Phantom

by Ted Bell

“So it’s a little bit like the Playboy Club is what you’re saying.”

  “See? Funny. Nothing fazes you. It’s why I like you so much.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But here is the problem. I’m telling you only out of friendship. I don’t give a shit about this Hawke, whoever he is. But there are people here, at the very top of this organization, who don’t like him. They don’t appreciate him coming into a sovereign nation and assassinating our beloved Tsar. They don’t like him fucking the Tsar’s daughter. And they especially don’t like him kidnapping a Russian child and smuggling him out of the country. Yes? You with me?”

  “I’m still listening.”

  “What else don’t they like about this guy? Oh, they don’t like him floating around in the Med on Putin’s yacht. Cooking up more trouble. Maybe for us, I don’t know. They don’t like him waltzing into Lubyanka for a little chat with one of our naval officers. You see where this is going.”

  “They don’t like him?”

  “Understatement. They despise him.”

  “He has many enemies. One more will not faze him.”

  “Not like us. Our enemies have short life spans.”

  “Vasily. You tried to kill his son, for God’s sake.”

  “And he killed two of us. Another item on his résumé.”

  “You are telling me this as a warning.”

  “Yes. Because I am loyal to my friends. As I say, I don’t give a flying fuck about this Hawke one way or the other. It’s not an area of the organization that concerns me personally. I am a simple businessman. But he’s your friend. So I thought I would tell you this message.”

  “Vaz, I appreciate your telling me all this.”

  “You’re most welcome.”

  “Is there some kind of time frame? Some kind of deadline?”

  “He who asks no questions is told no lies.”

  “Well, in that case, let me tell you something, Vasily. I have spoken to him. Your colleagues have now made two separate attempts on the life of his son. He suggests that if you want to kill a Hawke, try killing him. In fact, he would welcome it. He likes the odd challenge now and then. But if you make one more move against his child, your organization will pay a price you can’t even imagine. Do not underestimate this man. He has killed more people than most SAS regiments. You see where this is going?”

  “Yes. Your friend Hawke is either stupid, or he is suicidal.”

  “He is neither. I heard him once described as a man of ‘radiant violence.’ It is not an overstatement. If your organization chooses to ignore this warning, this beautiful palace will be a smoking ruin, littered with the bodies of your membership.”

  Vasily didn’t speak for a few long moments, just sat there staring at the Englishman. Concasseur was about to take his leave when the Russian finally spoke.

  “So. Ian, my old friend, these women you are engaged to, they are all named Svetlana?”

  “Odd, isn’t it? Shall we have another round? I’d like to enjoy the splendor of this magnificent club while it still exists.”

  Thirty

  Israel, Negev Desert

  Elon Tennenbaum was nervous. Which was unusual for one of the toughest of the new crop of Mossad officers recently accepted into Israel’s legendary intelligence service. Mossad’s people were a tough crowd; nerves of steel were high on the list of qualifications. Tennenbaum could stare down a speeding bullet and not blink. He was the kind of katsa, or field agent, who would deliberately take a knife to a gunfight, a lone feral cat who would gladly wade into a pack of snarling dogs.

  However. One week earlier, at Mossad’s headquarters on Tel Aviv’s King Saul Boulevard, a surprised Tennenbaum had found himself being escorted up to the director general’s ninth-floor office. Now, perhaps, he might see some real action. Track down a Hamas assassin in the streets of Jerusalem. Blood on his hands, that’s what he wanted.

  But the good-looking young Mossad officer had been sorely disappointed. He was surprised to learn that he would assume responsibility for security involving a high-profile military event that needed to go off without a hitch.

  He was displeased with the assignment, even though it came from on high. He was a fighter, not a security guard. But he kept this thought to himself as he replied, “Yes, sir!” to the director general’s order.

  He was informed only that some breakthrough new weapon had been developed. It would be unveiled and demonstrated at Israel’s top-secret research facility in the Negev Desert. And, the director had told him, no one, save those directly involved with the top-secret project, had the slightest idea what the hell it was. And that would include Tennenbaum himself. It was strictly “need to know,” and the man responsible for the weapon’s security apparently didn’t need to know.

  Located about thirteen kilometers to the southeast of the city of Dimona, the Negev research center was widely assumed to be dedicated to the manufacturing of nuclear weapons. Israel had long acknowledged the existence of the highly classified site, but refused to confirm or deny its suspected purpose, citing a policy known as “nuclear ambiguity.”

  Tennenbaum had been out in the desert all week. The large hangar where the weapon was undergoing final preparations for the demonstration was guarded by men with automatic weapons and dogs round the clock. All he knew about the mysterious thing was that it had been designed and assembled in the underground scientific research facility located directly beneath the main complex.

  Elon, curious as anyone else as to what waited inside that heavily guarded structure, speculated. Some kind of new warhead, he assumed, ultra-long-range artillery, or an entirely new weapons delivery system. But, due to his intensive Mossad training, he knew the limits of “informed conjecture.” It was always fruitless to guess what was really going on inside a house of mirrors filled with smoke.

