Call to Duty (41 page)

“What happens if you do?”

“Then we can expect a visit from the bloody Germans…
Sometimes a bomber but most likely an E-boat would shell us.” Zack almost interrupted to tell him that that was much less likely now, but he said nothing. “We do the same to them,” Tory continued. “At least, the lighthouses will all be in a piece when this is over, ready to go again.” He stared out to sea, seeing something that wasn’t there for Zack. “I’ve tended a beacon most of me life. It’s all I know. Now I sit up at night and listen on the wireless as you blokes come home. I hear it…the SOS calls, the Mayday calls, some pilot hopelessly lost…and I can’t do a bloody thing except listen. That’s not what a Fresnel is for. It should be turned on and sweeping the sky when souls are in distress. All I want is for this damn war to end so I can light the beacon and do what I’ve always done.” The old man climbed down the ladder to the landing and led the way down the stairs. “The fishing was good today and I’ve got plenty if you’d like to keep an old ’un company for dinner.”

“I think we have to get back to the base before it gets dark,” Zack told him.

“Rain’s on the way. You’ll be soaked through before you do that. It’ll clear out before morning.”

They found Willi in the small kitchen cleaning the fish and Zack repeated Tory’s offer and his weather forecast. “Tory’s an infallible weather prophet,” she allowed. “If he says it’s going to rain, it will be a monsoon.” Tory settled the matter by telling them that they could spend the night and Willi could sleep in his bed. “You”—he pointed to a big chair by the small fireplace—“can doss there.”

“Where will you sleep?” Zack asked.

“I don’t sleep at night,” Tory told him. “Too old to change me habits. I’ll be up on the landing.”

“He listens to the radio there,” Willi said.

It was all agreed on and Tory proved that he could cook fish. Before they had finished eating, the rain was pelting down, driving against the small windows. They could hear the gusting wind pound at the door. “I don’t think there’ll be much flying tonight,” Zack observed.

“You never know,” Tory said and made his way up the tower steps.

Zack and Willi talked for a while and could hear the radio echo down the tower as Tory changed from one frequency to
another. Zack closed the door to the stairs but Willi said to leave it open so they could hear. Finally, they heard music. “You were right,” Willi said, “not much flying. But he’ll keep a listening watch and scan the emergency frequencies from time to time.” She thought for a moment. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to bed. I could use a good night’s sleep.” She found him some blankets and a pillow and disappeared into the tiny bedroom, closing the door behind her. Zack poked the coals in the hearth to life, tested the big overstuffed chair, and stretched out under a blanket.

He wasn’t sure what woke him and he listened. The rain had stopped and he could see moonlight streaming through the windows. A faint melody echoed down from the tower. Then he saw her standing next to the kitchen window, looking into the night. She was wearing an old duffel coat and was barefoot. “Are you okay?” he asked. He could see her head nod.

“They’ll fly now, won’t they?” Her voice was little more than a whisper.

He joined her at the window. “Yeah.” There was a finality in his voice. It was a bomber’s moon. “They’re out there right now.” Tears filled her eyes and Zack knew that a deep hurt was hovering just below the surface, ready to make its presence known.

An old English music hall melody drifted down from above. “‘After the Ball Is Over,’” she said, naming the song. A bitter irony in her voice. “Just like this war.”

“This will be over,” he told her. “These are the wasted years.”

Willi stared at him, her mouth slightly open. “The wasted years,” she repeated, her voice barely audible. He did understand. “We’ve been at this for over four years now. Four wasted years. Our youth gone. How many more years? We won’t be young anymore. These years should have been filled with parties, pretty dresses, picnics, boys lined up in a row and dances…. I was so looking forward to the dances when I was seventeen. Because of this war, this damnable, bloody war, we’ve lost all that…the years…the dances…our youth. We won’t get them back. And there’s no end in sight.”

“It will end,” he said and folded her into his arms. She held on to him and wept. Now the gentle and haunting voice
of Vera Lynn singing “I’ll Be Seeing You” echoed down from the tower. “Miss Crafton,” he said, “may I have the honor of this dance?” She held on to him and he could feel her shake. Then her mouth was on his, her lips full and trembling. Her hands were on his neck, holding his head, not letting him go as her tongue searched for his.

“Oh, damn you,” she moaned and pulled away. He wanted to protest that he hadn’t done anything. “You don’t know what you are,” she said. “Damn you.” Then she was back in his arms.

“Who would have believed?” Zack said as he felt Willi’s arms reach over him and her warm body cuddle against his back. Then her tongue brushed his neck and sent tingles down to the lower regions of his body. But he wanted to talk. “I can hardly credit this,” he said and rolled over so he could see her face. The blankets pulled away and cold air washed over his bare skin. He tugged the blankets back into place. She wrapped a leg around his and pulled herself to him. Her arms snaked around his neck and she buried her face against his neck.

