Aggressor

by Nick Cook

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘The reference to the KC-10s was wrong. None of those aircraft ever deployed to the UK.’

  ‘How come?’ Girling asked easily.

  She paused. ‘They were down to attend. We were expecting them from all over the States, but the order was rescinded. The press release was a little premature, I’m afraid. You should have received an advisory on that.’

  Girling looked at the date of the release. It was put out four days ago, the day before the tankers were due to arrive. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘Tell me, how many tankers does the USAF currently have in the UK?’

  ‘Well, we have some KC-135s here on rotational deployment and around twenty-five at Mildenhall in Suffolk. That’s a standing force of around thirty in the UK at any one time.’

  ‘Added to which, the USAF was to have sent another twenty-four tankers. I’m no aviation specialist, but that seems a hell of a lot of fuel for a bunch of Tornados and F-15s participating in an exercise.’

  ‘I don’t decide strategy,’ she laughed, ‘I just draft the releases.’

  ‘Why was the decision reversed?’

  ‘We don’t get told things like that. If you really want to know you’d have to call the public affairs office at SAC headquarters.’

  ‘Have you got a number?’ He jotted the words Strategic Air Command down on paper and waited.

  ‘Offutt air force base, Nebraska. Area code 402, 294, then, let me see... public affairs.’ She gave him a four-digit number. ‘Ask for a Major Kampfhoffer.’

  ‘Thank you very much, Captain Hope. How do you spell your first name, by the way? You never know, you might get famous.’

  She laughed again, spelt it out, and hung up.

  Girling’s hand hovered above the phone. It was probably nothing. Why waste the time? He looked at his watch. Nebraska would just about be coming on-line.

  In less than a minute he was through to Kampfhoffer at SAC headquarters. The major was part of the large public affairs team there.

  Girling went through the spiel about the exercise, deliberately omitting his conversation with Sheree Hope. Kampfhoffer cut him short.

  ‘Hold on there, Mr Girling, we were never down to dispatch KC-10s to the UK for Stalwart Divider. I’m afraid you’ve got that all wrong.’

  Girling held the press release in front of him and read. He heard Kampfhoffer chuckle almost five thousand miles away.

  ‘Why didn’t you say you were taking your information from that particular release? Didn’t you get any further notification on that?’

  ‘I don’t think we’re on the USAF’s fax list,’ Girling said drily. ‘I picked this up from a British Royal Air Force press officer during Stalwart Divider.’

  ‘That release contained a straightforward error. A second message directed the press to ignore that information.’

  ‘Why was that, Major?’

  ‘The fact is, the KC-10s were never due for deployment to the UK; somebody goofed, pure and simple.’

  ‘That’s not what RAF Fairford had to say. A Captain Hope from the public affairs office said that a decision to send over twenty-four KC-10s had been reversed.’

  Kampfhoffer had an irritating laugh. ‘Between you and me, Mr Girling, and not for publication... have you ever been to Fairford? I staged through there earlier this year. It’s a backwater. Nowhere land. It’s been a ghost town ever since it was deactivated to stand-by status. Their office made an error in the drafting of the release and we’ve had to cover ass. I’m afraid that’s the end of the story.’

  ‘So no KC-10s were ever due to come to the UK in the past week? Never? Not at all?’

  ‘No, sir. That is correct.’ Kampfhoffer paused. ‘I fail to see why this is so important, anyway.’

  ‘It’s not,’ Girling said. ‘I’m sorry to have wasted your time, Major.’ He put the phone down.

  Girling thought fast. If he was right, Kampfhoffer would be calling Fairford right now. There was still time. He went back to the press release, quickly found the name of the relevant unit, and then asked the international operator for the telephone number of Seymour-Johnson air force base, North Carolina.

  In a matter of moments, he was talking to a public affairs lieutenant called Kirk at the SAC KC-10 tanker base. Perfect, Girling said to himself; he didn’t want anyone too senior. As he spoke, he searched the open atlas in front of him for a suitable place name.

