Diamondhead (16 page)
Authors: Patrick Robinson
Tags: #Suspense, #Fiction, #Political, #Thrillers, #Weapons industry, #War & Military, #Assassination, #Iraq War; 2003-
Up ahead was a small cement building, with one single light. Outside was an air-traffic man holding two illuminated sticks to steer them to the correct spot. To the controller’s left stood the four-engine wide-bodied cargo aircraft, the Ilyushin 11-76, workhorse of the Russian Air Force, Iranian owned but built in the enormous Khimki aviation plant, northwest of Moscow, near Sheremet’yevo Airport.
The Ilyushin is essentially a military freighter, a specialist in heavy tonnage, requiring ramp loading through its huge rear doors under the distinctive T tail. Its designers, the Tashkent Aviation Production Association in Uzbekistan, gave it a high-mounted “shoulder” wing, with a span measuring more than fifty yards. Its four Russian engines generate more power than the U.S.-built Lockheed C-141 Starlifter.
The Ilyushin was specifically designed for short-field takeoff, with a special capacity to handle rough fields, both incoming and leaving. A total of twenty low-pressure tires on the landing wheels are designed to bear the weight. This evening the Ilyushin had not even attempted to land until the Montpellier convoy was within two miles of the runway.
And right now, the air traffic controllers at Tours Airport were wondering where the heck the big Russian military freighter had gone. Their efforts to locate it, however, were pretty halfhearted, since it was after all almost two o’clock and no one had suggested an emergency. They resolved to keep a close lookout for its reappearance, but meanwhile decided to pretend it had not been sighted.
Right now, the entire loading process was being conducted mechanically from hoists and lifts inside the cavernous aircraft. The aircrew was Iranian, Henri Foche was pacing like a caged jackal, and time was short.
With every one of Iran’s new missiles now loaded, Henri Foche signed the airway bill and watched the Russian freighter move swiftly to the head of the runway. The missiles weighed only around forty thousand pounds, half-capacity, and the aircraft would be gone as rapidly as it had arrived.
Foche and Yves Vincent stood in the rain and watched it screaming forward, climbing steeply away from this rain-swept private runway, accelerating toward its cruising speed of 460 miles per hour. Immediately, the lights went out down the whole length of the blacktop. And spontaneously the two Frenchmen turned and solemnly shook hands before stepping back into the Mercedes for Marcel to deliver them home. It had been an excellent night’s work.
Back in air traffic control at Tours Airport, they picked up the radar of the Russian freighter once more, but it was headed due east, directly toward the Swiss Alps, passing only over rich French farmland. They sent a short signal to the airport at Dijon, advising that the freighter had not identified itself, but was not transmitting military radar and anyway was headed for Switzerland. Like the night shift at Tours, the Dijon crew decided to pretend it had never been sighted. Let the Swiss deal with it.
And so the shipment of 864 Diamondhead guided missiles sailed serenely over the high peaks of the Alps and headed for the Balkans, then Bulgaria and the Black Sea. From there they would swerve right along the ridge of the Caucasus Mountains, and on down over Iran to the airport at Ahvaz, which lies a little more than fifty miles from Abadan, down on the Iraqi border.
The journey was less than twenty-five hundred miles and could be accomplished without refueling. By the time the Ilyushin landed, it would be eight o’clock in France, and a brand-new production line of the deadly tank buster would be coming online. Henri Foche did not anticipate business with Iran drying up. Not at all. And for the next few months he resolved to concentrate on his political career and leave the high-tech end of the missile manufacture to the heroically greedy Yves Vincent.
Mack Bedford could hear Anne making her way toward the porch, telling Tommy she had a great surprise for him. When he came bursting through the screen door, no one could possibly have dreamed there was anything wrong with him.
Tommy was a very cute kid, tall for his seven years and well built. He had a shock of dark hair and his mother’s eyes. When he saw Mack he just stood and yelled, “Daddy! Daddy! Where’ve you been? I needed you right here.”
Mack laughed and grabbed him, holding the little boy high above his head, and then lowering him and wrapping his huge arms around him. “I’m home, Tommy,” he said. “Really home, and I’m not going away again. Jesus, you’ve grown since I saw you. Soon you’ll be bigger than me.”
“No one’s bigger than you, Daddy. Not even a giant.”
At this point Anne returned with Mack’s breakfast and placed it on the table. For herself she just brought fruit salad and toast.
“What does he get?” asked Mack, and Tommy laughed. “I get cereal,” he said. “But not here with you guys. Mom says I can eat it in the kitchen and watch
Invasion of the Deadheads
on television. I see it every week.”
Invasion of the Deadheads
on television. I see it every week.”
“Invasion of the what?” asked Mack, slightly incredulously.
“The Deadheads,” said Tommy. “They’re so cool. And they do a whole lot of killing if anyone attacks them. Gotta go.”
“This is unbelievable,” chuckled Mack. “I get back here after fighting a war, my guys are massacred, I’m court-martialed, and my own son rejects me for the goddamned Deadheads.”
Anne laughed and said, “I always let him watch it before the hospital. He gets very excited, and he’s always in a good mood after seeing it. I have to tell you, in the past month or two he’s had a couple of uncontrollable fits of rage. Completely out of character. The doctors say it’s part of it.”
Mack nodded and chewed luxuriously on a SEAL-sized chunk of sausage. “Are they absolutely sure he’s got this ALD?” he asked.
