TWENTY-SIX
The helicopters painted with Libyan military colors swarmed out of the empty wastes of the southern desert like enraged wasps. Four of the five Russian-made choppers were done in mottled earth-toned camouflage, while the other wore the drab gray of the Libyan Navy.
In his fifteen years with the CIA, Jim Kublicki never thought he would be an observer on a Libyan helo assault of a terrorist base camp. Ambassador Moon had arranged his presence on the attack with Minister Ghami personally. On the surface, the new level of cooperation out of Tripoli was amazing, but both Moon and Kublicki harbored their doubts. The chief among them was the result of the eyes-only report that had been delivered from Langley. Kublicki had no idea how operatives had penetrated Libyan airspace during the height of the search for the Secretary of State’s plane, but somehow they had. The evidence they found led to the only conclusion possible: Her plane had been forced down before the crash—presumably, to remove the Secretary herself. Then the Boeing was intentionally slammed into a mountaintop.
The report also documented how a team of men in a chopper had landed at the crash site and deliberately tampered with the scene. The exact words from the document were “they tore through the wreckage like a twister through a trailer park.”
The team from the National Transportation Safety Board had issued a secret and still-preliminary report backing up what Langley had said. Despite the best efforts of the terrorists, there were inconsistencies in the wreckage that could not be easily explained. When Moon had met with David Jewison of the NTSB and outlined the CIA report, he’d nodded, and said it was quite possible the plane had landed briefly before the crash.
When Kublicki had arrived at a remote air base outside of Tripoli where they were staging the assault, he’d met with the operation’s leader, a Special Forces colonel named Hassad. He’d explained that the Libyan desert was dotted with hundreds of old training bases left over from the days when his government had allowed them sanctuary. In the few years since the government renounced terrorism, he and his men had destroyed most of the ones they knew of, but he admitted there were dozens more they did not.
Hassad sat in the right-hand seat next to their pilot, while Kublicki crammed his six-foot six-inch frame into a folding jump seat immediately behind the cockpit. There was only a handful of men in the rear section of the utility chopper. The bulk of the assault force was in the other helicopters.
The Libyan colonel clamped a hand over his helmet’s boom mic and leaned back. He had to raise his voice over the whopping thrum of the rotor blades. “We’re landing in about a minute.”
Kublicki was a little taken aback. “What? I thought we were going in after the assault.”
“I don’t know about you, Mr. Kublicki, but I want a piece of these people for myself.” Hassad shot him a wolfish grin.
“I’m with you there, Colonel, but the uniform you lent me didn’t come with a weapon.”
The Libyan officer unsnapped the pistol at his waist and handed it over butt first. “Just make sure that me giving you a sidearm doesn’t make it into your report.”
Kublicki smiled conspiratorially and popped the pistol’s magazine to assure himself it was loaded. The narrow slit along the mag’s length showed thirteen shiny brass cartridges. He rammed the clip home but wouldn’t cock the pistol until they were on the ground.
From his low vantage strapped in behind the cockpit, Kublicki couldn’t see through the windshield but knew they were about to land when his view of the sky was blocked by dust kicked up by the helicopter’s powerful rotor wash. He hadn’t been in a combat situation since the first Gulf War, but the combination of fear and exhilaration was a sensation he would never forget.
The craft settled on the ground, and Kublicki whipped off his safety belts. When he stood to peer over Hassad’s shoulder, he saw the terrorist camp a good hundred yards away. Men in checkered kaffiyehs, brandishing AK-47s, were running toward them with abandon. He saw no sign of the soldiers from the other choppers in pursuit.
Fear began to wash away the exhilaration.
Hassad threw open his door and swung to the ground. He vanished from sight for a moment, and then the chopper’s side door slammed back on its roller stop.
Kublicki blinked at the bright light flooding the hold.
