The Shadows of Power

by James W. Huston

  Ismael moved behind his father and embraced his mother. “Mother, it is not your fault—”

  “Ismael, I wish you could have been home, we needed you. Why Washington? It was all so horrible . . .” She began to cry uncontrollably.

  Ismael held her small frame close to him and looked at his father.

  The doctor looked at his wife sadly, then at Ismael. “Since it happened. She cannot stop crying.”

  “Why did this happen, Father?” Ismael asked. “Why Chakib?”

  Dr. Nezzar grew thoughtful. “Let us go home. There we can discuss this freely.”

  Ismael looked around and nodded. He threw his bag over his shoulder and followed his father out to their car, a nice but old Mercedes-Benz. They drove in silence through the crowded streets and stopped in front of their two-story home, a stark white stucco house with a red tile roof like many others nearby, on a dirt street on the outskirts of the capital city. The houses were so close together that they looked like one continuous building.

  Ismael walked quickly to the bedroom where he and Chakib had grown up. He dropped his bag and let the memories sweep over him. He was four years younger than Chakib and had always been the brunt of his older brother’s pranks and early tests of manhood. They were always in competition, and Chakib always won, mostly because of his years. Ismael had closed the gap, gaining on his older brother every year. He had surpassed him in height three years before, when Ismael grew to be six feet tall and Chakib was only five feet ten. He had surpassed him in education, at least in one way, by gaining admission and a government scholarship to George Washington University in the United States.

  But in his parents’ eyes, he knew, he would always be the younger brother. The one who came after. The one from whom less was expected.

  He surveyed the room where they had grown up together, the corner where they had sat and schemed, the bed frame they had broken when wrestling, the soccer ball on the shelf from the game where Chakib had scored the winning goal against another youth team from Tunisia.

  Ismael rubbed the stubble on his cheeks. He was tired. He sat on the bed and closed his eyes.

  “Ismael, come. Let’s talk,” the doctor called from downstairs.

  Ismael left his bag on the floor. He went down to the tile-floored kitchen and sat heavily at the rough wooden table.

  “Tired?” his father asked.

  “Yes, a little.”

  “How is Washington this time?”

  “The same. Noisy, dirty, full of crazy people.”

  “You should come home if you don’t like it,” his mother said in a tone of bitterness.

  “I want to finish my engineering degree—”

  “With those who killed your brother?” she asked.

  “How did it happen?” he asked, finally ready to know.

  The doctor spoke. “He was on duty. On alert. Ever since the government has reclaimed—”

  “Claimed for the first time,” Ismael corrected. “The first time, Father. Never before claimed.”

  “Long ago—”

  “Okay, not since the invention of the airplane.”

  “The Americans came with their aircraft carriers. Their battle groups—”

  “They said they would, Father. You cannot just claim ownership of international waters and not expect consequences!”

  The doctor knew that. “So when they came, our . . . government,” he said bitterly as he glanced at the door, “ordered our fighters out to defend our shores and our seas from the Americans. They were ordered to intercept an EP-3 spy plane.”

  “Why Chakib? He isn’t senior enough to get a mission like that. They must have expected it to go badly. He was expendable, Father.”

  “I think it was innocent enough, just to escort a spy plane as it flew down our coast. No orders to attack.”

  “So they fired on the Americans?”

  “Chakib’s friends—other pilots—tell me they were ordered not to fire at all unless fired upon. We knew the Americans would have much more difficulty with an ambiguous situation than they would with us attacking them. They used to let the Russians fly right over their carriers in the Mediterranean. They would just escort them. After the EP-3, Chakib was to fly directly over the carrier and have the other fighter take pictures of him there, to show the world that they had gone into the lion’s den and pulled his tail. But the missile . . . we are told it was an accident. The one in charge of the flight fired his missile accidentally. He tried to stop it—”

  Ismael was stunned. “Accidentally? How do you do that?”

  “That is what we have been told,” his father answered, and then added quickly, “by the pilot, the one on the flight. I have spoken with him personally.”

  “The Americans say that we fired at them.”

  His face darkened. “I don’t think so. But what difference does it make? Chakib is dead. He will never walk through that door again. He will never joke with us again,” he said, his face fighting the irresistible contortions of grief. “Your mother,” he began, unable to finish.

  “I know,” Ismael replied, glancing at his mother, who pressed her hands together in her lap and stared at the floor. “The funeral is the day after tomorrow?”

  “Yes. Day after tomorrow.”

  “They never found the body?”

  “Nothing. They found some wreckage. . . .”

  Ismael wasn’t sure whether to tell them. “I know who killed Chakib.”

  “What?” his father gasped. “How?”

  “They had him on national television, telling everyone, smiling, laughing, about how he had killed my brother.”

  The doctor felt personally insulted. He was shocked. “Are you sure?”

  Ismael reached into his pocket as he shifted his weight in his sandals. He pulled out the slip of paper and put it on the table in front of his father.

  The piece of paper just lay there, forming a weight greater than the paper on which it was written. A small gust of wind caught it and turned it slightly. No one reached for it. It was as if they were afraid to touch it. They both understood the implications of knowing the name of the American pilot that had shot down Chakib.

