He had particularly tender veal chops for dinner, accompanied with an excellent St. Emilion. After dinner, he set up his radio and connected it to an antenna he erected outside the tent. At midnight, he turned on the radio, tapped in a frequency on the digital keys, pressed the transmit button, and said, “Paper Doll, Degas. In position.”
He did not expect, nor wait for, a reply. Punching a new frequency into the radio, he shut it off and considered that the next nine days were going to be full of one-sided conversations.
Though he was up early on the twenty-eighth of July, it was to be a day composed mostly of leisure. He ate a breakfast of eggs, bacon, waffles, and muffins, then showered for the first time that day. He was managing four showers a day.
He stayed in the tent for the morning, lounging on his cot, and reading Proust. He perspired a great deal.
At ten minutes past noon, the radio barked.
“Goya.”
He rolled off the bunk and picked up the microphone. “Degas.”
“’K, fella, gimme somethin’ to home on.”
Formsby held the transmit button down, so the pilot could use his direction finder.
When he lifted his thumb, the pilot said, “’K, guy, be there in about ten.”
Formsby prepared by buckling his holster in place, then slinging the M-16 over his shoulder.
One never knew quite who was coming to lunch.
The airplane — a De Haviland DHC-5 Buffalo without any national or corporate markings — appeared low out of the east and made one pass over the primitive runway. The pilot was apparently happy enough with what he saw for he made one circle, then brought the cargo plane in.
It landed with two bounces and a short rundown, then turned toward the parked trailers.
Formsby waved merrily and pointed to a place next to the flatbed trailer. The pilot goosed the throttles, shot toward the spot, then whipped around in a tight 180- degree turn. The engines died with several burping backfires.
Walking across the hot soil toward the plane, Formsby felt his muscles tensing up.
The pilot and another man emerged from a side door. Formsby figured the raw-boned, cowboy-hatted pilot for an American.
His muscles relaxed a trifle.
“You’re Jones?” the pilot asked.
“Nevada Jones.”
“Yeah, I read the book and saw the movie. What’s with the rifle?”
“I’ve been told that there are many wild things in the desert,” Formsby said.
“I guess there are. You want us to dump all of it right here?”
“I surely do.”
Thirty minutes later, fourteen pallets had been floated down the rollers of the ramp and left in the dirt next to the flatbed. Each pallet was covered with a tarpaulin.
Formsby untied the tarps and inspected the contents of every pallet.
“That what you ordered, Jones?”
“Exactly, my good man, exactly.”
“We try to please,” the cowboy said.
“Could I offer you gentlemen luncheon?
The pilot looked up at the sky, around at the horizon, and then at his wristwatch. “Yeah, I don’t see why not.”
Formsby made a half-dozen thick ham sandwiches and got out a six-pack of ale.
They had changed the tires on all of the airplanes, substituting the widest, softest tires they could mount and still get into the retract wells. Nitrogen gas was used to inflate them.
All of the pylons for the F-4s, and a pair for the Hercules, had been refurbished, painted grey, and stored aboard the transport.
Wyatt held up his clipboard, with the checklist clamped onto it, toward Demion. “That’s the last tick-off on my sheet, Jim.”
Demion’s eyes scanned his own list. “Mine, too. There were a few times, Andy, when I didn’t think we were going to get here.”
“We’re a day ahead of schedule.”
“Except for the fuel and the training schedule,” Demion said.
They had had to refill their rental tanker truck six times, to meet the requirements of the test and training flights and to fill the fuel cells of the C-130 tanker. Winfield Potter was in Lincoln once again for another load. The Noble Enterprises charge card for fuel was getting a workout, and Wyatt hoped that someone on the other end was paying the bills.
The two of them walked slowly through Hangar 5, watching the activity as tools and equipment were loaded aboard the Hercules transport. In the morning, the transport was making a quick turnaround trip to Albuquerque to return the equipment they weren’t taking with them: engine cradles, compressors, extra tool sets.
Huge, hand-lettered signs were spread all over the place. “NO SMOKING” was the rule since the tanker had been fuelled.
Wyatt spotted Arnie Gering and Lefty Harris and waved them to the sidewall.
“What’s up, Andy?” Harris asked.
Wyatt had their envelopes prepared. He handed one to each of them. “You guys get to ride back to Albuquerque with the Herc in the morning. I want to tell you how much I appreciate your putting in the overtime.”
Gering opened his envelope and counted the twenty one-hundred-dollar bills.
“Be careful how you spend it, Amie. You don’t want to attract any unnecessary attention.”
Gering stuffed the envelope in his back pocket. “Yeah, Andy, thanks. You sure you don’t need some more help wherever you’re going?”
“We’ve got it covered,” Wyatt said.
Gering looked to Demion, who nodded his agreement.
“Well, I can always use the extra bucks.”
“There might be some other special projects in the future,” Wyatt said.
“When?”
“We never know when they’re going to come up,” Demion told him. “We’ll let you know.”
Gering and Harris wandered back to the transport to help load boxes.
Both of the C-130 aircraft appeared nearly identical, except for the fuselage numbers. The tanker, numbered 61043, had a few feet of the retracted fuel line protruding from the trailing edge of her port wing. The transport, 54811, had several new antennas and a plastic bulge mounted on the top of the fuselage, connected to the interior console that had been installed three days before. The tactical coordinator’s console had been stripped from a Grumman E-2 Hawkeye and refurbished by Kriswell and Vrdla. The sonar, armament, and sonobuoy deployment functions had been discarded since they didn’t plan on hunting for subs where they were going. In place of the antisubmarine gear were enhanced radar, voice, and data communications, and electronic countermeasures controlling gear. While they didn’t have the massive radome of the E-2, with the equipment Kriswell had rigged, they were going to have a limited early warning capability in the Hercules.
Wyatt and Demion climbed through the port side door and found Kriswell tinkering at the console, which had been bolted to the bulkhead in place of the two crew bunks.
“You seen Bucky, Tom?” Wyatt asked.
“He and Lucas went to town for party-makings. He’s calling it a wrap-up party.”
“We still have a few days of training to go.”
“Yeah,” Kriswell said, “but that’s the fun part. The hard stuff’s over.”
Wyatt hoped it went that way.
Colonel Ibrahim Ramad flew his personal MiG-27 into Tripoli to meet with his superior. He landed at night, when it was relatively cool, and was picked up by a truck and taken to Farouk Salmi’s office at base headquarters.
Salmi’s aide, a captain by the name of Mufti, was the only other in attendance at the meeting.
“Ibrahim, it is good to see you,” Salmi said.
“And you, my Colonel.”
Salmi waved him to a seat in front of his desk. “How are your exercises proceeding?”