Alpha Kat

by William H. Lovejoy

  “Me, too. I was sure the first attack would be a real surprise, and I didn’t expect any ground fire. It looks like there were a few potshots, but we didn’t find any damage to Jimmy’s plane.”

  “Next time,” McEntire said, “I want to be the last one through.”

  “Next time, we’ll change the tactics.”

  McEntire poured them each another half-inch. “Next thing you know, we’ll be out of booze.”

  “We can stock up in Bangkok.”

  “Yeah, Bangkok. What about Rangoon? You think we can stretch enough time on the night flight to reach, what is it? … Chiang Base?”

  “Shouldn’t be a problem. Another half hour of flight time. And we want to put a little fear into that army garrison at Mawkmai.”

  “Too bad we don’t have something nuclear with us,” Sam Eddy said. “We could waste us a lot of poppies.”

  “Next year, on the next tour, we’ll bring defoliants with us.” Kimball wished that someone in world government had the courage to wipe out the production capability of the Golden Triangle.

  “Next year, you bring defoliants with you.”

  “Retiring, are you?”

  “Sure as hell thinking about it,” McEntire said. “I’m getting too old for this shit.”

  Kimball sipped his scotch and studied McEntire, then finally decided the man was just tired. They all were. Adapting to a round-the-clock routine wasn’t easy.

  “What are you thinking now?” he asked.

  “I’m thinking they’ll be ready for us next time. We’ll see some SAMs and some triple-A, whether they can track us or not.”

  “Probably. You getting worried?” Kimball asked.

  “Not me, babe.”

  “I know who is. We should make a couple calls.”

  “Probably.”

  “It’s after midnight in Phoenix. Let’s get Susie out of bed for a change. Go ahead and ring her up.”

  “You do it, Kim. She won’t want to talk to me.”

  “Sam Eddy, what the hell? Are you —”

  “No, Kim. It’s not up for discussion.”

  “She still loves you,” Kimball said.

  “She’s a beautiful lady,” McEntire said, “in more ways than one. Let’s just say I disappointed her, and now she’s confused. My fault, and I admit it. End of discussion.”

  Kimball lifted the receiver from the set on the table, got the switchboard, and placed his transoceanic call. He had to wait six minutes before the call was completed and the operator rang him back.

  “Sorry to get you out of bed,” he said.

  “I wasn’t in bed,” Susan said. “But I was thinking about it.”

  “First of all, everyone’s in great shape.”

  “Sam Eddy?”

  Kimball looked over at him. “Maybe a little tired. We all are.”

  “Did you …”

  “Yes. A-okay.”

  “It was earlier than planned,” she said.

  “Yes. There’s a new situation, but we think we’ve delayed it.”

  “Just two to go,” she said, and he knew she was talking about the extracurricular activities.

  “That’s all.”

  “Give my love to everyone.”

  “Everyone will be happy to hear that.”

  “And you be careful, Kim.”

  “That’s me, thinking about number one.”

  “Why don’t you let the others do the flying? You’re the president, and we need …”

  “Susie.”

  “Sorry. Call me tomorrow.”

  Kimball hung up. “The long-distance billing is going to be higher than the fuel bill.”

  “She worries about you,” Sam Eddy said.

  “I don’t know why.”

  “Someday, you’ll have to sit down and think about it. What about Wilcox?”

  “I don’t think he’s going to be happy with us.”

  “That’ll improve my day,” McEntire said. “I’ll make this call.”

  *

  Emilio Lujan landed the Learjet in Rangoon at eleven o’clock in the morning. The six of them cleared the Customs section and were checked into their hotel by 12:30 P.M. They had lunch in the dining room, then gathered in Crider’s room.

  “Suggestions?” Crider asked. He rubbed the side of his nose, which was still sore. He had damned near broken it when he ran into the tree. It was swollen and red.

  Lujan opened the French doors to the balcony and stepped out onto it. Crider figured the pilot didn’t want to hear, or know, more than it was necessary for him to know.

  “The fucking missiles sure as hell didn’t work,” Del Gart said.

