The Shadows of Power Page 3

  Chakib saw the missile come off the Hornet. Just what he had expected, and just what he would have done if he had been flying the Hornet. But the missile was coming at him. It flew straight toward him, leaving its thick white smoke trail behind it, like a flaming arrow flying through the sky directly at his heart. As the MiGs had started up, they were tempted to continue up, but they knew that as fast as they were, the AMRAAM was faster. They pulled hard away from each other and broke down toward the water. The AMRAAM had no problem distinguishing the MiG from the water.

  Stovic kept waiting for the MiG to fire back, to attempt to shoot him down as the other MiG had already fired. He couldn’t imagine what was going through the mind of the pilot as he tried to maneuver his heavy fighter away from the best air-to-air radar missile in the world. The AMRAAM came up from under the Foxbat and slammed into its left wing. The warhead exploded in a fraction of a second, sending its fragments into the Algerian fighter and severing the wing.

  The Foxbat flipped into uncontrolled flight and threw Chakib up against the canopy. He tried to reach the ejection handle but could only touch it with his fingertips. Chakib fought the panic that gripped his throat as his MiG tumbled out of control. Several fragments of the American missile had punctured the back of the airtight cockpit and wind noise shrieked in his ears through his helmet. He could hear Hamid screaming at him on the radio, but the sounds were drowned out by the dying sounds of the MiG engines coming apart and the wind. Chakib watched the sky and earth spin in front of him. He couldn’t tell if he was right side up or upside down. He was spinning too fast. The G forces mounted, forcing him up higher against the canopy. He pushed himself down from the canopy with one hand and finally wrapped his fingers around the ejection handle. He pulled it with all his strength and felt it move up four inches. He waited for the canopy to come off the MiG. Nothing.

  He pulled the handle again, then reached for the alternate handle. He pulled it. Still nothing. It was then he felt smoke in his eyes and smelled it through his oxygen mask. He began to panic. He reached for the emergency canopy jettison handle. He heard Hamid transmit on the radio, “Chakib! Get out of the airplane! You are on fire!”

  “I can’t!” he screamed. “The ejection seat is not re—“ He pulled the canopy jettison handle, the canopy rails were blown off by explosive cord, and the canopy flew off the airplane. “I got the canopy off!”

  Wind whistled around him, throwing him back against his seat, which was now free to burn in the open air. Fragments from the missile warhead had disabled the seat and punctured the rocket fuel that should have thrown the ejection seat clear of the airplane. It now burned intensely just behind Nezzar, through the entire back of the ejection seat and the parachute in it. It started burning the harnesses that kept him strapped in and the boots on his feet. “There’s fire!” he cried. “The seat is on fire!”

  Stovic watched as the Foxbat continued to spin toward the Mediterranean. He kept his radar locked on the second Foxbat, which was between him and the burning plane.

  “Animal, knock it off, knock it off,” Bruno transmitted, using Stovic’s call sign to make sure he heard him.

  Chakib strained to get out of the cockpit and away from the fire. He saw with horror that the skin on the back of his hands was hanging off, drooping to the side as if made from putty. The pain on his feet was intolerable as he pushed himself up into the airstream, away from the seat. “I’m on fire! I’m on fire!” Chakib’s screams were transmitted over and over again on his radio.

  “Get out!” Hamid yelled.

  Chakib’s plane plummeted down in a perfect spiral trailing a long flame and black smoke behind it. He kept his microphone on the entire way down, crying out in pain, screaming that he was on fire, until he clearly couldn’t take any more. He finally wrapped his wounded hand around the emergency release handle and pulled with everything he had left. He felt the pressure release from his harnesses, and he climbed out of the Foxbat cockpit to escape the fire. He jumped and flew up into the airstream. He was pulled out of the cockpit and just missed the two huge tails of the Foxbat as the airstream pulled him behind his falling jet. As the Foxbat spun below him, he reached up to his left shoulder with his right hand, the burned skin hanging down toward the sea, and pulled the ripcord to manually deploy the parachute. He felt the cord release and the back of the parachute open. The wind whipped it up, and he looked up over his head expectantly. The white silk parachute was a tattered mess with brown singed edges on large and small holes. The half of the parachute on his right was detached from the risers, spilling out all the air that might have slowed him. His parachute was burned, ruined, and there was no backup. Chakib looked down at the sea. He watched his Foxbat plunge in below him, throwing up a tower of white water. He looked up at the American fighter that had shot him down.

