The Shadows of Power

by James W. Huston

  “Six, go ahead,” he replied, not wanting to know what they wanted. The tower wasn’t supposed to say anything unless something had happened that was out of the ordinary. He knew all the other Blues were listening.

  “Yes, sir, got a report from the Blue Angel maintenance chief at the end of the runway that on your rotation you may have hit a runway threshold light. You may have damaged your engine exhaust. He requested you return immediately and land for inspection.”

  “Roger,” Stovic said, suddenly feeling sick. He relaxed the pressure on the stick and reduced the throttle as he rolled over and descended to break altitude. “El Centro tower, Blue Angel Six, request entry to the pattern for the break from the west.”

  “Roger, Blue Angel Six, cleared, you’re number one in the pattern. Break when ready.”

  “Roger.” Stovic flew into the break, executed a low G roll with an easy turn, and landed. He taxied back to the Blue Angel hangar. As he prepared to shut down his Hornet, Stovic saw Oden come screaming into the break—barely subsonic—and pull his aircraft into a 7.5-G break turn, clearly furious. He could hear Oden now. Stovic shut down his airplane and climbed down to the tarmac. His maintenance crew chief was already examining the back of the aircraft. Stovic walked around behind the airplane. Now three or four people were stooped underneath the Hornet looking up at the exhaust nozzles. “Check this out,” his plane captain said as he pointed at some scrape marks.

  “Right here, sir,” the maintenance chief said as he pointed to the same spot.

  Stovic rushed down and looked up at the tail. The markings were clear. The steel threshold light had gouged the engine exhaust. Stovic felt horrible. “What you think, chief? Do you need to do anything right now?”

  “Yes, sir, we’re going to have to change those out.” They covered their ears as Oden taxied his number five jet back to the line and shut it down next to Stovic’s. Before Stovic could even say anything, Oden was out of his jet, crouching next to him underneath Stovic’s #6. He looked up at the gouge marks, then at Stovic. Without saying a thing, he indicated with his head that they were going to walk over to Oden’s jet and have a chat.

  Stovic felt the way he had when he was being escorted into his father’s den for a thrashing. Oden walked around to the far side of #5 and waited by the ladder. Stovic followed him. Oden looked at him with blazing, violent eyes. “What the hell were you doing?”

  “Low transition, Oden. First time I tried it.”

  “You realize what you hit?”

  “Runway threshold light, I guess. The ones at the far end of the runway.”

  “You know how far those lights stick up from the ground?”

  “Not really, but not very far.”

  Oden nodded. “Try twelve inches. You realize you took your thirty-million-dollar jet and your ten-cent, piece-of-shit body and placed them within a foot of hard ground going four hundred knots?”

  Stovic nodded penitently.

  “You know what happens when you actually touch them to the ground at four hundred knots?”

  “Yep. Sorry.”

  “Let me explain to you what you apparently did not get. When you rotate this airplane in a hard pull, the tail actually goes down. It rotates on the axis that runs through the middle of the airplane. You don’t see it when you’re away from the ground, but if you watch close to the ground, you’ll see that any hard pull actually rotates at the axis point, which is just behind the wings. The tail goes down,” he said slowly. “You cannot start your pull-up any lower than about fifteen or twenty feet. And right now, I want you to start that pull-up about fifty feet until I tell you to get lower. Clear?”

  “Yep. Very.”

  “Didn’t we have this conversation before during the brief? Didn’t I tell you to do it at fifty feet?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why were you at ten feet?” He waited while Stovic took a deep breath without answering. “Listen, I think you’re going to be okay. But you’re pushing it too hard too fast. We’re not trying to set any records here. We’re just trying to put together a good show. If you goon it up, then we’re in a mess. Got it?”

  “It won’t happen again.”

  “Go get in #7. Let’s try it again.”

  * * *

  Patricia Branigan hurried down the hall to show Lew the photographs. They were high-quality color. She burst into his office. “Lew,” she said in her always too loud voice.

  He looked up at her malevolently as he sat trying to eat his sandwich with a knife and fork through a mouth held almost closed by the infuriating neck brace. “Or should I say Dick,” she said, recalling the name Lew had used with Ismael as they walked into the restaurant.

  “Very funny,” Lew said. They were not a team exactly, not partners, but their styles so complemented each other that they often found themselves working on the same investigations. They worked out of FBI headquarters in Washington, in counterterrorism.

  “I got the photos,” she said, handing him an envelope.

  He extended his right hand as his left swept his frustrating sandwich aside.

  She spoke while he pulled out the prints. “Young guy, clearly Middle Eastern or North African”—he looked up—“like you said. Probably not a professional.”

  Lew nodded. He replied as he looked at the photographs, “How old you guess this guy is? Younger than you?”

  “Up yours, Lew. I’m thirty. You’re too old to even remember thirty.” She glanced down at the picture lying on Lew’s desk. “He can’t be more than twenty-five. I’d guess younger than that. Maybe twenty-one.”