The two men stared at each other for what to Kublicki felt like a long time but was only a few seconds. A current of understanding passed between them. The veteran CIA agent cocked the pistol and aimed it at the Libyan in one smooth motion. What had sounded like cries of fear from the gathering terrorists was actually exaltation, and it rose from a hundred throats.
Kublicki pulled the trigger four times before he realized the weapon hadn’t fired. A gun barrel was jammed into his spine, and he sat frozen as Hassad reached across and yanked the pistol from his hand. “No firing pin.” He repeated the phrase in Arabic, and the group of terrorists laughed in approval.
In the last seconds of life Jim Kublicki had remaining, he promised himself he wouldn’t go down without a fight. Ignoring the assault rifle pressed to his back, he launched himself out of the chopper, his hands going for Hassad’s throat. To his credit, he got within a few inches of his target before the gunman behind him opened fire. A one-second-long burst from the AK stitched his back from kidney to shoulder blade. The kinetic energy drove him to the ground at Hassan’s feet. The Libyan stood over him in the stunned silence that followed the attack. Rather than salute a valiant foe who’d fallen into an impossible ambush, Hassad spat on the corpse, turned on his heal, and walked away.
He found the camp commander, Abdullah, outside his tent. The two men greeted each other warmly. Hassad cut through the polite period of small talk that was so much a part of Muslim life and struck to the heart of the matter.
“Tell me of the escapees.”
The two men were of similar rank within Al-Jama’s terror cell, but Hassan had the more forceful personality.
“We got them.”
“All of them? Ah, yes, I heard you were going to blow up the bridge. It worked, eh?”
“No,” Abdullah said. “They got past. But they were going so fast when they hit the end of the dock that they sailed off the end.”
“Someone saw this happen?”
“No, but it was only fifteen or so minutes after they cleared the bridge that our chopper reached the old coaling station. There was no sign of the prisoners on the quay, so they didn’t get off, and they spotted the boxcar about two hundred yards from shore. Only the roof was above water, and it sank completely as they watched.”
“Excellent.” Hassad clapped him on the shoulder. “The Imam, peace be upon him, won’t be pleased he couldn’t witness our former Foreign Minister’s death, but he will be relieved the escape was foiled.”
“There is one thing,” Abdullah said. “The reports from my men aren’t precise, but it appears the prisoners might have had help.”
“Help?”
“A single truck, carrying several men and perhaps a woman, attacked the camp at the same time the prisoners were starting to make their break.”
“Who were these people?”
“No idea.”
“Their vehicle?”
“Presumably, it sank with the boxcar. Like I said, the eyewitness accounts come from some of our rawest recruits, and it’s possible they mistook one of our own trucks for another in their enthusiasm.”
Hassad chuckled humorlessly. “I’m sure some of these kids see Mossad agents behind every rock and hill.”
“After tomorrow’s attack, when we move from here to our new base in the Sudan, at least half of them are going to be left behind. Those who show promise will come with us. The rest aren’t worth the effort.”
“Recruiting numbers has never been our problem. Recruiting quality, well, that is something else. Speaking of . . .”
“Ah, yes.”
Abdullah said a few words to a hovering aide. A moment later, the subaltern came back with anot
her of their men. Gone were the dust-caked and tattered camouflage utilities and sweaty headscarf. The man wore a new black uniform, with the cuffs of his pants bloused into glossy boots. His hair was neatly barbered and his face was carefully shaved. The leatherwork of his pistol belt shone brightly from hours of careful cleaning, and the rank pips on his shoulders glinted like gold.
While the recruits trained with AK-47s that had knocked around the terrorist world since before many of the them had been born, the weapon this man carried at port arms was brand-new. There wasn’t a scratch on the receiver or a nick in the polished wooden stock.
“Your credentials,” Hassad barked.
The man shouldered his rifle smartly, and from a pocket on his upper arm produced a leather billfold. He snapped it open for inspection. Hassad looked at it carefully. The military identification had been made in the same office that produced the real ones by a sympathizer to the cause. Libya’s military was riddled with them at every level, which was how they’d gotten the helicopters for today’s operation and the Hind gunship they had used to disable Fiona Katamora’s aircraft.
