Return to Honor

by Doug Beason

  Ojo-1

  “Motherhen, this is Ojo-1. All the chicks are loaded and ready to roll.”

  “Roger that, Ojo-1. Please give the pax your stewardess briefing while we’re rotating. We’ll be airborne shortly.”

  “Copy, Motherhen.” Gould switched off the intercom with the 747 below him. The marines didn’t take more than ten minutes to load, and they’d been on the ground for less than fifteen. Once they were airborne, he’d find out where they were going. He briefly thought about prying open the hatch that separated him from the marines in back and asking them if they knew, but he dismissed the idea.

  The few contacts he’d had with the “jarheads” he’d flown had not been too encouraging. For some reason they took themselves far too seriously, and didn’t socialize at all. In the marines, the boundary between and an officer and an enlisted troop was very wide and distinct; it didn’t work with Gould’s own style.

  In his mind, if Gould treated the air force enlisted folk the way the marine officers treated their men, Gould would have died years ago. He remembered the story about an air force wing commander at one of the fighter bases. The colonel had jumped all over some airman’s butt for something completely unreasonable—the airman had his hands in his pockets, or something critical like that. After getting his rear chewed by the colonel, the airman proceeded to throw a wrench in the colonel’s engine the next time the colonel tried to fly his fighter. The wing commander was lucky to have made it out of the plane alive.

  You just don’t mess with enlisted men—Gould had learned the lesson well. But applying that adage to jarheads was another matter.

  He had tried to be friendly once with one of the marine sergeants, and much to his surprise he was snubbed in a courteous but pointed way. He couldn’t figure those marines out. To have another air force officer jump on him for fraternization was one thing, but when the enlisted marines did it—well, Gould just decided it was best to leave well enough alone.

  So the notion of asking the marines if they knew what was going on quickly passed.

  Gould clicked on the intercom and instructed the marines in the back to fasten all their straps, no smoking any time on board, and he’d warn them before they rocketed, thank you.

  The TAV swayed slightly as the 747 lumbered down the runway. He could hear the engines whine as the giant plane picked up speed. A minute passed, and the takeoff was so smooth at first he couldn’t tell if the 747 was in the air.

  Once airborne, Gould kept an eye out for his orders to appear on the screen.

  Within minutes the screen started bleeping and blinking, the spy icon flashing in the lower left corner of the screen. When the secure link was established, Colonel Mathin’s voice came over the speaker. The orders were explained in detail, and Gould was completely immersed in the plan. He had two questions for the FTC commander once the colonel had stopped speaking.

  Gould asked, “The JATO units should get us out of there without any trouble, sir, but who’s piloting Ojo-2 with the fuel bladder?”

  “Major Beckman was the TAV pilot on the list after you, Major Gould. She’s just taking off from Edwards and will land at Do’brai about five minutes after you get there.”

  “Sir, you can’t send Beckman! She’s only been checked out for three months now—”

  “And if I recall, you’re the one who certified her, Major. She’s the second-best stick we’ve got. So unless there are any other reasons why she shouldn’t go, besides the fact that you may have a problem with women flying just as good or better than men, I need to know it now.…”

  Several moments passed. Gould finally answered, expelling his breath. “No, sir. There’s no reason I can think of.”

  “Good. Now what was your second question?”

  It took Gould a while to clear his mind from the previous answer. “What does Ojo mean, Colonel?”

  “It means ‘God’s eye.’ Ojo is a New Mexican good-luck charm, chosen for obvious reasons. You’ll need it, son. So don’t step on it.”

  “No, sir, I won’t. Uh, tell Major Beckman good luck, too, sir.”

  “I will. And remember, this is your final transmission. You’re authorized to break radio silence with Ojo-2 only in case of an emergency.”

  “Roger that, sir.”

  Do’brai

  They took the hood off his head, and he could finally breathe without gasping. The heat was almost unbearable and stale cigarette smoke filled the room.

