Final Flight (5 page)

In the back seat of the Tomcat, Lieutenant
Tarkington consulted the notes on his knee board.
“Not till twenty-five after the hour.” He slid
back the sleeve of his flight suit and glanced at
his luminous watch.

He matched it with the clock on the panel in
front of him. “About fifteen minutes from now.”

“When will we reach area Bravo?”

Tarkington checked the TACAN against the chart on
his knee board. “About two minutes.”

“We’ll make a turn west then, and you
see if you can pick up that airliner. Let me know
when you see him.”

“Yes sir.”

“In the meantime, let’s get some data link from
the Hummer. The Hummer was the slang nickname for the
E-2 Hawkeye radar reconnaissance plane
that Jake knew was somewhere about.

Toad made the call as Jake checked the
Tomcat on his right wing and noticed with satisfaction
that Jelly Dolan was right where he should be, about a
hundred feet away from Jake. Jelly was a
lieutenant (junior grade) on his first cruise
and flew with Lieutenant Commander Boomer
Bronsky, the maintenance officer for the fighter
squadron that owned these airplanes. Jake knew
that Boomer liked to complain about the youth of the pilots
he flew with-“Goddamn wet-nosed kids”-but that he
had a very high opinion of their skills. He bragged
on Jelly Dolan at every opportunity.

“Battlestar Strike,” Toad said over the
radio, “Red Ace flight entering Bravo at
assigned altitude.”

“Roger.”

Jake keyed the mike. “Left turn,
Jelly.” Two mike clicks was the
reply.

One minute passed, then two. Jake
stabilized the airspeed at 250 knots, max
conserve. He scanned the instruments and resumed his
visual search of the heavens.

“I’ve got him, CAG,” Toad said.
“Looks like a hundred and twenty miles out.
He’s headed southwest. Got the right squawk.” The
squawk was the radar identification code. “He’s
running about a mile or so above us.

Jake flipped the secondary radio to the
channel the E-2 Hawkeye used and listened to the
crew report the airliner to the Combat Decision
Center (Cdc) aboard the carrier. He knew the
radio transmissions merely backed up the data
link that transmitted the Hawkeye’s radar
picture for presentation on a scope in CDC.
The watch standers aboard ship would watch the airliner.
If the course changed to come within fifty miles of the
carrier, Jake’s flight or the flight in area
Alpha would be vectored to intercept. They would
close the airliner and check visually to ensure that it
was what they thought and that it was alone. The fighters would
stay well back out of view of the airliner’s
cockpit and passenger windows and would follow
until told to break off.

Jake yawned and flashed his exterior lights.
Then he turned north.

Jelly Dolan followed obediently. In a
few moments he turned east to permit Toad and
Boomer to use their radars to scan the skies toward
Lebanon. If any terrorists or fanatics
attempted a night aerial strike on the carrier
task group, it would more than likely come from the east.

“Nothing, CAG. The sky’s as clean as a
virgin’s conscience.” “How come you’re always talking
about women, Toad?”

“Am I?” Feigned shock.

“After three months at sea, I’d think your
hormones would have achieved a level of dormancy that
allowed your mind to dwell on other subjects.”

“I’m always horny. That’s why they call me
Toad. When are we going into port, anyway?”

“Whenever the admiral says.”

“Yes sir. But have you got any idea when he
might say it?”

“Soon, I hope.” Jake was very much aware of the
toll the constant day-and-night flight operations had
taken on the ship’s crew and the men of the air wing.
He thought about the stresses of constant work,
work, work on the men as he guided the Tomcat through the
sky.

“We’re approaching the eastern edge of the area,”
Toad reminded him.

Jake glanced toward Jelly. The wingman was not
there. “Jelly?”

He looked on the other side. The sky was
empty there, too. He rolled the aircraft and
looked down. Far below he saw a set of lights.

“Red Ace Two Oh Seven, do you read?”
Jake rolled on his back and pulled the nose
down. “Strike, Red Ace Two Oh Five,
I’m leaving altitude.”

The nose came down twenty degrees and Jake
pointed it at the lights.

“Jelly, this is CAG. Do you read me,
over?”

