Flash Point

3

“As of right now each of you is a member of a special task force to track the attack on the Gaza border, and identify the group responsible. This one has the Director’s attention.” Joe Kinkaid, Director of Counter-Terrorism at the CIA, had them hanging on every word. This was the kind of assignment they all longed for. It could launch a career. Kinkaid’s unit had two hundred members. It was their job to identify and track all terrorist threats worldwide that might threaten American interests. He was overworked but he loved his job. He was one of the few people in Greater Washington who went home every night knowing he was making the world better for his children. In his mid-fifties, he was out of shape and didn’t care. What he cared about was that his mind was working at full speed, which it always was.

Kinkaid pressed the space bar on the laptop computer sitting on the lectern and the screen in the front of the room lit up with the first slide of his presentation. The screen was blue with decorative red in the lower-right corner. In large white letters the slide said: gaza task force.

“This task force is classified Top Secret. I expect it will go code word in the not too distant future. No one outside this room has a need to know about us or what we’re doing unless I say so. You know the drill.” He touched the space bar again, and the next slide came up. It was in outline form and provided him with the bullet points he wanted to be sure to make. “The Gaza attack occurred after dawn, about eight in the morning, local time. Stranded truck, turned around, doors burst open. Big firefight.”

The next slide showed a photograph of the checkpoint. There were several bodies on the road near one side, and a burning APC across the fence on the Israeli side. The high-quality color photo had words on the bottom: secret, noforn, wnintel. Classified secret, not to be released to foreign intelligence or military, and a warning notice, that intelligence sources or methods were involved in the acquisition of the photo that made it more sensitive than the usual secret photo.

“Note what we all know, and what we’ve all heard on CNN, that both Palestinian guards and Israeli guards were killed. This is different. I can’t think of any time someone has taken on the Israelis and the Palestinians at the same time.”

He touched his space bar. Another photo came up with the same inscription on the bottom. “Here is the van, and the weapons that were captured.” The photo was a close-up of the van as it sat in the alley. It was dark, but the weapons could be seen.

A dark man in the back that Sami had never seen spoke. “They wanted them to be found.”

Kinkaid looked at him quickly, agreeing. “That’s how I see it. These weapons are all lined up. Like they’re on display at a gun show.” He went to the next slide, which was a well-lit close-up of one of the weapons. “Here, you can even see the serial number on the M-60.” The members of the task force studied the photo. Kinkaid went on. “Not only are the guns neatly arranged, they were left in order — by serial number, lowest to highest.”

The task force members were puzzled.

The dark man spoke again. “They’re showing their escape went as planned. No hurry at all.”

“What’s the point of that?” Sami asked, unable to remain quiet.

“What indeed,” Kinkaid asked. “Any ideas?”

“It’s a message,” the dark man said.

Kinkaid replied, “Clearly.” Then to the others. “This is Mr. Ricketts. He is from the DO.” Directorate of Operations. Spies. The ones who do the covert operations. “Like a few others of you, he is not a regular member of my counterterrorism section. He had some time and I asked him if he would join us, at least until he had to go about other things. He graciously accepted. He brings a different perspective — the perspective of someone who has actually fired weapons and knows what to do with them, instead of the rest of us, who study them in cubicles.” He nodded to Ricketts. “So what’s the message?”

“This op was easy,” he said, speaking with just the slightest hint of an accent, but not one that was identifiable. He rubbed his unshaved chin. He could pass for an Arab, an Egyptian, an Armenian, an Israeli, or even a Serbian. His dark, pockmarked face was chameleon-like, and changed when he wasn’t even trying. Sami was fascinated by him.

Ricketts went on. “They were willing to tidy up, sip a spot of tea, and watch a movie before heading off. They are very good, and very well trained. They just wanted to be sure we knew that.”

“Who are they?” Cunningham asked.

“That’s the big question, isn’t it?” Kinkaid continued. He went to the next slide. It was a gruesome photograph of one of the Palestinian guards up close. A hand was holding open the dead man’s bulletproof vest, sticking a finger through the hole in the vest and showing the entry wound on the dead man’s chest at the same time. “Since we were talking about equipment, I thought we should note this. They had bullets for their M-60 machine guns that were designed to penetrate Kevlar vests. Steel-jacketed with a lead core. Experimental until very recently. The kicker is, these bullets had a Teflon coating outside the steel. Even our special forces don’t have them. These guys are way ahead of the curve.”

“Where’d they get them?” one of the women on the task force asked.

“We don’t know. That’s one of the things we’ll be checking out.” He brought up the next slide in his PowerPoint presentation. “Take a look at this van. No serial numbers at all, and the inside of the van — the sides actually — are lined with Kevlar. No bullets went through. And,” he clicked, “solid rubber tires. In case someone tried to shoot them out. They meant business.”

