Fly by Night

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

It was a chamber of commerce morning, or would have been if al-Asmat had a chamber of commerce. He found breakfast — a chunk of bread, some dates, and a small pot of coffee — on a tray near the door. There was also a pair of old shorts, folded once, and a tattered old T-shirt, XXL. On top of it all was a note written in a loopy cursive:

Davis held up the shorts. They were full of holes. Moths, bullets. No way to tell. They looked like a tight fit, but for what he had in mind that might be a good thing. He went to work on breakfast. The bread was stale, the dates fresh. He ate it all. The coffee was magnificent, not because it was any kind of fancy brew, but because he hadn’t expected any at all.

When he stepped outside the sun was already up. Seven o’clock, maybe seven thirty. He doubted precision timekeeping was a priority here. The air was still and dry, which seemed at odds with being adjacent to the sea. The temperature differential between the two should have manufactured some kind of air movement. There should have been alternating onshore and offshore breezes, cycling with day and night. There was nothing.

Davis looked for a path that led to the water, and quickly discovered that all paths led to the water. He supposed that was how it worked in a fishing village. He found the old man at his boat, coiling a line, and when he saw Davis coming he smiled a smile that put two rows of yellow, broken teeth on display.

Davis stopped right in front of him, and said, “Good morning.”

The old man nodded blankly.

It struck Davis right then how hard this was going to be. He didn’t speak a word of Arabic. His skipper probably knew “fish” and “dollar.” Maybe, “Down with America” or, “I am not a pirate.” That was the best he could hope for. So they’d have to do everything by pantomime. Pointing and nodding and waving off mistakes.

The old man finished coiling his rope. It was at least a hundred feet long, and he held up one end to show Davis the modification he’d been working on. The old guy had clearly put some thought into their mission, and Davis recognized it as just what he needed. He nodded approvingly, and thought, Okay, maybe this little expedition will work out after all.

The boat was beached amid an outcropping of rock that was etched with tide pools. Around the freeform ponds, smooth shelves of stone were covered by gray lichens and green algae, and barnacle-like shells clung for their lives as an easy morning surf sputtered over everything again and again. Davis looked over the boat for the first time in the light of day. It was no more than twenty feet long, but the short waterline was compensated for with thick, tall gunnels. At the back, screwed onto the blunt transom, was a Yamaha outboard so small it seemed comical. Davis eyed the gas tanks. There were two, both pretty good size. Davis pointed to the gas supply and stretched out his arms to suggest measurement, adding an inquisitive face. Do we have a lot?

The old man pointed to the sun, then arced his arm all the way across the sky until it landed on the western horizon. That will last all day.

Okay, Davis thought, so far so good. He saw a chart on the seat, an old nautical print that covered the local waters, everything within fifty miles of the village. That was probably the old man’s limit, as far as he would take the little boat, which was fine with Davis because the area he wanted to search was well inside. The chart had two dozen Xs scribbled randomly across the reefs, which made it look like a pirate’s treasure map. More likely his hot fishing holes. Or maybe his father’s — the chart was dated in one corner, 1954. Is anything in this country new? Davis wondered. The depths on the chart were listed in fathoms, and Davis decided that at least those measurements couldn’t have changed much in the last sixty years.

The old man watched Davis use a finger to roughly sketch the area they’d need to search. It was near something called Shark Reef. Davis sighed. The depth went from two fathoms — twelve feet — to over a hundred, the outer reef giving way to a blue-water abyss. That being the case, they were going to need some luck to find anything. If the wreckage had gone over the precipice, it would never see the light of day again.

Davis reached for the mask and snorkel. He’d seen it last night, tucked under the wooden bench. He put the mask to his face, and it seemed to fit. The snorkel was like any other — not much could go wrong there.

The old man was clearly done with the preliminaries, because he went to the bow and started pushing the boat out to sea. An official crew member now, Davis went alongside, got a good grip, and things went faster. The boat looked smaller once it was in the water. It began moving on waves that barely registered to the eye. The old man held out a hand, inviting him to climb aboard.

