by Oliver North
Newman terminated the call, picked up the other sat phone, extended the antenna, and dialed the number Gunnery Sergeant Skillings had given him only minutes before.
“Skillings.”
“Gunny, I need General Grisham to get us some fast service from NSA.”
“Yes, sir, here's his direct number...”
Newman memorized the number then said, “Thanks, Guns. Out here.” He terminated the call, waited for the satellite reception to recycle, and immediately dialed the number he'd just been given.
He heard the phone ring and then the no-nonsense voice of General George Grisham was in his ear. “Grisham.”
Without preamble or pleasantries Newman quickly described Rachel's phone call to their apartment at the Hospice of Saint Patrick and concluded with, “Major Rotem has a tape of the call. As of a few minutes ago, the Israeli service confirmed that the call was received at 0508 local; they do not, however, have a source ID code for the originating phone, and all they know is that it came through a Syrian exchange. We've got to find out where the phone is that Rachel used. It's the only way we'll know where she and Dyan are being held.”
Grisham had been silent, taking notes, but now he replied, “This Morales person must be terribly important to Komulakov. Here's the Russian dealing with weapons that can start a regional nuclear exchange and he's still playing spymaster. I'll get NSA working on this right away, but you need to consider the possibility that the message is a set-up or even that it was a tape recorded earlier and only played over the originating phone. It may be impossible in the next few hours for NSA to determine where the call came from. You also need to know that if you do go to Damascus, I can't get you any backup. The CIA hasn't had anyone on the ground in there for years. What time would you have to depart where you are in order to be at the Damascus airport by 2000 hours?”
“I figure I'd have to be on the way by 1500.”
“And if you go to Damascus, is there a way for you to get back to the objective area before the British-Israeli attack?”
“No, sir.”
There was a moment of silence, and when General Grisham spoke, his voice was tinged with emotion, “I can't order you to stay there, son. You have already gone above and beyond the call of duty. You know how important you being there is to the success of this mission and to preventing a nuclear holocaust. But I understand that your going to Damascus could also make the difference between life and death for Rachel. I'll immediately pass on to you and Skillings what, if anything, NSA can tell us—but I'm going to leave it up to you as to whether you stay where you are or head to Damascus.”
“But what do you think is the right thing to do?”
Once again there was a moment of silence as General George Grisham considered his response. His words came softly across the satellite link: “Only you and God know the answer to that, Pete. And no one can make the choice but you.”
Sand Dollar Team HQ
Ar'ar Air Base
10 km East of Badahah, Saudi Arabia
Tuesday, 24 March 1998
1000 Hours, Local
“Colonel, your timing is perfect,” Skillings said into the sat phone cradled by his ear. He was sitting on the hood of a Humvee parked near the refueling station at the Saudi air base. “Any word yet from NSA on where that call from your wife originated?”
“Not yet, Gunny,” Newman answered. He had skipped his 0800 call to Skillings to save his battery, hoping that by now NSA would have been able to verify where the call to the Clancy apartment in Jerusalem had been initiated. Now, three hours later, Skillings's question was an answer—NSA had nothing.
“What are you going to do, sir?”
“I don't know yet. I've talked to General Grisham and Major Rotem, and they've both left it up to me. I've got to make a go/no-go decision here in the next hour because if I'm going to get out of here and back to the highway without being spotted, it will take me quite awhile. What's your status?”
“Quite a few changes since we last talked. General Grisham has added four Cobras to the mission. They are coming in with the four CH-46s to provide escort and suppression at the objective. They will be armed with TOWs, Hellfire, 2.75-inch rockets, and AS-2 missiles for some air-to-air protection. We're pulling out of Badanah as soon as we top off our tanks. We'll head about 150 miles west-northwest to Turayf, another Saudi air base, and top off again there. General Grisham also got the Jordanians to allow us to set up a FARP on the Amman-to-Baghdad highway just west of the Iraqi border post at Tirbil. Four CH-53s are already headed up there with fuel and ordnance to set up the FARP The Air Wing guys figure that should give us all the extra margin we need in case something happens to the fuel at the objective. After the mission, we're to bring everyone back to the FARP for retrograde by C-130. He's having one flown in from Incirlik.”
