Flash Point (14 page)

“Go on,” Kinkaid ordered.

Nicole called up the next slide. “Here is the bus after the attack.” The photograph was from the front and showed the windshield shot out and the driver slumped on the side of the steering wheel. She silently went to the next photo, which she had scanned into her computer, and which was now incorporated into her digital slide presentation. It showed the inside of the bus and the seat behind the driver where the Israeli soldier lay. The next photo had been taken inside the bus looking down the aisle. A man and a woman were lying dead on the floor, face down. Their blood was a dark brown against the black rubber mat of the aisle. “This is the couple who was killed. We have no idea who they were. If the Israelis know, they’re not saying.”

Kinkaid looked at the photograph hard. “I’ll call.”

“Mossad or Aman?” Ricketts asked.

“Mossad,” Kinkaid replied, appreciating that Ricketts knew the difference between the Israeli intelligence agency and their military intelligence arm. He had learned long ago never to underestimate Ricketts. “Who would operate like this, Nicole?” Kinkaid queried. “Why not kill everyone? Why not make demands, and play it out? Why hit and run? To show they could? Some other agenda at work? These the same people who did Gaza?”

Sami stared at the map, wondering.

One man in the back spoke. “This isn’t the usual terrorist attack. They did this for a reason. The who is the why in this one.”

Sami spoke. “If this is the same group as Gaza,” he began, still forming the thoughts, “it’s a new level.”

“What do you mean?”

“These would be the first civilian targets.”

“We don’t know they were civilian targets.”

“Well, the driver, the couple—”

“We don’t have any idea who they were,” Kinkaid said.

“Fair enough, but if they
are
civilians, and it’s connected to Gaza, it would be the first time they have attacked civilians.”

“So?”

“Other terrorist groups have focused on suicide attacks. Some of that is to be dramatic. Some of it is because they know they’ll never get away with it anyway, so they may as well go out in a blaze of glory. These guys know they
can
get away with it. They’re smarter and more clever. And they’re showing the world,” Sami replied.

“What do we make of that?” Kincaid continued.

“I think we’re going to be hearing from them. They’re going to want to let everyone know who they are. That’s my guess.”

Farouk sat down heavily in the chair across the table from the Sheikh. He was proud and content, but exhausted from the journey. “We had complete success.”

“You bring honor to us. Did everything go according to the plan?”

“Yes. It went perfectly.”

“What of the men?”

“All did well, except for one. He was yelling and screaming. Too charged with feelings.”

“Do not take him next time.”

“Of course.”

“Did you find what you expected?”

“We did. We made sure.”

The Sheikh closed his eyes and put his head back. He seemed to be thinking for a long time. Finally, he stood and leaned on the chair he had been sitting in. He looked at Farouk. “It is time. I will go to Beirut and show myself. They must know of us and what we stand for. Things will never be the same again.”

Woods sat in the wardroom with other pilots and RIOs from VF-103. They took up almost an entire table of twenty as they sat shoulder to shoulder drinking coffee in their leather and nylon flight jackets, joking about other squadrons, other carriers, the Pacific Fleet, the Air Force, and one another. The morale in the squadron was as high as Woods had ever seen it. Bark had left the wardroom ten minutes before, which had allowed the rest of the officers to relax.

“Where’s our next port call, Trey?” asked Brillo.

“Athens,” Woods answered.

“What’s it like?” Wink asked. He was on his third cruise, but his first two had been to Westpac, the western Pacific, on the
Nimitz
. This was his first time in the Mediterranean.

“It’s really beautiful — “ began Woods.

“It’s not even a port,” Big interrupted.

Wink looked at him curiously. “Huh?”

“It’s not a port. Athens isn’t on the water. Everybody thinks it is, but it isn’t. The port is Piraeus, about fifteen miles south of Athens. It’s a great place though.”

“Who’s in charge of the admin?” asked Brillo.

