The Jericho Sanction

by Oliver North

  Hallstrom's better instincts continually informed him that his was a sick pleasure, and he had no business being there. But somehow he was drawn there, time and time again. The bartender and dancers knew him, but not by name. One of the dancers, Susie Paley, had worked there for almost nine years. Bob had met her after she first started dancing at Lovebirds, and he had taken a strange liking to her. It wasn't a prurient attraction, at first. He initially came to watch her dance; then he talked to her and got to know her, he left her generous tips, and he began to buy her lavish gifts with money he got from the Russians.

  Susie was stunned one day, after she had previously told him a bad luck story about her car breaking down, when Bob handed her the keys to a car parked outside. They had walked outside to see it, and Susie was amazed and ecstatic to see that Bob was giving her a large, almost-new Mercedes.

  Hallstrom knew the car would be a dead giveaway if anyone in the Bureau knew about it. That was the challenge—and facing challenges like this was part of the thrill of his game. Coming to this sleazy club was a challenge. Seeing Suzie was a challenge. Once, just to show himself how much smarter he was than the rest of the sleuths in the FBI, he had even taken Susie overseas on an FBI trip. They took separate flights, of course, and he booked her in her own room at the hotel, but if anyone had found out about their trip together, it would have been the end of the line for the spy.

  But Susie wasn't working tonight. Hallstrom had forgotten; she only came in on weekends now. Bob laid down a five-dollar bill on the table, beside his unfinished glass of Chablis, and walked out.

  The FBI mole drove west on Orleans until it fanned into Franklin Street. He drove without any particular destination in mind. His wife had made plans to go shopping with a friend, so he was in no hurry to get home. Hallstrom cruised aimlessly through Baltimore's old streets. Seeing the sign for the Cathedral Street intersection ahead, he remembered the old basilica just one street over, across from the library.

  Hallstrom always made it a point to go to confession at least once a week, and he recalled that he had missed his usual time the previous week when he was out of town on Bureau business. He thumbed his left-turn signal and swung his car sharply onto Cathedral Street.

  As Hallstrom walked up the steps and inside the church, he looked for “his” confessional booth along the left side of the sanctuary. He knelt in a pew a few feet away; when an older woman came out of the booth, he strode toward it, his shoes clicking loudly against the marble floor.

  Hallstrom shut the door behind him and took a deep breath as he knelt on the padded cushion inside. “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.” His voice was just above a whisper.

  On the other side of the partition, an aging priest invited him to confess and seek forgiveness. Hallstrom began with a recitation of where he had just been, and the carnal urgings that had led him to go there.

  The FBI agent even told the priest about other indiscretions he had not shared with his own parish priest: details of infidelity and betrayal of his wife. He hoped these sins might be forgiven. He felt enormous guilt, and not just for those illicit urges and liaisons; he had secret sins he couldn't share. Hallstrom didn't confess that for more than fifteen years he had been compromising the most sensitive secrets his country had—nor did he mention that he had betrayed at least a dozen brave men, every one of whom had been executed by the KGB for spying against the Soviet Union. These people were dead at his hand, as surely as if he himself had pulled the trigger. He didn't tell the priest that he had sold classified secrets and taken money for betraying military secrets. Which of the Ten Commandments had he not broken?

  Hallstrom thought of his most recent betrayal—providing information that would allow the Russians to track down and eliminate someone who posed a serious threat to his original Russian handler—Dimitri Komulakov. It was his superior intellect, Hallstrom realized, that enabled him to deduce that Marine Lieutenant Colonel Peter Newman, the Irish “terrorist” Gilbert Duncan, and John Clancy were all one and the same—and that this Newman/Duncan/Clancy character was probably a threat to Komulakov. And now, if Komulakov was at risk, Hallstrom reasoned, so was he!

  Kneeling in this confessional, Hallstrom knew what would happen to this Newman character when the Russians caught up to him. For an instant, Hallstrom felt a twinge of something—was it guilt?

