by Ward Larsen
He’d had a long discussion with Walid about the airplane they’d nearly collided with on takeoff, and in the end they agreed that someone had discovered their location and arrived with a planeload of commandos to put their scheme to an end. They’d escaped just in time. The first fifteen minutes of the flight had been nerve-wracking, both he and Walid expecting to be shot down at any moment. Now, after over an hour, he was sure they’d slipped away into the night. Luck was on their side. But for how long?
Not for the first time, it occurred to Tuncay that he could cut the mission short. They were established in Saudi airspace now, and he let his eyes rove over the map display. He saw two acceptably large airfields between their present position and the drop point. He could claim a mechanical problem, or even manufacture one. Shut down an engine or claim a fire. The group had long ago discussed this in detail as a potential weakness of their plan—such a complex, old aircraft had a significant chance of developing technical problems. He thought Walid might be with him, and Ghazi and Ben-Meir no longer had a say. Of course, if they aborted now their scheme would have little effect on the price of a barrel of crude. Not that Tuncay cared—his payment was not tied to it. Then there was the matter of his conscience, such as it was. He was not a cruel man, and if they never made it to Ghawar the horrid concoction behind him would not rain across the world.
On the other hand, diverting short of their target introduced new complications. Fire chiefs and airport police. In the ensuing confusion, he and Walid might find a way to disappear, and perhaps they could clear Saudi Arabia before anyone understood what they’d intended.
Their preplanned escape was waiting for them at an airfield in Kharj, only twenty miles south of the last coordinate set on their deadly run. They would land in the middle of the night, park the aircraft, and transition to a twin Beechcraft that was fully fueled and waiting in a nearby hangar. The chore of destroying the evidence had been assumed by Ben-Meir. A time-delay Semtex charge was implanted above the number two main fuel tank—it would be less than one-quarter full by then, and the roof of the tank thick with Jet A vapor. Ten minutes after activated, roughly when he and Walid would be lifting off in the Beech, the explosive charge, accelerated by their thousand-gallon fuel reserve, would create a fire of sufficient intensity to reduce CB68H to her component alloys in liquid form. By first light nothing would remain but a pile of highly radioactive debris, a monument to their success. From Kharj it was a simple dash south to the Empty Quarter, and finally Yemen, a land beyond the reach of even the mighty Americans. Altogether, it was a plan that had seemed rock-solid in the planning stages. But now? Now Tuncay saw a hundred things that could go wrong.
He surveyed the central panel, then locked eyes with Walid for a long, awkward moment. Is he having the same thoughts? Tuncay wondered. Does he sense my doubts? He averted his eyes and began toying with the volume knob on the secondary VHF radio. “Still nothing on guard frequency?”
“No, nothing,” Walid replied.
Ten minutes earlier they had been given a frequency change by the air traffic controller. By design, they had ignored it, tuning the radio to the new frequency but not making contact. Since making the switch, the air traffic controller had not bothered to initiate contact either. In Europe or North America things would never have been so lax, but here, Tuncay knew, such carelessness was common. Perhaps the man controlling this sector—important jobs in the Kingdom of Saud were never trusted to women—had left his station for a cup of tea. Or more likely, in order to pray, leaving air traffic separation to the will of Allah. Whatever the case, for Tuncay and Walid it was an ideal circumstance. They would simply wait for the controller to call them on the radio. And if he never did?
All the better.
The secondary radio, tuned to 121.5 MHz, increasingly became their focus. If anyone became concerned that radio contact had been lost, a blanket call would be made over this emergency frequency, also referred to as “guard.” The channel was monitored by virtually all aircrews, and in the worst case, if fighters were launched for an intercept, they too would attempt contact on VHF guard. So far there had been only silence.
In the navigation computer Tuncay typed in the name of the nearest of the two airfields he’d noted. It was twenty miles to the north.
“What is that?” Walid asked, pointing to the new circle on his map display.
