Final Flight

3

El Hakim, the ruler, stood at the window and gazed east in the direction of Mecca. He took a deep breath. Ah, the air smelled of the desert — it smelled of nothing at all. It was pure and empty, as Allah had made it.

“There are enormous risks involved, Colonel Qazi.” The colonel sat behind him on a carpet before a low table. A hot dry wind stirred the curtains. El Hakim continued, “The Americans declared war at the end of the last century when one of their warships was merely suspected of being lost due to hostile action. The course you propose is unambiguous, to say the least.”

El Hakim turned from the window and glanced down at Qazi, today dressed in clean, faded khakis. About forty, Qazi was dark with European features. Only his cheekbones hinted at his ancestry. The son of a British army sergeant and an Arab girl, Qazi often moved about Europe as a wealthy playboy or businessman, sometimes Greek, sometimes French, English, or Italian. He spoke seven languages without an accent. In a military environment he stood ramrod straight. “You have never failed us, Qazi. And you have never attempted so much.”

The colonel remained silent.

El Hakim obliquely examined the seated man. Qazi did not think like most soldiers, he reflected. He thought like the spy Allah must have intended him to be. And his ability to slip so completely into the roles of these people he pretended to be — indeed, to actually become the man his papers said he was — this ability troubled El Hakim, who had heard the stories of Qazi’s feats from informants and silently marveled, since he himself had spent his entire forty-nine years in the Arab world, except for one six-month visit to England twenty years ago. On that one foreign excursion he had felt so utterly, totally out of place, among people who seemed to have just arrived from another planet. One just never knew, he told himself now, when Qazi was onstage. He was a dangerous man. A very dangerous man. But most dangerous for whom?

El Hakim reluctantly resumed his seat. “Tell me about the ship.”

“Her main weapons are her aircraft. Her deck is crammed with airplanes and to ready them for launch requires many men and a reasonable amount of time. It cannot be done quickly, if at all, while the ship is at anchor and unprepared. Then she is most vulnerable.

“She carries three missile launchers, known as the Basic Point Defense Missile System.” Qazi opened a reference book and displayed a picture of the ship. “A battery is located on each side of the after end of the flight deck, below the level of the flying deck, and one is forward of these two aircraft elevators in front of the island, on the starboard side of the ship.” He pointed them out. “The reference book says these contain Sea Sparrow missiles with a ten- to twelve-mile range.

“Her only other weapons are four close-in weapons systems, called CIWS.” He pronounced the acronym as the American Navy did, “see-whiz.” “These are very rapid-fire machine guns aimed by radar and lasers. Two are located on each side of the ship.” His finger moved to the prominent little domes that housed each installation. “These weapons automatically engage incoming missiles and shoot them down before they can strike the ship. Maximum range for these systems is about two kilometers. They are for last-chance, close-in defense.”

“Is that all the weapons the ship has?”

“At sea, Excellency, the ship is surrounded by surface combatants with modern guns and missiles with ranges beyond ninety miles. These escorts also carry antisubmarine weapons. Occasionally a large surface combatant, such as a battleship, will accompany the task group. When the carrier anchors, several of her escorts will anchor nearby.”

“But the carrier? Has she any other weapons?”

“Four machine guns, about 12.5 millimeter, are mounted on the catwalks around the flight deck when the ship is anchored, two on each side. These are constantly manned by marines. These guns could engage any unauthorized boat that comes too close, or a helicopter. The carrier’s crew does not carry small arms.”

El Hakim arched an eyebrow. “Not even the officers?”

“No, sir.”

“And how many men are in the crew?”

“About five thousand six hundred, Excellency.”

The ruler gazed incredulously at the photograph in the reference book, Jane’s Fighting Ships. Although it is a big ship, he thought, with that many peasants crammed into such tight quarters the discipline problems must be stupendous. He remembered the stories he had heard about the slums of Los Angeles and New York, and allowed his upper lip to rise contemptuously.

“Have you any photographs?”

“Yes, sir.” Qazi passed across a stack of enlarged prints.

El Hakim took the photos to the open window and studied them in the sunlight. He had a strong, square face set off by a perfect Roman nose. His nostrils flared slightly above sensuous, expressive lips. He had been an army officer when, nineteen years ago, he had organized and led a coup, preaching independent nationalism. Through the years he had stayed on top by ensuring the officer corps received a generous share of the petrodollars from the nationalized oil industry and by using every technological and public relations gimmick at his disposal to enshrine himself as the peoples’ savior while he spent the rest of the oil money to keep them fed, clothed, and housed. He postured on his little corner of the world stage under the benign eye of his state media, which portrayed him as one of the world’s movers and shakers and flooded every radio and television set in the country with his simple, drumbeat message: American and European imperialism — political, economic, cultural, and technological — were responsible for the dishonor of his people. Harried government bureaucrats were kept on edge with a never-ending avalanche of “revolutionary reforms” decreed from on high, as well as a raging torrent of orders and counterorders and orders changing the counterorders. All the while he goaded his North African neighbors and fluxed the military with rumors of war. The constant confusion created a tense domestic atmosphere, perfect for rooting out real and potential political enemies and ruthlessly destroying them in the name of national security.

El Hakim’s methods certainly weren’t unique. Military strongmen routinely toppled governments and seized power in other Third World nations, poor nations slowly sinking into hopeless debt and starvation in the effluvium of the great powers’ economies. El Hakim knew just how easy it had been for him — he knew how much money he had spent — and through the years he had tired of the footnote role history had assigned him. He wanted glory. He wanted to be the man his propagandists said he was.