Davis stepped off of Africa and onto the boat. The old man gave one last push seaward, and flipped himself over the rail with a lot more grace than Davis had managed. There was no Coast Guard safety briefing about life jackets or fire extinguishers or emergency whistles. The skipper just went to the motor and squeezed a bulb in the fuel line. He grabbed a pull cord at the top of the little Yamaha and gave a good tug. Nothing happened.

Davis didn’t say a word. Wouldn’t have even if he could speak the skipper’s language. After five unproductive pulls, the old man pulled off the cowling and started fidgeting with a wire. Davis was not instilled with confidence. He looked at the other fishing boats along the beach. There were seven, and of those, only three even had motors, the rest relying on canvas and wind. None looked more promising. The old man kept busy, but his hands were never impatient or agitated. They were careful, almost respectful. Davis realized that this motorized contraption, made in a factory ten thousand miles away, was to the old man what a camel had been to his grandfather — a temperamental thing that had to be coaxed into the right behavior. A vital part of his livelihood. With the cowling off, he gave another pull and the motor coughed. Two tries later it began to run. The old man dropped the cowling back into place and secured it, then pointed the boat north.

The seas were gentle, lapping at the bow in a soft rhythm. Davis watched the old man look up at the sky, then back at the village. He was probably taking bearings from landmarks, Davis reckoned, using a process of navigation that had been handed down by his father and grandfather. He half expected the skipper to pull out a sextant or a compass.

Davis reached down and offered up the chart, stuck his finger on Shark Reef. “Map?” he suggested.

The old man wagged a finger at him. “Gamun,” he said confidently.

“Gamun?” Davis repeated, wondering if he was about to be guided to sea by the whims of some mythical nautical god.

The skipper reached into his pocket and pulled out a handheld GPS receiver. Made by Garmin. He smiled broadly. “Gamun.”

The old man gave the throttle a turn, and the little boat pushed quicker through the sea.

They reached the search area two hours later. The old man pointed to Gamun, and then down into the water.

Davis could still see the coastline to the southwest, a strip of brown to split the variant blues of water and sky. In the distance a big freighter was plowing west toward the Suez Canal. It seemed motionless, a great rust-red slab, the only indication of headway a crease of white spray at one end. Davis pulled off his T-shirt. The sun was hammering down, already searing into his back and neck. He hadn’t brought any sunscreen, hadn’t thought to ask for any in the village. He was sure the old man had never heard the term SPF in his life.

“Listen,” he said to get the old man’s attention. “We need a search pattern.” Davis made chopping motions on the bench seat at even intervals, then traced an interlacing pattern with his index finger.

The old man said it again. “Gamun.” He showed Davis the receiver, showed him a base waypoint, and then hit a button labeled: OFFSET.

Davis raised his palms. “Okay, okay.”

He should have known better. You couldn’t live your life on the sea and not, at some point, drop something valuable overboard. A good lobster pot, a fishing pole, a valuable anchor. Sooner or later something went over and you had to get it back. So the old man would know all about marking a point and running a search a pattern around it. Essential stuff, with or without Mr. Gamun. The old man took the long rope and secured one end to the transom, then showed the other end to Davis. He had fashioned a grip out of what looked like a broom handle. Now it looked like a rope for water skiing. Only Davis didn’t have any skis.

The seas were still light and the tiny boat rocked gently. Back on the beach it had almost seemed like a reprieve; a day on the water where he wouldn’t have to face jungle ambushes or break up well-armed poker games. But now this little cruise seemed less appealing. Davis was about to get dragged through the sea for hours on end. He was going to have waves slapping him in the face, saltwater pouring down his snorkel, the sun beating hard on his back. Altogether, it put a serious damper on his yo-ho-ho.

Davis turned back to business. He touched the outboard’s throttle, then gave a big thumbs-up. “Up means faster.” He made a big zooming noise and pointed to the engine. “Thumbs-down, slower.”

The old man nodded like he got it.

Davis considered more signals, but thought, Screw it. It’s time to get wet. The old man heaved the rope overboard and put the idling motor into gear. Davis sat on the gunnel, and the boat tilted to starboard. He back-rolled into gin-clear water, swam to the rope and let it feed through his hand until the handle came to him. Davis grabbed on and waited for the slack to play out. When it did, he raised one hand out of the water and gave a thumbs-up.

