Fallout

12

Luke stood in the back of the ready room and made sure all the students from the first class were in their seats. They talked nervously. The minute hand on the clock in the back of the ready room clicked audibly to the 0730 position. Luke nodded to Hayes, who turned off the lights, throwing the windowless room into total darkness. Suddenly the loud sounds of an alternative rock group blared from the Bose sound system hidden in the overhead of the high-tech room. It was a pounding, rhythmic acoustic guitar that sent chills up the spine of every officer in the room. The music was far too loud to permit conversation.

Luke wanted to make Tonopah the true Fightertown, the place where all fighter pilots in the country would want to hang out, leave stickers and plaques on the wall, and build tradition and camaraderie. Ever since Miramar had reverted to a Marine Corps Air Station and TOPGUN had moved to Fallon, there hadn’t been that one place that lived in the mind of Navy pilots as the place where they all wanted to be, where they would spend every waking hour if they could. Fallon was trying, but it wasn’t there yet. Oceana in Virginia Beach was trying, but it lacked a certain something, a certain exotic feel, remoteness, or color.

Flying fighters was as much about morale and pride as it was about any one other thing. Airplanes, training, tactics, courage, opportunity—they all mattered. But without a certain belief in one’s abilities and skills, without pride, these students would almost certainly fail. Everything about the new school, including the first morning, was calculated to build excitement and enthusiasm about what they were doing.

As the music pounded, the screen in the front of the room sprang to life with video images of the MiG-29. The color footage was vivid and impressive. It was an air show routine being flown by Anatoly Kvotchur, a professional Russian Fulcrum pilot. It was probably the most famous flight demonstration ever given by a MiG-29.

The class watched in total absorption as the pilot wrapped the airplane into a tight turn in front of the throngs of people at the Paris Air Show. The airplane twisted and turned beautifully in the blue sky above Paris. The noise of the air show was barely audible over the music. The thirteen members of the new NFWS class sat enthralled by the images and the excitement. They all loved jets. They loved flying fast. They loved the concept of air combat and having the ability to beat somebody in the air. The image was clear as the MiG-29 came across the runway at Le Bourget airport and pulled up into a Cobra maneuver, in which the airplane transferred its forward airspeed into an immediate nose-up pitching maneuver intended to cause a less agile airplane following closely to streak by. The crowd was obviously amazed. But then something happened. A flame shot out of the right engine, and the airplane departed, rolling right. It pitched toward the ground in a steep dive. Everyone watching the film knew that there was no way that airplane could pull out at that attitude. The pilots in the room had all heard of the ’89 air show, but none had ever seen it. They held their breath as they watched. With the MiG-29 barely above the ground, an explosion threw off the canopy, and the pilot’s ejection seat came rocketing out of the airplane. Just as the ejection seat cleared the airplane, the MiG-29 plunged into the grass next to the runway in a ball of flames right in front of the air show crowd.

“The Zvedza K-32D ejection seat,” Luke said into his wireless microphone. “Best ejection seat in the world. He got out when he was sixty feet off the ground, his airplane headed straight down, with one engine dead and the other in full afterburner. He was outside the envelope of every Western ejection seat. Yet in his Russian seat he survived this incident uninjured.” The camera lingered on the burning wreckage as the pilot floated down next to his dead airplane.

The screen faded and the lights came up slightly, showing Luke standing at the lectern in front of the room. He turned down the music. “Good morning. My name is Luke Henry. My call sign is Stick. You may hear that it’s because I’m skinny. That, of course, is false,” he said, as they all snickered, examining his lean frame under his flight suit. “The truth is, I was the best stick at TOPGUN, and my call sign is simply an acknowledgment of that fact by the other pilots.” They laughed.

“That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. What you have been watching is a videotape of the MiG-29, one of the best fighters in the world. It is the jet you are most likely to face if the balloon goes up.

“The reason you’re here—the reason we’re all here—is that airplane. We have them, we know how to fly them, and we want to teach you how to fight them and fight them effectively. In the course of learning to fight the MiG-29 you will learn fighter maneuvers that will put you in good shape to fight any other fighter you might encounter, because the MiG-29 is about the best fighter out there. It has been the leading export fighter from Russia since 1985.

