by Oliver North
There was a thoughtful silence, then Newman spoke.
“We don't have any other choice. We have to work with the Israelis since the women were kidnapped in Jerusalem. Whether they're still in the country, it's hard to say. From Rachel's cell phone messages, it sounds like they've either been taken into Jordan from Jericho, or north to Lebanon or Syria. From her descriptions, it doesn't seem like they went south.”
“No, they're not in Egypt,” Goode said. “Jordan, maybe. But the border crossings there are a lot hotter than those in the Golan Heights.”
Newman shrugged. “If only we had somebody who saw them …”
“I need to issue you new paperwork and documents to prove that you are who I say you are, and that you're working for CENTCOM,” Grisham said. “I'll get Gunny on that right away. Meanwhile, you guys work on a way to get Pete back to Jerusalem ASAP. I'd take you over in my Gulfstream, but that would tip off Washington, and I don't want to have to answer too many questions from the Potomac until we get your status ironed out. Probably the best thing would be to see if the Brits can lend us an aircraft to get you back to Tel Aviv before the evening gets much older.”
As he was getting up to ask Gunnery Sergeant Skillings to join them, the satellite phone rang. Goode jumped up and grabbed it before the second ring.
“Hello...?”
Goode's eyes flew open in surprise.
“Just a moment, please.”
He covered the mouthpiece and leaned toward Peter. He spoke in a whisper.
“It's Ze'ev Rotem—calling for Peter Newman. He knows who you are!”
Nawa Highway
Near al-Shaykh, Syria
Tuesday, 17 March 1998
1645 Hours, Local
Rachel and Dyan were finally out of their steel dungeon. As the women slid to the ground beneath the flatbed trailer, they were grabbed by two men each. The men all but dragged them from beneath the dust-coated tractor trailer and stood them against the side. Although the sunlight was fading fast, there was still enough light that the women had to squint; they'd been riding in the dark all day. The stiff breeze chilled them after being confined for nearly seven hours in the metal box. As they stood shivering, a man came up behind them; he fastened a handcuff around Rachel's right ankle and fastened the other cuff to Dyan's left ankle.
“You may go over in those bushes to relieve yourselves,” one of the men said first in Hebrew, then in broken English. The women hobbled awkwardly together to a nearby patch of scrub vegetation that would give them meager cover. It was humiliating, but they did as they were told.
One of the men waved an automatic rifle and said, “Do not try to run away, or I will shoot you.” Then he and his partner walked back to the truck to wait. From what the women could discern in the gathering gloom, the truck had stopped just off what appeared to be a major east-west highway and just before the intersection with another road that seemed to run north and south. There did not appear to be any other traffic on either thoroughfare.
Relieving their painfully full bladders helped, but they needed more to eat and drink.
Watching carefully for any sign of her captors' approach, Rachel used Dyan as a screen and reached inside her jacket for her cell phone. She punched in her home number. Nothing happened. She looked at the display: no signal.
A confirmation they were no longer in Israel, Rachel guessed. There, the cell phone coverage was nearly universal. The absence of a signal might mean that they were across the border somewhere. But where?
Rachel looked toward the setting sun. It was falling behind some high mountains. However, they were much bigger than anything the truck had climbed on its way here.
Dyan spoke to Rachel in a soft voice. “Those large mountains over there must be Lebanon, by the Bekaa Valley. We've been traveling east for a long time. I think we're in Syria. Does your phone work at all?”
Rachel shook her head, but then noticed the “in service” icon on her screen; the signal was weak, but it was definitely there. She tried her home number again. A recording told her she needed to check the number and dial again. She tried again, using the country code for Israel, and this time the call went through. Quickly, as soon as the answering machine picked up, Rachel recited all that she thought would be helpful about where she thought they were, what direction they were heading, and the time. Then she closed the phone and hid it back inside her jacket.
