“Solution to that’s easy,” Wink said.
They all looked at him.
“Unscheduled sunrise.”
“Like we’re going to nuke him,” Woods said.
“It’d take care of the problem,” Wink said, shrugging.
“We’ll figure something out,” Woods said. “We’ll start the planning, figure out the tanking, how far it is…”
“Don’t assume you’re going—”
Woods and Wink headed out the ready room door immediately and down the starboard passageway toward the CVIC. They stepped over the knee knockers deftly and maintained as quick a pace as they could sustain without running into the sailors coming down the passageway in the other direction. They reached CVIC and went immediately into the large central room. There were several Intelligence Officers and aircrew in the room looking at charts and computer screens. Woods scanned the room quickly for Pritch. She was in the corner, studying a chart on the wall.
“Pritch!” Woods said as they walked over to her. “You hear they found the Sheikh?”
“What?” Pritch said, confused.
Woods handed her the message.
She read it. “Where’d you get this?”
“Just came in. Five minutes ago.”
She memorized the latitude and longitude listed on the message, handed it back to Woods, and looked at the wall chart. “This is the same fortress we were thinking about before,” she said. “Is this the same lat/long?”
Wink shrugged. “Don’t know.”
She put her finger on a mountain ridge in northwestern Iran. “Right here.”
Woods moved closer to the chart and looked over her shoulder. Wink stood on the other side of her. They wanted to know the same thing. Exactly how far it was from their likely launch position. Woods took out his black, government-issue ballpoint pen. He placed it on a longitude line and counted the latitude lines that were each one nautical mile apart all the way along the pen. He picked a spot in the Mediterranean off the coast of Syria, and began moving his pen toward Alamut, counting the pen-lengths to the target. Wink counted on his own. Woods stopped with his pen overlapping the target point. He glanced at Wink.
“Four hundred fifty miles,” Wink said, thinking already of flight profiles, fuel requirements, and ordnance load-out.
Woods replied, still staring at the chart for approach points and the likelihood of a direct, straight-in flight like the one his pen had just completed. “One way.” He measured the distance again.
Wink did likewise.
“You know what this means,” Pritch interrupted.
“What?”
“I don’t see anyway we can do this.”
“Why not?” Wink asked.
“Look at the last paragraph of this message,” she said, handing it to Wink. “They expect him to be seventy-five to a hundred feet underground. We’ll never get him.”
Wink concentrated. “Got to be some way…”
“We’ll never send troops on the ground there to get him. Never happen,” Woods said.
“I don’t know that. It might very well happen,” Wink replied.
“So we’re out of it?” Pritch said, sounding disappointed.
“Not if we catch him on the surface. Make him come out some how.”
“How we going to do that?” Woods asked. “Stick a garden hose down his hole and flush him out? Play ‘whack the gopher’?”
“I don’t hear anything smart coming from you.”
“I’ll think of something,” Woods promised.
33
Those in CVIC turned their attention to the television, which was tuned to CNN. They watched the Syrian Ambassador to the United Nations read his prepared statement.
“Yesterday, as night fell on the peace-loving people of Syria, the United States launched an unprovoked attack into the sovereign territories of Syria and Lebanon. These attacks killed innocent civilian women and children. Syria defended itself with surface to air missiles and AAA, shooting down three American warplanes.”
“Bullshit!” Wink said. “They cannot utter one friggin’ sentence, without some bullshit lie falling out of their mouths—”
The Ambassador continued. “These attacks cannot go on. The United States may not conduct war on a country with which it is not at war without retaliation. Syria will respond, and will respond in kind. We will not tolerate American aggression. We will not tolerate our people being killed in cold blood. We expect apologies from United States, reparations, and promises not to intrude into our airspace or our territory.
“The Americans are becoming bullies of the Middle East, where they do not even belong. They have not been invited by anyone, they have not taken reasonable steps, and now they have killed innocent people. Now of course we know the true facts.”
He stared into the camera. “Even before these latest attacks the Americans had shown their contempt for Syrian and international law by attacking Lebanese and Syrian positions, by shooting down Syrian pilots, and bombing a Lebanese town in cooperation with the Israeli Air Force. This was because an American Navy officer was with an Israeli Intelligence Officer when she was attacked and killed.
“The Americans know this. Now the world does. The American Naval officer was acting in cooperation with an Israeli intelligence agent. He was in Israel to plan attacks on Lebanon and Syria by the United States Navy, the attacks we are now seeing. They were conspiring to do the very thing that they later did — the U.S. Navy joining with the Israeli Air Force and secretly flying into Lebanon and attacking innocent civilians. Perhaps America has been cooperating with Israel and flying its airplanes on these strikes for a long time. Perhaps we were the stupid ones and simply did not know it. We will have to review the reports of our pilots and those who operated in Lebanon and Syria to see if they have spotted American forces before. We, of course, know that the Israelis operate American equipment. They fly American jets, and drop American bombs, and shoot American missiles. All given to them by the Americans. It is said that the Israelis buy their equipment, but the Americans give the Israelis three billion dollars in foreign aid every year, just enough money to buy all the military equipment that they need. From America of course.
“So America sells its own equipment, or gives it, to Israel, then conspires with Israeli intelligence to ensure that American Naval forces fly off their aircraft carriers and into Lebanon and Syria to attack our people. But when called to task, when called to account, they lie, say they weren’t there, and then use it as an excuse to do more of the same.”
A few of the journalists were becoming impatient and wanted to ask questions. But the Ambassador was not slowing down even for a second. He had things to get off his chest and he was determined to do so. Unlike most diplomats who made speeches at times such as this, this Ambassador seemed truly to believe what he was saying.
“So the Americans claim that there is a new terrorist organization operating out of Syria, Sheikh al-Jabar. They of course have no evidence that he has ever even been to Syria. They claim he is operating out of Lebanon. Once again, they have no such evidence. They then, without provocation, use these excuses to attack the self-defense capability of Syria and Lebanon.
“Perhaps we now understand. This is the big chance that America has yearned for for so long to come into the Middle East in force. CNN shows us that the Marines are coming. It looks like the Sheikh is right. The Americans are the next Crusaders.
“I want to make the Syrian position extremely clear: If one American sets foot on Syrian soil, or Lebanese soil, we will respond with force. If the Americans think they have a fight now, they haven’t seen anything yet.”