Flash Point

by James W. Huston

  “I don’t think there’s any way Ricketts would leave a trail. I think we’re okay there. But now we’ve got to get smarter on how to get this guy. He’ll be twice as paranoid as before.”

  Sami was stuck on something else. “Anybody talked to the Israelis lately? ’Cause it looks like they really wanted this guy too.” Sami looked at the others. “The Sheikh had to be after the woman on the bus.”

  “How do you figure that?” Kinkaid said doubtfully.

  “It wasn’t the bus driver.” Everyone nodded. “And probably not the soldier . . .”

  “Well, possibly—”

  Sami replied, “No way. He was”—he opened a thick file and looked for a piece of paper—“nineteen years old.” He looked up. “Unless he’s somebody’s son, he probably hasn’t done enough to piss off someone of the Sheikh’s stature to make him take that kind of risk to get him. And it couldn’t have been that Navy Lieutenant . . .”

  “Lieutenant Vialli,” Kinkaid said.

  “Right. Couldn’t be him. Nobody knew he was going to be there, including his Commanding Officer. That leaves her. What does the report say about her . . .” He read from the paper again. “Deformed hand. The report on the Navy investigation says—”

  “What are you, an analyst all of a sudden?” someone called out.

  “Just thinking out loud. Want me to stop?”

  “Go on,” Kinkaid said.

  “Says she told Vialli and a Lieutenant Woods her hand was deformed from birth. Now we learn she was involved in an accident of some kind a year and a half ago. What kind of accident? I don’t know. I’m just saying, maybe she’s the one they were after.”

  “What does that do for us, though?” Kinkaid asked.

  “If they were after her, the Israelis know why. And if they know why, then they know more about this guy than they’re letting on. I’ve read what they’ve given us. It’s something, but overall . . .” He stared directly at Kinkaid. “It’s a pile of shit. They’re holding back on us.”

  Kinkaid had stopped listening. He hadn’t been able to think of anything else but Ricketts since he’d gotten the news. He had agreed to make the arrangements for the secret memorial service and to give a eulogy. It was one of the hardest things he had ever had to do. Ricketts had always been the one Kinkaid fantasized about being. Of all the people at the CIA, Ricketts did what intelligence officers were supposed to do—he actually made a difference. Kinkaid could cite chapter and verse, but he wouldn’t be able to, because most of the people who would be at the service didn’t even know about the mission. Over the years Ricketts had become his friend, in a thorny, challenging kind of way, the only way Ricketts knew how to have friends. He thought everything was calculated to gain some advantage, even friendship . . . Suddenly realizing that he hadn’t heard what Sami was saying, Kinkaid forced himself back to the present. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

  “The Israelis—they’re holding back on us.”

  Kinkaid mumbled, “Maybe . . .” Then he apologized again and headed for the door.

  24

  Meat erased the aircraft numbers on the grease board in the front of the ready room for the event that had just landed and began to put numbers up for the crew’s briefing. The board showed the ever-changing status of the flight schedule. Woods sat in the chair in the first row staring at the television screen. Most of the other officers in the ready room were watching the CNN report too, but none with his intensity. A reporter stood in front of a pile of rubble on a clear bright day in southern Lebanon. Several people behind her, their mouths covered, were sorting through the broken stones and pieces of building. On the bottom of the screen was the name of the town, Dar al Ahmar, Lebanon.

  The officers in the ready room listened with skepticism. Any time the media reported on anything military, they held onto their wallets.

  “. . . and here, as you can see, there has been substantial damage by some stray Israeli bombs. We have spoken to many local residents and all of them have said that there was no reason to bomb Dar al Ahmar. It has nothing of military value and is not defended by any antiaircraft guns or missiles. They are very upset that the Israelis were unable to aim their bombs correctly and killed several innocent people. According to the residents, the building was hit by two bombs almost simultaneously. It was a motorcycle sales and repair shop, selling mostly motor scooters and motorized bicycles. At the time of the attack there were approximately six people inside getting the shop ready to open for business, including one unlucky fellow who had just stopped in this morning to deliver some new Honda motor scooters to the shop. The attack occurred at approximately 8 a.m. Lebanon time, and was very short in duration. There were several other places bombed, and there were airplanes shot down, but details about the air battle are still unclear, according to what I have been able to piece together. Back to you, in Washington.”