  High above in the EP-3, the Arabic linguists put down their headsets solemnly. Their smiles had vanished.

  “Splash one Foxbat,” Lieutenant Stovic transmitted to the controller on the Truman as he circled and followed the Foxbat down to the sea. He watched it hit with satisfaction, then looked at the pilot and realized the same thing the pilot had realized, that his parachute wasn’t going to stop him. He was doomed.

  “Roger. Good shooting,” the controller replied. “Where’s the second bogey?”

  Bruno watched the other MiG circle the white foamy remnant of his wingman far below them above the Mediterranean. “He’s on scene SAR.”

  “Should we send a helo?”

  “Negative. His chute never opened.”

  “Roger that. Your signal is RTB.” Return to base.

  He glanced over at Stovic, who had joined on his wing. “Roger, RTB.”

  The phone rang in the studio apartment in Georgetown with a loud, demanding ring that Ismael had grown to hate. Several weeks before, he had taken the phone apart, disarmed the bell, and installed a light instead. But he had quickly learned that he couldn’t see the light all the time, especially when he was asleep. He had put the bell back in but had lined half of it with felt, so the ring sounded like a muffled, distant request. It hadn’t been enough to wake him, so he had taken the felt off and restored it to its original state. Now it annoyed him again, but it was enough to wake him.

  “Ismael!” his mother cried as soon as he answered the phone.

  Ismael felt a chill of dread. His mother had not called him once since he had left Algeria three years before to come to Washington to study engineering. His father always called. Always. His mother would use most of the time to talk to her second son, but she never placed the call. “Mother, what is it? Why are you calling me in the middle of the night?” he replied in the comfortable Arabic they spoke in their home.

  “Your brother!”

  “What about him? What?”

  “He is dead!” she shrieked, breaking down into uncontrollable sobs as soon as the declaration was out of her mouth.

  Ismael could barely speak. “Dead? What happened?”

  There was no reply, just the sound of his mother sobbing in a way that he had never heard before, the kind that told him her life had broken and was beyond repair. His father took the phone. “Ismael,” he said in his deep, soothing voice.

  “What happened? Is this true?”

  “Yes. It is true—”

  “But how? Was there an accident?”

  “No. The Americans. They came to challenge the two-hundred-mile—”

  “No!” he cried, his head falling. “I knew as soon as I saw that we were saying—”

  “The Americans sent their aircraft carrier here to provoke us. They sent one of their spy planes to fly near our coast. We sent fighters out after it, and there was a battle. Your brother was shot down.”

  “No,” Ismael moaned. “They shot him down?”

  “Yes. I spoke with the pilot who was with him, in the other plane.”

  “Did he parachute out? Is he in the sea?”

  His father hesitated. After some prodding he
had gotten the entire story from the other pilot, including the fire and the desperate attempt to climb out of the jet. Ismael didn’t need to know it all. It would just hurt more. “There was no parachute. The American missile hit right at the cockpit. He was killed instantly.”

  Ismael’s mind was flooded with memories of his older brother. His hero. His brother was in nearly every memory he had of his entire life, and it all came back to him at once. The heaviness of the new emptiness in his life hit him like a fall onto his back from a fence that he recalled from Algiers. His brother had tried to break the fall but to no avail—he had landed flat on his back, the wind knocked out of him. He had lain motionless, staring up at his brother, wondering if he was dying. He felt the same thing now as he stared at the memory of his brother’s face.

  Neither of them had married, but they had looked forward to raising their children together. They had promised to live near each other in their favorite section of Algiers, near a small park where their sons could play soccer together. He fought back tears as he tried to talk. “I will leave today. Mother needs me.”