Opposite the ID was a pass authorizing the bearer to work the security detail for tomorrow’s peace summit. It had been deemed too risky to try to get them from the issuing office, so these had been forged here at the camp. Hassad had friends in the Army who would be at the conference as part of the massive security force, and he’d studied their passes. What he saw before him was a flawless copy.
He handed back the papers, and asked, “What do you expect tomorrow?”
“To be martyred in the name of Islam and Suleiman Al-Jama.”
“Do you believe you are worthy of such an honor?”
The answer was a moment in coming. “It is enough for me that the Imam believes I am worthy.”
“Well said,” Hassad remarked. “You and your compatriots are going to strike a blow against the West that will take them years to recover from, if ever. Imam Al-Jama has decreed they will no longer be allowed to dictate to us how we should live our lives. The corruption they spread with their television and movies, their music, and their democracy, will no longer be allowed. Soon we will see the beginning of the end for them. They will finally understand their way of life is not for us, and that it is Islam that will take over the world. This is the honor of which Al-Jama believes you are worthy.”
“I will not let him down,” the terrorist said, his voice firm, his eyes steady.
“You are dismissed,” Hassad said, and turned back to Abdullah. “Very well done, my old friend.”
“The military training was relatively easy,” the commander said. “Keeping them true to the cause without making them appear like wild-eyed fanatics was the difficult part.”
Both men knew that countless suicide attacks had been thwarted because the perpetrators looked so nervous and out of place that even untrained civilians knew what was about to occur. And the fifty men they were sending to Tripoli today would be surrounded by legitimate security forces on full alert for the very type of attack they were attempting. They had culled through hundreds of recruits from training camps and madrasas all over the Middle East to find the right men.
Hassad glanced at his watch. “In eighteen hours, it will be over. The American Secretary of State will be dead, and the palace hall will be awash in blood. The tide of peace will once again be pushed back, and in its absence we will continue to spread our way of life.”
“As the original Suleiman Al-Jama wrote, ‘When in the struggle to keep our faith from corruption we find our will slacking, our resolve waning, our strength ebbing, we must, at that moment, make the supreme effort, and the supreme sacrifice if necessary, to show our enemies that we will never be defeated.’ ”
“I prefer another line, ‘They who do not submit to Islam are an affront to Allah and worthy only of our bullets.’ ”
“Soon they shall have them.”
“Now, why don’t you introduce me to the American woman. I have a little time before she needs to board the frigate for her date with destiny, but I would like to gaze upon her.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
Cabrillo’s hope for a long bath fillowing his return to the Oregon was not meant to be. He allowed himself a quick shower only after all the prisoners had been made as comfortable as possible in the hold. He had been introduced to Libya’s ex-Foreign Minister by Fodl, who’d been his deputy. As it was nearing noon, Juan had shown him in which direction Mecca lay relative to the ship so they could all pray for the first time since their incarceration.
He was dressing when Max Hanley knocked on his cabin door and entered without waiting. In tow were Eric Stone and Mark Murphy, who still wore his filthy uniform.
On seeing Cabrillo, he said, “Man, that is totally not fair.”
“Privilege of rank,” Juan replied airily, and finished tying a pair of black combat boots. “What do you have for me?”
“They apparently bought the trick with the sinking railcar,” Max said. “They sent out a chopper to investigate about fifteen minutes after you boarded. Mark’s time estimation of it sinking was spot-on. They must have seen it seconds before it went under.”
Eric cut in. “Then I swung the UAV back over the terrorist camp. Because of the altitude I had to maintain so they wouldn’t hear it, the camera’s resolution wasn’t the best, but we have a pretty good idea of what was happening.”
“And?”