  “Why did you bring his name into this house?” the doctor asked accusingly.

  “Don’t you want to know who did this to your son? Don’t you care?”

  “You soil this house by bringing the name of the murderer here and setting it on our table as if it’s the name of a friend!”

  “I thought someone might want to know who it was.”

  His father leaned back in disbelief. “Why would I want to know the name of the American that killed your brother? What good would that do me? It is like a curse, like an omen. . . .”

  “Since when do you believe in curses and omens?” Ismael asked harshly.

  “I’m concerned about your mother,” the doctor hissed.

  Ismael held his tongue. He knew he’d been trumped. He knew better than to say anything about his mother’s unbearable grief. “I’m sorry,” he said, picking up the piece of paper. He placed it his pocket. “I shouldn’t have brought it.”

  “The funeral has been set,” the doctor continued, as if there had been no piece of paper.

  “Yes.”

  “It will be a state funeral, for a martyr and a hero of the state. They will do the ceremony at the mosque in the city center. They will have seats of honor for his family—for your mother and you and me—and thousands of others will attend. It is to honor him.” He waited for Ismael to say something, then continued, “We will be ready to leave here at 10:00 a.m. The funeral is at noon. They think it will take over an hour for us to get there. They think the streets will be full of mourners, people expressing their love for your brother.”

  Ismael looked at the clock. “And until then?”

  “We will just stay home.”

  “I need to take a walk,” Ismael said, standing up as his father stared at him. “I need to see the old neighborhood.”

  Hi
s father stood again. “Yes. Go see some of your friends. Maybe they can come to the funeral too. To honor Chakib.”

  Ismael nodded and walked out of the house, glad to be free of the depressing atmosphere. It was harder than he had expected.

  Ismael spent the next day and a half wandering through Algiers, seeing it as he had never seen it before. He compared it to the scenes of Washington, D.C., with its prostitutes, homeless people, and general self-centeredness.

  The cleanliness of his city, or at least most of it, the modesty of the women, and the conforming influence of Islam made it as different from Washington as it could be. As he walked through the city where he grew up, watching the people on the streets and the small shopkeepers working with customers or smoking in the doorways, he realized he was beginning to feel like an outsider. He had been away from his country too long.

  Lieutenant Ed Stovic and Karen, his wife, stood on the tarmac in front of VFA-37’s hangar at Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach, Virginia. They looked up into the sky with the other squadron family members who anxiously awaited the squadron’s fly-off from the carrier. It had been a fabulous cruise for the squadron. No accidents, no deaths, lots of good flying, and to cap it off, an aerial engagement with the Algerians that put one of their pilots on the Today show. They were already expecting the E award for excellence within the F/A-18 community and hoped they might even get the Jumpin’ Joe Clifton award as the best fighter squadron in the Navy. The sky was the limit.

  Stovic was floating. His appearance on television had caused friends, distant family, and acquaintances to come out of the woodwork with words of encouragement and praise. He had also heard another piece of news from one of his roommates in the JO Jungle—the Junior-Officer Jungle, as they named their stateroom. The rumor was that CAG, the Air Wing Commander, was going to put him in for a Silver Star. Pilots who shot down planes in Vietnam were routinely put in for Silver Stars, and most received them. Since then it had been harder, but CAG was determined to try for it. He didn’t think a Distinguished Flying Cross, or worse, an Air Medal, did it justice.

  “There they are!” Karen shouted, pointing out toward the Atlantic Ocean.

  Stovic’s attention had wandered, but he immediately saw the squadron’s F/A-18s in a large diamond formation heading toward Oceana Naval Air Station. It was a beautiful sight—fourteen Navy gray F/A-18s in tight formation against the clear blue sky. Stovic tried not to smile as broadly as he wanted to; he didn’t want to look silly.

  Bruno was leading the way. They came over the field at fifteen hundred feet in perfect formation and began a gentle left-hand turn toward the crowd. The wives and children were impressed by the show and the noise. Some of the visitors were fathers and mothers of the pilots and held grandchildren on their shoulders.

  The F/A-18s circled around behind the hangar and broke up into groups of four to reenter the break and land. They came in perfectly and all taxied to their designated parking spots in front of the hangar. They hadn’t landed their planes on steady ground for six months. Every landing on cruise was on the carrier, always shifting or rolling or angling in some indescribable way. It was a new feeling to actually roll out after landing, to stop without the arresting gear jerking the airplane to a grinding, concussive end. One of the lead briefing items for the fly-off had been “Keep your tailhooks up!” to avoid catching the single arresting cable on the runway at Oceana that was for emergency only.

  After the Hornets were lined up in front of the hangar with their engines turning, on the Skipper’s signal they all shut down their starboard engines, then their port engines, then opened their canopies at the same instant. They left their radios on and their helmets plugged in as their engines wound down, so they could hear Bruno transmit his last few orders: “Safe seats! Lap belts, now! Shoulder harness, now!” And then, “Dismount, now!”

