Covert Action

by Dick Couch

  “You seem quite intimidated by Miss Brisco, are you not?” Tomba asked.

  “Quite,” Akheem replied. “That lady scares me. I’m just glad she’s on our side—at least, I think she’s on our side.”

  The turbine whine of the two Allison turbofan engines cut short any further conversation. Brisco joined them, and they watched as the aircraft made a tight hundred-eighty-degree turn to bring the rear loading ramp to face the hangar. The aircraft was painted all white, with “Joseph Simpson Jr. Foundation” blocked onto the tail in neat black letters. The pilot cut power to the two engines as the tail ramp began to grind down. Janet Brisco walked under the tail section and called up into the bowels of the aircraft.

  “All right, people, let’s get this aircraft unloaded.”

  In the orderly confusion that followed, the C-130 was quickly emptied. First, two white vans were driven down the loading ramp and into the hangar. They looked like nine-passenger shuttle vans, but there were no windows—just a number of wire antenna whips projecting from the van roofs. Tomba’s men were all dressed as laborers—dark tan trousers and short-sleeved, collared shirts. About half of them wore hard hats; they looked like any work crew at an African airstrip. Two small forklifts charged from the belly of the plane with the first of the palleted equipment. The two machines shuttled loads while the men formed a brigade for bags and small boxes. Some of them were stamped, “Medical Test Equipment—Handle with Care.” In less than forty minutes, the Hercules was unloaded. When the hangar doors were closed, the aircraft began to spool up the four big turbofan engines and crawl back out to the airstrip. It taxied to the main runway, where it hesitated for only a moment before beginning its takeoff roll. The big six-bladed Dowty composite propellers bit into the African night, and the Hercules gathered momentum quickly. Using less than half the allotted runway, it rotated and climbed steeply, banking to the north.

  The inside of the hangar was a hive of activity. Janet Brisco roamed the interior with a clipboard, seeing that everything was staged in accordance with her planning diagram. Two 10kw generators were set up behind the hangar, with thick umbilicals leading inside. Lights on tripod stands were set out to augment the dimly illuminated space. Two of the Africans in the shabby attire of contract security guards lounged about in front of the hangar, seemingly inattentive to their duties. When all was in its assigned place in the hangar, the men recovered their personal bags and began to set up their operational equipment. Two of them began to pry the lids from the weapons and ammunition boxes.

  “This is right out of The Dogs of War,” AKR said with a grin. “To hell with the mission; let’s take Zambia.”

  Janet Brisco scowled at him. They were joined by Tomba, Steven, Dodds LeMaster, Bill Owens, and Mohammed Senagal, who had taken charge of the men in Tomba’s absence.

  “Okay, everyone, we are on time and on schedule. The C-130 is on its way back to Nairobi to refuel and wait for any further tasking. The two Jet Rangers will be here just before dawn to begin ferrying men and equipment to the staging areas.” She looked at her watch. “It’s twenty hundred now. Tomba, I’ll want you, Akheem, and your men ready to move out by zero three forty-five. The final mission briefing will be at zero four hundred. Dodds, I want a full functional test of the vans’ communications and support electronics between now and then. Let me know if there are any problems. Steven, was Benjamin able to make the needed arrangements?”

  “Garrett met with him this afternoon, and all was said to be in order. Garrett will be here for the mission briefing.”

  “And the doctor?”

  “He will not be here. As I understand it, he and Garrett will go forward tomorrow afternoon and wait for the assault element to do their work.”

  Janet nodded, then turned to the small, hickory-skinned man standing next to Tomba. “Are you and the men sufficiently rested to begin tomorrow? They may get a few hours’ sleep tonight, but not much more.”

  The men had flown commercial from Honolulu, taking a variety of flights and connections into Nairobi. There they had rendezvoused with the equipment and the C-130J. Janet noticed that they fell asleep immediately on takeoff and awoke only when the plane touched down. They were like gundogs, able to sleep anywhere and awake immediately.

  “They will be well rested and ready, miss,” Mohammed Senagal replied, meeting her gaze. Senagal had none of the shyness of the other Africans, but then he was a Somali. He was polite, but there was an imperiousness and arrogance about him that was absent in the others. “But thank you for asking.”

