by Ted Bell
Another bloody meeting, blessedly, over. Afterward, as the smoke cleared, Brock had ambled over to the corner where Hawke and Director Brickhouse Kelly were huddled in serious conversation. Brock waited at a discreet distance until the talk was over, then approached Hawke. He asked if he minded if Harry followed him down to Flight Ops. There were a number of things they needed to discuss, he said.
Brock wanted to see the plane, and he wanted to thank Hawke personally for snatching him from the Chinese. And the director had told Brock the night before he would be working with the Brit on an extremely sensitive mission in the Gulf. First, Hawke was to test the new no-fly zone the Americans had in place over Omani airspace: Operation Deny Flight. Then he was to link up with Brock on the ground.
This was an operation authorized by Hawke’s old flame Conch. Consuelo de los Reyes was the American secretary of state. She and Alex had a complicated past. It involved an on-again-off-again romance that just wouldn’t seem to die. For now, the best word to describe their relationship was comatose. Hawke had made a serious mistake. He’d gone running to Conch when his wife had been murdered. Deliberately or not, she’d misunderstood his intention. He’d only been looking for a port to weather the storm. She’d thought the mooring was to be permanent.
Now, after long months of tears and bickering, their relationship was back on a business footing.
De los Reyes had picked up hard intel from an asset inside the Muscat embassy. She’d learned that the sultan had been smuggled back into Oman and was possibly still alive although held hostage. Conch had decided that Hawke and Brock were to lead the small task force that would slip into Oman and gather hard intelligence on the sultan’s possible whereabouts. It was a straightforward assignment. Find him, get him out, get him in front of a camera speaking the truth about Bonaparte’s ruse. To discredit the Frenchman would go a long way toward resolving the current crisis without a war.
Oman is widely reputed to be one of the most inhospitable places on earth. Hawke was hardly surprised to learn Conch was sending him there. But, Brock? What the hell did she have against him? Brock was apparently headed straight to Oman, catching a ride aboard one of the Agency’s Citations. He would coordinate Kelly’s CIA operatives now moving from Saudi Arabia into Oman. Locate the sultan. Then he and Hawke would have to get him out.
Hawke had barely recognized Harry Brock. It had been well over two weeks since he’d last seen him. His eyes were clear. The shaggy hair and beard had been shorn, and Brock looked tanned and very fit. Part of his recovery had clearly taken place in the weight room. The broken, drugged, and wasted prisoner Hawke had found in the filthy storeroom aboard the Star was gone.
“Holy Jesus,” Brock now said, staring at the jet fighter. “Thing looks like the tip of a spear. Most beautiful damn airplane I’ve ever seen.”
“Yeah,” Hawke said. He couldn’t take his eyes off the airplane either. Viewed from any angle it was a powerful work of engineering art. He was anxious for the techs who’d flown out to the carrier from Pratt & Whitney Europe to complete their work so he could climb back into that seat and light the monster up again.
One of the techies had found a glitch with the F-35’s STOVL nozzle while Hawke was in Admiral Howell’s briefing. Part of the new propulsion system was a nozzle that directed exhaust gases for short takeoff and vertical landing capability. The STOVL system was working beautifully when Hawke took off in England and also when he had landed. But brand new fighters were full of surprises.
The techs had fixed that particular glitch, the Pratt & Whitney rep had told him, but they were still checking and rechecking the entire aircraft. A discernible glitch often hid an indiscernible glitch. The obsessive tech squad’s exhaustive inspection was understandable. Hell, it was a fifty-million-dollar airplane. And, although it had been in development for ten years, the lift fan and propulsion system was still in P&W’s System Development and Demonstration Phase. Translation: It had taken the better part of a decade and they’d got a lot of the bugs out. But maybe not all of them.
Hawke had already completed his own preflight inspection. But right now, at least ten guys were crawling all over his airplane. He was supposed to be airborne in thirty minutes. His next stop was an airfield in Italy where U.S. and U.K. representatives of the Joint Strike Force fighter project were waiting to debrief him. From there, he had just learned in the briefing, he would be flying the plane to Oman.