  “No, there is nothing you can do. We don’t even have the body . . . It is so far—”

  “There will be a funeral for him.”

  “Yes, but we don’t know when.”

  “I will be there.”

  “I am sorry to have had to tell you this, Ismael.” His father’s lips quivered as he tried to retain his composure. He was a physician. He dealt with death every day. But he never expected to have to deal with the death of one of his sons. He desperately wanted to see his only remaining child, but he didn’t want to look weak before him or his mother. He tried to sound calm as he replied, “Do come home, son. It would be good for your mother. For . . . all of us. Do you have enough money to get—”

  “I have money.”

  “But your studies?”

  “I have an exam in three days. I will leave that afternoon. I must be there.”

  “Thank you.”

  * * *

  “Roll it!” Commander Bruno yelled at exactly 2000 hours on the night of the busiest day of his life. He sat in his gray steel and burgundy chair in the front of Ready Room 7, directly under the arresting gear aboard the USS Harry S. Truman. The Ragin’ Bulls, VFA-37—Strike-Fighter Squadron 37—had a nightly tradition, which was common in Navy squadrons, of gathering in the ready room for an evening movie. The commanding officer would set the time, and the duty officer would ensure that the movie—a DVD actually—rolled at that time—to the second—and that it was framed on the screen and in focus. If he failed, he was subjected to endless ridicule, various objects were thrown at him, and he would receive an additional day of duty, where he might be able to redeem himself.

  The evening had become a big party. Their squadron mate had shot down the first MiG a Navy pilot had shot down in years and the first MiG-25 ever. In a short time they would be headed home, out of the Mediterranean to Norfolk, Virginia. It was the perfect ending to a fabulous cruise in the Med.

  Stovic tried to act as if nothing had happened. When he and Commander Bruno had landed after the shoot-down, the atmosphere aboard the carrier had been electric, particularly in their ready room. Everyone on the carrier from the Admiral down to the lowliest seaman apprentice knew that the MiGs had been after a defenseless EP-3, the slow, lumbering intelligence plane that some Air Forces liked to intimidate. The aggressors had gotten a rude surprise, and had paid dearly for it. The schoolyard bully had picked on the chubby kid again, but this time had discovered a big brother who wasn’t afraid. The squadron wanted to hear every word of what had happened. Over and over again Stovic had been called on to recount the shoot-down.

  The movie finally rolled, but it was a surprise. Bruno had made a copy of Stovic’s gun camera tape. It was in the VCR waiting for the signal. When the duty officer rolled the tape, all the pilots expected Terminator 3, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Instead they got the gun camera film. They all recognized it instantly and roared their approval. They watched as the MiG-25s flew by them and pulled up; they listened to the radio comm between Bruno and Stovic; and they screamed enthusiastically as they saw the MiG-25 fire at Bruno. Stovic replied instantly by firing his own missile at the shooter’s wingman.

  There were cries for a rerun of the gun camera film, but Bruno shook his head. “Roll ‘em!” he yelled again, and T-3 lit up the screen.

  The start was perfect again. Commander Bruno grinned and gave his approving thumb’s-up to the squadron duty officer, who relaxed for the first time in eighteen hours. The phone was still ringing off the wall. Grubby, a Lieutenant, junior grade, had been ordered by Bruno to protect him and Animal from all the curious callers who just wanted to hear the story of the shoot-down. They had told it enough. He knew Stovic needed to be with his family—his squadron mates—to feel normal and allow what had happened to settle in.

  The phone rang again. Stovic sat on the far left side of the ready room in the second row, in his assigned chair, which had his name stitched into the seat cover. He glanced at Grubby as he tried to concentrate on Arnold. He saw Grubby look at him, raise his hand in assurance, and shake his head to whoever was on the phone. Grubby hung up and returned his own attention to the movie.

  There was a knock on the door in the front of the ready room. Grubby jumped up from his chair, furious that someone would ignore the signs clearly hanging on the doors in the front and the back of the ready room that read do not disturb! classified brief under way!