Their captors were coming to get them and escort them back to the container on the truck. This time, however, they left their hands unbound and didn't replace the blindfold cloth bags. One of the men handed them some water, candy bars, and more apples. “Make this last,” he said. “You are being transferred to a train in a half hour. It will take you to where we are going, but will take a long time. You will have no more food, water, or rest stops until we get to our destination, about midnight.”
The women took the nourishment and began to eat and drink while the heavy metal trap door was once again screwed into place.
Within minutes, the truck was once again on its way. In another twenty minutes, it pulled into a railroad freight yard. A forklift truck came to hoist the box onto a flatcar where it was strapped down. An hour later, the train began to move.
An hour after that, both women were asleep.
THE WOLF
CHAPTER NINE
Ben Gurion International Airport
Tel Aviv, Israel
Tuesday, 17 March 1998
2330 Hours, Local
Newman awoke as the tires beneath the belly of the Royal Air Force C-130 screeched against the tarmac of Israel's largest civil and military airfield. Despite the anxiety that he was feeling about the desperate plight of his wife, he was practicing what he had so often preached to his troops: If you're not driving it or piloting it, sleep on it, because you don't know when you'll get to sleep again.
Now he could feel the rapid deceleration as the pilot reversed the pitch of the four giant propellers and turned off the runway to the taxiway that would take this old workhorse of military aviation to the large, yellow, Israeli Air Force hangar at the west end of the field. As the air craft came to a halt in the pool of orange light cast by the sodium vapor lamp mounted atop the hangar, Newman checked his watch. The two-hundred-mile flight from Cyprus had taken a little more than an hour and a half, less than the time that it took him to ride in an armored Land Rover from Larnaca to the airfield at the British Sovereign Base at Akrotiri. On the opposite side of the aircraft cargo bay, Gunnery Sergeant Amos Skillings was stretched out on the red nylon web seat. He sat up and nodded to Newman.
The commander of the RAF Transport detachment on Cyprus had been only too willing to oblige General Grisham's request for an aircraft to make a “no-notice courier sortie for two U.S. PAX” to Israel. And the Israeli Air Force had quickly facilitated the mission by granting the necessary diplomatic clearance for the flight—while assuring the Commander in Chief of U.S. Central Command that it would be unnecessary for members of the CENTCOM staff to pass through Israeli Immigrations or Customs. It had all gone, Newman reflected, extremely well thus far.
But now that the RAF crew chief, in his gray-green Nomex flight suit, was lowering the ramp at the rear of the aircraft, the Marine's anxieties returned. As he stood and grabbed the duffel bag that had been his pillow during the flight, Newman could feel the tightness in his gut and a pounding in his temples as he thought of what his wife and her friend, Dyan, might be enduring at that very moment. He worried, too, that their captors might grow unsure of their worth as hostages. And then, as it had earlier, the thought occurred to him: what will happen if their kidnappers decide they have to get rid of the women, who could testify against them, in the event of their capture? He knew the answer to that question and did not want to entertain it in his thoughts.
His mind raced with various options for rescuing the kidnapped women and bringing them home without any further harm or complications. His brain tried to organize the various plans swirlin
g around in his mind and to give them priorities—while bathing all the options in fervent prayer.
Newman returned a salute to the crew chief as he and Skillings exited the rear of the aircraft. A feeling of awful sadness touched the Marine at the fleeting thought of losing Rachel; since they had first come to Israel three years ago and begun to remake their lives, he and Rachel had grown closer and more in love than ever before. Their love was made even more complete by the arrival of their baby son, James. To think of her now, in harm's way, was almost more than he could handle. This isn't helping. Lord, help me stay focused on what I have to do, instead of what might happen. Please grant me clarity and wisdom.
Pete forced himself to list his tasks in some kind of order. First, he had to find the husband of his wife's cocaptive. Ze'ev Rotem had told Newman he would meet him here, in front of the big Israeli Air Force Transport hangar.