With a jerk on the handle, they started moving.

Fadi Jibril had finally succeeded.

He’d spent two hours checking and double-checking the main flight control channels, measuring deflections and response times. Everything worked flawlessly. There were still constraints, of course. The mother ship on the other side of the partition would have to remain within range of the receiver — they had learned that the hard way on the test flight. But that is why we perform test flights, Jibril thought.

He had not left the hangar for two days. The pressure to succeed, catalyzed by his concern regarding the ultimate target, had distracted and confused Jibril. He’d hit a low point yesterday, a frustrating afternoon of self-doubt and marginal progress. Then Jibril had gone to pray. He had opened his heart and mind, and in doing so Allah had rescued him once again, brought him back with a renewed sense of faith. And as Fadi Jibril trusted Allah, he would trust the imam. Khoury’s words still echoed in his mind. You will be to Sudan what A.Q. Khan was to Pakistan. The father of a nation’s technical might. The imam had become his foundation once again, and Jibril threw himself into his work with renewed vigor. Now, with the systems engineering complete, all that remained was a very different type of work.

He had undertaken his research and planning some months ago, and the components Khoury had procured for the undertaking were all here. It was now only a matter of putting everything together. Not difficult work, but certainly delicate, even dangerous. Which was why he had left it as the final task.

Jibril had never realized the level of science involved in constructing bombs. At first, he had been awestruck, marveling at the twisted innovation of so many brilliant engineers. It seemed at odds, somehow, for a scientist to spend years learning how to build and create, only to then apply that knowledge in the design of devices that destroyed. At base level, bombs were simple enough — a high-explosive mass, some compounds more potent than others, the destructive yield of which was largely a function of weight. There were certain variances, primarily matters of shaping and directing the destructive force, multipliers for effectiveness based on the nature of an assumed target — hardened armor or soft flesh. Still, a primary explosive charge involved little more than brute force, not much of a challenge from a technical standpoint. It was the fusing that Jibril found truly fascinating.

A projectile could be designed to detonate before it had even struck a target, as was the case with aircraft missiles. An engineer somewhere had thought to create a radar fuse to trigger the warhead milliseconds before physical intercept. The result, an expanding ring of shrapnel traveling at Mach. From an engineering standpoint, elegant lethality. Then there were bunker buster bombs, essentially high-explosive telephone poles that were dropped from great height and speed to multiply the kinetic result. Here, detonation was delayed, milliseconds added after the initial strike to allow the explosive package to penetrate earth and concrete. Impact sensors and timers. The arcane science of annihilation.

In comparison, Jibril’s task was not so difficult. He was happy with a simple contact fuse, little more than a plunger at the forward edge of his projectile to register impact. As a backup, he included an accelerometer. Any sudden, extreme deceleration would bring detonation of the main package. Either fuse could work independently, and Jibril elected to add no delay as he was attacking a soft target, no bothersome walls or armor to penetrate. Deliver the unit to the right place at the right time, and obliteration, as brought by six hundred pounds of U.S.-manufactured Tritonal high explosive, was a fait accompli.

Jibril worked the contact fuse into place at the front of the aircraft, securing it in the machine-drilled hole he had completed earlier. The wiring was redundant, two sets, either independently capable of initiating the main charge. He would not make the final connections until the hour before launch. A stray current here would do more than fry a circuit board — it would level the hangar. When his work was done, Jibril studied everything with a critical eye. He saw no concerns. All was ready.

If he were an engineer in the West, now would be the time for celebration, perhaps a bottle of champagne cracked across the bow of his creation with his team. But there could be no libations with the team assembled here. Jibril sat alone on his work stool and again thought about his “soft target,” the prime minister of Israel. He wondered how the imam could be so sure of his targeting information. How could he know the man would be unprotected, out in the open? How would they receive the last minute update? The aircraft’s VHF radio? Doubts niggled again. Jibril had double-checked, and every news article he saw confirmed that the Israeli prime minister was indeed scheduled to be out of the country. But then, who believed anything the Zionist government put out? Such reports could well be a cloud of disinformation. And the rest? Imam Khoury must have some very good spies, he reasoned.