  “That’s about it. As we take inventory and test equipment, I will want to know immediately if there are any problems. Thanks, everyone, for all your hard work. And now, Tomba, I’d like a word with you and Akheem.”

  “I will be with you in a moment, Janet,” Tomba said formally.

  He individually greeted each of his men and had a quiet word with Senagal, then joined Janet and AKR in the corner of the hangar. Dodds LeMaster had a pot of coffee brewing on a propane camp stove. There, Janet listened without interruption as Tomba told her about their meeting with Irish near Johannesburg, and what might be waiting for them at the target.

  This was not Pavel Zelinkow’s first trip to Tehran, and each time he found it taxing. On this trip he was Philippe Poulenc, a French expatriate living in Algeria. On his last visit, he had been a French businessman in the olive oil export/import business. This time he was a representative for Bouyges Telecom, a French wireless provider, here to sell digital cell phones to the Iranians. Even though Zelinkow found it too dangerous to live in France, it did not mean that he could not convincingly masquerade as a Frenchman. The beauty of being French, Zelinkow often mused, was that no one took you too seriously. You could appear greedy or ill-mannered or arrogant, and if you were French, it was accepted. His last visit here had been to meet in secret with Imad Mugniyah, the security chief for Hezbollah. The personal security for Mugniyah had been tight, but it would be even tighter for this meeting—tighter and much more discreet.

  The plane was an older A320-200 Airbus operated by Orca-Air, an Egyptian carrier out of Cairo, but it managed to arrive exactly on time that evening. His papers were in perfect order, so he quickly and easily cleared customs. As he stepped out of the building, he was unprepared for the cold, damp wind that swept in from the Elbruz Mountains to the north, still carrying moisture from the Caspian Sea. Tehran was actually farther south than Rome, but the Caspian was not the Mediterranean. There had been no one waiting to pick him up, so Zelinkow approached the first cab in the queue waiting for fares outside Mehrabad Airport. The cabdriver stood holding the door open for him, then quickly slid in behind the wheel.

  “The Shohreh Hotel in Tehran, please,” Zelinkow managed in Farsi, which was far from his best language.

  “With your permission, sir,” the driver replied in very good English, “my instructions are to take you to the city of Chahar Dangeh. It is only about ten kilometers south of here. A private residence there has been reserved for you. It is perhaps not so elegant as the Shohreh, but more private, and hopefully to your satisfaction.”

  Zelinkow was momentarily taken back, but realized that there was now nothing he could do but agree to go. He had always found it safer and less conspicuous to be in a crowded city than in some out-of-the-way place. There were many reasons that a secret, private meeting was better carried off in an urban setting. But Chahar Dangeh was indeed a city, one that passed for an industrial city in Iran. Above all, he could understand why the man he was going to meet might want to stay out of Tehran, and well away from public view.

  It was only ten kilometers, but in the afternoon traffic it took them close to forty minutes to reach the residence, a neat one-bedroom stucco structure, clean and most unremarkable. The cabdriver said he would call for him in an hour and that the meeting would be a dinner meeting. Once inside, Zelinkow locked the door and made a quick inspection of the premises, making sure the back door and windows were closed and lock
ed. He tossed his carry-on bag on the bed and headed for the bath. It was nothing fancy, but it was adequate. Having left Rome very early that morning, he was grateful for the time to shower and shave. The flight from Rome to Cairo and the flight from Cairo to Tehran were both about three hours. With a two-hour layover in Cairo, it made for a long day. His plans had him back in Rome tomorrow evening by way of Istanbul, but first there was the business at hand. The driver returned exactly one hour later, and another short cab ride brought them to a second private residence, albeit a slightly larger one. Zelinkow understood that a man of his international reputation would need to be kept from public view, but in as comfortable a dwelling as possible, subject to security considerations. Indeed there was a $25-million reward on his head. The cabdriver opened the door for Zelinkow but made no move to follow him to the door. It was a neat, above-average home, probably one that could have housed a professional or government worker, but indistinguishable from others on the street. Zelinkow started to knock, but a hard-looking man in traditional Arab dress opened the door. He stepped into a dim interior, thick with cigarette smoke. A man in casual Western attire rose awkwardly from the settee to greet him.