  And with that, all the pilots disconnected their helmets and oxygen masks, stood up, and threw a leg over the side to grab the first step of the ladder that ground crew had lowered from the port side of each aircraft.

  They stood in front of their jets in their flight gear and quickly removed their helmets, survival vests, and G-suits. They put on their soft khaki hats and marched in formation to the front of the cordoned area, where people were screaming for them. The pilots smiled, unable to contain their joy at being home and back with their families.

  The Command Master Chief unhooked the rope, and the children ran out to greet the pilots. The formation collapsed as no one could stand the separation anymore, and sheer joy filled the air as overhead the second F/A-18 squadron flew in their uniquely shaped formation to duplicate the ceremony with their families just down the tarmac at another hangar.

  Inside the spotless Ragin’ Bulls hangar, where the airplanes that needed maintenance would be pulled in just a few hours, there were red, white, and blue decorations all over and a huge cake in the middle. welcome home! was inscribed in large blue letters with big bulls in two corners of the enormous cake. Punch and food filled the long tables next to the cake.

  Karen watched the families, the interaction between the wives and husbands, the glee of the young children, and the sullen attitudes of the few junior high children. She knew all the spouses from the spouses’ club of the squadron and could see the joy on their faces.

  Bruno came up to them. “Animal! Nice work on the Today show!”

  Stovic wasn’t quite sure what to say. “Did you catch it?”

  “You kidding me? We recorded it. I required the SDO to show it every night before the movie. We threw popcorn and shit at your ugly face every night. There we were slaving away on the boat, steaming across the Atlantic, while you go become a national celebrity on TV, see your wife, go to the beach, and generally rub our noses in it.”

  Stovic smiled. “What can I say?”

  “You can say, ‘Thanks, Skipper, for giving me the duty tonight! Cause I’d love nothing better than to take care of the squadron here at the hangar while you hardworking go-to-sea Navy officers relax at home.’ “

  “Whatever you say,” Stovic said, still smiling.

  Bruno put a large piece of cake into his mouth. “Oh, that’s sooooo good,” he moaned. “I’d forgotten how good a simple white cake can be!” He looked at Karen. “Sorry, Karen, how have you been?” he said, rubbing enough cake off his lips to kiss her on the cheek.

  “Pretty good,” she replied. “Until Ed told me about his plans for his shore tour.”

  “What plans?” Bruno asked, feigning ignorance.

  “He didn’t tell you?” she asked skeptically.

  “What did he tell you? Astronaut? Aide to the President of the United States? Military attaché to Paris? Which one?”

  “The Blue Angels,” she said.

  “Yeah, we talked about that one a little too.” He tried to read her face. “Perfect job for a national celebrity like him. Hey, Ricardo!” he exclaimed, waving to an old squadron mate who had come to welcome him back. Then to Karen again, “Tough job to get, but the guys who have done it loved it.”

  “Did you put him up to it?” she asked, the disappointment obvious in her voice.

  “No way. You know he’s always wanted to do it. He started talking about it as soon as he got to the squadron. Don’t try to feign ignorance. You’ve known about it since before the squadron.”

  She knew he was right. But she always wanted that desire to be in the future, like the boat he was always talking about buying to sail up the Chesapeake. “I hoped you’d talk him out of it.”

  Bruno frowned in surprise. “Why would I do that?”

  “It’s like sea duty,” she remarked.

  He shrugged. “What’s wrong with sea duty? But it’s not like they go on cruise for six months at a time.”

  “Aren’t they gone like three hundred days a year?”

  Bruno knew the number was about that, but he wasn’t going to step in front of that train. “What is it, Animal? You know?”

  “Som
ething like that.”

  She shook her head. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll just stay home like a good little wife and take care of the kids.”

  Bruno replied, “This sure is fun, but I gotta go shake some hands. I’ll catch up with you two later.”

  She spoke to her husband. “Let’s go get some punch.”

  “Sure,” he said, biting his tongue. They walked to the end of the table, where Karen ladled punch into two plastic glasses. “You’d already talked to him about it?”

  “The CO has to go along. You’ve got to get his endorsement on the application and then go on cross-countries to air shows.”

  “You’ve really looked into this,” she said, looking into his eyes.

  “Maybe we should talk about this later,” he said, looking around at his squadron mates and their families.

  “When does all this start?”

  He drank the entire glass of pink punch and put it down on the table. “Pretty much right away. It’s like a fraternity rush. You’ve got to get the current Blue Angels to want you.”

  “So you just got back from cruise, and you’ll be gone on weekends to air shows?”

  He had blown it and he knew it. He had wanted her to be enthusiastic about it, but he had been so afraid she’d try to stop him, he had put it in motion without getting her okay. “Pretty much.”

  “When’s the first one?”

  “Day after tomorrow.”

  She was stunned. “You’re going on a cross-country day after tomorrow?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where to?”

  “Memphis.”

  “When were you going to tell me about it?”

  “I don’t know. Today. Look, I thought you supported the whole idea.”

  “I support you,” she replied. “But I sure don’t support you being gone for three hundred days a year.”