Final Flight (42 page)

“That would violate Italian sovereignty,”
objected an officer from the flag staff who had
eased over to listen. He was referring to the fact that
bases in foreign nations could not be used for takeoffs
or landings of planes on combat missions without the
host nation’s approval, which they certainly didn’t
have.

“We’re going to violate Italian
sovereignty anyway,” Jake said wearily.

“And if they’re pissed they can squawk
about it later. That Qazi guy certainly didn’t
sweat it. I suspect the Italians will have more
serious things to worry about when this comes out in the wash.”

“How are we going to do this, CAG?” Harvey
Schultz asked. “We talk to the Gettysburg
and the frigate south of Messina and try to sort
out the traffic with their help. Then we arrive over
Palermo. Then what?”

“Have someone make a low pass. He can call in
an air strike if he sees that chopper on the
ground.” Jake smote the arm of the captain’s
chair. “Jesus…,” It was so weak. It would
never work.

“You’re going to have to use your head, Harve, and do
the best you can with what you’ve got.”

“What if they’ve loaded the weapons on a
truck and driven away?”

“Then we’re screwed, was Jake roared. He
swallowed hard and lowered his voice. “It’s going
to be up to you, Harve. You’re going to be the man on
the spot. You make the call on the spot and I’ll
back you up. For whatever that’s worth. I’m
probably I going to get court-martialed
anyway. Parker’s dead and I’m glad. I’m
glad! He doesn’t deserve to be
pilloried for this. Laird James is going to wish
he were dead by the time the admirals and congressmen get
through with him. Now it’s up to you. Don’t let those
assholes get away with those bombs.”

Harvey Schultz kept his eyes on Jake.
“I understand.”

“Harve, if those people use those weapons on
anybody, the United States is finished as a
power in the Mediterranean. This ocean will become a
Soviet lake. The nations of Europe will be forced
to come to terms with Soviet ambitions or face up
to another world war, one they can’t win.

This is for all the marbles, Harve.”

Schultz’s head bobbed nervously.

“Now get the hell outta here and get those
planes into the air. Every minute that passes makes
it less and less likely you’ll find 1 those people.
Get going!” As the officers departed Jake said,
“OOD, when those guys start engines gimme thirty
knots of wind right down the deck for launch.”

Jake slugged off the rest of the coffee and dropped
the cigarette butt into the cup. A young enlisted man
approached him. “Sir, I’m Wallace,
signalman. The chief said to tell you we’ve
established radio contact with Sixth
Fleet on the MARS unit. The admiral wants
to talk to the senior officer aboard.” MARS stood
or Military Auxiliary (’Radio System.
The radio set was in a cubbyhole in the signal
shack behind the bridge. The sailors used it to talk
to their families back in the States with the assistance
of olunteer ham radio operators. Jake
followed the signalman cross the bridge and out the
door that Gunnery Sergeant Garcia ad worked so
hard to get through earlier in the evening. Jake settled
into one of the two chairs in front of the radio. The
hief perched in the other and pointed out the switch on the
panel hat had to be pushed up to receive and down
to transmit. “This is non-secure radio, sir.
And people all over the world are probaly listening.” He
pushed the pedestal microphone over in front
fJake, who picked it up.

Jake pushed the switch down. “What’s their
call sign?” The call ign for this set was written
in black Magic Marker on the panel in ront of
him.

“W6FT, sir,” the chief said.

“W6FT, this is W74ally, over.” Jake
flipped the switch to receive. “W74ally,
W6FT, say your rank and name,

“Captain Jake Grafton, over.”

“This is Vice-Admiral Lewis. What in
hell is going on out there, Captain?”

“I sent you a flash message via USS
Gettysburg, sir. Have you got it yet?”

“No, and I want to know what the hell is going
on. Why did you people sail?” He sounded furious.

“Admiral, this is a non-secure radio
link. I’d rather you waited and read the message. “I
want to know now, ” Jake stared at the
radio. What the hell. The world would probaly read
all about it in tomorrow’s papers anyway, if Qazi’s
bunch wasn’t already issued their own press
release. Jake flipped the witch to transmit,
held the mike several inches from his lips, and egan
to talk. It took him three minutes to describe
the situation and his intentions. Finally he said,
“Over,” and toggled the switch to receive. “Wait.”

