Gordon Kent - Night Trap

“That doesn’t seem much to me.”

“His best four agents. You know how he liked to brag—keeping a secret and bragging at the same time. Like those note cards he always had in his pocket, writing down the most important things he was doing that day: something a rank beginner would know better than to do. He would brag of something that one of his agents had brought him, then cover his tracks by hiding the nationality or some such. In fact he was deliberately transparent about some things—their jobs, for example. I knew that he’d an agent who was on the maintenance staff at NATO in Brussels, for example. Also somebody in the American military. Those and two others had been set up in this new entity.”

“The others?”

She shook her head. “One I think was a woman. That’s all I can tell at this point in time. If you’d allow me some expert support to go into his computer—”

He shook his head. “Keep it in the house.” He spat into his tissue and looked at the result. “Maybe he’ll turn up. Maybe he’s just sulking someplace. Maybe he’s dead.” The contents of the tissue made him even gloomier. “Maybe it’s we who are dead, hmm? Moscow, the city of the dead? I would have been reprimanded for treason for saying that once. Now, I wish there was somebody to reprimand me.”

He reported to a lieutenant commander in the inboard intel center. Peretz was a slouching, slightly bald man his father’s age who had sick-looking circles under his eyes and a constant air of gloom.

“You Mick Craik’s son?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Siddown, siddown. Your father and I go way back. In fact, the first squadron I served with.” Peretz wore glasses and used them like an academic, looking over the tops or pointing them for emphasis. Now, he pulled them down his nose and stared at Alan. “I understand you fly. ”

“Yes, sir.”

“Gonna stay with it?”

“I want to.”

Peretz made a face, half-grotesque; his gloom was a mask for a sardonic sense of humor, Alan realized. He pushed his glasses up. “What do the flyboys call you?”

“Spy.”

“Could be worse. ‘Dickhead’ is a favorite. You get along?”

“I think so.”

Peretz nodded, a rapid head movement that made his shoulders bob. Looking at his hands, he said, “You know the other battle group found us last night.”

“Oh, shit.”

Peretz looked up at him. His eyes were shrewd and perhaps amused. “Did you do a wide radar sweep just before you made the stack last night?”

Alan flushed. “We weren’t in EMCON.”

“ JFK thought somebody found them last night. They were sure we’d be on them.” He looked up from his fingers. “No report was made.”

“No, sir.”

“You didn’t know you’d flashed them?”

Alan hesitated. Should he protect Rafe? He thought that Peretz was trying to teach him something, that this was between two intel officers, the flyers not part of it. He took a chance. “I caught two bananas south of Pico and ID’d one as the Kennedy . Was I right?”

Peretz nodded. He seemed fascinated by his own fingertips, even sniffed them from time to time. “How come you didn’t give us a blast?”

“Are we in trouble over this?”

“We? You mean, you and your pilot? Naw. This is between Kennedy’s 10 and me and the gatepost.”

“I thought the admiral would be pissed.”

“He is. But you’re too young to feed to an admiral. He wouldn’t get any satisfaction from reaming you out; admirals want commanders or higher.” Peretz grinned at his hands. “A Brit wrote after World War II that flag officers are best thought of as old ladies who need very careful handling.” He raised his eyebrows and glanced at Alan. “Keep it in mind.”

“I didn’t report it because my mission commander—let’s say he ruled the mission was over.”

Peretz swung forward, hands on knees. “Okay. Learning time. You had important information and you didn’t do with it what you’re supposed to. It’s no good saying to yourself it’s his call and he’ll take the heat. You going to do this in a combat situation? You’re an intelligence officer—you have a responsibility. I don’t care how much you like to fly! Information, information! You let us down. You let yourself down.” He leaned back. “And I’d have done the same thing.” He smiled. “You must be pretty good with that TACCO rig, to pick them up like that.”

“It was iffy.”

Peretz nodded. “As a TACCO, next time let the intelligence officer in you decide whether the iffy stuff is worth following up. Okay? End of lecture.” He waved a hand. “Nobody gets in trouble over this one.” He did the same rapid head-nod. “You want to belong. Am I right? You want to be one of the boys. Aviators are a funny lot.” He chuckled. “I coach my daughter’s soccer team. All girls. They taught me a lot about aviators. I began to see aviators completely differently once I learned to look at them as a girls’ soccer team.”

Alan thought he was supposed to laugh, did, felt like a traitor to his mates, and said, “Girls?”

“Yeah. Think about it. Lots of nervous laughter. Very cliquey. Full of insecurity. Always clustering around the most popular girl—that is, the guy with the most clout with the skipper, or the best landing grades. Love gossip. Get in corners and giggle together. Share secrets a lot—snicker, snicker. Try it. It might make you worry less about being an 10.”

He was, Alan thought, a disappointed man who had found a little fantasy to cover his own failure. Granted, being a Jewish 10 would be even harder than being Alan Craik; and he guessed that Peretz came across to flyers as a weird nerd, to boot. Still, the idea of his squadron as a cabal of prepubescent girls had its appeal. He changed the subject by saying, “How do I get back to my ship?”

“You don’t. Not till we hit the first liberty port. They’re cutting orders for you to stay here with me until then.” He saw Alan’s stricken face. “This is important! You’re going to do a lieutenant’s job—learn the joint-ops template and brief it on your boat. You brief the squadron commanders, air wing, ship’s captain, the works. I would have had to pull somebody over here from your boat, otherwise.”

Alan thought of the flying hours missed. That, he realized, was precisely what Peretz had so gently read him out for—thinking more of the flying than his real job.

“Sounds good.” Did he mean that?

He found his father in his squadron’s ready room. His father grabbed him, held on to his arm to keep him from escaping while he explained something to two other officers. They moved into the passage, and then his father continued to carry on brief exchanges with passing men while he talked to Alan. His father seemed to know everybody, so that every few words he was interrupting himself with, “Hey, Jack,” “George, how’re they hanging this morning?” “Smoker, good to see you—” His eyes flicked constantly away from Alan, up and down the passage, as if he were a politician looking for constituents. Perhaps he was; being a squadron commander has its political side.

“So,” he said, “you get some sleep? Hiya, Gomer. ”

“I was wiped.”

“ Bill . I hear you’re going to be here a few days. Kincaid, I want a report on Florio’s mother—if it’s cancer, give him compassionate. Yeah, today . You meet B ernie Peretz?”

“Yeah, I—”

“ Hey, Deek, stand by, man, I need to talk to you . What’ja think?”

“I liked him.”

“You did. Hey, Mac . Yeah, Bernie’s an okay guy. Uh—he’s getting out, you know.” His father said that in a faint tone of warning, meaning—what? That he shouldn’t take Peretz too seriously? Shouldn’t use him as a model?