Acts of Vengeance Read online

  Not a sign of human existence.

  Jones couldn’t help thinking about B.J. Johnson. He liked her for the way she handled herself during the bad times when she was the only woman in the squadron and no one was giving her a break. Himself included, he recalled. He wished he had been a better friend. Like the others, he had kept his distance from the alien.

  Of all people, he should have known what it was like to be an alien. He was the only African-American pilot in the squadron, one of four in the entire air wing. Not a big deal in the Navy these days, but not so long ago it had been a very big deal. He knew what it was like to always have to prove yourself. To prove that you weren’t there because you were getting special treatment.

  You should have been her friend.

  It was too late. If B.J. was still alive, she was either hiding or captured. Jones knew in his heart there was no way that she had survived. Someone would have seen the chute. She would have made contact with the emergency UHF radio. B.J. was scattered in the earth with the debris from her Hornet.

  The Tomcat crew was another matter. Both chutes had been spotted, and after the shoot down they had made a brief transmission on the SAR frequency. Then, nothing, which was a solid clue that they had been captured by the gomers. Short of an all-out invasion, there was nothing that could be done to get them back. It was in the hands of negotiators.

  Yeah, B.J. was dead. But what the hell, one more shot. Just in case.

  “Runner five-two, stay with Sea Lord,” he said to Gordon, a mile abeam in combat spread. “I’m gonna try the SAR channel one more time.”

  “Copy, Leroi. I’ve got Sea Lord covered.”

  He keyed the mike and used B.J. Johnson’s call sign. “Yankee Two, this is Runner Four-one. Are you up?”

  Silence. It filled his earphones like a stillness from the grave.

  “B.J., damn it, this is Leroi. If you’re alive, answer up!”

  Seconds passed. Nothing.

  It was a waste of time. Useless.

  He was reaching for the channel selector to return to the tactical frequency when a voice came to him, distant and weak. “I hear you, Leroi. Please don’t go away. I’m alive.”

  Chapter Nine

  Rules of Engagement

  USS Ronald Reagan

  Gulf of Aden

  0715, Tuesday, 18 June

  Startled sailors jumped out of the way as the Navy captain in the battered leather flight jacket, cigar jutting from his teeth, stormed through their midst. Astonished, they watched him clamber up the ladder to the 0-3 level, taking the steps two at a time.

  At the top of the ladder Boyce swerved around a corner, nearly bowling over a female yeoman carrying a stack of files. He mumbled an apology and bolted on down the passageway.

  At the flag intel compartment, he saw that Maxwell had beat him there. He removed the cigar and stood gasping for breath. “She’s alive.”

  Maxwell grinned back at him. “I heard.”

  Boyce barged on through the door to the intel compartment, hauling Maxwell along by the sleeve.

  Admiral Fletcher, hunched over his desk, looked up as they entered. On either side, peering over his shoulders, were Guido Vitale and Spook Morse. At the far end of the compartment, arms folded over his chest, stood Whitney Babcock.

  Boyce’s eyes went to the man standing across the desk from the admiral. He wore Marine desert-colored BDUs—battle dress uniform. He had a bristly gray crewcut with an expanse of white on either side, a pair of round, steel-framed spectacles, and a ramrod-straight posture. On each shoulder he wore the insignia of a bird colonel.

  “Gus Gritti!” said Boyce. “You bristleheaded sonofabitch, who let you aboard this ship?”

  The marine regarded Boyce with icy brown eyes. “You’ve got a mouth like a megaphone, Boyce. When are you squids going to learn some manners?”

  A huge grin split Boyce’s face. He and the marine shook hands and clapped each other on the shoulder. Boyce knew Gritti from their academy years. Gritti was a paradox in the Marine Corps—a legendary, mud-crawling infantry warrior with a passion for the operas of Puccini and Verdi, and whose credentials included a masters in humanities from Stanford.

