“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.
“Did he have permission?”
“Nope.”
“No?”
“No. Told his roommate, but nobody else. The roommate didn’t tell anyone until it was too late.”
“He’s in some deep shit.”
“Good guess.” They opened the door to the conference room and crossed to the coffee machine that was kept fresh by some unknown person.
“Good morning,” Kinkaid said as they got their coffee. “If everyone will take a seat, we can begin. We all have work to do, so I want to keep this time to a minimum. We’ve got two hits, clearly well planned and well executed. No casualties to the terrorists, which sets them apart from virtually all terrorists that have come before them. They care about living through it and they have escaped without a trace from Gaza, and from Israel itself, something most of us considered impossible. Anybody got anything?”
Nicole spoke. “I’ve been in contact with the Mossad. They’re playing it very close to the vest. I think there’s more to this one than meets the eye. Official position is that they have no idea who did it or why. The one initially unidentified man who was killed we now know was a U.S. Navy pilot from the Washington. The carrier was in Naples. The officer, we now learn, was on unauthorized leave, apparently visiting an Israeli woman from Nahariya. At least that’s the report we’ve gotten from the Navy. Met her on the train south of Naples, and fell for her. Went to visit her, and she’s the one who was killed with him.” Nicole stopped, seeing the image of what she was about to say. “They were both shot in the back. At close range.”