  Lew nodded. “We gotta start running this guy. Immigration, visa applications, CIA, everybody. I have no idea what he’s up to. But it ain’t happenin’ on my watch. You and Foley need to start digging.”

  He handed the photographs back to Patricia. “Give copies of these to everybody. Make sure they get to the counterterrorism task force at the Agency. You know the routine.”

  She nodded as she gathered them up.

  “He didn’t really say much.” Lew pondered. “What’s your take on this? You getting the same feelings I’m getting, or am I off base?”

  “We all know and respect your feelings, Lew—” she said sarcastically.

  “No bullshit. Seriously. What’s your take?”

  “On one hand, he’s clearly an amateur. Still, even a kid with a loaded gun can cause a lot of problems. And he wants more than a gun. He wants something big. So big he couldn’t even say it. But the only hint we got before he spooked was when he said it was ‘aviation related.’ “

  “When I started talking about shoulder-fired SAMs, he didn’t stop me. He didn’t say I was way off.”

  “So what the hell could he have been talking about?”

  Patricia stared at Ismael’s face in the photographs, then looked at Lew. “I have absolutely no idea.”

  “Neither do I. But he’s moved way up on my list. I’m going to find him and find out what the hell he has in mind. Let’s just hope it isn’t much.”

  She turned to go. “Whoa, whoa,” she said, grabbing her head. “Are you on the internal database? The one that lists nationwide warnings?”

  He shook his head, then turned to his computer to access the site. “Now what?”

  “We got a warning recently that a team had been assigned to some Navy pilot. A security detail. Big deal, some other agency is playing, and it isn’t all kosher. Anyway, they named the guy they were after. He had already made an attempt on this pilot’s life. Car thing. Remember?”

  “Yeah, go on,” he said listening.

  “So the guy was the brother of that downed pilot from Algeria. Remember? And he was here on a student visa? An actual legit student visa.”

  “Right.”

  “Maybe he’s looking for a new weapon.”

  “Son of a bitch. You may be right,” he said. “Do they have his picture?”

  “It was attached to the e-mail. It’s posted on the bulletin board.”
<
br />   He went to it and called it up. He found the notice, read the warning, and opened the photo.

  He sat back in amazement. “You’re amazing.” He motioned for her. She stood behind him and looked at the screen. “Ismael Nezzar. Bigger than shit. That’s our boy. Call the head of that security detail. We’re now on it.”

  Secretary of Defense Howard Stuntz sat in his burgundy leather chair in his plush office at the Pentagon waiting. Melissa, a new member of his staff, finally came in and closed the door. Stuntz sat forward quickly, the bottom of his chair thumping against the stops. “Well?”

  “Good morning, sir,” she said, forcing back a smile at his eagerness.

  “Well?”

  Melissa sat in the chair across from his desk. “Nothing, sir. Nothing really.”

  “That’s impossible!” he exploded. “She’s into something. I guarantee it. She’s sure as hell doing something.”

  “Sir, at your request, and probably against good sense and maybe the law—”

  He was frustrated. He wanted answers, solutions. “If someone in her position is compromised, how the hell are we going to find out?”

  “The FBI—”

  “The FBI? Are you serious? They’re in her pocket! She knows what they’re doing before the damned Attorney General knows! Can you explain that to me? She is compromising this entire administration, all for her little Machiavellian schemes. She has delusions of power or control. Somehow she’s inside everything.”

  “Well, sir, anyway, we’ve had people look at everything. Her e-mail, her phone usage, cell phone, U.S. mail, we’ve put a worm in her computer at home and at work to follow her on the Internet and into any anonymous e-mail accounts, and nothing. Clean as a whistle.”

  “What else is there? How is she communicating?”

  “With whom do you believe she is communicating?”

  “I don’t have any idea. Someone. Someone who is outside regular channels, that’s for sure,” he grumbled. “So what do you have? Nothing? You’ve got nothing?”

  “We also checked her staff. Everyone who reports to her.”

  “And? And?”

  “Well, there is one person who seems to be playing with some things he shouldn’t.”

  “What? Who?”

  “Brad Walker, sir. The one who often gives the briefs on behalf of the National Security Council?”

  “Sure, I know him. Young guy. Confident.”

  “That’s him.”

  “What about him? What’s he doing?”

  “He has encryption software on his personal laptop and an anonymous e-mail account at Hotmail. He’s been sending encrypted e-mails.”

  “Hmmm. Now that’s interesting. Is that illegal?”

  “Maybe. You’re supposed to tender keys to all encryption software to the NSA. They don’t have that one. They’re very interested in it because they can’t break this one without a lot of effort.”

  “Can’t you steal it off his computer?”

  “It’s his personal laptop. He never leaves it anywhere. All we get is the data going out when he plugs in. He has a cable modem at home, and we’re on the cable. But all we see is the encrypted data going by. We can’t get inside his computer.”

  “Can’t yet. Keep trying.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How do you know he’s not messing around with someone’s wife and sending her secret e-mails on where to meet?”

  “That’s possible, but based on the data going out, the instructions for the rendezvous must be pretty complex.”

