Flash Point (4 page)

“See?”

“Come on,” he said.

“I am a schoolteacher, at least by training. I don’t teach right now. I’m waiting for an opening.”

He nodded and looked out the window again, trying not to show that he was really focusing on her reflection in the glass.

“What do you do?” she asked suddenly.

He looked at her with surprise. “I’m in the Navy.”

“The American Navy?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you on a ship?”

He nodded. “More or less. I’m a pilot — I fly off a carrier.”

“Of course,” she said. “You’re on that big carrier in the bay.”

He smiled and nodded. “That’s me. The
George Washington
. Largest class of warship ever built.
Nimitz
class.”

“Is it really?”

“Nothing else is even close. Some of the battleships were almost as heavy, but nothing nearly as big in every dimension.”

“What do you fly?”

“Do you know airplanes?”

“Not really.”

“Fighters. F-14s. Tomcats. You know, two tails, wings that move back and forth . . .”

“I think I’ve seen them. I think we have them too.”

Vialli shook his head. “No, only the U.S. and, unfortunately, Iran.”

“What do we have that looks like that?”

“We who? Italy?”

She looked puzzled, then understood. “Yes. Italy.”

“Nothing really. Just Fiats and those sorts of things. Gnats. Bugsmashers. Noisemakers. Nothing serious.”

“Well, you shouldn’t belittle it . . .”

“I didn’t mean to. I’m sure Italy’s Air Force is
truly
formidable,” he said. He tried to get her to look at him, which she was reluctant to do. “Do you mind if I ask you your name?”

She hesitated before she answered. “Irit.”

“What?” he said, leaning forward, as if he hadn’t heard her.

“Irit.”

“That’s an odd name. Is it Italian?”

“What’s your name?”

“Tony Vialli.”

“That’s an odd name. Is it American?”

“Very funny. No such thing as an American name,” he said, “except maybe Sitting Bull,” he added. “No, my name is Italian, and my family, some time ago, I think my grandparents’ parents, came over to the States. I’ve heard they were from Genoa, but I’m not really sure.”

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Mr. Vialli.”

“Thanks,” he said. “Where are you going?”

She looked amused. “This train only goes to Pompeii.”

He nodded, trying to imply he knew that. “But are you going to see the tourist trap, where all the dead people are, or what?”

“Yes, I’m going to see where the dead people are. What else would I be doing there?”

He shrugged. “Don’t know. I figured there may be a town there too.”

“Not really.”

“So you’re playing tourist today?”

“Yes I am.”

“You want to come with us? With Sean and me? We can go to Pompeii together and see the dead people,” he said. He suddenly realized he hadn’t even asked Woods. “If that’s okay with you?” he said to Sean. “We’ll all go together.”

Woods stared at him, amazed.

She studied Vialli carefully. “I don’t really know you.” She leaned back against the seat as the train rounded a curve. She considered. “Why not.”

“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?”