by Greg Dinallo
Brancato nodded, then sat opposite him.
“I just keep thinking about Steph and Marie and the kids. No sense both of us—”
“And my dog. You forgot my dog.”
“Al, I’m serious,” Shepherd said in weary protest.
“So am I. If I don’t run him, nobody does. Marie said he put on ten pounds while I was in the hospital. I miss him, you know? I mean, jogging every morning with those big paws padding along next to me, slobbery mouth drooling all over everything. God, it’s just . . . I don’t know, there’s a bond there. Of course I’m the only one who understands him. Really, he’d be lost without me. You ever see a dog laugh? This dog laughs—at jokes. I was thinking of trying to get him on David Letterman, but he’s . . .” Brancato paused and laughed to himself.
Shepherd was sound asleep.
They spent the day taking turns sleeping and rummaging through the compartments, removing the items they would use—handguns, walkie-talkies, military clothing among them.
As the sun began dropping toward the horizon they removed the camouflage net and started the Transportpanzer rolling across the desert.
About an hour later darkness had fallen, and Okba ben Nafi loomed in the distance, a dusty mirage enclosed by an endless chainlink fence topped with razor wire.
Brancato directed Shepherd to a desolate corner of the airfield, well beyond the end of the runways. Shepherd let the TTP inch forward until the leading edge of its angled snout was flush against one of the pipes that supported the miles of chainlink; a little more gas and the 40,000-pound vehicle began advancing, gradually bending the pipe toward the ground until the adjacent sections of fence lay flat against the sand and the eight huge combat tires rolled over them onto the air base.
Shepherd kept the running lights off until he left the sand for a paved road that cut across the taxiways with geometric precision. Soon the ribbed texture of sheetmetal hangars marched to the horizon. The TTP rumbled past them in the direction of hangar 6-South, where the F-111s were housed.
Shepherd and Brancato exchanged anxious looks at the sight of one of the bombers. It was being towed through the open sliders onto the tarmac for its preflight check. They circled the hangar toward the personnel entrance, which was guarded by armed sentries.
IN BEIRUT, a chilling scream echoed through Casino du Liban’s marble corridors. It was Katifa’s scream; a scream of horror and forlorn protest. Upon returning to the amphitheater, she discovered Moncrieff once again suspended upside down above the stage. As the Saudi had suspected, Abu Nidal had no intention of sparing his life. On the contrary, as the terrorist leader had planned when postponing the Romeo’s departure for Beirut, he would be the first hostage executed and delivered to the United States Embassy.
Now Katifa stood but several feet from Moncrieff. Two women held her arms; one of the men clutched fistfuls of her hair, keeping her from looking away. But as Nidal slowly inserted the knife into the cut he had made in Moncrieff’s flesh earlier, Katifa struggled free, smashed an elbow into the face of one of the women, and went for Nidal. The guerrilla who had hold of her hair yanked backwards, stopping her abruptly, and brought the grip of his pistol down hard across the side of her head. She screamed and fell to the floor, unconscious.
The next scream was Moncrieff’s.
BENEATH THE AEGEAN, the Cavalla was concealed behind a basaltic ridge that crested just north of the Crete-Karpathos gap.
Cooperman had the BQS-6 bow array in passive mode, using the computer-linked DIMUS program to separate frequency ranges, when he heard the faint hiss on his headsets. He straightened in his chair, pressed a hand to an earphone, and was soon listening to the telltale beat of twin propeller cavitation; he ran an acoustic signature comparison, then buzzed the control room.
“Lover boy’s heading for Beirut, skipper,” he reported. “ETA our position twenty-one hundred.”
“You’re positive it’s him?”
“Ac-sig’s a perfect match.”
Duryea turned the conn over to McBride and went up the companionway to the SEALs’ quarters on A-deck. The bulkhead adjacent to the door still displayed the pictures of the hostages; the one opposite was covered with the construction drawings of the Romeo.