Jake set the microphone down on the desk and
looked at the hief, who averted his eyes. Yeah.
Well, to wish I could too, Jake hought.

“Grafton, this is Lewis. I don’t want
you to do anything. Don’t launch. We just received the
message from Gettysburg and are talking
with Washington on the satellite net. This is
something the National Security Council needs
to make the decision on.” You ass, Jake thought, and
bit his lip. “Clean up the ship, tend your wounded,
and await further instructions. Over.”

Jakejabbed the switch to transmit.
“Admiral, you don’t seem to understand the situation.
We have a terrorist on his way God knows where with
two nuclear weapons stolen from this ship stolen from the
United States Navy. And he has devices that
he can use to trigger them.

This man is capable, he’s committed, and he’s
absolutely ruthless. We don’t have much of a chance
to stop him, but we do have a chance and we had better
take it. We may not get another. His attack
on this ship was an act of war. We have the right and
authority under existing Rules of Engagement to use
as much force as necessary to thwart him. We have a duty to do
so, sir.

Jake set the microphone on the table and leaned
over it. How to say it?

“We have a moral obligation to stop this man before
he murders innocent people. A lot of innocent
people-hundreds of thousands. The world will judge us by our
efforts to meet that obligation.” The future
of the free world is at stake here, Admiral. Can’t
you see that? “Over to you.

Lewis’s voice dripped with fury. He was not
used to officers arguing with him. “My orders to you are
to wait, Captain. Do nothing! Do not launch
aircraft! The president will have to meet with the
National Security Council and decide how
to handle this incident, which you people let happen.
Outrageous incompetence and stupidity. Never have I
seen the like. You have fucked this up from end to end, and
there’s no chance you’ll do any better if you keep
trying. Just keep that ship afloat until we get
someone out there who is capable of bringing it into port.
Over to you for a hearty “Aye aye, sir.”"
Jake reached for the transmit-receive switch. His
thumb hovered an inch above it but then backed off.

Okay, so Lewis is a paper-pusher who
instinctively covers his ass rather than stick his neck
out on a hard decision. You knew all along he was
a pygmy. okay. What are you going to do?

“I said, “Over to you, Captain,” Lewis
snarled. So you did, Admiral.

And Colonel Qazi still has two bombs and
he’s still taking them to mewhere. Jake’s eye fell
on the on-off switch.

He threw it and the static from the speaker stopped.
Jake stood.

“Chief, this radio is out of order. Don’t
turn it on again.”

“Aye aye, sir.” The chief looked sick.
Jake Grafton stalked out.

The lights on the hangar were off when Qazi’s
helicopter settled onto the tarmac at the
Palermo airport. A group of men came out of the
darkness under two high-winged transports parked
nearby and walked quickly toward the helicopter as the
rotors pun down.

“Where are the other helicopters?” a major
asked Qazi. “The others were destroyed on the ship.
This is the only one.” The major stuck his head
into the machine for a look. He rinned at Qazi and
motioned his men forward. They began unstrapping the
restraints that held the dollies on which the weapons
rode. The three men who had gone to the ship with
Qazi limbed around them and wandered off toward the
transports. Noora and Jarvis followed them, arm
in arm. Ten men lifted each dolly from the
helicopter to the pavement. azi walked behind the
weapons as they were pushed the two hundred feet across
the tarmac. The rear access doors of both
ircraft were open. These were hinged portions of the after
fuseage and consisted of two longitudinal doors that
folded upward into the fuselage. A ramp led
upward into the interior of the plane on the left, which was
a Soviet-built 11-76 Candid. In the dim
light azi could just make out the jet engine nacelles
on the wing. The there plane was smaller, a
four-engine turboprop, an An- I 2 Cub.
El Hakim was standing at the rear of the Ilyushin.
Two bodyguards with Uzis stood behind him. “How
did it go, Colonel?” he sked as he returned
Qazi’s salute.

“We managed to get the six weapons to the flight
deck, Your xcellency, and put two weapons in
each helicopter. But the Americans destroyed
two of the helicopters before they could akeoff.”

“So we have only these two weapons?”

