Hard Rain

Twenty-one

An engine shop is a place, not so unbelievably, where the Air Force stores replacement engines. The floor of the one at Incirlik was big enough to land a jet on. Had to be. There were thousands of NATO and US planes flying in and out of the base and not one of them was a glider. Basically, they had to stock a lot of engines and parts.

When we arrived, the place was alive with activity that seemed close to panic: heavy forklifts shifting large wooden crates around, people shouting and rushing about, some whistling instructions, others dodging out of the way. Masters and I made our way around the perimeter of the space, accompanied by Oh and a woman who volunteered to be our human shield. She took us to an office on a mezzanine level looking out over the shop floor where knots of officers and enlisted personnel were huddled over computer terminals. They didn’t look happy, so I guessed it wasn’t to look at porn. There was panic in here, too, of the white-collar variety: two guys pacing the floor, others making suggestions about possible software glitches, plenty of sweating and the odd gnashing of teeth.

Masters stopped a Royal Air Force lieutenant on her way out with a page of printout clutched in her fist, and asked what the problem was. Before she could answer, an Air Force captain broke away from a nearby terminal, and said, ‘We’ve lost ten -129s, ma’am. You see ’em lyin’ around, we’d sure appreciate you pointing ’em out.’

‘What’s a -129?’ Masters enquired.

‘A GE F110-129 F-16 replacement engine, ma’am.’

‘And you’ve lost ten of them?’

‘Completely disappeared off the system, like they never existed.’

Masters showed her badge.

‘Here already?’ he exclaimed. ‘Gee, you guys are sure on the ball.’

‘What would you say the engines were worth?’ Masters asked the captain.

‘Around seven million US a pop.’

‘When did you notice they were missing?’

‘Yesterday. We thought it was just an error on the inventory, but now we’re not so sure.’

‘So is that why things are going nuts downstairs?’

‘Yeah. We’re turning the place upside down looking for them.’

‘At what point are you going to conclude they’ve been stolen?’ she asked.

‘There’s a way to go before that,’ he said, pinching his sinuses while he considered the question. ‘Those engines are big. Weigh a few tons apiece. Point is, you couldn’t just walk out of here with a couple of them stuffed under your jacket.’

‘There a contractor by the name of Denzel Nogart handy?’ I asked, interrupting the post-mortem.

‘You looking for Ten Pin? He’s down on the flight line doing engine trials.’

A brief exchange was had between Johnny Oh and the captain, there being several miles of flight lines at Incirlik he could have been down on.

‘How long you here for?’ asked Oh as we drove along a short row of RAF C-130 Hercules. The way he looked at Masters, or rather, the way he never took his eyes off her, told me the question wasn’t for general consumption.

‘The day, maybe two. Depends,’ Masters said.

‘What if I told you I happen to be available tonight? Might that convince you to stay around?’

‘Sorry, might not.’

‘You know what they say, Special Agent — good things come in small packages.’

‘Really,’ she said.

‘Beneath these ordinary clothes… Put it this way, my last girlfriend called me “Disproportionate Man”, the superhero with a special gift for women.’

This one I’d have to remember.

‘And under these ordinary clothes, Mr Oh,’ Masters informed him, ‘I’m every inch engaged to be married.’

‘Yeah? I’m pretty sure I could change your mind about that, ma’am.’

‘And I’m pretty sure you’re getting close to pissing me off. Say, are those F-16s?’ she asked, diverting our attention to the neat row of fighters with a blue lightning bolt on the tail fin.

‘Those? They’re Cheil Ha’avir’s,’ replied Oh.

‘Israeli?’

‘Yes, indeed, ma’am. They’re the new F-16 Sufa. Don’t look like your average F-16, because they’re not. To start with, they’re two-seaters. Those bulges on the fuselage above the wing root are conformal fuel tanks. Longest-range F-16 there is.’

‘What are they doing here, in Turkey?’

‘Practice on the bombing range off to the north. Over Israel, those things don’t get out of second gear before they run out of airspace and start bumping uglies with the Egyptians, Jordanians, Saudis and Lebanese.’

‘That’s neighbourly of Turkey,’ Masters observed, ‘to let them drop their bombs here.’

‘Israel buys water from Turkey. The two countries are pretty chummy; at least, the governments are. There’s a local group of religious nuts who don’t like the Israelis bombing their land, so they regularly pay the base back with some incoming of their own.’

‘Those F-16s use depleted uranium munitions on the bombing range?’ I asked.