“Well planned,” Ricketts commented.

Kinkaid continued, “So. Who are they, as Mr. Cunningham so aptly put it? We have no idea, and that’s what we’re going to find out. That’s why we asked the Israelis for all the inside information they had, and we even got some from the Palestinians, although the idea of cooperating with us to track down Islamic terrorists — if that’s what they are — is sort of new to them. They will definitely not give us their best information. I can guarantee that.” He thought for a moment. “Nor will Israel, for that matter. But we may get some usable information from those sources, and we’ll take a look at whatever we get.” He got out of PowerPoint and closed the screen on his laptop. “You’ve all seen the photos of the shooting. These guys are a different breed.” Kinkaid was clearly puzzled. “I’ve never seen this kind of operation. Anybody?”

No one wanted to sound stupid.

“They disappeared into Gaza City, which may mean two things. One, they had help. Two, they can probably pass as Palestinians. Which means either they are Palestinian, or close, or they’re well hidden. Could be disguised too, I guess—”

“What about those weapons?”

“It’s a little puzzling. Bottom line? The machine guns were probably on the arms market. Taken from the Marines in Beirut twenty years ago. Either kept by someone in Lebanon — which might mean the shooters are Lebanese — or someone just bought them, which then, of course, means nothing. We’re trying to track that down.”

“Anybody claiming responsibility?” Cunningham asked. He had already run through the list of the most likely suspects in his mind, the ones who would stand to gain the most. It wasn’t a very long list because there weren’t that many groups that had it in for the Israelis and the Palestinians.

“A few have called papers in the Middle East, but no one who had any inside information. Nothing we can use. And remember, they only attacked soldiers. No civilian casualties at all.”

“Sounds like Hamas to me. Or Hezbollah,” Terry Cunningham said, thinking out loud. “They’ve killed Palestinians before, when they were pissed at Arafat for dealing with Israel, and changing their charter.”

“They both said they had nothing to do with it. Who else is out there that’s unhappy at both? And goes so far out of their way to show both of them at the same time?”

Cunningham considered. “There are a few others, but none who could pull off this kind of thing.”

“We may be dealing with something new. That’s why I asked Sami to be part of this. He’s an analyst with the Middle East Section. You should have all read his memo before now.” He looked around the table. They nodded.

Sami watched Kinkaid for hints of what he thought of his memo. He had been forced to prepare it before it was ready. Kinkaid was in too much of a hurry to find the answer. Shortcuts are fine if they get you to the answer quicker. But sometimes shortcuts lead to trouble. Sami thought Kinkaid looked worn out. In fact he looked just plain dumpy. His mind was legendary, but he had heard other things about Kinkaid that troubled him. Sami figured Kinkaid was entitled to the benefit of the doubt for now.

Kinkaid continued. “You may be wondering why we’re jumping on this so early. No Americans injured, no American interests directly affected. The Israelis can look out for themselves, right? The way I see it, every terrorist event threatens American interests one way or another. It’s just a matter of time. Sometimes it’s way later than when we first hear about something. We’ve been taking a more pro-active approach for the last couple of years. We want to know everything about every terrorist we can. You can’t have too much knowledge about people who are intent on destroying things. Maybe we’ll save some lives. Hard to say. All I know is that it has paid off in the past, and I expect it to pay off now. And if Sami’s memo is even close, we are in for a rude awakening. I will also be in touch with a friend from Israel who has helped me in the past. I’ll find out what they know.”

“She’s the most beautiful woman I think I’ve ever seen,” Vialli said as he sat back in his chair in the wardroom and scooped ice cream out of a drinking glass with a spoon.

“You were all over her as soon as you saw her. You didn’t waste a second—”

“Dude, you kicked me! Made sure I saw her, and now you bust my chops for noticing her? What’s up with that?” Vialli smiled. He scraped the bottom of the glass with his spoon and got up to get more from the automatic dispenser in the back of the wardroom, the Auto Dog as it was known. They were the only officers in the forward-most section of the aviators’ wardroom, the dirty-shirt wardroom. It was on the 03 level, the same level as all the ready rooms and most of the aviators’ staterooms. All they had to do to eat was walk forward. The other wardroom, on the second deck, was where most of the ship’s company’s officers ate.

Vialli pulled the lever and moved his glass back and forth to get all the chocolate ice cream the glass would hold. He filled a porcelain cup full of steaming coffee and sat down again. “You underestimate me. You think I’m—”

“I just watch.”

“Well, she’s different. I’m telling you. She’s a class act. When you went off on your own into that cave we got to talk.”

