Flash Point

by James W. Huston

  “I just don’t think we’ll pull it off.”

  “Come on Wink,” Woods said. “Show some cojones. This is about Tony, not us. We’re doing this for him. It’s about courage, about never forgetting. About a willingness to hang your ass out when it’s time to hang it out, and not sit around, fat, dumb, and happy, after these assholes murder our squadron mate.”

  Wink stood up and looked straight at Woods. “No, Trey. It’s about going to jail. It’s about doing something really stupid!”

  Woods wasn’t going to force him. “If you don’t want to go, I can get somebody else to go. Easy would go.”

  Wink looked at Big who was sitting on his bed listening carefully. “You in?”

  “With both feet.”

  “Why?”

  Big jumped down. “For Boomer. For the kids he never had. If I got whacked like that I want someone to go take them out. I don’t care who, but someone. And no one else is going to do it. It’s up to us.”

  Wink struggled. “We can’t even fire any missiles—”

  “Yes, we can! The Major has taken care of it. I told you the plan.”

  “How do we know he’ll actually do it? What if he’s setting us up for embarrassment? And what about on the ship? Won’t they know?”

  “The Gunner is on board with us.”

  “Shit! Who else? Everybody on the ship know?”

  “Just who has to. He’ll take care of the missiles.”

  “How?”

  “He’s got access to the computer and the hard copies of the missile records.”

  “This is right on the edge, Trey.”

  “You coming?”

  Wink stood silently. They all listened to the humming of the ship. “Yeah.”

  Woods tapped lightly on the hollow stateroom door, leaning forward to listen for sounds of someone stirring. He tapped again, slightly louder. He looked at his watch, glowing in the low red light of the passageway—0200. He tapped once more and heard someone shuffling to the door. Pritch opened it. She was wearing a baggy flannel nightgown, her hair sticking up in all directions. “What?” she asked angrily.

  “Get dressed, please,” Woods said.

  “What for? Do you know what time it is?”

  “I need some help.”

  “Help? What are you talking about?”

  “Get dressed, please,” Woods said again.

  Pritch groaned and turned back toward her bed, wanting desperately to crawl back into it. But she knew Woods—he wouldn’t give up so easily. She groaned again, opened her closet, and removed the fresh uniform she had set out for morning when she would be giving the 0515 intelligence brief for the first launch at 0700. She closed the door while she dressed.

  Woods leaned on the bulkhead in the passageway. He had started to doubt himself. The chance to hit back was irresistible. He had to do it for Vialli. But for the first time he hesitated. While he waited, Woods glanced down the passageway. Three knee-knockers aft a sailor was waxing the deck. Half the passageway was taped off so no one would step on the fresh wax. Woods watched him as the handle of the rotating wax buffer pushed against his ample belly, causing it to shake under his soiled dungaree shirt. He shook his head, glad he didn’t have to wax floors. He had done it once, when he was a third-class midshipman on his summer cruise. That had been enough for him. Never again, at least not until he was court-martialed and busted to seaman for violating every Navy regulation known to man, international law, and good sense. The door startled him when Pritch threw it open.

  “Okay,” she said with irritation.

  “Let’s go,” Woods said, moving quickly down the passageway.

  “Where are we going?” Pritch asked, trying to keep up.

  “To CVIC,” replied Woods.

  “What for?”

  “You’ll see.”

  They rounded the corner into CVIC, the carrier intelligence center, and looked into the one-way glass where the Duty Petty Officer sat. Recognizing Pritch’s face, he buzzed the door and Woods pushed it open. They stepped through and heard it electronically seal behind them. Woods walked deeper into CVIC and stopped. A seaman was buffing the green tile in one corner of the large room, and another walked by carrying a piece of electronic testing equipment.

  “What are we doing here, Trey? I’ve got to give a brief in three hours. I need my sleep.”

  “No, you don’t. Sleep is for chumps.” He turned to Pritch. “I need charts; an ONC and JNC of Israel, Lebanon, and Syria. Then I need you to pull out the Electronic Order of Battle for Lebanon and find all the SAM sights for me, and whatever we know about the AAA sights.”

  Pritch didn’t bother to hide her astonishment. “What for?”

  “It doesn’t matter what for.”

  “It does to me.”

  “Then don’t ask.”

  Pritch lowered her voice to make sure the seaman couldn’t hear her. “The only reason you could possibly want them is because you’re going to be flying there. But we’re not flying there.”

  “This is one of those times in your life when it may be best for you not to know, Pritch. Just do what I say,” Woods said with an intensity Pritch had never seen in him before.

  Pritch walked to a metal chest in the corner. It had several long thin drawers and a flat top angled down. She pulled out a drawer close to the bottom and removed a chart of Lebanon. She opened it up and laid it flat on the top of the chest. They leaned over it and began examining the terrain. “This is Lebanon. Where are you going?”

  Woods didn’t even hesitate. “I didn’t say I was going anywhere. This is just a research project. If I was interested in going to Lebanon, I might be interested in going”—he studied the chart, then pointed—“right here.”

