room. Then we could go to an alert status. Sitting here thirty miles off the coast just cuts our reaction time to incoming threats.”
“We may be thirty miles off the coast right now,” Jake replied, “but just before dusk we were seven miles offshore so everyone in Lebanon could get a good look. Every wacko in Lebanon knows we’re here. The orders to steam seven miles off the coast came from the National Security Council.”
The lieutenant sat down and spoke from his chair. “We’ll just get those fanatics stirred up.”
“Maybe. What’s your name?”
“Lieutenant Hartnett, sir. I just think that if we had more sea room, we would have a little more reaction time if and when Ahmad the Awful cranks up his Cessna or speedboat and comes roaring out to sink us.”
“Do you think we can handle a threat like that?” Jake asked with a grin.
“We’ll send him to that big oasis in the sky, sir.”
“I’ll sleep better knowing that.”
Laughter swept the room. Jake grinned confidently, though he was well aware of the real problems involved in defending the task group. The admiral, his staff officers, and Jake had spent many hours discussing alternative courses of action in the event of a terrorist threat from Lebanon. It wasn’t a laughing matter. The rules of engagement under which the American ships operated severely limited the options available. This was the main reason Admiral Parker was rarely more than twenty feet from Flag Ops.
“Seriously, we are here to make our presence felt. That’s why we parade around right off the coast. Doing damn fool things because politicians tell you to goes with the uniform. And every man in this room is a volunteer. But I don’t want anyone killing himself or his crewman because he kept flying past the limit of his own capabilities.” He unzipped the helmet bag and took out a helmet. He held it out by the chin strap, so it hung upside down.
“I’m going to hang this thing in my office. Anyone who thinks that he has had all of this bullshit he can stand can throw his wings in it. Put a piece of tape around your wings with your name on it so I’ll know who to talk to.” All eyes were on the helmet. “Flying the schedule we do demands the best you can give it. I hate to see guys turn in their wings, but I like it even less when people kill themselves. Each and every one of you knows what your personal limit is. I am relying on you to call it quits before you go beyond that limit.”
He picked up the helmet bag, tucked the helmet under his arm and headed for the door.
“Attention on deck,” Toad roared.
Everyone in the room snapped to attention while Jake walked out.
Up in the air wing office Jake handed the helmet to Yeoman First Class Farnsworth. “Get a coathanger,” he said, “and hang this thing from the ceiling right here by the door. I want anyone who opens this door to see this helmet.”
“Why?” asked Farnsworth, slightly baffled.
“It’s for wings,” Jake said and tossed the helmet bag on a table. “Go get a coathanger and do it now. Someone may want to use it sooner rather than later.”
“Yessir.” Farnsworth laid the helmet on his desk and started for the door.
“Any new messages on the classified board?” Jake asked before Farnsworth could get out the door.
“Yessir. A bunch. There’s even another intelligence report about a planned raid on the ship by some group or other using an ultralight.”
“Again? How many air raid warnings have we had?”
“I think about nineteen, CAG. Thank God for the CIA.” Jake waved Farnsworth out the door and took the message board into his office. He thought about having a cigarette. There should be a pack in his lower right desk drawer. He remembered putting it there two or three days ago. Well, maybe it was still there. He opened the drawer and glanced inside. Just papers. He stirred them. Aha, the pack of weeds had fallen under this little report with the blue cover. Hiding there, weren’t you, little fellow. Don’t try to get away like that. He closed the drawer and began thumbing through the messages, trying to sort the important ones from the usual reams of computerized goo that constituted the vast bulk of the classified traffic.
He found it difficult to concentrate on the messages with that pack of cigarettes lying down there in the drawer, just waiting. Shit, how long had it been? He looked at his watch. Three hours and fifty-one minutes. No, fifty-two minutes. Almost four hours!
The black Mercedes rolled through the dusty streets on the edge of town as if the streets were empty, which they most certainly were not. Children and men leading laden mules and camels scurried to clear the path of the speeding vehicle with army flags on the front bumper. Dark glass prevented anyone outside the vehicle from seeing the passengers, but most of the people on the street averted their gaze once they ensured they were not in danger of being run over.
The limousine stopped momentarily at two army checkpoints on the outskirts of the city, then rolled through the open gate of an enormous stucco building.
In the courtyard two men stepped from the rear of the car. Both wore Western clothes. A waiting officer wearing a major’s uniform led them through a small door and up a flight of stairs lit only by a naked bulb hanging above each landing. High, narrow windows without glass lined the lengthy corridor at the top of the stairs. Dirt from the desert lay accumulated in corners. Their footsteps echoed on the slate floor. After several turns, the major opened a door and stood aside. The two men from the Mercedes entered a well-furnished apartment. The late afternoon sun shone in the one window, a window in which glass had been installed at some time in the past but which had apparently never been washed.
“Colonel Qazi, Sakol is in the next room. Is there anything further you need?”
“Tell me about Jarvis, the weapons expert.”
“Your instructions have been followed precisely. He was examined by a physician while still sedated after his journey. The physician found him in fair health with no apparent abnormalities, although seventeen kilos overweight. He has been kept naked in solitary confinement and fed precisely one thousand calories a day, with all the water he can drink. The bucket in his cell is never emptied. The light there remains on continuously. No one has spoken to him.”
“Very well. Has Sakol been any trouble?”
“No trouble, sir, although he has asked several times when to expect you.”
“You have guarded him well?”
“Of course. His guards are unobtrusive, but he cannot leave the apartment area where he is staying.”
“Thank you, Major. Bring Sakol in.” Qazi selected a stuffed chair and sank into it. His companion stood against the wall, a man of medium height with short, dark hair and olive skin. He wore dark blue trousers, a white shirt open at the collar, and a lightweight Italian sport coat that had lost its shape at some point in the distant past. He had a large, square jaw which he unconsciously clenched and unclenched rhythmically, making the muscles in his cheeks pulsate. His restless black eyes scanned the room, then steadied on the door through which Sakol, the ex-CIA agent, would enter.
Qazi placed a pack of American cigarettes and some matches on the table before him, then studied his fingernails.
The door opened and a bearlike man in his fifties entered. He had the broad chest and heavy arms of the serious weightlifter, but now the muscles were covered with a layer of fat that made him look even more massive. He stood at least six feet tall. “Ah, Sakol. So good to see you,” Qazi said in English.
Sakol stopped three steps into the room and studied the man against the wall. “Why did you bring this son of a dog?” Sakol asked in Arabic. The expression of the man against the wall did not change.
“Sit here, Sakol.” Qazi pointed to a chair beside him. The American turned the chair so he could see both Qazi and the man against the wall and sat. “You know Ali is indispensable to me. I cannot do everything myself.” English again.
Sakol sniffed several times and said in Arabic, “Ah, yes, I can still smell him.”
“English please,” Qazi said firmly and offered the American a cigarette, which he accepted. Qazi had gone to great lengths in the past to ensure Sakol thought Ali could speak only Arabic, and he was not yet ready to drop the deception. Conspirators felt most comfortable when their secrets appeared safe.
“You have succeeded brilliantly with the Jarvis recruitment. I’ve had good reports.”
“I took a lot of heavy risks pulling it off, Qazi, and earned every goddamn dime of the money you agreed to pay. I assume the money is where it’s supposed to be?”
