Almost on cue, a pair of aircraft appeared in the distance. They sounded a bit like helicopters, but as Kharon stared he realized they were American V–22 Ospreys, tilt-rotor aircraft that flew like planes but landed like helicopters.
“The UN commission is arriving,” said the minister in his heavily accented English. “They are going to land in the field across the way. Please give them room to arrive. We assume that they are unarmed.”
Some of the reporters sniggered.
Kharon’s heart began pumping hard in his chest. Some of the reports he had seen overnight indicated that the Americans had assigned technical experts to accompany the investigators.
Was Rubeo among them?
He thought it was very possible. The scientist was a control freak. He would insist on seeing something like this firsthand.
If Rubeo came himself, Kharon would stay back and avoid the temptation to confront him. It would be difficult, though, extremely difficult.
Kharon wanted to see the pain on his face.
Then, he would kill him. But first he needed to know that he had suffered.
Zen glanced at Zongchen as the Osprey settled. The former Chinese air force general had seemed visibly nervous the entire flight. Now as the rotors swung upward and the aircraft descended he clutched the armrests at the side of his seat for dear life.
It was funny what made some people nervous.
“A little different than flying in a J–20, eh, General?” Zen asked as they gently touched down.
“Very different,” said Zongchen, with evident relief. “There, I am in control. Here, very different.”
As the crewmen headed for the door, Zen unstrapped his wheelchair and pushed it into the aisle. The maneuver into the seat was tricky, but Zongchen held the back of the wheelchair for him.
“You notice that my chair just fits down the aisle at the front,” Zen told the general.
“Yes, very convenient.”
“They did that especially for me.”
It was a white lie, actually, but it amused the general. Zen rolled over to the door. A lift had been tasked to get him down; it rolled up, and after a bit of maneuvering and a few shouts back and forth, the plane crew turned him over to the lift operator.
Zen held himself steady as the ramp descended. It was the sort of thing workmen used while working on buildings, and it had only a single safety rail at the front. It moved down unsteadily — truly, it was scarier than almost anything he’d experienced in an airplane for quite a while.
“Do you get tired of being in a wheelchair?” Zongchen asked when they were both on the ground.
“Always,” admitted Zen.
The crowd of news people seemed to have tripled since the Ospreys first appeared in the sky. Kharon wondered about the security — there were plenty of government soldiers around, but they seemed more focused on holding back the local villagers than watching the reporters.
Kharon slipped toward the front of the group. His heart thumped in his throat. He regretted leaving the gun.
Relax, he told himself. Just relax.
The UN team had brought security with them — a dozen soldiers, all with blue helmets, fanned out from the first Osprey, along with a few plainclothes agents. All of the dignitaries seemed to be in the second aircraft.
There was one in a wheelchair.
Kharon wasn’t quite close enough to see his face, but he guessed that it must be Jeff Stockard, the former Dreamland pilot who was now a United States senator.
Zen.
His mother had told him stories about Zen. He was “just” a star pilot then, before his accident and struggle turned him into something approaching a national hero.
A real hero, whom even Kharon admired. Not a phony legend like Rubeo.
A wave of damp sadness settled over Kharon. Zen had been at his mother’s funeral. He remembered shaking the pilot’s hand.
“We all loved your mom,” he said.
Rubeo hadn’t even spoken to him.
Kharon craned his neck, trying to see if the scientist was with the UN committee. He spotted someone of about the right height and moved up in the line, bumping against one of the armed guards before realizing that it wasn’t Rubeo.
“Back,” said the soldier. He was Pakistani, wearing his regular uniform below the blue helmet and armband.
“Sorry.”
Kharon shifted back, joining the throng of reporters as they followed the commission walking up the road to the ruins. There was a light breeze; every so often a burst of wind would send grit in their faces.
As a fighter pilot, Zen had the luxury of distancing himself from the effects of ground war. Rarely had he seen firsthand damage to anything other than an airplane.
Now it was all around him.
It was horrific. While the government guide was a bit heavy-handed, there was no question that the bombs sent by the Sabre had inflicted a terrible toll.
Zen reminded himself that the government, too, was to blame. It was inflicting a heavy toll on the populace, robbing and stealing from the people. In the roughly two years it had been in power, thousands of people were imprisoned without trial. The new leaders were repeating many of the outrages that had flourished under Gaddafi.
But that didn’t make this any less tragic.
He wheeled slowly along, gradually falling behind the main pack as they moved along the sides of the battered buildings.
“Excuse me, are you Senator Stockard?” shouted one of the journalists trailing them.
The man had an American accent. Zen debated whether to ignore him, but finally decided it was better to speak.
“Yes, I am,” Zen told him.
“I’m Greg Storey from AP. I’m interested, Senator — what’s your impression?”
“It’s terrible,” said Zen. “A horrible accident.”
“The government is claiming that it was done on purpose, as a terrorist act.”
“That’s clearly not what happened,” said Zen.
“How do you know?”
Zen controlled his anger. He had enough experience with reporters to know that they often tried to provoke people to get an extreme reaction.
“NATO doesn’t go around targeting civilians. We hope to get to the bottom of what happened, and then fix it so it doesn’t happen again. That’s the committee’s aim.”
Seeing that Zen was taking questions, the other reporters quickly gathered nearby and asked a few of their own. The government minder ran over, but by the time he arrived there were so many other people around that he had a difficult time pushing through the crowd and was in no position to reshape the conversation.
A few of the questions were things Zen couldn’t answer in any detail — what exact aircraft had been in the raid was one he just ignored. But most were thoughtful, and he answered as fully and honestly as he could.
The U.S. was not controlling the investigation. He was an honorary member, willing to help as much as possible. Zongchen, a respected Chinese air force officer as well as diplomat, was a careful man and would sift through the evidence. It was unfortunate that the government of Libya had chosen to take a hard line against the rebels. There was room for a negotiated peace, if the sides would come to the negotiating table.
Zen admitted that he didn’t know the exact ins and outs of the local politics, and would have to defer to others on specific grievances. He was interested in finding out why things had gone wrong with the air attack.
“Was it because the planes were UAVs?” asked the American reporter.