Final Flight jg-2

by Stephen Coonts

  “Have you any photographs?”

  “Yes, sir.” Qazi passed across a stack of enlarged prints.

  El Hakim took the photos to the open window and studied them in the sunlight. He had a strong, square face set off by a perfect Roman nose. His nostrils flared slightly above sensuous, expressive lips. He had been an army officer when, nineteen years ago, he had organized and led a coup, preaching independent nationalism. Through the years he had stayed on top by ensuring the officer corps received a generous share of the petrodollars from the nationalized oil industry and by using every technological and public relations gimmick at his disposal to enshrine himself as the peoples’ savior while he spent the rest of the oil money to keep them fed, clothed, and housed. He postured on his little corner of the world stage under the benign eye of his state media, which portrayed him as one of the world’s movers and shakers and flooded every radio and television set in the country with his simple, drumbeat message: American and European imperialism — political, economic, cultural, and technological — were responsible for the dishonor of his people. Harried government bureaucrats were kept on edge with a never-ending avalanche of “revolutionary reforms” decreed from on high, as well as a raging torrent of orders and counterorders and orders changing the counterorders. All the while he goaded his North African neighbors and fluxed the military with rumors of war. The constant confusion created a tense domestic atmosphere, perfect for rooting out real and potential political enemies and ruthlessly destroying them in the name of national security.

  El Hakim’s methods certainly weren’t unique. Military strongmen routinely toppled governments and seized power in other Third World nations, poor nations slowly sinking into hopeless debt and starvation in the effluvium of the great powers’ economies. El Hakim knew just how easy it had been for him — he knew how much money he had spent — and through the years he had tired of the footnote role history had assigned him. He wanted glory. He wanted to be the man his propagandists said he was.

  El Hakim tapped the stack of photos on his left hand and looked out the window. “The American government,” he said slowly, “has never admitted the presence of nuclear weapons aboard any naval vessel. Nor,” he added dryly, “has it ever denied it.” He thumbed through the photos again, then turned back to the colonel. “We must be very sure, Qazi. Absolutely certain. Once we begin we shall be unable to hide our involvement. We will have laid hands on the very essence of American power.” El Hakim paused as the shame of past insults and outrages from the madmen who ruled America flooded him. He threw back his head, a conscious gesture, and spoke authoritatively. “What do we know?”

  “The weapons are aboard, Excellency.”

  El Hakim stood waiting expectantly.

  “An American sailor told us. We used sodium pentothal. There is no possibility he was lying.” Qazi extracted a cassette player from his attaché case and set it on the low table before him. He adjusted the volume and pushed the “play” button.

  El Hakim sat and sipped coffee as they listened. He spoke English well enough to follow what was being said, although he occasionally missed a word or two. He identified Qazi’s voice immediately. Qazi certainly had been thorough. He had approached the subject from every conceivable angle and discussed details that were far beyond the level of knowledge of El Hakim. Apparently the American knew the answers.

  Even with sodium pentothal, the American had needed encouragement to talk, Qazi reflected. He managed to be looking at El Hakim when the man on the tape screamed. El Hakim sipped his coffee.

  Qazi had listened to the tape many times, so now as it played he reviewed the kidnapping of the American. Weeks of effort had gone into selecting the proper individual, one whose speciality was aircraft weapons and who would be officially leaving the ship soon. Four agents had worked the bars and nightclubs of Naples under Qazi’s supervision during two port calls by the USS Carl Vinson. She was a sister ship of the United States, slated to leave the Med soon and sufficiently similar to the United States that the information obtained was still valid. Qazi finally settled on a second-class petty officer who was going on three weeks leave to visit a brother serving in Germany with the U.S. Army. The team took the man off a train in Rome and drove him to a safe house.

  It had been a good operation, Qazi reflected as he watched the cassette reels turn. The sailor had known the answers and his absence would not be missed for a reasonable time. He would appear to be a deserter and only a cursory investigation would be made, one which, Qazi was reasonably certain, would fail to uncover even a hint of the sailor’s real fate.