  The spy thought seriously about getting these anxieties off his chest. He told the priest that he believed in God, and he hoped God might be able to forgive him. Even as he promised not to repeat the sins he had committed, he knew better—he had no intention of stopping what he was doing. It was too challenging. Besides, while he said that he believed in God, he believed entirely on his own terms. He knew the difference between right and wrong, but he had nevertheless conditioned himself to continue doing evil.

  When Hallstrom finished, the old priest absolved him and ordered him to pray daily for forgiveness and for the strength to overcome temptation from the world, the flesh, and the devil.

  As the old priest on the other side of the partition was talking, Hallstrom considered again the possibility that he should confess his other sins and really get right with God. He knew of the sanctity of the confessional—everything said to the priest would be confidential. He could tell the priest everything, and the cleric would be duty-bound to keep it to himself. Besides, it was getting harder and harder for Hallstrom to keep his secrets inside. There were times when he wanted to scream out to someone what he was doing. Perhaps he should tell his priest.

  Still, he knew that he couldn't take that chance.

  MAKING PLANS WHILE MARKING TIME

  CHAPTER TEN

  Sayeret T'zanhanim Headquarters

  Tel-Nof Air Force Base, Israel

  Wednesday, 18 March 1998

  0230 Hours, Local

  Newman looked out his side of the Anafa B-212 helicopter as it banked into the early morning fog, obscuring the lights of the Israeli Air Force base below them. It had been a short flight from Ben Gurion Airport to Tel-Nof. As the helicopter penetrated the fog, he could see the runways, hangars, and a few buildings. But unlike a U.S. air base, not a single aircraft was visible. Newman realized the craft were all in the hardened concrete hangars and revetments built against the low hills less than a hundred meters south of the main east-west runway. As the helicopter slowed its airspeed and began to transition into a hover, Newman noticed several arrays of satellite communications dishes.

  Just before the helicopter landed, landing lights came on, illuminating a fifty-by-fifty-foot square alongside one of the arched concrete hangars. The lights cast shadows throughout the interior of the helicopter, making Newman, Major Ze'ev Rotem, and the two IDF Special Ops soldiers who had accompanied them squint while their eyes adjusted to the glare. As the bird touched down, the Israeli major jumped out and motioned for Newman and the two soldiers to follow him.

  Major Rotem escorted Newman past a two-man guard post and to the door of an earth-covered concrete building next to the hangar. They waited, bathed in invisible infrared light from the high-intensity bulbs mounted above and on either side of the door. A speaker beside the door announced something in Hebrew that Newman couldn't understand. Rotem said something toward the speaker and held up his IDF identity badge to the lens of a wall-mounted camera.

  Rotem turned to Newman. “They knew we were coming, but we're not used to having visitors here. In fact, you're probably the first non-Israeli ever to see this place.”

  “And what is this place?”

  “This revetment covers the Duvdevan operations center. It's also the headquarters for Sayeret T'zanhanim, the unit to which I am assigned. As you'll see when we finally get inside, very little of it is above ground. Most of it is buried deep inside this hill.”

  There was the whoosh of escaping air and then what sounded to Newman like hydraulics as the steel door in front of them slid open, revealing a five-foot-by-five-foot enclosure and another steel door on the opposite wall. />
  As they stepped inside the red-lighted room, the outer door closed behind them. “The whole bunker is a ‘citadel' space,” Rotem said. “This small room is what you would call in English an ‘air lock.' The interior of the operations center is maintained at several PSI above the outside atmospheric pressure so that the interior is protected against the effects of a biological or chemical weapon. It also protects those inside against radiation from a nuclear device as long as the structure is not breached.”

  As the interior door slid open, Newman felt his ears pop with the increased pressure. Rotem led the way down a concrete corridor, also lit with red lights to protect the night vision of anyone leaving the space during the hours of darkness. They walked down the passageway, their rubber-soled boots treading in step.