  Montoya blinked in the light and squinted, trying to make out several shapes that hovered just beyond the edge of the glare. A large lamp—it almost seemed to be a spotlight—pointed directly at him. Montoya felt naked, as if under a microscope.

  A voice cut through the smoky haze. “Make yourself comfortable, Mr. President. Feel free to stretch out in your chair.” It was the same person who had met the steward on board Air Force One and driven him to this place. Was it General Kamil that the steward had called the man?

  Montoya held up a hand and peered through the glare. “Who are you?”

  “Who I am is not important. I trust you have been thinking about what to say when we present you before the news media?”

  “You’re damned right I’ve been thinking about what I’m going to say. Now who the hell are you, and what have you done with my plane?”

  “Shortly, Mr. President, you will be moved to another location and meet several representatives from Al Jazerra and your news services. At that time you will make a short apology for the crimes your nation has committed against the people who support the ALH. Peace-loving people who, because of your nation’s policy in arming aggressive states such as Israel, are now suffering.”

  “What are you talking about? We—”

  Montoya was interrupted; the speaker’s voice rose in volume. “There are too many starving and homeless people your nation has neglected for you to protest. There would be no suffering, no dying, if it was not for your nation meddling in our affairs. You have done our people a disservice, and for the world to know that we are serious about turning these affairs around, you must make a public apology for your nation’s crimes.”

  Montoya thought fast, but felt despair. The general had already tried and convicted him; it appeared that no amount of logic or arguing would turn his point of view. Montoya played for time. “What is it you want me to do?”

  “Make the apology.” Then the voice hesitated. “I am aware that your American word of honor is not dependable; you would lie, as you have done in the past, to make things turn out the way you want. So I must be assured that you will truly apologize.”

  “No. You misunderstand me. I’ll apologize; I’ll be sincere.” Montoya felt sick to his stomach. He couldn’t bluff his way out.

  “I do not believe you, Mr. President. But we have a solution for that, a way to remind you that when you apologize before the news media, it will come from the bottom of your heart.” The voice spat a guttural language.

  Two men came from behind the light and grabbed him. They jerked his hands behind his back and lashed his arms together with coarse strands of twine. They tightened the rope until Montoya’s elbows met. Montoya bit his lip to keep from crying out. Pulling him up from his chair, they looped the rope around his elbows, then threw the line up over a crossbeam.

  One man knelt and tore off Montoya’s shoes and socks. Once he was barefoot, the voice behind the spotlight spoke again. “We have a short speech for you to memorize, Mr. President. We only have a few hours to practice, but you should have plenty of time to get it right.” He spoke again in the foreign tongue.

  As he finished Montoya was jerked in the air, suspended by his elbows. The pain tore through his back; his arms and shoulders felt like they were ripped out of their sockets. He felt faint, and his breathing came in short, painful gasps.

  A hand grabbed his right foot.

  “An interesting technique to remind you to do what we want—and a way that doesn’t leave any visible scars when you give your speech—is to
slowly remove your toenails. We will practice your speech, Mr. President, and for every mistake you make, a toenail on your foot will be ripped back and slowly peeled off.

  “Oh—and just repeating the speech is not good enough. As you yourself said, you have to be sincere.” Kamil clicked his fingers. “Repeat carefully after me.”

  Montoya felt a burning sensation in his feet. He cried out, but the pain wouldn’t go away. It was an effort just to concentrate on what was being said.

  Vandenberg Air Force Base, California

  Five of the air force’s half-dozen launch pads were operational. Construction personnel swarmed over the sixth in the sweltering heat, fixing decades of damage due to corrosive salt water and burns from rocket launches that ranged from small NASA probes to giant National Reconnaissance Office satellites.

  To the southeast—over the ubiquitous golden-brown hills, and out of sight of the Western Launch Complex—a dozen missile silos were buried in the ground. These silos did not contain any of the old Peacekeeper missiles; at least not those armed with the nuclear warheads that had made the Peacekeeper a Cold War deterrent. Rather, the missile silos now defined the eastern edge of the Western Test Range. Top missile crews came from their U.S. bases to test-fire missiles, to test both the active inventory and the crews’ skills.