El Hakim tapped the stack of photos on his left hand and looked out the window. “The American government,” he said slowly, “has never admitted the presence of nuclear weapons aboard any naval vessel. Nor,” he added dryly, “has it ever denied it.” He thumbed through the photos again, then turned back to the colonel. “We must be very sure, Qazi. Absolutely certain. Once we begin we shall be unable to hide our involvement. We will have laid hands on the very essence of American power.” El Hakim paused as the shame of past insults and outrages from the madmen who ruled America flooded him. He threw back his head, a conscious gesture, and spoke authoritatively. “What do we know?”

“The weapons are aboard, Excellency.”

El Hakim stood waiting expectantly.

“An American sailor told us. We used sodium pentothal. There is no possibility he was lying.” Qazi extracted a cassette player from his attaché case and set it on the low table before him. He adjusted the volume and pushed the “play” button.

El Hakim sat and sipped coffee as they listened. He spoke English well enough to follow what was being said, although he occasionally missed a word or two. He identified Qazi’s voice immediately. Qazi certainly had been thorough. He had approached the subject from every conceivable angle and discussed details that were far beyond the level of knowledge of El Hakim. Apparently the American knew the answers.

Even with sodium pentothal, the American had needed encouragement to talk, Qazi reflected. He managed to be looking at El Hakim when the man on the tape screamed. El Hakim sipped his coffee.

Qazi had listened to the tape many times, so now as it played he reviewed the kidnapping of the American. Weeks of effort had gone into selecting the proper individual, one whose speciality was aircraft weapons and who would be officially leaving the ship soon. Four agents had worked the bars and nightclubs of Naples under Qazi’s supervision during two port calls by the USS Carl Vinson. She was a sister ship of the United States, slated to leave the Med soon and sufficiently similar to the United States that the information obtained was still valid. Qazi finally settled on a second-class petty officer who was going on three weeks leave to visit a brother serving in Germany with the U.S. Army. The team took the man off a train in Rome and drove him to a safe house.

It had been a good operation, Qazi reflected as he watched the cassette reels turn. The sailor had known the answers and his absence would not be missed for a reasonable time. He would appear to be a deserter and only a cursory investigation would be made, one which, Qazi was reasonably certain, would fail to uncover even a hint of the sailor’s real fate.

A reasonable time and a reasonable certainty were all he could hope for. This business — one had to be so careful and yet there were so many unknowns. Chance or the unforeseen could betray one anywhere. So one moved in a perpetual paranoid fog, weighing the incalculable against the unknowable, forever tensed against contact with an obstacle that might or might not be there. And the nations that bordered the Mediterranean were awash in foreign agents, as thick as fleas on a camel. The Soviets were the most numerous and the Israelis the most energetic and efficient. Qazi was certain the Mossad had a voluminous file on his activities. If El Hakim approved this operation, it would have to be his last, for he was already a marked man.

El Hakim’s fingers twitched and Qazi stopped the tape. The dictator sat silently for several moments before he spoke. “The bombs will alter forever the balance of power in the Mideast.” He rose and strolled around the apartment examining objects with eyes that were opaque.

The Jews would have to come to terms or risk obliteration, El Hakim assured himself. That fact alone would make him the strongest man in the Arab world. Perhaps he should drop a bomb on Tel Aviv before he began to talk. Even Egypt would grudgingly yield to his leadership. He would be a hero to the masses and he would have the bomb: that combination would melt the most reluctant heart.

He had thought deeply on this subject. Nuclear weapons were the power base that would allow him to force the world to its knees. The Americans, the Soviets, the French and the British all have these weapons, many of them, and one walked softly in their presence because the weapons could conceivably be used. Even the Israelis had them, though they refused to admit it.

And every time he had tried to obtain them in the past he had been thwarted! Immense quantities of time, money and prestige had been expended, all to no avail. This time there would be no necessity to obtain some foreign government approval for a reactor sale, no secret deals to siphon processed fuel from an Indian reactor, no negotiations with the Chinese — no necessity to reveal information to foreign officials that they could sell or give to the Americans or the British for their own purposes.

He would use one of the weapons as soon as he got it, so the question would not be, Will he use the bomb? The question would be, Will he use it again?

His influence and prestige in the Arab world would rise astronomically.

None of the superpowers has the courage to use the ultimate weapon, El Hakim assured himself, as he had a hundred times before. The Americans excoriate Truman for using two on the Japanese and luxuriate in their guilt. The Communists are too fearful of losing their privileges to ever let one of their number pull the trigger. The French? That nation of decadent sensualists whom the Algerians defeated with rifles and pistols? Conceivably the British under that maniac Thatcher, they might. But not for the Jews. Not for the Americans. And the Israelis? If they ever used nuclear weapons they would have to live with the holocaust as perpetrators, not victims.

No, none has the courage to oppose the man who possesses the weapon and the will to use it, he told himself, believing it absolutely, believing it with all his heart and soul.

I will bring down the decadent unbelievers and the misguided imams, like Khomeini, who understand so little of the ways of the world. Khomeini, that fool! He thought he could build a pure, holy nation on the insatiable thirst of the infidels for that stinking black liquid. The old imbecile is almost as bad as the Saudi princes, Saddam Hussein, and all those others who lust so for the goods of the West. Their greed is a travesty of the Koran.

Praise Allah, I am not like them. I have the courage and strength to live according to the Word. With the bomb will come all power, so I can purchase only what is really needed.

I will defend the Faith.

I will purify my people.

Mecca will be my capital in a united Arab world.

He started from his thoughts and glanced at Qazi, who was examining the photographs. Yes, he thought, Qazi is ambitious and competent and almost as ruthless as I. Unconsciously El Hakim flicked his hand as if at a fly.

“Ring for coffee.” He composed himself as the servant moved about, the only sound the faint clink of china.

After the servant departed, El Hakim seated himself across from the colonel. “What is your plan?”