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.