Shadows of War

by Robert Gandt

  “Welcome back to the real Navy, Raz,” said Boyce. “Pay up and drink like a man.”

  Getting together for a farewell drink had been Allen’s idea. Maxwell and Boyce had just arrived from the Reagan.

  Rasmussen was having fun for the first time in—he made himself stop counting the years. His eyes were watering from laughing. He had to think for a moment to recall the Arabic expression, then it came to him. Hayat jayeeda. Yeah, that was it. Life is good.

  And getting better, he hoped.

  The dice went around the table and this time stopped at the lone commander. Maxwell groaned and waved to the bartender for one more round.

  “They’ll have to load me on the airplane with a forklift,” said Raz. That was another thing he’d lost during his years in prison—a tolerance for alcohol. The booze was humming in his brain like a swarm of bees.

  “We’ve got twenty minutes before they come to get us,” said Gracie Allen, who was escorting Rasmussen back to the states. “There’s no rule says we gotta be sober Besides, you know the Air Force. There won’t be any liquor on that jet.”

  It still didn’t make sense to Rasmussen that they would send a C-20 Gulfstream just for him. On board was a staff doctor and two nurses, who would stay with him on the flight back to Ramstein in Germany. He was traveling under a fictitious name—Captain Richard Miller—to throw off the newshounds and curious GIs. After a few days in Germany, he and Gracie would board another special airlift mission, a C-17, to the United States. To his family. A new life.

  The prospect filled him with a fresh wave of uncertainty.

  Allen seemed to read his thoughts. “Have you talked to Maria yet?”

  Raz nodded. “Sort of. It was tough, trying to say things on the phone, and I told her to take it easy, I’m not going to barge back into her life like Godzilla.”

  “The kids?”

  “They’re fine. Very excited. Seems strange to hear Joey’s voice all hoarse and baritone, nearly grown up. Lisa sounds like a gushy, happy teenager. My kids are still my kids.” An unwanted thought flashed in his mind: But my wife is not my wife.

  An uncomfortable silence fell over the group while they all tended to their drinks.

  He and Maxwell exchanged looks. Between them would always be the shared secret of what happened in a darkened courtyard in Iran. Rasmussen gave him a knowing nod.

  Something else flitted into his mind. Something that had been bothering him all these years.

  “What about my MiG?”

  He felt the stares of the three men. Allen broke the silence. “Uh, what MiG?”

  “The one I shot down before I got hit. Did I get credit for it?”

  More stares. “No,” said Allen, “you didn’t get credit for a MiG.”

  Raz nodded. “It was DeLancey, wasn’t it? I’ll bet DeLancey claimed the MiG.”

  “Yes, he claimed the MiG.”

  Raz almost laughed out loud. Suspicions confirmed. After all these years of guessing. “When I heard DeLancey call a Fox One—after I’d fired my Sparrow at the MiG—I knew he’d claim it himself. You guys know DeLancey. That was something he’d do.”

  He could tell by the way they exchanged knowing looks that there was more that he didn’t know. Shit, there was no end to what he didn’t know.

  “Okay, what else? DeLancey got credit for the MiG, and let me guess the rest. He got a medal for it, right?”

  “A silver star,” said Maxwell. “First kill of the war.”

  Raz shrugged and took a pull from the fresh beer. “I’m okay with that. I was supposed to be dead. Somebody should have gotten the credit. So where’s my buddy, that asshole DeLancey? A CAG by now, no doubt.”

  “No,” said Boyce. Raz saw him looking at Maxwell. “DeLancey’s dead.”

  “Oh. What happened?”

  Boyce glanced at Allen, then back at Maxwell. Maxwell shrugged.

  “Killed in action over Iraq,” said Boyce. “Two years ago.”

  “Too bad.”

  “Yeah,” said Boyce. “Too bad.”

  He could tell by Boyce’s tone that it wasn’t too bad. And by the way he was looking at Maxwell, he guessed there was more to the DeLancey story.

  Nothing surprised him anymore. He killed a MiG, but he was supposed to be dead. Now he was alive, and the man who took credit for the MiG was dead. The weirdness never stopped.