Woods frowned. “You didn’t try to make out with her, did you?”

“I just put my arm around her for a second. She loved it. She snuggled right up to me — it was awesome.”

“You’re dreaming. She lives in northern Italy. You’ll never see her again.”

“We’ll be in Venice in ten days, dude. Her city’s only a couple of hours away by train and she had already planned to be there that weekend for a trip to a museum.”

Woods suddenly had a bad feeling. “You’ve already talked to her about Venice?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“You hardly know her.”

“I spent the whole day with her. After you went back to the ship we went for a walk in Naples—”

“Beautiful Naples—”

“We found a really cool farmer’s market kind of place. Fresh vegetables, all kinds of stuff. It was great to walk around—”

“Wait, wait, don’t tell me, you held hands—”

“Hey, bite me. Anyway, I like her a lot. And you’d better get used to it. I want to get to know her. What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing I guess.” He actually couldn’t think of anything that was wrong with it. It just struck him as odd that she just happened to have plans to be in Venice when the carrier pulls in. “Nice coincidence.”

“Oh, what? She’s scheming to get close to me or something? Why? So she can get my fortune from my parents’ vegetable stand in New York? Give me a break.”

“It’s just an interesting coincidence.” Woods stretched his arms out in his leather flight jacket and breathed deeply. He looked at his watch. “Aw, man.”

“What?”

“I’ve got Boat O in fifteen minutes. I just want to hit the rack.”

“You’re on at midnight?”

“Yep.”

“Which boat?”

“E-boat.”

“Damn, man. You get all the luck. Slamming through the waves for three or four hours with sailors throwing up and shit all over the boat?” He leaned back and looked envious. “Wish I could go.”

Woods nodded. “Eat your heart out. If I’m really lucky it’ll be raining and thirty-eight degrees and the visibility will be half a mile, and we’ll get hit by some merchant ship and all be killed.”

“That would be cool. Just like Barcelona.”

Woods looked at his watch again. “I’ve got to head down. You gonna hit the rack?”

“Yeah. I’ve got to get up early. Evals due tomorrow. I haven’t even started. I don’t even know the names of the sailors in ops yet. But I’m supposed to rate them and say what great sailors they are.”

Woods stood up. “You should know them by now,” he scolded. He thought for a second. “What kind of name is Irit? Doesn’t sound Italian. Doesn’t end in a vowel, like Sophia, or… I don’t know… Manuela or something.”

“Manuela is Spanish, dude.”

“No, it isn’t. You’re thinking of Consuela, or something. I met an Italian woman named Manuela.”

“Whatever. Anyway, Irit is Italian. She’s from northern Italy, near Austria. You heard her. Torentino, I think. Maybe it’s part German.”

“Yeah. Could be, except Torentino is in the southern part of Italy.”

“Whatever. I probably got the city wrong. What time do you get off — 0300?”

“Yeah. Maybe 0400.”

“You’re going to be tired tomorrow.”

“I’m gonna to sleep in.”

“No you’re not. Quarters is at 0800 on the flight deck.”

Woods groaned and hung his head. “I forgot.”

“Hey, it’s important. Sailor of the hour, or something.”

“Think they’d notice if I didn’t show?”

“XO would have your ass.”

“The life of a Naval officer is one long battle for sleep.” He zipped up his flight jacket. “There must be studies. People do hard things better when they’re sleep-deprived.”

“They’re doing the studies now, dude. With us.”

“I’ll wake you up when I get in.”

“If you do, I’ll drop my alarm clock on your head.” Vialli slept on the top bunk.

They walked aft from the wardroom together, stepping over the curved bulkhead openings that were nine inches off the deck — the knee knockers. The O3 level was just below the flight deck; their stateroom was exactly where the angled deck met the rest of the flight deck, forming a shoulder. Vialli stopped, unlocked the door, and closed it behind him. Woods turned outboard and descended the three ladders to the main deck, the hangar deck, where he would find the ladder to the enlisted boat he would be commanding for the next three or four hours. His seagoing command.

He walked along the nonskid hard steel of the hangar deck, detouring around the airplanes there for maintenance, making his way to the fantail. He passed the snaking line of enlisted men waiting to go ashore on liberty. Woods shuddered at the thought of these eighteen-year-olds going ashore at midnight in a city that had whatever they were looking for.

At the fantail, open to the sea air, the Masters at Arms were in place. A Warrant Officer was in charge.

Woods’s Garrison cap — called a piss-cutter by those who wore it — was pulled down near his eyebrows and the simulated fur collar on his leather flight jacket was turned up to stop the biting breeze. The Warrant Officer saluted when he caught sight of Woods. The three enlisted men on duty saluted as well. “Good evening, sir,” the Warrant said.