  “Mr. Poulenc. It is very good to make your acquaintance. Thank you for coming such a long way to meet with me.”

  “Not at all,” Zelinkow replied in Arabic. “Thank you for making time for me. It is an honor to finally meet you.”

  The politeness was feigned on both their parts. Neither of these men particularly cared for the other; it was not a personal dislike but a cultural one. Also, each had his own agenda, and each was highly suspicious of the other. They had been thrown together only by necessity. Both were wanted men, but Zelinkow had been the one to travel because no one in the West, or Tehran for that matter, really knew his identity. That was not the case for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi; he was one of the most wanted men in the world. Before events in Iraq propelled him to the senior tier of Al Qaeda leadership, he was Al Qaeda’s top biological weapons expert. Technically deficient by Western standards perhaps, he was nevertheless totally committed to the use of biological agents against the infidel, specifically the United States of America. After the collapse of the Taliban in Afghanistan, he had slipped out of Tora Bora and crossed the Afghan/Pakistani border. He made his way through Karachi to Baghdad and from there to the Ansar al-Islam bio-weapons facility in northern Iraq. Then the Americans came again, and after a narrow escape from Kurdish partisans, he was given sanctuary in Iran. But sanctuary did not mean freedom of movement, though he occasionally slipped in to Iraq to meet with insurgent leaders. Al-Zarqawi was in many ways a liability. The Americans wanted this man very badly. The Iranians still struck a defiant pose, but the manner in which the Americans had dispatched the Iraqi army and occupied the country gave them pause. Iranian president Mohammad Khatami and the governing mullahs had their hands full with dissident students and disillusioned citizens. The last thing they wanted was a provocation that would launch an American armored column toward Tehran. The Iranians knew they were less of a match than Saddam Hussein for such an armored thrust. Not only did they not trust the American president; more importantly, they feared him, and with good reason.

  Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was born in a Jordanian refugee camp in 1966, and had known nothing but poverty and terror his whole life. He had a special grudge against Americans. In February 2002 he was meeting with an Al Qaeda cell in eastern Afghanistan when a JDAM scored a direct hit on the building where the meeting was held. All were killed but for al-Zarqawi. He was wounded in the leg, a wound that eventually cost him the limb. He now had a prosthetic leg and walked with a pronounced limp. The loss had only stiffened his resolve. He had since been linked with numerous terrorist attacks in Britain, France, Georgia, and Chechnya. He was credited with the assassination of Lawrence Foley, the American diplomat killed in Amman, and the toxic ricin plot that was foiled in England. In addition to directing the insurgency in Iraq, he could link bio-weapons development in Iraq to Saddam Hussein, making Zarqawi a prize catch. Pavel Zelinkow had resisted a meeting with this high-profile terrorist, who must surely be watched by agents of the Iranian Intelligence Ministry, the successor to the notorious SAVAK. But like many in Al Qaeda, al-Zarqawi had a phobia of using cell phones and trusted few intermediaries. Indeed, so many Al Qaeda operatives had been brought to an untimely end by their cell phones that many resisted using them, even with encryption.

  Once greetings were exchanged, al-Zarqawi motioned Zelinkow to a low table where a simple meal of rice, fruit, and khoresht waited. Zelinkow had removed his shoes and now took his place at the low table. Many in Al Qaeda used the funding of the Arab charities to live and eat well. Al-Zarqawi was not one of them.

  “I am given to understand,” al-Zarqawi began, “that the weapon is almost ready.”

  “It is,” Zelinkow replied. “I am told that within the week it will be fully tested and ready for delivery.”

  “And in what form will that delivery be made?”

  Zelinkow was careful in his reply. “There will be enough material to infect twelve people by direct injection. It will be packaged in twelve syringes and hidden in an attaché case. A courier will take it from Harare to Riyadh, where he will deliver it as you have instructed. At that point, my part of the project will be complete.”

  Al-Zarqawi considered this. “I understood that the delivery would be made by diplomatic pouch from the Zimbabwean capital to Riyadh.”