“Gunner Bailey,” said Big, wrinkling his nose, referring to Chief Warrant Officer Ruben Bailey. He was a Warrant Officer, and therefore a member of the officers’ mess. But he was more like a Chief Petty Officer, a senior enlisted man, which he used to be. He didn’t have many friends in the squadron among the officers, mostly because he was very serious about his job and not prone to joking around. He was old enough to make them feel very young, yet, as a Warrant Officer, junior to the most junior Ensign. “He’s got the taste of a hooker,” Big continued. “He’ll find some Greek motel with no running water and prostitutes all over the place. He’ll crow about how much money he saved.”

Woods replied, “He did a good job in Barcelona.”

“Yeah, but we got arrested by the Guardia Civil right by the hotel he selected for making too much noise . . .”

“No, Big,
you
got arrested for taking a leak on him — you thought he was a
light
post.”

The table erupted in laughter as Woods brought up one of the squadron’s mythologically large stories about Big, the one who always seemed to be in the middle of a story if it was colorful.

Big’s eyes disappeared as he laughed with the others. “How was I supposed to know? Brillo was supposed to be my seeing-eye dog.
He
allowed me to make that perfectly understandable mistake.”

Brillo exclaimed, “You’re going to lay that on
me
? You piss on the meanest cop in the Med and it’s
my
fault? I don’t think so.”

Big chuckled deeply. “Anybody who wears a hat that stupid deserves to get—”

The 1MC loudspeaker system on the ship came to life. “Now hear this. Now hear this,” said a young voice that they all recognized as one of the boatswain’s mates on the bridge who routinely made announcements. They quieted just enough to hear whatever he had to say. “Lieutenant Woods to the flag bridge. Lieutenant Woods to the flag bridge.”

Woods turned deep red. He looked at the other members of the squadron, who were looking at him. Never in his experience in the Navy had he heard of an aviator being summoned personally to the bridge, let alone the flag bridge. His heart was racing as he stood up, reluctantly, ready to go to the executioner. The smiles faded. They could tell from his face that either he had no idea what this was about, or he knew exactly. They didn’t ask.

Woods walked aft from the wardroom down the starboard side through the knee knockers. They had been on cruise for three months and he had never even
seen
the Admiral. He didn’t even know what he looked like and couldn’t remember his name. He stepped from gray tile to blue tile, denoting his passage into flag country. He passed the Admiral’s wardroom, nearly as large as one of the forward wardrooms for fifty officers. What’s his name? Woods asked himself. He found the shining ladder with white painted rope wrapped around the rails and began his long climb up to the 08 level, eight levels above the main deck — the hangar deck — and five above the wardroom and the ready rooms on the 03 level.

He jumped up the last two steps on the ladder to the 08 level and breathed deeply to catch his breath. Standing in front of the closed door that led to the bridge, he was finally ready. He opened the door and stepped through the hatch, stopping in his tracks as he neared the bridge — the Admiral, the Ship’s Captain, the Air Wing Commander, and Bark, his Squadron Commanding Officer, were all there. The Admiral was holding a sheet of yellow paper, which was obviously from an official Navy message.

“Here he is, sir,” Bark announced as Woods approached.

“Good evening, sir,” Woods said.

“Lieutenant . . .” The Admiral looked at Woods and then said. “This isn’t the place to get into what I have to discuss with you. Let’s go below.” With that he stood up and walked past Woods out the door, starting down the ladder that Woods had just climbed.

Woods and the senior officers followed the Admiral to his wardroom. The admiral sat at one end of his table and motioned for the other senior officers to join him. He was about fifty, average height, trim build, with graying black hair combed neatly. Everything about him said that he was organized, neat, and disciplined. The messman automatically went for cups and a pot of coffee. Woods stood awkwardly in the middle of the room. “Sit down, Lieutenant,” the Admiral said roughly, pointing to the seat at the other end of the table.

Admiral Joseph Sweat, former A-6 and F/A-18 pilot, with over a thousand carrier landings and a chest full of ribbons, had a reputation in the fleet as being fair and reasonable, but he wasn’t known for his great sense of humor.

The messman set a cup in front of each of them and poured coffee. He put cream and sugar in the middle of the table in matching porcelain containers.

The Admiral’s leather flight jacket was covered with patches from his former squadrons and centurion patches from carriers marking each one hundred carrier landings. “What do you know about Lieutenant Junior Grade Vialli?” he asked quickly, reaching for his coffee and staring at Woods with his intense eyes.

