And killing the first MiG.
“I locked the guy up,” said DeLancey. “I made sure I had a positive I. D, then — Zap — shot him in the face with a Sparrow.”
The captain of the Saratoga loved it. He clapped DeLancey on the back. “Goddamn, I’m proud of you, son. You’re the real thing.”
“We got us a MiG killer,” chimed in the squadron skipper.
“Hey, now there’s a great call sign,” said the CAG. “Killer! Killer DeLancey!”
Everyone in the room cheered. It was perfect, they all agreed.
Maxwell watched, saying nothing. He waited until DeLancey was alone, basking in the glow of his new celebrity. DeLancey flashed a cocky grin as Maxwell walked over to him.
“I know who killed the MiG,” Maxwell said. “It wasn’t you.”
The grin evaporated from DeLancey’s face. “What are you talking about?”
“Rasmussen shot down the Foxbat.”
DeLancey’s eyes darted around the room, then riveted on Maxwell. “Rasmussen’s dead. How do you know —”
“I was there. I saw it. It was Raz’s kill.”
DeLancey leaned close to him. “Listen, you fucking nugget. You don’t know what you saw. I got that MiG, and no one else. Are you calling me a liar?”
Maxwell hesitated. Yes, he realized, that’s exactly what he was doing. But what would it get him? He was a nugget. It was his word against that of a senior lieutenant. DeLancey had already been declared a hero by acclamation.
Maxwell had been in the Navy long enough to know what would happen. He would be hung out to dry.
“Okay,” he said, turning away from DeLancey. “Keep the MiG.”
He felt DeLancey’s eyes follow him out of the room. He knew the truth. And DeLancey knew that he knew. He had made a permanent enemy.
Chapter Nine
Latifiyah
Tyrwhitt gazed out at the lights of Baghdad. It was warm outside, peaceful now, the lights of the city twinkling in the darkness like a blanket of diamonds. On evenings like this, Tyrwhitt could visualize what it must have been like that night in 1991.
It was the mother of all sound and light shows. Sirens, gunfire, tracers arcing through the blackness… Tomahawk missiles cruising like homing pigeons… the earth trembling with the impact of bombs… sudden eruptions of fire and brick and evil black smoke… the veil of darkness cloaking the invisible enemy…
From these very windows in the Rasheed Hotel the international press pool had witnessed the dismantling of Baghdad. Here in the Rasheed Hotel they watched the most spectacular display of military pyrotechnics in modern warfare.
When would it happen again?
Soon, Tyrwhitt thought. Sooner than anyone expected.
He turned from the window, feeling the onset of the old familiar loneliness that afflicted him on nights like this. He had had enough of Baghdad. Enough of Iraq and its problems. For too long he had lived in this squalid and oppressed place. He had lived with this same debilitating fear, dreading the day when the Bazrum would knocking on his door.
Too long without Claire.
Thank God for the Cyfonika. Since the war the Iraqi telephone system was even more useless than before. International calls to and from Baghdad passed through the Bazrum’s eavesdropping operators and were hopelessly delayed or misrouted. At least the Cyfonika satellite communicator permitted him to call anywhere in the world. In order to cloak the device’s true purpose from the suspicious Bazrum — transmitting encrypted data to the CIA post in Riyadh — Tywhitt made frequent use of the Cyfonika for personal calls. He called his editor in Sydney to discuss new stories. Other times, usually when he’d been drinking, he telephoned old mates scattered around the planet. When he was lonely, as he was tonight, he called Claire.
As he expected, she was asleep in her hotel in Bahrain. She was not pleased.
Tyrwhitt explained to her what he wanted to do: They would drive around the countryside of Iraq, viewing the sites the UNSCOM — United Nations Special Commission — inspectors had tried without success to examine. It was a wonderful idea.
“No way,” said Claire.
“Not so fast, darling. It would be a great story, showing both sides of the debate. It would be a coup.”
“Some coup. It would make me seem as much a suck up to Iraq as you are.”
“What if I arranged an exclusive interview with Saddam?”
“I don’t want to interview Saddam. I despise him, and I despise Baghdad.”
“Really, Claire, the place has changed. There’s a lot to love here.”
“Name one thing.”
“Me, for one.”
“All the more reason not to go.”
Tyrwhitt groaned theatrically. “Claire, darling, you’re breaking my heart.”
“What heart?”
He had to laugh, even though he knew he was getting nowhere. Claire wasn’t coming. Okay, he thought, time to to bring out the heavy artillery.
“I suppose,” he said, “you know about the incident in the No Fly Zone?”
“That shoot down? Old stuff. As a matter of fact, I interviewed the Navy pilot who shot down the Iraqi.”
“Oh? So you’re still keeping company with the flyboys, are you?”
“That’s it. I’m hanging up, Chris.”
“Sorry. Does your Navy chap happen to know who it was that he shot down?”
There was a pause and he knew he had her attention. “Somebody I should know about?” she asked.
“A fellow named Al-Fariz.”
“Wait a minute. I’m getting a pencil. Spell that for me.”
Tyrwhitt spelled the name. Then he told her about Captain Hakim Al-Fariz and the young officer’s relationship to the president of Iraq. He left out the details about the executions of the officers involved in controlling the mission. The Cyfonika in unencrypted mode was as public as a telephone.
In the long silence that followed, he could hear Claire Phillips’s mind working. “That’s pretty interesting,” she said finally. “What’s going to happen next?”
“I have no idea,” he said for the benefit of the Bazrum eavesdroppers. “Why don’t you fly up here and we’ll find out together?”
He heard her groan. “Nice try, Chris. You get the exclusive on this one. I have other plans.”
“What do they call this place?”
“Latifiyah,” said Muhammad, his driver.
Tyrwhitt nodded, feigning ignorance. He knew about Latifiyah. It was forty kilometers south of Baghdad. It had been a weapons depot and a prime target for coalition bombers during the Gulf War. By the end of the campaign, the Latifiyah facility looked like an archeological dig. During the UNSCOM period, when frustrated United Nations inspectors tried to enter Latifiyah, the Iraqis blocked their entry.
Tyrwhitt could see that Latifiyah had been recently transformed. A complex of new buildings had been constructed and, by the looks of the walls and the fortified roofs, the structures were meant to be bomb-resistant.
“Can we visit the place? You know, just to look around?”
Muhammad shook his head vigorously. “It is forbidden. We must not approach any closer than we are now.”
They were at least five kilometers from the complex. Tyrwhitt had ordered Muhammad to stop the Land Rover at the crest of a hill overlooking the complex. Down below, he could make out the network of fences and observation towers. Dust trails rose behind roving patrol vehicles.
“What do they do there?” Tyrwhitt asked Muhammad.
Muhammad shook his head vigorously. “It is not a matter that concerns us.”