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  “Here he is, sir,” Bark announced as Woods approached.

  “Good evening, sir,” Woods said.

  “Lieutenant . . .” The Admiral looked at Woods and then said. “This isn’t the place to get into what I have to discuss with you. Let’s go below.” With that he stood up and walked past Woods out the door, starting down the ladder that Woods had just climbed.

  Woods and the senior officers followed the Admiral to his wardroom. The admiral sat at one end of his table and motioned for the other senior officers to join him. He was about fifty, average height, trim build, with graying black hair combed neatly. Everything about him said that he was organized, neat, and disciplined. The messman automatically went for cups and a pot of coffee. Woods stood awkwardly in the middle of the room. “Sit down, Lieutenant,” the Admiral said roughly, pointing to the seat at the other end of the table.

  Admiral Joseph Sweat, former A-6 and F/A-18 pilot, with over a thousand carrier landings and a chest full of ribbons, had a reputation in the fleet as being fair and reasonable, but he wasn’t known for his great sense of humor.

  The messman set a cup in front of each of them and poured coffee. He put cream and sugar in the middle of the table in matching porcelain containers.

  The Admiral’s leather flight jacket was covered with patches from his former squadrons and centurion patches from carriers marking each one hundred carrier landings. “What do you know about Lieutenant Junior Grade Vialli?” he asked quickly, reaching for his coffee and staring at Woods with his intense eyes.

  Woods didn’t want to have this conversation. Whatever it was about, it was going to be bad. He prayed it wasn’t as bad as he feared. “He’s my wingman, roommate. What in particular would you like to know?”

  “Where is he?”

  Woods’s heart skipped as he swallowed. “He’s on leave.”

  “Where?”

  “Naples, sir.”

  “Did he go anywhere else?”

  The other officers were watching him closely. “I’m not sure,” Woods replied finally, not wanting to meet the piercing gaze of the Admiral’s blue eyes.

  “Did he tell you he might go anywhere else? Anywhere at all?”

  Woods knew the game was up. “He did mention one possibility, sir.”

  “Where?” the Admiral pressed, knowing Woods knew.

  Woods leaned against the back of the black leather chair, trying not to slump. “He met a girl he thought was Italian. Turned out she was from Israel . . .”

  At the mention of the word Israel, the Admiral’s face twitched noticeably.

  “. . . and she wanted him to come see her. He took leave for Naples, thinking he might fly to Israel for the weekend, see her, and come back before he was due back aboard.”

  Bark’s eyes opened to twice their usual size. “You didn’t tell me?”

  Woods didn’t respond. He just looked at his CO with his lips pressed tightly together and nodded almost imperceptibly.

  The Admiral picked up the yellow paper. “We just received this message. You should be aware of it. It’s from the Secretary of Defense, forwarding a message from our embassy in Tel Aviv. Apparently one of the adults on the bus that was attacked, one of those killed, had Lieutenant Vialli’s ID card in his shoe.”

  Woods closed his eyes and lowered his head. The pain on his face was apparent to everyone at the table. They sat in complete silence, waiting.

  Finally the Admiral spoke again to Woods. “Can you think of any way someone else would have his ID card?”

  Woods tried to speak, stopped, then tried again. “Can’t they identify him?”

  The Admiral nodded. “Probably. But they were wondering what the hell he was doing there, and asked us. Now we’re wondering what the hell he was doing there and asking you.”

  “What happened?” Woods asked.

  “He died in the attack.”

  Woods was suddenly engulfed with rage. His eyes burned as he looked around the table. None of the senior officers was affected. Bark was mad at him for not telling him Vialli was sneaking off, the Admiral was mad because he was being squeezed for allowing one of his officers to go to Israel without the State Department knowing about it, and the others were just along for the ride.

  “What do you have to say for yourself?” Bark asked finally.