  A petite female officer in dress whites came into the bar. She looked around, then spotted Raz. “Captain Allen and Captain Miller, I’m Lieutenant Berger from Admiral Dinelli’s staff. I’m here to take you to the airport when you’re ready, gentlemen.”

  “I’m ready,” said Raz, and he tossed down the beer. The hum in his brain had swollen to a steady buzz. Damn, he’d have to learn to drink all over again.

  With Lieutenant Berger leading the way, they walked outside. An unmarked white Mercedes was waiting at the door. Two Marines in Service Charlie uniform, one the driver, the other an escort wearing a sidearm, saluted the officers as they emerged from the door.

  The alcohol and the comradeship and his own emotions were catching up with him. One at a time, he gave his fellow officers a hug. For a long moment he held Maxwell in a tight embrace.

  “I’ll never forget,” he said, his voice catching. “You’re the man. You got me out.”

  “You’d do the same for me,” said Maxwell. He squeezed his shoulder. “Take care of yourself, Raz.”

  Rasmussen climbed into the back of the Mercedes. He waved from the window as the car sped away toward his new life.

  < >

  Claire busied herself writing notes while she waited. Through the window she could see the long rays of sunset bathing Bahrain in a soft glow.

  It was still early. The tables at Cico’s were only half-filled, mostly with Manama locals. A small clutch of noisy westerners—American or European embassy staffers, she guessed—were gathered at the bar. One of them recognized her, and she could hear them talking about her.

  Sam Maxwell had surprised her with his call. The Reagan was still at sea, not due to drop anchor in Bahrain for another day and a half. He had flown in on a COD for some kind of meeting. He glossed over the subject, but she could guess. The Rasmussen release was the number hot button item on the wire services, and she guessed that Sam Maxwell had something to do with it.

  It was frustrating. Even though she had played a backstage role in forcing the government to acknowledge Rasmussen’s existence, she had to keep her silence about what she really knew. She attended the same press briefings with the other reporters, asked the same dumb questions, waited in line to—

  She saw him come in the door.

  This has to be love, she told herself. If not, then what other explanation was there for the way her heart fluttered when she saw Sam Maxwell enter a room?

  How about guilt? The image of the roses and the crumpled card—and Chris Tyrwhitt—dwelled in her mind. She pushed the image away.

  He didn’t spot her right away. He stood in the foyer, gazing around, squinting in the subdued light.

  She watched from the table. Maxwell’s craggy features missed handsomeness by a couple of millimeters. Maybe more than a couple. He was wearing the same outfit he always wore when he came ashore—deck shoes, chinos, knit sport shirt. With that rangy, loose-limbed build of his, he could pass for a senior tennis pro. Or ski bum. Maybe even a fighter pilot.

  He saw her, and his face broke into a wide smile. Taking long strides, he came to the table.

  “Don’t you have anything better to do than hang out in bars?” His standard opening.

  “Where else would I pick up sailors?” Her standard comeback.

  He took her in his arms and kissed her, a serious one that lasted a full ten seconds. She didn’t mind, and she didn’t care what the embassy staffers gawking at them from the bar thought. Nothing mattered at the moment. Sam was safe, he was here, and she had him to herself.

  “Thank you for the roses, Sam. They were beautiful.” There. I go
t it out. She hoped he didn’t notice the flush in her cheeks when she said it.

  He didn’t. “I’m glad you got them. I wasn’t sure they would get delivered.”

  Another flush. They almost didn’t, she couldn’t help thinking. Again she pushed the thought away and steered him to the table.

  He sat across from her, holding both her hands, while she told him what happened since she flew off the Reagan. She’d been summarily fired by her boss in New York, then re-hired exactly eight hours later. The Rasmussen story had the press scurrying like mice after cheese.

  “What are they saying about his release?” said Maxwell. “Any details about the deal?”

  “No specifics. Only that a CIA officer named Bronson was killed in the operation. No one’s made a connection yet between the Rasmussen story and the President’s firing of the CIA Director. One of the journalists had a rumor that an important terrorist had been captured, but the Central Command public affairs briefers just stonewalled it. They say they don’t discuss details of anti-terrorist ops.”

  “Good answer. But you know the story. What are you going to do with it?”

  She smiled. “What story?”

  “Thank you.” He squeezed her hands. “I’ll make it up to you somehow.”

