“I’m aware of that possibility and you’re going to prevent it. I’m going to load Tamir’s bomb on a Jericho missile and program it for one of two targets — Damascus or Baghdad. I will launch it against the first one foolish enough to use chemical weapons.”
“And you want me to—”
“Make sure the Arabs know we have the bomb and how we will use it if they use chemical weapons.”
It all made sense to the Ganef. “What size yield?” he asked.
“The biggest.”
“The war has taken an unfortunate turn,” Sheik Mohammed al-Khatub said, watching for the old woman’s reaction over his coffee cup. Khatub was one of the few people not impressed with B. J. Allison’s mansion, her jewels, or power. He had more. Still, he felt comfortable in her palatial home in western Virginia and had enjoyed the private dinner. But he hated the discussion that came afterward.
For her part, B.J. was enjoying the evening and the chance to spar with the sheik, a man she liked and respected. Besides, she told herself, he is most handsome and only in his mid-thirties. He does remind me of a young Omar Sharif, she thought. A fleeting image of Tara and Khatub together flashed through her mind and she made a mental note to pursue the idea. How convenient that liaison might be, she decided, considering Khatub was OPEC’s minister of finance. “Ah, the war. So, I’ve been told,” she said, returning to the subject at hand.
“We cannot ignore what your government is allowing to happen,” Khatub said, “and must consider our interests, perhaps a change in policies.”
“Surely, you are not thinking of another oil embargo?”
“It is foremost in our thinking at this time,” the sheik replied.
“Is there anything I can do to, ah, persuade you to take other actions?”
The sheik smiled, skillfully masking his feelings for the woman. In his world, women were relegated to their proper position and he would never discuss such important matters with them. It was beneath his dignity to deal with Allison. “We were hopeful that the scandal about illegal campaign funds would preoccupy your President, perhaps limiting or moderating his actions in support of the Jews.” He sighed. “But that all appears to be dying on the vine.”
“If the press were to uncover new evidence,” Allison said, “as we say, ‘find the smoking gun,’ would that convince you that other voices are speaking out for a more equitable solution to the war?”
Khatub leaned forward and asked for another cup of coffee, smiling. They understood each other perfectly.
Tara Tyndle had been waiting for the call and was fully dressed and ready when the phone rang at one in the morning. Three minutes later, she was on her way to the helipad to catch a hop to her aunt’s home.
“You do spoil your aunt,” Allison said, greeting Tara when she entered the elegant drawing room she used as an office. The handsome young secretary escorting Tara closed the door behind her, leaving them in privacy. Allison came right to the point. “I must limit Pontowski’s support of Israel or we will be facing an oil embargo. Do you know what that means?” She didn’t expect Tara to answer. “Government control of my industry, my company. Tara, I won’t have it! I will destroy that man.” She was pacing the room. “What else have you learned about his campaign financing?”
Tara related how Fraser had funneled money into a network of offshore corporations and secret bank accounts in the Bahamas and had linked them together with the electronic transfer of funds through Hong Kong. She still didn’t know the details of how he moved the money back into the United States and the campaign. “He’s very clever, Auntie, and does it all in his head, and he used a middle man to direct the money into political action committees and get-out-the-vote groups at the right moment. But Fraser orchestrated it all. Auntie, you weren’t the only contributor. I think Fraser tapped some of the Mafia families and no income taxes were ever paid on much of the money.”
B. J. Allison smiled. “There’s the smoking gun. Imagine, the President’s campaign financed by the Mafia and being investigated by the IRS.” Her mind wheeled with the implications. “We’ll need proof. I’m positive that the middle man is the only link to Pontowski and everything hinges around him. Can you find him?”
“Oh, I think so,” Tara promised.
“When are you seeing Fraser next?”
“Tonight. We’re having dinner at his Watergate apartment.”
“How appropriate,” Allison said. “Can you have something for those nice reporters by tomorrow?” Tara reassured her that she would. “Have you met that young man we talked about the other day? The congressman who …” lira told her that they had met and the congressman was nibbling at the bait.
“Drop him,” Allison ordered. “After you finish with Fraser, there’s a more interesting person I’d like you to meet. But it will have to be carefully arranged.”
Mad Mike Martin was pacing back and forth in RAF Stone-wood’s Intelligence vault like a caged tiger, his limp more pronounced than normal. When he was worried, deep in thought, or the weather suddenly turned damp, his old war wound flared up and his hip would stiffen. All three conditions were affecting him as he listened to Matt cover the Iraqi defenses that they would have to penetrate in order to hit the nerve gas plant near Kirkuk.
Furry was dozing on a couch, worn out by the long hours he had spent with Carroll and Matt trying to put something together that would satisfy the colonel. But true to form, Martin was knocking their planning into the dirt — again. Carroll stared at his feet as he listened to Matt cover the fate of Dave Harkabi when he tried to lead a strike against the plant. When Matt was finished, Martin grunted an obscenity and turned to Carroll. “Okay, Roger Rabbit Redux, what’ve you got?”
Carroll caught the allusion, no, he corrected himself, a double allusion to fantasy and fiction. Why did Martin go to such lengths to cover a brilliant mind? “Colonel, the DIA sent us a videotape on that engagement Matt just briefed you on. Never seen anything like it.” He shoved a cassette into a VCR. The videotape was a copy of the radar tapes from the orbiting AWACS that had monitored the engagement. The radar returns on the tape had been color-coded to separate the F-16s from the SU-27s and captions summarized the battle. The audio on the tape recaptured the radio transmissions between Johar and Samir and had been synchronized with the action.
“That’s really helpful,” Martin grumbled, “I don’t understand a fucking word of Arabic.”
Carroll ran the tape again and translated as the engagement unfolded. Now the men were clustered around the TV set. “Run it again,” Matt said. “Did you hear the one jock call the other one Joe?”
This time, both Matt and Furry made notes as the engagement replayed and Carroll interpreted. “Jesus H. Christ,” Furry blurted when the short tape played out, “those two guys did that at night! They are good. And who the hell is Joe?”
“Brigadier General Hussan Mana,” Carroll said, spreading out a Baghdad newspaper and a glossy magazine with Mana’s picture on the cover. “According to these articles he got both kills. The tapes here prove that one pilot did shoot both F-Sixteens down. I think he’s Joe.” He translated the articles for the men.
When Carroll had finished, Martin sat down and studied his hands for a moment. “Gentlemen,” he said, his voice changed, respectful, “you have just seen a professional aerial assassin at work who’s as good as they get.” He looked at them. “I think it’s time to get serious here. Start taking notes.” For the next twenty minutes, Martin laid out a plan that launched them out of Diyarbakir, a Turkish air base 240 nautical miles northwest of Kirkuk. He also integrated KC-135 tankers, an AWACS, and an RC-135 reconnaissance bird into the mission. The colonel gave the plan a polish and refinement that was the end result of twenty years spent in the Tactical Air Force. The lessons he had learned through Red Flag exercises and endless hours in the cockpit were now bearing fruit. No staff officer, a product of professional military staff schools and endless headquarters assignments, could approach his level of expertise when it came to doing what the Air Force was all about.