“Only these two.”

“Where is Ali?”

“He was on one of the machines that was destroyed.”

El Hakim stood in silence and watched the first
weapon go up the ramp and disappear into the interior of the
plane.

“And the ship?”

“The weapon we left on deck failed
to explode.” No doubt El Hakim already knew
that. The electromagnetic pulse from a nuclear
explosion would announce itself on every radio receiver for
hundreds of miles.

The pilots of these transports would have reported
such an event instantly to El Hakim.

“Why?”

El Hakim was entirely too calm, Qazi
thought. He began to feel uneasy.

“I suspect the Americans disarmed the weapon
before we were far enough away to trigger it. They have weapons
experts aboard. That was always a possibility.”

The second weapon was going up the ramp. El
Hakim said, “We have staked our national survival
on your mission, Qazi, and you have succeeded. We
didn’t gain as much as we hoped for, but we have
succeeded. The nation owes you a debt. The Arab people
1 owe you a debt, and it will be paid.”

Qazi started to reply, but El Hakim gestured
impatiently. “No one else could have done it,
Colonel. No one.” He sighed audibly. “For
twenty years we have struggled to obtain a hammer
to strike the chains from our people. Twenty years!
Twenty years of frustration and humiliation.”

His voice cracked. “And now we have
it,” he whispered, “praise Allah, now we have
it.”

The second weapon was inside the plane. The
engines on the other plane were already turning and the rear
door was coming down into place. The three gunmen who
had survived the ship had boarded that plane along
with the helicopter pilots. Qazi glanced back at
the helicopter sitting near the hangar. It would be
abandoned here. Not a customs or immigration
official was in sight; he had paid Pagliacci a
hundred thousand American dollars for the privacy.

“Come,” El Hakim said. “We have much to do.
History is waiting to be written.”

In the transport’s interior along the
bulkheads was a contraption of ropes and pulleys.
Five triggers sat along the walls, and Jarvis
was fitting a trigger to one of the weapons. Noora was
crouched beside him.

Qazi stopped and stared. Two khaki bundles
sat behind the rearmost dolly and there were straps flaked
out on the floor. These were parachutes, the type used
to drop ilitary equipment to troops in the field.
The men who had oaded the dollies were busy rigging the
straps to the rear dolly. he first dolly, parked as
far forward as possible, had been hained to the
deck. A hard object dug into Qazi’s back.
“Don’t move, Colonel.” An arm reached around
him and reoved the Browning Hi-Power from his waistband.
El Hakim paused halfway through the compartment and
turned to face him.

“What did you plan to do, Colonel? Kill
me?” A smile slowly spread across the face of
El Hakim. “Don’t look so surprised.
Come, Colonel.

Come up here so we can close the door and depart.”
He turned and marched forward. The guard prodded Qazi
in the back and he followed.

A seating module occupied the forward third of the
cabin. The uard motioned Qazi into a seat against the
outer fuselage. He as directed to buckle his
seat belt, and he complied. With his Uzi against
Qazi’s neck, the guard snapped handcuffs on his
wrists, then used a second pair to fasten the first
pair to the armrest of the seat. The guard seated himself
across from Qazi, beside El Hakim, and leveled the
Uzi at Qazi.

Those two had their backs to the radio compartment, beside
which was the short stair that led up onto the flight
deck.

As the engines started El Hakim
chuckled. “You have served us well, Qazi, but your
task is complete. You have our gratitude. I
express it now.” His smile faded. “But that is
all the thanks a traitor like you will ever receive.” He
leaned forward and raised his voice, to be heard above
the engine noise. “We are going to Israel now,
Colonel, to strike with our hammer. Zionism will
not survive the blow. And the debt we owe you for your
treason will be paid in full.” El Hakim showed his
teeth.

Qazi leaned his head back into the seat and closed
his eyes. He listened to the creaks and thumps of the
taxiing plane, just audible over the whine of the
turbojet engines. He heard Jarvis and Noora
slipping into seats behind him. He heard Noora
speaking to Jarvis, fastening his buckle for him,
fussing over him. After a few minutes the
transport creaked to a stop, then the engines
spooled up. The plane rolled and in a few
moments left the earth.