  It was his first truly serious assignment. Up until now, all he’d done was courier work, carrying dispatches from headquarters to various embassies: Lisbon, Paris, Madrid. He had climbed the ladder of the service, but only so high. Someone had told him the steps up the Mossad ladder could be dangerously slippery. This was understatement honed to a fine point. But he had been equal to every test so far, and he had climbed rapidly to his present position, even, he reflected with some pride, attracting the attention of the director.

  But today was no “test” of his abilities.

  He had to make damn sure the debut and demonstration of Israel’s newest high-tech weapon was executed flawlessly. At ten A.M. the white transport buses began arriving at the gates. The project had been shrouded in such secrecy that even some of the high-ranking members of the Israeli Defense Forces had no inkling of what they were about to witness.

  Gossip had it that it was some kind of antiaircraft or antisatellite “death ray.” He was not tempted to scoff at such notions. Science fiction, Elon had noticed lately, was often not fictional at all.

  Over the course of a week, Tennenbaum had seen to it that the already formidable perimeter around the Negev complex had been beefed up. It was now, in his view, well-nigh impenetrable.

  The entire area surrounding the complex was fenced off and heavily guarded. It was defended from aerial attack by a battery of Hawk antiaircraft missiles. Arrow antimissile batteries also surrounded the entire complex. He had ordered the airspace above closed to all aircraft for the duration of the demonstration. He had ensured that all communications regarding the place and time of the event had been encrypted, and invitations were limited to only two hundred people with the highest-level security clearance.

  So why did he feel so damn “insecure”?

  At dawn that morning, he’d walked the entire perimeter. Talked with the guards on patrol, the men manning the antimissile and antiaircraft batteries, the K-9 guys who handled the Dobermans, the snipers, communications operators, radar operators, every living soul he could
find who might be a weak link. He hadn’t found one, but he couldn’t shake the bad feeling he had. It was nothing but a foolish premonition, but still it nagged at him.

  The sun was brutal. Must be the reason for his drenching perspiration Elon thought, looking around at the gathering crowd. The thick rivulets of sweat running down his face couldn’t be nerves, right?

  Two large tents had been erected on the tarmac outside the hangar doors for the two-hundred-plus VIP guests. The tents stood on either side of a ten-thousand-foot runway extending from the wide doorway of the hangar into the desert beyond. On a distant hilltop some miles beyond the end of the runway, a large concrete structure had recently been constructed. It was about the size of a four-story apartment building and looked like an aboveground bunker. Powerful binoculars had been provided by personnel with the information that this bunker was the “target.”

  Elon was on high alert now, casting his eyes in all directions, looking for anything even slightly out of place. Guests had arrived an hour earlier and had been served breakfast in the lobby of the Administration Building. They were now being seated on folding chairs in the tented shade.

  Between the two tents was a dais, decorated with blue-and-white bunting. Armed IDF security men surrounded it.

  At the appointed hour, eight men, including the air force chief of staff, climbed the staircase and took their places at the long rectangular table. The dais, fortunately, had been constructed in the shade of the large hangar. It was blisteringly hot in the morning sun, but the man who rose and stood behind the podium didn’t know the meaning of the word sweat. He was one of the most highly decorated men in the Israeli military. He made other people sweat.

  He tapped the microphone twice and then spoke, the timbre of his voice a deep baritone that conveyed the wartime experience and authority that had made him a true hero in his country.

  “Good morning and welcome. Many of you here, our distinguished and honored guests, know me. For those who don’t, I’m General Ari Ben-Menashe, chief of staff of the Israeli Air Force. I am sorry it’s a little warm out here, so I’ll keep this short. I know why you’re here and it’s not to hear speeches. With me on the dais this morning are the lead aeronautical engineers and scientists responsible for what you are about to witness. I’m honored to be in their company. For what they have created is a weapon that promises to tip control of the skies in Israel’s favor for years to come. Aerial war fighting will never be the same, and these gentlemen are the reason. Let’s give them the appreciation they so deeply deserve.”

  There was authentic applause, and the general continued.

  “This project was initiated some two years ago at my direction and with the prime minister’s approval. It is called the ‘Raptor Project.’ And the results are inside the hangar behind me, waiting patiently to be unveiled. Open the hangar doors, please.”

  The heavy aluminum doors parted and slid slowly open along their tracks. The crowd on both sides leaned forward and tried to peer inside, hoping for a first glimpse. But the lights were deliberately left off, and all they could see was a strangely shaped silhouette, big and black and threatening.

  The general let the suspense build a bit (his job, after all, entailed not a little showmanship) and then leaned into the microphone and said, “Ladies and gentleman, the next generation of airborne war-fighting machines . . . the Raptor X!”

  As the brilliant arc lights inside the hangar roof snapped on, illuminating the new weapon that stood like some futuristic insect, black and menacing, people literally gasped, the aircraft’s looks were so startling. Especially the downturned nose, which resembled nothing so much as a hawk’s beak. But the sound of its two powerful engines at the tail exploding to life and the sight of the massive thing slowly moving forward into the sunlight was awe-inspiring.

  “Stop! Stop!” the general barked at the machine with a smile.

  The Raptor X braked to a halt directly between the two tents, and the engines quickly decreased the painful decibel level as they went to idle.