  “There’s too much we don’t know about those planes,” Wheeler said. “They obviously had some kind of infrared threat warning capability.”

  “I’ll bet I could hit a tire or two on takeoff, if I had the right rifle,” Alan Adage said.

  “Tires go flat,” Crider said. “That wouldn’t look like a manufacturing problem unique to Kimball Aero.”

  “Shooting five planes down with Stingers isn’t much of a manufacturing defect,” Wheeler noted.

  “It could have looked like one plane malfunctioning and colliding with the others,” Crider said.

  “Not bloody likely,” O’Brian told him.

  “Or terrorist hits, showing the planes aren’t as stealthy as Kimball Aero advertises,” Crider added, which had been his scenario from the beginning.

  “Let’s get real,” Wheeler said. “Rehashing history isn’t doing the job.”

  Crider thought about it for a few minutes, then said, “Maybe we’re going at this the wrong way. The contractor wanted us to make it look like a manufacturing problem, and that’s the route I followed the first couple of times. But then I thought that the contractor may be a little shortsighted, so we tried it as a breakdown in infrared detection. Obviously, that didn’t work either.”

  Wheeler licked his lips. With the napalm scars on his right cheek, his lips always looked dry. “What you’re saying, Crider, is that you don’t want the Kimball Aero planes to live up to their billing as stealth planes?”

  “Right. Can we make them visible on radar? We could destroy their reputation right there, without having to plant any more explosives.”

  Del Gart, who had the most experience with electronics, got out of his chair and wandered around the room. The others watched him.

  Finally, Gart said, “Yeah, if I can find the right components, we can rig up something. We could even arrange some other problems.”

  “Such as?” Crider asked.

  “Missiles or bombs get hung up on the aircraft, for one. Landing gear doesn’t deploy. Things like that.”

  “I like it,” Crider said. “But let’s keep it as simple as possible because we don’t have a hell of a lot of time. You sit down, Del, and figure out what you need. When you’ve got a list, the rest of us will get out and find what you need.”

  Gart got himself a sheet of stationery and a ballpoint pen from the desk, then sprawled out on the bed.

  *

  When Ben Wilcox got back to the Embassy, there was a message for him. The message said, “Stay in your damned room.”

  He hadn’t expected to hear from them so soon. He got a Seven-up and took it to the secure room.

  He waited nearly an hour, sitting at a scarred table and reading Indian travel brochures, before the communications specialist signalled him and he picked up the phone.

  “Yeah?”

  “About time you got back,” McEntire said.

  “Where are you calling from?”

  “My hotel. I’ll play your game; no details.”

  “What in the hell were you two thinking about?” Wilcox asked.

  “Life. Love. The pursuit of happiness.”

  “You picked the wrong place.”

  “No, it was delightful, old boy. In the middle of sleepy-time. No one was expecting us.”

  “Goddamn it! You’re taking my orders.”


  “You get to see the pictures?” McEntire asked, ignoring him. “I’m sure you’ve got pictures.”

  Wilcox eyed the stack of satellite photos resting on the corner of the table. Simonson had transmitted them to him early in the morning.

  “I saw them.”

  “What’s it look like?” McEntire asked, with obvious enthusiasm.

  “You levelled the place. There were four KIA.”

  “That’s damned good camera resolution says this engineer. You actually saw the dead bodies?”

  “I talked to my source.”

  “We read the papers this morning,” McEntire said. “Nothing seems to have happened on the twenty-seventh in a certain Southeast Asian nation. Do you think we scared them off, Mr. Washington?”

  “It’s been delayed,” Wilcox agreed.

  “So it’s safe for us to fly in there tomorrow?”

  “It’s been delayed until the twenty-ninth.”

  “Hey, at least we had an effect!”

  “Not a good one. You endangered my source.”

  “Better him than us, right?” McEntire asked with a clear lack of empathy.

  “And as a result, the people that count have decided to call it off.”

  “Being in the line of fire, as we are, we tend to think of ourselves as the people who count.”

