Read Warriors by Barrett Tillman Online
Authors: Barrett Tillman
Chapter 3
San Diego
JOHN BENNETT SAT ALONE AT THE TAILHOOK RESTAUrant. Located off Harbor Drive, it provided a view of North Island Naval Air Station, where two aircraft carriers were moored. He knew one was the
Constellation,
number 64. She would deploy to the Pacific in a few more weeks. The other ship was less distinct. Bennett squinted and thought he made out the white numeral 61 on the massive shape.
Ranger,
he thought. That's right. Pete Clanton had been busier than a one-armed paper-hanger getting her back in commission. The short, balding engineering officer was an over-worked commander who collected Oldsmobile’s. John recalled that Clanton had about three dozen scattered between Norfolk and San Diego.
Bennett had just set down his vodka and tonic when he was startled by two hands on his shoulders and a high-pitched, loud voice in his ear: "Check six, Pirate!"
Bennett turned to see a set of brilliant white teeth and an unruly thatch of red hair. The face was slightly pockmarked-the kind of skin which does not tan, but easily sunburns. Pirate, he thought. His old callsign, the
nom de guerre
which all tactical aviators use.
"Ed Lawrence, as I live and breathe. They still let you out without a leash?"
"How you doing, John?" They shook hands, warmly regarding one another. They lived within fifty miles of each other but seldom met more than two or three times a year.
Bennett waited while Lawrence ordered an iced tea with lemon.
Lawrence took a swallow, let it settle, and got right to the point. "Okay, what's the super-duper secret, Skipper?" The redhead had been Bennett's operations officer in VF-24 and consequently Bennett was still the CO.
"Just a couple of preliminaries, Ed. I suppose you're still flying for the airline?"
Lawrence fingered his drink. "Yeah, I'm a copilot with enough seniority to call most of my trips. Straight and level all week, don't upset the passengers, arrive on time. All that good stuff. But on weekends and days off I go bend it with the Reserves. I'm exec of VF-301 now, and I enjoy the F-14 even with another body in the cockpit. I'll tell you, though, I wish to hell you and I could strap on a couple F-8s and go hassle again."
Bennett leaned forward, across the table. "Ed, maybe we
can
bend it again. Not in Crusaders, but something even better." He checked his watch. "In about forty minutes a man will show up here. His name is Safad Fatah. He's a Saudi minister at large and I've agreed to do a job for -them. I need some help. Your kind of help. I need a good executive officer-somebody I know and trust. And I need an ass-kicking fighter pilot. "
Lawrence's eyes grew wide with curiosity. "Well, don't stop now. Tell me more." He gulped half his drink.
"This job is about four or five years steady work. It'll pay between a hundred and a hundred and fifty grand per year, and it'll be exciting as hell. Other than that, unless you're on board I can't say much else."
Lawrence emitted a low whistle. "Judas Priest. Who do I have to kill?"
Bennett's gray eyes gleamed, his mouth suppressing a grim smile. "Don't ask," he said. "Actually, it's fighter pilot instruction, building an air force from the ground up."
Lawrence cocked his head, his eyes narrowing. He waved a finger at his old skipper. "Wait a minute. You're telling me some raghead sheikh is willing to pay me more than I'm making now, to fly fighters and teach people to do what I used to do for thirty grand?"
"That's about it."
“If that's the deal, I'm in." Lawrence pounded the table. "Miss, another round for me and my friend, please!"
Bennett waved away the waitress. Ed Lawrence was a teetotaler, one of only two Bennett had ever known in naval aviation. The first had been pretty much a washout. The redheaded fighter pilot sitting across from him may have been the best stick-and-rudder man he had ever known.
"Remember, Ed, these people are Muslims. If our guys go boozing on them, it's a quick ticket home. That's rule number one .... “
"Okay. What's rule number two?"
A smile creased Bennett's tanned face. "You remember what Deacon used to say?"
Lawrence thought a moment. "Oh, sure. Topgun instructor. Always came up with pithy sayings." He frowned in concentration. "Which pithy saying?"