  “And it is my understanding,” Zelinkow said politely, “that those officials in Saudi Arabia who said they would do this, while still sympathetic to our cause, feel it is too dangerous for this kind of overt official help. They will assist you with a safe haven and allow your people to move freely, but they will not put themselves in a position where they cannot deny the help given. Using the diplomatic pouch is something they will not risk. We will have to trust this to a courier.”

  Al-Zarqawi slowly nodded. “You have the name and arrival date of this courier?”

  “I do,” Zelinkow replied. He took a single piece of paper and wrote from memory a name, flight arrangements, and date, then handed it to al-Zarqawi. The Arab stroked his beard and studied the information.

  “You have done well, Mr. Poulenc, and you have earned the right to know what we will do with this weapon you have provided.”

  Pavel Zelinkow did not want to know what was to be done with this pathogen he had helped to create, but it would have been unthinkable for him to refuse to listen. So he listened stoically as al-Zarqawi outlined his fanatical plan.

  After dinner, they were served harsh Turkish coffee, which Zelinkow loathed and al-Zarqawi seemed to relish. Zelinkow stayed only long enough to be polite, then rose to leave. Al-Zarqawi limped to the door to see his guest out.

  “You must understand,” al-Zarqawi told him before he left, “it is for the cause that we must attack the infidel, but for me personally it is life itself. If I do not get them, these Americans who now chase us like a pack of dogs, they will surely get me.”

  Zelinkow was returned to his quarters and caught his flight the next morning without incident. He was not in the habit of drinking while traveling unless courtesy demanded it, but on the leg from Istanbul on Air Anatolia into Rome, he asked for a double Courvoisier, straight up. Al-Zarqawi’s plan was simple and essentially foolproof. And it would lead to a pandemic such as the North American continent had never seen—such as the world had never seen.

  Janet Brisco paced about the hangar amid the bustle of activity. Periodically, she paused to look at her watch and to light another cigarette. She saw everything but said nothing. If anything soothed her, it was the professional way in which Tomba and his men prepared for the mission. They slept as one between 10:00 P.M. the previous evening until 2:00 A.M.—2200 to 0200 in military time—and promptly arose to begin preparing their gear. Their weapons, ammunition load, and operational gear were displayed and inspected by Tomba and Mohammed Senagal. AKR had his equipment laid out f
or inspection as well. Then Tomba picked two of the men at random to inspect his own combat load as well as Senagal’s. Once the inspections were complete, the gear was stowed in individual waterproof duffel bags, the weapons in the center of the bags, with softer gear packed around them. Each duffel was then carefully weighed, staged, and strapped to pallets. The men themselves were once again turned out in the uniform of the African laborer—leather shoes or sneakers, dark cotton trousers, and white shirts. In America, a lean group of fighting men cannot pass unnoticed in a population that is largely overweight. In Africa, nearly all men have that lean, purposeful look to them. Only a close inspection would identify them as soldiers. No announcement was made, but a few minutes before 4:00 A.M., everyone assembled in the corner of the hangar where Janet Brisco stood before an easel with a large-scale map of the Lower Zambezi, with the Zambezi River bisecting a section of Zimbabwe and Zambia, west-southwest to east. Just before she began, Garrett slipped through the side door of the hangar. He looked tired, having just quietly left the room of a federal agent at the Intercontinental Hotel to get to the briefing.

  “This is it, people,” she began in a clear, commanding voice. “Today it begins, and tonight the assault element will cross the Zambezi and begin their advance on the target. I have zero four hundred in fifteen seconds…ten seconds…five, four, three, two, one—mark, zero four hundred. Today is day one of the mission. This is also the last time we will all be together before we meet at the final extraction site. This is the objective.” She flipped over the Zambezi area map to reveal a grainy black-and-white overlay from a satellite image. “This structure is the Makondo Hotel, which we believe is being used for bio-weapons research. Our mission is to defeat the security forces that now guard this facility and to capture it intact, or as intact as possible. Once that is done, we will bring in a medical specialist to evaluate what may or may not be going on there. The Makondo Hotel complex is just over a hundred and forty miles from here as the crow flies. The first hundred miles will be relatively easy; the last forty are over some of the most difficult terrain in Africa. It will be a formidable journey, to say the least.