  Woods tried to look nonchalant. He was so glad Israel had done it. He was thrilled to have been in combat for the first time. He wanted to shout from the highest point on the carrier, “Got you!” He wanted to let everyone know that Americans would always protect their countrymen. But his exuberance was tempered by Leavenworth. He knew the chances of being caught were now less—they had made it back safely and on time, and the Gunner would take care of the rest. The Gunner assured him he knew how to fix the computer and paper records so no one could trace the replacement missiles.

  The remainder of the day passed unremarkably. That night Woods lay awake staring at the overhead. He kept seeing the MiG that he had gunned go down and slam into the desert, undoubtedly killing the pilot. He tried to count. That MiG pilot for sure. The Flogger pilot with the Sparrow shot . . . the Sidewinder kill, no chute. Three. He had personally killed three men. At least three. Maybe more. It was such a blur, but a vivid blur. He had never killed anyone before. He had never even started a fistfight before. Been in a few, but never of his own making. Over and over again, he could hear the whoosh of the missiles coming off the rails. Sparrow. Sidewinder.

  Bernie the Breather was making its curious gushh, cuh cuh cuh sounds, matching the images of the missiles going off the rails in Woods’s mind. He listened for several minutes to the mindless valve inside the pipe flapping up and down.

  “You awake?” Big asked.

  “Yeah,” Woods answered.

  They lay in the dark, unable to see each other.

  “What you thinking about?”

  “The strike.”

  “What about it?”

  “Everything. Cat launch, going over the beach, the rendezvous, going north at low level, the air battle, the fight, the LGBs on the target, heading south, reloading, getting back to the boat on fumes. But most of all, pulling it off. By God, pulling it off,” Woods said. “We actually did it, Big.”

  Big didn’t say anything at first. He had his arms behind his head under his pillow. Finally he spoke. “So far.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A lot of people know about it, or know something about it. Somebody’s going to slip.”

  “Nah. They wanted us to hit back as much as we did.”

  “All it takes is one.”

  “Don’t sweat it.”

  Big wasn’t to be comforted. “How does it feel to have killed somebody?”

  “How do you feel?”

  “Sort of cold. I expected to be upset, or feel sorry for the guy or something. It hasn’t gotten to me at all.”

  “The only one that keeps coming back is the Fishbed I gunned. The bullets went right through the canopy. He never knew what hit him. No ejection. Nothing. Dead as a doornail. Just drifted down and hit the deck. That was it for him.” Woods was quiet. “That’s the one that keeps coming back.”

  Bernie breathed and flapped between their bunks and the bulkhead. Airplanes rushed down the deck above them, pulled off the carrier into the night by the catapults.

  “Knowing what you—”

  “Would I do it again?”

  “Ye
ah.”

  “In a second. And we got him, Big. Vaporized him.”

  “The Israelis got him.”

  “We were there. If I could have, I would have personally vaporized him.” Woods turned onto his side. “How about you?”

  “In a second.” Big rolled over. “Do you know how great a screenplay this would make?”

  “I’m telling you.”

  “I’ll start on it tomorrow.”

  “No, Big. You can’t tell anyone about this for twenty years.”

  “Twenty years? I’ll be ancient by then. Forty-six.”

  “Twenty years.”

  “Not fair,” he said, rolling back to lie face up on the top bunk. “Probably best anyway. We don’t know how it ends.”