  “We operate like this 365 days and nights a year, Colonel Newman. The red lights come on every night at sunset, and the white lights come on automatically at dawn. That's one of the differences between this place and your Delta Force Headquarters at Fort Bragg.”

  “When were you at Bragg, Major?”

  “Two years ago, several of us were invited to visit your Special Operations Command and exchange ideas for dealing with terrorism,” Rotem said as they arrived at another steel doorway. Once again, Rotem held up his ID badge and once more the door opened at the command of an unseen hand.

  When the door closed behind them, Newman realized they were standing on the mezzanine level of a highly sophisticated command and control center. Banks of monitors relayed video pictures of locations throughout the nation. In a hushed voice, Rotem pointed out that most of the feeds were from the hot zones in the central part of the nation. Another bank of monitors covered sites in the West Bank and still others, key border locations.

  There was little action taking place tonight, and the facility was on a reduced alert status, except for the outpost and lookout tower at Ralah in the Gaza Strip. When Newman asked what had happened there, Rotem explained, “Last night, just after sunset, three terrorists were shot and killed trying to plant explosives near the outpost. It's right at the border where Israel, Egypt, and Gaza meet—and we have a platoon of soldiers there. Yesterday a sniper killed their company commander. We've had three attacks there in the past two weeks.”

  Newman was reassured, not only by the business-like atmosphere, but by the sophistication of the equipment. It was clear to him that the optics and other sensors monitoring the various sites across the country were as up-to-date as any he had seen in American installations.

  Rotem proceeded to introduce Newman to the duty section and allowed him to observe as the senior watch officer gave orders by encrypted radio-video link to an intelligence unit colocated with an IDF armor detachment, positioned outside the PLO compound in Ramallah. The Israelis were using barrier-penetrating optics to view activities inside, behind the walls of the building. The images were quite clear, and those watching could not only distinguish how many people were in the room but also if any of them had weapons.

  “Isn't it amazing,” Major Rotem said quietly, “that we now have the ability to see through walls? We've come a long ways since Joshua had to send spies to find out what was going on behind the walls of Jericho.”

  Newman nodded appreciatively.

  “The technology helps us avoid killing innocent civilians,” Rotem said. “As you can see, the personnel in these other rooms are noncombatants. They do not have any weapons. But those,” Rotem said, pointing to the location that now appeared on the monitor, “are armed. They are all carrying AK-47s. These are the ones we need to take out, the ones who attacked a café in Hebron last month. Today we intercepted their plans to attack another site sometime this week. We are going to eliminate them—before they can carry out their attack.”

  There was now a hush throughout the command center. Newman watched as the sophisticated device continued to scan all the floors in the building in Ramallah, reconfirming the disposition of the occupants. Once the personnel in the operations center were certain that the room on the northeast corner of the second floor of the PLO compound held only armed combatants, the senior watch officer made a telephone call on a phone, Newman noted, remarkably similar to the U.S. STU-III. The phone call lasted less than three minutes and, when the senior watch officer hung up the phone, he turned to a radio operator and said something in Hebrew.

  There was a momentary delay while the two radio operators conferred, validating the instructions. And while he could not understand the entire conversation in Hebrew, Newman could tell from the tension in the room what the orders were. Every eye in the center was now fixed on the monitor with the video feed labeled “Ramallah 3W.”

  As they watched, a Mirkiva tank fired a single round from its turret cannon. The green glow on the screen flashed white as an explosion ripped a huge hole in the room they were monitoring on the screen. As the dust cleared, an infrared sensor mounted in a truck beside the tank slowly recalibrated. There was no sign of life. But the on-scene commander apparently wasn't satisfied. As Newman and the others in the command center watched, another IDF tank crew opened fire with a .50-caliber machine gun at the gaping hole in the side of the building. And then, as quickly as it started, the attack ended. It had all taken just forty-five seconds from the time the order was given.

