“You’re the reporter,” Brick said. “What’s going on? Did something happen?”
“Yes. Something happened. And I can guess what’s going to happen next.”
Then she leaned forward and told him, very quietly, what happened that afternoon to cause the USS Reagan to haul anchor and put to sea.
Brick listened, nodding. When she finished telling him the news, he glanced over at the crowd. Most of the clustered sailors and officers had boarded the utility boat.
Except DeLancey. He was still there, staring at them.
Suddenly, Maxwell remembered the package. He pulled it from his carry-all bag. “I, uh, was going to give you this at dinner tonight. I know it’s not your birthday.”
She felt the package, recognizing its contents. “It will be. Come back to me in one piece, Sam.”
Chapter Twelve
Jabbar
(Syndicated Wire Service, 17 May, Baghdad)
by Christopher Tyrwhitt
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraqi military officials reported the downing of an American Air Force F-16 Viper Friday morning during a pre-dawn incursion of Iraq’s air space near the southern No Fly Zone. An Iraqi official declared that the American jet was destroyed by an anti-aircraft missile battery, which returned fire when attacked by the American jets. The only reported damage, the official said, was to a clearly marked school building.
A U.S. State Department spokesperson has confirmed the loss of the jet, adding that the pilot safely ejected and was rescued soon after the incident.
Tensions have heightened along the United Nations-imposed No Fly Zone since the downing last month of an Iraqi MiG-29 interceptor jet by U.S. Navy jets flown from the aircraft carrier, USS Ronald Reagan. The fate of the Iraqi pilot has not been disclosed.
Since the imposition of the No Fly Zones after the end of the Gulf War in 1991, American and British warplanes have frequently targeted Iraqi air defense sites. Today’s action was apparently a continuation of the stepped-up pressure on the Iraqi air defense system.
President Saddam Hussein has sworn retaliation for such hostile acts by United States forces, and the downing of the American fighter was hailed in Iraq’s press as a confirmation of his resolve.
It was incredible, thought Colonel Jabbar. He was alive.
Not only was he alive, he was flying.
Had Jabbar been a true believer, which he was not, he might have attributed this miracle to the Divine Being. This would seem to be an undeniable instance of intervention by Allah. That Colonel Jabbar’s life had been spared at the very moment of his execution by firing squad was simply too miraculous for any other explanation.
Except, of course, for one. The sudden reversal of his fate as he stood facing the loaded carbines of the Republican Guard was exactly the sort of capricious melodrama that Saddam loved to orchestrate. Immediate death sentences, instant reprieves — all were rendered and reversed in the presidential court of Saddam Hussein like alternating weather reports.
But here he was, alive. And flying again.
Jabbar nudged the MiG’s throttles forward a notch. Beneath him swept the monotonous brown desert of western Iraq. To his right, stepped up a thousand feet, was his wingman, Captain Suluman Faisal.
They were flying low and fast, skimming the floor of the desert at a speed of over 800 kilometers per hour. Faisal was his safety pilot, peering out ahead for danger while Jabbar concentrated on low-level navigation. Faisal was a competent airman, unlike the hapless Captain Al-Fariz, deceased nephew of Saddam.
Faisal, of course, was not happy about today’s training mission. He had been told nothing about the purpose of the mission, or what sort of munitions delivery they were simulating. Like most fighter pilots, Faisal preferred to be up in the stratosphere where they were supposed to engage enemy fighters. Instead, they were hurtling across dunes and dwarf trees like lowly air-to-ground attack pilots.
“Be alert, Red lead,” came Faisal’s voice on the tactical frequency. “Vehicles ahead, twelve o’clock, three kilometers.”
“Red lead is looking.”
Jabbar peered through his windscreen. What were they? Military trucks? One of the Shiite caravans on the move…
He spotted a column of dust. Half a dozen rickety trucks with home-made containers strapped to the beds were bumping down the unpaved road. Smugglers, probably, hauling contraband on their return trip from the Kurdish-held territory near the Turkish border.
Jabbar dipped the MiG’s right wing, altering course just enough that he would go blasting directly over the column. The trucks were moving eastward. They wouldn’t see the fighters bearing down on them from behind.
Jabbar dropped the MiG down until he was no more than fifty feet over the tops of the trucks.
Closer… closer… Jabbar saw a passenger in the back of the truck look up, suddenly spot the fighters. His mouth opened….
Wharrrrooom! The MiG-29 roared over the truck column at nearly supersonic speed.
Jabbar pulled up and rolled the MiG into a vertical bank so he could look back over his shoulder. The lead truck had careened into a gully beside the road. The other trucks in the column were stopped. Their occupants were sprinting into the desert like ants from a mound.
Jabbar had to laugh. That would give them some excitement, he thought. Smuggling had become a routine business in Iraq since the sanctions. Now the terrified buggers would think that Saddam had sent attack jets out to seek and destroy their miserable vehicles. They wouldn’t stop running until they’d put several kilometers between them and the convoy.
Jabbar returned his thoughts to the training mission. Back to low-altitude navigation, flying over the floor of the desert. Back to training for the real mission. Jabbar eased the MiG down again to a hundred feet above the sand.
Too bad, he thought, focusing his gaze on the landscape blurring past him. Too bad that the real mission wouldn’t be as easy as sneaking up on smugglers. The real enemy would not be so easy to surprise. And most certainly the real enemy would not run for the desert like a frightened rabbit.
The thought filled Colonel Jabbar with a cold dread. It was why he had been spared from the firing squad. He had been given an assignment that was as deadly as standing before a squad of Republican Guard riflemen.
Jabbar still didn’t know what weapon — or weapons — would be mounted on his MiG-29. But already he had managed to piece together parts of the puzzle, like an elaborate mosaic. He could deduce that it was almost certainly an air-launched missile. He was sure that it was a weapon that could be deployed from very low altitude at a distance of at least three hundred fifty kilometers from the target.
Now he was certain of another fact: The weapon possessed massive destructive power. Enough to obliterate a hundred-thousand-ton warship.
Walking toward the ready room, Maxwell could feel the movement of the ship under him.
The recall of the Reagan’s crew had been very successful. Fewer than a hundred sailors were unaccounted for, a statistic that amazed old hands who could remember when a recalled aircraft carrier would head to sea leaving a quarter of its complement behind in local brothels and bars.
One more way in which the New Navy was different, thought Maxwell.
When he entered the Roadrunner ready room, Undra Cheever, the squadron duty officer, was chewing on a doughnut. His face lit up when he saw Maxwell come into the ready room. “The skipper wants to see you in his office ASAP.”