  “You already have. You’re here.”

  Maxwell caught the waiter’s attention and ordered a bottle of wine. She remembered the last time they were here—and the wine they didn’t finish. Maxwell had rushed back to the Reagan.

  “How is your friend Raz?” she asked.

  “Okay. Still a little befuddled. He’s on his way to Germany. They’ll keep him secluded for a while, nobody getting to him except his family.”

  “How’s his wife handling it?”

  Maxwell shrugged. “Not as well as Raz. He had years to deal with the fact that she’s remarried. Maria has been an emotional mess since she first heard that he might be alive. She’ll need some help.”

  Claire nodded. Maria thought her husband was dead, and he wasn’t. I know what she’s going through.

  The wine arrived, a Gevrey Chambertin ’96 Domaine Serafin, the same as they’d had last time. They watched the ritual as the waiter pulled the cork, proffered a taste for Maxwell’s approval, then filled their glasses.

  “To better times.” Maxwell touched his glass to hers.

  “Better than what times?”

  “Better than the last time we were here.”

  “I’ll drink to that. No interruptions tonight, Sam. We have the whole evening to—”

  Wrong. Her eyes caught movement across the room, in the foyer where more guests were entering the restaurant.

  She should have known. The script never changed. Whenever she and Maxwell wanted to be alone, someone spoiled it.

  Someone she didn’t want to see tonight, or any other night.

  A shambling, bearded figure was coming across the dining room toward them. She heard a groan come from Maxwell.

  “Well, fancy meeting you two here,” said Chris Tyrwhitt.

  < >

  Maxwell tried to hide his anger, but he couldn’t. It was oozing from him like smoke through a crack.

  Tyrwhitt didn’t seem to notice. “Heard you were in town, old sport,” he said, and pulled up a chair. “Something told me I’d find you here.”

  Maxwell could guess. The CIA had been present at the Central Command SCIF where he’d attended another debriefing, this time with the Fifth Fleet and Central Command spooks. Tyrwhitt knew he was in town.

  Tyrwhitt helped himself to the new bottle of wine. After a trial sip, he said, “You should have gone for the ‘97. A superior year for the Burgundies.”

  And you should have stayed dead, thought Maxwell. Tyrwhitt was already signaling the waiter for another bottle.

  “Is there any subject you don’t know everything about?” Claire asked.

  Maxwell was surprised by the sarcasm in her voice. She was glaring at Tyrwhitt as if he had sprouted horns.

  Tyrwhitt didn’t seem fazed. “No, not really. That’s why I’m so indispensable to my employer.”

  “That’s what they thought about your boss, Bronson,” she said.

  Tyrwhitt nodded gravely. “Ah, poor Ted.” He held his glass up and looked at Maxwell. “Here’s to Ted Bronson. A great American who perished in the service of his country.”

  Maxwell held his eye, trying to read his meaning. Did he really believe that crap? If so, Tyrwhitt was either drunk or delusional.

  “Does anyone know what really happened to Bronson?” asked Claire.

  Tyrwhitt’s eyes fixed on Maxwell. “No,” he said. “Supposedly there were no witnesses.” He turned to Claire. “They’re having the memorial service tomorrow afternoon at the embassy. Would you like to attend it with me?”

  “Sorry. I have an appointment.”

  “Too bad. Business?”

  “Personal business.”

  “The network?”

  “My lawyer.” She reached into her briefcase and withdrew a sheaf of papers. “I have to deliver these.”

  She shoved the papers in front of Tyrwhitt. “The place for your signature is marked with a yellow tag. Sign each copy, please.”

  Tyrwhitt looked perplexed. “What’s this? What papers?”

  “Our final divorce decree. It just needs your signature, then it will be processed and done.”

  “Claire, my dear, this is all premature. We haven’t had a chance to discuss this. You and I have to decide what—”

  “I’ve already decided. I love Sam Maxwell. I’m glad you weren’t killed in Baghdad, Chris, because the world is a more colorful place with you in it. But not in my life. I want this marriage over and finished.”

  Tyrwhitt shook his head. He put on his most charming smile. “Claire, Claire, I know you’re upset with me about—”

  “Sign the goddamn papers!”