  Woods looked at him in disbelief. He felt betrayed. “What do I have to say for myself? For not telling you he was going to see his girlfriend in Israel? Guilty. I should have told you and I didn’t,” he said, spite dominating his thoughts. “I should probably get court-martialed.”

  “Don’t get cute, Lieutenant,” the Admiral said. “We just want to get to the bottom of this. We want to find out what happened, how one of our officers could have gone to Israel without us knowing about it. We wanted to ask you how—”

  “Doesn’t anybody care who did this?” Woods interrupted. “Why aren’t we talking about what we’re going to do to them?”

  The Admiral looked at him disapprovingly. “You’re upset. That’s understandable.” He paused. “I want you to prepare a report on how Mr. Vialli took leave without informing his Commanding Officer of the true destination and have it ready by the end of the day.”

  Woods exhaled suddenly, a sound that could have been an exclamation or a laugh. He looked at Bark. “Yes, sir. I would be happy to prepare a report, sir.” He got up and moved toward the door.

  “Lieutenant!” the Admiral shouted.

  Woods stopped and turned around.

  “I have not dismissed you yet.”

  Woods stood at attention looking over the Admiral at the portrait of George Washington on the wall behind him. He’d go after whoever did this to Vialli.

  After some seconds the Admiral said, “Dismissed.”

  Woods executed a perfect about-face and strode quickly out of the room. A sailor opened the door for him and shut it quietly behind him as he left.

  “What the hell was he doing in Israel?” Sami asked Cunningham as they walked to the conference room, for the next of what seemed like an infinite number of meetings of the task force.

  “Woman,” Cunningham replied, looking down the corridor for Kinkaid whom he wanted to see right away.

  “Did he have permission?”

  “Nope.”

  “No?”

  “No. Told his roommate, but nobody else. The roommate didn’t tell anyone until it was too late.”

  “He’s in some deep shit.”

  “Good guess.” They opened the door to the conference room and crossed to the coffee machine that was kept fresh by some unknown person.

  “Good morning,” Kinkaid said as they got their coffee. “If everyone will take a seat, we can begin. We all have work to do, so I want to keep this time to a minimum. We’ve got two hits, clearly well planned and well executed. No casualties to the terrorists, which sets them apart from virtually all terrorists that have come before them. They care about living through it and they have escaped without a trace from Gaza, and from Israel itself, something most of us considered impossible. Anybody got anything?”

  Nicole spoke. “I’ve been in contact with the Mossad. They’re playing it very close to the vest. I think there’s more to this one than meets the eye. Official position is that they have no idea who did it or why. The one initially unidentified man who was killed we now know was a U.S. Navy pilot from the Washington. The carrier was in Naples. The officer, we now learn, was on unauthorized leave, apparently visiting an Israeli woman from Nahariya. At least that’s the report we’ve gotten from the Navy. Met her on the train south of Naples, and fell for her. Went to visit her, and she’s the one who was killed with him.” Nicole stopped, seeing the image of what she was about to say. “They were both shot in the back. At close range.”

  “Assassinated,” Sami said. The others listened. “So who was the target?”

  Kinkaid replied, “You can’t know from that evidence, but the communiqué makes it pretty clear. Sami?”

&nbs
p; “Right,” Sami said. He stood and switched on the overhead projector, placed the acetate of the communiqué on it, and turned on the light. The beautiful Arabic script was projected onto the large screen in the front of the room. “This was received this morning by several wire services and our embassy in London. You all have a translation of it in front of you.” They glanced at the papers lying on the table. Some picked them up. “The translations from the wire services aren’t bad, but there’s more to it. First, I want you to note that this is handwritten. Beautifully. Someone took great care in writing this. There are no errors of spelling, or punctuation, or grammar, or even syntax. That implies several things: We’re dealing with someone who is very educated, and very careful. My guess is that this document went through many drafts, probably before the events it discusses. It also shows that the person doesn’t care if he is identified. Like English, only perhaps more so, Arabic script writing is very characteristic. You can recognize someone’s hand, or style, fairly easily. My sense is that he doesn’t care.”