“You were right,” Max replied. “The flight of Libyan military choppers landed with no opposition. It looks like there were only a few men aboard any of them.”
“Sounds like transport back out to me,” Juan guessed.
“That’s our read, too,” Eric replied. “They’re going to be moving more men than they can carry in that old Mi-8 you flew on from the crash scene.”
“What’s the capacity of the choppers?”
“Fifty at least.”
“Hell of an assault force.”
Mark said, “The target has to be the peace conference.”
Eric Stone shook his head. “Never happen. The security is impenetrable. There is no way a terrorist is going to get within a mile of a single dignitary.”
“They would if the Libyan government’s in on it,” Max countered.
“That’s the million-dollar question. If Minister Ghami is Suleiman Al-Jama, does Qaddafi know it?”
“How could he not? He appointed him.”
“Okay, say he does, Max. That still doesn’t mean he knows what Al-Jama is planning.”
“What difference does it make?” Hanley asked.
“Maybe none, but it’s something we need to know.”
“And how do we find out?”
“I’ll get to that in a minute. Mark, is there any chance we can take out those choppers?”
“We’d need to launch another UAV,” Eric said before Mark could answer. “The first drone’s out of fuel, and I had to ditch it. Though not before taking this.”
He handed Juan a grainy still photograph from the drone’s video camera. Details were murky to say the least, but it looked like two armed men escorting a third person toward one of the helicopters.
“Is that Secretary Katamora?”
“Possibly. Factoring the height of a typical Libyan male and comparing the middle figure to them, the height is right, and the build certainly fits. The person’s head is covered so we can’t see hair, which would have been a dead giveaway—hers flows to the middle of her back.”
“Best guess?”
“It’s her, and by the time we turn around she’s going to be long gone.”
Juan frowned. He’d made a conscious decision to save the Libyan prisoners rather than wait out the terrorists. The balance of one life versus one hundred tipped the same way no matter who sat on the scales. But being so close and not getting her irked. “Okay, what about taking out the other choppers?” he said to get the meeting back on course, his eyes lingering on the picture.
“We could laze them from
the second UAV so I can guarantee a missile hit, but we have to consider collateral damage if Secretary Katamora’s there.”
“Options?”
“Nail the choppers in flight if they come out over the ocean. But, again, we risk her life if she’s a hostage aboard one of them.”
“They’ll stick to the desert anyway,” Eric said.
Max cleared his throat. “Listen, why not pass on what we know to Overholt and let him tell the other delegates about the possibility of a massive attack?”
“We’ll tell Lang,” Juan replied, “but I don’t want that information disseminated.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Two reasons. One, if they know the attack is coming, they will call off the conference, and the chance to get these people in a room talking peace again is zilch. The conference has to proceed. Second, we have nothing concrete linking Ghami to Al-Jama. This is our one and only chance to expose him and his entire operation.”
“You’re risking a lot of important lives.”
“Mine, for one,” Mark said.
“I admit it’s the biggest toss of the dice we’ve ever attempted, but I know it’s worth it. Overholt will agree. He understands that if we can nail Al-Jama on the eve of the peace conference, it will give it such a boost that the delegates are certain to hammer out a comprehensive and lasting treaty. In one blow, we take out the second-most-wanted terrorist on the planet and guarantee lasting peace.”
“Boy, Juan. I’m not sure. The prize is awesome, yes. But the price, you know . . .”
“Trust me.”
Still uncertain, but never one to doubt the Chairman, Max asked, “So how is this going to work?”
“In a minute.” He turned his attention to Murph and Stoney. “What did you two come up with?”
“There’s not a whole lot out there that doesn’t fall into the realm of fantasy.”
“Hold it,” Max interrupted. “What did you have them research?”
“Alana said there might be something called the Jewel of Jerusalem stashed in the original Suleiman Al-Jama’s tomb. She was told about it by St. Julian Purlmutter. Even he wasn’t sure what it was. What did you guys find?”