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“It gets easier with time.” She was still smiling. She kissed him. “Let’s just stay in bed all week and when we’re starved we’ll tell them to bring us champagne.”
“Not all week, Kim.” He hadn’t told her yet. He had thought there would be a good moment. “I’ve got to report to the boat day after tomorrow.”
“No, you don’t.” Something steely, also new, sounded in her voice.
“Yeah, I do. There’ll be a plane at Capodichino to take me. See, they started their liberty three days ago, while I was—”
“Well, you’ll just have to be real sick. Or tell them you’re doing charity work with an American woman who’ll die otherwise.”
He laughed. “Right! Compassionate leave. No, the Navy’s understanding, but not that understanding.”
“I won’t let you go.”
“Sweetie, they cut a set of orders for me. I have to get back to my own ship.” He kissed her. “Be good. Please.”
“I hate the Navy.” A tear trickled down from the corner of her right eye. “No, don’t—” She avoided another kiss and twisted aside under him, escaped and ran to the bathroom for a tissue, with which she started to dab her eyes.
Naked, Kimberley Hoyt looked as if she had been put together from male fantasies. She was very large where men wanted size, very small where she was supposed to be small. She had honey-amber hair that she wore long, and it blazed around her face like a sunburst. She was, in fact, the very woman most of the men of the carrier hoped to meet in Naples, and only Alan would.
He rolled over on his back. “Let’s have a great day together,” he said. “Kim? Okay?”
She burst into tears.
He went to her and they clung together, naked. When she was quiet, she said into his shoulder, “I think I don’t know you very well. It scares me, you going away and going away—I thought we’d have—time—”
“I have to.”
“Why? Why?” She flung her head back and stared at him. “Is it your father?”
“I signed on. I’m committed.”
She put a hand on his bare chest and began to move it back and forth, back and forth. She looked at the place as if she would learn something there. “I want you committed to me,” she said.
The taxi driver said nothing the whole trip, which wound around Naples in an apparently incoherent way, first up toward the Vomero, then down again, then well out toward Mergellina, then back. Bonner did not try to make sense of it. He supposed they were being followed to make sure that Bonner hadn’t brought a tag from the ship. He could have told them he hadn’t. He’d checked. He supposed the taxi driver was one of them, and that if Bonner didn’t check out he’d turn and he would have a silenced nine-millimeter and he’d go pfft! with it right into Bonner’s chest.
Oddly, most of what Bonner thought he knew about this business he had got from movies. If he’d known that the taxi driver was really only a taxi driver, he’d have been deeply confused.
Finally, the driver turned back up toward the Vomero, and, halfway up, pulled over to the side and motioned for Bonner to get out. It was a road, not a street; there was a weedy verge and some trash, but nothing close by like a house or a café. Bonner got out and stood there. He was going to ask if he was supposed to pay, when the driver reached back and slammed his door and drove off.
Bonner found himself on a curve, from which he could look down over the rooftops and terraces of several apartment buildings. The other way, across the road, there was a wall, and, above it and set well back, more apartments. It was an isolated place in the midst of the city. He looked down the road and saw nothing; glancing up, he saw, where the road curved out of sight, a small bulge of green and a bench.
“That’s it,” he muttered aloud. He began to trudge toward it. The sun was brutal. Bonner did not like this uphill walking in the heat. His anger bubbled up again like heartburn, and he told himself again that he’d really let them have it for calling him in again so soon. They’d had a deal! Well, he’d give them an earful. He rehearsed the sullen speech he had been making up during the long taxi ride.
The sounds of the city came up to him—motorcycles, horns, a couple of women shouting. The view opened wider as he walked; he could see the palace, the Castel’ dell’ Uovo, then the bay and the carrier riding out there at anchor. A civilian ferry was tied up next to it, taking on more liberty personnel. It looked like a toy next to the ship.