“Talk later,” she commanded and rubbed her breasts against his chest. Her hand worked between their stomachs and inched lower. She stroked him until he was hard. “Yes, we’ll talk later,” she whispered.

“You were always so angry,” Zack said. He was propped up on an elbow, still in bed. “And so hostile. It was almost as if you were mad at me for breathing English air.”

Willi stroked his cheek. “It wasn’t you—personally. Well, maybe it was. You are so much like your countrymen: an unbounded free spirit. I sometimes wonder how you Americans ever agree on anything. You assault life, determined to win. You never accept anything the way it is. If you don’t like something, then you change it, as if the changing will make it better. And you”—she was now talking about him personally—“never seem to bloody your head. That is what happens to normal people, you know.” She gave his chest a little thump with her fist. “You Yanks play at this war. Look at what you bring with you. I’m surprised your musette bag isn’t stuffed with chocolates, cigarettes, and nylons.”

“I am in the RAF,” Zack reminded her.

“Yes, you are,” she conceded.

Zack said, “I suppose this war extracts a different price from each of us.”

She rolled out of bed and searched for her clothes. He watched her as she dressed, captivated by her graceful movement. He hadn’t noticed that before. “I suppose it’s time to get back to the real world and continue paying the price,” she said. Then she sat on the edge of the bed, not touching him. “I’m not sure when it happened, but I love you, Zack Pontowski.” She stood and walked out of the room, shutting the door behind her. He lay there, still propped on one elbow, trying to understand what he was feeling.

Then it came to him. He was in love with two women.

The Executive Office Building, Washington, D.C.

The situation went critical when Mazie’s contact with Bill Carroll at the Air Force’s Special Activities Center hand-delivered the latest report to her. “Tell General Carroll,” she told the handsome black woman, “that I appreciate him keeping me in the loop.” Mazie had been told that Carroll’s operatives were now working with the CIA, and reporting through Willowbranch. But it took the CIA at least twenty-four hours to process any message and pass it on.

She switched on her computer and read the latest intelligence summary issued by the DEA. It confirmed that the meeting with Chiang and the other two cartels was still in progress. Mazie chewed her lower lip and waddled down to the basement for a private chat with the DEA’s liaison officer. “How reliable is your source?” she asked the man.

“Pretty good,” he replied. “The PUSIO has an informant inside the Yakuza.” Mazie’s lips compressed into a thin line as he filled in the details. She was one of the few Americans who knew about the shadowy Japanese intelligence organization that carried the bulky name Public Security Investigation Office, or PUSIO for short, and hid in the Japanese Ministry of Justice. It was the Japanese equivalent of the CIA and produced excellent intelligence. The PUSIO had recently penetrated the Yakuza, the largest criminal organization in Japan, and had discovered that the Yakuza was considering joining Chiang’s consortium. At that point, PUSIO started cooperating with the DEA in an effort to stem the growing drug trade in Japan. The liaison had just paid a dividend.

Mazie picked up the phone and called Cagliari’s office for an immediate appointment the moment he returned from a meeting with the President. She hurried through the tunnel to
the White House and was still puffing from the run when he walked into his office. Cagliari recognized the signs and told her to follow him into his private office. Mazie did not sit down and cut to the heart of the matter. “Chiang is going to execute at least two of the hostages, It could happen any time after tomorrow.”

Cagliari’s face turned to ice. “When did this come in?”

“Less than fifteen minutes ago.”

Cagliari asked the critical question. “Sources?” He stared at his hands and fought down an urge to scratch them as Mazie answered. “I’d feel much better about this if we had a second confirming source,” he said. Mazie only shook her head. Cagliari took a deep breath. “How do you rate the report?”

“It fits the picture,” she said. Then she added, “Sir, the PUSIO gave the DEA another item. The Yakuza are going international. They have plans to flood the market with below-cost, good-quality drugs to undercut their competition. Then once they’ve got the market cornered, to set the prices they want. But the DEA says the cartels won’t roll over and play dead for that. This could get very bloody.”

Cagliari frowned. “I’ll take it upstairs.” He meant down the hall and into the Oval Office.

The Capitol, Washington, D.C.

General Simon Mado was whistling a tuneless melody when he reached Courtland’s offices. The secretary told him he was expected and he pushed through the door into Courtland’s office. “Things are heating up,” he told the senator. “It looks like we’re going in after your daughter.” Courtland pulled a slight grimace but said nothing. “I can’t figure out exactly what’s going down,” Mado explained, “but there are two groups in on this. One is a large unified force in training at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida and the second is a small composite group deployed to Udorn in Thailand. That one looks like a repeat of Dragon Noire.”