  ‘Good mornin’,’ Girling said, suddenly thankful that Mallon wasn’t at his desk to hear his apology for an American accent. ‘My name’s Steve Rollins, I’m the night editor on the Cascade Inquirer, way over here in Oregon. We’ve received a report from some folks out climbing the mountains around these parts about a plane crash they say they witnessed four nights ago. These guys were claiming that they’d found wreckage identifying the aircraft as a... let me see, a Kay Zee Ten from Seymour-Johnson. Could that be one of yours?’

  ‘That’s a KC-10,’ Kirk said, patiently. ‘And it’s definitely not one of ours.’

  ‘Oh, a Kay-See-Ten, thank you,’ Girling stammered. ‘You sure it’s not one of yours? You are the 68th Air Refuelling Wing, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes we are. Why?’

  ‘Well these guys say they found lettering on wreckage which tagged the aircraft as a KC-10 from the 68th Air Refuelling Wing.’

  ‘That’s impossible,’ Kirk said. ‘I’m telling you, we haven’t lost any aircraft, Mr Rollins.’

  ‘Look,’ Girling said. ‘If it’s some sort of secret, I’m not gonna quote you or nothing. I just have to be sure. My editor will kill me if I get this wrong and there is a story out there.’

  ‘It’s no secret and there is no story,’ Kirk snapped. ‘Four nights ago you say? This base was shut down four nights ago. No aircraft flew in or out of Seymour-Johnson for twenty-four hours either side of that period. We were on readiness to deploy overseas.’

  ‘Say that again.’ Girling coughed. ‘I missed that.’

  ‘The 68th was due to fly to Europe; then the order got cancelled,’ Kirk said slowly. ‘There was no flying while the unit was preparing to ship out. So that was definitely not our plane. In fact, I happen to know that no KC-10s flew that night. All other Stateside units were on the same readiness as ourselves. I understand that the Brits had some sort of exercise going on over there.’

  ‘I see,’ Girling said, trying hard to sound dejected. ‘I guess these guys, these hill walkers, must have been talking through their asses then.’

  ‘I guess so,’ Kirk said. ‘Goodbye, Mr Rollins.’

  Girling put the phone down.

  He pulled the scrap of paper from his wallet and dialled a final number. The squadron leader picked up the phone.

  ‘Rantz.’

  ‘Hello, John. It’s Tom Girling.’

  ‘Change your mind about yesterday?’

  Girling laughed. There was something reassuringly consistent about Rantz.

  ‘I told you it’s not our kind of story.’

  Rantz’s tone lightened. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘A couple of things,’ Girling said. ‘Were you ever due to hook up with some US Air Force tankers during this exercise? KC-10s or KC-135s?’

  ‘No. Why?’

  ‘None at all?’

  ‘No. All our missions were against targets that were well within our unrefuelled combat radius.’

  ‘What about the F-15s? Did they fly any operations during the exercise that required them to hook up with tankers?’

  ‘No. Red Team flew on internal fuel and drop tanks throughout the whole exercise. What’s this all about?’

  Girling scribbled down the information. ‘Would you care to speculate on why F-15E fighter-bombers over here might have needed a fleet of twenty-four KC-10s in addition to a standing force of KC-135 tankers over that period?’

  ‘I haven’t got time to bugger around,’ Rantz said wearily. ‘I’m in the middle of packing for Whitehall.’

  ‘I’m serious.’

  ‘The
last time that many American tankers were in this country was during El Dorado Canyon. And that was no exercise.’

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Girling whispered. El Dorado Canyon was the code name for the USAF F-111 raid on Libya in April 1986.

  ‘And just to give you an idea how many aircraft that is, consider this: there weren’t even that many tankers here during the Gulf War.’ Rantz paused. ‘Are you still there, Girling?’

  ‘I’m still here.’ His own voice sounded remote.

  ‘Is that it? Is that all you wanted to know?’

  ‘Yes, that’s all. Thank you. See you in London, maybe.’ Girling replaced the phone on the hook.

  He turned to see Mallon, a mixture of amusement and admiration on his face.

  ‘You sly fox,’ he said. ‘Where did you learn to do that?’

