“The helos need escort,” said Boyce. “What about the Harriers deployed on the Saipan?”
Gritti shook his head. “The kinder and gentler rules of engagement” — he paused and glared at Vitale — “prohibit using the Harriers. For the same reason we don’t get low air support from the air wing. Too provocative, they think. The Sea Stallions will be escorted by four Whiskey Cobra gunships.”
Vitale sat alone, looking like a kid ostracized from his playmates. The Group Operations Officer wasn’t a bad guy, Maxwell reflected, just a guy in a bad job. Vitale had once been a patrol plane pilot, and as the only aviator on Fletcher’s staff he was caught in the eternal friction between the battle group and the Reagan’s air wing. He received equal abuse from both sides. Even Spook Morse, who served under Vitale on the admiral’s staff, was openly disrespectful of him.
Boyce broke the silence. “That’s it, gentlemen. We play the hand we’ve been dealt. If anybody needs a refresher in the new rules of engagement, I have a copy you can read. Colonel Gritti and Colonel Hewlitt are heading back to the Saipan to do their own briefs. Commander Maxwell and I will stay in here and write the air plan. In three hours we do a full brief with the pilots. The SEAD package will launch thirty minutes ahead of the TRAP team.” SEAD was the acronym for Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses — the mix of jammers, HARM shooters, and Super Hornet fighter-bombers.
At this, Vitale spoke up. “I need some information for the battle group tasking order. Who will be assigned as the flight leader in the SEAD package?”
“The best strike leader I’ve got,” said Boyce.
Vitale looked at him expectantly. “And who would that be?”
“The guy sitting next to you. Commander Maxwell.”
Vitale jotted the information on his pad. “And the TRAP team, Colonel Gritti? Who have you assigned to command the recovery package?”
“The toughest, meanest sonofabitch in the Marine Corps.”
Vitale lowered his notebook and peered at Gritti. “I give up. Would you mind telling us who that would be?”
Gritti gave him a half smile. “You’re looking at him.”
“Vincent Maloney,” said the bored voice on the phone.
“It’s Claire Phillips. You’re in luck, Vince. I’m in San‘a.”
Maloney’s voice came to life. “Claire! The girl who spurned me in Bahrain. The one who broke my heart.”
“I didn’t spurn you. I just declined to go to bed with you.”
“Same thing. Does this mean you’ve changed your mind?”
“No, it means I’m giving you another chance at being a gentleman.”
“What do I have to do?”
“Take me to dinner.”
“I know you. You want to interrogate me.”
She laughed. “A little, maybe. That’s my job. Where are we having dinner?”
Maloney declared that her hotel, the Al-Qasmy, had a restaurant as decent as any other in San‘a, which didn’t mean much. They were all god-awful, but what the hell, it beat walking the streets. San‘a was a rough place these days.
Claire’s flight from Aden, a 727 with a cabin that smelled of stale cigarette smoke, had taken forty-five minutes. San‘a turned out to be even more polluted than Aden, located in a mountain bowl and lacking an ocean breeze to sweep away the smog.
She liked Vince Maloney, even if he was a dissolute character. He was a deputy political affairs officer who migrated from outpost to outpost in the state department, apparently never destined to rise above his present grade. She had met him at a consular party when she first arrived in the Middle East, and they went out on a few occasions.
Maloney was smitten by Claire. At regular intervals, she had to reexplain that their relationship was one of friendship, nothing more. Forget romance. Maloney accepted the situation with grudging good humor, but he never gave up.
They got together whenever they found themselves in the same port. He was good company, at least until he became too drunk to make sense. Sometimes he even told her things that were useful.
As she hoped he would this time.
Maloney appeared precisely at six o’clock in the lobby of the Al-Qasmy. He gave Claire a big sloppy kiss, and they took a table near the bar to catch up on the past months.
The place was busy, filled mostly with Arab businessmen and a few Europeans clustered by themselves at tables. Maloney ordered a double Scotch for himself and a vodka tonic for Claire.
He clinked his glass against hers. “You’re more gorgeous than ever, Claire. Still married to that Australian journalist — what was his name — something Twit?”
“Tyrwhitt,” she said. “That’s history. We separated, and then he died.”
“Too bad. But the silly ass never appreciated you. I, on the other hand, have always held you in the highest—”
“Too late, Vince. I’m spoken for.”
“Aaagghh.” He clutched his chest. “My heart. You’re breaking it all over again.”
“Have a drink. You’ll get over it.”
“Good idea.” He chugged down his Scotch and signaled the bartender for another. After he’d tested the fresh drink, he said, “Who’s the lucky guy?”
“I don’t know about the lucky part. His name is Sam Maxwell. He’s a Navy pilot, a commander on the Reagan.”
“Navy pilot, huh?” Maloney thought for a minute while he peered over the rim of his glass. “It’s beginning to come to me. See if I’m getting this right. You’re here because you want me to blab some information about the little military exercise this morning in Yemen. Am I close?”
“Try this one. I’m here because I’m a journalist.”
Maloney didn’t reply. He sipped at his drink while his eyes scanned the room. In a lowered voice he said, “This is a lousy place to be a journalist.”
Claire waited a moment. “Listen, Vince, I know the terrorist is a character named Al-Fasr, and I know the Navy lost airplanes this morning trying to bomb him.”
Maloney took another sip. “That’s old news.”
“And I know there’s an operation under way to recover the pilot.”
“So?”
“So what am I missing here? Why doesn’t the United States just move in with massive force and squash this Al-Fasr character like a bug? If we can do it in Iraq, if we can do it in Afghanistan, it shouldn’t be a problem in Yemen.”
Maloney shrugged. “Decisions like that don’t get made at my level.”
“But you have an idea, don’t you? You always have an idea, Vince.”
He glanced around the dining room. Several other diners, mostly businessmen in Western clothing, were engaged in their own conversations. “You want the Maloney take on it? Off the record?”
“You know you don’t have to ask that.”
“The United States doesn’t want to wipe out Al-Fasr because that would cost us our one great chance to control Yemen. Al-Fasr is the key. A quid pro quo. First we engage him, allow him to gain credibility in the Arab world by backing down the mighty United States. Then he seizes power in Yemen and becomes our new best friend. We protect his new government from all his resentful Arab neighbors, and Yemen becomes an American colony. Does that make sense?”
“No. He’s a terrorist who murdered Americans. He’s as bad as Osama bin Laden. How can he be our new best friend?”
“C’mon, Claire, grow up. ‘Terrorist’ is a removable label. It’s a function of whether you’re on the inside or outside. Our founding fathers were terrorists until they won the revolution; then they were patriots. Menachem Begin was a very nasty terrorist until he became prime minister of Israel. Then they gave him the Nobel peace prize. It’s all bullshit.”
“Okay, it’s bullshit. So what do we care about Yemen anyway? What’s in it for us?”