  There was no jubilation or cheering inside the Tel-Nof Operations Center. There was no backslapping, no “atta-boys” offered. The senior watch officer simply went to a DVD recorder and removed the disk that had recorded all the audio-visual signals leading up to and during the attack, wrote a notation on it with an indelible marker, slipped the silvery disk into a cardboard sleeve, and handed it to a courier.

  “What happens to that?” asked Newman.

  “It will be delivered to the Prime Minister tonight. Tomorrow morning, the international press corps will accuse us of killing innocent children. The Prime Minister will have proof that they were not children, but terrorists,” Rotem said in a matter-of-fact tone.

  “But will he release that DVD to the press so they know better?”

  “I doubt it. We never have. They wouldn't believe us anyway. We're now the bad guys in all of this. Or hadn't you noticed? Come, now we must decide what's to be done about our wives.”

  The Israeli bent over and waved to get the attention of one of the young female soldiers at a communications console. She pulled out ared folder with Hebrew words stamped across the cover and handed it to Rotem. He glanced at the contents, nodded, and motioned to Newman. Then he led the way out of the Operations Center, across the corridor, and into a small conference room.

  Rotem sat down and motioned for Newman to do the same. The major spent a few moments reading the three pages inside the folder. He looked directly at Newman.

  “First, the Israeli intelligence services have initiated full coverage over our respective apartments and the telephones in both. If anyone calls—your wife, my wife, or the kidnappers—they will be able to trace the call and will notify us immediately. Second, I have been given the authorization that we need to launch the operation to rescue our wives.”

  Newman merely nodded, though he felt again, despite his fatigue, a jolt of adrenaline.

  “And third, after conferring with General Grisham, the Defense Minister has agreed that you may remain here and monitor the operation...or, if you agree to certain conditions, you may accompany our rescue unit.”

  “What are the conditions?” Newman asked.

  “First: I am the commander of the operation, and my executive officer is second in command. You must follow our orders or you may not come along.”

  “I agree. Now, when do we leave?”

  “I made plans to move my team into Syria tonight. We still have almost three hours of darkness. The terrorists will not expect us to react this quickly. And we know from experience that kidnappings rarely get better with time.”

  Newman, whose experience in the U.S. military was one of lengthy planning and analysis before any operat
ion, listened carefully. Somehow he was reassured by this man's experience. When Rotem finished, he nodded.

  “Good. Let's get going.”

  Mediterranean Sea

  Aboard USS Theodore Roosevelt, CVN 71

  105 Nautical Miles NW of Beirut

  Wednesday, 18 March 1998

  0340 Hours, Local

  The U.S. Navy flight deck crew scurried to tie down the SH-60B Sea Hawk helicopter next to the island of “The Big Stick,” their nickname for the USS Theodore Roosevelt. The crew of the little Sea Hawk, AS W/Special Ops chopper had already put in a full day of flying—and the sun wasn't even up yet.

  At 2200, the Sea Hawk had launched from its mother ship, the USS Mobile Bay, and headed over the dark waters of the Mediterranean to the British Sovereign Base at Larnaca. There it took on fuel, Lieutenant General George Grisham, and four of his CENT-COM staff. Then, without breaking radio silence, it had launched for the prearranged rendezvous with the carrier, in the vicinity of 34° N and 35° W.

  General Grisham was now huddled over the table in the Roosevelt's flag quarters. His host, friend, and Naval Academy classmate, Rear Admiral Henry Hennessey, was staring at the Marine general with red-rimmed eyes. At Grisham's request, Hennessey and his Battle Group staff had spent the last four days hastily putting together a plan to recover three loose nukes somewhere in Iraq; and now he was being told that the operation was on indefinite hold.

  “Run this by me again, George.” The admiral leaned over a mug of hot, black coffee. “You're telling me that the guy who was supposed to find these things—this formerly AWOL Marine named Newman—has lost his wife?”

  “Kidnapped, Hank. She's been kidnapped.”

  “So now I'm to stand down the SEALs and the Marines from the MEU who were the back-up for this Op until the Israelis can find his wife?” The Admiral ran his hand through his close-cropped gray crew cut.