“You some kind of test pilot, Hawke?” Brock asked.
“I guess I am now. Used to be an ordinary fighter jock.”
“Is that an upgrade or a downgrade?”
“Beats me. But it’s some ride.”
“Bat out of hell, huh? Christ, it looks like one.”
“More interesting than fast. The damn thing has a mind of its own. Practically flies itself.”
“What do you mean?”
“Hard to explain. That airplane takes advice, not orders. It’s always one step ahead. You even think about something, the plane does it. You think, Okay, I’ll pull the nose up fifteen degrees, right? Sorry. Airplane’s already done that.”
“Just don’t think about crashing,” Brock said with a wry smile.
“Never crosses my mind.”
“Good. We got a lot of work to do in the next few weeks, you and me.”
“Right. My new partner. The director just told me. Whose mind did that wicked idea spring forth from?”
“Don’t look at me, sir. I’m just a lowly field wonk.”
“Just because I saved your life doesn’t mean I have to dance with you.”
Brock laughed. “Somebody at Langley thinks we’re good casting is all I can tell you, Hawke. Listen, I gotta ask you this. You think we’ll go to war with China? Is that where we’re headed?”
Hawke looked at the American carefully and considered his heavily loaded question. He liked the man well enough, and he’d just learned he was going to be working with him; at some point he had to trust him. But he hardly knew the guy. Brick Kelly had told him Brock was mean and clean. The CIA docs had finally determined that the Chinese hadn’t planted any bugs in his brain. They’d eliminated the Manchurian Candidate scenario completely.
Agent Harry Brock, Brick said, knew more about what the hell was going on inside China than anyone else at Langley. The intel he’d gathered during six months inside her borders was one of the key reasons so much brass had gathered here on the Lincoln. Because of what Brock had been able to learn, the current mood in Washington and London was more than a little tense. As a result, everybody in both capitals was tiptoeing around, walking on eggshells these days. Times like this, you wanted to watch every word you said.
So Hawke said, “I think they’re testing our resolve. What do you think, Brock?”
Over the American’s shoulder, Hawke saw crew disconnecting the external power lines that ran across the deck to the gleaming F-35. It was a hopeful sign he’d be airborne shortly.
Brock said, “Hell, Hawke, I think we’re back in the nuclear soup is what I think.”
Hawke just looked at him.
Brock shook his head as if trying to clear the cobwebs. He was edgy. Hawke was edgy. Hell, everybody was. According to everything the two men had heard in the last three hours, the whole bloody world was going to hell in a handbasket. It looked like a return to the bad old days of a nuclear standoff and mutually assured destruction. Yesterday, a huge bomb had blown the French president Guy Bocquet sky high along with one whole wing of the Elysée Palace. France was teetering on the brink of revolution.
The last thing they’d seen in the briefing room was French television video of cheering throngs held back by police cordons as Bonaparte rode up the Champs Elysées on a big white stallion. Kind of picture you didn’t forget.
The new French government, now firmly in Bonaparte’s hands, had just announced it was seriously considering the sultan of Oman’s invitation. Many in France viewed this as an invasion of a sovereign Gulf state, but no one dare
d say such things openly anymore. Oman was a small nation of some three million souls that had had a long and important relationship with both Britain and America. But the leadership of France was claiming they’d been “invited” into Oman by the reigning sultan, the British-educated Aji Abbas.
The clip of the missing sultan’s press conference ran endlessly on France 2 television. In it, the sultan claimed French troops were desperately needed to quell a radical insurgency supported by the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen.
Kelly wasn’t buying it. Nor was the American president. It was, they both believed, a French fabrication backed by Chinese muscle. The sultan had disappeared shortly after his speech. The United States had Omani intel indicating that the sultan’s family was under house arrest in a former seaside fortress on the coast of Oman. Why? The Americans knew the men holding them there were French secret service and military abetted by a large number of Chinese “technical advisors.” In any case, Hawke was fairly certain neither his country nor the Americans would just stand idly by and let France invade Oman.
