by Lee Jackson
“And he’s a great pilot,” Klaus agreed. “He took us in and out of the oilfields through those clouds with no problem. He had a pressure steamer waiting when we landed to wash the oil off right away. The plane shows no sign of being there.”
They hung up. Klaus turned on the television to the English-language channel of Al Jazeera to catch up on news. The screen opened to a split picture of the newscaster and the fires raging in Kuwait. Then it switched to a view of General Schwarzkopf on a stage, speaking at a press briefing. Klaus turned up the volume.
“We’re happy with our progress,” the general said, addressing the reporters. “Recovery from combat operations is proceeding faster than expected. Because of the way our plan succeeded, we sealed off the battle area and kept the fighting contained mainly in the area of the oilfields and south to Kuwait City. The French did a marvelous job of sealing our left flank, and the 101st Air Assault Division reinforced their mission. Those oilfields are dangerous. We don’t want people wandering in, so we’re already putting a tight perimeter around the whole country.”
Klaus picked up the phone and dialed Yousef’s number. “Are you watching Schwarzkopf’s press briefing?”
“I will turn it on. Call me when it’s finished.”
The general was still talking when Klaus turned his attention back to the TV. “…air operations are proceeding nicely. We’re sealing off air traffic anywhere close to Kuwait until the wells are extinguished. Putting out the fires could take years.”
He shuffled some papers before he spoke again. “A private aircraft flew into the airspace a couple of days ago. We figure some idiot sightseers wanted to take a look. They gambled with their lives—we’d have been within our rights to shoot them down.
“We’ll keep AWACS on station and deal forcibly with anyone headed that way from fifty miles out. They won’t get close. Fortunately, Saudi Arabia and the surrounding countries are cooperating to establish a no-fly zone. We’re not asking permission on the Iraq side. We’re pretty sure Saddam will have no objection—at least he won’t say so.”
Klaus scowled at the light laughter from the press audience.
“How will the cleanup crews get in and out?” a reporter asked. “They’re already starting to arrive.”
“They’ve been assigned staging areas. On arrival they’ll be briefed. We expect that our most difficult area to control access will be south of Kuwait City. The level of traffic is a lot higher there. Managing crowds is more difficult.”
“Do you expect Saddam loyalists to try to hit the oilfields again while they’re still on fire?”
Schwarzkopf furrowed his brow. “Good question. We don’t expect it so much as allow that it could happen. We’ll take precautionary measures, and of course instruct crews to report anyone coming on site they don’t recognize.”
The general continued through the briefing. Klaus listened closely, and then called Yousef. “What are AWACs?”
“They’re airplanes the Americans use to watch air traffic out for a distance of two hundred and fifty miles. They also direct coalition fighter aircraft around the battlefield. Schwarzkopf is saying the US will intercept unauthorized aircraft that come within fifty miles of Kuwait.”
“After I flew with Bandar the other day, I wasn’t crazy about that alternative anyway,” Klaus groused. “Too much uncertainty. The US is tightening the perimeter. We’ll look for a weak spot, but we need to move soon. Security is only going to get harder to penetrate.”
“I understood from what the general said that the toughest place to control access is down by Kuwait City. I’ll send a man through there early in the morning to see if we can find a gap inside Kuwait.”
“All right. Your man should look for a work crew and pretend to be part of it. He’ll need to steal a work uniform and pass, and a pickup that looks like it belongs there.”
They spoke a while longer to coordinate details and hung up. Klaus walked through the house to the guest room and pulled out the five suitcases. He set each one of them on the bed, opened them, and ran them through their test procedures. Then he carried them out the front door and loaded them into the trunk of a nondescript small car. Within an hour, he had joined the flow of traffic heading toward Kuwait City.