Four salvage/rescue valves on the exterior hull had been circled in yellow and numbered. They allowed air to be injected into an incapacitated submarine to save the crew and/or float the vessel, and were spaced out the length of the hull in the event bulkhead doors had been closed, sealing off compartments. On another drawing, the salvage hatch forward of the sail, through which divers could enter the vessel, had been outlined in red. Passageways leading to compartments where the hostages might be quartered had also been marked. The plastic shipping container from the Office of Technical Services at Langley was on the floor in front of the drawings. Lieutenant Reyes was sitting on it, refining his plan, when Captain Duryea came through the joiner door.
“Target coming in, Lieutenant.”
A thin smile tugged at the corners of Reyes’s mouth. “Showtime,” he called out to the members of his team, who came surging into the compartment in response. The SEALs went directly to their equipment lockers and began suiting up as Reyes opened the shipping container.
The interior was divided into a six-section egg crate. Each contained a steel pressure vessel, delivery hose, and valve assembly. Reyes removed one from its cushioned sleeve. Painted bright yellow, it resembled a scuba tank; but its gaseous contents would have a far different effect on human consciousness.
Halothane was a general anesthetic that acted on the central nervous system. Commonly used for surgical procedures, the odorless gas was a benign compound with negligible aftereffects. It induced a deep state of unconsciousness within 30 seconds of inhalation.
The SEALs prepared with an economy of movement and conversation. They had already rehearsed every step of the mission; each man had his assignment; each knew individual scuba tanks would be used and carried in standard two-bottle rigs with the tank of halothane.
“Black fitting goes in the regulator, yellow in the sub; black in the regulator, yellow in the sub,” Reyes recited, making certain no one had inadvertently connected the wrong hose to his breathing apparatus. “I don’t want any of you guys getting off on this stuff.”
“I’ll wake you just prior to launch,” Duryea joked, heading for the communications room.
The time was exactly 7:54 P.M.
AT OKBA BEN NAFI AIR BASE, a sentry stationed outside hangar 6-South noticed the Transportpanzer approaching. It drove past him and rumbled to a stop near the personnel entrance, where another sentry, cradling an AK-47, stood guard.
Two Libyan military officers exited the massive vehicle and strode boldly toward him. Both wore desert camouflage fatigues, sidearms, maroon berets, and sunglasses; security badges were clipped to their pockets. Two gold stars and an eagle on their epaulets identified them as aqids, or colonels. The sentry snapped to attention and saluted. The officers returned it and entered the hangar through the personnel door.
Once inside the hangar, they proceeded down a corridor lined with offices. Though normally staffed with technicians and clerical personnel, most were empty since the workday had been shortened due to Ramadan, as Brancato had predicted.
In the life-support room, two Libyan aviators who were about to fly a practice mission in the F-111 were at their lockers suiting up when the door half-opened. A colonel appeared, snapped his fingers, pointed to the aviator nearest the door, and gestured authoritatively that he join him outside. The Libyan stepped into the corridor, the door closing behind him. The last thing he remembered was a rustle of clothing before Brancato, who was concealed behind the door, brought the grip of a pistol down hard across the back of his head.
Boldness, conviction, and the element of surprise.
Boldness, conviction, and the element of surprise.
Boldness, conviction, and the element of surprise.
The instructor at survival
-training school had drummed it into all his pupils and now Shepherd and Brancato knew why. They repeated the scenario with the second aviator, then dragged both back into the life-support room and stuffed them inside empty lockers.
A short time later, on the tarmac just outside the hangar, the crew chief and assistant crew chief, who were preparing the F-111 for flight, heard the ear-shattering clang of a fire alarm. They left the plane, hurrying through the hangar into the corridors outside the life-support room and offices, where smoke billowed.
Shepherd and Brancato, suited up in flight gear from the life support room, were concealed in an ordnance storage bay nearby. As soon as the Libyans had passed, they slipped into the hangar and split up: Shepherd headed for the F-111 on the tarmac, Brancato for the one still in the hangar, intending to destroy it via a built-in self-destruct mechanism. Activated by setting a delayed-action timer in the cockpit, it would literally fry all the electronics, avionics, and weapons systems.