Newman was surprised when Rotem told him on the telephone that he was, in fact, Major Rotem of the Israeli Defense Force. That information actually brought the Marine a sense of relief; this man was likely a kindred spirit, someone he should be able to trust on a mission to rescue their wives. Ironically, Newman guessed, both men had much more in common now. Each surely felt the same dread and cold anger toward those who had taken the women hostage.
As Newman walked toward the small group of men standing in the shadows beside the large Israeli Air Force hangar, he patted the breast pocket of the battered old leather flight jacket that William Goode had loaned him aboard the Pescador II. Inside the pocket were the three black-covered diplomatic passports that General Grisham had handed him as he boarded the C-130 in Larnaca—one for himself, another for Rachel, even one for little James. During the flight, he had stared at the pictures of his wife and son. It was the first time he had seen his young son identified by his real name: James Atkinson Newman.
A trio of Israeli officers—accompanied by six armed soldiers carrying Uzi submachine guns—greeted Newman and Skillings and escorted the two Americans inside the hangar through a small door beside the large aircraft portal.
Inside, they found themselves in a well-lit office where an Israeli Army brigadier general was waiting. He dismissed the others, and they went into the hangar bay. With his hand outstretched, he said, “Good evening, Lieutenant Colonel Newman and Gunnery Sergeant Skillings, I am General Yem Burach. Welcome back to Israel. I am sorry about what has happened to your wife. May I see your passports, please?”
The two Marines reached in their pockets and handed the Israeli officer their passports. He looked at each and handed them back. “I have had several lengthy discussions with General Grisham today. We have known each other a long time. We were classmates at your Amphibious Warfare School many years ago. I trust him totally. He told me that I could trust you the same way, Colonel Newman. Is that true?'
“Yes, sir—absolutely,” replied Newman, uncertain where this line of reasoning was heading. “Is there any more news about my wife? Do you know if my son is all right? General Grisham told me that James would be brought here.”
“Slow down, Colonel, first things first,” replied the general. “We have some intelligence about that, and you will be fully briefed in a few moments. Your son is on his way here with the wife of your chef d'hotel. However, before we proceed, I must have your word that you will keep us informed on all your movements within the country, and I insist that you coordinate all of your activities with Major Rotem. Is that acceptable to you?”
“Yes, sir,” said Newman, knowing that there was no other answer.
“Very well,” General Burach said. Then he pointed to another office across the expansive hangar structure. “Major Rotem is waiting for you in that room over there.”
“Gunnery Sergeant Skillings, it is my understanding from General Grisham that you are flying back to Cyprus on the British C-130. Is that correct?”
“Yes, sir. I'm to take Colonel Newman's son back with me.”
“Good,” said Burach. “If you wish to join Colonel Newman as he meets with Major Rotem, I will inform you when our vehicle arrives with his son and the young woman who has been watching after the boy. Oh, I almost forgot. Here's a mobile phone, Colonel Newman, courtesy of the Israeli Defense Forces. You may use it while you are here. It also has international capability, so you can dial overseas directly.”
Newman took the small phone and nodded. “Thank you, General.” He stuck the phone into his pocket, guessing it was probably carefully monitored; any conversations carried over that particular phone would likely have every word recorded in an Israeli intelligence facility. In his duffel bag, Newman had an encrypted Motorola Iridium satellite phone that General Grisham had given him before leaving Cyprus.
Newman and Skillings walked across the hangar to the office that had been pointed out to them. Newman knocked on the door and opened it. A muscular man with close-cropped hair sat on the edge of a wooden desk, an IMI Galil suppressed sniper rifle slung over his shoulder. He was in civilian clothes, but two armed, uniformed IDF soldiers were seated nearby, loading ammunition into magazines for their own automatic weapons.
“Major Rotem?”
“That's me,” said the man in civilian clothes. “Please come in.”
The two soldiers stood up and left the room to guard the door.
Ze'ev Rotem was feeling guilty about what had happened to the wife of the man standing in front of him. The Israeli major was, in fact, certain that his own wife was the target and that “Sarah Clancy” was simply an innocent victim of the terrorists. The Israeli major had good reason to believe this, since Ze'ev Rotem had secrets of his own.