  Both Maxwell and Tyrwhitt stared at her. Maxwell had never heard that hard edge in her voice.

  Tyrwhitt looked at Maxwell. “You know, old sport, I think she means it.”

  “You’d better believe I mean it.” She thrust her pen at him.

  All the bluster seemed to whoosh out of Tyrwhitt. For several seconds he sat staring at the document.

  With a look of resignation, he took the pen and scribbled his signature on each of the papers.

  After an awkward silence, Tywhitt seemed to regain his cheerfulness. He reached for the new wine bottle. “This calls for another toast.” He filled their glasses. “To Claire, the love of my life, and to her future happiness.”

  Maxwell touched his glass to Tyrwhitt’s, vaguely aware that Claire was smiling at him. He felt her hand reaching for his beneath the table. Her eyes were sparkling.

  He tried to think of something bright to say, but nothing came. Guess that’s why they call me Brick.

  Tyrwhitt tossed down his wine and rose to leave. He gave Claire a peck on the cheek, then smiled at them both. “Claire has made her choice,” he said, “and I will respect it. The two of you have my blessing.”

  On his way to the door he stopped, seeming to have another thought.

  He came back to Maxwell. “I nearly forgot,” he said in a low voice. “My compliments, old sport. Nice shooting.”

  < >

  ROBERT GANDT is a former naval officer, international airline captain, and a prolific military and aviation writer. He is the author of thirteen books, including the novels The Killing Sky and Black Star Rising and the definitive work on modern naval aviation, Bogeys and Bandits. His screen credits include the television series Pensacola: Wings of Gold. His acclaimed account of the Battle for Okinawa, The Twilight Warriors (Broadway Books, a division of Random House) was the winner of the 2011 Morison Award for Naval Literature. He and his wife, Anne, live in the Spruce Creek Fly-In, an aviation community in Daytona Beach, Florida.

  Connect with him online at: Robert Gandt Author’s web site

  Here’s an excerpt from

  THE KILLING
SKY

  next in Robert Gandt’s acclaimed naval aviation series . . ..

  Chapter 1 — Fox Away

  Negev Desert, Southern Israel

  1145, Thursday, 13 October

  Speed is life.

  It was an old fighter pilot proverb, and it kept flashing like a signboard in Lt. Pearly Gates’s brain. He forced himself to ignore it. Like most old fighter pilot proverbs, it wasn’t always true. Not in this kind of fight.

  Gates grunted against the seven-and-a-half Gs pressing his body into the hard cushion of the ejection seat. The acceleration was causing perspiration to stream from his helmet, stinging his eyes. The muscles in his neck ached as he tried to peer back over his shoulder, straining to pick out the mottled sand-and-brown camouflage scheme of the Viper.

  Nothing back there. No goddamned Viper.

  Where the hell did he go? The F-16D, called Barakeet—Thunderbolt—by the Israelis, was known to the rest of the world as the Viper. The sleek American-built fighter was as hard to see as a gnat in the haze. Gates knew that this particular Viper was flown by a cold-eyed young Israeli captain named Yuri Lebev.

  Pearly could already see the derisive look in Lebev’s face when they landed back at Hazerim air base. It was the same look the cocky little shit had worn the day before when they went two-vee-two—two U.S. Navy Super Hornets versus two Israeli F-16 Vipers. Gates and his flight lead, Lt. Cmdr. Flash Gordon, had gotten their butts kicked by Lebev and his flight leader.

  That was day one—and the low point for the Americans—of the exercise between the VFA-36 Roadrunners from the USS Reagan and the 109 squadron of the Israeli Air Force. Gates was still simmering from the encounter. Sure, the Israeli fighter pilots were good, but he hadn’t expected them to be that good.

  It was natural, at least the first day, that the Israelis would have an advantage, flying over their home turf, using their own controllers. What was surprising was that they knew exactly how to fight the F/A-18 Super Hornet.

  Technically, of course, the fight should have been over before it started. Both the Super Hornet and the Viper carried high-aspect, off-bore sight air-to-air missiles—the Americans armed with AIM-9 Sidewinders and AIM-120 AMRAAMs, the Israelis also carrying AMRAAMs as well as their own heat seeking Rafael Python missiles. In a real fight, either could have killed the other long before the turning fight began.