Bennett waited while Lawrence ordered an iced tea with lemon.
Lawrence took a swallow, let it settle, and got right to the point. "Okay, what's the super-duper secret, Skipper?" The redhead had been Bennett's operations officer in VF-24 and consequently Bennett was still the CO.
"Just a couple of preliminaries, Ed. I suppose you're still flying for the airline?"
Lawrence fingered his drink. "Yeah, I'm a copilot with enough seniority to call most of my trips. Straight and level all week, don't upset the passengers, arrive on time. All that good stuff. But on weekends and days off I go bend it with the Reserves. I'm exec of VF-301 now, and I enjoy the F-14 even with another body in the cockpit. I'll tell you, though, I wish to hell you and I could strap on a couple F-8s and go hassle again."
Bennett leaned forward, across the table. "Ed, maybe we can bend it again. Not in Crusaders, but something even better." He checked his watch. "In about forty minutes a man will show up here. His name is Safad Fatah. He's a Saudi minister at large and I've agreed to do a job for — them. I need some help. Your kind of help. I need a good executive officer-somebody I know and trust. And I need an ass-kicking fighter pilot. "
Lawrence's eyes grew wide with curiosity. "Well, don't stop now. Tell me more." He gulped half his drink.
"This job is about four or five years steady work. It'll pay between a hundred and a hundred and fifty grand per year, and it'll be exciting as hell. Other than that, unless you're on board I can't say much else."
Lawrence emitted a low whistle. "Judas Priest. Who do I have to kill?"
Bennett's gray eyes gleamed, his mouth suppressing a grim smile. "Don't ask," he said. "Actually, it's fighter pilot instruction, building an air force from the ground up."
Lawrence cocked his head, his eyes narrowing. He waved a finger at his old skipper. "Wait a minute. You're telling me some raghead sheikh is willing to pay me more than I'm making now, to fly fighters and teach people to do what I used to do for thirty grand?"
"That's about it."
“If that's the deal, I'm in." Lawrence pounded the table. "Miss, another round for me and my friend, please!"
Bennett waved away the waitress. Ed Lawrence was a teetotaler, one of only two Bennett had ever known in naval aviation. The first had been pretty much a washout. The redheaded fighter pilot sitting across from him may have been the best stick-and-rudder man he had ever known.
"Remember, Ed, these people are Muslims. If our guys go boozing on them, it's a quick ticket home. That's rule number one…. “
"Okay. What's rule number two?"
A smile creased Bennett's tanned face. "You remember what Deacon used to say?"
Lawrence thought a moment. "Oh, sure. Topgun instructor. Always came up with pithy sayings." He frowned in concentration. "Which pithy saying?"
''The one that goes, 'Never trust any pilot who would rather use a slide rule than kick your ass.' "
"Hot damn, this sounds too good to be true. Who else is involved? Can't be just the two of us."
"It'll probably involve forty or so flight and tactics instructors and maybe a dozen-plus maintenance, weapons, and avionics folks. That's why I started with you. The Saudis already have a list of prospective pilots. I need not only good sticks, but pilots who can teach. Masher Malloy and Bear Barnes and' probably some Air Force types as well. Even some Brits."
"Sounds good. But where are the Saudis going to find enough pilots like that? There aren't many in my situation-unmarried, free to pick up and move. Not many airline captains or pilots with other careers will go running off to Arabia."
"Fatah people have been very thorough over the past couple years," Bennett replied. ''They've saved us a lot of time with groundwork, not just with instructors but with facilities over there. Most of the work will be done by the time we arrive."
Both men knew that the kind of talent they needed was rare. Instructor pilots with sufficient experience and willingness were few and far between. There were a few score in the Free World: men with combat in their logbooks, still young enough and unencumbered enough to uproot themselves for this type of challenge. Fewer still would be capable of living and working in a strict Muslim nation for years at a time.
Lawrence said, "John, what about your boy Paul? What does he know about all this?"
"I spent most of a weekend with him in Tempe last month. He's gotten a girl pregnant and they say they're going to get married. Well, I guess we all have to learn the hard way. At least he doesn't have AIDS. I told him I wouldn't stand in his way, but he couldn't count on me for help. I told him I'd be doing consulting work out of the country and probably wouldn't be around very regularly."
Lawrence fingered an ice cube. "Geez, that's rough."
Bennett leaned back. "Oh, it's not as bad as it might seem. I'm helping with his tuition and he has a partial scholarship. What I didn't tell him is that the Saudis are establishing a trust for him and the baby instead of paying me. It'll be administered by a family friend here in San Diego." Bennett glanced out the window again, looking at the two carriers. "What about you? When can you break loose from the airline and the Reserves?"
"Far as the line goes, I'll finish this month's schedule. That's less than two weeks. I can resign from the Reserves anytime."
"Is that going to cause problems, create bad feelings? I mean, it's mighty short notice."
The redhead shrugged. "In words of one syllable, who the hell cares? For twelve years I was an underpaid fighter pilot. Now I'm an overpaid airline pilot. I look forward to being an overpaid fighter pilot, the best of all possible worlds."
Bennett raised his glass. "Short war."
Lawrence clicked his glass against Bennett's. "Short war." The traditional warrior's toast.
At that moment a blond man in a business suit walked up to the table. "Excuse me, are you John Bennett?" Neat, professional man. Calm demeanor. Oh, God, Bennett thought. Not FBI.
"Yes, I'm Bennett."
The stranger reached inside his suit coat. He's going to show me his damn badge. We're had. But I haven't done anything.
The stranger produced a color photograph. "Do you recognize this, Commander Bennett?"
It was a green figurine of a pregnant female. "Why, yes. Are you- “
"Mr. Fatah sent me. He has learned that you and he are under discrete surveillance by some Middle Eastern people." The stranger's eyebrows rose suggestively. "I was sent to keep the meeting."
Bennett asked the man to sit down, conscious that the stranger had not offered his name. Bennett introduced Lawrence, who clearly wondered what he had stumbled into.
"Gentlemen, you won't see me again so names don't matter." He placed an envelope on the table. "Mr. Fatah is at the number on the envelope. You are to call him there from any phone except your home, Commander Bennett. The call will merely confirm receipt of the written instructions in this envelope. Any questions?"
The two fliers stared at one another, then at the blond man.
"No, I guess not," Bennett said.
"Then we're done." The stranger stood up, glanced around in a casual fashion. "Oh, one thing. You can't shake these people on your own-they're too good. Just try not to let on that you know you're being watched. Fatah's people will handle things." With that, he walked to the bar.
Lawrence and Bennett cast wary looks around the room. Unless the Israelis were using grandparents or had rented a family of four complete with unruly children in the adjoining dining room, there were no shadowers. From what little he knew of discrete surveillance, Bennett was confident the shadowing team would not follow him into a public place. Most likely there were three or four individuals outside, forming a moving box around the subjects. Equally effective but less obvious. At least, that's how Frederick Forsyth described it in his novels.