“He’s going down,” Toad informed him.
“Boomer, talk to me.” Jake had the throttles
full forward: 450 knots, now 500, passing
21,000 feet descending. The aircraft below was in
a gentle right turn, and Jake hastened to cut the
turn short and intercept.

“Red Ace Two Oh Five, Strike. Say
your problem.”

“My wingman is apparently in an
uncontrolled descent and I can’t raise him on
the radio. Am trying to rendezvous. Have you got an
emergency squawk?”

“Negative. Keep me advised.”

Now he throttled back and cracked the speed
brakes. He was closing rapidly. Passing
15,000 feet. Goddamn, Jelly’s nose was
way down. In the darkness Jake found it
extremely difficult to judge the closure, and
he finally realized he was too fast. He
cross-controlled with the speed brakes full out and
overshot slightly.

“Thirteen thousand feet.”

Jake slid in on Jelly’s left side as
he thumbed the boards in. Toad shone his white
flashlight on the front cockpit of the other
fighter.

The pilot’s helmeted head lolled from side
to side. In the back cockpit Boomer also
appeared to be unconscious. Both men had their
oxygen masks on.

“We’re steepening up, CAG.” Toad said.
“Twelve degrees nose down.

Fifteen-degree right turn. Passing
nine thousand.”

“Jelly, talk to me, you son of a bitch.” No
good. “Wake up! “Jake screamed.

He crossed under the other plane and locked on the
right wing. He moved forward as Toad kept the
flashlight on Jelly’s helmet. He flipped
the radio channel selector switch to the emergency
channel and turned off the scrambler.

“Wake up, Jelly, or you’re going to sleep
forever!”

“Six thousand.” Toad’s voice. “Pull
up!”

“Five thousand.”

“Eject, eject, eject! Get out Jelly!
Get out Boomer!”

“Four thousand. Fifteen degrees nose down.
Jake began to pull his nose up. As the descending
Tomcat fell away he lost sight of the slumped
figures in the cockpit. He rolled into a turn
to keep the lights of the descending plane in sight.

“Pull up, pull up, pull up, pull up,
pull …” He was still chanting over the radio when the
lights disappeared.

“Sweet Jesus,” Toad whispered. “They
went in.”

“Strike, Red Ace Two Oh Seven just went
into the drink. Mark my position and get the angel out
here buster.” The “angel” was the rescue
helicopter. “Buster” meant to hurry, bust your
ass.

“Red Ace, did the crew get out?”

“I doubt it,” Jake Grafton said, and
removed his oxygen mask to wipe his face.

“How heavy are the weapons?” El Hakim
asked. “About two hundred kilos,” Colonel
Qazi replied. El Hakim stood in the
apartment window and let the warm, dry wind play with the
folds in his robe. Already the great summer heat had
begun. Here in this retreat deep in the desert he
did not wear the military uniform that he was obliged
to wear in the capital before the Western diplomatic
corps and press. He hated the uniform, but it
gave him an air of authority that he felt
essential.

Soon, very soon, he would burn the uniform. He
closed his eyes and faced the rising sun. He could
feel it through his eyelids. The power of the sun would
soon be his. Praise Allah, he would make the
unbelievers kneel.

“So no matter how many weapons are there,
we can only take a few.”

“Correct, Excellency. Our goal shall be
to obtain six. Even half that many will make us a
formidable political force to be reckoned with.”

El Hakim left the window reluctantly and
returned to his seat on the carpet. “If you
destroy the ship, the Americans will not know for sure
how many we have.”

“True, but they will be able to estimate the number with
accuracy.

Destruction of the ship will merely ensure our
escape. The Americans will undoubtedly leap to the
proper conclusion without evidence.”

“No doubt.” The dictator snorted. “They have
demonstrated their capacity for that aerial feat
numerous times in the past.”

“So when the mission is complete, we must inform the
world promptly in order to forestall any rash action
on the part of the Americans. They are very sensitive
to public opinion, even when goaded beyond endurance.”

El Hakim tilted his head back and narrowed his
eyes. “The political and military exploitation
of your mission is my concern, Colonel, not yours.