30
“How will we know we’re corralling the right guy?” Horton squinted his eyes as he asked the question and shook a crooked finger at Atcho. “See, you didn’t think I’d catch on to my brilliant idea, but when I listened to Stormin’ Norman in his press conference, I knew what I had in mind—a couple of Texas boys corralling one scrawny terrorist.” He grinned. “So, how’re we going to pull that off?”
Atcho laughed. “I’ve got to hand it to you, Joe, you have a unique way of keeping spirits up.” He walked over to a map showing Kuwait and large sections of the surrounding countries. “Klaus won’t get another opportunity like this. He’ll want the biggest boom he can muster. He’ll put them in the middle of the oil fires.”
“What if he doesn’t?”
“That’s fine. We’re looking for an individual displaying certain behavior.”
Horton looked skeptical. “You’re not goin’ all social scientist on me, are you?”
Atcho laughed. “Hardly, but bad guys doing bad things act predictably. Klaus’ll try to blend in, look like everyone else. He’ll have to drive across a big chunk of Kuwait to get to the oilfields. He could drop the bombs in any of the debris clusters, but he’s no longer a wild-eyed mercenary working for someone else. He’s well-funded, and you can tell by the way he left Germany and entered Saudi Arabia undetected, that he’s become deliberative. He hooked up right away with influential people with even more money. I’d bet that was him in that airplane the other day, doing a little scouting.
“Anyway, he’ll be mission focused. He won’t see or hear things going on around him. He’ll avoid contact with other people and drive deep into the oilfield.”
“And you’re going to leave a path open for him. Do you think that’s smart? I mean we’re talking about a nuclear bomb.”
“Which he can set off anywhere at any time. I see this as our only opportunity to nail him. The crews will form a cordon to guide him to where we want him. It won’t look like a cordon to him. People will be scattered about, but if he makes a turn we don’t want him to make, he’ll find his way blocked by crew doing their normal jobs. People who are supposed to be there won’t be bothered by the unusual activity and will continue what they’re doing. The guy we’re looking for will avoid engaging with crew and military members and will keep going in the direction we want him to go. It’ll be the only way open to him. Army observers will report things up as they happen.”
Horton blew out a puff of air over pursed lips and shook his head. “I don’t know. This looks like one helluva long shot to me. Aren’t you worried he might get mad, clock out, and take all of us with him?”
“That could happen, but Klaus likes to live. Besides, he won’t want to depart this earth until he knows I’m six feet under. But, if you’ve got a better plan, let’s hear it.”
Horton ignored the last comment. “Are we using jammers?”
Atcho nodded. “He won’t be able to detonate by remote. He’s figured that out by now. He’ll plan on using the timers and getting out fast to a safe distance before they blow. I think he’ll head back to Riyadh. Ironically, if he succeeds with the blast, that might be one of the safest places in the world to be for a while.”
“Yep. The winds will blow the fallout the other way. Any of it Riyadh sees will have checked out the lights in Paris before it gets there.”
“I have the report from Jamshed,” Yousef told Klaus. “He’s the man we sent through the security checkpoint this morning. He drove along the entire southern border of Kuwait, and security is tight. The probability of infiltrating through there is small. There is separate security to cross the border. Once inside Kuwait, there is another checkpoint to get onto the special road leading to the wells.”
“The army engineers are building one. Well, they’re scraping one out over the desert—really just flattening out the sand and reinforcing the subsurface where needed. It’s for contractor traffic coming through Saudi Arabia. It goes around Kuwait City on the west side from south to north. The report I saw on TV said the road was to make securing the oilfields easier and to keep heavy equipment traffic out of the city.”
“How is security north of the checkpoint?”
“Tight. Jamshed said that security was also tight at the checkpoint, but if you go through with credentials when traffic is heavy, you should not have a problem. He went back and forth several times with a stolen badge. He said that by his last trip, the guards had begun to know him and waved him through.”
Klaus took in the information. His brow creased as he considered it. Then his eyes glittered. “I’m bothered that he got through so easily with a stolen badge. Why wouldn’t the guards have checked it against a list of stolen or lost badges?”
