At ten she left. Waters spent the next two hours listening to and replaying Thunder’s tape. He called Chief Pullman, who delivered a TV set and VCR. “Chief,” Waters asked, “can you get me a copy of the radar tapes from Outpost?”
The first sergeant hesitated. All intelligence-gathering units carefully guarded and controlled their information. Outpost used a small room in the 45th’s large walk-in Intelligence vault to store and process its material. Not only was the vault more secure than the radar site, it removed intelligence activity from Outpost and helped maintain its cover as a lonely GCI radar-control post. Well, Pullman knew how to back-door a copy out of the vault from a sergeant who owed him a favor. “How fast you need it, Colonel? I can have you one in twenty minutes, long as you forget where you got it. Otherwise I can get you one through official channels in about four days.”
“Appreciate it, Chief,” Waters said, understanding the sergeant now held his marker. More important, the sergeant was trusting him.
It turned into a long evening with the tapes. At two A.M. Waters knocked off.
The next morning Waters walked into the 379th, asking to talk to Fairly and the other men on the scramble. They found an empty briefing room and for the next three hours went through an entirely different debrief with Waters.
After he left, Jack shook his head. “Where did he come from?”
“Calm down,” Thunder told him. “What did you learn?”
“That we flew a shit hot mission, fucked up by the numbers, could have gotten two MiGs without half the hassle if we had done it another way, the Libyans are flying better, and we should be congratulated to hell and back again, big joke.”
“Was he right?” Thunder asked.
Before Jack could answer, Fairly broke in. “He’s right. We’ve been a flying club around here.”
“He didn’t say that—”
“No, I did But that was his message. I think it’s time we started to get our act together.”
Waters gathered his team together in Sara’s small office and began by asking Sara what had happened with the missiles.
“Up front,” she said, “it looks like the Pentagon simply denied the wing permission to upload missiles because the issue is very sensitive with the Egyptians. But it’s not all the Pentagon’s fault. The wing could have done more. They never practiced rapid upload of missiles even though Shaw had told them to start doing it. They could have built a missile-holding area right next to the alert birds. The Russians built weapons bunkers into every revetment. Modifying them would have been simple and cheap. And Colonel Blevins was right; they could have requested permission to upload once they were placed on alert.”
Waters nodded. “And you, Gene?”
Blevins fought to mask the triumph he felt as he told about his discovery of the true location of the crash site. Waters said he had suspected the fight had strayed into Libyan airspace when he reviewed the mission-debrief tape.
“Colonel Waters,” Blevins persisted, “I know they were in hot pursuit, but they were lost and should not have penetrated the Libyan border without permission. They didn’t take the time to evaluate the situation. It’s a good thing they weren’t armed with missiles, that would have made it even more of a hostile act. This should be the major thrust of our report—”
“Gene, it’s a minor point. How much more hostile could Lieutenant Locke have acted?”
Blevins picked up his papers and left the office, angry at Waters’ refusal to focus the after-action report on the crash site. It seemed he was losing his chance to impress the generals on the brigadier general selection board.
“Gene,” Waters’ quiet voice stopped the colonel, “this needs to be up-channeled right away. Can you get a message on the wires? And tell Shaw, he needs to know.”
Blevins nodded, feeling somewhat better as he left.
“What do you think he’s going to do?” Waters asked Sara.
“He won’t co-sign the report, but he won’t dissent either. He’ll look for a loophole and pass it along to one of his buddies in the right office. Not to you. No matter what happens, he’s off the hook. His buddies have ammunition to fight the report, and you’re left holding the bag when the report looks bad.” Blevins was too much of a company man. She’d seen him burn his way through the Pentagon and land on his feet every time. She worried about Waters, wondered if he was a match for Blevins in the staff warfare that went on in a headquarters.
“What kind of loopholes you think he’ll look for?”
“I’m not sure. He did mention the aircrews not properly evaluating the situation.”
“In a way he’s right… Well, I think we can start writing part of the report.”
“I’ve been invited to go into Alexandria to see the marketplace this afternoon. Okay by you we start after that?”
“Go ahead. I’ve got an idea for our other intrepid investigator. I think Colonel Blevins needs to go for a ride in an F-4 tomorrow to see how much time you get to ‘evaluate the situation.’”
Jack could see Sara waiting behind the glass doors of the VOQ when he drove up in Thunder’s car. He watched her run down the steps, blond hair catching the sun. He was glad Thunder had lent him his bigger, air-conditioned car. As usual his Dino Ferrari was broken and he couldn’t find the parts he needed. Besides, the Dino would have overheated in downtown traffic.
“I’m glad you could make it,” he said as she slid in beside him. “I was afraid the report would get in the way.”
“I appreciate the offer. You sure it’s not too much trouble?”
“Hardly. By the way, what do your bosses think of you spending time with one of the subjects of the report?”
“They don’t know.”
He liked that, made him feel like a co-conspirator. Close to her, which, of course, was the idea. At least in his head.
The marketplace was just reopening after the heat of the day, full of the sounds and smells that had captivated Sara from the first. They wandered from quarter to quarter in the huge labyrinth, stopping to look at goldsmiths and copper merchants. Sara’s bargaining impressed Jack, who liked the merchants, especially the ones in the antique quarter. “My mother is an antique freak,” he told Sara.
After the sun had set and the day’s heat broken, the market took on a quieter, softer hue as the stalls started to close and the crowds thinned. Jack had been concentrating on Sara, trying to figure the best approach after being turned aside more than once during the afternoon. Clearly she was onto his game.
Down a side alley they came to a lighted circle under a street lamp where a one-legged beggar boy was dancing to the music of a flutelike instrument and a small drum. The music rose and fell as the boy twirled and dipped, smiling, occasionally chanting in time to the drum and throwing his head back and stretching out his arms. When the dance ended, his curly black hair glistened in the light. Jack reached into his pocket and handed the boy some pound notes, not bothering to count them.
Sara broke the silence as they walked back to the car. “You really like the Egyptians, don’t you?” For the first time she was less sure about this man at her side.
“Some of them. For me that kid is Egypt, crippled but full of life… Can I interest you in some dinner? We can go to the club or a fairly decent restaurant—”
“I’d like something quiet if you don’t mind.”
“Well, there’s omelets or spaghetti at my place.”
“The omelet sounds fine.”
“Good. My spaghetti is lousy.”