  21

  Ricketts checked the rearview mirrors on the gray panel truck. He was pulling a trailer with five new Honda motor scooters in it, two purple, one white, one red, and one black. The truck had tools, and various Honda parts. He entered the main street of the town, scanning every window, alley, and rooftop as he went, checking for security. He wished Dar al Ahmar was closer to the coast.

  Ricketts was in favor of having a talk with the Sheikh. He was interested and willing to have a very personal conversation with him. To let him know how the Americans felt about his murder of one of its Navy officers. But he had been overruled in the DO. We want him brought back alive, for trial. Only in America. Capture murderers, take them to Washington, give them room and board and attorneys paid for by American taxpayers, have some ACLU asshole find some reason to call a press conference, and sue the government because the murderer was discriminated against somehow, or deprived of his rights, or “captured” illegally in Lebanon or where the hell ever. They always spoke with great offense and outrage.

  Ricketts tried not to think about the U.S. side of the operation. That wasn’t his job. His job was to get the Sheikh. And he had just the plan—if his agents were right, and hadn’t sold him and the entire operation out to somebody else for more money. The agents who would help with the transfer were already in place. He had visited them during the night. The decoys were set, the helicopters ready, and the shooters standing by. The actual grab was the last piece, though obviously the most important.

  Ricketts drove around three sheep, which were wandering through town, and manuevered his truck and trailer into a narrow street lined on both sides with two-story buildings. The motorcycle shop was on the far corner. It was small and crowded and there was no place to park in front of the shop. A large van had been waiting there and when the driver saw Ricketts coming in his mirror he pulled away from the curb. It was timed perfectly. Ricketts turned into the spot and switched off the engine. He checked his watch.

  The shop didn’t open until ten. Through the shop window, Ricketts could see almost all of the inventory of motorcycles, motor scooters, and mopeds. He knew that most were used, but a few were new. He also knew that the shop had been asked to bring in several new motor scooters because Assam—an elus
ive man whose family had come from Dar al Ahmar and who was known mostly for his apparently unlimited influence and money—wanted to buy one for his niece for her birthday. Assam had promised to personally pick it out with her, not just to send a lieutenant to do it for him. He would be in between eight and ten that morning to choose, before the shop opened.

  Ricketts stepped out of the truck and stretched. He wore old Arab clothing and moved stiffly, as if he were twenty years older than he was. His dark face was covered with what looked like a one-week beard that had a lot of gray, unlike his actual beard. As he went to the door of the shop he noticed the four armed men on the rooftops of the surrounding buildings, already in place to protect their boss, Ricketts’s target. Nice work, he thought to himself. They were exactly where they should be. The other six bodyguards that Assam would bring would undoubtedly go inside the shop with him. They had to. If they didn’t, all would be lost.

  It wasn’t even seven o’clock yet. Ricketts shielded his face as he pressed against the locked glass door. He knocked loudly and shouted in perfect Arabic, “Hondas are here! Open up!”

  There was no reply. He banged again, and glanced around as if concerned about waking somebody up. “Hey! You said to be here early! I’m here. Where are you!? Hey!”

  Finally he heard something inside the store. He stood back and nodded expectantly. He glanced over at his Hondas to be sure someone wasn’t trying to unchain them. The shop door opened. “Yes. You made it.”

  “Of course, I made it. I brought the motor scooters. Where do you want me to put them?”

  “Right in the front of the store. Our guest will inspect them there, his niece can ride whichever ones she wants, and then we will do business inside.”

  Ricketts nodded several times. “Coffee?”

  “Of course,” the man said, indicating the inside of the shop.

  They went through the door and left it standing open. In the back of the shop, the man poured steaming thick coffee out of an ornately decorated copper pitcher into a dark blue cup. Ricketts drank and took in the room. He could quickly see that everything had been prepared and all was in place. The line on the floor was almost invisible, more a line drawn in the lingering dust by a finger. He could see it clearly though, and knew the others who needed to could as well. All they had to do was get the Sheikh beyond the line toward the back of the store and they would be in business.

  Ricketts looked into his agent’s eyes. “Is everything ready to close the sale?”

  The man’s eyes flickered knowingly. “Yes.”

  “Are you sure our friend will come?”

  “I am never sure of anything.”

  Ricketts poured himself more coffee. “I drove a long way with my new Hondas. I don’t want to waste the trip.”

  “He does what he wants. If he decides not to buy the motor scooter for his niece, then that will be that. We cannot tell him what to do. We were fortunate to get the notice we did.”

  “Do you have any more information on when he will be here?”

  “He will be here when he wants to be here.”

  “Before the store opens. Yes?”

  “That is what he said. He might come today or another time. We will see.”

  “So we wait,” Ricketts said, sipping his thick coffee.

  “We wait.”

  “Here we go,” Woods said, going hot mike as they taxied toward the catapult. The two Tomcats were to be the first planes to be shot off on the earliest launch of the day, just west of Israel.

  Wink was studying the chart he had been given an hour before the brief. He was starting to get anxious.

  The sun was rising over the horizon on a spectacular morning. The calm Mediterranean lay in peaceful surrender underneath the Washington, gently holding it up. The water was an uncharacteristically dark purplish blue, with occasional foam.