  Now only one of the silos was loaded with a “hot” missile, but it remained dormant for a different purpose.

  In a command bunker buried next to the “hot” silo, First Lieutenant Marvin Chiu studied a text in macroeconomics. The only reason he didn’t prop his feet up was that the console was too high. But the readings from the Western State master’s program—something practically required of every launch officer while serving time in the hole—tended to put Lieutenant Chiu to sleep. In fact, the course was duller than an imitation Swiss knife.

  Chiu’s head bobbed off his chest when the intercom squawked above the console. “Bravo, Tango, Echo, Alpha, Sierra, six. Authentication: Charlie, Zulu, Xray, niner. This is not a test. I repeat, this is not a test. Targeting information to follow in five parts. Stand by, one.”

  “Oh great.” Chiu’s body was flung forward and his feet hit the floor all in one motion. The message was repeated as Chiu sprinted across the room.

  Second Lieutenant Dubois, the only other person in the launch control room, and Chiu’s trainee, made it to the red safe that was embedded in the wall. He arrived just as Chiu got there.

  Chiu took a deep breath and said formally: “I received authentication Charlie, Zulu, Xray, niner and am opening the safe.” He received a nod from Dubois, then twirled the knob and completed the first part of the opening sequence.

  As he finished, Dubois announced, “I, too, received authentication Charlie, Zulu, Xray, niner and am completing the code.” He entered his part of the combination and took a step backward.

  Chiu reached inside the small safe and withdrew an envelope, which he tore open. As he scanned the contents his shoulders sagged minutely. “That’s it; the authentication matches.” He looked up. Dubois hadn’t been in the hole for more than a few weeks, and now he got a live one on his first tour of duty. Chiu tried to put the younger officer—younger by all of two years—at ease. “All right, the code is good. Let’s get the targeting computer ready for the feed.”

  “What do you think’s up?”

  “No telling. But with any luck we’re not at war. And at least we’re not in a hole in Minot; otherwise we’d be launching nukes instead of runway clearers, and we could kiss our butts goodbye.”

  “Some consolation.”

  “Hey, you volunteered for this, didn’t you?” Chiu shot a glance at the wall clock. “Let’s get a move on. The targeting feed hits in thirty seconds.”

  They moved to their respective consoles, and each inserted a small key hanging from around his neck into a three-positioned hole. The keyholes were the standard twelve feet apart, preventing one person from turning the keys simultaneously on command, as required for independently loading the targeting information and launching the missile.

  As the wall clock’s hand swept past the seconds the intercom came back to life. “Prepare to open the feed link on my count.…three, two, one, mark.”

  At the sound, Chiu and Dubois turned their keys. They had no idea of the targeting information being downloaded into the missile’s one-board targeting computer. The message was scrambled, requiring on-board crypto to decode the information. The only confirmation they had that the information was being received and decoded was a small green light that burned above the keyholes.

  The green light blinked off as the intercom squawked once again. “Targeting information echoed and verified; your launch window is open for the next twenty seconds. Twenty, nineteen, eighteen …”

  As the voice counted down, Chiu shouted above the din. “Ready, ready … now.” They both turned the keys. Chiu felt as though his key would break off, but a satisfying click filled the air as the keys popped into position.

  Three hundred feet away, separated by layers of concrete, steel, and dirt and buoyed by springs, the seventy-foot Peacekeeper popped out of its silo in a cold launch.

  Once clear of the ground, the missile’s solid fuel rocket ignited and rose like a roman candle in the California sky. The silo was relatively unharmed; within minutes, a new missile could be inserted and the silo used again.

  “I wonder where we sent it.”

