The President looked at his audience, and said coldly, “If that makes Syria unhappy, that’s fine. This war is not about happiness, it’s about justice and retribution. We will not be stopped.”
Woods didn’t have much time to do what he wanted to do. He also wasn’t sure how to do it. He first had to convince his Squadron Commander, then the Air Wing Commander, then the Admiral, then the Chief of Naval Operations in the Joint Chiefs, that an F-14 off the Washington should be the one to drive a knife through the Sheikh’s heart. All in due time. First he had to figure out if it could be done. The Gunner was working on getting the bomb. Woods didn’t think he’d pull that off, but on the off chance that he did, they had to hit the target. Dead on. No near misses. This was one shot only.
The thing that worried him, other than going into Iran itself and the distance involved, was how to laser designate the hit point. He knew Wink would be fine and that they would hit whatever they had their laser designator on. But to penetrate into the Sheikh’s quarters they would have to hit the sweet spot. And they didn’t know where that was. Woods had reread the message about locating the Sheikh. The message had hidden implications. There was only one way they could know for a fact that the Sheikh was there. Someone was there. On the ground. Woods turned back and headed directly toward CVIC. He had to find out.
He looked around for Pritch. He saw her in the corner studying the charts. “How do we know he’s there?”
Pritch looked up from her work and smiled at him. “Nice to see you too, Lieutenant. I’m fine, thanks.”
“How do we know?” Woods repeated.
Pritch wanted to help. She had begun to identify with Woods. She wanted to tell him everything she knew, but she couldn’t. “I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
“It’s classified.”
“I’m cleared.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I’ve had a Secret clearance since I joined the Navy.”
“You and every other officer in the Navy, sir.”
“I had Top Secret at Topgun.”
“Top Secret doesn’t do anything, Trey. This is code word. SCI.”
Special Compartmentalized Information. A clearance wasn’t good enough. You had to have a need to know, and only then were you “read-in” to the project and given the code word of the program. He pressed on, calculating other directions through which to get the same information. He lowered his voice. “Do we have somebody on the ground? Some snake-eater?”
Pritch resisted. “Even if we did, if it’s compartmentalized, I couldn’t tell you about it.”
Woods’s frustration got the better of him. “How the hell am I supposed to fly a mission into Iran if you won’t tell me the source of our information? How do I know whether to trust the information or not?”
“You’re supposed to trust me.”
Woods paused. He realized he actually did trust her. It was the rest of the world of intelligence he didn’t trust. “You have any idea how many people have been killed by relying on intelligence reports? You realize what a total failure intelligence usually represents?”
Pritch winced. “No. Maybe you shouldn’t worry about it.”
“I’m not going to be one more sad memory who relied on intelligence and was killed for it.”
Pritch remembered his notebook. “How do you see yourself being killed because I won’t tell you the source of the information?”
“Because I’m going after the Sheikh, either by myself or with a small strike force. If I don’t know whether your information on his location is any good, I may be doing something too dangerous to be worth the risk. Maybe I’ll let somebody else be the hero.” He was torn. “He may not be there at all.”
“He’s there.”
“How do we know?”
“We just do.” She could see his frustration.
“So why don’t I get to know how we know that?”
“Because you might get shot down.”
Woods hesitated. That was why he and every other Naval aviator had gone to SERE school — Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape. There they’d taught you how to be a prisoner of war, how to resist giving away any information, but always knowing that if in fact you encountered dedicated torturers, they would get the information from you at some point. He lowered his voice and looked directly into her eyes. “I still have to know. It’s critical to the mission.”
She was startled. “Why?” she asked as an aircraft flew down the catapult over CVIC, causing the ship to shudder. Neither of them noticed.
“The best way to penetrate this target… would be to have someone on the ground designating the exact impact point with a handheld laser designator. Otherwise, we are more likely to miss the impact point then hit it, because it won’t be obvious from IR. Just another point in the dirt.” He studied her face for any sign of the answer. “So do we?”
“I can’t say.”
“This is ridiculous!”
“I just can’t.”
Her answer caused him more concern. “What do you mean, can’t?”
“That’s all I’m going to say.” She considered. “You want someone on the ground to lase the target.”
“Yeah. Exactly.”
“I’ll ask.”
“Ask who?”
“The people that I have to ask.”
“This is nuts! Speak English! Can it be done?”
“I don’t know. I’ll ask.”
“How are you going to do that?”
“By sending a back channel message.”
“One of those Top Secret messages. The ones I don’t get to see.”
“You make it sound sinister.”
“No, it’s just stupid.” He was growing tired of the resistance he met at every turn. What was supposed to be a team too often felt like a series of bureaucracies. “I need a yes or no.”
“I’ll find out, Trey. Trust me, for a change.”
34
Kinkaid stood by his STU-III telephone waiting for Efraim to return his call. The rest of the task force continued to work furiously. The latest bold murders had increased the already frenetic focus of the members of the task fore. Outrage permeated every move and thought. Their progress, though, was still halting and uncertain. The Snapshot Teams had seen no other activity near American embassies since the one in Morocco. That didn’t surprise Kinkaid. He knew that the odds of an embassy being attacked directly were low. Even the people they had seen were probably only casing the embassy to observe its personnel.
The STU-III rang at exactly the appointed minute. Kinkaid glanced at the other members of the task force who listened on the special speaker he had rigged to the phone. He wanted them all in on this momentous phone call. “Good morning, Efraim,” Kinkaid said. “How are things?”
“We are enjoying watching the United States attack our common enemy. It is the joy that you have been experiencing for years. When Israel attacked your enemies.”
Sami’s face showed his general disagreement.
Kinkaid spoke while looking at Sami. “Sometimes, but often they are not our direct enemies.”
“Oh, yes, they are. You misunderstand how closely tied our interests are.”
“I have something else in mind to talk you about today. Do you have time to discuss it?”
“I always have time for you, my friend.”