Yousef chuckled. “I pick good people. He went to a clinic where contractors are already gathering. The fumes in the air are making people sick. He took the badge from a man who was sent to his quarters for several days of recuperation. It probably won’t be missed until the man goes back to work.”
“I want to talk to Jamshed personally,” Klaus said. “Tonight. I need the details of what he saw. I can’t get caught, not at the gate or anywhere else. I’m moving to Khafji, south of the Saudi-Kuwait border. Tell Jamshed to meet me there.”
“All’s quiet on the home front,” Sofia told Atcho when he called. “I’ve managed to reacquaint with my garden club. I’ve been out to lunch a few times and to the stores. Ivan keeps me well covered. We can both see our surveillance zones outside our house on the monitors. How’s Joe?”
“Must you ask?” Atcho chuckled. “He keeps things light.”
“I’m glad he’s there with you. He brings out a side of you I hadn’t seen before—someone who relaxes and laughs, even when things are rough. I like that.
“On another subject, I’ve been following the news. The videos from the oilfields are horrendous. Are there any estimates of how long it’ll take to close down the wells?”
Atcho sighed. “I’ve heard everything from five to ten years.”
“So, Klaus could conceivably wait a while.”
“He could. I’m not sure he has that kind of patience. Let’s get onto a better topic. How’s our baby?”
Sofia smiled. “I felt a kick this morning.”
In his room at headquarters, Atcho stretched out on the cot where he rested. His head dropped on the pillow. He smiled. “Girl or boy?”
“Which do you want?”
“I don’t know. Maybe a boy so that I can have help handling you.”
“Ha, ha. I want a healthy child. That’s all.”
“Me, too.”
They were silent a moment. “Please come home safe,” Sofia murmured.
“I will. This will be over soon.”
31
“We’ve got movement.” The disembodied voice came through clearly on the speaker over the crackle of radio static. In an office set up as the operations room for what had been dubbed “Operation Take-Down,” Atcho sat up, alert. “One man in a white pickup just came through the checkpoint,” the voice on the radio speaker continued. “The license plate number is not on the list of approved vehicles, but he had credentials.”
“Roger,” a Marine sergeant replied. “Tracking. Out.”
Atcho looked at his watch. It showed four thirty in the morning. “How many is that?” he asked the sergeant.
“The third one tonight. The other two went to legitimate destinations. Our Marines on the ground checked them out. Other members of the crew vouched for them.”
Lieutenant-colonel Green poured a cup of coffee. He ambled over between Atcho and the sergeant. “Didn’t the contractors get the general’s order to keep vehicles out that were not already listed?”
“They did,” the sergeant replied, “but you know how it goes. Some didn’t get the word, others ignored it.” He shifted his eyes to Atcho, looked him up and down, and grinned. “You know how civilians are.”
“Get some rest,” Green told Atcho. “As soon as we have someone to tail, we’ll wake you up and get you out there.”
Atcho consented, went into a darkened room next door, and stretched out on a cot. Across from him on another cot, Horton was already asleep.
Atcho rested fitfully, alternately awakened by Horton’s snoring, by throat-catching thoughts of a cooing baby in Sofia’s arms, and by having that pleasant dream interrupted by nightmares of a flaming mushroom cloud blotting out the sky.
Four hours later, he awoke with a start. Horton was gone. Atcho found him in the ops room holding forth with the sergeant on duty. He had one hand in his pocket, one holding a coffee cup, and a big grin on his face. “I was just telling this Marine how me and your wife saved Berlin, but he don’t believe me. You tell him.”
Atcho shook his head. “Don’t believe anything the major says,” he admonished the soldier. “You’re better off that way. Even the general knows…”
“did you hear what the general said about me the other day?” Horton interrupted. He turned to the Marine. “Stormin’ Norman himself said he’d heard about me. Do you believe that?” He turned back to Atcho, a concerned look plastered on his face. “Do you suppose that’s a good thing or a bad thing?”