  He placed a pencil on a line in the middle. “The content is equally interesting. The gist of this communiqué is that they are the ones who conducted the attack on the Israeli bus, and they also are the ones responsible for the Gaza crossing attack. They note . . . here”—he pointed to some Arabic—“that they left their American weapons in the van in sequential serial number order for easy identification. We knew that because the Mossad sent us those pictures. Those photos have not been released to the press, and those not involved in the attack would have no way of knowing about the serial numbers. This is their means of authentication.”

  “Or they could have inside information from Israeli intelligence,” Nicole added.

  “Or Palestinian intelligence,” Cunningham said.

  “Other than those two possibilities, it shows they were involved,” Sami replied.

  Sami read on to himself, then spoke. “Here’s the heart of it . . . ‘We are the Assassins. Israel is an intolerable sore in the region and must be eradicated. We are everywhere, but will never be seen. We will never rest until Israel is no longer. The bus attack was necessary and important. Ask Israel why, if you want to know the reason.’ “ He looked up. “Frankly, I’m puzzled. Why would Israel know the reason for the school bus attack? Anyway, they go on. ‘The American was an unexpected gift. His presence on the bus confirms that Israel is the puppet of America and America is just the most recent Crusader to try to take over Islamic land.’ “ He read on to himself for a moment, then stopped. “The rest is pretty predictable, condemns the Palestinian Authority of Gaza as a bunch of traitors, condemns the West, the usual.”

  “So,” Ricketts said. “At least they’ve identified themselves. And it’s not the usual. Very different. The Assassins . . .” he said. He looked at Sami. “Is it signed?”

  Sami looked down at the document even though he already knew the answer. He was annoyed at himself that he hadn’t mentioned it already. “Yeah. Sheikh al-Jabal.”

  Ricketts sat up. “That’s your guy, right? The one from that NSA track?”

  “That’s him.”

  11

  Woods sat in the front row of folded chairs in the forecastle. It was jammed with aviators in their khaki uniforms and flight jackets, sitting and standing around the enormous anchor chains that disappeared through the deck beneath them. The entire Air Wing was there to honor Tony Vialli and to extend their sympathy to his family, or what passed for his family in the Navy, his squadron. As his roommate, section leader, and best friend, Woods was the one expected to play the unofficial role of grieving next of kin.

  But Woods didn’t want sympathy. He didn’t want to hear a bunch of awkward phrases and silly comments like so many other memorial services. He tried to concentrate on the final words of Father Maloney, who was completing some sort of Catholic service. Vialli was, after all, Catholic, or at least close enough for a government chaplain to say whatever was usually said at these services. Woods was certain Vialli had never attended a Catholic service on the ship, and he was quite sure Lieutenant Commander Maloney couldn’t have picked Vialli out of a lineup.

  Woods barely noticed the playing of the Navy hymn, the plea for God to guard and guide the men who fly . . . in peril in the sky. He barely noticed the final prayer, the last words of farewell and the clatter of chairs being pushed back slightly on the hard, gray steel as the Air Wing officers got to their feet. They stood in groups, talking low and moving around aimlessly, but no one left. The rite of passage wasn’t quite complete until there was some conveyance of sorrow. No one seemed to know exactly what was expected, or what was enough, but at some point enough of whatever it was was exchanged and people began getting ready to leave.

  Woods had been to lots of memorial services for pilots who had hit the ramp, or flown into the water, or simply disappeared into the night. He’d made the same comments as those now standing around him. But this was all wrong; everyone was behaving as if Vialli was just another accident victim, as if fate had reached down and touched him, his time being up. We never know when any of us is going to go . . .

  “No!” Woods yelled, stepping back from some of the pilots milling around him. “Don’t you get it?” he said to the entire group, gaining attention. “We all stand around here like we’re used to this. Like Tony’s death was an accident. It’s not the same!” he said loudly.

