Maxwell nodded. It meant that DeLancey was back in attack mode.
After a quick coffee, he checked his mail, then headed up the passageway to DeLancey’s office.
As usual, DeLancey didn’t invite him to sit. He got right to the point. “You’re a security risk, Maxwell. I’m going to have you relieved.”
Maxwell had no idea what he was talking about. This was DeLancey’s style, to lead with an outrageous statement. Throw you off balance before getting to the point.
“May I ask how you’ve determined that I’m a security risk?"
A knowing smile spread over DeLancey’s face. “The Phillips woman. You’ve been screwing someone known to be anti-military, then spilling classified information to her.”
Maxwell nodded. It explained the peculiar look DeLancey gave him while they were waiting back at the fleet landing for the boat. It was absurd.
“I presume you can prove this?”
“I don’t have to. She’s getting information from someone. It’s you she’s been with. That makes you a security risk. You can save yourself and the Navy a lot of trouble by simply resigning.”
Maxwell was getting the picture. DeLancey wanted him to cave in and quit. He considered for a moment, then he reached for the telephone on DeLancey’s desk. “Do you want to call the Judge Advocate General’s office now?”
“JAG? Why?”
“You’re going to be a defendant in a defamation case. If Miss Phillips doesn’t do it, I promise you I will.”
“This is the United States Navy. You can’t sue your commanding officer.”
“And you can’t have an officer relieved because of your own perverted suspicions. I’ll remind you, Killer, slander is a violation of the military code of justice.” He picked up the phone and held it out it to DeLancey. “Want me to make the call? Might as well get started.”
The smile was gone from DeLancey’s face. “Don’t pull that lawyer shit with me. We both know that you’re banging that reporter. And we both know that one way or another, I’m gonna get you busted out of here.”
“Thanks for the warning, Skipper. Will that be all?”
DeLancey glowered at him in silence.
Maxwell turned on his heel and left.
“When?” Tyrwhitt asked.
“Soon. Two weeks. Perhaps a month.”
“That’s pretty indefinite.”
“What do you expect?” the man snapped. “A printed time table? This is Iraq.”
“Of course. I’m sorry.”
Tyrwhitt reminded himself to be careful. Don’t push too hard. The man was obviously sensing danger. He might get spooked and run.
As arranged, they met in the old souk, the one in the north part of the city near the B’aath building. This time the man was already in the stall, examining carpets. He had purchased one cheap Persian and was fiddling with another.
He seemed more edgy this time. Tyrwhitt gave him a moment to calm down. “Do you know the source?”
“North Korea. Probably by way of Afghanistan.”
The usual suspects, thought Tyrwhitt. The fraternal brotherhood of terrorist countries.
“How are they delivered?” asked Tyrwhitt.
“Overland, by truck at night. You know about Iraq’s oil business?”
“I thought Iraq was forbidden to export oil.”
“It’s quite clever, really,” said the man. “They use these trucks with tanks welded to the long flat beds. Every night they transport the refined oil across the desert. They deliver it to the Kurds in the north, Shiites in the south, to the Iranians in the northeast.”
“Iraq’s sworn enemies?”
The man shrugged. “Capitalism thrives in strange circumstances.” Tyrwhitt thought he glimpsed a wry smile beneath the man’s cloaked face. In the shadowed stall, he couldn’t see the man’s face clearly, but that voice — yes, it could be. The colonel he met at the minister’s reception.
“They sell it at one-quarter the world price,” the man went on. “The oil is forwarded to depots in Turkey and Jordan and Iran and resold at twice the amount. Everyone makes money. For the return trip, the tanker trucks are flushed and converted to dry cargo carriers. The trucks haul goods over the desert back to Baghdad.”
“What goods?”
“Items that the sanctions have denied Iraq. Everything from canned food to drugs to ammunition.”
Tyrwhitt was beginning to get the picture. “And missiles?”
“Of course.”
It was so obvious — and workable. High tech weaponry was being smuggled along the same ancient routes used by nomadic traders for the past thousand years.
“Do you know what type?” Tyrwhitt asked.
“Kraits. The new, long range version, manufactured in China. They now have at least ten with mobile surface launchers. I know of two more that have been prepared for air launch.”
Tyrwhitt tried to fix the numbers in his mind. The information was too vital for him to get it wrong. “What about warheads? Do they have any?”
The man didn’t answer right away. “Everything the coalition suspected that Saddam had, he has.”
“You mean —”
“Anthrax. Sarin gas. Botulinim toxin. Aflatoxin. Weaponized and ready for munitions delivery.”
Tyrwhitt nodded. It was worse than he expected. Everyone knew that Saddam had biological weapons, despite the efforts of the United Nations inspection teams. But no one seriously believed that he had the means to deploy them. How could this be going on without the coalition’s intelligence services picking it up? Or had they?
Great Christ almighty, thought Tyrwhitt. Biological weapons, deployed aboard missiles. That meant urban and industrial targets. The populated centers of Iraq’s enemies — Tel Aviv, Kuwait City, the military and commercial complexes of Saudi Arabia — all within range of the Krait missiles.
To use such weapons against civilians would be the most heinous crime in history. Surely Saddam knew that retribution would come from —
Tyrwhitt caught himself. There had to be more. Of course there was. Biological weapons would not be effective against well-prepared military sites, especially armored and moveable sites like aircraft carriers.
There was more.
Tyrwhitt had to force himself to ask the next question. “You said ‘everything the coalition suspected.’ Does that mean Iraq possesses —”
“Nuclear warheads?” For the first time the man looked directly at Tyrwhitt’s face. The intense brown eyes seemed to peer right into Tyrwhitt’s thoughts. “Certainly. And he will use them.” The man sniffed and turned his face away. “Tyrwhitt, must you always stink of whiskey?”
Don’t let the bastards see you cry.
B. J. Johnson had to keep telling herself that. She was near the breaking point. She knew she should have expected something when she came into the ready room. She should have known by the way Undra Cheever and Hozer Miller were lurking in the front of the room, watching her like a couple of vultures.
The dirty tricks were getting dirtier. One day last week when she suited up for flying, she discovered that her torso harness — a nylon outer garment with fittings that attached the pilot to the Hornet’s ejection seat — had a lacey push-up bra neatly sewn inside. She had forced a laugh and let it go. Frat boy stuff.
Then a few days later she found her flight suit bristling with white objects. They were tampons, protruding like white pennants from the sleeve pockets. Again she ignored it. She knew that if she threw a tantrum about such things, the bastards would never let up.
The anonymous phone calls — one less trap than you have launches — had stopped, but now she was getting these notes. They were the same stuff, nasty and anonymous. She hadn’t shown them to Maxwell as he had requested. It would just make it worse, she thought, having a senior officer spring to her defense like a white knight. She would be branded as another wimpy female who couldn’t take the heat.