It took him nearly two weeks to get enough free time, plus Nordheim’s permission, plus the availability of a COD, to visit the Roosevelt. As it was, he barely made it; Roosevelt was turning for home three days after, its replacement already transiting Suez. His ostensible excuse was the pickup of classified tactical stuff—viewgraphs, templates, lists, notes, debriefs—that Roosevelt would no longer need (and that Jefferson would not, either, but they could pull the few good items and dump the rest on the new carrier).
His real reason for going, of course, was to get Peretz’s support for a theory about his father’s death. He had reached the point where he could think of it without his heart racing, without even the dread of something forgotten and the sudden memory that he would never see the man again. His father was gone. Alan did not believe in ghosts. But out behind him in the deep, too far from the coast of Iran for any land smells ever to come, his father lay encased in his plane like—Creole was right; he was a romantic—a dead warrior in his armor. Alan was increasingly sure that that armor held secrets, and that he had to persuade the Navy to raise it.
The helo winnowed above the Roosevelt’s pad and hung there long enough for him to stare into the flight ops bubble, where a yellow jersey was staring at something with binoculars. No air ops were underway; somebody had probably seen a dhow, or a school of flying fish. He felt a wrench of envy: they were going home.
The chopper settled. He began to rehearse his arguments for Peretz. I’ve studied the FLIR film of his attempt to refuel—kept under his rack, in his stateroom, since August; only last week had he been able to face it—eleven seconds (and no wave; just his father, head down, trying to get his wounded plane to the basket)—the missile crippled his aircraft but didn’t destroy it. All of the visible damage to his plane—as seen on the pathetically few seconds Alan had shot on infrared before the film had snapped, but he couldn’t say that; it made his case weak—showed around the leading edge of one wing and forward of the wing on the fuselage. Not a heat-seeking missile, or the damage would be near the engines.
“So?” Peretz, friendly, supportive, was nonetheless professionally skeptical.
“It wasn’t a heat-seeking missile.”
“You said that. So?”
Alan went into his be-very-very-patient voice, the one he used on really slow aircrews; Peretz smiled even more. “Heat-seekers are normal. This was abnormal.”
Peretz put his feet up, hands behind head. “Okay, I’m a senior investigative administrator. Here you are, outlining a possible case to me. I’m a natural skeptic; that’s how I got to be where I am. I’m also aware that there’s a budget cut coming, I’m already short on personnel, and my boss doesn’t really like me and so is inclined to say no rather than yes. Okay. You tell me that heat-seekers are normal, this wasn’t normal. Well, I’m not an aviator, so I’ll take your word for now. Okay—so what’s so important about abnormal?”
“Only my dad took a missile. Nobody else even saw a missile—I’ve asked other people on the strike. Zip. So, one missile, and it’s not the usual. That’s what’s important about abnormal. Get it?” Peretz smiled—sadly now—and shook his head. Alan leaned toward him and began to gesture with a half-closed fist. “The Iranians like to adapt, rebuild, scratch-build weapons. That’s what this was—some weird, one-time-only, Iranian wet dream.”
“Says who?”
Alan shrugged and stood up. “Okay. Bad idea. Thanks for your time.”
“Hey, hey—”
“No. I won’t waste more of your morning. Bad idea.”
“Jesus, you’ve got short-tempered. We all have, but holy shit, Alan! Come on, siddown. I’m trying to help you. Really.” Peretz shoved the chair toward Alan with a foot. “Come on. Make nice, as they say.” Peretz was tired too—everybody was tired, what the hell?—but it made him nicer. Maybe knowing that he was leaving the Navy made him nicer, too, some wisdom gained from failure. “Look,” the older man said, “if you follow through on this, you’re going to have to make a case in writing for people whose lives are dedicated to being cynical. You can’t do it on hope and spit; you gotta have facts. Give me facts.”
Alan sat down, suppressed his irritation. Peretz was right, of course. The world is full of assholes, he thought. “Okay. Fact: most of the Iranian air defense network was down; the proof is in my computer tapes. Okay?”
“Okay. Noted.”
“Fact: no other missile was fired. Source, my computer tapes, debriefs with other flyers; I can pull them up if need be.”
“Good.”
“Fact: the Iranians are tinkerers, blue-skiers. Source, intelligence community country briefs.”