  ‘What, lie? It comes naturally.’

  Mallon put his coffee down. ‘That was Oscar material. What did you say you did before you came here?’

  ‘A bit of freelance work.’

  ‘And before that?’

  ‘A stint on The Times.’

  ‘The London Times?’ There was disbelief in his voice. ‘What happened? Get caught fiddling your expenses?’

  Girling laughed. ‘No.’

  ‘Then how did you wind up at this place? A bit of a step in the wrong direction, wasn’t it?’

  Girling was grateful for the phone ring. He listened to its electronic trill for a few moments, before putting it to his ear.

  ‘Captain Hope,’ he said, pleasantly.

  She sounded surprised. ‘How did you know?’ They were the first words she had spoken.

  ‘You want to tell me that you made a mistake last time we spoke: KC-10s were never due for deployment to the UK.’

  ‘Er, yes sir. That’s right.’

  ‘It looks like SAC headquarters has been busy, Captain.’

  Kelso looked up from his desk. ‘Well, you said you had news.’

  Girling closed the door. ‘This may sound hard to believe, but whichever way I look at it - and I’ve stared at it from every angle - it rings the cherries.’

  ‘I’m listening.’

  A hint of impatience in Kelso’s voice.

  ‘I think the Americans were this close from preparing another Libya-type bombing mission.’ He held his thumb and forefinger a fraction apart. ‘From bases here, in the UK.’

  The shark eyes remained level.

  ‘This time they planned to use F-15Es - that’s a long-range strike version of the Eagle fighter - instead of F-111s.’

  ‘You sure about this?’

  ‘I’m damned near certain. I think Washington was going to use the exercise as cover. Stalwart Divider was the perfect way to get the tankers into the UK unnoticed.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘It’s got to have something to do with events in Beirut.’

  ‘That’s a fuck of a long shot, Tom. You want me to run with this? Then give me some names, dates, and places.’

  Girling took a step back. ‘This is where I hand the story over to you.’

  Kelso stroked his beard. ‘It’s not quite that simple.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because the next man doesn’t know the technicalities like you do.’

  Girling felt a scalpel make a shallow incision across his stomach. ‘I can’t get involved.’

  ‘Egypt was a long time ago, Tom. Don’t you think it’s - ‘

  ‘No. I’m not ready.’

  ‘Then I can’t use your half-cocked theories.’ Kelso looked implacable for a moment, then relented. He offered Girling a chair. ‘All right, suppose this is true. Why didn’t they follow through with the plan?’

  ‘Something changed their minds. Maybe the British Government denied permission for use of the bases at the last minute. Remember all the crap we got for supporting the Libyan bombing mission in ‘86?’

  ‘What if we tried our Administration sources on this?’ Kelso asked.

  ‘I don’t think that would be a good move.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘If the US Government thinks we have the story - provided it is a story - they’d leak it to the Post, or the New York Times. It’s basic damage limitation, Bob, you know that. If we went to the States with this, we’d be tossing it to the opposition on a plate.’

  Kelso nodded pensively. ‘Somebody over here must have been sufficiently alarmed to have turned down a request to use UK bases. It kind of contradicts the pattern of things over the past forty years. You know, the Anglo-American ‘special relationship’ and all that.’

  Kelso allowed himself another moment of contemplation. ‘Perhaps we should tough it out. Hit the Ministry of Defence with what we’ve got.’

  ‘Run it past DPR?’

  Kelso and the MOD’s Director of Public Relations were old friends - and professional adversaries.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Not the sort of man you can trouble with trivia,’ Girling said.

  ‘So convince me the story’s worth it. Here. Now.’ Kelso sat back in his chair and brought his hands together.

  Girling knew he would be allowed only one stab.

  ‘Exercises are planned long in advance, for obvious reasons. The tankers are one thing, the fighters something else. If this F-15E fighter deployment was last minute, it would prove they were mobilized in response to some genuine emergency and not an exercise. Reasonable?’

  Kelso nodded, not sure where all this was leading.

  ‘So,’ Girling continued, ‘I have to prove that the fighter deployment was last minute. There is a way.’