“That's good, Gunny.” Newman muttered the right words, but he sounded distracted, and Skillings understood why.
“Look, sir, if you gotta go to Damascus, nobody here is going to second-guess you. There isn't anyone who would want to be faced with that choice right now. In fact, if we took a poll, I think everybody here would consider it a no-brainer—they'd go to Damascus if it were their wives. If you aren't there tonight, everyone here will understand, sir. We'll pull this thing off one way or the other.”
“What do you mean ‘we’? You're not planning on coming on this mission, are you?”
“Yes, sir, I am. These Royal Marines may be tough and these rotor heads may be brave, but they need a good grunt along with ‘em to keep ‘em straight. Besides,” Skillings said with a chuckle, “they need someone along who knows what a gunfight looks like, in order to write ‘em up for their air medals.”
Newman, huddled beneath the camouflage-colored fabric, shook his head and said, “I don't like the idea of you guys coming in without me being here for last-minute intel—especially since the Israelis will already be on the ground. The potential for an intramural firefight is enormous.”
When Skillings said nothing, Newman concluded, “I'll call again at 1200 to see if NSA has anything about where Rachel's call came from.”
“Roger that, sir. And by the way...Mr. Blackman, the British gentleman, says that according to GCHQ the signals intercepted from those NATO-issued Marconi hand-held radios haven't changed. The chatter for the past several days has been about the women being at that place in At Tanf, where you are. For what it's worth, he thinks the message left on your phone in Jerusalem is bogus.”
“Good grief, Gunny, does everyone in the world know about my personal situation?”
“Pretty much, sir. There are a lot of people aware of your predicament. And as I said before, nobody wants to be in your shoes right now.”
“What do you think, Guns? What would you do?”
“Me? I wouldn't trust this guy Komulakov any farther than I could throw him. I figure he's an evil no-good who's probably trying to set you up for a hit in Damascus.”
“But I don't want to take that chance if he is telling the truth.”
“Sir, what would make this guy suddenly come on so friendly? You know him better than I do, but I can't picture him going out of his way to give you his hostages just for whatever you might have heard about his spy buddy in the States. It doesn't ring sincere to me, sir.”
Newman considered the Gunnery Sergeant's words for a few seconds and said, “Thanks, Gunny. I've always been able to count on you to shoot straight. I'll run this by Major Rotem and get his assessment because it affects his wife as well. Please ask the Brits to keep on those guys who are monitoring the Marconis. I need to have some kind of confirmation, and fast—before it's too late to get to Damascus in time for Komulakov's deadline. I'll call you again in two hours.”
Sayeret Duvdevan HQ
Tel-Nof, Israel
Tuesday, 24 March 1998
1100 Hours, Local
Major Ze'ev Rotem watched as the new shift of headquarters watch officers and NCOs came on duty and wer
e briefed by their comrades finishing their shifts. The strike team that would go with him on the raid into Syria later that night was down the corridor in one of the billets. He knew that most of them would be asleep. Rotem also had tried to rest after Newman's last call, but sleep had eluded him.
The Israeli officer was feeling the effects of adrenaline-induced insomnia. He had considered taking one of the sleeping pills that the IDF medical officers prescribed but had not done so because he didn't want to miss any of the calls from Newman's lonely outpost. Rotem's brief catnaps at a command-center console left his eyes burning and his throat raw.
Things were much busier than usual in the command bunker, and he was aware that many of the duty personnel had not left when their watch ended because they knew how critical tonight's operation into Syria was going to be, and they wanted to be there to see their comrades off on the mission.
Rotem took a long drink of cold coffee. It was bitter and unpleasant, but he needed the caffeine. As he put the Styrofoam cup down, his cell phone buzzed in his shirt pocket. He looked at his watch, withdrew the phone, flipped open the cover, and said, “Rotem.”