  Ignoring the other officers in the room, Boyce turned to Maxwell. “You see this ugly jarhead? This is the toughest marine since Chesty Puller and absolutely the right guy to have on your side in a bar fight. He’s also the right guy to get our pilots out of Yemen.”

  “Maybe,” said Gritti. His eyes were fixed on Admiral Fletcher. “My team could snatch your people out of there, but you have to convince the Battle Group Commander that we need close air support while we’re doing it.”

  “Close air support? Hell, yes, you need close air support.” Boyce looked at Fletcher. “Sir? Aren’t we going to—”

  “Of course they’ll get air support,” said Fletcher. “But Colonel Gritti has a problem with the amended rules of engagement.”

  Boyce eyed the admiral warily. “What amended rules of engagement?”

  “The altitude floor. By the new ROE, our close air support aircraft will be limited to a minimum release floor of twenty thousand feet.”

  “Twenty thousand feet!” Boyce sputtered. “You can’t even see the gooks from there. Hell, Admiral, you can’t support troops on the ground from four goddamn miles up.”

  A sour look was coming over Fletcher’s face. Before he could respond, Babcock cleared his throat and walked over from the corner of the room. He gave Boyce and Gritti one of his patronizing smiles. “Believe me, it won’t be a factor, gentlemen. The rescue of the downed pilots won’t meet any opposition from ground forces. The altitude limit has been imposed because sensitive talks are now in progress between the U. S. and Yemeni government. They’ve lodged a protest with the U. N. Security Council, and we have strict orders from the White House not to further provoke them.”

  Boyce’s face was turning the color of fresh lava. “Are you telling me, sir, that those terrorists are just going to let us saunter into their country and pick up our people? That they’re not going to shoot?”

  “We have assurances to that effect.”

  “Assurances from murderers? You mean someone from our side is actually talking to those thugs?”

  Babcock’s smile was becoming strained. “I realize that these issues may be difficult for you to understand, Captain. You’re a technician, not a diplomat. All you need to know is that this matter in Yemen will end with a diplomatic solution, not a military one.”

  Boyce’s face darkened further. “What I really need to know is how I’m going to cover Colonel Gritti’s marines while they’re snatching our pilots out of Yemen. From twenty-thousand goddamn feet—”

  “That’s enough, Captain,” said Fletcher in a sharp voice. “You’re coming very close to impertinence, and I won’t have it.” He gazed around the room. “I’ll remind everyone in this room that I’m still the Battle Group Commander, and that Mister Babcock here represents the National Security Council and takes his orders directly from the President. He is the senior official in this theatre.”

  Fletcher looked again at Boyce. “Is that clear enough for you, Captain Boyce?”

  Boyce hesitated for a second, then felt Gritti’s boot kicking his ankle. “Yes, sir,” he said in a loud voice.

  <>

  Claire sniffed the air and took an instant dislike to Aden. The reek of garbage, and something that reminded her of death, wafted in from the harbor. As the caravan of taxis drove the reporters to the Sheraton, hard-eyed Yemenis glowered at them from the roadside.

  About forty reporters and cameramen were camped at the Sheraton, guarded at the entrance by a squad of surly Yemeni soldiers. No one wanted to venture into the city. Aden had the feel of an enemy camp. Still fresh in everyone’s memory was the October, 2000 bomb attack on the American destroyer, the USS Cole, as it entered the port of Aden.

  Mel Bloom, the chief of information for the U. S. mission in Aden, was standing at the lobby bar. He saw her c
oming and threw up his hands. “I don’t know anything.”

  “C’mon, Mel. we know there are pilots down in Yemen, and another strike is in the works.”

  “Media brief at one o’clock. No updates before then.”

  “When will they let us go back out to the Reagan?”

  “You gotta be joking.”

  Claire resisted the urge to seize Bloom’s windpipe and choke the shit out of him. He was a pompous bureaucrat, but she knew he was just doing his job. Anyway, he was probably telling the truth. He didn’t know anything. Whatever happened in Yemen was still happening, and the military wouldn’t disclose anything that might jeopardize the operation.