Courtland thought for a moment. He supposed he wanted his daughter rescued and paid lip service to the idea. But at the rock bottom of his calculations lay one singular fact—he didn’t really like his daughter and only saw problems with
her in the future, especially if he was successful in his quest for the presidency. And more than anything else, he wanted to be President of the United States. The idea planted months ago that a failed rescue attempt would rebound to his advantage had grown and was now bearing fruit. He fixed Mado with a hard look. “What chance of success do you give a rescue attempt now?”

Mado did not respond immediately. Courtland was his ticket to a fourth star and, if he read the signs right, to becoming the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. What a coup that would be. Promoted over at least seventy more senior generals to become the youngest Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. His ambition burned as hot as Courtland’s but every instinct he possessed shouted that the senator would dump him in a moment if his advice proved worthless in military matters. “I’d give the small group deployed in Thailand less than a twenty-five percent chance of pulling off a rescue. As for the large group at Eglin, even less. It has the mass and firepower to wipe Chiang off the face of the earth, but it cannot get into the compound fast enough to rescue the hostages before the guards shoot them.”

The senator could live with that. “Perhaps our best course of action is to see how this plays out,” he said. Then another thought occurred to him. He hit a button on his intercom panel and summoned an aide. In a few moments, Tina Stanley walked into the room. “Tina,” Courtland said, “I’d like you to get in contact with one of your, ah, more reliable journalist friends. Have General Mado provide some deep background on what’s going down, very deep background.” He meant the leak had to be buried deep and not traceable to him.

Udorn, Thailand

The rain sheeted down, drenching the two men, seeping inside every opening in their ponchos, soaking them to the skin. “I wonder why we even wear these damn things,” Mackay muttered. It was his first experience with the full-blown fury of an Asian monsoon and he could hardly credit the force of the rain as it dumped on the airfield at Udorn, Thailand.

Kamigami didn’t answer and hunched against the down
pour, maintaining an even pace as they headed for the building where Mallard and Trimler had set up a temporary command post. He had experienced the monsoon years before when he was a seventeen-year-old private, newly enlisted in the Army and on his first tour in South Vietnam. He didn’t recall it being as bad. Since the visibility was the same then as now, he chalked it up to old age. They stomped their way into the building and shed their ponchos.

A very wet E-Squared burst through the door followed by a half-drowned Gillespie. “My God,” E-Squared laughed, “talk about a two-cunted cow pissing on a flat rock!”

“Can you take a C-One-thirty off in this?” Mackay asked.

E-Squared looked out a window and studied the rain. “I can launch between the breaks. Don’t know about shooting an approach and landing in this shit though. It’s pretty heavy.” Gillespie said nothing and followed the three older men into the command post.

Inside, Trimler handed Mackay the yellow copy of a message stamped “Secret” at the top and bottom. It was an execute order by the authority and direction of the secretary of defense. It was the first one that Mackay had seen. “I know we need the weather on our side,” Trimler said, “but this is too much. Colonel Mallard is on the SatCom right now explaining the situation to the NMCC.”

They were joined a few moments later by a worried-looking Mallard. “It’s pretty simple,” he explained. “Recent intelligence indicates that Chiang is going to execute the hostages. They think he’s lost his marbles. They agree that the weather is bad but it will give us the cover we need to move into position.” He looked at them. “Since I’m the mission commander, the ball is in my court. If I think we can hack the weather, we go. Your thoughts, please.”

It was a council of war. Only this time the men who were the cutting edge were making the decision, not some old men safe in their comfortable chairs in a warm and snug office. Trimler’s lips compressed into a hard line and he said nothing.

“We can launch the C-One-thirties,” E-Squared said.

“Can the helicopters hack it?” Mallard asked. He was looking directly at Gillespie. It was an awesome responsibility to lay on a young captain.

Gillespie hesitated. Then: “Yes, sir. We can insert the teams.”

“Colonel Mackay, can the teams move into position in this rain once they are on the ground?” Mallard asked.

The tall black man moved to the window and stared at the driving rain. The reasoning behind the order made sense—it was the cover they needed to gain the element of surprise. But the deluge belting down from the heavy clouds was much worse than he had expected. He didn’t like what that did to their chances of success. During the buildup they had never practiced in the rain for one simple reason—it hadn’t rained. Now the rain was the critical element. He wanted to shout “How should I know!” But that option was denied him. Now the lives of his men depended on his judgement. His voice betrayed none of his doubts when he said, “I think we can do it.” A slight smile flickered across Kamigami’s lips.

Mallard looked at Trimler, his ground commander. Now he had to commit. “I agree with Colonel Mackay, we should be able to do it. If our intelligence is correct, we don’t have a choice.”