“Let me welcome you to the Nevada Fighter Weapons School. It is an honor to have you here.” Luke looked at all their eager faces. He glanced around the spotless, fresh ready room. The NFWS colors of desert camouflage and black and silver dominated the entire room. The ready-room chairs were the same chairs one could find in a squadron ready room ashore or at sea. They were the Navy standard-issue one-hundred-pound steel chairs with leather seats and high backs that reached up above one’s head. Glenda, Raymond’s wife and the co-proprietor of the Area 51 Café—as they’d insisted it be called—had stitched head covers for each ready-room chair out of black leather embedded with the squadron’s logo.

“All the instructors have had at least one tour as an instructor at TOPGUN. This is probably the best accumulation of pilots anywhere in the world. That’s the good news for you, because they are really good instructors and they really understand flying fighters. It’s also bad news for you, because you’re going to have to fight for your life every day against those pilots in Russia’s best fighter and the number one threat you will ever face. Let me introduce them to you.” All the instructors stood and were introduced in turn, after which Luke ran through his PowerPoint presentation of the class syllabus.

“We want to get you flying right away. After a couple of lectures we’ll start with basic fighter tactics. 1 v. 1 maneuvering. We will show you how to maintain your lookout, how to make your opponent’s lookout more difficult. We will teach you energy maintenance and various nuances of air combat. Some of you may know most of the things we’ll teach you, in which case we’ll just refine your skills. The first lecture will be given by Stamp—Lieutenant Commander Paul Stamper, the operations officer. That class will commence in”—Luke glanced at the clock on the back bulkhead—“forty-five minutes, at 0830. Other lectures will follow during the morning, including the AIM-9 missile. I will be giving that lecture at 1000. Then we will break for lunch. In the afternoon each of you will have your first 1 v. 1 hop against an instructor.

“By the way, unlike in the movie, neither the real TOPGUN nor this school will rank you. There is no TOPGUN trophy, and there will be no NFWS trophy. But we will know. And you will know. The best will percolate to the top. We expect you to be at your best. Any questions?”

Major Khan had been staring coldly at Luke throughout the lecture. He raised his hand, and Luke recognized him reluctantly. “Are you willing to consider changes to the syllabus to better fit your students’ needs?”

Luke smiled. “Major Khan.” He looked at the other students and spoke to the group before responding to Khan. “These are the pilots from Pakistan. Their lead pilot is Major Riaz Khan. Let me introduce him.”

The other students murmured their hellos. Khan continued to stare at Luke. Luke kept a friendly tone in his voice, but the words had very sharp edges. “Major Khan, as I told you this morning at the special meeting we set up to discuss that very topic, we’re not going to be changing the syllabus. We told you that we would be willing to accommodate you with two or three additional hops so you could get the additional air-to-ground training you yearn for. You told me that was not good enough.” He paused. “I understood you when you said that. I would really prefer that you and I discuss this at a later time. Clear?” Luke stared back. Khan didn’t respond at all.

“After your flights at the end of the day, I’d like to invite you to our first social event at the Officers’ Club—the 94th Aero Squadron, as it is called—which is the next building over. It is the old Officers’ Club from when Tonopah was an Air Force base, but we’ve added our own touch. We call it the 94th Aero Squadron because that was the squadron in which the first Navy ace flew, in World War I. He was nineteen years old when he got his fifth kill.”

Luke paused. “We’re here to give you the tools to be an ace if you ever find yourself in combat. But what makes an ace? What makes one man seize history by the balls and shoot down dozens of enemy airplanes while his squadron mate, with the same airplane and the same opportunities, gets maybe one kill over the course of the same war, or two, or none, and has a lot of mechanical problems that ‘make him’ go back to the base before the real fighting starts?” He scanned their faces. “What is it that makes the difference? If you talk to aces, they’ll tell you that in their squadrons they were able to predict who was going to get the kills before the shooting even started. Some never seemed to see the enemy. Some would engage but never get a shot off.” He paused again.

“There are a lot of ingredients that go into it. Courage. Tenacity. Eyesight. Or is it all just ‘luck’? I don’t believe in luck; I believe in physics. But there are other factors. Training, maybe. Skill—being a great pilot—that also comes into play. But there is an intangible.