''The one that goes, 'Never trust any pilot who would rather use a slide rule than kick your ass.' "
"Hot damn, this sounds too good to be true. Who else is involved? Can't be just the two of us."
"It'll probably involve forty or so flight and tactics instructors and maybe a dozen-plus maintenance, weapons, and avionics folks. That's why I started with you. The Saudis already have a list of prospective pilots. I need not only good sticks, but pilots who can teach. Masher Malloy and Bear Barnes and' probably some Air Force types as well. Even some Brits."
"Sounds good. But where are the Saudis going to find enough pilots like that? There aren't many in my situation-unmarried, free to pick up and move. Not many airline captains or pilots with other careers will go running off to Arabia."
"Fatah people have been very thorough over the past couple years," Bennett replied. ''They've saved us a lot of time with groundwork, not just with instructors but with facilities over there. Most of the work will be done by the time we arrive."
Both men knew that the kind of talent they needed was rare. Instructor pilots with sufficient experience and willingness were few and far between. There were a few score in the Free World: men with combat in their logbooks, still young enough and unencumbered enough to uproot themselves for this type of challenge. Fewer still would be capable of living and working in a strict Muslim nation for years at a time.
Lawrence said, "John, what about your boy Paul? What does he know about all this?"
"I spent most of a weekend with him in Tempe last month. He's gotten a girl pregnant and they say they're going to get married. Well, I guess we all have to learn the hard way. At least he doesn't have AIDS. I told him I wouldn't stand in his way, but he couldn't count on me for help. I told him I'd be doing consulting work out of the country and probably wouldn't be around very regularly."
Lawrence fingered an ice cube. "Geez, that's rough."
Bennett leaned back. "Oh, it's not as bad as it might seem. I'm helping with his tuition and he has a partial scholarship. What I didn't tell him is that the Saudis are establishing a trust for him and the baby instead of paying me. It'll be administered by a family friend here in San Diego." Bennett glanced out the window again, looking at the two carriers. "What about you? When can you break loose from the airline and the Reserves?"
"Far as the line goes, I'll finish this month's schedule. That's less than two weeks. I can resign from the Reserves anytime."
"Is that going to cause problems, create bad feelings? I mean, it's mighty short notice."
The redhead shrugged. "In words of one syllable, who the hell cares? For twelve years I was an underpaid fighter pilot. Now I'm an overpaid airline pilot. I look forward to being an overpaid fighter pilot, the best of all possible worlds."
Bennett raised his glass. "Short war."
Lawrence clicked his glass against Bennett's. "Short war." The traditional warrior's toast.
At that moment a blond man in a business suit walked up to the table. "Excuse me, are you John Bennett?" Neat, professional man. Calm demeanor.
Oh, God,
Bennett thought.
Not FBI.
"Yes, I'm Bennett."
The stranger reached inside his suit coat.
He's going to show me his damn badge. We're had. But I haven't done anything.
The stranger produced a color photograph. "Do you recognize this, Commander Bennett?"
It was a green figurine of a pregnant female. "Why, yes. Are you- - -“
"Mr. Fatah sent me. He has learned that you and he are under discrete surveillance by some Middle Eastern people." The stranger's eyebrows rose suggestively. "I was sent to keep the meeting."
Bennett asked the man to sit down, conscious that the stranger had not offered his name. Bennett introduced Lawrence, who clearly wondered what he had stumbled into.
"Gentlemen, you won't see me again so names don't matter." He placed an envelope on the table. "Mr. Fatah is at the number on the envelope. You are to call him there from any phone except your home, Commander Bennett. The call will merely confirm receipt of the written instructions in this envelope. Any questions?"
The two fliers stared at one another, then at the blond man.
"No, I guess not," Bennett said.
"Then we're done." The stranger stood up, glanced around in a casual fashion. "Oh, one thing. You can't shake these people on your own-they're too good. Just try not to let on that you know you're being watched. Fatah's people will handle things." With that, he walked to the bar.
