“But that’s just my opinion,” Hennessey continued after pausing for a moment to let Clyde savor that last image. “As far as a lot of other people are concerned, it would be a fine thing if those Iraqis got out of Dodge with their Antonov and relieved us of a great threat—and a greater embarrassment.” Hennessey’s voice became muffled for a few minutes as he conferred with one of his agents. Clyde thought about what Hennessey had just said and realized for the first time that this entire situation might never be brought to light—that Jonathan Town might never get to write his scoop for the Des Moines Register, and that the people responsible for this mess in Washington might get out of it with absolutely no damage to their careers.
“Good news, Clyde, and whoever’s listening on the other extension,” Hennessey finally said. “The pilot worked out some course calculations for that Antonov. We know the approximate range of the plane. So we can say with certainty that if he’s going to get that sucker to Baghdad by the great circle route, he’s got to refuel somewhere in the North Atlantic, most likely in Iceland. So there’s a solution that works for everyone. They fly the shit out of the country. They run low on fuel, and we wait for them to land in some godforsaken place rather than shooting them down, which would blow our alliance with the Soviets to little bits. And we nail them there.”
“So you want me to do nothing,” Clyde said.
“Hell, Clyde, you’ve already done a hell of a lot. You broke the goddamn case. It’s just that Washington took too long to wake up. If you do anything now, you’re putting half the Midwest at risk.”
“I understand.”
“Over and out, Clyde. I’ll talk to you later.” And the connection went dead.
Fazoul came in from the other room. “I would like to be on that airplane,” he said, “so that I can personally ensure that I do not lose another family in the way I lost my first one. Will you give me a ride to the airport?”
“Hell,” Clyde said, “if all Saddam wanted to do was rile up the Israelis, he wouldn’t have had to make such a large amount of the stuff. So I was just thinking I owe it to my wife to go to the airport myself and see what’s what.”
The ice was now covered with a thin but growing layer of dry, floury snow that made it even slicker, like dancing powder on a polished ballroom floor. Clyde put the chains on the unit’s rear tires and set out for the airport with Fazoul riding shotgun.
Conditions were terrible, and Clyde spent most of the time steering into whatever direction he happened to be skidding. He hit two different parked cars in the space of as many blocks but kept going, reasoning that if he was still alive tomorrow, filling out the accident reports would be a pleasure to be savored.
Interstate 45 had been closed. Semitrailer rigs had begun to stack up in the vast parking lots of the Star-Spangled Truck Stop, engines idling, lights and TV sets glowing inside their cabs. The enterprise was made up of several modules: a motel, a restaurant, a filling station, a truck wash, a convenience store. Clyde pulled up in front of the convenience store, set the parking brake, and went inside.
“Merry Christmas, Clyde,” said Marie, the cashier, who, like Clyde, always seemed to pull the worst shifts.
“Merry Christmas, Marie,” Clyde said. He pulled out his credit card and slapped it down on the counter.
“What can I get for you?”
“Cigarettes.”
Marie frowned. “I didn’t think you smoked.”
“Don’t.”
“Well, how many cigarettes you want?”
“All of ’em,” Clyde said.
He followed the section-line roads down to the airport. Visibility was poor, but when they got to within half a mile of the airport, they could dimly make out Perestroika’s fuselage, which created a hump in the skyline like a distant bluff, its tail thrusting to a height that exceeded most of the buildings in the twin cities.
“What are you thinking?” Clyde said.
“With all due respect to you and your fine country,” Fazoul said, “your government’s performance in this affair has not been such as to command my respect. There are many things that could prevent Hennessey’s plan from working. What if the Iraqis claim they have hidden a container of the toxin somewhere in a major city and threaten to blow it up, or dump it into the water supply? The President will let them have all the fuel they want in Iceland. He will give them an escort to Baghdad.”
Clyde said nothing. He was not entirely sure that Bush was as lily-livered as Fazoul made him out to be. But he had to agree that healthy skepticism was probably a good policy.
Rather than zeroing in directly on the airport, Clyde orbited halfway around it and came at it from the south, passing directly in front of the bankrupt dairy farm that Buck had mentioned. The detour was not made strictly out of curiosity; it would also enable them to approach the Antonov from an unexpected direction and reduce the chance that they would be noticed.