He walked on, sweating, hating this part of it, which always upset him and made his gut surge. He’d have a bad night, he was sure, up all the time with the crud. Nerves. He was breathing heavily, too, from the climb. At last he came to the bench, and he stood there, and up ahead about fifty yards he saw a car pulled over. The door opened and a man got out.
Bonner sat on the bench. There was a green metal railing around the little grassy bulge in the road. It was a wonderful viewpoint. He could see the carrier, Vesuvius, the castle, half the city, rolled out from his feet like a figured carpet. It was a great vantage point. But frankly, Bonner wouldn’t give you the sweat off one ball for the greatest vantage point in the world.
He turned and looked at the man. He didn’t try to hide his surprise. “Carl!” he muttered.
“A long time, Sheldon.” The man sat down on the bench. He was small, nondescript wore glasses that were only glasses and had no style. He was the only man in the world who called him “Sheldon.” His courtesy seemed based on a respect that was, itself, almost more valuable to Bonner than money. No one called him “Sheldon.”
“I didn’t know it would be you, Carl.” Already, he was apologizing, nervous; they always managed to do this to him, even though they must have had lots more to be nervous about than he did. How did they do that? It threw him off, to have Carl there. He had thought it would be some stranger.
“Please accept my apology for interrupting your liberty this way, Sheldon. I know how unfair it seems to you.”
“Oh, hey—that’s okay, Carl—” He had his speech rehearsed, even down to an explosion of anger. Now here Carl was, a really important man, apologizing for the whole thing.
“I wouldn’t call you out except for something very important, Sheldon. I want you to believe that.” Carl bent a little forward, his voice urgent. He was wearing warmups and a light nylon jacket and kept his right hand in the jacket pocket, but Sheldon didn’t think anything about that, because Carl was the man who had recruited him and was a very high official and must have dozens of people to do dirty work if there was any to be done. Carl, in fact, was one of the two people in the world whom Bonner trusted. The other was his son.
“There have been some changes,” the man called Carl said. He spoke in a flat, Americanized accent without any trace of his origins. “I have made a change. And so I wanted to share this with you and see if the change fits into your strategies. To see whether you would say yes or no to this change.”
“What kind of change?” Bonner hated change.
“You see, Sheldon, we had a problem. A structural problem. I know, you see, that you feel you have not been paid well. I was trying to find money for you, I mean the kind of money that you deserve, in a place where there was no money to be had. What I mean is, there is no money there any more. I am not immune to money myself.” He smiled, as if this humanizing trait were a source of wonder. “I wasn’t being paid enough, either, my friend. There seemed to be an assumption that I would work for love. Of what, I ask you? History? A corrupt system? It seemed to me contradictory that they impose the ‘free-market economy’ and then ask me to do without. So—”He turned more toward Bonner, his right hand still deep in his pocket. “I’ve changed employers, Sheldon. I want you to come with me.” He smiled. “I’m afraid I must have a yes or no today.”
“Changed to who?”
“Who has money?”
Bonner looked into his eyes. “The ragheads,” he said. “Or the Japs, but you wouldn’t go there. The ragheads?”
“They’re very excited about you coming with me. ‘What can you bring?’ they asked me. I told them, some of my stars, like you. You most of all—my star of stars. My best!”
Bonner grinned, but his gut was churning. A change would mean relearning everything, he was sure. New people, new codes, all that shit he hardly understood as it was. “I dunno,” he said.
“I hope you say yes,” Carl murmured.
“Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t you, Carl. You’re the best, you’ve never let me down. But jeez, this last two years—” Bonner made a face. Carl was the very one he had wanted to complain to, and now here he was and Bonner was tongue-tied. He tried to stare at the castle so he wouldn’t see Carl’s eyes, and he said quickly, “I think somebody’s been skimming my money. There just hasn’t been enough!” Bonner jerked his shoulders, then his head. He made a futile gesture with his left hand, the hand closest to Carl. He laughed nervously, then tried to rush at the prepared anger. “They’re nickel-and-diming me, I can’t live on what I’m getting! It’s insulting, is what it is. I’m taking the risk and they’re paying me like minimum wage, like I’m bringing them goddam burgers or something instead of what I am.” He had begun to stammer and he stopped, leaned back into the hard wood of the bench. He rubbed his forehead. “My taxes on my house are more than they paid me last year all put together. I told the guy in Norfolk, the pudgy guy, I need some things. They may not mean much to you; to me, they’re important. I need a new boat. He as good as said I’d get one. Then, nothing!” He had actually worked himself up this time, and he let the anger burst out. “They’re cheating me!”