Inside the life-support room, flames were roaring up a wall from the trash barrel in which Shepherd and Brancato had started a fire before pulling the alarm. The Libyans were battling the blaze with extinguishers. A sentry who had also responded to the alarm heard a pounding from within a steel locker. He discovered one of the Libyan aviators, who had regained consciousness. A brief exchange sent the sentry dashing down the corridor toward the hangar.
Brancato had just reached the bomber and was about to climb the ladder to the cockpit when he heard the hangar door opening behind him. He whirled, pistol in hand, and opened fire. The sentry went down. Brancato spotted another Libyan through the glass panel in the door, who was running down the corridor toward the hangar. He fired several shots, shattering the glass. The sentry kept coming. Brancato left the hangar, running toward the F-111 on the tarmac.
Moments earlier, Shepherd had crouched to the main landing gear and reached up inside the wheel well, removing a khaki-colored can that contained a starter cartridge. Manufactured by Morton-Thiokol, it was a slow-burning explosive device used to start the engines when pneumatic blower units weren’t available. Shepherd had a far better reason for using it—the standard pneumatic start took 5 minutes; a cart start took 20 seconds. He opened the left side SOAP door and inserted the cartridge into the starter breech, moistening the pins with saliva to ensure electrical contact; then he secured the door and went up the ladder to the cockpit.
Shepherd already had the battery turned on and the starter switch in cart when he heard the gunshots and saw Brancato running from the hangar. He lifted the throttle on the number one engine, sending voltage to the starter breech and fuel to the engines simultaneously. The cartridge exploded, ballistically winding the engine to start speed.
Brancato was climbing into the cockpit as the pursuing sentry neared the bomber. The Libyan paused and jacked his AK-47; then, uncertain about blasting one of Qaddafi’s prized F-111s with the machine gun, he dashed to the ladder that lay against the fuselage and started climbing.
Brancato reached over the side of the cockpit and fired his pistol. The bullet hit the Libyan in the center of the chest with tremendous force and knocked him backwards. The ladder went with him, saving Brancato the task of shoving it aside.
The tachometer had just ticked 17,000 as Brancato dropped into the seat next to Shepherd. “I couldn’t pull the plug,” he said. “They were all over me.”
“We’ll just have to find another way,” Shepherd said with a thin smile as he started the bomber rolling.
While guiding it through the darkness, they went about hooking up oxygen and G-suit hoses and plugging in com-cords. By the time they had finished, the air that was being forced through the second engine by the plane’s forward momentum had the turbine winding at high speed, and Shepherd lifted the throttle, starting it.
“Master arm on,” Shepherd said, throwing the switch that energized the bomber’s weapons systems. “Manual release; select two and seven.”
“Manual; select two and seven,” Brancato echoed, reaching to the stores select panel in the right console. The plane was approaching the top of the runway as he pressed the numbered keys, arming the Mark 82 bombs that hung from pylons below the wings.
IN BEIRUT, television camera crews were waiting outside the U.S. Embassy when a van turned into Avenue de Paris. As it went past, two Palestinians, faces masked by kaffiyehs, pushed a rolled carpet out the sliding door onto the macadam. Marine sentries cordoned it off and radioed for a bomb disposal unit.
Minutes later, the specially attired and equipped crew came from within the compound. They carefully unrolled the richly colored Persian that once graced a suite in Casino du Liban, discovering Moncrieff’s skinned carcass inside.
Soon after, in the embassy’s communications center, the dedicated radio channel crackled to life.
“Tell Mr. Stengel that Abu Nidal knows about the rescue operation,” Katifa reported in a shaky voice. After Moncrieff’s execution, she had been carried to the basement and locked in a stone-walled cavern that had once been the casino’s wine cellar. She regained consciousness several hours later and, fighting to shut out the memory of the horrifying events, took the cigarette-packaged transmitter from her jacket. “I repeat, Abu Nidal knows about the rescue operation.”
“What action does he plan to take?” came the reply.
“I don’t know.”
“Do you know if the submarine has been warned?”
“No, it hasn’t. Nidal can’t make radio contact until nine o’clock.”