‘Can’t say whether Israel uses DU or not, Special Agent. That’s classified. But I’m not breaking any rules if I tell you that no one’s supposed to use it on the bombing range — part of the agreement. Take from that statement what you will. DU’s potentially bad for the ground water and no one wants to take the risk. Incirlik’s a pretty important air base round these parts. At any one time we’ve got aircraft here from all over. Right now we’re playing host to a squadron of Australian F/A-18s, Polish MiG 29s, Saab Viggens from Sweden, a bunch of American F-15s out of England…’

‘They wouldn’t be out of Lakenheath, by any chance, would they?’ Masters asked.

‘Yeah, the 493rd.’

‘They in town long?’ I enquired.

‘They’re on the bombing range today and tomorrow, working in with the Israelis — those F-16 Sufas. So a couple of days at least.’

‘We need to speak to the squadron’s commander. Can you set it up for us?’ I asked.

‘I’ll make a few calls.’

We motored on past the end of the Israeli line-up, towards half-a-dozen slate-grey C-17s and massive C-5 Galaxies. ‘You know how DU ammo works?’ I asked. From Johnny Oh’s badge, I knew he was a BBstacker, a munitions specialist, which meant he’d have a pretty fair idea. Masters ignored us, choosing instead to stare out the window at the huge transports.

‘Sure.’

‘You mind giving me the highlights?’

‘Well, you take uranium, remove all the radioactive U235 isotopes and you’re left with uranium that has been depleted. Simple. The U238 that’s left is around sixty per cent less radioactive than naturally occurring uranium, because, as I just said, all the real bad stuff has been taken out. DU makes great ammo, especially for busting tanks, because the sabot does two things when it slams into armour: it self-sharpens as it penetrates, and it’s pyrophoric, which means friction causes it to burn. So, basically, when it hits the tank it burns a hole clean through, becoming a high-temperature aerosol along the way that blows on in through the hole, incinerating everything inside.’

‘Is DU dangerous to handle?’ I asked.

‘When it’s just lying around?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I know what you’re trying to do here, Vin,’ Masters interrupted. ‘It’s pretty damn transparent.’

‘Depends on who you ask,’ Johnny continued when Masters turned away. ‘Some people say no, some people say to the people who say no, “Are you kidding?”’

‘What do you say?’

He shrugged. ‘The experts believe at least 320 tons of the stuff was lost in the Gulf War alone — turned into that aerosol I mentioned, and it’s just blowing around out there. Uranium, even the depleted U238 variety, is both chemically toxic and a radioactive hazard. The radioactivity means it decays, breaking down into isotopes like thorium and protactinium — things best handled by someone else wearing a lead suit. So, me? I don’t care what the Pentagon says. I give the stuff a wide berth, unless I can’t avoid it, and then I go out of my way to make sure I’m protected. Okay, here we are.’

Johnny Oh pulled to a stop fifty yards from an engine test facility on the far side of the flight line.

‘I should say about now that I’ve been instructed to tell you to be very careful in this area when the engine’s turning over.’ He reached into his bag and handed each of us a set of muffs. He put on a set himself, leaving one ear exposed.

‘We know about the dangers, Johnny. We’re in the Air Force.’ Masters said, leaving the ‘dah’ implicit, but quickly donning the hearing protection.

‘Oh, is that what that funny outfit you’re wearing is all about, ma’am? Sorry if this sounds condescending, but I’ve got my orders. I’ve been instructed to inform — okay, remind — you that the F-16 engine is just about the most powerful vacuum cleaner money can buy. It’ll suck the hairs clean out of your skin from twenty paces, even when it’s just idling. To ensure your own safety, you must remain outside the yellow line painted on the concrete. See it?’

In fact, you couldn’t avoid it, unless the paint was covered with ice, which a few of them in the vacant parking spots down the flight line were.

‘Even though it seems a long way out from the air intake,’ Oh continued, ‘you do not, under any circumstances, want to venture inside that yellow semicircle.’

As if on cue, the dash 129 on the test stand closest to us began to spool up, rapidly generating a moan that went through the Explorer’s metal like an angle grinder. There were several vehicles parked away from the test stand: a couple of branded TEI trucks and a vehicle known as a ‘bread van’, which was an all-purpose personnel, tools, and parts carrying utility vehicle that didn’t carry any bread unless the line supervisor happened to bring along a boxed lunch. Several technicians in puffy cold-weather gear and headsets or muffs milled around on either side of the facility. One of these technicians was positioned directly in front of the intake. He was well outside the yellow semicircle, talking to the female console operator sitting in a bunker via a long cord. She had her head forward, buried up to her ears in her instrument display.

‘The man you’re after is the guy out front,’ Oh yelled over the now screaming engine.

