Gordon Kent - Night Trap

“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.”