A Time for War (19 page)

He rose from the desk and sat in an old armchair, looking out the window. Philippians 4:8 came to his mind:
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

He did think about them. He thought about them because, for some reason, there was something about this trip to Hawke he found unsettling. Part of it was the fact that he had no idea where he was going. Jack didn't mind flying blind, as he had often done in Iraq or pursuing a story in some remote spot of the globe or even in a dangerous alley in West Oakland. But at those times he was on the ground and able to change course or duck. There was an exit strategy. Not here. Another part of the equation—a larger part, now that he thought of it—was the sense that he was about to put himself in the hands of someone he'd practically accused of treason. If Hawke couldn't convince him of his innocence, the billionaire might well cause Jack to disappear. He needed to shake the feeling of dread before he got on board. Confinement would only make it worse.

How do you do that?
he asked himself.

There was a copy of the Bible on a rickety wooden stool beside the chair. Jack used to sit on that stool, in a corner, as punishment, when he was a kid. He once had a distinguished child psychiatrist on
Truth Tellers
who had written a book called
Cruel and Unusual Punishment.
The Harvard-educated $400-an-hour New York-based highbrow thirtysomething childless woman maintained that forceful discipline of any “person of youth” was wrong.

“Were you punished as a child?” Jack had asked her.

“Never,” she said. “I was spoken to as an adult.”

“Did you understand what was said to you?”

“Some of it.”

“I see,” Jack replied. “That would explain
this
conversation.”

The memory of her angry reaction—effectively, a childlike tantrum—made him smile. He felt some of the tension go away.

He laid his hand on the Bible as though he were channeling its wisdom, running the words through his brain, searching for something that would put him entirely at ease. The Psalms were about courage and he mentally picked his way through them.

I observed the prosperity of the wicked … Arrogance is their necklace, and violence their clothing … Their prosperity causes them to do wrong; their thoughts are sinful … They speak as if they rule in heaven, and lay claim to the earth … They say, “How does God know what we do?”

“He knows,” Jack said. “And he empowers those who would challenge you.”

Jack wasn't convinced that God would shield him or welcome him with an embrace if he fell. But he did believe there was a right and there was a wrong. The universe wasn't ordered to suit Jack Hatfield, and whether he liked it or not he was suddenly one of the gatekeepers of justice. Those words of Benjamin Franklin he had once quoted came back to him:
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety
.

“OK, Jack,” he said, giving the Bible a pat and rising. “Get over yourself and go do the job.”

Before he left the apartment he went looking through his desk drawers. Then, downstairs in the parking garage, the gullwing doors of the SLR McLaren opened upward for him. He roared into the late afternoon traffic. Somehow the machine felt like camouflage as he prepared to enter Hawke's field of vision.

The rush hour drama on the way to the airport barely dented Jack's consciousness. He was wondering whether he should call Rachel and tell her he was driving her car, which he knew was just shadowboxing before the main event—confronting Hawke. The drive down 280 was therapeutic—the throaty roar, the black glass, the overwhelming sensation of 638 HP. He was momentarily aggravated by the bottlenecked traffic at San Francisco International, but he wasn't going to any of the main terminals in the big, snowflake-like design.

Jack parked in the ultra-secure parking facility of the private terminal, which was a three-story, pale-gray structure that seemed more window than wall. He grabbed his small overnight bag and walked in. The bag contained his computer and also a change of clothes he did not know if he'd need. He knew damned little, in fact. But there was something exciting about that. If Jack had wanted life to be predictable, he would not have gone into journalism, to Iraq, or into television. In reverse order, those were three of the least routine arenas on the globe.

Jack did not have to go to the counter. A flight attendant rose from one of the chairs when he walked in. She was dressed in a black suit and black tie. The only thing that gave her away was a silver Hawke logo on her breast pocket.

“Mr. Hatfield?”

“Yes.”

“Welcome. My name is Martina.” The young woman stepped forward and offered her hand. She was about five foot six, blond, and blue eyed. Austrian, Jack guessed from just the trace of accent in her voice.

“Hi, Martina.”

Jack looked past her. Through tinted windows he saw three jets on the tarmac. Jack knew at once which belonged to Hawke. It wasn't just the logo on the tail fin; it was the fact that Jack had never seen an aircraft quite like it.

“Would you come with me?” Martina asked.

“Sure. Where are we going, by the way?”

“The pilot has that information,” she said.

“Don't you?”

“I do not,” she replied. “My duties are the same wherever Mr. Hawke sends the aircraft.” She reached for his shoulder bag.

“It's OK, I've got it,” Jack said.

“Of course,” she said, backing away instantly with an obedient little nod.

The woman was deferential to a fault and not nosy. Just like Bahiti. Jack imagined that every employee in Hawke's personal circle had those qualities right at the top of the job description.

They walked toward the door that opened onto the tarmac. As they crossed the otherwise empty building Jack felt the anxiety of the trip return. He needed to shake that and noticed a small help-yourself concession counter to the left.

“Hey, I'd like to grab some popcorn before we go,” he said.

Martina seemed mildly confused. “We have Almas caviar on board, Mr. Hatfield—”

“Yeah, but that's not popcorn.”

“No, it isn't,” she agreed.

“Right, and I'm guessing that must be some damn fine private jet terminal popcorn.” He jerked his head to the stand. “I'm gonna grab a bag. Want some?”

She smiled sweetly. “No, thank you.”

“OK. Be right back.”

Jack hurried to the stand. He took a tall, narrow bag from the lamp-heated glass case, shook some of the contents into his mouth, enjoyed the crunch and the taste, but most of all, the momentary respite. He was determined not to slip back into that state of mild anxiety. He stood there, thinking about the one sure place he could visit to get his mental feet under him.

