James Huston - Fallout

“So this is where your officers gather,” Khan commented, surveying the room.

“We have meetings in here, some instruction, some briefs, and this is also where the duty officer has the radio if you need to talk to us while you’re in the air.”

“Very well organized. I commend you,” Khan said.

“It’s pretty much like any other Navy squadron,” Stamp replied. “You speak English very well. You study abroad?”

“No. Only in Pakistan,” Khan answered. “It is the language of much business and is spoken by government officials often. Most also speak Urdu, of course.” Khan nodded to Hayes, then turned to Luke. “We have much to discuss. I’m disappointed in the syllabus, and I would like to talk about it.”

“Um, sure,” Luke replied, trying to ignore Khan’s tone. “Anytime. We need to start tomorrow at 0730. You think you can be ready to go by then?”

“As I said , we’re ready now. We will be here at 0730 tomorrow to start our class. I will be here at 0600 to discuss the syllabus with you.”

“No need to be here that early.”

“You said anytime.” Khan’s eyes were dark and menacing. “So 0600. We won’t be disturbed.”

Luke stared back at Khan. “Sure. See you then.”

Khan nodded and headed out of the room. Luke watched him go, and without taking his eyes off Khan said to the other instructors in the squadron, “I want you all here way before 0600.”

They exchanged knowing looks of dread.

“What an asshole,” Crumb muttered. “He’s going to be trouble. You heard it here first. He’s trouble.”

The salesman was wearing a tie. He was the only salesman who did, and he was sure it gave him an advantage. Customers liked dealing with someone who appeared organized and together. Someone who took care of himself. That was one of the reasons he’d received salesman of the month once last year.

He eagerly approached the dark, bearded man looking at commercial trucks. “Good morning!” he said. “Can I help you?”

The bearded man didn’t even look at him. “How much will this truck hold?”

“Well, now that there is the 650 commercial truck. It holds a hell of a lot. But what were you planning on carrying?” he asked, wondering whether this foreigner was a serious buyer. It was common to get walk-up traffic for the light trucks, the F-150s or F-250s, but not for commercial trucks. Foreigners thought differently, though, and he was accustomed to dealing with foreigners. The entire Bay Area was like the UN, and the South Bay was crowded with companies where there wasn’t one native English-speaking person. “Where are you from?” he asked, curious.

“Here. I live in Sunnyvale. I am a programmer,” he replied.

“No, I meant originally. Sounds like you’re kind of new here. Where’d you come here from?”

“Khartoum,” the foreigner lied, knowing there was no chance the salesman knew where that was.

“Wow,” the salesman said, having no idea where that was. “Sounds far.”

The foreigner was inspecting the back of the truck. “How much is the truck?”

The salesman looked at him, wondering if he was actually considering a purchase. “Well, this here is the XLT, one-hundred-ninety-four-inch wheel base. We can talk about it, but the sticker is forty-three thousand dollars and change.”

“How much can it carry?”

“About nineteen thousand pounds. What you planning on hauling?”

“I will give you forty thousand dollars, cash.”

The salesman had seen a cash purchase before. In fact, several times. But never for a commercial truck. “Um, let me check with my manager on the price. Cash, you say?”

“Yes.”

“We have to fill out a form for a cash transaction over ten thousand dollars, you know.”

The man was unmoved. He said nothing.

“Okay. I’ll be right back. Um, can I see your driver’s license?”

The man showed him a current California driver’s license.

“You do software, did you say?”

“Yes.”

“Great. I’ll be right back.”

Luke was tired from so many early mornings in a row, but because it was the first day he bounded up the ladder to the second deck of the hangar to meet with the others. It was 0530. Hayes and Stamp were in the back of the ready room trying to coax cups of coffee out of the coffeepot while it dripped. Thud sat in one of the ready-room chairs rubbing his eyes. “Morning,” Luke said as he walked in. “How is everybody on this fine morning of the first-ever class at the Nevada Fighter Weapons School?”

“Fine,” Stamp said dourly.

“So why isn’t everyone happy?” Luke asked, truly perplexed by their expressions.

“Two reasons,” Thud replied. “We don’t want to be here at five-thirty in the morning, and this Pakistani guy is already a pain in the ass.”

“Cultural differences,” Luke said, not believing it for a second.

Thud and Hayes exchanged a glance. “Maybe,” Hayes said.

“He said he had a concern about the syllabus. I have no idea what his problem with it is, though, but my real question, and the reason I wanted to talk to you guys, is to see whether we should discuss it with him at all.”

Stamp took a sip from his coffee. “If we start opening up the syllabus, then every student or squadron that comes through will want to customize it. I’m not sure we want to get into that.”

Luke said, “It might make sense. It would be a good marketing tool. There are a lot of things we could spend more time on.”

Thud frowned.

Hayes stood up and moved toward the coffeepot, waiting for the last bit to drip. He pulled it out, filled his cup, and spoke to Luke. “I’m not too worried about his syllabus problems. I’m more worried about him.”

Luke was surprised by Hayes’s position. “You don’t even know him.” Then he remembered that Hayes had recognized the name as the same as some Pakistani intelligence official’s. “Did you tie him to that intelligence group?”

Hayes shook his head. “No. I’m worried about the way this whole thing has come together. We don’t know this guy from Adam. We have no idea who these pilots are, other than that they’re Pakistani,” Hayes said. “I pulled their clearance documents this morning and looked at them again. They have everything they should have, and they’ve been reviewed and approved by the Undersecretary himself .” He looked at the other three officers waiting for a response. There wasn’t any. “Don’t you guys think it’s a little unusual that the Undersecretary of Defense signs off on a foreign pilot’s clearance? You think he actually checked out these guys himself? I’m sure he took whatever Pakistan gave him as the final word.”

“He’s not going to just let anybody come here. Look, Brian, I appreciate your thoughts, but we’re not really here to start second-guessing the Undersecretary. He has that on his shoulders.”

“But it’s our skins that are at risk.”

Stamp didn’t get it. “How? Did you call your brother yet? He tell you something we should know?”

“No. I didn’t want to sound stupid. But that’s what haunts me. I can’t imagine what these guys are up to— if they’re up to something.”

Luke shook his head. “Up to something? Like what? Overpaying us? I just know we have to get this class under way.”

Hayes sensed the coolness of the others. “Have you guys just completely forgotten our history with Pakistan?”

“What history?” Stamp demanded, wishing Hayes would just drop it.

“We gave hundreds of millions of dollars to Pakistan when they were helping us support the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union,” Hayes said. “Pakistan was our best friend,” Hayes said. “They kept the pipeline open and got the money and weapons to the right places. Worked like a champ. We increased our support of the Pakistani military, too, selling them first-rate weapons systems and making them into our big-time South Asia ally. Then, when the Soviet Union pulled out of Afghanistan, we stopped supporting Pakistan, and the money and weapons dried up. But you see, their threat wasn’t the Soviets. Never was. Their threat has always been India. And that threat wasn’t going away. So we get them hooked on American aid and weapons, then cut them off.