“You crack me up, Wink. You must have gotten turned down by the Air Force.”
“I did. I wanted to go to the Air Force Academy. Cool-looking chapel. But that’s got nothing to do with it. The whole idea of flying B-52s around the world is just ridiculous. Their objective is not to win a war — their objective is to look like they’re winning the war on CNN.”
“Victory 203, turn to 110 as the bogey.”
“Roger,” Wink replied.
Woods brought the Tomcat around. When he reached their radial and DME he started in as the bogey on the first intercept of the night.
“So who’s going to be on the first attack, if it ever goes?” Wink asked.
“You’re finally going to be happy that you fly with the Assistant Operations Officer. The guy who writes the flight schedule. You’re not worthy, Wink. The first flight is an attack on the fortress in Lebanon. The Eisenhower is going to attack the Syrian fortress. Looks like we’re on the first strike, carrying two-thousand pounders.”
“You mean it’s on?”
“Yep.”
“Shit hot! How come you didn’t tell anybody?”
“Just got the word. Bark is all over this. I think we might be on Bark’s wing, maybe even leading the strike. He wants to fly with the LANTIRN god.”
“We’re going to be leading the strike?” Wink said, suddenly concerned.
“Victory 207, contact 290 for 33.”
“That’s your bogey.”
“Judy.”
“Looks like it,” Woods replied, trimming the airplane so it would stop flying slightly nose down.
“When do we go?”
“Tonight.”
“I gotta go plan! We’ve got to get ready.”
“You just said you were ready.”
“I want to be really ready.”
Cunningham walked by Sami’s cubicle and saw him staring at his computer, deep in thought. Cunningham rapped his knuckles on the aluminum frame of the cubicle. “You awake?”
“Yeah, hey,” Sami said, sitting back, his expression troubled.
“What’s up?” Cunningham asked.
Sami hesitated. “I don’t know. Ever since Kinkaid told us about his Israeli connection, I’ve had an uneasy feeling. Things haven’t been adding up.”
Cunningham sat down heavily in the chair by Sami’s desk. “Don’t go paranoid on me,” he said.
“Check this out,” Sami said, pointing at the screen.
Cunningham leaned forward and looked at Sami’s computer. “What?”
“The Syrians say they found a missile casing, and showed it to everyone. Remember? That picture of a torn missile with a partial serial number?”
“Sure.”
“Then everybody wanted to know the story. So the Raytheon guy holds a press conference—”
“Right. Live. We all watched it.”
Sami glanced back at the screen. “And he said the entire lot that missile was part of was shipped to Israel.”
“Right. Confirmed what we had been saying all along.”
“Look. This is the actual shipment list. They didn’t all go to Israel. Eighty-five percent went to the U.S. Navy, seven percent or so to the Air Force, and seven percent to Israel.”
“You sure?” Cunningham asked, peering at Sami’s screen to see if he was reading the numbers right. “Okay, so the one Syria found was from the seven percent shipped to Israel.”
“Maybe. But the Raytheon guy said all of that lot was sent to Israel.”
“They probably just didn’t want people getting carried away. Syria may have faked the number anyway. Maybe they got hold of the list you’re looking at and picked that lot because it had the fewest shipped to Israel. They’re trying to make it look like the Navy did it.”
“And how the hell are they going to get this list?”
“Maybe a CIA analyst of Syrian descent sent it to them—”
“What the hell does that mean? That really pisses me off! If you’ve got something against me—”
“Whoa,” Cunningham said, smiling. “Just pulling your chain. Relax.”
“That was a cheap shot. You think it’s easy being an Arab in this place? Everybody thinks I’m a terrorist. I don’t need any shit from you—”
“Sorry. Look, I wouldn’t trust Syria to know a telephone number even if they got it out of the phone book. I’d know they were wrong. Everything they say is a lie. It’s just a matter of how big a lie it is. Everything comes through the government. Everything is calculated to deceive for a purpose. So I don’t know what’s going on with this number, but I’m sure as hell not worried about it. If we treat everything Syria says as a lie, we’re usually okay.”
Sami indicated the computer screen, angered by his friend’s generalization. “Looks like we’re the ones lying this time.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you. There are plenty of people here who can worry about missile casings. We have a big enough problem trying to find the Sheikh.”
“But it all comes down to that. Kinkaid is relying on Israel to give us the inside information. I don’t trust them. I’m not buying this.”
“So don’t. But it’s not our job to follow the missile claims from Syria. What do you think, one of our planes went into Lebanon like some gunfighter and shot down a bunch of Syrians?”
“Maybe.”
“Oh, come on. You probably believe in UFOs.”
“Why is it so hard for you to believe?”
“Because things like that just don’t happen.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I hope it did happen! We should do it more often. I’m all for blurring the lines. I like the idea of the terrorists looking over their shoulders all the time. I’m happy as hell we’ve declared war against this Sheikh guy. It’s time to turn his lights out. I frankly don’t care whether our guy went up there illegally. They murdered one of our Navy officers—”
“He was in the wrong place at the wrong—”
“They shot him in the back!”
“I still think—”
“Keep your eye on the ball, Sami. We’ve got enough to worry about already.”
“I got a feeling there’s more here than meets the eye.”
Cunningham stood up. “Always is, Sami.”
Sami’s phone rang. Cunningham waved and left the cubicle as Sami picked up the phone. “Yeah?”
“Sami.”
“Father.”
“I am sorry to interrupt your day. You know I don’t like calling you during your work.”
“It’s okay. No problem. What’s up?”
“Something has happened that I wanted to tell you.”
“What?”
“Remember the man who was talking to you at the beginning of the meeting the other day?”