Flash Point (19 page)

The corpsman replied, “He stopped before the tail did. Took him clean out of his helmet. Shitty way to go. At least it was fast.” The corpsman sat down quickly and pulled something out from under his seat. A body bag. He unzipped it and stood up again by the port side. “Slow down,” he said to the coxswain, who couldn’t have been going more than one knot. The corpsman leaned over the side.

Woods saw a large white piece of meat floating next to the boat, undulating gently and heading for them. “What is that?” Woods asked, not wanting to know.

“A back,” the corpsman said matter-of-factly. “See the indentation for the spine?”

Woods felt his mind at work again, searing this new image into his memory. He couldn’t stop it.

The corpsman reached down and picked up the flesh with his latex-glove-covered hand and hauled it into the boat. He put the back into the body bag and zipped it partway up. He held it at the top in his fist, like a trash bag with potting soil in the bottom. “Here comes some more,” the corpsman announced. “Help me out here,” he ordered.

Woods looked the other way, pretending to be interested in various pieces of wreckage until the body collection was completed.

After much effort and boatswain cursing they secured the tails to the boat as well as they could. The boat headed slowly toward the destroyer, towing the tails behind it.

Commander LaGrou was waiting when Woods came up the ladder. “How’d it go, Lieutenant?” he asked anxiously.

Woods couldn’t say anything. The images tore through his brain.

“Any signs of what caused it?”

Woods shook his head and forced his mouth into an inverted crescent, as if he had no real expectation of finding anything that would give a reason for the crash.

“We’ll have to detach soon and head for Sicily — they’re going to set up an accident wreckage inspection sight at Sigonella.”

Woods nodded absently, barely hearing the Commander.

“The bad news for you, Lieutenant,” LaGrou said, “is that the helo that was supposed to pick you up would have had to get you five minutes ago to work you into the air plan.” LaGrou waited for some reaction. Seeing none he continued, “So, you’ll be with us until tomorrow morning at 0700. They’ll send a helo back to retrieve you. You can sleep in my in-port cabin. It’s very comfortable.”

“Thanks,” Woods said absently.

“No problem. I’m sure the wardroom will treat you very nicely. I think you’ll enjoy your stay.”

“Thank you, sir, I appreciate it.”

The wardroom did treat him nicely. The men were even deferential. They weren’t sure how to console Woods over the loss of two of his squadron mates. They wanted to ask the questions that would tell them how close he’d been to the dead men so they could know exactly how bad he was feeling, but they didn’t want to be morose. So they avoided the questions, and didn’t know how deeply he was affected. They all knew about the scalp though. Everybody on the ship knew about the scalp. It was one of those details that was too good not to tell someone else about, usually starting with “Can you believe it?” to set the tone of disgust and amazement.

Woods excused himself from the wardroom early, skipping the movie and free popcorn in spite of the guarantee that it was just what he needed. He went to the Captain’s in-port cabin and sat on the rack. He was exhausted. He pulled his flight suit down around his waist and washed his face in the steel sink. He looked as tired as he felt. He took off his flight boots and flight suit and lay on the top of the Navy blanket in his boxers and T-shirt. The ship was moving too much for him to sleep on his side. He stared at the overhead that he couldn’t see in the blackness and thought of the XO and his three beautiful daughters. All blond with curly hair. He wondered if they knew about their father yet.

Suddenly there was a quiet knock on the door. He wasn’t sure he had even heard it. There it was again. “Yes?” he said loudly.

“Commander LaGrou.”

He swung his legs over and pulled his flight suit on quickly. He crossed to the door in his stocking feet and opened it. “Yes, sir?”

“Mind if I come in?” LaGrou asked.

“No, sir,” he lied, turning on the light.

LaGrou closed the door behind him. “Didn’t mean to disturb you. I was afraid you’d be asleep.”

“No, sir, just resting a little. Kind of hard to sleep.”

“I’m sure,” LaGrou said. He stood awkwardly. “I . . . I just wanted to make sure you’re okay. They were your friends.”

Woods didn’t want to talk about it. Talk wasn’t going to do anything. “Yeah. Yes, sir.”