  “You see, it, unlike many, listens to the voice of authority.”

  The crowd laughed loudly. And out came the cell phones, everyone snapping photographs of the airplane with them.

  The ramrod-straight air force officer standing next to Elon grabbed his elbow roughly and whispered fiercely in his ear.

  “You allowed these people to come in here with fucking cell phones?”

  “No! Of course not. They were to be told at the security checkpoint to leave all cell phones with the officer in charge.”

  “Well, goddamit, they didn’t do that, did they? You get in that vehicle right there, son, and get your ass over to security checkpoint. You tell those sons of bitches that Major Lev Rabin wants everybody leaving this facility to be relieved of their phones until every damn picture of this airplane is deleted. You got that? Go!”

  Elon started to turn for the Toyota truck parked outside the hangar, then turned back to the major.

  “Major, what about the people who are e-mailing pictures from their phones now? Shouldn’t we tell the general to make an announcement saying—”

  “Saying we screwed up? I don’t think so, son. Now get your ass over to that checkpoint!”

  Elon got into the Toyota and hauled ass out of there.

  “The future of military aviation . . . is now!” the general continued, and his audience was on its feet applauding this bizarre yet exquisitely designed machine, its futuristic silver fuselage now gleaming brilliantly in the desert sun. Indeed, it did look like something out of the distant future. It looked, as someone said, like “something out of this world!”

  It was a curvy bat-shaped flying wing with a fifty-foot wingspan. There was no tail at the rear to disrupt its flowing lines. It was easily the size of a modern stealth fighter jet but lacked another common feature of conventional craft.

  It had no cockpit.

  Where the pilot would normally sit was a scowling black slit of a mouth, obviously the primary air intake.

  The smiling general, proud of his baby, waited for the applause to die down.

  He said, “In case you hadn’t noticed, this is a historic moment in aviation. Historians will rank it along with Lucky Lindbergh’s solo crossing of the Atlantic and Neil Armstrong’s giant leap for mankind. Raptor X represents a dramatic breakthrough in aerial combat. It is the world’s first full, fighter-sized robotic stealth jet. No pilot, no ground control. A combat ceiling of one hundred thousand feet. Speed, Mach 4. You upload a mission to the Raptor’s onboard computer systems and the aircraft runs the entire mission on its own. From takeoff, through the mission itself, and then landing, all without any human intervention at all.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, the Raptor X will now execute a bombing run in the desert. Free of any human interaction, it will operate completely autonomously. It has been preloaded with a simple mission: take off, destroy the concrete bunker on that distant hilltop with one of its four bunker-buster bombs, and circle around for a landing. It will then taxi back to this location where it will officially be made operational and welcomed into service in the Israeli Air Force. Binoculars have been distributed for those who would like to use them during the flight.”

  The Raptor X’s monstrous twin turbofan jets spooled up once more, and the excruciating roar made many of those present cover their ears. A moment later it lurched forward and began its roll, accelerating so rapidly that it seemed to literally disappear down the runway. Then it was visible lifting off and climbing almost vertically into the clear blue sky, the sun glinting off its wings. It executed a few barrel rolls before leveling off. Then it was streaking straight toward the target.

  Those with binoculars could actually see the bomb released from beneath the fuselage and scoring a direct hit on the hilltop bunker. The resulting explosion shook the desert floor and a giant red-orange fireball climbed into the sky foll
owed by a plume of black smoke and massive chunks of debris. As the smoke cleared, driven by desert winds, it was apparent that the entire top half of the hill was now gone along with the bunker that had stood there seconds earlier.

  The cheering crowd broke into applause, all straining to keep their eyes on the maneuvers of the silver streak in the distance.

  The robotic stealth fighter suddenly went into a vertical climb. Standing on its tail, it accelerated like a shuttle launch shortly after leaving the pad at Cape Kennedy.

  A renewed burst of cheers and applause erupted from the crowd at this amazing feat of sheer power.

  A frown crossed the general’s face. He covered the microphone with his hand and leaned down to whisper to the scientist seated beside him. “Is it supposed to do that? Was it reprogrammed? Without my express authority?”

  The shaken man, a worried expression on his face, shook his head no. The other men on the dais were turning to each other, whispering, trying to hide the shock on their faces.

  “Good God,” the general said, picking up his binoculars and searching for his silver bird. It had already climbed so high it was lost to sight. Had they somehow lost the damn thing? Had it just gone off on its own, streaking upward through space until it ran out of fuel and tumbled to earth like a dead sparrow?

  But just as suddenly it was back—he saw it now—streaking down out of the heavens in a steep, nearly vertical dive, at supersonic speed, headed directly toward Negev. At two thousand feet, mercifully, it leveled off, skimming the tops of the surrounding hills. Miraculously, it seemed to have resumed its programmed flight path, and the general dared to breathe a sigh of relief. Raptor had banked hard right and lined up on the runway, about five miles out.

  It was on its final approach.

  But then, the general held his breath, his eyes widening, simply unable or unwilling to process what he was seeing. Because—

  —because Raptor X did not seem to be slowing for the touchdown at the far end of the runway . . .