“Of course. Qazi lowered his gaze
respectfully. “But still, Excellency, our
mission will be for naught unless the Americans are
sufficiently delayed to give us time to escape and
alter the weapons.

“Time? How much time?”

“The Americans have built numerous safety
devices into each weapon.

That information was part of the interrogation of the American
sailor you did not hear. It was extremely
technical. The only real danger from an unaltered
weapon is that fire or an accident will split the
skin of the weapon and cause nuclear material to be
spilled. If one were handled carelessly enough, a
conventional explosion of low magnitude could occur.
But there can be no nuclear explosion unless and until
a variety of sophisticated devices within the
weapon have all had their parameters satisfied. For
example, the devices must be initially stimulated
by precisely the right amount of electrical current
for precisely the proper length of time for the triggering
process to begin.

And that is only the first safeguard. But these
safeguards must all be overcome or bypassed.”

“How will you do that?”

“We’ll need the cooperation of an American
expert, one who helped design and construct
the safeguards. Fortunately we are well on our
way to obtaining the cooperation of just such an
individual right now. We have identified him with the
help of Henry Sakol.”

The left corner of El Hakim’s mouth rose
slightly in a sneer. He knew Henry Sakol
far too well. A former CIA agent, Sakol
supplied weapons which El Hakim could obtain
nowhere else, thanks to the American government,
Mr. Sakol’s former employer. Sakol was a
ruthless and greedy man, a godless man without
scruple or loyalty. “When we have the nuclear
weapons, we will have no further need of Sakol.”

“Truly.”

“Do you intend to use him for this operation?”

“Yes, Excellency. He knows much that will be
useful.”

“He will betray you if given the slightest
opportunity. The Americans would reward him
well, perhaps even forgive his crimes.”

“He’ll have no opportunity. I’ll see to it.”

“And the weapons expert?”

“A fat fool with a very rich, very stupid wife and a
fondness for small boys. He would serve the
devil himself to preserve his filthy secret.

I’m allowing him a quarter hour in the plan for
him to alter just one weapon. But for our purposes,
five or six hours must pass before the Americans
are in a position to generate a military response
to the incident. We need that time to escape. Then they
must face the fact that we have also had sufficient time
to alter the others. Of course, we don’t actually
have to do it. The Americans must merely be delayed
until they see that we have the personnel, the
equipment, and the time to accomplish the task.”

Qazi searched El Hakim’s face. “The
beauty of these weapons is that one never has to use
them. They accomplish far more by simply existing,
ready for use, than they could ever accomplish
by exploding.”

The ruler smiled. “What course do you
recommend?”

“An announcement by you to the world press immediately after
the operation. This will cause alarm throughout the Western
world and create confusion in Washington, where all the
decisions will ultimately be made. The confusion will
give us time while the Americans assess how they
should react. We want a thoughtful reaction, not a
knee-jerk lashing out by the American
military. When they pause for thought, the Americans
will realize the implications of our deed and will accept
the new reality. The new reality will be that we are now
a nuclear power.

They will accept it! They have no alternative.”

They discussed it. The dictator prided himself on
his understanding of the decision-making processes of the
American government and his ability to predict its
policies. The Americans would be greatly
embarrassed, he thought, but the critical factor
would be the hysterical fear of Western European
governments that a military response to his
acquisition of nuclear weapons would lead to a
nuclear conflict on their soil or in their
backyard. After all, they would scream at the
Americans, “You are four thousand miles away from
El Hakim, with an ocean between you. We are here.”
So the Americans would wring their hands and suffer the
humiliation. It would be a bitter pill, but they would
swallow it.

Finally El Hakim sighed. “Fortunately we
are smarter and more determined than the Americans,
praise Allah, even if we cannot match their
technology. When can we proceed?”

“That we do not know, Excellency. The
United States is now patrolling off the coast of
Lebanon. How long she will be there no one can say.

As you know, the Moslem factions, with Iran’s
backing, will do all in their power to embarrass the
Americans. And embarrassment is about all they can
accomplish.”

El Hakim nodded his head a thirty-second of
an inch and his jaw tightened. He did not
appreciate being reminded of the limited options open
to a group with few political assets and still fewer
military ones.