Lawrence and Bennett cast wary looks around the room. Unless the Israelis were using grandparents or had rented a family of four complete with unruly children in the adjoining dining room, there were no shadowers. From what little he knew of discrete surveillance, Bennett was confident the shadowing team would not follow him into a public place. Most likely there were three or four individuals outside, forming a moving box around the subjects. Equally effective but less obvious. At least, that's how Frederick Forsyth described it in his novels.
Bennett got up and made a call from the pay phone. He returned in moments, rotating a forefinger in the air. The start-engines signal. Lawrence got up and followed him out.
Tel Aviv
Levi Bar-El's presentation at the daily intelligence briefing came toward the end. His main topic was the American naval aviator who had visited Saudi Arabia two months previously, but Bar-El had more current information this morning.
''Two days ago our people followed this man Bennett to a restaurant in San Diego. After about forty minutes he and another man, apparently who met him there, took the new man's sports car to another restaurant about seven kilometers away. Our people waited ten minutes after assuming position, then sent in a female operative to locate the subject. She did not see them."
Bar-El checked his notes. "The sports car remained in the parking lot, apparently to make our team believe the subjects remained in the restaurant. But now we believe that a van was waiting in the alley behind the building. It was seen there upon taking station but was gone a few minutes later. It was dark, and-"
"Yes, yes, we know the routine." It was the section chief, Colonel Chaim Geller. He liked young Bar-El, but noted the lad had a tendency to make excuses for field agents he didn't even know. A natural enough reaction, but one that would have to be trained out of him. ''The question is, where are they?"
Bar-El swallowed. "We do not know for certain, sir. It appears they have left the San Diego area. Maybe they have left the country. We should know shortly."
Geller waved a hand. "Well, they handled themselves pretty well for amateurs. Apparently no outward signs of suspicion. No doubt the Saudis or their hirelings spotted our team. No real harm done. Now, who is the second man? Also an aviator?"
Relieved at the change of subject, Bar-El flipped the page of his folder. "Edward R. Lawrence. An airline pilot who retains a reserve commission as a full commander in the navy, second in command of a fighter squadron. We identified him by his automobile registration. According to our air force intelligence, he flew with Bennett during two tours in Vietnam. Lawrence shot down three enemy aircraft and became a tactics instructor like Bennett. Two of our people knew him during his duty instructing at the Navy Fighter Weapons School at Miramar Naval Air Station, San Diego."
"What do they say of him, Levi?"
Bar-EI was pleased-double-checking with the air force had impressed his chief. "Sir, they say he is a pilot and nothing else. He seems to care only for flying. One of the types you need in a shooting war, but who does not do as well in peacetime." He glanced down again. "An accomplished flier, a good leader, and both our men agreed he was one of their best instructors." Bar-El smiled.
"What is it, Levi? Something else?"
"Well, naturally I didn't tell our pilots the reason behind this investigation. But one of them said that if Edward Lawrence was looking for a job, we should hire him right away."
The chief tapped a pencil on his desk. "Apparently somebody else thought of it first. I only wonder why they disappeared like that. It tells us they're aware of our surveillance." Geller bit on the eraser. "What's your estimate, Levi?"
Bar-EI was not used to being asked what he thought--only what he knew. "Sir, I would have to say that probably ... "
Think fast, Levi, they're testing you,
he thought. "Sir, it's only a guess, but perhaps the Saudis feared we would expose the men to their government."
No, no. They've done nothing wrong, and the State Department already knows Bennett visited Arabia, quite legally.
"The only other thing is-well, Colonel, are we planning a wet operation against them?"
The section chief returned Bar-El's wide-eyed expression with emotionless brown eyes. "No, of course not. We have two Mexican nationals who can do such work for us in that area, but there is no need. At least not now."
Bar-El realized the recent Israeli intelligence operations in the United States would make such a move politically impossible. And besides, far better to run an assassination operation outside the United States, if it came to that.