Warriors

of pilots. Now, assuming you have an unlimited budget to procure any number, any type of fighter, and the time to train young men to your standards, is it possible that this air force might match the Israelis?'

Bennett returned the king's level gaze. This was the tacit question which forced itself to his consideration during the morning session with the ministers.

'I need to know, Your Majesty, if you intend me to commit this force against the Israelis. You understand it could jeopardize my status as a retired American military officer.'

The king said, 'Yes, I understand that completely. And I want you to know, between the two of us, that I would not expect you to be compromised that way. But I will be honest with you, my friend. As events now stand, with the invasion of Jordan, anything is possible. I must know all the possibilities beforehand. As Safad Fatah has told you, we Saudis are likely to find ourselves in the middle before long. We may well have to fight our Arab neighbors as well as the Israelis. That is why I need a highly professional, thoroughly competent air defense force. '

Bennett's mind raced. Something did not fit here. He respected this man who ruled the desert kingdom, and very much wanted to believe him. 'Tell me, Your Majesty. You already have a modern, well-equipped air force. Why not simply expand it along the lines you already have?'

A smile crossed the king's face. 'Ah, Commander Bennett, please understand. The Royal Saudi Arabian Air Force bears the markings of my nation, but in a real sense it is not mine. The aircraft, the support, and most of all the maintenance, depends upon foreign sources. Your country's contribution is nearly over, with the military assistance group. Now with the political factors we face, both in Washington and in our own region, we cannot count upon an uninterrupted flow of materiel or advisers. For this reason I want an independent air force, directly under my control with an absolute minimum of dependence upon external factors.

'You will excuse me if I speak bluntly. The Jewish lobby in America is very strong. Every time the United States wishes to sell us equipment or provide advisers, your politicians are deluged with letters and protests. This despite the very well-known fact that my country has not gone to war against Israel since 1948. But if our military supplies are embargoed, I will have my Arab brothers to worry about-perhaps even more than the Israelis.'

At length Bennett said, 'I see your point, though I wonder if the 'Jewish lobby' is as important to American policymakers as purely strategic considerations.'

Gripping Bennett's arm even harder, the king spoke in a soft, almost toneless voice. 'I ask you, John Bennett. Can you build me a fighter force the equal of the Israelis'?'

There was a pause of nearly half a minute as Bennett gazed at the elegant candelabra on the table. Then, softly but clearly, he had said, 'Given time, yes.'

Now, reclining in bed, Bennett's thoughts turned from the evening's conversation to metaphysics. He was not much on classic literature but he was well read enough to draw a comparison. The potentially Faustian nature of his relationship with the Saudi king struck him with chilling intensity. So here you are, Bennett. Satan leans on your shoulder and whispers in your ear, tempting you with the best offer a fighter pilot ever had, or hoped to have. In exchange for... what?

Bennett inhaled and considered the prospects. To build a fighter force from the ground up, with a completely free hand. Select the people, draft the syllabus, choose the airplanes. And best of all, no bullshit, no bean-counters to answer to. Mold a completely professional organization along sound military principles unencumbered by ass- covering politicians and hand-wringing diplomats. It's hog heaven, Bennett, and you'd be belly-deep in slop, he thought.

The irony of the situation occurred to him. Perhaps it would take one of the world's underdeveloped nations to bring the jet fighter force to its highest development. A Muslim kingdom one-third the size of the United States, nine-tenths covered by barren plateau. The place didn't even have any rivers.

Over eleven million inhabitants populated this wide expanse, where still barely 30 percent of the total lived in cities. Though education was free, it was still widely ignored and the literacy rate only matched the ratio of the urban population. Life expectancy was under fifty years, and though Saudi Arabia was the world's second-largest oil producer, only 12 percent of the people worked in industry. Not much had changed since oil was found in the 1930s.

Bennett had researched the nation and the royal family before leaving San Diego. King Khalid ibn 'Abd al-'Aziz al-Sa'ud had succeeded to the throne in 1975 following old King Faisal's assassination by a nephew. The present monarch had inherited the throne in a tempestuous family political squabble. Bennett regarded Rahman as a man on a tightrope with no safety net. He walked a narrow line between the conservatives in his own country and the ambitious radicals outside.

The monarch was right about his military situation. The Saudis still could not maintain a large, sophisticated air force by themselves. There were too many foreign strings attached, there was too much political favoritism ingrained in the existing forces. What the king wanted was a band of professional mercenaries who owed him complete allegiance, free of external pressures.

It kept coming back to the Israelis. Match them, and the Saudis could master any other opponent in the region. Hell, man for man they'd master any other air force in the world.

The Israelis were the global standard. They knew von Clausewitz chapter and verse. They trained hard and they fought to win.

Bennett thought of his cousin Mike, an electronics specialist on the USS Liberty in 1967. The Israelis had torpedoed the intelligence-gathering ship with PT boats and strafed her with jet aircraft. Later they said it was a mistake. They'd thought she was an Egyptian vessel flying the American flag. Mike had lost a leg but thirty-four of his shipmates lost their lives. He was still bitter-as much at the Johnson Administration for accepting the Israeli version as at the Israelis themselves. When Liberty's captain was presented the Medal of Honor for his valor in remaining at the conn despite disabling wounds, the citation never even mentioned the identity of the 'hostile torpedo boats and aircraft.'

Mike's name for the attackers was specific and unprintable.

It came to Bennett in a sudden rush. He might have within his grasp a means of maintaining or even expanding American influence in the Middle East while perhaps preventing a recurrence of the cycle of disaster his country had experienced in the region. Liberty in 1967, Iran in 1979, Beirut, the Stark and Vincennes episodes during the 1980s. Each military crisis had resulted in unnecessary loss of American lives or a loss of prestige and confidence in American institutions. Now the Saudis, by seeking to strengthen their own hand, were offering him a chance to do more good for the United States than he ever had done while wearing an American uniform.

While on active duty Bennett had attempted to convince people in authority that the most important element in the fighter equation was the pilot; that a superior aviator usually will beat an inferior pilot, regardless of their respective aircraft. Superior equipment-within certain broad limits-only mattered at the top of the league, between evenly matched pilots.

It had been proven time and again, yet the decision makers of years before had opted for high-tech, highly 'capable' aircraft that cost $25 to $40 million each. This, combined with an overriding concern with safety, actually led to a denigration of combat skill. Bennett thought of the Air Force colonel who said, 'I'd hate to see an epitaph on a fighter pilot's tombstone that says, 'I told you I needed training.' How do you train for the most dangerous game in the world by being as safe as possible?' But the pilot was to become the lesser of the equation. Many budgeteers believed that computers and technology had rendered the human mind and hand obsolete. That was bad enough. But they also discounted the human heart.

Bennett fell asleep, feeling somewhat optimistic about prospects for 'his' fighter force serving to enhance U. S. influence in the Middle East while perhaps deterring wider war. He slept fitfully until shortly before dawn, when he drifted into the deepest sleep phase. Usually he dreamed in those hours, though he seldom clearly remembered his dreams. Cynical about such things, he never attached any importance to them. But throughout his adult life one dream had recurred.

It had begun after an exchange program with the Marine Corps between tours in Vietnam. Bennett had ridden in the backseat of a Phantom on a night mission. But in the dream he seldom saw the evolution from the cockpit. It was as if he stood watching from an elevated platform as the attacking jet screamed down at him from the darkness. Sometimes the plane was an F -4, often a Skyhawk-usually delta-winged.

Bennett stood alone, watching the bright jet exhaust as the aircraft arced straight up, tossing its single