There was now a French diplomatic mission in the capital of Muscat ironing out the logistics of the impending French deployment. And sat photos depicted a squadron of French Mirage fighters parked on the ramp at Oman’s Muscat Airfield.
As of this morning, Oman still honored an understanding to allow the United States to use port and air base facilities. Hawke’s first F-35 mission was to test that understanding. He was to enter Omani airspace unannounced and land at Muscat International. See if anybody tried to shoot him down. Meet briefly with airport authorities and then get the hell out of there and report what he’d seen. Both America and Britain, who still imported Oman’s oil, had a vested interest in the tiny country’s sovereignty. Economically, politically, and morally.
It should come as a surprise to no one that the Lincoln Carrier Strike Group was now headed for the Indian Ocean. From there, it was an easy move north into the Gulf of Oman. The interesting part would come when they encountered the Chinese fleet, now en route to join forces with the French.
“Commander Hawke,” a young naval aviator said, saluting him. Late twenties, he wore a fore-and-aft khaki hat cocked over one eye, a lieutenant’s silver bars glinting in the sun.
“Yes?”
“I’ve been instructed by the JSF chief technical officer to inform you that your aircraft tech check is complete, sir. She’s certified airworthy and she’s all yours. I’ve got to say I’m just a little bit jealous, sir.”
“I’m jealous of myself,” Hawke said.
Hawke saluted and turned back to Brock.
He said, “See you in Oman, Harry. Wine, women, and song.”
“Something like that, I’m sure,” Brock said, laughing. “Hey, Hawke, hold up. I forgot something.”
“Yeah?”
“I have to say this and I mean it. Wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be standing here. Or anywhere else, for that matter.”
“Just doing my job, Brock,” Hawke said, smiling at him.
Hostage rescue, the gift that kept on giving. He turned and made for his plane. As he climbed the boarding ladder up to the cockpit and dropped his helmet bag down in the seat he heard a few “attaboys” and “give ’em hells” lobbed in his direction from the crew-men standing around his plane. He paused, then, frowning, he climbed aboard.
So word was already out. They knew he was headed to the Gulf, and maybe to Oman, Hawke thought, irritated. Who the hell had leaked that info? He leaned down, checking to see that the safety pins were properly installed in the ejection seat. Christ. Less than half an hour after the meeting, word from the top-secret briefing had probably spread through half the ship. Wasn’t even a record, he thought, buckling up. He took a deep breath and settled in, carefully letting his eye rove over the booted-up color cockpit displays, landing-gear handle, wing-position lever, and fuel-dump switches.
In the first Gulf War, Hawke had seen combat action rumors spread stem to stern on the HMS Ark Royal in five minutes. He leaned his helmet back against the headrest and closed his eyes for a moment. Another bloody crisis in the Gulf. Only this time it wasn’t some tinpot Arab dictator and his amazing disappearing army that needed taking out.
No. This time the stakes were bloody enormous. And here, now, was where it would start. Let’s say the French didn’t honor the Americans’ new no-fly zone over Oman, Operation Deny Flight. Let’s say the French scrambled that squadron of Mirages he’d seen in the intel photos. For argument’s sake, let’s say he, Hawke, or some other fighter jock shot down a French Mirage or two. France naturally goes ballistic. The world would then be headed down a very bad road indeed.
Because France was only the tip. China was the iceberg.
That’s the whole point, he realized. Right now, France had them boxed in pretty well. The no-fly zone would up the ante. Ipso facto, as soon as France raises a stink over the loss of a fighter or two over Oman, her new ally China climbs into the ring. Then the really big bear starts flexing its muscles. Demands Britain and America back off. Leave France and her adventures in the Gulf alone. Now the West is staring down the barrel of the first real global nuclear confrontation since JFK stared down Nikita Khrushchev over the Cuban missiles way back in 1962.
Save the horrific regional conflagrations, a half century of relative world peace and stability was about to go up in flames. Oman would be the line in the sand. If China did indeed step into this on the French side, as every last man in that briefing room had believed she would, then you were looking deep into the yawning black abyss.
