Of all the Gulf emirates, Maxwell liked Bahrain the most. The prosperous little archipelago was separated by a single causeway from the great Saudi peninsula. Though the same family — the Al-Khalifas — had ruled it for over two centuries, the emirate had received a heavy dose of westernization during a century of British occupation.
Maxwell dropped his bag at the edge of the concrete helo pad and gazed around. Bahrain looked just as he remembered. He could still see vestiges of the British colonial past in the architecture, in the way shops and stores were set back from the street. Bahrain was the most liberal and westernized of the Gulf states, and that was reason enough to be glad they were here.
All fifteen designated strike leaders, as well as every squadron commanding officer from the Reagan’s air wing had been summoned to the briefing. For the strike leaders, it didn’t matter what the reason was. It was a weekend off the ship.
Because the U.S. military’s Bachelor Officer Quarters in Bahrain was too small to accommodate the attendees to the strike conference, the Reagan contingent would stay at the Holiday Inn. A bus was waiting at the edge of the helo pad to transport them to the hotel.
As the bus lurched out of the embassy compound, CAG Boyce yelled to back of the bus. “Check into your rooms, then show up for beer call at seventeen-hundred.” He jammed a cigar in his mouth. “I mean everyone. No excuses.”
The bus wound through the narrow side street, then onto the main thoroughfare of downtown Manama, the capital of Bahrain. The Navy pilots stared at the clean, well-kept buildings, the recently paved streets, the neatness of the city. They passed Sheikh’s beach, which was one of the few places in the Middle East where you could see women in bikinis.
They drove past a residential complex where, in one block, stood four identical houses. One of the Tomcat pilots knew the story. “Some rich local guy has four wives. According to the Koran, a man can have multiple wives, but he has to treat them equally. So the poor schmuck had to build a house for each one.”
The Holiday Inn was a sprawling two-story building. It had a richly carpeted lobby, ornamented with brass and marble, and it was staffed by a brigade of what they called TCNs — Third Country Nationals — mostly Pakistanis and Filipinos, who were in perpetual motion delivering messages, fetching cocktails, emptying ashtrays.
The pilots stood in the lobby and gazed around. After the steel-encased dreariness of a Navy warship, the hotel looked like an imperial palace. It also possessed the most vital of accoutrements — a long, brass-railed bar extending just off the lobby. Through a glass-paneled door they could see the other essential component — a swimming pool and poolside bar where, if fortune should smile on them, they would encounter flight attendants in transit or a cluster of female tourists.
Directly across the street stood another palace, the Gulf Hotel, where it had been confirmed that a contingent of GAGs were staying. Bahrain was an even happier hunting ground than Dubai.
Maxwell was the last to check in. The desk clerk handed him the room key and said, “Message for you, Commander Maxwell. It came an hour ago.”
On his way up the elevator he read the pink note sheet.
Dearest Sam,
Miss you terribly. Please keep dinner open. I’m across the street in the Gulf Hotel, room 238. Call ASAP.”
Kisses, hugs, everything else,
Claire
Maxwell’s room was spacious, with sliding doors that opened on a sunny verandah with a table and patio chairs. He went to the phone and punched up the number for the Gulf Hotel.
“Room 238, please.”
No answer.
After he’d unpacked his duffel bag and hung up his uniform, he put on his swimming trunks and went down to the pool. Most of the Reagan strike leaders were already there. DeLancey and Manson were at the poolside bar making moves on a couple of bikini-clad European women.
Maxwell swam half a dozen laps, then flopped in a lounge chair and let the sun dry him off. After several minutes, he went to the bar and picked up the phone. He tried the Gulf Hotel again. While the phone rang he waved at DeLancey, who was eyeing him from across the bar.
Still no answer.
Maxwell ordered a beer, then chatted with a young British Airways first officer who was on a crew layover. At ten minutes after four, Maxwell went back to his room to get dressed for CAG’s beer call.
He tried Claire again. Still no answer.
“Do you want to leave a message?” asked the hotel operator.
Annoyed, he hesitated, then said, “No.”
CAG Boyce took a test puff on the Cohiba, then exhaled a long stream of smoke. He smiled in approval to the bartender. That was one of the blessings of deploying overseas. You could obtain real Cubans, not the knock-offs they sold back in the states for which they charged you twenty bucks.
From his stool at the end of the bar, Boyce watched his pilots. They were slamming down beers, telling flying stories, maneuvering their hands in the way fighter pilots always did at bars. Most were wearing chinos, polo shirts, loafers. By the short haircuts and the way they moved their hands, there was no mistaking them for anything but U.S. military jocks. Each held the rank of lieutenant commander or commander and was either a squadron commanding officer or a strike leader.
Hanging out like this with his pilots was a treat for Boyce. Being the air wing commander was a lonely job. He wasn’t directly in command of a squadron, just the overall boss of the flying units aboard the Reagan. What he sorely missed was the daily hands-on business of running his own fighter squadron.
He couldn’t help thinking about the real reason they were here. Behind the joking and hand-flying was a serious purpose. Boyce remembered how it had been during the last Gulf War, and again during the punitive raids they had delivered on Iraq throughout the last decade. The procedure was simple. Take out the SAM sites first, the AA positions, drop a few bridges, put some smart bombs on their command and control facilities. Inflict a little pain.
This time, he had a feeling, would be different. The targets were not benign. If they didn’t succeed in eradicating the threat, the threat could eradicate them. Somebody else would be inflicting the pain.
At the end of the bar, DeLancey was telling a story. Craze Manson was glued to his side, paying rapt attention and chortling in the right places with his goofy laugh. Boyce noticed that Brick Maxwell stood apart from DeLancey’s group, drinking a beer by himself.
Boyce waited until DeLancey had finished his tale, then he ambled down to the end of the bar.
DeLancey was on a roll. He saw CAG coming and said, “Smoking those things will make your hair fall out, CAG.”
“It’s worth it.” Boyce took another puff on the cigar. “Update me on the female pilot problem. The mouthy one, Parker. Is she getting her act together?”
A look of alarm flashed over DeLancey’s face, then quickly vanished. “Spam? Oh, sure, she’s gonna be all right.”
“Doesn’t look all right to me. She’s been scaring the hell out of the LSO. The air boss and the captain both called me about it.”
“She’s showing a lot improvement, CAG. I think she’s gonna work out fine.”
Boyce knocked the ash off his cigar. Something just didn’t compute. DeLancey sticking up for a woman pilot. He had been one of the loudest female-bashers in the strike fighter community. Now he sounded like a women’s-libber. Why?