Woods didn’t want to have this conversation. Whatever it was about, it was going to be bad. He prayed it wasn’t as bad as he feared. “He’s my wingman, roommate. What in particular would you like to know?”

“Where is he?”

Woods’s heart skipped as he swallowed. “He’s on leave.”

“Where?”

“Naples, sir.”

“Did he go anywhere else?”

The other officers were watching him closely. “I’m not sure,” Woods replied finally, not wanting to meet the piercing gaze of the Admiral’s blue eyes.

“Did he tell you he
might
go anywhere else? Anywhere at all?”

Woods knew the game was up. “He did mention one possibility, sir.”

“Where?” the Admiral pressed, knowing Woods knew.

Woods leaned against the back of the black leather chair, trying not to slump. “He met a girl he thought was Italian. Turned out she was from Israel . . .”

At the mention of the word Israel, the Admiral’s face twitched noticeably.

“. . . and she wanted him to come see her. He took leave for Naples, thinking he might fly to Israel for the weekend, see her, and come back before he was due back aboard.”

Bark’s eyes opened to twice their usual size. “You didn’t tell me?”

Woods didn’t respond. He just looked at his CO with his lips pressed tightly together and nodded almost imperceptibly.

The Admiral picked up the yellow paper. “We just received this message. You should be aware of it. It’s from the Secretary of Defense, forwarding a message from our embassy in Tel Aviv. Apparently one of the adults on the bus that was attacked, one of those killed, had Lieutenant Vialli’s ID card in his shoe.”

Woods closed his eyes and lowered his head. The pain on his face was apparent to everyone at the table. They sat in complete silence, waiting.

Finally the Admiral spoke again to Woods. “Can you think of any way someone else would have his ID card?”

Woods tried to speak, stopped, then tried again. “Can’t they identify him?”

The Admiral nodded. “Probably. But they were wondering what the hell he was doing there, and asked us. Now
we’re
wondering what the hell he was doing there and asking you.”

“What happened?” Woods asked.

“He died in the attack.”

Woods was suddenly engulfed with rage. His eyes burned as he looked around the table. None of the senior officers was affected. Bark was mad at him for not telling him Vialli was sneaking off, the Admiral was mad because he was being squeezed for allowing one of his officers to go to Israel without the State Department knowing about it, and the others were just along for the ride.

“What do you have to say for yourself?” Bark asked finally.

Woods looked at him in disbelief. He felt betrayed. “What do I have to say for myself? For not telling you he was going to see his girlfriend in Israel?
Guilty
. I should have told you and I didn’t,” he said, spite dominating his thoughts. “I should probably get court-martialed.”

“Don’t get cute, Lieutenant,” the Admiral said. “We just want to get to the bottom of this. We want to find out what happened, how one of our officers could have gone to Israel without us knowing about it. We wanted to ask you how—”

“Doesn’t anybody care who did this?” Woods interrupted. “Why aren’t we talking about what we’re going to do to
them
?”

The Admiral looked at him disapprovingly. “You’re upset. That’s understandable.” He paused. “I want you to prepare a report on how Mr. Vialli took leave without informing his Commanding Officer of the true destination and have it ready by the end of the day.”

Woods exhaled suddenly, a sound that could have been an exclamation or a laugh. He looked at Bark. “Yes, sir. I would be happy to prepare a
report
, sir.” He got up and moved toward the door.

“Lieutenant!” the Admiral shouted.

Woods stopped and turned around.

“I have not dismissed you yet.”

Woods stood at attention looking over the Admiral at the portrait of George Washington on the wall behind him.
He’d
go after whoever did this to Vialli.

After some seconds the Admiral said, “Dismissed.”

Woods executed a perfect about-face and strode quickly out of the room. A sailor opened the door for him and shut it quietly behind him as he left.

“What the hell was he doing in Israel?” Sami asked Cunningham as they walked to the conference room, for the next of what seemed like an infinite number of meetings of the task force.

“Woman,” Cunningham replied, looking down the corridor for Kinkaid whom he wanted to see right away.