The burden of command now came squarely onto Mallard’s shoulders. The final decision was his to make. “We go” was all he said. He left to relay the decision over the SatCom to the NMCC.

Kamigami joined Mackay by the window as they waited. “It’s a good decision,” the CSM told him.

“We’ve got to tell the teams to get ready,” Mackay allowed. He fell silent, thinking. “Aren’t you worried?” he finally asked.

Kamigami’s answer was a simple “I’m worried.” The sergeant was an inarticulate man and could not tell Mackay about the deadly virus known as doubt and how it affects combat readiness. He had done all he could and now they had to enter the crucible of combat for the final test. “I’ll tell the captains to get their teams ready,” he said.

“It’s getting worse,” Gillespie said to the Beezer and E-Squared. They were standing inside a hanger less than two hundred feet from the helicopter he would fly. The driving rain had obscured the taxipath leading to the runway and his aircraft was fading in and out of the rain.

“Visibility is too damn low,” E-Squared grunted. “Way be
low minimums.” He judged the forward visibility to be less than three hundred feet and he was having second thoughts.

“What’s this?” the Beezer said, a mock-concern in his voice. “A belated worry over weather minimums? Getting too old to hack it?”

“Air off,” E-Squared shot back. He didn’t feel like taking any flak from his old friend.

“I remember when weather minimums were just an excuse for not flying when you were hung over,” the Beezer said. Then he grinned at Gillespie. “The boy must be getting old.”

“For Christ’s sake,” E-Squared groused, “knock it off.”

But the Beezer was relentless. “Do you suppose it’s because he just got engaged? He wants to make an honest woman out of the poor woman….”

“Hey,” Gillespie interrupted, “that’s great. Congratulations. Who’s the lucky—”

“Lieutenant Colonel Leanne Vokel,” the Beezer told him.

“Our Intel officer?” Gillespie couldn’t believe it. He had always thought they were good-natured rivals.

“Yep,” the Beezer replied. “He did the deed last night. I can just see it now, the oldest pregnant lieutenant colonel in the Air Force. Sure you’re up to fatherhood?”

Gillespie half-listened to the two men banter as he watched Delta Force start to load his helicopter. The rain momentarily slackened and he saw the SAS captain, Peter Woodward, climb on board the second helicopter farther down the ramp. It must be some screw-up, Gillespie thought; Woodward isn’t a player on this. Then he remembered how the SAS captain had always traveled on a backup helicopter during training. It would be an easy matter to sort out.

Before he could say anything, E-Squared said, “It’s almost block time. Got to kick the tires and light the fires.” Then he turned and whispered to Gillespie, “You didn’t see what you thought you saw” before he walked rapidly into the rain, heading for his MC-130.

The Beezer watched him go. “He is one crock of shit,” the gunship pilot grumbled good-naturedly. Gillespie pulled on his poncho to make the dash to his helicopter. The Beezer grabbed him by the arm. “Tell Kamigami what you didn’t see. He’s the only one who needs to know.”

The White House, Washington, D.C.

WAIT:
OPERATION JERICHO

flashed on the big video display screen at the far end of the Situation Room in the basement of the White House. A message was coming in. Pontowski tried to relax into his comfortable chair but his restless mind would not allow him that luxury and too many old memories kept demanding his attention. Fifty years before he had been in a similar position and he knew what he was ordering this new generation of young men to do. Jericho! The name he had given the operation kept pounding at him, not letting him rest.

He remembered the time when he had sat in the cramped cockpit of a Mosquito with Ruffy, waiting for a break in the weather to launch. A fleeting image of his friend flashed across his memory, still sharp and clear. Again he felt the same building tension, the worry that clamped his chest with a viselike grip when he had time to confront his own mortality. It was all back, even the slightly coppery taste in his mouth and the urge for action. Normally, he was a very patient man—another gift of age—but now he itched for movement to break the tension, the same as then.

But he did nothing and, like then, he waited.

Words flashed on the screen.

OPERATION JERICHO
LAUNCH AT 1430 ZULU
LANDING ZONE TIME: 1720 ZULU

With no conscious effort, Pontowski translated the first time, 1430 Zulu, which was Greenwich mean time, into local time in Thailand and Washington, D.C. It was 2130, or nine-thirty in the evening in Thailand, and 0930, nine-thirty in the morning in Washington—exactly twelve hours’ difference. “What’s the weather like?” he asked.

The Army colonel who ran the Situation Room when military operations were under way spoke into the boom mike on his headset and the screen flashed, this time displaying a weather map. The monitor on the left side of the big screen
scrolled up and a detailed readout of the weather appeared. “Ceiling less than one hundred feet, forward visibility one sixteenth of a mile,” Leo Cox, his chief of staff, read out. “My God,” he added, awe in his voice, “that’s little more than a football field.”