Flash Point

by James W. Huston

  “That’s a dead issue,” Big said. “They’re still trying to make us look bad. Pretty desperate. I wonder what they did to it to make it look American. Probably put ‘This missile is American, fired by an American fighter at a Syrian without authorization’ on it.”

  Dennison walked over to them. “Could be interesting if the missile is truly different.”

  “Interesting in that it might help us see how clever and deceitful they are. We weren’t there, Commander. And if we weren’t there, there sure wasn’t any other carrier or American airplane nearby.” Woods hoped his bravado disguised the panic that was about to engulf him.

  “If the missile has a number on it, it can be traced,” he said, smiling. “I guess we’re about to find out.”

  Pritch tried to get back to the planning. She didn’t even want to know about the missile. She wasn’t ready for her world to crash down around her, which is exactly what would happen if the missile they found had an American serial number on it. She was sure she’d be exposed at some point. She had begun to think that not being fully informed about the entire operation wouldn’t get her out of it. Yet she couldn’t tell Bark about Woods. It would ruin him, and she had grown very fond of him, fonder than she would ever acknowledge. “What exactly is the plan for the strikes?” she asked Big and Woods.

  Woods replied first. “The Eisenhower battle group is on its way. They are supposed to be here tomorrow—”

  “From Italy?”

  “Right. Naples. Where the CO of VFA-136 was shot.”

  “It’s ironic,” Big said philosophically. “They murdered an officer off each carrier. Makes the revenge knife just a little sharper.”

  Pritch studied the pilots. “What did we ever do to him?”

  “We’re the Crusaders of the Middle Ages, conquering the Middle East in a different way. They used horses and soldiers, we’re using Israel and diplomacy.” Big pushed his sleeves up. “These people construct these bizarre dead-wrong theories, and go kill people based on them. They are so far from reflecting reality that it causes you to wonder if there isn’t something else at work.”

  “Are we going to have some kind of briefing where we discuss who will be doing what?” Pritch asked.

  “There’s supposed to be a joint strike planning meeting when the Eisenhower gets within helicopter range. Big and I are on the strike planning team. I’m not sure if the meeting will be here or on the Eisenhower—”

  “Think I could go?” Pritch pleaded.

  “I doubt it. Why would you want to?”

  “Because I need to know what’s going on.”

  “We’ll see.”

  28

  Sami strode into Kinkaid’s office and looked at his boss anxiously. Kinkaid glanced up from a pile of papers he was leafing through. “Right in the middle of this crisis, I have to do paperwork. What you got?”

  “I’ve been searching every library I can find. Every historical reference I know, anything else that would help. I found some histories of the Isma’ili sect, the one these Assassins came from. I think I found something.”

  Sami walked over to the table and spread out an Operational Navigational Chart of the Middle East. Then he laid several reference pages he had copied on the corner of the table. “Check this out,” he said, handing a copy of a photograph to Kinkaid, who took the picture and studied it. “What’s this?”

  “Alamut. The very place we talked about. The fortress of the Old Man of the Mountains, where these guys have operated for centuries, off and on. The same place referred to by Marco Polo, of all people. This is the actual place.”

  “Where’d you get this?”

  “It was in a book I found. Looks to me like the fortress has been improved since it was last abandoned. I think we have to consider the possibility that he went back to the place where his namesake originated.”

  “When was this photo taken?” Kinkaid asked, his curiosity aroused.

  Sami brought the photo close to his face to study the unusual numbers at the bottom. “It doesn’t say. But I think it was taken in the 1930s.”

  “There’s no photograph of this fortress after 1930?”

  “I sure haven’t found one.”

  “Maybe it’s time to get some new imagery,” Kinkaid said. “Where is this place?”

  Sami leaned over the chart and studied the northwestern part of Iran. He checked the piece of paper on which he had written the latitude and longitude. “Right . . . here,” he said, putting his finger on the brownish area on the chart, some of the highest mountains in Iran.