  “Okay. Promise you’ll let me know as soon as you know something about the pilots?”

  “Sure, Claire. You’ll hear.”

  At the bar she recognized one of the reporters, a stringer for Reuters. His name was Lester Crabtree and he was shitfaced. She took the seat next to him and ordered a vodka tonic.

  “Hope you have a positive-space ticket,” said Crabtree.

  “To where?”

  “Anywhere. This place is going to blow. When the Yemenis figure out we’re bombing them, they’re going to turn on us like a pack of jackals.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “Same as you. We’re vultures. We circle around where we think the bodies will be.”

  She remembered now that Crabtree was a world class jerk. “Do you think there’ll be bodies in Aden?”

  He shrugged and tossed down his drink. “Aden’s on the coast, right? That means the Navy will have to evacuate us from here when the sticky stuff hits the fan. The real blood bath will be up north, in Sana’a. That’s the capitol and it’s where the rebels will go when they’re ready to take over.”

  Claire sipped at her drink and watched their reflections in the mirror over the bar. Crabtree might be a jerk, but in this case he probably had it right. Yemen’s shaky coalition government was hanging on by a thread. A well-armed rebel force could march into town and take over any time they wanted.

  She ordered another round for Crabtree, then paid the tab. “Thanks, Lester. See you at the press brief.”

  In her room on the third floor, she sat at the tiny desk and opened up her notebook computer. There was no direct internet connection through the hotel’s phone line. She drafted an e-mail message, which she would later take to the hotel’s business center for uploading.

  From: [email protected]

  To: [email protected]

  Subj: Love, etc.

  Okay, sailor, you promised to tell me once a day that you loved me, right? Well, maybe you didn’t exactly say that, but you did say you would practice.

  I’m frightened, Sam. I’m frightened for your safety and for everyone on the Reagan. But it’s you I love, and I don’t think I could bear losing you. I lost you once and it broke my heart.

  Please don’t let this war become personal, my darling. You lost Josh, but that is not a reason to throw your own life away chasing the animal who killed him. Nothing is worth that.

  You must let me hear from you NOW so I’ll know you’re safe.

  All my love,

  C.

  P.S. Yemen sucks.

  When she was finished, she picked up the phone and asked the switchboard operator to connect her to the reservations office of Yemenia, the state-owned airline.

  The agent spoke excellent English. She asked which flight Claire had in mind.

  “Sana’a, the next available.”

  <>

  The voices crackled over the speaker.

  “I hear you, Leroi. I’m alive. Please don’t go away.”

  “B.J.! I can’t believe it. You’re down there. Are you okay?”

  “I’m hungry, thirsty, tired, and I think I’ve got a broken rib. Maybe diarrhea. Other than that, I’m just fine.”

  “Sit tight, kid. We’re gonna get you out of there.”

  Al-Fasr pushed the “stop” button on the digital recorder. He advanced the recording to the next radio exchange. He listened again while the woman pilot authenticated her identity, then reported the grid coordinates of her hiding place.

  Hearing the recorded voices, Al-Fasr found himself thinking about the woman pilot. What did she look like? Was she truly a female, with the softness and scent of a woman? Or was she one of those sinewy uni-sexed creatures like those in the American television shows?

  Even with his background—his education and westernized attitudes—such a thing was anathema to Al-Fasr’s Arab soul. Women! They had no place on the field of battle. It ran against the laws of nature. Tomorrow, when they had captured the woman, he would make an example of her.

  For a moment he allowed himself to fantasize about the female pilot. The thought gave him an instant arousal. Yes, it would be appropriate to use her for his own pleasure. He would make her whimper and beg for mercy like the whore that she was.

  When he was finished, he would throw her to his troops. The spoils of war.

  He would transmit an image of the violated woman warrior back to the Americans. They would learn in the most basic fashion what it meant when they sent their daughters to war.