“I’m glad we’re having this talk, Sheldon.”
“I think they’re skimming my money, taking a lot for themselves. Can we go over the figures for last year? You may not know what—”
Carl held up a hand. “Precisely why I’m here, Shel. The very changes that I’m talking about! I can’t tell you how glad I am to have this frank talk with you. It’s exactly what I wanted.”
They both looked up and down the road. Bonner then looked over his shoulder at the wall across the pavement. It was a well-chosen spot. They could see anybody coming a long way away; the car was nearby, and he supposed there were other watchers; and if they had to, they could go over the railing and down the hill in front of them. It was steep but not impossible and would lead to a maze of streets.
“This is a good place,” Bonner said.
“I told my new employers what you did fourteen months ago. They were very excited. ‘We must have him, we must have this man.’ They’ll pay.”
“Ragheads?”
“Iran.”
“Oil money.” Bonner made a face. “The money’d have to be good. My expenses are enormous, Carl. I can’t be nickel-and-dimed!”
“Precisely my point.”
“How much?”
“They’ll raise the regular amount to a thousand a month. But they are a different people from you and me. You must not be put off, Shel, if now and then their requests seem a little … quirky. The thing is, you know, they want to know everything and they don’t know anything at all! For example, they asked me to get from you the liberty ports of your ship.”
“For Christ’s sake, it was in the fucking newspaper!”
Carl laughed. “But they don’t know that! Humor them.”
“They don’t sound very professional.”
“We will train them. And they will pay. Good money. They like to pay per delivery, bigger sums but for achievement. They are motivators.” He leaned forward. “Yes or no, Sheldon?”
“I need big bucks, Carl. I’m in debt.”
“I can get you twenty-five thousand for something good. They want to pay you that kind of money, believe me; they’re dripping with oil, they like paying for quality. Persians are like that.”
“I haven’t got anything right now. We agreed, I’d lay low for a year! Christ, I risked my balls getting the IFF for you. And then your people nickel-and-dimed me. Why didn’t you jump when you had the IFF?” IFF: identify friend or foe. It had taken him weeks to steal, and it had represented a new level of treason, a line being crossed.
“We think alike. No wonder I like you, Sheldon. As it happens, I brought the IFF out with me. I never turned it over in Moscow. It’s what I’m taking to Tehran. My bona fides.”
“Did you tell them I was the one delivered it?”
Carl nodded.
“They oughta pay me a bonus.”
“They don’t think that way.” He smiled. “But I do. There’ll be a little gift for you in your account this month. Out of my personal money.”
“You don’t have to do that—!”
“I insist. But I must have your answer. Yes or no?”
Bonner looked at the castle, not seeing it, thinking only of himself and his grievances and his money. Money. Well, if Carl could get him more money—”Sure, why not?”
Carl smiled. “I am so glad.”
“Let’s talk about the money.”
“Good! Money.” Carl relaxed. Bonner was flattered that his agreement seemed to mean so much to this important man. Carl’s hand came a little out of his pocket. “I want to give you more money, my friend. Because you have done such good work. Now, I’ve told my—our—new employers that you must have more money or they’ll lose you. But they would like something from you soon—a sign, a gesture. A commitment. Later, there will be something else. We will come to that. But for now, the short term, they think you can help them. What have you got? Unique to Iran, I mean.”