“There aren’t that many aces around anymore. There was only one Navy ace in Vietnam, Duke Cunningham, and one Air Force ace, Steve Ritchie. Think about this,” he said intensely. “The youngest American ace is over sixty.

“We’re going to see if we can help you find your intangibles. The things that will make you stand up and be counted when it really matters.

“So tonight, after your first flights, come over to the O’ Club. I think you’ll like the World War I decor. There is a Nieuport and a Fokker triplane parked out front. You can’t miss it. And on the inside are sandbags and our Wall of Fame—the wall in the dining room where every ace in American history is mentioned. We’ll convene there about 1900, after you’ve had a chance to have some dinner. We’ll grab a beer and debrief and—”

“We do not allow alcohol,” Khan blurted.

“Feel free to have iced tea, or lemonade, or a Coke, or… water. Whatever you want,” Luke replied, ignoring Khan’s smoldering stare. “We will adhere to the standard Navy policy of twelve hours from bottle to brief.” He stopped. “Any questions?” There weren’t any. “All right. Let’s get this class under way.”

Brian Hayes stared at the new digital telephone on his desk. He picked up a pencil and began doodling on the notepad in front of him. He felt like someone who was leaving on a trip and was forgetting something critical, that jarring, “damn it!” feeling. It was with him all the time, as if something right in front of him were about to explode. Whenever he tried to trace the feeling, it always came back to Khan. He didn’t know why exactly, just that in the back of his mind it was always about Khan.

He dialed the number from memory. It rang several times and was about to kick over into voice mail. Suddenly the receiver was picked up at the other end. “Yeah.”

“Hey, bro,” Brian said, glad to hear the voice.

“Brian, what’s up?” Kevin Hayes was Brian’s older brother by eleven months and one day. Irish twins. “You okay?” he asked, his mind immediately drawn to Brian’s condition.

“Yeah. Fine.”

“You getting along all right?”

“Fine. It bothers me, but I’m doing okay.”

“You actually getting better?”

“It doesn’t work that way. But it’s not getting worse as fast as I thought…”

“How’s your new job?”

“Great. Incredible,” Brian said. “Secret level, which isn’t very sexy, but it’s fun. First class started today. We’ve got sixteen instructors, and all the MiGs are FMC.”

“FMC?”

“Fully mission-capable. Ready to go.”

“I can’t believe you got those MiGs flying. I heard they were at the end of their useful life.”

“That’s what the DOD said for public consumption. They only had a couple hundred hours on them. I think they had other things in mind for them but never got around to it. Probably a budget issue. And Luke found this company that’s joint German and Russian. They’re doing the maintenance. They can take any Russian airplane down to its serial number and build it back up. Some of the airplanes needed a lot of work, even new engines, and others didn’t. But if you’ve got the money, they can make them fly.”

“Unbelievable. What a great deal. So what’s up? You don’t sound like you called just to talk.”

Brian hesitated. “I need your help.”

“What kind?”

“It’s one of our students. I was wondering if… if you could have somebody check into him.”

Kevin was cool. “We don’t operate inside the U.S. You know that. That’s FBI.”

“CIA looks at foreign issues. Right?”

“Go on.”

“The student, the foreigner—”

“Where are you calling me from?”

“The school.”

“You have access to a STU-III?”

“No. We don’t have any secure communications.”

Kevin Hayes paused. “Don’t say anything you don’t want to read in the newspaper. What’s going on?”

“We have four foreign students—six actually, but four of them are from Pakistan. Ever since I heard about these guys, the hair has been standing up on the back of my neck. The way the school got going, the way they show up as the first foreign students with the path completely greased for them. The way their head guy shows up with this attitude, a total asshole, like he’s completely in control, gives our CO a faceful of crap, but there’s more to it. I don’t know. That’s why I hesitated to call. There’s nothing I can really point to. I just wanted—”

“Look, Brian,” Kevin said sympathetically, “I trust your instincts, but you don’t crank up the big bad Agency to investigate some random suspicions. Assholes are not on our list of things to look into.”

“He has the same name as the Pakistani director of ISI.”

“Internal Security? Shit, Brian, those are some serious people. You think he’s related?”

“I don’t know.”