  He pulled the door open, stepped out of the ready room, and closed the door behind him to keep the room dark. The red passageway lights illuminated the faces of two officers in khakis and flight jackets that he recognized immediately. Commander Rob Strauss, the ship’s Intelligence Officer, and Lieutenant Commander Jennifer Harrow, the Air Wing Intelligence Officer. “Yes sir, ma’am?” Grubby said.

  Strauss spoke. “We need to talk to Lieutenant Stovic.”

  Grubby grimaced. “Boy, he’s about debriefed out. Didn’t you guys already talk to him a couple of times?”

  “We need to talk to him again. A few more questions have come up.”

  “I don’t know.” Grubby shook his head widely. “He’s really beat. I’m not sure he even has any voice left.”

  “We’ll write yes and no on a piece of paper, and he can point,” Harrow added sarcastically.

  “Can’t it wait until tomorrow? Skipper told me not to let anyone interrupt him. He’s in the middle of a debrief right now.”

  “You mean a movie?”

  “I’m sure some of the pilots are watching the movie—”

  “This is from CAG himself,” Harrow said, invoking the Air Wing commander for the first time. His desires trumped those of any squadron commander.

  “You sure this can’t wait?”

  “We’re sure.”

  “All right. Wait here. I’ll ask the Skipper, and if he says it’s okay, I’ll get Animal out of his debrief.”

  They nodded, and he slid back into the ready room, ducking under the huge image of Arnold brandishing some unrecognizable weapon. He crossed to Bruno and crouched beside his chair. “Ship’s Intel and CAG Intel want to talk to Animal.”

  “Those guys never give up.” He glanced over at Stovic, who was deeply involved in the movie. “Okay, but we’re going to rewind to this spot when he comes back.”

  “Yes, sir,” Grubby said. He stood up to his full height so he blocked the movie, a move that was greeted instantly by catcalls and various missiles. He pointed to Stovic and motioned for him to come to the front of the room.

  Stovic excused himself down the aisle and followed out the front door. The two Intelligence Officers were waiting for him. “What’s up?”

  “We had a couple more questions. We’ve sent off the initial message, and as you might expect, Washington has some questions.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Most can wait to later, but one can’t,” Harrow said.

  Stovic felt his heart
jump. “What?”

  Harrow glanced at Strauss and asked, “How do you know the MiG that fired was firing at you?”

  Stovic was surprised at the question. He narrowed his eyes as if he were answering a question that was so obvious it was all he could do to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. “It wasn’t me, so much. I assumed he was firing at the Skipper. But when I saw the missile come off the rails I knew he was shooting at somebody. He might have been shooting at the EP-3, I guess, which was about five miles behind us. Could be. But that didn’t really matter to me. Once he fired at us, the fight was on.”

  Strauss followed up. “How do you know it wasn’t an inadvertent missile release? An accident?”

  Stovic rolled his eyes. “Is that what this is about? They claiming it was an accident?”

  Strauss and Harrow nodded.

  “What a crock. If you fly up supersonic after three American planes—okay, so they thought it was one plane—then pull a big turn back into them and fire a missile, I don’t really care whether they had an accident or not. That’s hostile, and I’m not going to sit around and try to figure it out. Check the gun camera tape. You can see the missile come off long before I shoot.”

  “We looked at it,” Harrow said. “His missile never guided.”

  Stovic was incredulous. “So what? So they’ve got a stupid missile, or they don’t keep their radars up to snuff. So what?”

  “Why didn’t Commander Bruno fire?”

  Stovic’s face turned red. “I don’t know. Why don’t you ask him?” He waited as the impact of his rhetorical question was less than he had hoped. “Are we done?”

  “Not quite,” they said, looking up and down the small passageway leading to the main fore and aft passageway outside the ready room. “We’ve got the pilot on tape,” Harrow said in a near whisper.

  “What?” Stovic asked.

  “The EP-3 was listening to their ground control radio. As soon as the missile came off the rail, the lead MiG broke radar lock. Did you notice that?”