THE TIME in Washington, D.C., was 1:05 P.M.
Early that morning Bill Kiley had awakened to news reports of Moncrieff’s kidnapping. Some fishermen had found his abandoned limousine on the banks of the Red Sea; the chauffeur’s corpse was in the trunk. A short time later the U.S. Embassy in Beirut relayed the message that the first hostage had arrived at Casino du Liban, and the DCI knew to his horror just how Nidal proposed to carry out his threat.
Now the DCI was in his office, waiting for the rescue mission to commence when his intercom buzzed.
“CNN’s on the line sir,” his secretary said. “They want to know if you’re interested in commenting on a special bulletin they’re about to air.”
Kiley turned on the TV; an anchorman reported that a Saudi businessman had been executed and delivered to the U.S. Embassy in Beirut; the letters CIA had been carved in what was left of his naked corpse.
“No,” Kiley hissed, infuriated. “Get the embassy.”
“They’re calling on the other line, sir.”
“Why does the media always know before I do?” Kiley bellowed into the phone. The Beirut station chief ignored the tirade and briefed him on Katifa’s message. The DCI was convinced beyond doubt that if the Romeo was warned prior to the rescue attempt, all the hostages would be executed.
Kiley left his office, went to the communications center in the subbasement, and commandeered one of the technicians and his console. “I need Captain Duryea on the Cavalla. Flash priority; voice channel; code red.”
The com-tech doubted that the Cavalla had a radio mast or buoy deployed but tried a voice channel anyway, to no avail. Next he typed up the alert and cabled it. “No acknowledgment, sir,” he said, failing to get the signal tone that meant it had been received.
“We’ve got fifty million bucks worth of radio equipment in here and you can’t reach a submarine?” Kiley snapped. “This is an emergency. Find a way!”
“Yes, sir,” the harried technician replied. He sent the same cable on several bands with the same result. “Still no response, sir.”
“Which bands have you tried?”
“UH and VHF, sir. ELF would take an hour just to—”
“What about HF?” the DCI demanded, referring to the high frequency band, commonly used for intrafleet communications. “You try that?”
“No, sir.”
“What are you waiting for?”
“That’s an unsecured net, sir.”
“I don’t
give a damn what it is. Lives are at stake here! Lives. Do it!”
Moments before the DCI had arrived, a printer in an adjacent room had come to life. The technician had torn off the incoming cable and was in the process of routing it to the DCI’s office when she glimpsed Kiley through the glass partition. She retrieved the cable and went through the door into the communications room.
“From the Cavalla, sir,” she said, delivering it.
Kiley eased slightly, assuming it would acknowledge receipt of his message, but to his dismay it read:
TWILIGHT PROCEEDING AS PLANNED; UNODIR.
Kiley paled; the UNODIR meant the Cavalla’s radio had been shut off. His mind raced frantically in search of options and found one. “Get me the fleet admiral on the America,” he ordered the com-tech. “Come on, come on.” He was on the verge of losing control.
AT OKBA BEN NAFI AIR BASE, Shepherd had the F-111 barreling down the runway: blow-in doors open, wing-sweep at 16 degrees, flaps at 25, slats down, spoilers up, and throttles homed, disregarding the angry voices of control tower personnel coming over the radio. Brancato muttered an expletive and shut it off as Shepherd rotated the nose up and the bomber leapt into the darkness. Shepherd immediately banked right, aligning the bomber with the hangar where the second F-111 was still housed. His eyes were locked on the HUD, where light spilling across the tarmac far below moved onto the cross arrows of the optical gunsight, then he pressed the red button on his control stick, pickling off the preselected ordnance.
Two Mark 82 low level attack bombs dropped from the BRUs. The arming wires set the fuses and deployed tiny parachutes that slowed their descent to the target, giving the F-111 time to exit the area prior to impact.
Shepherd pulled the stick back slightly and pushed hard left, putting the aircraft into a high-G turn as the two 500 pounders turned the hangar and the remaining F-111 into a fireball. Shepherd leveled off, keeping the plane at low altitude, well below the range of Libyan air defense radar.
