TEN
The Hague
Hank sat under the umbrella heater in the glassed-in sidewalk café and
sipped at the steaming cup of coffee. He waited for the caffeine to jumpstart his brain. Ever so slowly, he came alive. He took another sip as the waiter presented a warm pastry for his breakfast. It smelled delicious. He studied the people hurrying by on their way to work and decided that he liked the Dutch – not that he understood them. But he was certain that if he looked and listened long enough, the Dutch and the Netherlands would make sense. He just wished his wife were with him to share the experience.
He glanced at the Tuesday morning edition of the London Times. With thirty days to go, Gus Tyler’s upcoming trial was still making the first page. He read the article with satisfaction. The British were finally acknowledging that Gus was an American citizen, which, sooner or later, would be crucial. He stared across the street as he considered his options. A silver Audi he had seen the day before pulled out of its parking space from across the street. A blue Mercedes immediately pulled in and the driver of the Audi signaled by bending the forefinger on his right hand and raising it to his eye. The driver of the Mercedes replied with the same sign. A jolt of adrenaline coursed through his body. It was the same Mercedes. “Cassandra, I’m having coffee at my hotel’s sidewalk café and a blue Mercedes just drove up. Am I being followed?”
“If you are, I’m not monitoring any electronic communications or signals.” That explained the hand signals. “Can you get a license number?”
“I’ll try.” He scribbled his name on the bill and picked up his briefcase. He stayed on the opposite side of the street and walked briskly away from the back of the Mercedes, heading for the Palace of the International Criminal Court. A heavy truck and a streetcar clogged the narrow street, stopping traffic in both directions. He darted across the street and melded into the crowd as he walked back towards the Mercedes.
He saw the driver’s hand reach up and adjust the rearview mirror, angling it in his direction. Certain the driver had seen him, he pushed through the crowd as the Mercedes pulled into traffic. He started to run after it as the traffic opened up and started to move. He put on a burst of speed as the Mercedes moved away, quickly outdistancing him. He came to halt. “Damn.”
“The first part of the license number was 90-BN,” a man said in English.
“Thank you,” Hank replied, still looking at the Mercedes. He turned to say more, but the man was gone. He liked the Dutch even more. He reversed course and headed for the Palace.
Aly was waiting when Hank reached his office. “I dropped in and saw Dad this morning.” She handed him two sheets of paper. “This is all he could remember on Cannon and Armiston.” She followed him into his office with a mug of coffee and the morning mail. As soon as he was alone, he said, “Cassandra, I got a partial license number on the Mercedes, 90-BN. I couldn’t make out the last.”
“That’s interesting,” she said. “90-BN and BN-90 were part of the license numbers the Dutch reserved for American servicemen stationed in The Netherlands. But that was over fifteen years ago. Those numbers have been inactive since then.”
“Is there a connection?” Hank asked. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the front license is different than the rear.”
“I’ll work on it,” Cassandra replied. “My power cell needs charging.”
He placed the percom next to an electric outlet and wandered into the outer office. “Aly, I need to speak to Jason when he gets here.”
“He’s in the canteen eating breakfast,” she told him.
Exactly eight minutes later, Jason was in Hank’s office. “We’ve got to find Cannon,” Hank told him. “Pull out all the stops.”
“I’ll ask General Hammerly,” Jason promised.
Aly ran into the office. “I just got a call from one of my friends who works downstairs. General Armiston is in the building.” Hank arched an eyebrow, pleased that Aly was a member in good standing in the Dutch Secretaries Mutual Protection and Gossip Society.
The double glass doors leading into the prosecutor’s offices slide silently back and General Davis Armiston marched in. He stood six feet tall, walked with a military bearing that befitted a man of his experience, had a full head of dark-brown hair streaked with gray, all cleverly orchestrated by his stylist, a square jaw, rugged good looks, and wore an immaculately tailored dark-blue pinstripe suit. Thanks to an excellent speaking voice, deep blue eyes, and a quick smile he was a public relations triumph.