“Look, these things happen. People are killed every day in the Navy, just doing their jobs—”

Woods had heard that enough. “And
why
? Not why did he crash — we’ll figure that out — but why are we here where he
could
crash? Why do we fly off carriers every day?”

“It’s what we do—”

“So we’re
ready
when we need to use force. So we stay sharp — “ He stopped. “Do you have a chart that shows our position?”

LaGrou was taken aback by Woods’s intensity. “Sure, in Combat—”

“I want to show you something,” Woods said as he quickly sat down on the single chair in the stateroom and pulled on his flight boots. He laced them halfway, wrapped the laces around the ankles, and tied them hurriedly. “Show me.”

LaGrou opened the door and headed down the passageway. Woods followed. They walked into Combat Information Center, the nerve center of the ship. It was almost completely dark. Three large screens were in front of several consoles, where officers and enlisted men sat, monitoring the huge volume of information that flooded in from innumerable sources.

“Over here,” LaGrou said. They crossed to a large flat table that had a chart on top of it. “I have our navigator keep a paper chart with our position just in case all the electronics crap out at the same time,” LaGrou smiled.

Woods studied it quickly. He saw the mark that showed their current position. He spread his hand out along a longitude line, then used it to measure their distance to Lebanon. “Two hundred nautical miles to Beirut,” he said. He stared at LaGrou. “Two hundred miles.”

“I’m not following you, Lieutenant.”

“That Sheikh who killed Tony Vialli, my best friend, is eating grapes in Beirut while we’re out here, two hundred miles away, picking up the pieces of two others. What were they doing? Trying to stay sharp. To stay ready. For what?” he said, raising his voice. He stared at the chart. “We keep sharpening our sword, showing everybody how sharp and shiny it is. We use it sometimes. Kosovo? Sure. Iraq? Sure. For an American Naval officer murdered by a terrorist?” He could see LaGrou was trying to control his surprise. “I guess not. We just sharpen our sword, and cut ourselves with it.”

Kinkaid had been alarmed by Ricketts’s call in the middle of the night. Most of the alarm though came from the fact that Kinkaid had complete faith in Ricketts’s judgment. If he called in the middle of the night, it was for a reason. He was wily, brilliant, a master of languages and disguises, and someone who never failed in a mission. But there was a dark side as well — no respect for authority. He was known to think that those not in the Directorate of Operations, the DO, were just weak-tit parasites. He was unimpressed with electronic intelligence and “analysis,” a word he used only when forced.

Kinkaid pulled up into his reserved parking spot at 4:37 a.m. His hair was still matted in the back. He had taken the time to get dressed for the day, since it was sure to be another long, frustrating day anyway.

He walked toward CIA Headquarters and shifted his travel coffee mug to his left hand with his briefcase while he put his car keys in his suit coat pocket. He nearly dropped everything he was carrying when a voice called his name from right behind him, no more than a foot away. He swallowed. “Trying to give me a damned heart attack? What the hell are you doing?” he said, turning around.

Ricketts stared at him with his hands in his pockets unsmiling.

Kinkaid growled, “Let’s go inside where it’s warmer. I’m freezing my ass off.”

“Out here,” Ricketts said.

“What for?”

“I don’t want any of the other parasites listening.”

“To what?”

“Our conversation.”

Kinkaid put his briefcase down and took a long drink from his coffee. “Okay, what?”

Ricketts looked around the mostly empty parking lot. There wasn’t anything but asphalt for seventy-five yards in any direction. “What do you want to do with this Sheikh?”

“Do with him? I want to find him. Then I want to get him.”

“Meaning . . .”

“I don’t know.” Kinkaid frowned. “Grab him. Bring him back for trial. Put his ass in prison for a few lifetimes.”

Ricketts stared down at his feet. “I may have some information on his whereabouts.”

“What? You’re shitting me? Where is he?”

Ricketts shook his head. “I know where he
will
be. Not where he is.”

“Where? How do you know—”

“I cannot disclose—”

“I’m in charge of the task force,” Kinkaid said gruffly. “You’ll tell me whatever I need to know—”

“No, I won’t,” Ricketts said icily. “Not if it will endanger my agents.”