  “Shit, Sami. Talk about inaccessible. We could never get anyone in there. And worse than that, it’s in Iran.” Kinkaid pondered the problem. “We’ve declared war against this guy, but we haven’t declared war against Iran. Ever since that declaration of war went out, they’ve been yelling about how they are going to go ballistic if we set one foot on their land or do anything contrary to their sovereignty. Typical Iranian bluster, but still . . .”

  “We can at least get some imagery. If he’s there, maybe we’ll be able to figure it out. If he isn’t there, we’ll know to look elsewhere.”

  “Like where? Could he be somewhere else?”

  “Yes. Those were even harder to locate than Alamut. According to the stuff I found, this guy, or the ones who came before him, went everywhere. Egypt, India, Pakistan, Syria, Lebanon, even Jerusalem. Everywhere. But it’s still a small group that is generally thought of as political, even in Islamic circles. There are several other mountain fortresses that may be tied to this guy. Left over from the Crusades. Some were built to stave off attacks that were sure to come from their Muslim neighbors. I finally came up with two others that I think are candidates. I could only dig up a picture of one of them, and we’ll need to track the others.”

  Kinkaid was pleased. Although it wasn’t hard information, it was a good start. It certainly gave them something to work toward, and at least a place to focus intelligence gathering. “Let’s find the two. You can keep looking for more in the meantime. What do we know about them?”

  Sami picked up the stack of papers on the table corner. “The first one isn’t too far from where Ricketts got it.”

  “Dar al Ahmar?”

  “Yeah.” Sami recalled the laser sight dancing on his eyes. “Sure would have made things easier if he had just kidnapped the Sheikh.”

  “And he’d still be alive. . . . I had forgotten he was even there. How could I have forgotten that?” he asked Sami, but more to himself. “That guy gave his life for his country, and nobody’ll ever know. Except us.” He paused.

  Sami thought maybe it was time for him to leave when Kinkaid spoke again. “We should have known about the Israeli air strike. We could have coordinated with them to take out this Sheikh guy before he did more damage. Not only did we not coordinate, we didn’t even know about their plan. So we took a risk, sent one of our best men to snatch this guy, and he gets obliterated by a bomb that we should have known was on its way. Just three weeks ago, I was sitting in this same room with Ricketts planning his operation. And now he’s dead. And I had forgotten about it.” Kinkaid sat down heavily. “How do you get to the point, Sami, where the immediate takes away your friends and their memories?”

  “When you still have to finish it. Once we’ve finished it we can think about it more. He sure wouldn’t want us to stop now.”

  “That’s what’s really ironic about it,” Kinkaid said. “The Assassins didn’t kill Ricketts. The Israelis did.”

  Sami waited. “Would you like to see the other two locations?”

  “Yeah.”

  “The first one is in Lebanon. It’s about eighty-five miles northeast of Dar al Ahmar. It is not as high as Alamut, but it’s difficult to see—it’s built into the side of a mountain as opposed to sitting on top of the mountain. Very hard to find, according to the accounts I have read. In any case, it is right . . . here.” He pointed to an area in eastern Lebanon southeast of the Bekáa Valley.

&n
bsp; Kinkaid studied the position. “Conveniently located under the SAM umbrella of the Bekáa Valley.”

  “Exactly. The other one is in southeastern Syria, also in the mountains. There aren’t many references to it, even in the Isma’ili documents.”

  Kinkaid knew what had to be done. “I’m going to get the best possible imagery of all three of these positions immediately. The two carrier battle groups are supposed to rendezvous today. We need to get imagery to them as soon as possible. The President wants this war under way. He’s scared to death of having declared war against one guy, not knowing where that guy is. According to the Director, it’s his one fear—we’ve declared war against one guy who then eludes us for years.

  “Maybe we should declare war only against countries. At least you always know where they are.”

  “Well, if this goes sideways, and Syria and Lebanon and”—he glanced down at the chart with Alamut marked on it—“Iran get as mad as I think they will, we may soon have a real war with real countries and we’ll know exactly where they are. And they’ll know exactly where we are too.”