How to step back from the edge? According to Brick Kelly, the linchpin in the whole damn mess was this new Bonaparte. The way Hawke and Kelly read the man, for all his delusions of grandeur, he was just a pawn. Still, he had to be taken out, and fast. In New York, at this very moment, Ambrose was searching for a way to do it. With eyewitness testimony to a homicide and a warrant in hand, Interpol could storm the Elysée Palace and arrest Bonaparte for the murder of his father.
And then there were the Germans. Stoke was now in Germany. His job was to determine what role they played in this mess. France and Germany, Hawke knew, were trying to create a “United States of Europe” to achieve some economic, political, and military parity with the West. Baron von Draxis had a role in this, but what was it?
If anyone knew, it was the lovely Jet. Right now, according to Stoke, she was cooperative, even helpful. Stoke had convinced himself she could be trusted. Hawke’s gut told him Stoke was right. Still, he wasn’t absloutely sure. After all, her twin sister, Bianca, had tried to kill him. Ambrose had the best men at the Yard combing the country for her. Maybe when it came to Jet and Bianca, blood was still thicker than water.
Another worry, he thought, casting his eye over the instrument panel.
And all of this was a mere preamble to dealing with the bad boys in Beijing. It was simple, really. They had to find a way to stop this godawful mess before it ever got to the nuclear tipping point.
More Chinese troops in the Gulf joining the ones already in Sudan? Her tankers in the Red Sea? Her forces controlling the Strait of Hormuz? Dominating the world’s oil supply? It just wasn’t going to happen. At least not on President Jack McAtee’s watch. As long as McAtee was in the White House the Gulf States would be off-limits to the Chinese. Hawke had heard him say as much at a private dinner in D.C. two months ago.
Well, Alex Hawke thought, trying to stretch his lanky frame within the confines of the F-35’s snug seat, if the world was about to go up in smoke, at least he’d have the damndest front-row seat money could buy.
He reached forward and initiated the sequence that would start the powerful Rolls-Royce engine.
Time for a cat-shot.
Chapter Thirty-one
The Bavarian Alps
“MOUNTAIN CLIMBING’S JUST LIKE SMIRNOFF,” STOKE SAID to Jet, trying to make her smile for the first time all morning.
“What?”
“Leaves you b
reathless.”
She didn’t get it. She was tired, panting, her feet hurt, and it was all his fault.
“Yeah, breathtaking up here, ain’t it?” Stoke said and filled his lungs with pure alpine air. He and Jet had just climbed up another steep rocky rise through the trees. He decided to stop and let her get her wind back. They were standing on an outcropping of rock overlooking something called the Obersalzburg.
He was having the time of his life. Whole damn countryside was beautiful. Even the dirt. The ground, even up here at this elevation, was soft underfoot. Spongy, Stoke thought you’d call it. Light was filtering down through the tall trees onto a soft bed of pine needles and the air was cool and clean. He looked up. There were noisy black birds, jackdaws, riding the currents above the swaying treetops.
Surprise, surprise. He liked Germany. It was pretty.
What he’d seen of it on the way to Salzburg, anyway, whizzing by his window in the dark on the midnight train down from Berlin. Now, in the last couple of hours of climbing, he’d been seeing little white stone villages and green farmland spread out far below. Salzburg, where they’d spent last night, was some twenty klicks to the north. You could still see it in the clear distance. Beautiful. All around him, towering above the thick green forests, were the jagged slate-grey peaks of snow-capped ranges. He pulled his map out of his knapsack and identified them as the Untersberg and Waltzmann mountains. To the southwest, sparkling blue in the sun, was a pretty lake he’d like to see one day, the Konigsee.
“Just smell that,” Stoke said. “Christmas.”
“What the devil are you talking about, Stokely?”
“Christmas trees? Am I right?”
Jet rolled her eyes at him and walked off to stand by herself. She bent from the waist, putting her hands on her knees for support, and took deep breaths. Girl smoked way too much and she was a little out of shape. He’d have to work with her on that. Especially now that they were telling everybody in Germany that he was her personal trainer. It was a good cover story. Jet had thought of it. Told him how to act the role. One thing the girl could do was act. No, wait. He didn’t want to go there.