  A reasonable time and a reasonable certainty were all he could hope for. This business — one had to be so careful and yet there were so many unknowns. Chance or the unforeseen could betray one anywhere. So one moved in a perpetual paranoid fog, weighing the incalculable against the unknowable, forever tensed against contact with an obstacle that might or might not be there. And the nations that bordered the Mediterranean were awash in foreign agents, as thick as fleas on a camel. The Soviets were the most numerous and the Israelis the most energetic and efficient. Qazi was certain the Mossad had a voluminous file on his activities. If El Hakim approved this operation, it would have to be his last, for he was already a marked man.

  El Hakim’s fingers twitched and Qazi stopped the tape. The dictator sat silently for several moments before he spoke. “The bombs will alter forever the balance of power in the Mideast.” He rose and strolled around the apartment examining objects with eyes that were opaque.

  The Jews would have to come to terms or risk obliteration, El Hakim assured himself. That fact alone would make him the strongest man in the Arab world. Perhaps he should drop a bomb on Tel Aviv before he began to talk. Even Egypt would grudgingly yield to his leadership. He would be a hero to the masses and he would have the bomb: that combination would melt the most reluctant heart.

  He had thought deeply on this subject. Nuclear weapons were the power base that would allow him to force the world to its knees. The Americans, the Soviets, the French and the British all have these weapons, many of them, and one walked softly in their presence because the weapons could conceivably be used. Even the Israelis had them, though they refused to admit it.

  And every time he had tried to obtain them in the past he had been thwarted! Immense quantities of time, money and prestige had been expended, all to no avail. This time there would be no necessity to obtain some foreign government approval for a reactor sale, no secret deals to siphon processed fuel from an Indian reactor, no negotiations with the Chinese — no necessity to reveal information to foreign officials that they could sell or give to the Americans or the British for their own purposes.

  He would use one of the weapons as soon as he got it, so the question would not be, Will he use the bomb? The question would be, Will he use it again?

  His influence and prestige in the Arab world would rise astronomically.

  None of the superpowers has the courage to use the ultimate weapon, El Hakim assured himself, as he had a hundred times before. The Americans excoriate Truman for using two on the Japanese and luxuriate in their guilt. The Communists are too fearful of losing their privileges to ever let one of their number pull the trigger. The French? That nation of decadent sensualists whom the Algerians defeated with rifles and pistols? Conceivably the British under that maniac Thatcher, they might. But not for the Jews. Not for the Americans. And the Israelis? If they ever used nuclear weapons they would have to live with the holocaust as perpetrators, not victims.

  No, none has the courage to oppose the man who possesses the weapon and the will to use it, he told himself, believing it absolutely, believing it with all his heart and soul.

  I will bring down the decadent unbelievers and the misguided imams, like Khomeini, who understand so little of the ways of the world. Khomeini, that fool! He thought he could build a pure, holy nation on the insatiable thirst of the infidels for that stinking black liquid. The old imbecil
e is almost as bad as the Saudi princes, Saddam Hussein, and all those others who lust so for the goods of the West. Their greed is a travesty of the Koran.

  Praise Allah, I am not like them. I have the courage and strength to live according to the Word. With the bomb will come all power, so I can purchase only what is really needed.

  I will defend the Faith.

  I will purify my people.

  Mecca will be my capital in a united Arab world.

  He started from his thoughts and glanced at Qazi, who was examining the photographs. Yes, he thought, Qazi is ambitious and competent and almost as ruthless as I. Unconsciously El Hakim flicked his hand as if at a fly.

  “Ring for coffee.” He composed himself as the servant moved about, the only sound the faint clink of china.

  After the servant departed, El Hakim seated himself across from the colonel. “What is your plan?”

  4

  Captain Jake Grafton held his F-14 Tomcat level at six thousand feet in a steady left turn as his wingman came sliding in on a forty-five-degree line to rendezvous. The other plane crossed behind and under Jake and settled on his right wing. Jake leveled his wings and added power as he tweaked the nose up.

  He keyed his radio mike and waited for the scrambler to synchronize. “Strike, Red Aces are joined and proceeding on course.”