  Bark waited in his flight jacket at the front of the ready room. Woods sat in his chair going through the large metal drawer that was under his seat. It stuck out between his legs. He pushed aside various notes, Navy instructions, and copies of Approach and Naval Aviation News to find a blank writing pad. He finally found a mangled white one and pulled it out. He tried to bend the corner of the paper back so it looked slightly closer to a flat, respectable writing pad.

  Bark spoke to Woods. “Trey, you ready?”

  “Yes, sir. Just getting some paper.”

  “You have the charts Pritch did with the SAM sites?”

  “Big was going to bring those.”

  “Where is Big?”

  “He stopped by the stateroom to get his laptop.”

  “We’re supposed to be at the helo in five minutes.”

  “Yes, sir. I know.” Woods looked at his watch and glanced at the SDO’s desk to see if anyone was on the telephone. He walked quickly to the desk and dialed his stateroom. Big answered. “Big, you coming?”

  “Yeah. I’ll be right there. I was just looking at something that made me have to go clean out my drawers.”

  “What’s that?” Woods asked, trying to stay casual as he watched Bark for any sign of anger or suspicion.

  “The photographs from Syria that claim to show the American missile that shot down one of their jets.”

  “Really,” Woods said. Bark was growing impatient. “Bring it along.”

  “Roger that.”

  “Are we dead?”

  “Not sure.”

  “Okay. See you in a minute.” Woods hung up the phone.

  “Dead about what?” The Squadron Duty Officer asked.

  “He’s afraid we won’t get to go on the strike. He figures Lieutenant Commander and above only. Too much glory to be had.” Woods sat down and scribbled on his notepad. He hated the feeling of things closing in on him.

  The ready room door flew open and Big strolled in with his laptop and notebook. “Sorry, Skipper.”

  “Let’s go,” Bark said. The three of them left the ready room, heading to the flight deck inside the island. They donned cranial helmets and flotation vests and went out to the waiting SH-60 that was turning on the flight deck. The helicopter crewman directed them to their seats. They strapped in and immediately began looking for a way to escape if the helicopter went into the water. Some other pilots, in addition to Wink and Sedge, were already in the helicopter. They all knew what the others were thinking, because jet pilots always thought the same thing when they got in a helicopter—they had just increased their chances of being killed.

  Jet pilots, as a rule, would rather walk than fly in a helicopter. The pilots who fly supersonic jets for a living and sit in ejection seats all day believe helicopters to be much more dangerous than their jets. One fact had settled deep into the psyche of jet aviators in the Navy: In one year in the nineties more jet pilots were killed as passengers in Navy helicopters than in jets. It was the kind of statistic that had been remembered and repeated for years because of its mythological significance. It was reinforced by the unpleasant training they all had endured—being strapped into a simulated helicopter, blindfolded, dropped into a deep swimming pool upside down, and told to escape from the sinking helicopter while holding their breath underwater.

  Finally they heard the rotor blades bite more heavily into the air and the SH-60 rose from the flight deck of the Washington, climbing away quickly from the ship and heading toward the Eisenhower, sixty miles away. In World War II when aircraft carriers operated together, they generally stayed within sight of each other. It allowed for their antiaircraft guns to support each other. In the modern Navy, carriers operated within visual range of each other only for photographs.

  This would be the first time since Desert Storm that carriers had worked together in combat. The aviators were excited. They would get to do their two favorite things: fly fast and blow things up. They could only hope that some country would get mad enough to send up its Air Force. If that happened, they would get to do what they all dreamed about—shoot down another fighter who didn’t want to be shot down. They yearned for the opportunity, usually unspoken, to prove themselves against an enemy.

  The eastern Mediterranean was cloudy but still mostly sunny. The customary haze obscured the horizon though the visibility was six or seven miles. The SH-60 made it to the landing pattern of the Eisenhower in less than thirty minutes. During the transit the F-14 aircrew had been silent. They weren’t hooked up to the helicopter Internal Communication System and, other than yelling, had no way to talk. Nothing on this flight was important enough to lose one’s voice over. For the most part they’d sat quietly, bobbing in response to the helicopter’s movements, lost in their own thoughts.