  “Forget it,” Wilcox said. “It’s over, and you fucked it up.”

  He couldn’t help being bitter. He’d had it so well planned, and now Simonson and the DCI thought Kimball’s people were rogues, uncontrollable. And they were right.

  The echo on the line deadened as if McEntire had covered the mouthpiece.

  “Hey!” Wilcox shouted.

  No response for a second, then McEntire came back and said. “After a quick conversation with my colleague, we’ve decided that we disagree with you.”

  “I don’t give a damn what you decide. You just stick to your primary schedule and forget the rest of it.”

  “I’m glad you don’t care,” McEntire said. “It makes it easier.”

  “Makes what easier?”

  “We’re talking in the abstract, remember?”

  “You’re not making any sense at all,” Wilcox said.

  “Now you’re catching on,” McEntire said. “I knew you could do it.”

  And hung up.

  Wilcox replaced the receiver very deliberately, then crossed the room to where the communications technician sat at his console. The tech hit the eject button on the recorder and handed him the tape.

  At least, Wilcox had his own ass covered.

  *

  A.J. Soames and Conrad Billingsly were passengers this trip, sharing a seat on the lower bunk in the crew compartment of the lead C-141. When he heard the engines throttled back, Soames checked his watch: 11:02 A.M.

  “Magnificent Burma coming up, Connie.”

  “I’m ready for it. I hope it’s ready for us.”

  Gander was flying in the left seat and had been bitching about it all the way. But he landed the giant transport as smoothly as if it had been a passenger-laden DC-10.

  Soames felt the plane turn off the runway and stood up. He was ready to find his way to the hotel.

  “A.J.! Come on up here!” Gander called.

  Soames climbed the short ladder, edged past Keeper, who was serving as the flight engineer, and leaned over the control pedestal to peer through the windscreen.

  A man on the ground was waving his arms, flagging them into a parking place.

  And surrounding the parking area were about a hundred uniformed and armed soldiers.

  “I don’t like the looks of this at all, A.J.” Gander told him.

  Soames didn’t like the looks of it either. “Think we should turn tail, Jimmy? Try to get back in the air?”

  Mel Vrdlicka, riding as copilot, said, “It ain’t going to happen, A.J. They’ve got a tanker truck traipsing along behind us.”

  *

  Kimball, flying zero-eight as Bengal One, got the report from Soames on the clear channel.

  On his Tac Two, he asked McEntire, “What do you think, Irish?”

  After a moment’s chewing of the oral report, Sam Eddy said, “I don’t think they’ve figured out our real game. Not to the point where they could prove it, anyway.”

  “All they’d have to do is uncover a few missiles,” Kimball reminded him.

  “With the government as shaky as it is, they won’t want an international incident. I don’t think they’re going to go digging up search warrants.”

  “I don’t want an international incident either.”

  “I think we bluff it out, Cheetah. We’re better off as a group, rather than heading back to Dacca and leaving the transports unprotected.”

  “I don’t want to split us up, either. Go ahead and get our clearances, Hawkeye,” Kimball said.

  “Roger that, Bengal One,” Contrarez said from the Kappa Kat.

  Fifteen minutes later, they let down over the Gulf of Martaban, crossed the delta, and found the concrete of the runway. The five Alpha Kats, followed by the Kappa Kat, taxied behind a white pickup truck, paused to let a Thai Airways International Boeing 727 cross the taxiway, then moved on to parking places opposite the C-141s.

  Kimball shut down the turbofan and auxiliary systems, then opened the canopy.

  Soames was right.

  Around a hundred armed soldiers spread out and made a perimeter around the KAT aircraft. The rifles were slung over their shoulders, but the sight was menacing nonetheless.

  After he shrugged out of his equipment and slipped to the ground, Kimball headed for the transport where Soames and Billingsly were talking to several Burmese officers.

  McEntire caught up with him, and they approached the group together.

  A short man in an immaculately pressed uniform turned to them. His smile lit up the morning. Kimball likened the smile to that of a used car salesman and Nixon.