Jibril heard a noise, and turned to see Muhammed. At the top of a tall ladder, he was monkeying sideways along the scaffold-like framework of the hangar. He kept moving across the wall until he reached the large photograph of the Sudanese president. With both hands, Muhammed began working the picture free of its mounts. Jibril wanted to shout up and ask what on earth he was doing, but the urge was overridden by his baseline dislike of the man. He watched Muhammed toss the picture to the floor where it crashed onto the cement, the frame splintering into a dozen pieces. Even more incredible was what went in its place. Muhammed drove a series of tacks into a wooden support plank. He affixed one edge, then kicked left and right with a filthy boot to unfurl the rest. Fadi Jibril could only stare in disbelief.

Displayed in all its glory was a large American flag.

Jammer Davis had been in the Red Sea before, on a scuba diving jaunt after the first GulfWar. It looked a lot like he remembered, one of the most vibrant coral ecosystems on earth. Individually, the specimens of corals, fish, and invertebrates found here were unique. Collectively they were awe inspiring. At least they would have been had Davis been of the mind to notice. But he wasn’t here to tour the seascape. He was looking for a downed aircraft, either the wrecked hulk of a DC-3 or a state-of-the-art drone. Which, he didn’t even know.

Davis had a reasonable amount of faith in the coordinates provided by Darlene Graham and the United States Navy. He had a reasonable amount of faith in the old man and Mr. Gamun a hundred feet in front of him. But none of that matched his faith in Mother Nature’s unpredictability. He’d seen a lot of things happen to airplanes that hit the water. If the vector is straight down, the hull will hit hard and typically break into a thousand pieces, virtually all of which sink instantly. With a low-angle impact, the fuselage might stay in one piece and get carried for miles by currents before hitting the bottom. Or, being a pressure vessel to begin with, an airplane might stay afloat and drift for hours, even days. USAir 1549 had proved that in the Hudson River.

Once, Davis had watched an entire navy search two years for the wreckage of a three-hundred-ton wide-body airliner. They’d come up with nothing. Right now, Davis didn’t have a navy to work with. He didn’t have locator beacons from black boxes or state-of-the-art sonar equipment. What he had was a rough starting point, a hundred feet of rope, and an old man with a twenty foot canoe to pull him through the sea like some kind of massive trolling lure.

But there were factors in his favor. His biggest break involved the depth of the water. The average ocean depth is over twelve thousand feet, but Davis’ Mark-1 eyeball told him he was in no more than fifty feet of water. And he had visibility on his side. In the Baltic or Gulf of Mexico, you’d be lucky to see your hand if you held it at arm’s length. But here, in the crystalline Red Sea, Davis could see the bottom a hundred feet in any direction.

The towline cut hard into his hands, and Davis was seized with the unhappy realization that this might take time. All day or all week. They could go faster to cover more sea floor, but his arms would only give out that much sooner. Fifty feet below, the visible light washed out so that only greens and blues remained, which meant Davis had to concentrate on shape. Man-made things tended to stand out in a natural environment — straight lines, perfect circles, angular geometry. He could be looking for an entire aircraft, or he could be looking for something smaller, jagged metal and smashed hardware as a minimum. Davis wasn’t sure what type of aircraft he was looking for, but a DC-3 or a drone were his best bets, and both were low-speed designs. Even under the most extreme circumstances, neither would have struck the ocean at a pulverizing speed. So Davis was pretty confident he was looking for something at least the size of a small car.

But all he saw through the old mask was an endless expanse of coral shelves and outcroppings, white sand in the canyons between. The waves that had been tolerable when he was in the boat now acted with more fortitude. They slapped his face, alternately drawing the towline slack and then snapping it taut. Davis gave a thumbs-down. Slower. He felt the tension ease. Every ten minutes or so, he saw the marine world under him begin a slow rotation as the old man turned to a reciprocal heading. Back and forth. He kept count for the first ten passes. Then he stopped, not wanting to overanalyze or second-guess the skipper’s seamanship. Davis stopped calculating and just looked.

He saw nothing.