“Only a reference point.” Tuncay looked out the window and saw the moon disappear behind a cloud layer. The high stratus was comforting, as if they were slipping under a warm blanket. Tuncay hit the delete button and the fix he’d created vanished.
“It’s not important,” Tuncay said with a newfound rush of confidence. “We don’t need it anymore. One more hour, my friend, and we will join Ghazi and Ben-Meir in our own versions of paradise.”
SEVENTY-TWO
The sidebar in Langley took place in a tiny conference room just outside the Operations Center. Sorensen and Kelly faced Coltrane.
“So we don’t know who this eighth person is?” asked the director.
“No. We’re going over the arrivals images from Dulles but nothing yet. If he’s a professional that might not be much help.”
Coltrane didn’t argue the point.
Sorensen steered to what bothered her more. “Who is David Slaton?”
Coltrane shot her a look that said she’d overstepped her pay grade, but after a long hesitation he answered. “It happened before my tenure. The Israelis had an operative they wanted hidden … retired, in a sense. We were asked to facilitate his disappearance here in the States. Mind you, this was a direct favor from the president of the United States to the government of Israel. My predecessor personally made the arrangements, and it was kept at the highest levels. He briefed me on the matter when I took over as director.”
“The cover name was the one you mentioned—Edmund Deadmarsh?”
“That’s right.”
“Why did Slaton warrant this special treatment?” Sorensen asked.
“The Israelis never said, but it was near the time of the Ehud Zak fiasco.”
“The sniper who was involved? He was killed in London,” Kelly argued.
Coltrane didn’t reply.
Sorensen said, “So that’s who we have in the back of our C-17—an assassin who was long thought dead.”
“What I saw in Lebanon tonight was enough to convince me,” said the director.
Kelly said, “Given the scope of this plot, I think we should be more concerned about whoever is here right under our noses.”
“A valid point. If you get anything from Dulles, a good video image or passport photo—I want to see it.”
“You think you might recognize him?” Sorensen asked.
“No,” replied Coltrane. “But I suspect I know who will.”
* * *
“Can’t we fly any faster?” Slaton asked.
Lieutenant Colonel Bryan turned around from the left seat. He pointed to the airspeed indicator where a white cursor was nestled against a red-hatched limit. “If we go any faster the paint’s gonna come off.”
The entire crew was in the cockpit of the C-17 Globemaster. Bryan was flying, his copilot to his right. Slaton and the loadmaster were on a pair of jump seats behind the two officers. The cockpit was cramped, but it was the only place they could all be together. Slaton wanted everyone on the same page.
“What we’re trying to do is straightforward in principle,” he said, “but it’s going to take serious coordination to pull it off.”
“What we’re trying to do is nuts,” said Bryan.
Slaton couldn’t argue. He’d hatched more than his share of bold schemes, but even he was stunned by Langley’s plan.
“They had a hundred-mile head start,” said Bryan, “but we’re gaining fast. He’s down low, and if our relative groundspeeds don’t change we should catch him in twenty-one minutes.”
“At that point how long will we have?” Slaton asked.
“Not long.
If we assume they’re going to drop on the northernmost portion of the Ghawar field—that gives us a ten-minute window to get in position and let you work.”
“Just get me in position—my part takes about one-tenth of a second.”
They were flying a tail-chase on the MD-10, and a pair of F-22s were closing quickly and would shadow their target from behind. The Raptors’ assignment was to guide the C-17 closer. Then came the delicate part. Reach 41 would rendezvous with the MD-10 from behind in complete darkness and, in an inverted game of aerial leapfrog, Bryan would descend two thousand feet below, accelerate out front, and finally climb until they were precisely a mile in front of their target. There, the C-17 would lower its rear cargo door in-flight—as was usually done to airdrop pallets of cargo or deliver Airborne Rangers—and Slaton would take up his position. The C-17 would gradually slow to close the gap, and from the aft ramp Slaton would choose the right moment to issue two rounds from the SVDS.