This was new to Bonner. He didn’t normally work in this way, being asked for specific things, right now; rather, he specialized in technology—not news but plans, models, parts, all things that took time. This new approach made him uneasy. “There’s scuttlebutt we’re on a joint ops with another carrier, it’s up in Palma right now. We’re going through the Canal first, to Mombasa then Bahrain. They follow in a month, then the word is we’ll hit somebody. Some guys say Iran, revenge for that bomb in the German club.”
“Yes? That’s good. That’s what they like. Can you confirm that?”
He shook his head. “I know the A-6 squadron’s doing low-levels because I heard the pilots talk. Plus they’re doing refueling with S-3s from the other carrier. So, you know, we could be way down the Gulf and still hit Iran.”
“Or Iraq.”
“Yeah, but there’s no reason. Iran, everybody says we owe them one. For the German club.” He wriggled on the bench. “Frankly, Carl, I think we owe the fucking ragheads one for that. That could’ve been me, sitting in that club when they bombed it.”
“So, one A-6 squadron and refueling from the other carrier. And?”
“Cover, that’s all. It’s small.”
“A surgical strike, then. You don’t know where. But you will know—won’t you, Sheldon?”
“I—I—That’s not my—modus operandi. I don’t like that shit. I’m a specialist.”
“But, for once, I think we must work this way. The Iranians want a gesture. Between you and me, they would like to test the IFF before they surprise your Navy with it—specifically, they want to test using the IFF to target missiles. We have given them the system; they have the technology; what they will need is the frequency.”
“We change it all the time.”
“I know.” Carl joined his hands. “But if you put a prearranged frequency into the aircraft, and the Iranians targeted their missiles for that frequency, then they should be able to shoot down the aircraft. Shouldn’t they?”
His face became stubborn. “It wouldn’t work.”
“I insist it would.”
Sheldon turned his head toward Carl, daring him to contradict, angry again. “The first thing they’re airborne, they make a test pass and flash IFF. If you put in a different frequency they go negative and they abort. Great idea! A whole squadron makes one pass around the carrier and lands. Brilliant.”
Carl’s face darkened and his hand slipped back into his pocket. “Think of something, then, Sheldon. Your future depends on it.”
“What the hell!”
Carl shrugged. “They want results.”
“They’re Nazis. Fucking lot of Nazis!”
Carl merely looked at him. “Think of something.”
Bonner looked up and down the road. It would be almost a relief to have some NCIS goon walk in on them. No, it wouldn’t. It would be the end of everything. Carl, he knew, was his only chance to make it big.
“One aircraft,” he said. “One aircraft, you might get away with it. Some of these hotshots, they’ll lie when they test the IFF, because they don’t want to scrub. Especially a real mission. Some of these guys piss themselves they’re so hot to go. Like—” He was thinking fast. “The skipper of the A-6 squadron. A fucking kamikaze. He wouldn’t abort if the wings fell off his fucking aircraft.” He shifted, began to get interested. “And if it was only one, see, they wouldn’t trace it back to whoever put the codes in. A whole squadron, Christ, they’d know in three seconds it had to be something like the IFF, even if you could get around the test run. They’d put every sonofabitch who has access to the aircraft on a polygraph. Or they wouldn’t even have to. They got us all on lists, computers. Big Brother is watching.”
“Can you do it?”
“Me! Get some other sucker.” Bonner folded his arms. “That’s not my specialty. I’ve never done stuff.”
“Can’t you do it?” Carl’s voice was soft and pleading, almost feminine. “Sheldon, I need you to do it. Only this once.”
Bonner started to whine again. “I’d have to find out which plane he’s gonna fly, and that can be tricky; then I gotta get at the plane, but I gotta nick the gun that inserts the codes and reset it. It’s too much!”
“Twenty-five thousand dollars.”
“I’m not a saboteur! I’m a—a—” He shrank into himself. “Specialist.”
“I need you to do this for me, Sheldon. For both of us. The Iranians will be charmed to shoot down the CO of an attack squadron. They will love us! We will have years and years with them, Shel.”
