“The espresso. They guy who runs the machine is actually Italian, and knows what he’s doing.”
“You mean it matters?” Kinkaid smiled as he paid the clerk. “I thought the idea was just to make it as bitter and awful as you could, and then sell it to people who have spent a long time convincing themselves it tastes good.”
“No, no,” Sami replied enthusiastically. “There is a huge difference. Lots of factors. Probably the most important are the quality of the coffee beans and the freshness of the coffee when it’s handed to you. He does a great job.”
“Well, good,” Kinkaid said. “You got a minute?”
“Sure,” Sami shrugged, a little concerned. He paid for his espresso and followed Kinkaid to the corner of the room, where they sat at a small round table. “What’s up?”
“I don’t know,” Kinkaid said, taking a drink. “I try to read people. Sometimes I’m right. I’m getting the feeling that there’s something eating you about our task force. Something’s going on in there,” he said, pointing to Sami’s head.
“I hope there’s something going on in here,” Sami said, trying to make his response sound lighthearted. He wasn’t ready to talk about things yet, but he did have serious concerns.
“So what’s going on?”
“Nothing, really.”
“Horseshit,” Kinkaid said with such force that it caught Sami completely off guard.
“What?”
“That’s horseshit. Don’t try to blow smoke at me, Sami. Something’s bugging you. What is it?”
“You really want to know?”
“Yeah, I really do.”
“I don’t trust the Israelis.”
Kinkaid was surprised. “Huh? What do they have to do with any of this?”
“They might be behind the whole thing.”
“What whole thing?”
“The whole stinking mess. The whole thing may have been just to get the United States more deeply involved. To do their dirty work for them.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Think about it. A nice Navy Lieutenant met a beautiful girl who turned out to be Israeli. She lured him back to Israel, where he was promptly murdered—”
“So was—”
“You wanted to hear it, let me finish,” Sami said more abruptly than he’d intended. “He got killed, then something happened in Lebanon that may have involved a Navy plane. I’m not sure what happened there, but let’s assume one of our pilots went on his own private revenge attack with the Israeli Air Force. That sure as hell was with their consent, and would almost certainly have been their idea. No doubt. Then this Sheikh guy got all pissed at the U.S. because we were on the attack, which the Syrians claim to have figured out all by themselves, and his guys start attacking U.S. citizens all over the damned place. Now we declare war against him and are figuring out how to get back at him and take him out. Exactly what Israel wanted.”
“They couldn’t do it themselves? You think they’re afraid of this lunatic?”
“He’s not a lunatic,” Sami said, shaking his head. “Trust me, he is no lunatic. He may be wrong, and misguided, even evil, but he’s not a lunatic.”
“So who attacked the bus and killed this Lieutenant and his girlfriend?”
“You saw the reports. Men in Israeli Army uniforms.”
“So the Israelis attacked the bus and killed their own people?” Kinkaid exclaimed. “You’re the lunatic! Don’t go irrational on me, Sami! I can’t afford to lose you.”
“I’m not being irrational. I’m thinking about angles you may not be. You have to look at all the angles, Joe. All of them!”
“And then the Sheikh cooperated and took responsibility for the attack? Where are you getting this stuff, Sami? Get off it before you stink up the whole place.”
“If the order comes from high enough, the Mossad would do anything.”
“I’ll see you at the task force meeting,” Kinkaid said disgustedly. He got up and walked out of the cafeteria.
Sami hadn’t even touched his espresso. He had sounded stupid, like some conspiracy theorist. He hadn’t thought it through all the way. Still, it was possible.
The Washington Battle Group steamed northward two hundred miles off the coast of Lebanon. Woods and Wink had waited anxiously for the final word. They were sure that at some point, someone would cancel their flight. That’s what always happened. When it came time to pull the trigger, politicians and Admirals wanted everything to be perfect, and it never was. So they had waited, certain the strike would be called off at the last possible moment.
They went up the small ladder that rose from the catwalk to the flight deck, leaning backward into the wind automatically as they moved aft toward the fantail and their waiting Tomcat. Woods glanced up at the night sky through the dim red floodlights that lit the deck. He could see the stars faintly. A perfect, crisp night for flying.
Wink started around the Tomcat counterclockwise as Woods began his preflight clockwise. Woods looked for leaking hydraulic fluid the way an ER doctor would look for blood. Both red, and both would mean death if the bleeding wasn’t found. Only Woods had to look for his in the dark. It was one of the most important things in his life tonight. The fluids inside the titanium and composite skin were more important to him now than the blood running through the veins of a lot of people in the world.
Woods wanted the people who had killed Vialli so much he could taste it. Their mission was to drop laser-guided bombs on the fortress where they thought the Sheikh was most likely to be. He wished he could ride one of the bombs like Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove — but without dying.
Woods walked underneath the F-14 and saw the dark shadows of the GBU-10s underneath. The ordies had already placed the laser guidance noses on the massive, two-thousand-pound bombs.
Wink stared at the bombs. “Know what I like about these bombs?” he asked Woods.
“What?” Woods said.
“They just make shit go away. Just vanish. That’s so cool.”
Woods smiled at Wink, who was being much more talkative than usual. “Probably should be carrying the GBU-24s, though.”
Wink agreed. “Bunker busters. Maybe on our next hop.”
“We’ll see.”
Woods ran his bare hand along the underbelly of the Tomcat and turned on his mini Maglite flashlight now and then to check for the telltale red hydraulic fluid. He went as far aft underneath the F-14 as he could until he came up to the edge of the flight deck. He shone his flashlight as far back as the light would reach out where the tail of the plane was hanging over the water that was eighty feet below, examining it carefully.
He turned back, going forward, until he was by the left jet intake. Now he was in a hurry. He could feel the tension building throughout the ship as launch time grew closer. No one had canceled it. It might actually happen.
He slipped into the front cockpit and Benson hurried over to stand next to Woods on the access step. He reached over, grabbing the shoulder harness fittings and handing them to Woods, one at time. Benson connected Woods’s G-suit to the environmental system that fed air in direct proportion to the G forces experienced.
“All set, sir?” Benson asked, already knowing the answer.
“All set, Benson. Thanks. Wish us luck.”
“Be safe, sir,” Benson said.
“Roger that,” Woods answered, checking the switches in the cockpit of the Tomcat and pulling the elastic strap of the knee board around his right thigh.
Wink watched Benson climb down and fold the ladder up into the Tomcat. Wink checked both sides of the plane and looked up at the large canopy that stuck into the sky at a forty-five-degree angle. “Clear!” he announced in a loud voice.