  “Roger, Red Ace Two Oh Five. Report entering patrol area Bravo.”

  “Wilco.”

  It was a cloudless night with a half moon, now just above the eastern horizon. To the west a layer of low haze over the sea limited visibility, but Jake knew that there was nothing to see in that direction anyway. The Lebanese coast was a mere thirty miles to the east, and as the two fighters climbed on a northerly heading toward their assigned altitude of 30,000 feet, Jake searched the blackness in that direction. Nothing. No lights. Jake scanned the night sky slowly in all quadrants for the lights of other aircraft. They seemed to be alone.

  “Keep your eye peeled for other planes, Toad,” he told the RIO in the rear cockpit.

  “Uh, yessir,” came the answer, sounding slightly puzzled. Normally the pilot performed routine lookout duties while the RIO worked the radar and computer. Well, thought Jake Grafton, let him wonder.

  “What’s on the scope, anyway?”

  “Not a daggone thing, CAG. Looks like one big empty sky to me.”

  “When’s that El Al flight from Athens to Haifa scheduled to be along?”

  In the back seat of the Tomcat, Lieutenant Tarkington consulted the notes on his kneeboard. “Not till twenty-five after the hour.” He slid back the sleeve of his flight suit and glanced at his luminous watch. He matched it with the clock on the panel in front of him. “About fifteen minutes from now.”

  “When will we reach area Bravo?”

  Tarkington checked the TACAN against the chart on his kneeboard. “About two minutes.”

  “We’ll make a turn west then, and you see if you can pick up that airliner. Let me know when you see him.”

  “Yessir.”

  “In the meantime, let’s get some data link from the Hummer.” The Hummer was the slang nickname for the E-2 Hawk-eye radar reconnaissance plane that Jake knew was somewhere about.

  Toad made the call as Jake checked the Tomcat on his right wing and noticed with satisfaction that Jelly Dolan was right where he should be, about a hundred feet away from Jake. Jelly was a lieutenant (junior grade) on his first cruise and flew with Lieutenant Commander Boomer Bronsky, the maintenance officer for the fighter squadron that owned these airplanes. Jake knew that Boomer liked to complain about the youth of the pilots he flew with—“Goddamn wet-nosed kids”—but that he had a very high opinion of their skills. He bragged on Jelly Dolan at every opportunity.

  “Battlestar Strike,” Toad said over the radio, “Red Ace flight entering Bravo at assigned altitude.”

  “Roger.”

  Jake keyed the mike. “Left turn, Jelly.”

  Two mike clicks was the reply.

  One minute passed, then two. Jake stabilized the airspeed at 250 knots, max conserve. He scanned the instruments and resumed his visual search of the heavens.

  “I’ve got him, CAG,” Toad said. “Looks like a hundred and twenty miles out. He’s headed southwest. Got the right squawk.” The squawk was the radar identification code. “He’s running about a mile or so above us.”

  Jake flipped the secondary radio to the channel the E-2 Hawkeye used and listened to the crew report the airliner to the Combat Decision Center (CDC) aboard the carrier. He knew the radio transmissions merely backed up the data link that transmitted the Hawkeye’s radar picture for presentation on a scope in CDC. The watchstanders aboard ship would watch the airliner. If the course changed to come within fifty miles of the carrier, Jake’s flight or the flight in area Alpha would be vectored to intercept. They would close the airliner and check visually to ensure that it was what they thought and that it was alone. The fighters would stay well back out of view of the airliner’s cockpit and passenger windows and would follow until told to break off.

  Jake yawned and flashed his exterior lights. Then he turned north. Jelly Dolan followed obediently. In a few moments he turned east to permit Toad and Boomer to use their radars to scan the skies toward Lebanon. If any terrorists or fanatics attempted a night aerial strike on the carrier task group, it would more than likely come from the east.

  “Nothing, CAG. The sky’s as clean as a virgin’s conscience.”

  “How come you’re always talking about women, Toad?”

  “Am I?” Feigned shock.

  “After three months at sea, I’d think your hormones would have achieved a level of dormancy that allowed your mind to dwell on other subjects.”