  Except Woods. He was fighting the urge to hyperventilate. He was thinking about the picture in Big’s flight suit pocket. Woods couldn’t see it, he couldn’t even bring it up or ask Big how he might have come into possession of such an interesting photograph when no one else seemed to be aware of it. What would he say if it was their missile and it could be traced? The photo might be virtually unanswerable proof. If so, not only would it show they did it, it would show they lied about it and constructed an elaborate scheme with others to hide the fact. Pritch would be at risk; so would Tiger, Big, Sedge, Wink, and the Gunner. Even the Ordnance Handling Officer. Woods knew the Gunner couldn’t gundeck the missile records by himself. They were kept on hardcopy and on the computer. The Gunner must have called in a big favor with the OHO. His neck would be in the noose too, and Woods hadn’t even met him. Going to Leavenworth had seemed so noble a risk to take to avenge Vialli, but as the actual possibility on the aura of reality, he found the idea shockingly unattractive. He forced himself to think of something more pleasant, like the helicopter losing power, banging off the flight deck, and landing upside down in the sea. That was something he could take action about, or sink his mind into for a few seconds.

  He couldn’t help thinking of his Navy career. He used to wonder whether to retire in twenty years as a Captain, or in thirty years as an Admiral. Now he thought of his Navy career in terms of hours, or maybe minutes.

  He felt the helicopter settle slowly onto the flight deck. He thought of the strike planning ahead, of the two carrier battle groups working together. Whatever came of his first adventure into Lebanon, this was invigorating. This was how it should be done. He almost smiled as he thought of his congressman’s speech asking for a declaration of war. Exactly what Woods had thought he should do. If it had been done a little earlier, maybe he wouldn’t have gone into Lebanon on the Israeli raid. Maybe the State Department guy and the Navy attaché and that Squadron Commander and the Officer of the Mess would still be alive. Maybe the Sheikh would already be dead. Never know now, Woods thought.

  Their helicopter was the last one to arrive at the conference. They went qu
ickly through the hatch into the island of the Eisenhower and down the passageway. Even though none of them had ever set foot on the Eisenhower they knew the way perfectly—it was identical to the Washington, both Nimitz-class carriers. They climbed quickly down the ladders to the wardroom on the second deck. It was set up for a presentation with an overhead projector, computer projector, charts, and a lectern with a microphone.

  Woods and Big moved toward the rear of the large wardroom and sat down with other junior officers. Wink and Sedge followed Big and Woods. Bark went forward and sat at the table reserved for the Squadron Commanding Officers.

  The excited conversations of aviators from both Air Wings filled the room with a buzz. They had been selected by their squadrons to be involved in the planning of the strikes. The best minds in the squadrons. The most experienced. Almost all were graduates of Topgun, or Strike University, where strike warfare and air combat were taught in the deserts of Nevada by Navy instructors.

  The aviators, or Airedales as they were called in the Navy by nonfliers, were ready to go. They just wanted to know what the targets were. Not that they cared. Knowing that they were going after the terrorist who had taken it upon himself to attack Americans and kill their fellow Naval officers was enough for them. Each person in the wardroom thought declaring war against an individual was one of the greatest ideas they had ever heard of. No more dark, covert operations. This was using sharpened military instruments as they were intended to be used. The Navy pilots felt as if they had been asked to a prom.

  The ship’s messmen had set up food in the wardroom. There were several stations, like salad bars. Many of the officers grabbed trays and went through the lines.

  “Hey! Trey!” an officer called as Big, Sedge, Wink, and Woods made their way to the back of the line.

  Woods looked around. It was Terrell Bond, a friend of his from flight training, who was now an F-18 pilot on the Dwight D. Eisenhower. “Tear! What’s happening?” he said, extending his hand.