  “Turn on CNN. If it’s anything big, we’ll find out soon. But it couldn’t be too important; they aren’t loading in a new missile yet. If this was the big one, we’d be popping those babies out of here like they were going out of style.”

  “Yeah,” said Dubois. “Some consolation.”

  Do’brai

  Montoya’s screams pierced the room. President-for-Life Ash’ath viewed the scene without emotion from behind the spotlight’s glare.

  President Montoya hung from the ceiling, barely a foot off the ground. Blood dripped onto the floor, mixing with tears from Montoya’s sobbing.

  Ash’ath spoke to General Kamil without turning his head. “How much longer?”

  Kamil bowed slightly. “We will finish the foot we’re working on now and probably do one toe on the other foot.”

  “Even if he memorizes the speech correctly?”

  “We are not worried about that, Excellency. He already knows the speech without error. He must be convinced that the apology is true and is his own.”

  Ash’ath raised an eyebrow. “Is that possible?”

  “With enough pain, anything is possible.”

  Ash’ath studied the man a few moments longer before turning away and walking down the corridor. “Pity. The last time I met him I was impressed by the amount of aid he wanted to give our country. Too bad there could not be another way to vault the ALH into worldwide attention.”

  “You yourself convinced us that this would be the only way to clear up the ALH question, Excellency. Only when the world knows that the ALH can strike anyone, anytime, will this matter be put to rest. Then Do’brai can stop playing haven to ALH politics and take overt control of the united Arab front. You will emerge as the most powerful leader in this hemisphere.”

  “And you the second most,” retorted Ash’ath dryly.

  Kamil bowed his head.

  “But I do not need to be reminded of the obvious,” said Ash’ath. “I just despise doing things this way for now.”

  “Your name will never be attached to this, Excellency.”

  Ash’ath snapped, “Do’brai must never be connected with this. You have ensured that Air Force One is well hidden?”

  “Yes—it was pulled into our largest maintenance hangar after it landed. No one can see it.”

  “Good,” said Ash’ath. “Have the servants that are working on President Montoya eliminated once they are through with him. And those ALH scoundrels—”

  “Hujr ibn-Adi?”

  “Yes. And his cohort, and that Ghazzali fool—dispose of both of them.
When the ALH delegates arrive, only you and I will know what has happened. As far as everyone else is concerned, President Montoya is simply to be loaded on board the ALH plane once it lands. The details of how he got here and this torture must never be known to the West. There must be no connection to Do’brai.”

  “And the remainder of the people who were on Air Force One?”

  “Take them to the airport with Montoya. Once the ALH plane clears Do’brai airspace, load them on Air Force One, pull it out of the hanger and destroy it. Afterward we will broadcast an alert to the American authorities telling them we offered to help Air Force One, but the plane was commandeered by ALH terrorists who kidnapped Montoya and destroyed his plane.”

  “Will they believe us?”

  Ash’ath shrugged. “How can they not? With no witnesses, they can only take us at our word. Especially when we serve Hujr’s head up to them on a platter as proof.”

  Kamil’s mouth parted, revealing a thin smile. “So Do’brai will remain in favor with the West. And once the American President is dead, you will no longer need the ALH to unite the Arab front.”

  “That is correct, my friend. I will no longer need the ALH—for the other countries will flock to Do’brai. They are not fools. They will know Do’brai’s power, even though the Americans will not. Just remember, Kamil. What is happening here is unknown to everyone. You and I—that is all who should know. That way, we may be completely innocent when we tell the West that we had nothing to do with the ALH.”

  Kamil bowed at the request.

  Chapter 8

  0230 ZULU: SATURDAY, 8 SEPTEMBER

  If you greatly desire something, have the guts to stake everything on obtaining it.

  Brendan Francis

  If you start to take Vienna—take Vienna.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Ojo-1: Crew Compartment

  The decision for Krandel to go—and to be first out—was entirely his. He massaged his neck, trying to relieve the tension that had mounted at the back of his head, and thought for the twentieth time about the decision.