‘The fella who looks like a bowling ball zipped into a parka?’ I yelled back.

‘Yeah, that’s Denzel Nogat — Ten Pin.’

I was reluctant to get any closer to the engine. Even with ear protection, its naked shriek was causing me physical pain. Once out of the vehicle, Masters stood beside me wincing like she’d just hit her thumb with a hammer.

‘Let’s go,’ I yelled at Masters. ‘We’ll talk to him later.’

‘What?’

I was about to repeat myself when a blue bread van distracted me. It had detached itself from the constant stream of traffic moving along the perimeter road behind the flight line, and was motoring slowly towards us. It looped around the back of the facility and pulled up a safe distance behind Ten Pin, well beyond the yellow line.

Two men in ABUs got out and walked towards the guy we were here to see. One halted about four feet away from him while the other, a senior master sergeant, continued to approach. He stopped beside Ten Pin and appeared to tap him on the butt. Startled, Nogat turned, and, just as he did, the man who had held back hit him low with a running block. Ten Pin was no lightweight, but he was caught off balance. He staggered back, lurching several steps to recover himself. Those steps took him well inside the yellow line. And then he was drawn forward, arms flailing through the air, feet barely touching the ground, desperately trying to throw himself down. Suddenly, he was flying, like a super hero, and not Disproportionate Man. He was more than six feet off the ground and travelling as fast as a speeding bullet straight into the intake of the F-16 engine, which swallowed him whole. Ten Pin was gone. Sucked in.

A loud bang immediately followed. A tremendous backfire with a few thousand pounds of thrust behind it shook the test stand viciously. White and black smoke accompanied by a belch of fire rolled out of the exhaust. The engine’s shriek faltered, there was a grinding sound and then another belch of smoke. All around the back of the enclosure, the concrete and walls began to turn red as a mist bloomed from the engine’s nozzle.

The technicians and engineers were frantically, helplessly, signalling the console operator. The woman lifted her head and looked around bewildered, wondering why the engine had just hiccupped. I saw all this as I began to walk in the direction of the bread van.

It had taken a few seconds for the reality to register in the part of my brain that wasn’t frozen in disbelief. Someone had just deliberately fed a man into the whirling titanium blades of a 20,000-horsepower meat grinder, with no more compunction than that of a mailman delivering a letter. And now, like a mailman, he was just going to drive off. My walk turned into a trot, which became a sprint as the truck spun its tyres on a patch of ice.

‘Hey!’ I called out as the jet engine died. ‘Hey!’

The van picked up speed once it slid free of the ice and began to pull away. I ran harder, which made my cracked rib feel as though it was going to split the skin and pop out like a busted mattress spring.

A Hercules, heading towards the van on an intersecting taxiway, forced the vehicle back towards some parked aircraft. It went suddenly sideways on another patch of ice, and I began to close the gap. The guy on the front passenger side stuck his head out the sliding door to see if they were being followed. He did a comic double take when he saw me running, arms pumping, gaining ground, and his head disappeared back inside the van.

The vehicle then sped up and lurched off in a direction that took it towards the Israeli F-16s. That was a mistake: I cut the corner, dodged between a pair of C-5s, and gained on it. The vehicle slid on another patch of ice and whoever was at the wheel lost it. There was a skid to the left and then one to the right, and then another to the left — each slide becoming more pronounced as the driver fought in vain for control. I watched it clip the tail on one of the F-16s, which flipped the van completely sideways. It rolled, doors ripping open, equipment flying out. The vehicle kept rolling and ended up on its roof, skidding along on the ice. It slid right into an R9 fuel truck servicing an F-16 separated from the rest. The refueller rose up on its suspension then settled back, the van lodged against it, fuel cascading out of the ruptured gas tank.

I stopped, panting. Those guys weren’t going anywhere.

The explosion that followed seemed to come from somewhere deep within the earth beneath my feet. The R9 jumped maybe a foot, and then it broke apart with flames that tore rents through the fuselage of the F-16 beside it. The fighter’s wings sagged and hit the ground and then they too exploded as the fuel inside them heated, vaporised and ignited. Without thinking about it, I dove behind the heavy ramp of the nearest transport and buried my head under my hands as a huge fireball rolled through the air towards me. A wave of heat seared my throat and I smelt a mixture of burning kerosene and my own singed nostril hairs. Next, steaming, smoking pieces of aircraft began to rain down, pummelling the tail ramp I’d sheltered beneath. A large wheel hub thumped into the concrete not two yards away, cracking it, and sizzled as the ice around it melted into a pool of water.