It was Newman with his “odd hour” sit rep from the harbor site near the IST facility outside of At Tanf. The IDF major pictured Newman laying hidden in the area. Rotem himself had been near there as part of Duvdevan extrajudicial execution teams hunting for Abu Nidal and Abul Abbas. Now he wondered how the vaunted Mossad had missed the IST site all these years.
Newman got right to the point and told Rotem what Skillings thought about Komulakov's guile and the message that Rachel had left on their home phone in Jerusalem.
“Yes, I have been having second thoughts too. He would not ordinarily be so charitable as to release the women only for some information of questionable quality. But… can we take the chance?”
“I was thinking that maybe I could stretch this out,” Newman said. “I have his number. I'll call him and tell him that I can't make it by 2000 hours and that I can give him the information he wants by phone, and then he can release the women near the American embassy in Damascus.”
“Interesting idea,” Rotem said. “Even if he says no, you can still tell him you need more time to get to Damascus.”
“All right. We're agreed. I'll call you back.”
Major Rotem pushed the button to end the call and turned his attention back to the operations plan on his desk. But first, he decided to get some fresh coffee.
International Scientific Trading, Ltd.
At Tanf, Syria
Tuesday, 24 March 1998
1125 Hours, Local
General Dimitri Komulakov and Leonid Dotensk were seated at the dining room table in the IST guest house reviewing the arrangements for the transfer of the nuclear weapons to Qusay Hussein when the satellite phone on the table began to buzz. Both men looked at the phone and then at each other. Even though the device was hooked to an external antenna cable that ran out the window, this phone rarely received calls.
Komulakov picked up the phone and was stunned to hear the voice of Lieutenant Colonel Peter Newman. “Colonel,” he said with feigned delight, “so good to hear your voice. Are you calling me from Damascus?”
“No, I can't get there by your deadline. I just got the message. I need proof that Rachel is all right, and then I need time to get to Syria.”
“Colonel, surely you heard her voice on your voice message machine. I can't let you talk to her now. She's in Damascus, just as she said. I am in another part of the country. I'm sure that you can have your CIA check with Assad International Airport. They will verify that I was there last night and then departed. I regret that we did not file a flight plan, but the tower will, I am sure, confirm my aircraft's arrival and departure times. I brought the women to Damascus, and as your wife told you on the phone message, I will give them their freedom in exchange for the information you have on my elusive Mr. Morales. Doesn't that seem fair?”
Newman didn't answer him directly. Instead, he tried to buy some time, to figure out what was really happening. Komulakov got up from his desk and moved absently to the window of his office and stared out at the runway. There, beneath the camouflaged sheet, baking in the sun less than a thousand meters from Komulakov's window, the American Marine he was talking to lay hidden.
“I said, doesn't that seem fair, Colonel Newman—to get your wife back for what you know about Morales?”
“What I know about Morales I can tell you on the phone. I'll do that and you can give me your word that you'll release my wife and her friend—you can have them dropped off at the American or British embassy in Damascus. I can't get to Damascus by your deadline.”
“Hm-m...my word? Well, let's hear what you have to say first.”
“Well, I thought that if this Morales fella is giving you the kind of secrets that he's sending you he has to be pretty well placed. That means he'll know if someone starts looking for him. He's smart and is able to cover his tracks. There's no way that I could have even gotten close to him. As I told you before, I've got someone working with me. We think we know who your man is. He's either in the FBI or CIA because of the stuff he's sent you. We're working on narrowing it down to those with clearances for the specific information you say he provided you—but it gives clues to where he works. My contact is working right now to set up lie detector sessions with those six or eight possibilities within the FBI and CIA. I ought to know by the end of the week.”
Komulakov laughed. “I can see that U.S. intelligence has not improved. In fact, thanks to your president, I think your CIA is now in worse shape than the Russian intelligence agencies. He has gutted the CIA, and it is even more worthless than ever.”
