The Iraqi went on in his rapid, guttural English. He related details about the state of Iraq’s air defense radar, the disposition of its surface-to-air missile batteries, the timetable for the launch of the Kraits.
Tyrwhitt nodded, absorbing the information. He noticed that as the Iraqi spoke, his eyes were in constant motion, scanning the crowded shop.
Abruptly he stopped. He drew the folds of his kaffiyeh around his face. Tyrwhitt could see only the intense dark eyes. “We are in danger here. You must leave immediately.”
He nodded toward the far end of the coffee house. Two brown-suited men were walking through the open-walled entrance. They had the unmistakable look of the Bazrum.
Tyrwhitt rose, turning his back to the entrance. “Will we meet again?”
“I don’t know. It is very dangerous for us now. Go quickly.”
Tyrwhitt inserted himself into the throng of passing people. Assuming the standard hunch-shouldered posture of the Iraqi male, he shuffled toward the far end of the coffee house. He didn’t look back.
Tyrwhitt pulled the old Halliburton suitcase down from the shelf in the closet. He tossed in three clean shirts and enough underwear and socks for three days.
He stopped and peered out the window. It was still only three-thirty in the afternoon. He was in good shape to catch the six o’clock Middle East Airlines flight to Bahrain. It was one of only three daily commercial flights leaving the country. Even though the UN sanctions had been eased in the past year, air travel from Iraq was still a bitch.
It had been a close thing back in the coffee house, he reflected. The Bazrum agents had spotted him, which he now realized was what the informant intended. In their eagerness to trail Tyrwhitt they had failed to notice the Iraqi colonel, still huddled at his table with his face cloaked in his kaffiyeh.
Tyrwhitt led them on a hide and seek chase through the B’aath district. Walking briskly through the crowded plaza, he took a sharp turn into a vendors’ lane, then darted between a row of crumbling low buildings. When he doubled back to the opposite end of the plaza, he spotted a rusting Trabant taxi idling in the outer lane. He jumped into the taxi and told him to drive swiftly to the Rasheed.
The two puffing Bazrum agents came trotting out a side street in time to see the Trabant pulling away. Tyrwhitt gave them a cheery wave.
By the time he arrived back at the Rasheed, he had reached a decision. This new information was too explosive, too detailed to send by encryption. He would have to fly to Bahrain.
It had taken a couple of calls on the Cyfonika. As it turned out, he had no problem getting a seat on the MEA flight, which was a 727 with over a hundred seats open. Iraq was so poor, few of its citizens could travel by air.
His editor in Sydney was agreeable to Tyrwhitt taking some rehab time. Everyone knew that Baghdad was a hardship assignment and, anyway, Tyrwhitt could justify getting out for a few days by cranking out a feature article. In Bahrain he could write something about the skirmishes between the emirate government and the Shiites who were raising hell in the streets. Old stuff, but it would cloak his real reason for being in Bahrain.
Latifiyah. If the Iraqi informant was to be believed — and Tyrwhitt was convinced of the man’s veracity — time was against them. It was urgent that he have one of his rare one-on-one debriefings with his CIA handler. The secrets of Latifiyah were ticking in his head like a time bomb.
Tyrwhitt threw his toilet kit into the suitcase. After a moment’s hesitation he removed the ankle holster and the Beretta nine-millimeter and stuffed it in the dresser drawer. For the past five years, since he’d been through the CIA school in Langley, Virginia, he had regarded the concealed pistol as life insurance. Without it he felt defenseless. He had no choice; no way could he get through Baghdad’s airport security with a firearm.
He glanced at his watch. Almost an hour remained before he had to leave for the airport. Tyrwhitt settled into the deep desk chair and tried to put everything into perspective. His meeting with Ormsby, his CIA handler, would take no longer than half a day. Bahrain would be a holiday. Short, but still a holiday from the grimness of Baghdad. It would feel peculiar not to be startled by each unusual sound, every soft footstep in a hallway. Not to lie awake wondering when the Bazrum would smash through his door and haul him away.
Bahrain was an enlightened Muslim country with a plenitude of good restaurants. Bars. Night clubs…
Wait. In the frenzy to gather the information about Latifiyah, he had nearly forgotten. When he last spoke with Claire, wasn’t she on assignment? Yes, of course she was. She had been infuriated that he woke her up, suggesting she join him in Baghdad.
Claire was in Bahrain.
He picked up the Cyfonika satchel and walked to the window. He extended the antenna of the satellite device and began punching in the numbers.
Chuff. Chuff. Chuff.
Maxwell rounded the corner at the fantail, then started back up the starboard side. Jogging on the hangar deck involved a certain risk. You had to be wary of aircraft tie-down chains that could snag an ankle and make you a cripple. You had to dodge the tow vehicles that shuttled back and forth, darting in front of you, dragging jets around the deck.
He was on his second lap when he heard someone coming up from behind.
“Mind if I tag along, XO?” B.J. Johnson appeared beside him, matching his easy stride. She was wearing nylon warm-ups and a white head band. Maxwell noted her level, relaxed pace. B.J. was not a jogger. The kid was a serious runner.
“I’d probably just hold you up.”
“You’re doing a good eight minute mile pace,” she said. “Suits me.”
“Looks like you’ve done this before.”
“Once or twice,” she said, breathing easily. “A whole slew of ten-kay runs, and the Marine Corps marathon last fall. Three hours, twenty-five minutes. Not bad for a girl, huh?”
“Not bad at all. You beat me by five minutes.”
She smiled at that. “So?”
They made a half dozen circuits of the hangar deck, maintaining the eight-minute pace. “How many laps to a mile?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Twenty laps takes me forty-five minutes. What’s that? Six miles?”
“Close. How far you gonna go?”
“Six. Then I’m wiped out.” He looked at her again and said, “What’s on your mind, B.J.? You didn’t come up here to run laps with an old guy.”
She kept her eyes straight ahead. “I need somebody to talk to. Spam is no use. She’s on another frequency. To the other guys in the squadron, I’m still an alien. I thought maybe I could run something by you.”
“Sounds heavy. What’s the subject?”
“Me. I’m going to quit.”
Maxwell slowed to a halt. “If we’re gonna talk about this, I have to be able to breath. C’mon with me.”
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see. A special place.”
A twenty-knot wind swept over the catwalk, tousling B.J. Johnson’s hair and ruffling the collar of her flight suit. Eighty feet below they could see the bow of the Reagan slicing like a cleaver through the Gulf.
B.J. stared down at the water and said, “Back when I got my orders to flight training, I thought it was such a bright, shining opportunity. Then to get Hornets — absolutely my wildest dreams come true. It was supposed to be a great adventure.”
Maxwell knew what she meant. He could remember his own flight training days — the exhilaration of going off to Pensacola, beginning a career in naval aviation. It never left you.