Barely subdued laughs rippled through the room. CAG’s face darkened and he shot a fierce warning look at the offenders.
Babcock appeared not to notice. He rambled on for several more minutes. Finally he said, “The President is confident that your efforts today will show the world that America will not tolerate the rogue ambitions of a country like Iraq. Good hunting, ladies and gentlemen.”
No one applauded.
CAG said in a loud voice, “Strike leaders, brief your people. Everyone draw their sidearms in your ready rooms.” Then he added, as an afterthought, “Try not to hurt yourselves with them.”
A tall African-American Marine sergeant arrived in the VFA-36 ready room to issue the automatic pistols. One by one the pilots checked out their weapons. Though they had all qualified with small arms early in their training, most had long ago forgotten what they knew about the 9 mm. pistols.
The sergeant was not happy. As he watched the pilots fumble with the weapons, a pained expression came over his face. He couldn’t help noticing that Leroi Jones was trying to stuff the ammunition magazine into the pistol backward. Horrified, he saw Flash Gordon peering down the barrel of his own pistol.
Carefully, the sergeant reached over and directed the muzzle away from Gordon’s eyeball. He said to the group, “Gentlemen, take my advice and just keep those things in the holsters, okay?”
“Yeah, good idea, Sarge.”
Maxwell’s own sidearm was the one handed down to him by his father, a pearl-handled Colt .45. He was loading the magazine of the automatic pistol when DeLancey walked up to him.
“Where’d you go this morning?” DeLancey demanded. “You were late to the brief.”
“I had a job to do.”
“You went someplace in the ship’s helo. I want to know where.”
“To check something out over on the Blue Ridge.”
DeLancey was eyeing him warily. “I gave you a direct order to butt out of the investigation. You were to stop snooping.”
Maxwell holstered the Colt. “I found out what happened to Spam Parker.”
The nervous chatter in the room abruptly ceased. A heavy silence descended on the assembled pilots. They stared at Maxwell and DeLancey. DeLancey looked like he’d received an electric charge.
Maxwell picked up his helmet and nav bag and walked out of the ready room.
He rode the escalator to the gallery deck, then stepped up onto the flight deck. Red-shirted ordnance crews were going from jet to jet loading and arming weapons. Every strike fighter carried a full load of weapons.
Maxwell looked around for his jet. It was spotted on the number two elevator, just forward of the ship’s island.
As he arrived at the parked Hornet, he saw DeLancey come marching up behind him. The fury showed in his face. “What the hell do you mean, you found out what happened to Parker?”
It occurred to Maxwell that he could almost enjoy this. Never before had he seen DeLancey look scared. “You almost got away with it,” he said. “The ‘X-W’ on your kneeboard card. It meant ‘Check Winchester,’ right? Funny, I’d almost forgotten the old Winchester frequency — 303.0. That’s what you use when you don’t want anyone else to hear you.”
“Prove it. There’s no record of it.”
“None on the Reagan because you destroyed the only tape. But I found out about the Blue Ridge, the command ship. They still had it in their RF spectrum scan.” Maxwell reached into his shoulder pocket and pulled out a tape cassette. “I’ve got it right here.”
DeLancey’s brows lowered like hoods over his eyes. “That doesn’t mean shit. It could be anyone’s voice on that tape.”
“The legal officer tells me that voice printing is easy to identify, and it’s very admissible evidence. The tape happens to be date and time-stamped, by the way, at exactly the time Spam crashed.”
DeLancey’s jaw muscles were clenching. “Give me that tape, mister. That’s an order.”
Maxwell stuffed the cassette back into his shoulder pocket and zipped it closed. “You’ll get a chance to hear it,” he said. “At your trial.”
DeLancey reached for him, shoving Maxwell against a rack of 2,000 pound bombs. “I gave you an order. I want that goddamn —”
A hand grasped DeLancey’s shoulder and pulled him back. “Hey,” said CAG Boyce, “if you guys want to fight, then get in your cockpits. We’ve got MiGs to kill.”
He almost made it.
In fact, thought Tyrwhitt, he would have made it from the Rasheed without being spotted if it hadn’t been for the damned Cyfonika. He was on Tammuz Street, only three blocks from the hotel, trying to get the antenna extended on the thing. It had to protrude through the window of the Beetle to get a clean signal to its satellite. He had to stop the car in order to keep the antenna at the correct azimuth to the satellite.
He transmitted his message in the open. No more encrypted intelligence reports embedded inside official news releases. The game was up. It no longer mattered that the Bazrum could intercept his transmissions.
He transmitted the news that the Baghdad operation was compromised. He knew that they would infer that Iraq’s missile attack was imminent. He then reported, without being specific, that he was making his egress from Baghdad. He would call again when he was clear of the city.
Just as he concluded the transmission, he saw him — one of the safari suits, standing in the street, holding a walkie-talkie and staring at him like he had just seen an extraterrestrial.
How ironic, Tyrwhitt thought. He had put his life at risk to retrieve the satellite phone because he thought it would get him out of trouble.
Now he was in real trouble.
In his rearview mirror, he could see the Fiat pursuing him. There were at least three in the car. Tyrwhitt could tell that the driver was handling the automobile well. That was more bad news. Now his only chance of escape was to lose this guy quick before the Bazrum scrambled every black Fiat in Iraq.
He sped eastward, across the Tigris and into the dense Al-Karrada district. The streets narrowed, lined with street vendors and produce stalls. Pedestrians and bicyclists peeled away as he blew his horn.
Tyrwhitt was alternately flooring the accelerator, then stomping on the brakes, screeching around corners in a four-wheel slide. The four-cylinder VW engine was screaming like a tortured buzz saw. It would be great fun, he thought, if the nasty little buggers back there weren’t trying to kill him.
Ahead lumbered an ancient lorry stacked with baskets of vegetables. Tyrwhitt jammed his fist on the horn. The lorry driver’s left arm extended, flashing an upraised finger.
Shit! thought Tyrwhitt, slowing behind the lorry. In the mirror he saw the Fiat closing on him.
Tyrwhitt swerved to the left, looking for an opening. There wasn’t enough space to pass between the lorry and the row of vendors’ stalls.
The Fiat was close enough for Tyrwhitt to see the faces of the men inside.
He stomped on the accelerator and roared alongside the lorry. The angry driver yelled and shook his fist.
And then, too late, Tyrwhitt saw them.
Chickens. Crates of them, stacked atop each other ten feet high, extending halfway into the street. The owner of the chickens was gesturing wildly as he ran for his life.
Whap! The Volkswagen plowed into the crates.
Tyrwhitt lost sight of the road ahead. The Beetle’s windshield filled with feathers, flapping chickens, shattered crates, bird droppings.
Whang! He felt the VW sideswipe something — the lorry? Then he emerged from the cloud of feathers.
The way ahead was clear. The windshield was a mess, festooned with chicken droppings and feathers. He looked in the mirror. Behind him the lorry lay on its side, blocking the street. Baskets of vegetables were spilled in the street. A white flurry of chickens flapped and squawked and ran loose in the street.