  Since waking Pritch, Woods had been up planning the flight. He had gone over all the information the Major had given him until he had everything memorized. The schedule, the frequencies, everything.

  “Tiger know what he’s supposed to do?” Woods asked as he turned the nosewheel toward the catapult with the rudder pedals.

  “He just hopes nobody looks too close.”

  “Don’t we all,” Woods said, his voice revealing some tension.

  They taxied to the catapult and stopped. They put their hands up while the ordnancemen removed the pins from the six missiles they carried on nearly every flight: two Phoenix, two Sparrow, and two Sidewinder. The ordie gave them a thumbs-up and showed them the long red flags attached to the safing pins they had pulled from the weapons and counted them for Woods to see. Woods inclined his head, and the ordie turned away. They taxied forward and kneeled the Tomcat. The airplane was ready and so were they. Woods stole a quick glance forward to cat two; Big and Sedge were ready, wings forward, engines at full power. He watched as their catapult jerked. The nose of the Tomcat went down toward the deck, then raced toward the bow. Big rotated the Tomcat as it left the deck, sucked up the gear, and climbed away in a right-hand clearing turn. After a quarter of a mile he turned left to parallel the ship’s course.

  Woods felt tension go into the catapult as the shuttle pulled on the nosewheel launch bar. He hurried through the final items on his takeoff checklist with Wink. The radios were silent.

  “Ready?” Woods asked quickly. “Ready,” answered Wink just as quickly. Woods saluted and put his head back. The Tomcat jerked downward, then shot down the deck.

  “Good speed,” Wink called calmly the way he always did as the Tomcat flew off the end of the carrier.

  Woods automatically raised the landing gear, pulling up and away from the carrier in his left-hand clearing turn. He climbed to five hundred feet and leveled off. He felt exhilaration; he was full of coffee and energy. The weather was spectacular, the water was beautiful, and the plane was performing perfectly. He was finally doing what he had been training to do for years. He felt calm and completely alive. He accelerated and caught up with Big, who tapped his helmet and pointed to Woods, giving him the lead. As they passed seven miles away from the ship, Woods pulled back steadily on the stick until they were climbing quickly away from the water.

  Woods returned overhead the ship and orbited at six thousand feet for five minutes waiting for the S-3 tanker to arrive at its station. It felt like an hour and a half. His heart was beating rapidly and his breathing was deeper and faster than he was used to.

  “Where’s that stupid S-3?” Woods said, frustrated.

  “He was sitting on the deck when we launched. You really think he’s gonna get here before we do?” Wink replied.

  Woods scanned the sky anxiously.

  “Got him,” Wink said. “Forty left, four thousand feet, climbing.”

  Woods looked to his left. “Tallyho,” he said as he brought the Tomcat sharply left to head for the S-3.

  “Better let him get to altitude or he’ll yell at us,” Wink cautioned.

  “We don’t have a lot of time to screw around today, Wink.”

  “I know that, Trey. Just lighten up.”

  Woods frowned under his visor and oxygen mask as he rendezvoused with the tanker. He motioned for the pilot to deploy the basket and moved quickly back when it was in place. After both the Tomcats had taken as much gas as they could hold they broke off from the tanker and headed for their air intercept station to practice intercepts.

  Wink switched to button eight on the radio in the backseat, and Woods changed to the radio frequency in the front that he and Big had agreed on, Jolly Roger common—the frequency used by the squadron, but they added one digit in case anyone else was listening.

  “Big, you up?” Woods asked.

  “Two,” Big replied.

  Wink consulted his card to see what the Washington was calling itself and what the squadron’s code name was for the day. “Gulf November, this is Bright Sword 211.”

  “Bright Sword 211, Gulf November, your station is 020 at 30. Who wants to go
first?”

  Woods checked his clock. They had to go now.

  “211 will be the first fighter, and 207 will be the bogey,” Wink transmitted to Tiger, the familiar voice of the controller. They had met at 0300 that morning.

  “Roger 211, squawk 3234. Take station 020 for 60. Break—207, squawk, 3353. Take station 020 at 30.”

  “211,” Wink said.

  “207,” Sedge transmitted.

  They headed out the 020 radial as they climbed out toward their stations. Big kept his place on Woods’s starboard wing waiting for the signal. They approached thirty miles and Woods leveled off at fifteen thousand feet.

  “Thirty miles,” Wink transmitted.

  “Roger, 207, you can orbit there, and 211, continue outbound.”

  Woods nodded and the two F-14s pitched over and headed toward the ocean. Wink and Sedge turned off their IFFs—Identification, Friend or Foe—and changed the Link 11 frequency that allowed automatic communication for data link from that of the Washington to the frequency Trey had given them of the Israeli Air Force E-2C Hawkeye, the radar plane identical to those on the Washington. It was orbiting somewhere in northern Israel.

  “Should be getting their picture any minute now,” Wink told Woods as he switched the displays in the back cockpit and Woods adjusted his own displays so he could see Wink’s radar picture. They descended rapidly to the water with Big on their wing. Wink looked around for airplanes, but saw none. The radar showed no ships or airplanes in any direction closer than twelve miles.