“But where does that get you? Some foreign country’s going to be investigating the son of the Director of the CIA if he shows up for some exchange program?”

“Yeah. I don’t think it gets us anywhere. It’s just the only thing I can point to. I don’t trust the guy. Can you have somebody look into him?”

“You know how hard it is to get the CIA to ‘look into’ anything?”

“I thought you worked there. You can get them to do whatever you want.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Sorry. I shouldn’t—”

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t do anything. I just want you to appreciate how hard it is. Especially when you have nothing to go on.”

“Well, if you can—”

“Pakistani, you say.”

“Right.”

“You got anything you can show me?”

Brian picked up the brown envelope lying on his desk. He opened it and pulled out the documents. “I’ve got the information they forwarded to us to verify their security clearances.”

“Fax it to me. I know somebody in Pakistan. Let me make a couple of calls.”

“Thanks. I owe you one.”

“Counting this one, I think you owe me about a thousand.”

“No doubt.”

“You’re working yourself into the ground,” Katherine said as she walked outside behind Luke.

He had changed into his jeans and his usual gray fleece pullover. “No harder than you used to work in your law firm.”

She couldn’t argue with that. “And I was working myself into the ground…”

They walked across the sandy area that passed for a backyard behind their sprawling ranch house toward the well-used Bobcat. Luke climbed up into the cab and sat on the cushioned seat. “I can’t take three months to build the runway. I only rented this Bobcat for two weeks. I’ve got to get it done.”

“Do you think maybe you’re thinking about too many things at once?”

There weren’t many hours of daylight left. Luke had his hand on the starter lever but resisted the temptation to start the engine. “Like what?”

“Think about what you’re doing—starting a new company, leasing a fleet of fighters and one of the world’s best airfields, borrowing a hundred million dollars…”

“He invested. I didn’t borrow anything.”

“You know what I mean. Plus buying a new house, building your own private airfield, trying to buy an airplane. Don’t you think you’re taking a little too much on your shoulders? Oh, and starting a family.”

“I feel more in control of my life than ever. Nobody’s going to tell me to leave my family to go to sea. Nobody’s going to move me across the country for the needs of the Navy. We’re finally where we can decide exactly what we want to do. And I happen to have the best job in the world. It’s going to take a lot of work to get through the first year. We both know that. But it’s worth it to me. The runway,” he said, looking at his half-done strip for his nonexistent airplane, “is a dream. You know me. I’ve always got some project going. Keeps me from watching television.”

“How is that Pakistani student?”

“Khan?”

“Yeah. You had a lot of questions about him after the first two days.”

Luke got quiet. “I still do.”

“Serious questions?”

“I don’t trust him at all. I don’t know what the hell he’s up to, but his goal in life sure isn’t trying to be the best student in the school. He’s got something else in mind.”

“Need me to do anything?”

“Brian is working the problem. He really doesn’t trust the guy. And he’s got his brother at the CIA looking into it.”

“The CIA?” She thought about the implications. “Should we call the Undersecretary and ask him about Khan?”

“He’s the one who sent him here. I don’t think that would do much good.” Luke pushed the starter. The Bobcat’s diesel engine rumbled to life. “I’ve got to get working before the sun sets.”

“I still say you’re taking on too much.”

He put the Bobcat into gear. “You have any problem with me buying an airplane?”

“With whose money?”

“Ours.”

“We don’t have any.”

“I could get a loan.”

“I quit my job to move here, Luke. We don’t have enough money to buy an airplane.”

“Sluf just bought an airplane. He moved to Vegas. He’s going to start commuting from there every day.”

She frowned. “What did he buy?”

“Just a little Cessna. Used. Paid about thirty K for it.” He paused. “What if the company bought it?”

Katherine pulled her hair off her face, where the wind had blown it. She glanced at the sun heading for the western mountains. “Are you asking me as the general counsel or as your wife?”

“Both.”

“You can’t use company money to satisfy your personal hobby desires. The company certainly does not need an acrobatic biplane. The company has lots of airplanes. I don’t see a biplane fitting into the mix.”

“Then maybe I’ll buy a MiG-17, like Stamp.”

“I don’t think so. And you’re sure not landing a jet here and starting it at six in the morning with a cup holder for your commuter mug.”