  Woods settled into the chair in the back of the ready room just as he had hundreds of times before. Wink sat next to him, and the other four officers in the brief were scattered in the other chairs. At the prescribed time, the television came on for the brief, but instead of one of the Ensign Intelligence Officers, CAG stood behind the podium looking particularly stern. “Instead of the usual intelligence brief before the first event, there have been some developments of a serious nature that I want to discuss with you. Those of you in the ready rooms, call all your officers. I want to speak to as many at once as we can. The television will be going off right now. You have five minutes to round up your squadrons. My brief will begin in exactly five minutes.”

  Woods yelled to the front of the ready room, “You hear that?”

  “I heard it. I need help,” Easy said as he reached for the phone. “Can you start at the bottom of the list and call from the phone on the ops desk? I’ll start at the top with Rocket One and go down.”

  Woods jumped up, threw a concerned look at Wink, and ran to the phone on the desk on the other side of the ready room. “Bottom aye,” he yelled to Easy as he ran.

  Within five minutes they had found everyone in the squadron but one. Word spread fast. Most of the officers had been in the wardroom eating breakfast, and those who weren’t had been in their racks. They came in their flight suits to see what CAG thought was so important.

  “You ever seen anything like this, Skipper?” Sedge asked casually as all the officers settled into seats.

  “Never,” Bark replied, annoyed the CAG hadn’t talked to the Squadron Commanders first. Typical. Senior officers were always yelling about using the chain of command, except when it suited them to go around it.

  “You got any hints what this is about, Skipper?” asked Easy.

  Bark shook his head. He drank from his coffee cup as the television in the front of the ready room jumped to life.

  CAG stood in the same place with the same grim look on his face. He was sour-looking anyway, a forty-five-year-old man with skin that looked as if he had spent his whole life avoiding the sun. He was tall and gaunt, and kept his graying hair closely cropped. “Sorry to interfere with the cyclic ops, but we have some news that I wanted to convey to all of you as soon as possible,” he began.

  “As you and everyone else in the world knows, yesterday Israel attacked terrorist bases in southern Lebanon. But this was more than the usual air strike. This time they went in force. They sent antiradiation missiles to take out the air defense network, they sent Wild Weasels to take on the SAMs directly, they sent special forces to attack the communications. They had jamming birds, and the E-2C airborne, and they sent their bombers against the camps and one town. They sent fighters in force. Syria apparently responded in kind, and sent dozens of its own fighters. . . .”

  Woods sneaked a look at Big, who was licking his dry lips and avoiding Woods’s gaze.

  “. . . all leading to an enormous air battle. Israel apparently was very successful in taking out the air defenses, as well as the Syrian fighters. The preliminary reports out of Israel are that over twenty Syrian MiGs were shot down, with no Israeli losses.”

  The Jolly Rogers looked at each other amazed, murmuring. “Ooorah,” one said.

  “All this is interesting, and I’d love to see the gun camera film, but there are other implications,” the CAG went on.

  “If you recall, this ship was in port in Haifa the day before yesterday. We went en masse”—he pronounced it “in-mace,” butchering the word, “to a reception at Ramat David Air Force Base. In all likelihood we were with the very people involved in the raid. They couldn’t very well tell us about it because it had probably been in the plans for weeks. The timing of our visit was just unfortunate. The problem is that someone may try to imply that we helped plan the raid. We must do everything we can to avoid even the appearance of complicity. That is why the first two events of this morning are canceled”—the aircrew moaned as a group—“and the ship is going to steam due west to put more distance between us and the Syrians and the Israelis. We don’t want to be mistaken for someone participating in this melee,” he said, butchering the pronounciation again.

  “So, when we do fly, stay west of the carrier, ensure that we aren’t approached by any unauthorized aircraft, by either side—we don’t need another Liberty incident—and we’ll make our way to the western Mediterranean. If you have any questions, please address them up the chain of command. Anything you want to know about the raid will be forthcoming in intelligence reports or news reports, whichever comes first. That is all,” he said, removing the microphone from his shirt. The television went blank.

  Bark stood up and turned to look at the squadron. “How ’bout them apples,” he said, grinning. “Hey, Trey, just when you were whining, wishing someone would go beat the hell out of them, the Israelis were planning to do just that,” he said, shaking his head. “I’ll bet you’d give your left nut to have been on that go.”