“Not quite. But Dr. Ryan says he keeps displaying more and more of the symptoms.”
“And that uncontrollable rage is one of ’em, right?”
“Yes. I guess we have to accept it’s a disease of the brain. And it involves the central and peripheral nervous systems. Something about being unable to conduct an impulse. It’s a kid’s disease, boys only, and from somewhere, somehow, Tommy seems to have it.”
“He won’t die, will he?”
“I don’t know. We might find out more today.”
“Anyway, what the hell does ALD stand for?”
“The actual word is kind of in three parts. It’s adreno-leukodystrophy. Very rare, and apparently incurable. At least it is in this country.”
“Does that ‘leuko’ bit in the middle means it’s something like leukemia?”
“I suppose so. But we’ll have to wait to speak to the doctor.”
“Can they arrest the disease? I mean, stop it from getting worse?”
“I don’t think so. I guess that’s why everyone is so downbeat about it.”
Mack finished his breakfast. “Think he’s done with the Deadheads yet?”
“Just about.”
“I’ll get the gloves, play a little catch with him.”
Anne smiled. “I’ll get him. But don’t wear him out. I don’t think he should be asleep when the doctor sees him. He never used to get this tired.”
Mack pulled two baseball gloves out of the basket in the corner of the porch. He picked up a couple of baseballs and walked out onto the front lawn. Tommy came running out and joined him, pulled on his glove, and walked out to his regular spot, fifteen yards from his dad.
“Okay, big guy,” said Mack. “Lemme see what you got.”
Tommy leaned back and threw the ball straight at his father’s right shoulder. Mack whipped his left arm across his chest and snagged it neatly. He threw the ball back to Tommy, nice and easy, on his left side. Tommy caught it in the middle of the glove, and then threw a high one straight at his dad. Mack raised his glove high and snapped the catch.
“Thought you’d catch me by surprise, eh?” Mack spoke and threw at the same time, sending the baseball low toward Tommy’s left thigh.
The kid snagged it, looked up, and said, “I’ll get you, Daddy.” And he leaned back and hurled one with all of his strength high and wide. Anne, standing on the porch, heard the ball whack into Mack’s glove.
“Hey, that’s a pretty good arm you got there,” said Mack. “And you’ve been practicing, waiting to get me.”
Tommy laughed again. “I’m gonna get you, Daddy,” he said, crouching down, ready to receive. Mack threw one to the right this time, medium height but needing a stretch. Tommy brought his glove over and reached. He caught the ball but fell backward, clumsily, landing on the grass with more of a thump than necessary.
Anne looked concerned and immediately walked over to him. Tommy climbed to his feet, looked at his father, and said, “I don’t want to play anymore.”
“I thought you were gonna get me,” said Mack. “C’mon, big guy, you’re tougher than that.”
For a moment father and son stood and stared at each other, Mack with a quizzical expression on his face. The ball had not been thrown hard, and it was not
that
wide. He’d seen Tommy catch a baseball a yard farther, with his quick feet and fast glove. But that was six months ago, and this was different.
that
wide. He’d seen Tommy catch a baseball a yard farther, with his quick feet and fast glove. But that was six months ago, and this was different.
“Okay, Daddy,” said Tommy. “I’ll play. Sometimes I’m not as good as I was. Can’t get the wide ones.”
“You’ll get ’em,” said Mack. “We can get some big practice in, now I’m home.”
Anne watched them throw the ball back and forth another ten minutes and noticed that Mack never threw the ball wide, always at the glove, and Tommy always caught it.
Just before they came in, Mack missed the ball altogether, and the little boy jumped in the air. “Told you I’d get you!” he yelled. “I can always get you, Daddy!”
Mack picked him up. “You’re my rookie, kid. You’ll always be my rookie.”
He carried Tommy inside while Anne fetched the car from the garage, ready for the drive to the Maine Coastal Hospital on the outskirts of Bath. Anne said she’d drive and turned the Buick station wagon north toward the shipbuilding city. Tommy fell instantly asleep in the rear passenger seat.
They reached the hospital at five minutes before noon. The receptionist said Dr. Ryan was waiting and would see them right away in his consulting room down the corridor. When they walked in, there was a nurse waiting with the doctor. She took the little boy’s hand and said, “C’mon, Tommy, I’ve got some things to show you in the playroom.” She led him outside, and Dr. Ryan turned to face Anne and her husband. He offered his hand to Mack, whom he had never met, and said immediately, “I am afraid I have no good news whatsoever. The test results are back, and it is as I had always feared.”
“ALD?” whispered Anne, her hand flying to her mouth.
“Almost unmistakable,” he replied. “I’m seeing some visual impairment, and there is some weakness, and numbness, in the limbs, especially on his right side.”
He turned to Mack and said flatly, “Lieutenant Commander, this is a disease invented in hell. We can’t cure it, and we mostly can’t even slow it down. The whole thing is involved with Tommy’s inability to process long-chain fatty acids in the brain. It nearly always shows up in males between the ages of five and ten.”
“Is it rare?” asked Mack.
“Very. It all comes down to some stuff in our bodies called myelin. It’s a complex fatty material that somehow insulates a lot of nerves in the central and peripheral nervous systems. Without myelin the nerves cannot conduct an impulse. Tommy’s myelin is being destroyed, and we can’t do anything about it. We’re trying—God knows we’re trying. The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke is dedicated to finding a cure. But so far, there has not been a breakthrough.”
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