Newman extended his hand and Rotem shook it. “So, we get a chance to meet at last,” Major Rotem said with a smile. “Our wives are good friends, but we have not had the opportunity to meet before this. Unfortunately, under these circumstances, the pleasure is lacking.”
“Any word about our wives?”
Rotem shook his head. “Only the messages your wife was able to leave on your answering machine at home. Thankfully, she had such presence of mind and composure to think of calling and trying to leave helpful information. Did you hear the messages?”
“Yes, I called home from the British airbase and played them back. I tried to piece together Rachel's accounts of the trip, and I think she's right. From her descriptions, the time it took, and so forth, I'd bet they were taken north on Highway 90, then on 91 into the Golan Heights, and from there into Syria. But after that...I'm not sure.”
“I agree. It's the only route that works. From her last call, I think they were near Izra, Syria. That's probably the major highway intersection that she mentioned. At Izra, there's a freight train connection that goes north. She said that they were locked in a large container of some sort. If this is the Hezbollah cell I think it is, they are working with the PFLP and probably put them on a train that would take them to a place north of Damascus. That's a route the Iranians and Hezbollah use a lot, and they don't think we know about it yet. If it's that one, they probably transported the women to the city of Hims—up here.” Major Rotem pointed to the map on the office wall.
“That's quite a distance north of Damascus. Why do you think they went there?”
“It's safer for them in this more remote area. Word gets around faster in the city...so if they were to stay in Damascus for any length of time, we'd hear right away from our agents. We haven't heard anything so far, and that's why I think they'll have them in Hims.”
“Do you know exactly where to look in Hims? And do you think they'll keep them alive?”
“The answer is ‘yes' to both of your questions. The reason we haven't bothered the PFLP or Hezbollah in Hims is because we've wanted to see where that intelligence leads. But I know exactly where their compound is—where they'd be holding them. This place is about seventy-five kilometers from the coast, just northeast of Lebanon. We can get there fairly easily from the sea and move in without being detected.
“I'm gu
essing that whoever is holding them will probably get word to us, to tell us whatever it is that they want from us. I think they only took both women because they weren't sure which was the one that they wanted—no doubt to get at one of us. But the question is, which one of us do they want, Colonel Newman? You...or me?”
“Look, I'm not here to play ‘you show me yours and I'll show you mine.' I'm here to tell you why they might want me. But I'm guessing you've already figured that out; otherwise you wouldn't know my real identity. However, if we're going to work together and trust each other, I have to know what you know—and why it could just as easily be you that they're after.”
“Fair enough. And since, as you say, I already know quite a bit about you, Colonel Newman, I'll tell you about myself.
“I am a major in the Israeli Defense Force. I serve in the Sayeret T'zanhanim under the control of Sayeret Duvdevan.”
“My Hebrew is pretty rudimentary,” Newman said, “but doesn't 'Sayeret T'zanhanim' mean you're a paratrooper, and that you deal with counter-terrorism outside of Israel?”
“Yes, I'm a paratrooper with Israeli foreign CT ops.”
“But I'm not sure about the Sayeret Duvdevan.”
“Sayeret Duvdevan is the name of the Center Command in the middle of our nation, where I am assigned,” Rotem said. “My work is in counter-terrorism, but with a specialty. I am one of a small cadre of those who are responsible for ‘extrajudicial action' outside of Israel.”
“I think I take your meaning, sir. Clearly, you're no regular IDF soldier. ‘Extrajudicial action' could be understood as ‘execution,’ ‘assassination,' ‘removal,' ‘liquidation,' or ‘termination.' It all means pretty much the same thing—correct?”
“Does it bother you, Colonel Newman, that I am an assassin for my government?”
“Bother me, Major Rotem? I'm not sure if that's the right word,” said Newman. “I don't know how much you know about me, and I don't know that it matters, but I've had some experience in...uh...that line of work, and that experience taught me that that kind of thing doesn't work very well.”