“You doubt what I'm telling you?”
“Yes, of course I do. You are completely off base, Colonel. / have made more progress than you have,” Komulakov boasted. He had already concluded that the mole who called himself Morales was a senior official at the State Department, based on the data Morales had sent from the Secretary of State's computer. And while the former KGB spymaster still didn't know who Morales was, knowing where the spy worked was a major breakthrough in tracking him down and eliminating him.
“I have narrowed down where Morales works, and it isn't with the FBI or CIA...or one of the other agencies that you think. And I have to give him credit. He is in a place to give me the best possible information and never be caught.”
“Well, where does that leave us?”
“I no longer need you to pursue this matter,” Komulakov said curtly. He had concluded that when it came to threats Newman posed a more immediate risk than Morales, and he decided to apply one of the axioms of the KGB: When dealing with multiple threats, eliminate the most proximate ones first. “How soon can you get to Damascus?”
This was not going at all as Newman had hoped, but now that he was committed, he had no choice. “I can probably get there by tomorrow noon.”
“Very well, at noon tomorrow go to the VIP Lounge at the airport and page Mr. Gray. You will receive a message for Mr. White with instructions for what to do next.”
“And you'll release our wives to one of the embassies?”
“No, I have already made the other arrangements. It will have to be done my way. ” And with that, he terminated the call and turned off the sat phone.
As Komulakov strode back to his desk, Dotensk was looking up at him expectantly. But instead of filling his deputy in on what he had decided, Komulakov went back to the topic they had been discussing before Newman's call. “So, Leonid, tell me more about the payment procedures for these devices we are to deliver tonight.”
The Ukrainian arms merchant shook his head at how quickly his superior could change direction, sighed, and replied, “If all goes according to plan, three trucks carrying the gold will arrive at the border checkpoint at 1600 our time. We will put nine of our most trusted men—three on each truck—as soon as they cross into Syria. The appropriate Syrian officials have already been compensated so t
hat there will be no problem on this side of the border. Qusay tells me that he has made similar arrangements on the Iraqi side. That means the trucks should be here by 1700. Qusay Hussein must have really been cracking the whip during the night. To get all that gold loaded and shipped from the treasury in Baghdad was quite an accomplishment in itself.”
“Yes, yes, I'm sure,” Komulakov interrupted impatiently. He then continued, “I've been thinking about how risky it is to keep the gold here. Our security isn't really set up for guarding such a treasure. Word is certain to leak. There are also hijackers and robbers who make the Baghdad-to-Damascus highway their own shopping mall. I think we should charter a cargo aircraft and transport the gold to Kiev before it becomes the property of some greedy band of thieves.”
“Can we get a cargo plane on such short notice that will carry that much weight?” Dotensk asked.
“Let's find out. Call Romalyinov at the Damascus Rezidentura. He's the logistics officer, and he has good contacts for that kind of thing. I know you had planned to truck the gold to Latakia and ship it by sea to Odessa, but I prefer to get it out by air if we can. Who knows what our customer is liable to do with the weapons we're providing once he has them in hand. He might even decide to come here and reclaim his gold. While we're waiting to find out about the aircraft, keep guards posted around the clock. Beef up our security around the perimeter, and be on the lookout for intruders. Also make sure that no trucks can break through the front gates.”
Dotensk nodded his acknowledgment of the orders as Komulakov continued, “How are you going to verify that we have received all that we are owed?”
“The gold is to be shipped as numbered ingots on pallets. The trucks will pull directly into the warehouse. I have arranged for the same nine men who accompany the trucks from the border to off-load the cargo inside the locked warehouse. They will inventory and weigh the shipment to verify we have received full payment. I estimate that will take no more than three or four hours. While that task is being completed, the Iraqi trucks will be loaded with the three nuclear warheads. As soon as we confirm that the gold is all here, they will be allowed to leave for Iraq.”