Slaton remained skeptical about what would happen if he succeeded. “How can we be sure that jet is flying on autopilot?” he asked Bryan.
“We’re relying on one thing—that these pilots will fly a programmed course over the oil field. I think it’s a safe bet. Nobody flies a wide-body by hand except on takeoff and landing. If the pilots have a route programmed into the flight computer, it’s almost a sure thing the autopilot will be flying it.”
“What about at the end, when they reach the southern end of the oil field?”
“At that point it’s all about escape. I figure they’ll make a mad dash to the nearest airfield, and jump in a car or another airplane. They might fake an in-flight emergency to expedite things. They’ll fly fast and aggressively, nothing you would program into a nav computer. So if it all happens like we think, the autopilot will take the jet to the end of its route at the southern edge of the oil field. If you’ve done your part by then,” the skipper said, his eyes on Slaton, “it leaves nobody on the flight deck to intervene, and the airplane will just hold whatever heading it has. In this case, a more or less southerly course.”
“So the jet just keeps flying a straight line?”
Bryan nodded. “Take the pilots out of the picture, and she’ll fly south by southeast until she runs out of gas—somewhere over the Indian Ocean, I’d guess.”
Slaton heaved a long sigh. “There are a lot of assumptions in this plan.”
“Yeah, there are.”
“But it makes sense to you, as a pilot?”
Bryan nodded to say it did. Slaton shifted his gaze to the copilot, who also nodded. A two to zero vote. “All right, I’m convinced. Is there a way I can talk to you once I’m in position on the ramp?”
The loadmaster, an ebony-skinned sergeant named Willis, told Slaton, “I’ve got an extra headset. I’ll plug you into the intercom and give you a hot mike.”
“The big question for me,” said the copilot, “is are they going to spot us?”
“Good point,” said Bryan. He turned to Slaton. “I can tell you that when it comes to flying at night, almost every pilot focuses inside, especially during cruise—nothing much to see out the window. All the same, there is some moon out tonight. These guys won’t be expecting another jet to materialize in front of them, but we have to do everything we can to not highlight ourselves. I’ll make sure all the external lights are off, and the cargo bay has to be blacked out once that aft door drops.” He looked at Willis. “Emergency lights, everything. Break ’em if you have to … and keep that damned iPad of yours turned off.”
The loadmaster acknowledged.
“We’ll need some light up here on the flight deck, but I’ll make sure the door that connects to the cargo bay is closed. We also have to turn off our TCAS.”
“What’s that?” Slaton asked.
“Traffic collision avoidance system. If theirs is turned on as well, it’ll sound a warning when we get close.” Bryan reached down and turned a knob on the transponder. “Done. Now we’re a stealth C-17.”
“Radar?” Slaton asked.
“Big airplanes have radar, but it’s only good for looking at weather—won’t paint another jet. We’ll be in contact with the Raptors, and they have the big picture. They’ll vector us to a ballpark position. Once that aft door drops, we’ll be less than a mile in front of him.” He nodded toward Slaton. “At that point it’s up to you. Tell me what you need. Left, right. Up, down. Slower, faster. Those are pretty much your options. Use increments I can work with. Ten knots faster. Fifty feet higher.”
Slaton nodded to say he would.
The copilot, who was working the radios, said, “I have our fighters on frequency. The call sign is Ruger Two-Two. They’re already shadowing the target, about five miles in trail. We’re eighteen minutes from the merge.”
Slaton picked up his sniper rifle. “All right. Let’s see if we can make this work.”
SEVENTY-THREE
The three aircraft merged in an empty sky over an empty land. The first debate was short-lived.
Ruger 22, the flight of two F-22s, was established three miles behind and one thousand feet above the MD-10. They requested that Bryan join up high as well, two thousand feet above, and make his final approach from high to low.
“Not gonna happen,” Bryan said on their discreet frequency, his tone suggesting that he outranked the woman flying the lead F-22. “I want to come in underneath. It’ll be harder for them to see us, and also less chance that they’ll be alerted by our wake turbulence, which tends to sink.”