  Woods nodded and laughed. “I don’t know about that, Skipper. That’s an awfully high price—I’d let them have Wink’s left nut though,” he said.

  Bark continued, “Did you tell the Israelis it was Vialli?”

  Woods nodded.

  “I’ll bet they were busting a gut to tell you,” Bark said.

  “Probably,” Woods replied.

  “Well,” Bark said, “nothing really to be done. Can’t wait to hear the after action reports. Stay loose, and don’t fly feet dry over Lebanon. Course it’ll be hundreds of miles away by the time we fly again.” He stopped and looked around. “Any questions?”

  Easy raised his hand. “What liberty incident was CAG referring to? Some sailor do something in Tel Aviv?”

  Bark shook his head. “Not liberty incident, the USS Liberty incident,” he said, emphasizing the name of the ship. “How many of you have heard of the Liberty?” Three of them raised their hands tentatively, hoping he wouldn’t call on them for an explanation. Bark shook his head disgustedly. “You guys are pathetic. The Liberty was a U.S. comm ship operating off Suez in the eastern Med in 1967 when the ’67 war kicked off. The Israelis attacked it and killed a bunch of Americans. Over thirty. Even though it was clearly in international waters and clearly flying an American flag.”

  The officers looked at one another. “Mistake?” one finally asked tentatively.

  Bark shrugged. “Broad daylight? U.S. Navy gray ship, with U.S. flag? ID number and name in twelve-foot-high letters? International waters? Attacked by airplanes and torpedo boats all of whom were close enough to hit it with machine guns, and neither Egypt nor Syria has a ship anything like it?” He paused. “You tell me. A lot of people think they did it because they were afraid the U.S. was sending intel to Egypt.”

  “That’s incredible,” Big said, feeling somehow betrayed, looking at Woods, who was fighting the chill that had settled over most of the officers in the room.

  “There are books on it. Read for yourself. Israel said it was a mistake and they were really sorry.”

  “What do you think, Skipper?” Big said, anger inside him.

  Bark stared at him. “Would you make a mistake like that? Dropping iron bombs on the wrong ship? If you weren’t sure, would you drop? And
they had boats out there machine gunning it. Visual range.”

  Big shook his head.

  “Me neither. I think the official U.S. policy is to accept the Israeli explanation. Well,” Bark continued, “go about your business. Lieutenant fitness report inputs are due to the department heads by Friday, and in final form to the Ops O, our pinch hitting XO, by the next Friday.” He hesitated as they all thought of the XO and Brillo. Woods tried to keep the image of Brillo’s scalp on the airplane tail from leaping into his mind but was completely unsuccessful. “First class evals are due to you in draft from your division chiefs by the end of the month. I still need Sailor of the Quarter nominations, and we have a surprise health and safety inspection scheduled for tomorrow morning. Any other questions?”

  There weren’t any.

  Kinkaid put the photographs up on the screen. There were three of them, the three views from the accessible sides of the building. There were white arrows on the photographs next to two individuals who were barely noticeable otherwise. It was a grainy, fuzzy photograph, obviously taken through a thermal site. “We just got these in,” he said. He turned the lights down to make the room even dimmer than it already was. All they could see clearly were the computer screens, lights from the equipment, and the photographs on the screen in front of them.

  Kinkaid continued, his voice tired from years of tracking people who were hard to find and harder to deal with. “These are from the embassy in Rabat, Morocco. Maybe a couple of thieves. Or, they may be something else. They were standing outside the embassy at two in the morning. They were very hard to see, because they’re very good at what they’re doing—”

  “How do we know they’re not just thieves?”

  “They may be. That’s what I just said, if you would listen,” he replied annoyed. “But in this case, our officers on the ground say this is a little out of the ordinary. It’s their job to spot the anomalies, and they say this is out of the ordinary. Plus, if you thought about it, thieves don’t usually case an embassy. Not a good target for theft, what with Marines and all.