Peretz made a face. “Weak, but okay. That’s Agency psychobabble, say I—in my role as skeptical administrator, I mean.”
“Okay. Not fact, but educated guess: I think Mick Craik wasn’t squawking IFF that night, but he went anyway—a typical act. We couldn’t read his IFF when he tried to gas; I know that could be because it had been knocked out, but I’ve talked to other guys who said they didn’t read him, either, but earlier. One source did a query and it had been bad, or wrong, he didn’t remember which. This is where I need some help—it’s not too hard to follow up on if you can put me on to the E-2 people who flew the strike from Roosevelt.”
“This isn’t fact.”
“Not yet. I’m asking for help to prove it.”
Peretz looked at the ceiling. “The kid who was with him and ejected was med-evacced to Hamburg next day. Somebody did a debrief and probably filed it; I can get that, but it’ll be a couple weeks, anyway.” He sniffed his right index finger, that bizarre, slightly unpleasant habit of his. “I can get the E-2 tapes for that night, I guess. They’ll piss and moan and say they’re stored in the bottom of the boat or they’re written over or something. Would you pop for a bottle of Scotch for the guys there? It might ease the ways a little.” He was thinking out loud. “Do that on the way home—everybody’s running down, have a little happy hit-the-beach in Monaco or someplace, yeah, that’ll work.”
Alan was irritated again. “I want to wrap this up, if I can.”
Peretz merely looked bland.
“Can’t I get this stuff today?” Alan said.
Peretz smiled. “You know what investigative people need the most of, even more than money? Time. You know why? Because the world is a goddam slow place, and everybody else has better things to do. You know why it’s worth waiting for? Because real investigators want to be super-sure. Copper-bottomed, end-of-the-world, bedrock sure. Go-to-court sure. That takes time.” He got them both coffee without asking; Alan knew he was slowing him down, forcing him to be patient. When he held the cup out, Peretz said, “Give me your theory and tell me where you’re going with it.”
So Alan told him: he believed that Mick Craik had been squawking a wrong IFF code. This by itself would be remarkable; normally, if IFF got screwed up, it didn’t read wrong; it just didn’t read. Then, his had been the only plane shot down. Alan put these things together and suggested (knew in his heart, believed, wanted to believe) that Mick Craik’s plane had somehow been targeted by the missile on its IFF.
He explained that over the past months he had used spare moments to study his own records of the source of that missile, Site 112, until frustration or priorities had forced him back to other tasks. Site 112 had behaved differently from the other Iranian sites. It had played possum, bided its time, then at the last minute let loose a momentary sweep from an oddball radar and almost instantly taken a HARM. But too late for CDR Craik. And 112 was nearly on the track of the strike—and it hadn’t been there ten days before.
“And where is this leading you? What do you want, Alan?”
“I want them to raise my dad’s aircraft. To prove that the IFF was set on a different frequency and the damage is not heat-seeker damage.”
Peretz doodled with a pencil, made little tck-tck-tck sounds with his tongue, and at last said, “And then—then if you prove those things—” He stared hard into Alan’s eyes. “You’re saying that there’s an Iranian agent on the Roosevelt.”
Alan nodded. That was the inescapable conclusion he had come to, too.
Peretz blew up. Did Alan know what he was saying? Did he understand what sort of charge that was? Did he really believe ship’s security would roll over and play dead while some j.g. with a personal grievance said they’d blown it? What world did Alan think he was living in, anyway?
Alan stared at the floor. It was all Mickey Mouse, he thought. Why couldn’t things go straight ahead—and fast?
“Look here, young man.” Peretz’s voice was suddenly kind. Alan looked up; their eyes met. “I’m getting out of this business. I don’t care. But if you push on this, it’s going to push back. Other people will resist. That’s the way the system works. I’ll get you the stuff I said; you build your case with it. Make it airtight. Then write it out, logically and clearly; get your skipper or somebody else with clout to endorse it and send it up the line to NCIS. But don’t expect much. Understand?”
“But it’ll be proven! Then all they have to do is raise the plane.”
“That’s not the way the world works.” Peretz fiddled with the pencil, sipped coffee. He was frowning. “What’s your next assignment?”
“I don’t know.”
Peretz stared, an overdone look of mock astonishment on his plain face. “You don’t know! What happened to career planning?”
Alan shrugged.