The flight lead of Ruger 22 didn’t respond right away, which Bryan took as a victory of sorts. Then over the radio, “Ruger Two-Two copies. Reach Four-One, come five right.”
Bryan banked into a turn to edge the compass 5 degrees right, then nosed over until the altimeter read five thousand feet above sea level. The MD-10 had descended and was now cruising at six thousand feet. Bryan speculated, and his copilot concurred, that there was only one reason for the MD-10 to be flying at such a low altitude—it was the height from which they would drop their poisonous load. It was also another bit of circumstantial evidence to confirm that an attack on Ghawar was imminent. Bryan was happy they weren’t any lower because the terrain in the area was roughly two thousand feet above sea level. To be down in the weeds at night, in unfamiliar terrain, would have grayed what little color remained in his hair.
“You’re nine thousand feet in trail, sixty knots of overtake,” called Ruger 22, giving the first horizontal range estimate. The C-17 was a mile and a half back, but gaining fast. Both pilots looked ahead and saw nothing.
“Target speed two-hundred-twelve knots.”
“Pretty slow,” said McFadden from the right seat.
Bryan nodded agreement. “About how fast you’d go if you were preparing to open the belly doors on an airplane in flight. A release could happen any time. What’s the distance to the estimated initial point we were given?” Langley had forwarded the MD-10’s flight plan, and one navigation point had been highlighted near the northern edge of the oil field.
“Thirty-two miles.”
Bryan nudged all four throttles forward, but it was a delicate dance. After passing the MD-10, they would have to slow to match speeds and then climb to the same altitude. Finally, in the most sensitive maneuver, they would gradually slow to put their sniper in position.
More corrections came from Ruger 22, and Bryan applied them. They were less than a mile in trail when McFadden, whose eyes were younger, said, “There!”
Bryan craned his head forward and looked out the window. Sure enough, a sleek dark shadow materialized. It was running dark, just as they were, no navigation or anticollision lights—a massive form floating in an obsidian sky.
“It looks like a KC-10 from here,” Bryan remarked, referring to the aerial tanker, derived from the same airframe, that he and McFadden had rendezvoused with countless times in skies across the world.
“Yeah,” said McFadden. “Only this one isn’t carrying gas.”
The two Guardsmen exchanged a look, then in unison watched the shadow that was quickly filling the windscreen.
“You know,” Bryan said. “I sure hope them belly doors don’t open right now.”
“Exactly what I was thinking.”
“At least the weather is cooperating. That high stratus deck is killing what little moonlight there is. Let’s hope it stays that way.” Bryan heard another correction from his fighter escort and this time ignored it—he was virtually flying formation on the aircraft above. That would change as soon as they moved ahead. At that point, they would be totally reliant on the fighters for guidance.
“Confirm external lights are off.”
“Check,” said McFadden.
“All right, two minute warning. Willis, you ready?”
“Yes, sir,” crackled the sergeant’s voice over the intercom. “Blackout conditions in place.”
“All right—drop the ramp!”
* * *
Slaton had been in the back of many military transports. He’d even had the occasion to jump out of a few. Never had he used one as a shooting platform.
The wind noise was considerable, though not overwhelming thanks to the earmuff-type headset provided by Sergeant Willis. Slaton felt the eddies of a three-hundred-mile-an-hour breeze stir the stale air that had built inside the cargo bay, and he felt the controlled warmth ebb, drawn into the cool desert night as if into the vacuum of space.
Bryan’s drawl crackled over the headset. “We’re in front now. Another three thousand feet and we’ll climb to go co-altitude with the target. From there it’s up to you to put yourself in position.”
Slaton checked his weapon was ready, including the scope.
Bryan again. “You never said—how close do you need to get?”
“You think I’ve done this before? It’s not going to be an empirical thing. I just need a sight picture I can make work.”