  He forced himself to return his thoughts to the recorded radio exchange. Time was growing short. As he listened, he studied the captured grid map on his desk. It was still a puzzle. Instead of using the actual latitude and longitude of her position, the pilots seemed to be referencing the coordinates to the grid map. But the letters of the grid were based on some sort of key, which could be changed daily and which the pilots must have committed to memory.

  It had been good fortune that they captured the handheld radios and the grid maps from the F-14 crew. But it was incredibly stupid, Al-Fasr thought as the anger rose in him, that the goat-brained platoon commander had allowed his gunner to kill the pilots. It was typical of these unthinking primitives. Not only could the captured pilots have revealed the key to the grid map, they could have been pumped for other secrets. Ultimately they could be used as bargaining tools.

  Or bait.

  Al-Fasr had ordered the platoon commander—a Yemeni named Arif, who came from the north country—and his gunner to be shot in full view of the assembled garrison. Not so much as punishment but as an example.

  It had made the correct impression. An hour later the search squad in the Dauphin helicopter located the downed Hornet pilot. Instead of shooting to kill, they had pursued the pilot. Then they lost her in the darkness.

  Which was just as well for now. So long as the Americans believed the woman pilot was alive and free on Yemeni soil, they would come for her.

  Al-Fasr picked up one of the captured survival radios, turning it over in his hands, examining it from all sides. A useful piece of equipment, even more advanced than the older models he had carried when he flew F-16s in the emirate air force. And the hand-held GPS. Such exotic technology in the hands of the Navy pilots. It had done them no good.

  His MiG pilots, of course, didn’t have such things. There was no need. Search and rescue was not a clause in their contract. He thought again of Novotny and Rittmann, his own downed airmen. Witnesses had observed Novotny’s low-flying jet taking an air-to-air missile strike. It had gone instantly into the ground. There was no chance that Novotny had survived.

  Rittmann was another matter. It would be convenient if he were also dead. The impertinent German had outlived his usefulness. The troops who found the wreckage of his MiG reported that the ejection seat was missing. Perhaps he had survived.

  Too bad, mused Al-Fasr. If he turned up alive, he would have to be dealt with.

  <>

  Boyce was the last to come into the briefing room. He slammed the door behind him, then barked an order. “Everyone sit down.”

  The air wing briefing compartment was only half the size of the flag intel space. Gritti squeezed into the end chair, while Maxwell, Guido Vitale, Spook Morse, and Gritti’s executive officer, Lieutenant Colonel Hewlit
t, assembled themselves in a semi-circle around the illuminated map table.

  Boyce looked grim and haggard. He perched on the edge of the steel admin desk and said, “We just got some bad news. About an hour ago the CAP leader had another radio exchange with Yankee Two. She reported that she had witnessed our two Tomcat crewmen being shot and killed.”

  A heavy silence fell over the room.

  Maxwell could see that Boyce was taking it hard. Burner Crump, skipper of the Tomcatters and a much-decorated fighter pilot, was an old buddy of Boyce’s. Crump’s back-seater was Willie Martinez, a wise-cracking flight officer from southern California, one of the best RIOs in the business.

  “What happened?” asked Maxwell. “Were they evading?”

  “No details,” said Boyce. “She verified it when he asked her again, and then the CAP lead told her to shut down and save her battery. She’s going to need it for the SAR.”

  “How do we know she’s for real?” asked Gritti. “Maybe they’ve got her radio.”

  “The first guy to talk to her, Leroi Jones on the CAP station, authenticated. She had the right password for the day. Leroi knows her pretty well, and he asked her some personal stuff, sister’s name, home town, stuff like that. She’s the real thing.”

  “Maybe she’s being coerced,” said Colonel Hewlitt. “What if it’s a trap?”

  “Low probability. It’s part of our training that if you’re being manipulated, you give bogus authentication. Leroi was convinced that she was in the clear.”

  “What’s her condition? Is she injured?”

  “Nothing serious. Scared shitless, but she says she can run and hide.”

  Gritti said, “That’s a tough one about your pilots, gentlemen. I’m sorry. But that simplifies our recovery problem. I understand she has a GPS and a grid map?”