You might have one flip around, or in a complicated movie, two or three. But in the end, you knew who was good.
Real life was always trickier. You might be a hero one second, then literally in the middle of a disaster the next.
He couldn’t help but think about the Sabre attack. He’d seen a few screwups in his time, a couple of crashes, though never with anyone getting hurt. One time he’d come close to having to bail out of an aircraft. Ironically, it was an F/A–18, not an Air Force jet — he had been taking it up for NASA on an instrument run, testing a recording device — they had a new instrument to measure vortices off the wings. He was out over the Pacific when one of the engines decided it didn’t want to work for some reason. Then the other one quit.
Fortunately, he had plenty of altitude and options. Among them was trying for a miraculous restart, as he called it now — he got the first engine to relight somehow, then hung on long enough to get into Miramar, the Marine air station in San Diego.
On final approach the engine quit again.
That caused him a little consternation. He’d been a little high and fast in his approach, perhaps unconsciously thinking the engine would blow, and that helped. Still, he barely managed to get the wheels onto the edge of the strip.
A lucky day. He might have plunged into the bay.
Or really gone off, and hit houses in the city.
He hadn’t thought about either possibility at the time. You didn’t — you just flew the plane, went down your checklist. Do this, do this; try this, now this, now this. Contemplating consequences was a luxury you didn’t have.
So much so that when people congratulated him later, Turk wasn’t even sure what the hell they were talking about. As far as he was concerned, the incident was a tremendous pain. He had to find another way back to Nellis, where he’d started the flight. And talk to a dozen scientists, most of whom were actually interested in the instrument the plane had carried, not the engine system.
For some reason, he’d never drawn a NASA assignment again. Coincidence?
The Terminator ended — or didn’t end, as it would go on to spawn a huge string of sequels. Turk went back to flipping through channels.
He stopped on the scene of a fire. He watched a row of houses burning, fascinated. They were in a small city. The sky behind them was dotted with black smoke, swirls rising like thick tree trunks in the distance.
Only gradually did he realize that he was watching an account of the Sabre accident. There were shots of ambulances coming and going. Then a close-up of a victim on a stretcher.
A woman, eyes closed, head covered with a bandage already soaked through with blood.
A small child, already dead…
He flipped the TV off and went to see what was in the minifridge.
15
Kharon never ceased to be amazed at the power of money. It was both corruptor and motivator, an incredible genie with almost unlimited ability. A hundred euros could influence a man to take incredible risks, like flying from the safety of Benghazi to the open city of Tripoli.
“Open” meant claimed by neither side, but not entirely neutral — it would lean to whomever had the most power nearby, which at the moment was the rebels. Nor did it mean completely without risk — gangs from both sides fought openly in the streets several nights out of the week, and occasionally at the airport as well. A portion of the terrain southwest of the city was held by government forces, which had repulsed several attempts by rebels to clear them away.
A hundred euros, plus the regular fees of fuel and airplane rental. That was all it took to enter the outer ring of hell.
Kharon was taking the same risks, flying through a war zone, in an area where theoretically anything flying could be shot down. The fact that the allied air forces had not yet fired on civilian planes did not necessarily mean they would continue to hold their fire.
But the risk was nothing for him, a necessary part of his plan: twenty minutes along the water, a beautiful flight in the dusk.
Kharon knew he would be followed from the airport — everyone was — and so he went straight to a hotel, using the alias he had established two weeks before. The room he’d rented had been bugged by two different agencies. He gave it a quick look and saw that the bugs were still in place before changing and heading back downstairs.
Things were going well, but hubris was a killer. Kharon reminded himself of this as he walked down the steps to the Western-style lounge. He was a little early for his appointment, but this was as planned — he always liked to survey the environment at leisure.
It was a swamp. Besides the mixture of journalists — Kharon was masquerading as one himself — there was a thick mix of foreign agents and men who euphemistically referred to themselves as “businessmen.” Most were arms dealers, eager to strike an arrangement with the rebels who did business in the open city, or arrange transport south to the government-held territory.
There were women businesspeople, too. Their business was older than war.
“There is my friend!” declared Foma Mitreski as he approached the long bar. “Tired from his long journey and in need of scotch.”
“Foma.”
Kharon was not particularly surprised to see the Russian spy; while this was not Foma’s normal hangout, he often made the rounds of the hotel bars in the city. His presence was inconvenient, but Kharon knew he could not afford to alienate him. The Russians were important partners, and Foma personally oversaw much of the relationship.
“How is the reporting going?” asked Foma. He knew of course that Kharon was not a reporter, but then Kharon knew that Foma was something more than the lower level embassy employee Foma pretended to be.
“The usual pronouncements of victory from both sides.” Kharon spoke just loud enough to be overheard. He pushed away the stool that was next to the Russian and leaned against the bar. He liked to move around easily, something that wasn’t possible while perched on the stools here.
A few inches shorter than Kharon, the Russian was nearly twice as wide. He was a good decade and a half older, with hair so black, Kharon assumed it must have been dyed. He had a very red face, the sort associated with heavy drinking.
As always, Foma was dressed a little formally for Tripoli, with well-tailored trousers and a collared pullover shirt. His hands seemed too stubby for his body, thick, as if pumped with air or fluid. He had a small signet ring on his left pinky, and a larger black opal inset in gold on his ring finger.
A wedding ring as well. On the right hand, in the Eastern Orthodox tradition. But in the two years they had known each other, Foma had never spoken of his wife, or of any children. He did his best to present a blank slate to Kharon and the rest of the world.
“Scotch?” asked Foma. His English had a double accent — southern Russia and London, where according to his classified résumé he had both gone to school and served as a spy at the embassy. “They have some very old Glencadam,” he said. “Here, we will share a few sips.”
A few sips typically meant half a bottle. Kharon nodded indulgently, then waited as the bartender came over with a decanter of 1978 Sherry Cask Glencadam — a rarity even outside the Muslim world.
Foma took the glass after the whiskey was poured and held it to the light.
“Amber,” he said in English. Then he said a few words in Russian that further defined the color. Though adequate, Kharon’s Russian was not quite good enough to capture the nuances of the words.
“It never fails to surprise me that I am drinking scotch with a Russian,” said Kharon, holding up the glass.