  Some of the aviators looked at each other wondering if Woods had finally cracked. Too much pressure, maybe even responsibility. Rumor had it he knew where Vialli was going and could have stopped him, but didn’t.

  The ship moved up and down perceptibly under their feet as the awkwardness of the moment froze it in time. No one could leave. It would have been a slap in the face to Woods.

  “This wasn’t an accident!” Woods’s gray eyes flashed. “He didn’t have a bird strike, or run out of gas—he was murdered!” He drew out the word as if speaking to someone who was not quite with it.

  The VF-103 Operations Officer said in a quiet voice, “We know that, Trey. We know that.” He looked around to see if he was speaking for the group. “But there isn’t much we can do about it. We all feel really bad about Boomer. He was a great guy. A talented guy. But we can’t exactly go after whoever did this on our own.”

  Woods took a deep breath. “I know,” he said with exhaustion. “But we’ve got to do something.”

  “We’d love to,” the officer responded. Others murmured their agreement. “And when you figure out what that is, you let us know. We’re behind Boomer, and we’re behind you.”

  Woods turned away from the crowd. The Ops O nodded to the others and the crowd began to file out the two doors around the enormous anchor chains. Woods walked toward the bow. He could see the milky gray water out of the small porthole. Waves strove to become whitecaps but fell just short. Slowly Woods realized a voice had been calling his name for some time, but he didn’t want to hear more tripe about how sorry someone was . . .

  “Lieutenant Woods?”

  Woods glanced over his shoulder and saw Father Maloney. Great, he thought. Just what I need. He said nothing.

  “Lieutenant Woods, may I have a word with you?” Maloney asked.

  Woods stood silently, then grudgingly he said, “Sure. What about?”

  “About Tony.”

  Woods thought perhaps there were some arrangements that had to be made. He had been appointed as the officer in charge of putting together Vialli’s personal effects and tying up whatever needed to be done. “What is it?”

  “Would you mind coming to my office, just to talk for a while?”

  “What for?”

  The priest smiled, then replied, “I just thought you might want to talk about how you’re feeling.”

  Woods tried not to show his disgust. If there was one thing he hated, it was people who spent all their time talking about how they were “feeling.” “Why would I want to do that?”

  Maloney was taken aback by Woods’s reply. “I jus
t thought you might like to.”

  “You some kind of psychologist or something?”

  “Not at all. I just thought . . .”

  “It’s kind of obvious how I feel, isn’t it? Some other time, maybe,” he said, walking away. In fact, he thought, it was time for him to do something about how he was feeling.

  Woods went briskly up the ladders to the O3 level and straight into the blue tile. He stopped at the Admiral’s wardroom and knocked loudly. He waited five seconds and knocked again. He heard a voice inside, then the door opened quickly. “Yes, sir?” a sailor asked.

  “Is the Admiral here?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’d like to see him.”

  “Is he expecting you, sir?”

  “No.”

  “Your name, sir?”

  “Lieutenant Woods. Sean Woods, VF-103,” he replied.

  “Please wait while I inquire, sir,” he said. The door closed quietly in front of him.

  Woods stood in the passageway for a short time, but long enough to feel foolish as several sailors passed by. He knew what they thought. He was in trouble.

  “The Admiral would like to know if this is an emergency, sir.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “The Admiral would like to know if you have exercised your chain of command, sir.”

  “No, I haven’t. And I don’t plan on it.”

  “One moment, sir.”

  The door closed again, and Woods waited outside for another minute. The door opened and the sailor motioned to him. “You may come in, sir. The Admiral will see you.”

  “Admiral—“ Woods began before he had even reached the Admiral’s table, the same one he had sat at so recently.

  “Hold it right there, Lieutenant,” the Admiral said.

  Woods looked around and realized he had barged in on a meeting of the Admiral’s staff. The Chief of Staff was there, the Operations Officer, the Intelligence Officer, and others he didn’t recognize. Nice move, he told himself. But hedidn’t care.