Church climbed out of his chair and turned toward the window. The forest along the Potomac appeared excessively green, as if someone had been playing with the tint adjustment on his private view.
Then he remembered that Embry always saved the best, or the most shocking, for last.
He whirled around to stare at the man who handled the African desk.
Embry wasn’t smiling.
“She’s still doing her job, you say. What are you holding back, George?”
“Ramad has planned himself a little demonstration, Marty. He calls it Test Strike.”
“Test Strike? What does it do?”
“It shows the Israelis, and us, I suppose, that the great Leader has balls. He’s going to reveal his arsenal of chemical weapons.”
“I don’t suppose this will come in a press release, will it, George?”
“No. It’s a practical demonstration of three different chemical agents. If she’s got it right, they’ll be psychological, toxic, and nerve agents. There won’t be any announcements, but we’re supposed to read between the lines, I think.”
“How practical is the demonstration?”
“From their point of view, Marty? Very. They’re going to attack three Ethiopian refugee camps simultaneously.”
“Shit!”
“It’s the truth, as far as we can tell.”
Church collapsed back into his desk chair. “Refugee camps.”
“I suppose the Leader feels that no one will complain unduly about the loss of a few thousand mouths to feed. I suppose also that he’ll film the attacks for the benefit of the Israelis. Deliver the tapes by accident, as it were.”
“My God!”
“He’s going to show them how he can operate over long distances, with all of the logistics that involves, as well as deploy devastating ordnance.”
Church was less stunned by the revelation than he was professing. He had seen too many examples of man’s inhumanity, and he knew that Arabic extremist groups — which was not to condemn all Arabs — were the driving forces behind many of the examples in his archives.
“Damn it, George! Why do you always wait so long to spring these disasters on me?”
“That’s not the worst part, Marty.”
“Shit, again!”
“It happens on August second.”
Wyatt thought that his people were going to be ready by their date of departure, August 4.
They had been getting almost five hours a day out of each Phantom during the training and shakeout phase. The first flights had resulted in a rash of small but important glitches in the weapons and electronic systems. Kriswell and Demion were at fever pitch, diagnosing problems, supervising corrections, and reprogramming software.
He stood in the wide-open door of Hangar 4 and watched as Barr brought three-six in for a perfect landing. The sleek jet whistled by, heading for the end of the runway.
“He’s still not getting the correct hydraulic brake pressure,” Demion said. “He’s having to fight it a little on the roll-out.”
“Is that analysis by your observation or by report, Jim?”
“Observation, but you can be damned sure he’ll complain about it.”
Barr’s F-4 wheeled around and off the runway as Hackley passed him, lined up, and took off. The scream of turbojets had become almost a continual background noise. Down at the civilian end of the tarmac, no one had complained. Quite often, there were a few carloads of kids, and sometimes of adults, parked near the office so that Noble Enterprises had a spectator section.
Barr parked the F-4E in front of the hangar, popped the canopy, and clambered out when Hank Cavanaugh brought the ladder out to the plane. He shed his helmet and carried it in the crook of his elbow as he approached them.
“Hey, Jim, the brakes are squishy on the left side.”
“What’d I tell you, Andy?” Demion went back into the hangar to find someone to work on the brake hydraulic system.
Barr stopped in front of Wyatt.
“I’m going to head for town and get a couple hours of nap time and make a phone call.”
“Okay.”
“You want to know who I’m going to call?”
“No.”
“I’m going to call Jan-baby.”
“Okay.”
“I’m going to ask her to marry me,” Barr said.
That got Wyatt’s attention. “I don’t think I caught that, Bucky.”
“Sure you did. We’ve got to keep her somehow, and I guess it’s up to me to do it.”
“Bucky…”
Barr turned and walked off to where two of the three Jeeps were parked. He tossed his helmet into the front seat, followed it, started the engine, and drove off.
Just as a pickup from the airport office came rattling up to Wyatt.
The airport manager poked his head out the window. “Hi, Mr. Cowan.”
“Afternoon.” Wyatt couldn’t remember his name.
“You’ve got a long-distance call on my line. It must be important ’cause they said they’d hold while I came down here after you.”
“Thanks. I’ll follow you back down.”
The manager took a good, close-up look at three-six and whistled his appreciation before engaging the clutch and making a U-turn.
Wyatt crawled into the last of their Jeep Wagoneers and followed him back to the office, skirting wide around a Piper Cherokee parked at the fuel pumps. Inside the office, in rather blessed air-conditioning, he picked up the telephone resting on the counter.
“Cowan.”
“This is the East Coast calling. You know me?”
The voice belonged to Embry.
“I know you.”
“We’ve got a little problem, if I lie a bit. It’s a big one, actually.”
“This is nothing new,” Wyatt said.
“You know what today is?”
“The thirtieth of July.”
“There’s going to be a disaster of mega proportions on the second of August.”
“The hell there is.”
“You’ve got to get there first. That means you take off within the next couple hours.”
“That can’t be done.”
Wyatt’s mind raced over the schedule. The pilots still needed another ten hours, minimum, of seat time. They hadn’t even attempted practicing bomb runs, even though Tom Kriswell was confident that they could get by without them.
His caller’s next statement jerked his attention from the schedule.
“If we don’t get you in place, about five thousand people, maybe more, are going to die,” Embry said.
Wyatt digested that. “You’re not just talking to hear yourself talk?”
“Not this time, buddy.”
“Do I get some details?”
“I’ll personally meet you at your stop in Maine, which I’m setting up now. You’ll get everything you need when you get there.”
“While we’re speaking of needs, have you heard from my logistics agent?”
“That is affirmative. The coded signal was picked up by satellite some fifteen hours ago. He’s in place and ready to go.”
Wyatt’s mind reeled as he considered the implications. The whole thing might actually come together. “I’ll have to leave here without picking up after myself.”
“You go right ahead and do that. I’ll send in a team by morning to clear out the motel and get rid of the vehicles and any other junk.”
“You’ll need to send someone who can fly my Citation back to Albuquerque.”
“Will do. One other thing. I’ve had the National Security Agency set up a satellite relay and monitoring system for us.” Embry gave him a UHF frequency.
“You don’t mean that we’re going to have an ongoing conversation during this operation?”
“We might. There’s some other things going on that you don’t know about.”
Wyatt started to ask him just what those other things were, but Embry hung up.