The receptionist buzzed Denise and she hurried out of her office to greet one of her star witnesses. “General Armiston, this is indeed a pleasure,” she cooed.
“The pleasure is all mine,” he cooed back in French. She escorted him into her office and they sat down. An aid pushed a teacart loaded with the requisite silver service and pastries in after them. They bantered in French while taking mid-morning tea and carefully scouting each other. Then, “Madam Prosecutor, I hope you know how much this upsets me.”
“Please, I prefer Denise. I can understand your feelings about testifying against a fellow officer.”
“Denise, I hope you know there are many Americans who support and believe in the International Criminal Court.”
“It is the wave of the future,” she assured him.
“No doubt you are aware that Gus is basically a good man, certainly an excellent pilot, but like so many of his generation, an automaton who never understood the moral ramifications of his actions when flying combat.”
“Which is exactly what we must explain to the world,” she said.
“I hope you know there are certain things I cannot, and will not say.”
A niggling doubt tweaked at her. “Then we must go over your testimony in some detail – to preclude any misunderstanding. But for the moment, we must discuss what you can expect when interviewed by our media.”
“The media has never been a problem in the past,” he assured her.
“Ah, yes,” she replied. “But I think you’ll find Harm de Rijn much different than his American counterparts.”
Armiston smiled. “And when will this happen?”
“At your convenience,” she replied.
Armiston became all business. “I have an opening this afternoon at four.”
“Justice Bouchard has issued what you Americans call a gag order. I’m hoping that you will say what I cannot.” He gave a tight smile in answer and she picked up her phone to arrange the interview. “Done,” she told him. “Four o’clock at your hotel.” She handed him a typed list of questions. “Here’s what you can expect.”
Armiston scanned the list. “I need to speak to my advisors but I see no problem.” He stood. “This suit will never do. Denise, I believe that you and I will get along famously.”
She shook his hand, not sure of it at all.
“How did you sleep last night?” Derwent asked.
“Like a log,” Gus replied. He sat down to the ever-present cup of coffee while she made a note in her folder. “Can I ask what’s in there?” He gestured at the folder.
She closed the folder. “I’m participating in an on-going study about personality disorders. My research group has asked me to evaluate men and women who, shall we say, have problems with the law.”
“Perhaps,” he ventured, “the problem is with the law and not the individual.”
She smiled. “Perhaps.” What she didn’t tell him was that part of the study required her to rate the physical attractiveness and intelligence level of her subjects to determine if there was a correlation. Based on the study’s criteria, she rated Gus at the ninety-fifth percentile level on attractiveness and estimated his IQ around 130. But there was something about him she could not identify, and that excited her.
She opened her notebook. “You’ve told me about flying, but what was it like to fly in combat? Were you afraid?” She couldn’t read the look on his face. Was it a smile?
“It’s not like anything you can imagine. Of course there’s fear. But that’s when you’re lying in bed waiting for the alarm to go off.” He thought for a moment. “It’s the routine that gets you through. In Saudi, I flew the nightshift and slept during the day. Thank God our quarters were air-conditioned, but the noise on the flight line would usually wake me up by mid afternoon. I had a routine and would get up, exercise, and shower and shave. After that, I’d check my mail, hit the dining hall, and go to the squadron. I was chief of training so I’d fly with different backseaters, weapon systems officers, to check them out and see how good they were. I didn’t have a regularly assigned WSO but preferred to fly with Toby Person. He was the best.”
He slipped into memory. “One night Toby and I were assigned an area in western Iraq to patrol, all part of the great Scud hunt. Scuds were the missiles Saddam was lobbing into Israel, and we were worried that if we didn’t stop them, Israel would come into the war. That would have ripped the coalition apart so the pressure was really on. To be honest, we weren’t being too successful.” He paused while she made notes. “Toby had been talking to a Saudi liaison officer and studying the charts. He wanted to search a different area but the high rollers wouldn’t buy it.” He scoffed. “They said there was nothing there. So it was the same old routine: listen to whatever Intel was saying, brief the mission, suit up, and step to the jet. I’d preflight the bird and Toby the weapons.” He laughed. “Do you know what’s the last thing you do before climbing up the boarding ladder and strapping the jet on? You take a leak.”