Jack thought back to his father's death. He remembered when he was five years old. His father had driven him to a mountaintop where, his arm folded around the boy to keep him warm against the brisk mountain wind, he pointed to a lake below and taught him the word “shimmering.” He had him repeat the word.

“Shimmering, shimmering, shimmering,”
Jack could still hear himself saying in his little boy voice.

Later in life as they would hike in the mountains, his father would point to the quaking aspens in the west.

“Remember when I taught you the word ‘shimmering'?”
his father said the last time they were up there.
“Look, Jack. The leaves are shimmering.”

As Jack's father lay dying of cancer, he had a request for his son. They were the last words he ever spoke. He wanted to go back to that spot on that mountain and look down upon the lake where he had first taught Jack the word “shimmering.” Against the advice of his doctors, Jack took him from the bed in his home and drove him to the spot that meant so much to them both.

A few days later Jack's father left the earth.

Jack felt the anxiety ease. Sometimes a little independent action, a little quiet reflection, was all it took. Remembering his friends, his mentors, his heroes. Thinking of them, and turning his attention to the job at hand. He had to start doing his job.

Jack returned to Martina's side.

“Is it everything you expected?” she asked.

“It's not Abe Cohen's homemade kettle corn, but it's not bad. You sure you don't want any?” He inclined the bag toward her.

“Completely,” she replied with a patient smile. “Are you ready now, Mr. Hatfield? We do have a schedule.”

“Yes, sorry.” They resumed walking. “I was just thinking—Almas caviar. That's Iranian, isn't it?”

“I believe it is.”

“Pretty expensive,” Jack said.

“I would imagine.”

“Why would you ‘imagine' that?” Jack asked.

“Because everything Mr. Hawke does is first class.”

Jack didn't have to imagine the cost: he knew. He had seen the caviar offered in a catalogue from a London dealer at $25,000 a tin.

“Have you worked for Mr. Hawke for very long?”

“We work
with
him,” she corrected him. “And yes—nearly three years.”

Jack had to admire the “coworker” ideology that seemed to permeate the Hawke staff. It was a smart way to empower employees and generate loyalty.

They went outside, Jack letting Martina walk ahead. In addition to her other qualities she had a nice sway. That little distraction also helped him to relax.

A slight wind kicked up dust from the field, causing Jack to shield his eyes with the popcorn bag. Fueling was just being completed. The white skin of the jet looked like orange Mylar in the setting sun. It resembled one of those helium balloons Jack saw on party boats, only in the exact shape of a swan. The jet had a long, arched neck, big swept-back wings with a gentle upward bend in the center, and two cylindrical engines tucked underneath like legs. The tail feathers were smaller wings in the rear.

“Supersonic?” Jack asked as they reached the ladder.

“The Quiet Supersonic Transport flies at Mach 2 with a range of four thousand miles,” she said, and gestured for him to ascend first.

Jack obliged. His first thought was,
Four thousand miles
.
They could be going halfway around the earth in any direction.
His second thought was that private plane pilot Doc Matson would be seriously envious when Jack told him he'd flown on this aircraft.
Assuming you ever see Doc again.

Passing through the oblong door, Jack had to remain bowed slightly because of the low ceiling. The first thing that struck him as he entered the jet was the smell of leather. It was like new car smell, only deeper. The seats were thick and white, with a dull orange cast from the sunset. The cabin seated twelve and was neither very high nor very long. To travel as high and fast as the jet did required certain sacrifices to size and weight. But the trappings were clean and elegant. There were four seats in the forward section, two on either side facing one another. An open door led to an area in which there were two facing pairs of seats on the starboard side, a sofa across from them, and two more sets of two seats beyond. A small wet bar, white with a black burl top, was tucked in the back by the rear emergency exit. The carpet was black with a charcoal-gray zigzag pattern that made the cabin seem wider. The lines were repeated in embossed white up the center of the chairs and also across the sofa. Handmade pillows made of black leather added decorative interest if not practicality. The seat belts were black with white plastic fasteners. There were small HD monitors in the front of the cabin and across from the lavatory in the front was a closet for bags. The low, sloping ceiling did not allow for overhead storage.

Neither the pilot nor the copilot emerged from the closed-door cockpit. Jack placed his bag in the closet—along with the popcorn; he would feel uncouth putting salty fingers on the leather—and was instructed to sit wherever he liked. He chose the seat nearest the door, even though it was facing back. He had once flown backward in a C-130 Hercules in Saudi Arabia. It was an interesting experience, feeling the force of takeoff from behind. It was a memorable flight for another reason; he happened to be sitting next to then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, whom he was interviewing for the
San Francisco Chronicle.

“Have you ever gone backward?” Cheney asked Jack.

“No, sir, it's against my nature,” Jack replied. “That's one reason I'd never go into politics.”

Cheney chuckled. It was not an amused laugh, but a knowing one.

Martina shut the door, notified the flight crew that they were ready, then selected the seat opposite Jack. Her smile was professional rather than warm; her eyes turned out to the large, square window. The sun was nearly down and her face was in shadow. Yet at that moment he thought he saw the real woman: relaxed, briefly off duty, reflective.

“What are you thinking about?” Jack asked.

She regarded him, surprised by the question. “That I have never been to this city.”

“That's a shame. It's special.”

“So I have heard. How long have you lived here?”

“My entire adult life,” Jack said.

The plane began taxiing almost at once. The engines sounded like a long note played on a bass cello.

“What about you?” Jack asked.

“Vienna, Paris, New York,” she replied. “That is where I am based now. I used to think of myself as worldly but, you know, one cannot truly know a country until you are outside the big cities. I so rarely get that chance, either.”

“No, I'm guessing Mr. Hawke doesn't stay in one place for long.”