  “I’m always horny. That’s why they call me Toad. When are we going into port, anyway?”

  “Whenever the admiral says.”

  “Yessir. But have you got any idea when he might say it?”

  “Soon, I hope.” Jake was very much aware of the toll the constant day-and-night flight operations had taken on the ship’s crew and the men of the air wing. He thought about the stresses of constant work, work, work on the men as he guided the Tomcat through the sky.

  “We’re approaching the eastern edge of the area,” Toad reminded him.

  Jake glanced toward Jelly. The wingman was not there.

  “Jelly?”

  He looked on the other side. The sky was empty there, too. He rolled the aircraft and looked down. Far below he saw a set of lights.

  “Red Ace Two Oh Seven, do you read?”

  Jake rolled on his back and pulled the nose down. “Strike, Red Ace Two Oh Five, I’m leaving altitude.” The nose came down twenty degrees and Jake pointed it at the lights. “Jelly, this is CAG. Do you read me, over?”

  “He’s going down,” Toad informed him.

  “Boomer, talk to me.” Jake had the throttles full forward: 450 knots, now 500, passing 21,000 feet descending. The aircraft below was in a gentle right turn, and Jake hastened to cut the turn short and intercept.

  “Red Ace Two Oh Five, Strike. Say your problem.”

  “My wingman is apparently in an uncontrolled descent and I can’t raise him on the radio. Am trying to rendezvous. Have you got an emergency squawk?”

  “Negative. Keep me advised.”

  Now he throttled back and cracked the speed brakes. He was closing rapidly. Passing 15,000 feet. Goddamn, Jelly’s nose was way down. In the darkness Jake found it extremely difficult to judge the closure, and he finally realized he was too fast. He cross-controlled with the speed brakes full out and overshot slightly.

  “Thirteen thousand feet,”

  Jake slid in on Jelly’s left side as he thumbed the boards in. Toad shone his white flashlight on the front cockpit of the other fighter. The pilot’s helmeted head lolled from side to side. In the back cockpit Boomer also appeared to be unconscious. Both men had their oxygen masks on.

  “We’re steepening up, CAG.” Toad said. �
��Twelve degrees nose down. Fifteen-degree right turn. Passing nine thousand.”

  “Jelly, talk to me, you son of a bitch.” No good. “Wake up!” Jake screamed.

  He crossed under the other plane and locked on the right wing. He moved forward as Toad kept the flashlight on Jelly’s helmet. He flipped the radio channel selector switch to the emergency channel and turned off the scrambler.

  “Wake up, Jelly, or you’re going to sleep forever!”

  “Six thousand.” Toad’s voice.

  “Pull up!”

  “Five thousand.”

  “Eject, eject, eject! Get out Jelly! Get out Boomer!”

  “Four thousand. Fifteen degrees nose down.”

  Jake began to pull his nose up. As the descending Tomcat fell away he lost sight of the slumped figures in the cockpit. He rolled into a turn to keep the lights of the descending plane in sight.

  “Pull up, pull up, pull up, pull up, pull …” He was still chanting over the radio when the lights disappeared.

  “Sweet Jesus,” Toad whispered. “They went in.”

  “Strike, Red Ace Two Oh Seven just went into the drink. Mark my position and get the angel out here buster.” The “angel” was the rescue helicopter. “Buster” meant to hurry, bust your ass.

  “Red Ace, did the crew get out?”

  “I doubt it,” Jake Grafton said, and removed his oxygen mask to wipe his face.

  * * *

  “How heavy are the weapons?” El Hakim asked.

  “About two hundred kilos,” Colonel Qazi replied.

  El Hakim stood in the apartment window and let the warm, dry wind play with the folds in his robe. Already the great summer heat had begun. Here in this retreat deep in the desert he did not wear the military uniform that he was obliged to wear in the capital before the Western diplomatic corps and press. He hated the uniform, but it gave him an air of authority that he felt essential. Soon, very soon, he would burn the uniform. He closed his eyes and faced the rising sun. He could feel it through his eyelids. The power of the sun would soon be his. Praise Allah, he would make the unbelievers kneel.