Al-Fasr fired at the prisoners, walking the trail of bullets through the scampering bodies.
Naguib was the only one left standing.
Al-Fasr pulled up and circled for another pass. As he brought the nose of the Marchetti back toward the target area, he forced himself to remember. My father’s severed head… the bullet in my mother’s forehead… my sister, executed like a dog.
He waited until he was close enough to see the terror on Naguib’s face. He squeezed the trigger, working the tracers toward the cringing figure.
Naguib tried to run, then fell. Al-Fasr trained the hail of bullets on the white shirt. He saw the body shred, pieces scattering, the white shirt turning crimson.
At the last instant, he released the trigger and hauled back on the stick. The Marchetti skimmed low over the target, barely clearing the mast.
Al-Fasr realized that he was perspiring. His breathing was heavy and rapid. A feeling of grim satisfaction came over him. Al ain bel ain sen bel sen. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
Most of the officers had left the briefing room. Maxwell sat by himself in the front row, studying the visage of Al-Fasr on the screen.
Boyce walked over. “You know this character. What do you think? Is he gonna be a problem?”
Maxwell nodded. “If it’s the same Al-Fasr, yes. A big problem.”
“Let me share some news that will fill your heart with joy. Guess who the President is sending out to oversee the Yemen operation.”
Maxwell shook his head.
“Does this name ring a bell? The honorable Whitney T. Babcock?”
Maxwell groaned. It rang a bell. Babcock was the meddlesome Undersecretary of the Navy who had inserted himself into Admiral Mellon’s op planning for the preemptive strike on Iraq’s munitions factory. After the strike had been declared a success, it was Babcock who took all the credit.
“For some reason, the President loves this guy,” said Boyce. “Thinks he shits gold bricks. He promoted Babcock to chief staff officer of the National Security Council, and now the little dipshit is coming out to run another war for us.”
“Who’s going to command the battle group?”
“A two-star named Fletcher. Apparently Babcock picked Tom Mellon’s replacement. Ever heard of him?”
Maxwell shook his head. “What’s his aviation background?”
“None. He’s a black shoe — surface warfare, cruiser-destroyer guy. Except he didn’t do much of that either. Stickney, who doesn’t usually bad-mouth senior officers, turned livid when he heard about Fletcher. Says he worked for him at OpNav, and the guy was a political animal who spent his whole career cruising the Pentagon and working for civilian bureaucrats. Sticks said they used to call Fletcher ‘the Governor’ because he politicked like he was always running for the office.”
“Like Babcock.”
“You get the picture.” Boyce turned to regard the photograph of Al-Fasr again. He pointed his cigar at the screen. “There’s something wrong with this scenario. If that guy’s half as smart as we think, why would he do something so amateurish? Like killing the admirals, then letting his stooges get caught. And botching that bomb job on the embassy. Pretty dumb.”
Maxwell didn’t have an answer, but he had a clear recollection now of Jamal Al-Fasr. Whatever he was, he wasn’t dumb.
Chuff. Chuff. Chuff.
She had a good eight-minute-mile pace going as she completed the fourth lap around the perimeter of the hangar deck. Passing the number two elevator, she stopped. A yellow tug was towing an F/A-18 Super Hornet toward the elevator.
The Hornet belonged to the VFA-36 Roadrunners — her squadron. Beneath the left canopy rail was the name of the pilot, Lt. B. J. Johnson. Under the name was a freshly painted kill symbol — the silhouette of a MiG-29 and a small Iraqi flag.
“Pretty cool, huh?”
Surprised, B.J. turned to see Leroi Jones standing beside her. Leroi was a muscular young man from Nebraska. He was a lieutenant and the only African-American pilot in her squadron.
“Cool? Yeah, I guess so.”
“The squadron’s pretty proud of you, you know.”
B.J. didn’t know how to respond. Jones was one of those guys who, until last week, had treated her as if she carried the Ebola virus. As the only surviving woman pilot in the squadron, she had felt the resentment — hate, even — from the men. She knew the not-so-secret name they had for women pilots — aliens. As an alien aboard the world’s largest warship, she was ostracized by everyone. The wall of bias had become impenetrable.
All that had changed in a single blazing afternoon over Iraq.
She was Brick Maxwell’s wingman when they engaged a MiG-29, a big Russian-built fighter with the code name Fulcrum. The MiG was on Maxwell’s tail, but instead of countering the fighter with one-versus-one defensive tactic, Maxwell set the Fulcrum up and trusted B.J. to do the rest.
She did, and now she had a kill symbol beneath her name. And the guys were actually talking to her.
Well, it was too late. To hell with them. Aliens didn’t need the approval of jerks like Leroi Jones.
An awkward moment passed. Jones was shuffling his feet, gazing out through the open elevator door. “Uh, B.J., I’ve been thinking about something…”
“That’s a change.”
“I mean, I wanted to tell you… I wanted to apologize for…”
He couldn’t get it out. Like most male primitives, he was inarticulate. She decided to help him. “For being an asshole?”
“Yeah, okay. I was an asshole. I was wrong, really wrong, and I apologize for the way I treated you.”
She gave it a moment, not sure that he meant it. This mea culpa stuff didn’t impress her. She should tell Jones to go shit in his brain bucket.
But he seemed serious. Leroi, she remembered, was never one of the really obnoxious ones. Just too supercool to associate with aliens.
“It’s history, Leroi. I’m over it. Let’s just be buds, okay?”
Jones seemed relieved. “Works for me.” He held up his hand. She looked at him for a second, then they touched fists.
She resumed her run. Six more laps and she’d have her four miles. Jogging on the hangar deck was risky — tie-down chains, tugs skittering back and forth — but it was the only area on the ship with space. She hated treadmills, pounding along with an unchanging view.
Sometimes the new skipper, Brick Maxwell, jogged with her, and that was fun. For an old guy — he was at least thirty-eight or forty — he did okay. In fact, for an old guy he was kind of cute, with that brushy mustache and lopsided grin.
She remembered the really bad times, the alien days, when Maxwell was her jogging partner — and only friend. On one of the especially bad days, she poured out her innermost fears and frustrations to him. She was ready to quit, turn in her wings. Maxwell had talked her out of it.
She liked to think that they had a bond, she and Maxwell. Maybe more than a bond.
She knew the realities of military protocol. He was a commander and she was a lieutenant. He was a friend. A mentor. Nothing more.
She picked up the pace to a seven-minute mile. Running hard kept her from thinking too much.
After landing on the hard-packed road, he let the Marchetti roll under the camouflage nets, into the open bay of the underground revetment.
Climbing down from the wing, he saw Shakeeb waiting for him.
“I was watching, Colonel. Naguib is dead. The killing is finished, no?”
“No.” Al-Fasr pulled off his helmet and handed it to him. “The traitors are dead, but the killing is not finished.”