“Jesus Christ. Look—you need to get yourself someplace good; don’t make the mistake I did, thinking you’re going to be picked out because of your genius. It doesn’t work that way. I was going to say, you need to get yourself closer to the investigative process so you can keep an eye on this business with your dad—oh, yeah, don’t look so unhappy; it’s going to run into next year, into your next assignment, at least—but you also need to get yourself someplace where you demonstrate other skills, get on a career path. You know what information management is?”
He said he thought he did. He didn’t want to hear about careers. Creole was always going on about his career, which he had planned for the next three tours—one in each “int”—electronic, ELINT; communications, COMMINT; human, HUMINT—”learn the ropes, and then run them.”
Alan laughed. “I’m six months from rotation, and I don’t have a clue what I want in my next tour.”
Peretz wagged a finger at him, half teacher, half surrogate parent, both rather exasperated. “There’s a collection manager job opening in Norfolk. It’s a liaison office with the branches and it’d put you near some strategic thinking. Also, you’d make contact with NCIS and get some sense of how their world works—how to make a case for them. And you could do a little travel, find adventure, glamor, romance—all that good stuff. Interested?”
He wanted to say that the trout fishing was lousy around Norfolk, and he wanted to point out that a major war was imminent and he was a little busy right now, but he didn’t dare, and he said, “Sure.”
“Lemme send a couple messages. It’s really a senior lieutenant position, but you’ve got credentials and your detailer will feel he owes you one. Understand? No? Here’s how it works: war makes careers. You’re in a war. The detailer knows he has to push you, because ten or fifteen years from now, the Navy wants itself to be run by people who were in a war. Mm? You don’t get it. Never mind—you will.” Peretz stared at him. “God, there’s a lot your dad didn’t teach you.” He smiled. “Lucky for you.” He whacked Alan’s knee. “You’re okay as you are, kid. A little naive, but okay. You’re not him. No offense, but that’s a good thing. Just keep doing what you’re doing.” He smiled again. “How does a Naval criminal investigation work? Ver-y slow-ly.”
A month later, Alan had everything the E-2 people from the Roosevelt had to offer. They had sent cassette tapes of all their contacts with Mick Craik the night he died. They had answered Alan’s questions: his father had probably gone flying that night with a different IFF code from every other plane on the mission—a code well separated in frequency from the real code. The 161 skipper agreed with Alan and Rafe, too: off the record, it appeared that the Iranians had known where the strike would come ashore.
Still, Alan did not have proof; he had a pile of circumstantial evidence, and a suspicion: Someone, some American on the Roosevelt, had betrayed the mission. Someone on the Roosevelt, probably the same person, had altered his father’s IFF.
Peretz was right. He needed proof—and the proof was lying at the bottom of the Persian Gulf. He needed to approach Naval Investigative Service with a request to raise his father’s aircraft. And war was imminent.
He began to write it all out, ver-y slow-ly.
When he had a draft, he ran it past Creole. Creole checked his EW logic, his triangulations, his conclusions based on what the Roosevelt E-2 had given him. “Not too shabby,” he said—high praise from Creole.
“What d’you make of the radar sweep just before the HARM took out Site 112?”
“I don’t. It makes no sense, old chap. If things don’t make sense, I let them lie there.”
“It’s got to make sense somehow. Crazy sense, maybe. Iranian sense.”
“Suicidal sense, old chap. You turn on a new radar just when the local vicinity’s full of HARMs, you’re putting a gun to your head.”
Which made no sense to Creole, but suddenly made dazzling sense to Alan: the Iranians had blue-skied a missile, and, the moment it was launched, they had made sure that an American HARM would destroy the evidence—Site 112. And the witnesses. He could see some Iranian dogsbody leaning over a console, waiting with unknowing eagerness to destroy himself: When you get the signal turn on the new Chinese radar. Blam.
He was sure that was the way it had been. But, like so much of the rest of the affair, he couldn’t prove it. Yet.
Sally Baranowski read a message on her computer screen and then forwarded it to George Shreed marked “Priority,” with her own comment to introduce it: AB found a Yevgen Tzadzik flying Amsterdam-London then London-Brussels, stopover London three hours. Quick work, but doable. It looks like the same Tzadzik who flew Rome-Libya the day after our man flew Brussels-Naples. Bingo.