  He consulted his notebook, wrote down a number, and handed it to Kelso. ‘This is a special phone number for pilots, ordinary people like you and me who own private planes. It tells them which areas around the UK have been closed to commercial traffic because of military aircraft movements. It’s run by the National Air Traffic Service.’

  Kelso stared at the piece of paper. ‘So what do I want with this?’

  ‘Dial the number.’

  Kelso hesitated.

  ‘Just do it,’ Girling said. He continued talking while Kelso punched in the numbers. ‘On their way here, those F-15Es would have needed mid-air refuelling in an area called Refuelling Area One, off northwest Scotland. That’s standard procedure. When you get through, ask them whether Refuelling Area One was closed to commercial traffic on Tuesday, the day the F-15Es got here. If they say yes, then ask when the order came through.’

  Kelso held his hand up for silence the moment he made the connection. He mumbled two sentences into the receiver and listened intently for the response.

  A few seconds later he put the phone down. ‘Monday,’ he said. ‘They closed the son of a bitch the very day before the fighters arrived in this country.’

  ‘That’s your proof,’ Girling said, managing to control his voice. ‘The rest is up to you.’

  Girling had not been back long at his desk when the phone rang. It was Kelso. ‘Get your arse in here smartish,’ he said.

  When Girling walked into Kelso’s office, his editor was jotting words onto a desk pad, face flushed to the roots of his thinning ginger hair.

  Girling steeled himself for a bollocking.

  ‘I just got a call back from the MOD,’ Kelso said. ‘They want to know where the fuck we got this information from.’

  ‘They denied it, you mean.’

  Kelso laughed. ‘Of course not. There’s probably a bloody witch hunt going on for our informant right now. Denbeigh thinks there’s been a high-level leak.’

  The DPR, Alan Denbeigh, was a shrewd operator, a good man to know well. Few journalists could claim that privilege, but Kelso was one of them.

  ‘What did he say?’ Girling asked.

  ‘Nothing attributable, naturally. But when I convinced him we had the story, and we weren’t going to drop it, there was no holding him back. Here is the news. The US Air Force was poised to launch bombers from Lakenheath against a target in the Middle
East. This week. All the preparations were made. The bombers were to have flown in under cover of the exercise.’

  ‘Stalwart Divider?’

  ‘Exactly as you said.’

  Kelso burrowed in the top drawer of his desk and produced a box of Villiger cigars. He offered one to Girling.

  Girling shook his head. ‘And London approved the plans?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘So what happened to make the Americans change their minds?’

  Kelso lit his cigar and sucked the end thoughtfully. ‘Denbeigh said there had been a difference of opinion within the National Security Council. The doves won. The hawks, mind you, did not have a very strong case, it seems.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘They didn’t know who they were meant to be bombing.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Come on, Tom. Work it out for yourself. There’s a small US task force floating off the Lebanese coast right now. Extrapolate a little. Use your imagination.’

  Girling got up and walked to the window. He stared across a building site that would shortly yield another new office block.

  ‘Say US special forces storm the airliner, extract the relevant information from the terrorists, and flash it back to Washington. The F-15Es are already here, ready to go. Once they have the identity of the hijackers, or the terrorists’ camp plotted, the bombers fly, right? Instant reprisal. Just like Libya.’

  Kelso clapped his hands. ‘Bravo. The matter, though, has become academic. It would appear that Washington thinks the Middle East is unstable enough as it is.’ Kelso puffed a smoke ring across his desk. ‘Still, it’s a bloody good story. We’ve just got to hold on to it for two days, till we hit the streets.’

  Girling suspected that the compliment was aimed at him. Praise from Kelso was as elusive as one of his smiles in recent months.

  Girling walked to the door. He stopped short and turned. ‘Of course, the most curious aspect of this whole story is that America - with all those vast resources to hand - has no idea who these terrorists are. Or at least who’s backing them. Doesn’t that strike you as strange?’

  Kelso was already measuring up a page, drawing imaginary boxes, allocating photographs.

  ‘Yes, I suppose it does.’

  Girling closed the door.