  “Mr. Kimball! I am happy to meet you. I am Colonel Kun Mauk.”

  Kimball shook the proffered and calloused hand, then introduced McEntire.

  With an upraised palm, he indicated the ring of soldiers. “To what do we owe the security, Colonel Mauk?”

  “You are perhaps aware of some, shall we say, civil disturbances in the north? We merely wish to have you feel completely at ease during your short stay.”

  “I see, Colonel. I appreciate your concern.”

  “We are eager to see how well your airplanes perform, Mr. Kimball.”

  “And we’re eager to show you.”

  They spent half-an-hour finalizing the times and locations for the aerial and ground demonstrations, then Mauk and his coterie of subordinates slipped through the cordon and disappeared.

  Soames said, “This is a little uncomfortable, Kim.”

  “You’re right.”

  “But we’re creative, aren’t we, gentlemen?” McEntire said. “At least, I am.”

  Jimmy Gander had his head stuck through the hatchway to the compartment. “Create something real quick, would you, Sam Eddy?”

  “First of all, I suggest we call the hotel and cancel. Methinks it would be better if we all stayed with the planes today.”

  “What about my shower?” Soames said.

  “You stand under that wing, A.J.,” Gander said, “and I’ll dump iced tea on you.”

  “We going to have to eat MREs?” Billingsly asked.

  “We could always tour a Burmese prison,” Kimball said.

  Billingsly pushed Gander aside and climbed aboard the Starlifter. “I’m going to see if I can find some beans and franks.”

  Eighteen

  The telephone this time was in an all-night drugstore on 23rd Street in the District, and the time was 1:20 A.M.

  Brock Dixon picked up on the first ring.

  “I don’t know what’s happening here,” Derek Crider said, “but the damned Burmese have a security cordon around those planes like you wouldn’t believe. We can’t get within a mile of them.”r />
  Dixon had an idea about that, but held it for the moment. “You’ve got a plan?”

  “We’ve got to figure out where the IFF transponder is located on the plane. One of my people is working on a way to alter it.”

  Dixon immediately saw the possibilities in that. “Good idea. It’ll be in the cockpit, probably a slide-out unit, and probably small, like a car stereo. Kimball has miniaturized everything.”

  “We could slip into the cockpit and just pull it out?”

  “Maybe. Depends on the power and antenna connections. But you know what? I’d give odds that they’ve got a couple replacement units with them somewhere.”

  “On one of the C-141s?” Crider asked.

  “I don’t know the set-up, but it seems likely.”

  “Good, that’s great. We’ll check it out.”

  “You have a backup plan?” Dixon asked.

  “We’ve only got three more shots at them. One of my people suggested putting a rocket into one of the transports. They’ve got enough simulated ordnance aboard to create a lot of fireworks. The way they park them, if a C-141’s fuel went off, they’d lose the whole bunch.”

  “That’s way too damned obvious,” Dixon said. “It might look like a terrorist hit, yeah, but it still leaves them in business.”

  “If some of their personnel survive.”

  “Ease up on that scenario. Work on the transponders. And then there’s something else.”

  “What else?” Crider demanded.

  “I’ve got some pictures.”

  As a normal courtesy, the National Photographic Interpretation Center had provided Air Force Intelligence with a set of satellite photos showing a clandestine Burmese airfield in flames. Since it was not a normal event, Dixon’s analyst had brought them to him. As soon as he saw the photos and read the background info, Dixon had deduced Ben Wilcox’s intent. He was mad as hell that the CIA had not approached the National Security Council with the plan. The DCI had obviously gone around the NSC, directly to the President.

  The Agency was getting out of hand again.

  He had been thinking about leaking the information to one of the Congressional oversight committees and letting the political process weed out Wilcox, Simonson, and maybe the DCI. It would serve them right.

  The problem, of course, was that Wilcox would be at arm’s length with this operation. The General Accounting Office would never trace cash from the Agency’s clandestine funds to Kimball Aero Tech. Even if they could prove Kimball made the raid on Lon Pot’s operations, the civilian auditors would never connect it to the CIA.