered his hand again.

  Walking back toward the chainlink fence, Crider said, “That asshole’s not mean enough, or suspicious enough, to be in the aerospace business.”

  “You’re telling me?”

  “Any trouble?”

  “None at all,” Gart said, taking his straw hat off and wiping his forehead with his forearm.

  Crider saw that the small explosive charges that had been hidden in the hat were gone.

  “Where in hell’d you get that accent?” Gart asked.

  “My childhood’s comin’ back to me.”

  *

  Kimball wasn’t particularly worried about the prince. The man was qualified in the Falcon, so he was accustomed to the fly-by-wire controls.

  Still, he was on edge until he saw both Alpha Kats on the final approach. When they touched down, one behind the other, the prince’s landing even smoother than Sam Eddy’s, and slowed to a crawl, he let his breath out.

  “See?” Gander said. “Nothing to worry about.”

  “Me, worried?”

  “You’re getting to be a regular old fuddy duddy. Chill out, Kim.”

  After the turbojets were shut down, he and Gander crossed the ramp to the planes. Tex Brabham was the first up the ladder to help the prince out of his harness and connections.

  Four mean-looking and heavily armed Saudis in desert camouflage also moved in close to the plane. They hadn’t been introduced, and Kimball assumed they were in the bodyguard business.

  The prince, who was both earnest and agile, scrambled down the ladder behind Brabham.

  “Delightful!”

  “I’m glad you enjoyed it,” Kimball said. And he was glad. There was nothing like hands-on experience to promote love for the airplane.

  “It is a joy to fly.”

  “We warned you,” McEntire said, coming around the nose of the next plane in line. He was holding his hands up, palms out, in deference to the bodyguards.

  “I am, naturally, both concerned and intrigued about the capability in tandem with the Kappa Kat.”

  “You’ll see that tonight,” Kimball said.

  “But I wonder …”

  Uh oh, Kimball thought.

  “… if we might not change the demonstration somewhat?”

  “In what way?” Kimball asked.

  “I am certain that you have carefully choreographed your program, in the interest of safety as well as of showing off the talents of the craft. However, our interest lies primarily in defense, rather than the attack mission.”

  “You’d like to see us fly defense?”

  “Exactly!”

  Kimball looked at McEntire.

  “That’s my preference, actually,” Sam Eddy said.

  “Fine with us,” Kimball echoed.

  “Wonderful. I will have my two squadrons attack the target, and you will protect it.”

  Kimball’s watch read 4:30 P.M. “I’ll get my people together, and we’ll brief them for the change.”

  “You have the maps, Kim?” the prince asked.

  “We’ve got everything we need, thanks.”

  “And then we’ll see you for dinner.”

  “What we’d like to do is have A.J. Soames and Alex Hamilton brief you and your officers over dinner. Sam Eddy and I are leading the flight, so we’ll have some of our own preparations to make here.”

  “I like a man who demonstrates his own convictions,” the prince said. “I will lead the attackers.”

  Kimball grinned at him. “I’ll see you before you see me.”

  The prince smiled back. “Perhaps.”

  As soon as the prince and his party departed, the KAT crews went into action. A refueling truck was ordered up for the two Alpha Kats just returned. The ordnance teams began wheeling the dollies beneath the fighters and loading air-to-air missiles. Carl Dent dutifully checked each missile to be certain it was a dummy.

  Kimball specified only four missiles per Alpha Kat. They wouldn’t actually be fired, but their heat-seeking or radar-tracking heads would be utilized to designate contacts. Additionally, the lighter ordnance load increased the stealth of the planes. The missiles were not constructed with stealth technology, and at close ranges, would provide a radar return. The absence of iron bombs on the centerline hardpoints also improved the fighters’ performances and lowered their radar cross sections.

  One of the techs, Paul Diamond, took one of the jeeps provided by the Saudis and went to find a restaurant that would box some dinners for them.

  Kimball and the day’s demo team (McEntire, Gander, Mabry, Halek, and Cadwell) met with Billingsly and Vrdlicka around a stack of missile crates in the Starlifter.

  Billingsly was Hawkeye Three and Vrdlicka would handle the headquarters chores as Zookeeper.

  Sam Miller, Ito Makura, and Phillipe Contrarez, the rest of the Hawkeye crew, listened in from their places on the drop-down canvas seats along the fuselage.

  They spent the next three hours revising their plan of operations, chewing slowly through cold chicken w
hen Diamond got back with it. Everyone argued freely about the methodology, and it began to refine itself around 7:30 P.M.

  The target, a tin shanty that had been moved into the desert by cargo helicopter, was two hundred miles to the south.

  “Seems to me,” Gander said, “that the Saudis will figure us to all be at altitude.”

  “They’ll also come in low, trying to avoid the radar coverage,” McEntire added.

  “You want us to stay low, then? Use pop-up tactics like the MiG-23s did in ’Nam?”

  “The prince is familiar with American tactics,” Billingsly said. “So let’s not be absolutely traditional.”

  “How about CAP?” Sam Eddy asked.

  “They’re coming in with eight Eagles,” Kimball said. “If Connie would give up his CAP, we could have six planes available when they’re only expecting four.”

  “I can live without the CAP,” Billingsly said, “if you can live with the fact that I might have to go off the air more frequently.”

  “What the hell? Let’s try it,” McEntire said.

  Tex Brabham walked up the ramp and asked, “Got to interrupt. Who gets what?”

  McEntire wrote quickly on slips of paper, and they drew N-numbers out of Gander’s Stetson.

  Kimball opened his slip and saw: one-five.

  Brabham memorized the roster and went back to do the final checks.

  “Hey, Tex,” Kimball called after him.

  “Yeah, Kim.”

  “Look real close, huh? Flashlights everywhere.”

  Brabham gave him a dirty look. “Yo, boss.”

  The flight crews split up and headed for the crew compartments of whichever C-141 held their flight gear. Kimball dampened a towel with ice water and carried it into the compartment with him. He stripped and used the towel to give himself a sponge bath before donning his flight suit and G-suit. He carried his survival equipment, helmet, and oxygen mask out to one-five.

  Brabham was waiting for him, and they did another walkaround together.

  “She looks clean, Kim. But I’m worried.”

  “About what, Tex?”

  “These honeys are so complicated, it’s easy to hide something when somebody wants to hide something.”

  “Engines check out?”

  “We put floodlight through them and turned them on the starters. They’re okay.”