“How would telling me endanger your—”

“I got an agreement from the Director himself when I started running agents that I didn’t need to tell anyone anything I didn’t want to. It’s my judgment alone—”

“That’s bullshit. We have to share information—”

“That’s why I’m here,” Ricketts replied. “But I will tell you only what is necessary, and to the others, nothing. They can do their analysis, and stare at their photographs, and drink Starbucks—”

“We are on the same team—”

“We walk to the same destination, but not together.”

“What do you have in mind?” Kinkaid asked.

“I don’t think we should waste our time trying to capture him. We should take him out—”

“That would require a finding—”

“I know. That’s what we should do.”

“No,” Kinkaid said. “The Director wants him here. He wants a nice big trial the whole world can see.”

Ricketts understood, even though he disagreed. “I can grab the Sheikh. I need only your approval.”

“How would you get him?”

“You do not need to know that.”

“The hell I don’t—”

“You may ask the Director. He won’t tell you, but you may ask him.”

Kinkaid fought back his frustration. “When?”

“Soon.”

“Do you think you can do it?”

“I’m sure I can.”

“How much risk?”

Ricketts pondered, as if doing a calculation. “Much.”

“Do you want to do this?”

Ricketts nodded in the darkness. “Yes.”

“Do you need any help, any support from us?”

“No.”

Kinkaid wasn’t sure what to say. It was all very irregular. He also had served in the DO long enough to know that some of the best officers were the quirkiest. “I don’t like it. I have to know.”

Ricketts said nothing. He just stared at Kinkaid. The distant light in the parking lot at the top of a pole was behind him and showed only his silhouette. “You can tell me not to do it. Or you can let me put this guy out of our misery, but I can’t tell you how or when.”

“How about where?”

“Sorry.”

“You got a plan?”

“Start of one.”

Kinkaid debated with himself. He finally had to admit that results were what he wanted, and Ricketts brought results. “Do it.”

“Want to get a slider?” Woods asked Wink and Big at the back of the ready room as the SDO set up the video projector in the aisle between the seats and aimed it at the enormous screen suspended from the overhead in the front. Movies in the Navy had long been a grand tradition. The movie would be shown at an announced time and all the officers would show up to watch it. The SDO was responsible for selecting the movie from the hundreds of videotapes available from the ship’s video library and ensuring the projector was set up. He had to roll the movie exactly at the specified time. To the second. Or the Executive Officer would rail on him and he would be held in general contempt by the squadron for some unspecified period.

“Sure,” they replied together. “We can get back in time for the movie. How many stars is it?”

“I’m not sure. Three, I think.” The star system was legendary within the squadron. Every SDO tried to get a five-star movie. If the CO agreed that it was five stars, that SDO was taken off the SDO watch bill for an entire month. But it was hard to find a five-star movie. The categories were clear enough: a train, an Indian, female nudity, a mort (someone killed by other than natural causes), and a snake. The snake and the Indian were the toughest. One movie had a hat trick in one scene — a naked female Indian riding a horse when confronted by a snake. There was a mort, but a train never showed up so it stalled at four stars.

In the forward wardroom, several aircrew in their flight suits were spread out among the long tables. Woods, Wink, and Big stood in front of the grill expectantly. After a few seconds the messmen asked them what they would like.

“Double slider,” Woods said.

“Triple cheeseburger,” Big said enthusiastically.

“Single for me,” Wink said, looking at Big. “Geez, Big, you’re going to weigh three hundred pounds.”

“I already do.” Big smiled.

Wink glanced at him skeptically. “Are you kidding?”

Big leaned against the bulkhead behind him while he watched his triple cheese slider sizzle on the large flat grill. “Wink, you’re amazing. If I weighed three hundred pounds I wouldn’t even fit through the door. I am a svelte two-forty.”

“Wow,” Woods said. “Athlete.”

“You going to start on me?” Big said.

One of the EA-6B Prowler pilots joined them in line. “Hey, Wink, was that you on button seventeen in marshall this last recovery?”

“Yep.”

“Did you have that cloud layer right at marshall?”

“We were below it. Darker than a witch’s heart.”

“We were in the goo the whole time. Unbelievable.”

Pritch appeared in the room, moving to the end of the line.