Woods returned the salutes and looked at the Warrant closely. He didn’t recognize him. Woods nodded. “Any problems with the E-boats?”

The Warrant shook his head as he put his hands back into the olive green foul-weather jacket he wore over his dirty khakis. “No, sir. Nothing.”

“How’s the water?”

“Pretty calm. Three-, maybe four-foot swells.”

Woods glanced past the fantail over the black water toward Naples. One of the ship’s boats was plying its way back to the Washington, working against a rising tide. He could clearly see the city lights on the hills three miles away. “How’s the visibility been?”

“Real good, sir. We’ve only lost the lights on the hills a couple of times. Mostly the vis seems to be unlimited.”

“Much traffic?”

“Usual merchant traffic and smugglers.”

“Here comes your boat, sir,” the Warrant said as the coxswain gunned the loud diesel motor in reverse to line the boat up with the platform suspended behind the enormous aircraft carrier.

Woods watched the sailors disembark from the boat, most staggering, as a sailor played the line in and out to match the boat’s rise and fall with the waves. The coxswain kept the engine in gear, pushing against the current to keep the boat in place. Finally the boat was empty except for the crew and they were ready to load another group.

Woods hurried down the ladder and jumped onto the boat. The center of the boat where the coxswain stood was elevated three feet above the passenger areas in the bow and stern. Fully loaded, it could hold about seventy-five sailors. The seating areas were open to the night sky. If the weather was bad they could rig canvas covers for all the seating area, but it made the ride very stuffy, especially when any of the sailors got sick.

Lieutenant Junior Grade Phil Cobb of Woods’s squadron was the Boat Officer he was to relieve. Woods looked at the boat and then at Cobb. “Hey, Phil. How’s it been?”

“Usual drunks.”

Woods noticed the lights from the Washington reflecting off Cobb’s green nylon flight jacket. “How’d you get so wet?” he asked unenthusiastically.

“Swells are getting worse. The whole way out you’re going right into the waves. A couple made it all the way back to us.”

“Great,” Woods said.

“You’ll have a blast. I’ll bet it isn’t below forty degrees.”

Woods noticed Cobb was wearing gloves. “Mind if I borrow your gloves?” he asked.

Cobb shrugged. “I’ll pick ’em up tomorrow.”

“I appreciate it.”

“You got your long johns on, Trey?”

“You bet,” Woods said, as a chill caused him to shiver suddenly. “Wish I’d worn my green flight jacket.”

“Use mine.”

“Thanks.” Cobb was taller and bigger than Woods, who was thin. People thought he was skinny, which he hated. He worked out all the time to get bigger, but only seemed to get stronger without adding any mass to his frame.

The sailors started down the ladder and filled in the seating areas quickly, anxious to go ashore.

“That’s it for me,” Cobb said cheerfully. “She’s all yours, Trey.”

Woods saluted Cobb and said, half jokingly, “I relieve you, sir.”

Cobb smiled, returned the salute, and said, “I am relieved.” He turned and dashed up the ladder to the well-lit hangar bay.

Woods watched as the sailors in their civilian clothes eagerly filled the boat, sitting close to each other so that there was no unused space. Liberty expired at 0400, except for those who had a special chit authorizing an all-night stay ashore. Woods knew most of the sailors would wander off the quay, past the Hey-Joes who would try to sell them something they didn’t want, past the prostitutes who would try to sell them something they did want, past small restaurants they didn’t like, only to end up at the USO club a few blocks from the waterfront listening to the same music they listened to all the time aboard the ship, and talking to the same people they talked to every day. But they could drink. They would consume more alcohol than any straight-thinking person would consume, stagger back to the quay, and get back aboard his boat just in time to throw up on someone, preferably someone they knew, or a fistfight would ensue and they would get written up for being drunk and disorderly and have to explain their conduct to the ship’s captain. Woods pulled his collar up more tightly around his neck. The night was getting colder by the minute, that Naples-on-the-water-bone-chilling-coldness that seemed to settle in when it was overcast and windy.

“Ready to go, sir?” the coxswain asked.

Woods nodded his head as he looked around for other shipping traffic that could be a factor on the trip in to the harbor. A twenty-minute ride, then a ten-minute wait on the quay. Then a twenty-minute ride back. The first of many. “Let’s go.”

The coxswain threw the throbbing diesel into reverse and backed away quickly from the Washington, turned into the waves, and started for shore. As he stood in the boat and strained his eyes ahead in the night, Woods felt like Washington crossing the Delaware. Except he had a motor. And Washington had a mission.