He smiled at the image. “Maybe I can find a fixer-upper.”

“Now, that’s comforting.”

“Just kidding. I’ll save, I’ll scrimp, I’ll borrow, I’ll do it all. But I will have my Pitts Special before the year’s out.”

“We shall see.”

Luke looked at the sky. “I need to get working.”

Katherine stood back and gestured to his beloved runway.

Kevin Hayes pulled the sandwich out of the bag sitting on his desk in his cubicle. He studied the bacon sitting on top of the turkey and wondered how long ago it had been cooked and whether trichinosis can resurrect itself in cooked bacon if it sits in a cold pan for long enough. The dark red, almost black meat was entirely limp and now held tomato seeds in its valleys. He decided to pull the tomatoes and microwave it. He pushed his chair back and stood up when Theresa Crane walked around the side of the cubicle and stood looking at him. He rose and faced her, trying to hide the concern he felt. She’d never been to his cubicle, even though he’d worked for her for two years. “Hello,” he said casually.

“What section are you in?” she asked.

He looked at her with a puzzled expression. “Excuse me?”

She folded her arms. “What section are you in?”

Hayes was really confused. “Your section. Africa.”

“That’s what I thought,” she said sarcastically.

“What am I missing?” he asked, putting the sandwich back in the bag, ready to carry it to the lunchroom.

“You want to explain to me what you’re doing making inquiries in Pakistan?”

Here we go, he thought. “Checking on Major Riaz Khan of the Pakistani Air Force. He’s attending a school in Nevada. The Nevada Fighter Weapons School, where he’s flying F-16s against American adversary pilots.”

Crane looked at him suspiciously. “Is Pakistan in Africa?”

He was able to hold his tongue, but not his sarcastic tone. “Uh, no.”

“Is Nevada?”

He sighed. “No.”

Her eyes narrowed.

He answered her unasked question. “Some people have some… concerns.”

“What people?” she asked as she continued to stare. Her mind was spinning quickly. Finally her face showed recognition. “Your brother.”

He nodded slowly, knowing what was coming.

Now she was truly angry. “You’re doing private intelligence consulting on the side? Using United States government assets?”

“Where’d you hear about this?”

“That doesn’t matter. You’ve got no business working for your brother. Not from here.”

“I’m not working for my brother. I’m working for the United States. Our job is to protect the United States. I admit it’s a little unorthodox. I figured if somebody needed to follow up, I’d pass it on.”

“No. You’re not passing on anything. You do the work I’ve given you. If you have extra time on your hands, you let me know.”

Hayes didn’t respond. Nothing like a lecture from a parasite bureaucrat who’d violated the Peter Principle three jobs ago.

She looked at him, waiting for a response, then realized he wasn’t going to respond. “I’m serious.”

“Why do you care?” Hayes replied. “You ever make calls from work that may benefit the country that aren’t directly related to work on Africa?”

“No. And you shouldn’t either.”

“Whatever.”

“Don’t start that tone with me, Kevin. I won’t put up with it.”

“Yes ma’am.”

She waited for him to say one more thing, something that she could really jump on. He didn’t. She walked quickly out of his corner cubicle.

“Bitch,” he said to her back after she left.

Sluf closed the door on his Cessna and leaned down to walk out from under the wing. He stood straight up and looked at the sun just rising in the east. He smiled. He had never been more content in his life. He’d found a new condo in Las Vegas near both the Strip and the airport where he kept his “new” Cessna. He commuted every day from Las Vegas to Tonopah, arriving early and leaving early.

He checked his watch. It was an hour before he had to be at his first brief. He saw the auxiliary hangar out of the corner of his eye and immediately felt guilty. Luke had been serious about his being the “facilities officer.” He was supposed to check out the entire air base and make sure nothing was about to blow up or burn down or fall in on someone. He was to see what needed to be painted and when. He sighed. He hadn’t done one thing since Luke had asked him.

He glanced at the Area 51 Café and felt the pull of his first cup of coffee. He had it there every morning. It could wait. He walked to the auxiliary hangar, a good eight hundred yards from his airplane, away from the activity of the base. The hangar wasn’t being used for anything. He figured it would take him thirteen seconds to make sure it wasn’t going to collapse, and then he could get his coffee.