  Stuntz nodded. He leaned forward more, magnifying his paranoia and his poor posture. “What else? Is that it?”

  “Pretty much.”

  An idea suddenly occurred to him. “Is it possible he’s just taking his computer to her place so she can type a message, then encrypt it on his computer? Maybe she’s giving him a disk!”

  “That’s possible,” Melissa nodded.

  “Get inside her home computer. Get onto her hard drive and see if she’s composing messages she’s giving to this Brad person.”

  “Yes, sir. Will do.”

  * * *

  Stovic heard the knock and went to open his hotel room door. Lieutenant Andrea Ash was standing there in her Blue Angel flight suit. Not that she flew much. All the Blue Angel officers—even those who didn’t fly at all—wore flight suits as their uniform.

  “Hey, Animal,” she smiled. “You ready?”

  “Yeah. Where’s Bean? He was going to stop by.” Stovic had grown close to Bean. He appreciated his humor and humility. Bean had accepted him into the team immediately. As far as Bean was concerned, Stovic had nothing to prove. A member of the team was just that, a team member. As #4, Bean had the second most important position on the team. He made sure everyone was where they needed to be in the formation. And he did it brilliantly.

  “He’s in the parking lot. I just thought I’d come pick you up.”

  Stovic nodded and closed the door behind him. He put his cover on and walked behind Andrea toward the parking lot. “What’s this all about tonight, anyway?”

  “Command performance. Boss wants everyone at Hernandez’s Cocina tonight. Rendezvous is at 1830.”

  “What for?”

  “Don’t know. Oden thinks it’s something big. Something either really good or really bad. He doesn’t know which.”

  “I guess we’ll find out.”

  They drove to the restaurant. Andrea sat between Stovic and Bean. Oden and Hoop were in the backseat. No one knew what was going on, but none of them had confidence it was going to be good. Bean didn’t notice Rat’s car behind them, and none of them thought much about the four men unloading from a King Cab pickup in the restaurant parking lot as they arrived. It was Groomer with one of their sections. He had already been to the restaurant and dropped off two others who had taken up strategic positions. They had been doing it every night at every place Stovic had eaten. He hadn’t noticed once. He would have to be very attentive, though, to recognize someone he only saw every third or fourth evening, a cowboy or a businessman or a truck driver, one of the sixteen men Rat had brought with him to El Centro, wired for communication like the Secret Service and armed.

  Stovic, Bean, and Andrea met the other members of the team at the Cocina, a large busy Mexican restaurant on the outskirts of El Centro. The local residents knew the Blue Angels. They saw them there every year and respected their privacy. The Blues got waves and nods but none of the smothering autograph seeking and endless discussions that became the norm during the air show season everywhere they went. They had a large table in the back corner. They immediately noticed a man in his fifties sitting next to the Boss. The quick exchange of looks made it quite clear that no one knew who he was.

  The Boss ordered pitchers of beer. They ordered their food and devoured the chips and salsa while they waited. After fifteen minutes of the usual chatter about flying, families, and the show schedule, the Boss got everyone’s attention. “All right, guys. Couple of things I want to tell you. First, I’d like to introduce Admiral Don Hooker. He’s our boss in Washington.” Hooker raised a hand in acknowledgement. “He called me and said he had something to tell us, so I asked him along to tonight’s dinner. We’ll find out together what he has in mind. But right now, I’d like to ask Animal to come over here.”

  Stovic was caught off guard. He pushed his chair back and walked around to stand next to the Boss’s chair. He pulled his stomach in, trying to look as trim as he could without showing any effort. The Boss stood next to him in the corner of the restaurant. He put his arm on Stovic’s shoulder. “Now Animal here, for those of you who don’t know him, is our new opposing solo pilot. He is intent on flying his airplane very fast, very low. He in fact is already an expert on flying low. Tonight we’d like to recognize one of his accomplishments. He has flown the lowest pass in the recorded history of the Blue Angels that did not actually touch the ground.” The Boss reached under the table and pulled out a large, heavy plaque. T
he broken runway threshold light was bolted to the plaque and stuck out like a microphone from the thirties. The Boss handed it to Stovic, who held it in front of him as the other pilots clapped and hooted. The Boss spoke. “I’d like to present this plaque to Lieutenant Ed Stovic, the Blue Angel to have flown the lowest ever pass and survived. We would like to thank you for giving us all one great thrill, and we all hereby ask you not to give us any more such thrills.”

  Stovic spoke. “Thank you, Boss.” He waved to the others and nodded as if receiving a truly great reward. He held up his hand to quiet the praise and applause. He nodded and continued holding up his hand until it was quiet. Rat took a flash photograph from the table next to the Blue Angels. “Thank you. Thank you,” Stovic said. “First, I’d like to thank my mother for having given birth to me. I’d like to thank the kids who taught me to go sledding, which made me very comfortable four or five inches off the ground. And I’d like to thank all the pelicans of the world that I have observed who fly one or two inches off the water and inspired my low flying. I yearn to fly like them.” He glanced at the Boss. “All seriousness aside, Boss, I hear you loud and clear. It won’t happen again.”