“Where?” she asked. “Any place that’s convenient. Toby and I used to stand in a corner of the revetment and piss on the sandbags. I’d hum the Air Force song.” He sang a few words. “Off we go, into the wild blue yonder.” He blushed.
“You have a very good voice,” Derwent said. “What would Toby do?”
“He’d sing along.”
He chose his words and images carefully, taking her with him as the mission unfolded. “We’d take a deep breath and climb the ladder. If you’ve got a good crew chief, the cockpit is all set up for you, the switches, everything. You double check anyway. Then it’s crank engines and taxi for the end of the runway to meet up with your wingman for quick check.”
“Quick check?” she asked.
“A ground crew from Maintenance gives the jet one last inspection, checking for leaks, cut tires, loose panels, and making sure all the safety pins are pulled. Then you wait to make your takeoff time. The radio call is always the same. ‘Pounder One and Two, taxi into position and hold.’ Now things happen real fast. ‘Pounder One and Two, cleared for takeoff.’ You release brakes and stroke the burners, torching the night. Twenty seconds later, your wingman is rolling and you’re headed for western Iraq.
“The airborne controller checks you into the area and there is absolutely nothing moving on the ground. So we’d bore holes in the sky until it was time to head for a tanker for an airborne refueling. My wingman always hooked up first but this night, he can’t transfer fuel. So I send him home.” Derwent noted how Gus kept slipping between the past and the present as he talked. “Then we hooked up to take on 9000 pounds of fuel. The boomer cleared us off and we return to the area single-ship to continue the patrol. It’s the same old story, bore holes and turn jet fuel into noise. Then the TSD, the tactical situation display, it’s a screen on the instrument panel with a moving map, cycles to an area I’ve never seen before.
“I asked Toby, ‘What the hell is going on?’ He said, ‘I got another place to look.’ Well, his ‘other place’ was out of our area and operating anywhere else without clearance was a no-no. I wasn’t about to do it. You should have heard Toby bitch and moan. He can really be creative at times. So I head for the extreme northwestern part of our patrol area, which gets us fairly close to where Toby wants to look, and still keeps us legal. That’s when he finds it on the radar.” He stopped to take a sip of coffee.
Derwent was caught up and in the cockpit with him. “Toby finds what?”
“A convoy. The radar has a moving target indicator that only shows what’s moving, and Toby has four big targets moving across the desert in a convoy. Then they disappeared.”
“Because they stopped moving?” she asked.
“Exactly. I figure they don’t have warning gear that could have detected our radar and the odds were they’ve stopped to launch the missile. So I tell Toby to freeze the last location of the convoy and put the radar in standby so they can’t detect us –just in case they do have warning gear. I head for the deck.”
“You’re going to attack them?”
“No way. I’m going to take a look and report back. I level off at 400 feet, engage the TFR, that’s the terrain following radar, and push it up to 500 knots heading for the convoy’s last location. It’s pretty rough terrain but the TFR is working like a charm. Toby says ‘400 feet ain’t high.’ Stalwart fellow, Toby. So down we go another 200 feet. The turbulence is pounding the hell out of us now and I’m sweating like a pig.”
“Can you see the ground?” She was breathless, reliving the moment with him.
He shook his head. “Too dark. We pop to crest a ridge and for a split second, we have altitude. The TEWS, our electronic warning gear, is screaming at us. A hostile radar has picked us up, probably a SAM, that’s a surface-to-air missile. I roll the bird 135 degrees and slam us back to the deck. While this is going on, good old Toby brings the radar back to life and sweeps the target. They’re moving again, and I figure they’ve detected us and are running for cover. Now I got an image on the FLIR, that’s the forward looking infrared, which is like looking at the world through the bottom of a green coke bottle. I see the rocket plume of a SAM at our two o’clock and comin’ right at us. I jink like hell, loading the bird with eight
G
s. The missile overshoots. A very bad mistake for them.”