“Isn’t it possible the presence of this ship in these waters adds to international tension, rather than lessens it?” Farrell persisted.
“I’m not a diplomat,” Grafton said carefully. “I’m a sailor. You should ask the State Department that question.” He glanced at his watch, then at the junior officer tour guides. “Gentlemen, perhaps it’s time to take these folks to the quarterdeck.”
As his group prepared to descend the ladder from the quarterdeck to the carly float Lieutenant Tarkington again shook each hand. To Farrell he said, “I sure am glad I had the chance to get to know you, ma’am. It’s a small world and you just never know when or where we’ll meet again.”
She brushed past him and was three steps down the ladder when she heard him say loudly, “I’m sure you’re a fine reporter, Judith, but you shouldn’t work so hard at playing the role.” Teetering on her heels, she turned and caught a glimpse of Tarkington’s face, dead serious, as the man behind her on the ladder lost his balance and almost sent her sprawling.
“Don’t forget the Toad, Judith Farrell.”
A week later the Tangiers police received an enquiry from Paris about the J’Accuse reporter. He had not returned from his trip nor had he filed a story. At the hotel where he had reservations, the bartender, a retired merchant mariner from Marseilles, identified the reporter from a black-and-white photograph which pictured a middle-aged man with thinning hair and heavy jowls. The bartender gave a tolerably accurate description of the young woman to the police, but he had not overheard any of the couple’s conversation. The reporter’s bed had not been disturbed and his luggage was missing when the hotel maid entered the next morning. The bartender ventured the opinion that the woman was not a prostitute, and this professional observation caused police to make fruitless enquiries at every other hotel in Tangiers that catered to foreigners. Where the pair had gone after they left the hotel bar was never established.
An official of the French government asked the American embassy in Paris if the J’Accuse press pass to the United States had been used, and was informed several days later that it had. Two weeks after the event a photo of the missing journalist was shown to the naval officers who had guided the tours. The ship was then at sea in the Mediterranean. None of those who viewed the picture could recall the individual, so that information, for whatever it was worth, was passed via the embassy to the French authorities.
The American embassy CIA man reported the disappearance to his superiors, and U.S. Naval Intelligence was routinely informed. Apparently the incident was too unimportant to be included in the summaries prepared for the National Security Council. After all, the group had not been shown anything classified or anything that was not shown as a matter of course to any visitor to the ship. Notations were made in the appropriate computer records and within a month the incident was forgotten by those few persons in the intelligence community who were aware of it.
The reporter was never seen again. Since he was divorced and his only daughter lived in Toulon with children of her own, his disappearance caused scarcely a ripple. Within six weeks his mistress had another regular visitor and J’Accuse had another reporter at a lower salary.
3
El Hakim, the ruler, stood at the window and gazed east in the direction of Mecca. He took a deep breath. Ah, the air smelled of the desert — it smelled of nothing at all. It was pure and empty, as Allah had made it.
“There are enormous risks involved, Colonel Qazi.” The colonel sat behind him on a carpet before a low table. A hot dry wind stirred the curtains. El Hakim continued, “The Americans declared war at the end of the last century when one of their warships was merely suspected of being lost due to hostile action. The course you propose is unambiguous, to say the least.”
El Hakim turned from the window and glanced down at Qazi, today dressed in clean, faded khakis. About forty, Qazi was dark with European features. Only his cheekbones hinted at his ancestry. The son of a British army sergeant and an Arab girl, Qazi often moved about Europe as a wealthy playboy or businessman, sometimes Greek, sometimes French, English, or Italian. He spoke seven languages without an accent. In a military environment he stood ramrod straight. “You have never failed us, Qazi. And you have never attempted so much.”
The colonel remained silent.
El Hakim obliquely examined the seated man. Qazi did not think like most soldiers, he reflected. He thought like the spy Allah must have intended him to be. And his ability to slip so completely into the roles of these people he pretended to be — indeed, to actually become the man his papers said he was — this ability troubled El Hakim, who had heard the stories of Qazi’s feats from informants and silently marveled, since he himself had spent his entire forty-nine years in the Arab world, except for one six-month visit to England twenty years ago. On that one foreign excursion he had felt so utterly, totally out of place, among people who seemed to have just arrived from another planet. One just never knew, he told himself now, when Qazi was onstage. He was a dangerous man. A very dangerous man. But most dangerous for whom?
El Hakim reluctantly resumed his seat. “Tell me about the ship.”
“Her main weapons are her aircraft. Her deck is crammed with airplanes and to ready them for launch requires many men and a reasonable amount of time. It cannot be done quickly, if at all, while the ship is at anchor and unprepared. Then she is most vulnerable.
“She carries three missile launchers, known as the Basic Point Defense Missile System.” Qazi opened a reference book and displayed a picture of the ship. “A battery is located on each side of the after end of the flight deck, below the level of the flying deck, and one is forward of these two aircraft elevators in front of the island, on the starboard side of the ship.” He pointed them out. “The reference book says these contain Sea Sparrow missiles with a ten- to twelve-mile range.
“Her only other weapons are four close-in weapons systems, called CIWS.” He pronounced the acronym as the American Navy did, “see-whiz.” “These are very rapid-fire machine guns aimed by radar and lasers. Two are located on each side of the ship.” His finger moved to the prominent little domes that housed each installation. “These weapons automatically engage incoming missiles and shoot them down before they can strike the ship. Maximum range for these systems is about two kilometers. They are for last-chance, close-in defense.”
“Is that all the weapons the ship has?”
“At sea, Excellency, the ship is surrounded by surface combatants with modern guns and missiles with ranges beyond ninety miles. These escorts also carry antisubmarine weapons. Occasionally a large surface combatant, such as a battleship, will accompany the task group. When the carrier anchors, several of her escorts will anchor nearby.”
“But the carrier? Has she any other weapons?”
“Four machine guns, about 12.5 millimeter, are mounted on the catwalks around the flight deck when the ship is anchored, two on each side. These are constantly manned by marines. These guns could engage any unauthorized boat that comes too close, or a helicopter. The carrier’s crew does not carry small arms.”
El Hakim arched an eyebrow. “Not even the officers?”
“No, sir.”
“And how many men are in the crew?”
“About five thousand six hundred, Excellency.”
The ruler gazed incredulously at the photograph in the reference book, Jane’s Fighting Ships. Although it is a big ship, he thought, with that many peasants crammed into such tight quarters the discipline problems must be stupendous. He remembered the stories he had heard about the slums of Los Angeles and New York, and allowed his upper lip to rise contemptuously.