He walked quickly to the hangar and looked for the entrance. He saw a door on the side and decided to try it. It was solid steel and rusted at the corners. There was no lock, and the door was slightly ajar. He pulled on the edge of the door, and it swung open easily. Great, he thought. Perfect place for a bunch of coyotes and snakes to be lurking. He stepped through the door, and it swung closed behind him. It was nearly dark in the hangar. There were windows in the back of the building, opposite the huge sliding doors, but not enough to cast anything but the dimmest light onto the floor. He shuffled his feet forward carefully, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.

He frowned as he heard the faint sound of metal on metal. He squinted to see where the sound had come from—somewhere in the back corner of the cavernous hangar, to his left. He moved slowly toward it. It suddenly stopped.

He stopped. His breath came more quickly. He listened carefully but heard nothing. The far walls were now coming into focus, and the hazy windows to his left, high off the concrete, grew brighter in the morning light.

He walked farther and was thirty feet into the hangar when he suddenly realized he wasn’t alone. He saw someone in the far corner. He squinted. Whoever it was wasn’t moving; he was standing there, staring at Sluf.

Sluf began walking more quickly toward the person. He could now make him out fairly clearly but then was startled to realize that the man wasn’t alone. There were at least eight others with him. Sluf stopped dead in his tracks. He recognized the man just before he spoke.

“Mr. Sluf,” Khan said.

Sluf was too shocked to say anything. They were all Pakistanis, all four pilots and several maintenance men, gathered around a small crane and a bomb dolly, with charts and diagrams all over the floor. Sluf looked around the rest of the hangar but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. “What the hell are you doing in here?” he finally asked.

Khan and the others began walking toward him. “I could ask you the same thing,” he replied.

“Except that I have a reason to be here and you don’t.”

“Of course we do. We are doing training.”

“With a crane and a bomb dolly?” Sluf said skeptically.

“Yes. It is part of what we do. We must always train. We needed a quiet place away from the rest of the people.”

“You never got permission.”

“On the contrary. Mr. Luke gave us permission to use this hangar whenever we wanted.”

“That’s bullshit, Khan. He put me in charge of facilities. No one is to use this hangar. It isn’t available. And you sure as hell never told us you were going to practice bomb loading. Where the hell did you get that crane anyway?”

“We brought it with us,” Khan said as he reached Sluf and stood directly in front of him.

Sluf shifted uneasily as two of the Pakistanis moved around to either side of him. “Why would you bring a crane with you?”

“For these practices. All of our men must practice all the time. We must always be ready for war with India.”

Sluf wasn’t buying it. “At six in the morning?”

“Yes. Before our other obligations begin.” Khan studied Sluf’s face. He glanced at the two men flanking Sluf and nodded very subtly.

“I want you guys out of here. Just leave the crane, and we’ll see about getting you some space to—”

Sluf stopped as the man to his right suddenly gasped and bent over in pain. Sluf was completely confused by what might have happened to the man but realized too late it was just to cause him to turn his head. The Pakistani now directly behind Sluf grabbed him in a choke hold and pulled back hard on his neck with his forearm.

Sluf fell backward into the man as he fought the pressure on his throat. He pulled on the man’s arm and tried to scream out. He had no air. He knew he had only seconds to get out of the hold or he would be dead. He tried to get his feet under him so he could lift up against the shorter man, but the man kept shifting to keep Sluf off balance.

Khan stepped forward with lightning speed and drove his fist into Sluf’s solar plexus, driving out the remaining air in his lungs. Sluf began to see stars. He flailed at the man behind him with his fists but couldn’t land a punch. He tried to kick but realized his kicks were going in directions he couldn’t control.

Then his vision started to go, as if he were pulling too many Gs. Sluf’s gelled hair fell into his face as he expired in the arms of the Pakistani, who waited until there was no movement. He lowered Sluf slowly to the hangar floor.

Khan knelt down and felt for a pulse in Sluf’s throat. There was none. “He is finished.” He stood and looked around, then at the man who had killed Sluf. “Put him in that tool locker. Tonight you will go to Reno to buy those GPS receivers we have told them we need. On the way you will find a bridge or a cave and take care of this,” he said, looking at Sluf. “They will never find him in time to stop us now.”