Atcho laughed through an interrupted yawn. “I don’t know, but he shut you up faster than anyone I’ve seen.” He turned to the sergeant. “Did any more unlisted license plates come through?”
“Yes, sir.” The sergeant looked at his notes. “Ten total, so far. That’s not a bad number for an operation as big as this cleanup is going to be. Word must be getting out, because fewer are coming through. We only had one come in during the last two hours, and that was during rush hour.”
“Where’s Lieutenant-colonel Green?”
“He went to get something to eat. He’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“Is our chopper still on standby?”
“Yes sir. You’ve got highest priority after the CG. Once you call, it will be less than ten minutes before you’re picked up.”
Atcho looked around the room. It was almost bare except for the sparse furniture and equipment needed to run Operation Take-Down. The plywood walls of the temporary building had been in place long enough that desert dust had embedded in the grain.
“Major Horton, do you have any nuggets of wisdom?”
Horton glared at him, stupefied. “Nuggets of wisdom? You know me. I got truckloads of wisdom. What do you want to know about?”
Atcho grunted. “I should’ve known better than to ask. What do we do now?”
Horton’s expression turned deadpan. “We’re doing it. We wait.”
Morning turned to afternoon, which passed into evening with no activity. At dusk, Atcho stood outside the operations office and stared into the distance at the omnipresent black cloud that still seemed to grow. As darkness crept in, the orange glow from hundreds of wells became visible on the horizon. The dance of demons.
Shortly before midnight, Atcho rested again. He tried to force himself to sleep, but it did not come easy. A feeling of dread came over him. Did I guess wrong? A competing thought gnawed at the other side of his consciousness. If Klaus wants to hit the wells before the crews start shutting them down, he’ll make his move today.
At four a.m., Atcho got up and went to check in the ops room. “Still nothing?”
The young Marine sergeant on duty was one Atcho had not seen before. “Nothing, sir,” he replied. “We had five trucks with unlisted plates go through in the last two hours. We’re still waiting for final reports on them.”
“Isn’t that a high number? I thought they were dwindling down.”
The sergeant checked his note
s. “Yes, sir. The number does seem to have jumped. From early afternoon until two hours ago, we only had one truck go through with unlisted plates, and his crew vouched for him.”
“Do we have eyes on those five trucks?”
“Yes, sir.” The sergeant’s eyes betrayed a jump in tension. “The observation posts reported in as the trucks went by. So far, they’ve stayed on the main road heading north. But they’re not traveling together. They’re spread behind each other and separated by miles.”
Atcho stood in the middle of the room, deep in thought, his eyes half-closed as he assessed the situation. Then he turned to the sergeant. “Get that chopper over here.” He strode to the wall between the ops office and where Horton still slept and pounded on it. “Major Horton, get in here.” He pounded again. Seconds later, Horton burst into the room, half-dressed.
“Get me into the tactical operations center,” Atcho said. “I need to see the satellite screen.”
Lieutenant-colonel Green hurried into the office. “What’s going on?”
“Klaus is inside the oilfield perimeter. I’m sure of it. Get me into the TOC. I need to see that screen.”
Green glanced at Horton with a questioning look.
“He’s got the clearances, sir,” Horton replied to the unspoken question. “We need to see where those trucks are going. There are five of them.”
Green turned to Atcho. “No disrespect sir, but the satellites won’t do you any good. The smoke obscures everything.”
“I need to know where on the map those trucks are.”
Green spun around. “Sergeant,” he ordered, “you’ve got two minutes to roust Lieutenant-colonel Jones and the rest of the support crew for Operation Take-Down. I’ll wait until you get back. Go.” He turned to Atcho. “The chopper will be here shortly after he gets back. When the support crew arrives, we’ll have them query the observation posts for the location of those five vehicles, and radio the coordinates to us. We’ll be in the air by then.”
