by Greg Dinallo
“Piece of cake,” Brancato hooted.
“Yeah, the hard part comes next,” Shepherd said, heading directly over Tripoli toward the Mediterranean, which was the quickest route out of Libyan air space.
“What’re you driving at?”
“We’re coming out of Tripoli with Libyan markings and an outdated transponder code smack into the Sixth Fleet’s front yard,” Shepherd replied, concerned that fleet commanders might mistake the F-111 for an attacking Libyan jet and launch interceptors or surface-to-air missiles to destroy it. “Better pull up your HF buttons and see if anything’s going on.”
“Fleet common, eagle-one,” Brancato responded, switching on the high-frequency radio to monitor fleet operations. “Usual ops chitchat,” he reported. “Sounds quiet otherwise.”
Shepherd was just starting to relax when the radar, scanning on open priority, skin-painted a raw return. The lack of an IFF symbol next to the blip left no doubt it was hostile. “Bogie at six miles,” he announced, realizing it was one of the Libyan SU-22s that had taken off earlier to escort the bomber.
Brancato fine-tuned the attack radar scope, targeting the interceptor. “Okay, I got him. He’s jinking onto our nose . . . five miles . . . four.”
“Select fox one, fox one,” Shepherd barked, referring to one of four Aim-9 Sidewinder missiles carried on sidemounts affixed to the outboard pylons.
“Fox one,” Brancato echoed, his eyes now glued to the moving target indicator, the graphic aviators call the death dot, which was chasing the SU-22’s signal. “Okay,” he said as the MTI became fixed on the blip. “He’s locked up. He’s locked up.”
“I’ve got a tone,” Shepherd said, pickling it off.
The Sidewinder rocketed from the mount with a loud whoosh and left a fiery 1,900 MPH trail in the darkness. Seconds later a distant explosion lit up the sky.
ON THE USS AMERICA, the fleet admiral was being briefed on the situation via radio by Kiley. He was puzzled by the DCI’s desperate tone and use of the HF band, unaware that the com-tech had been bullied into using it to contact the Cavalla and had unthinkingly remained on it when calling the carrier. “Excuse me, sir,” the admiral interjected softly, “but it behooves me to point out that we’re on an unsecured channel.”
“I don’t care what we’re on, Admiral,” Kiley snapped. “My point is, the only way to stop Nidal from warning that Romeo is to take out his headquarters.”
“You’re suggesting an air strike?”
“Damn right.”
“That’s an act of war, sir,” the admiral replied warily. “It will require a declaration by Congress or a direct order from the president. I have neither.”
“You have a direct order from the director of Central Intelligence, dammit!”
“I understand that sir, but . . .”
THE F-111 was streaking low over the Mediterranean on a heading for D’Jerba when Brancato, still monitoring the HF band, switched it to Shepherd’s headset. “Hey, listen to this.”
“Then do it, Admiral,” Kiley’s voice demanded. “Target coordinates are three four/zero one/five two, north; three five/three eight/two zero, east. Got it?”
“Yes, sir, I do,” the admiral replied. “There’s nothing I’d like better than taking out that son of a bitch, believe me; but I’m forced to—”
“Nidal’s already killed one hostage! If Casino du Liban isn’t turned into a parking lot by nine o’clock, they’re all going to die! All of them!”
“I’m sorry, sir,” the admiral replied, agonizing over the decision. “I can’t order an air strike on another nation without proper authorization.”
“You’re not attacking a nation, you’re taking out a terrorist stronghold! Paint a hammer and sickle on one of your A-sixes and get on with it.”
“Sir, I’d fly the mission myself if I could, but under the circumstances I respectfully suggest there is no point in carrying this conversation any further.”
Shepherd and Brancato exchanged looks. No discussion was necessary. On Brancato’s nod, Shepherd made an abrupt change in course. While Brancato went about transposing the coordinates to ANITA for entry into the Pave Tack computer, Shepherd climbed into cloud cover 13,000 feet above the sea, pushed the throttles to the stops, and swept the wings back to 72 degrees.
The F-111 bolted forward on a heading for Beirut.
The mach gauge swiftly climbed to 2.5.
Soon the sleek bomber was streaking through the pitch blackness at 1,650 MPH. At 28 miles a minute it could cover the 1,225 miles in under 44 minutes; and though Tripoli was geographically aligned with Western Europe–almost 30 degrees latitude west of Beirut–both cities, along with the Greek Islands, were in the same time zone. It was 8:11 P.M.
AT CIA HEADQUARTERS, Kiley left communications and went to the lobby, clutching the UNODIR; he stood gazing at the memorial wall, seized by an overwhelming sense of failure and depression. Push would soon come to shove. Technically, the UNODIR would cover him, but the responsibility was his, and he took no solace in it. He returned to his office, went to the wall safe behind the Chinese screen, and encoded the combination on the keypad. The safe held cash, top-secret code books, a standard CIA issue pistol, and numerous red file folders. Duryea’s first UNODIR lay atop a pile of cables. Kiley removed it, leaving the safe open, and went to the shredder next to his desk. The first UNODIR went into the laser-honed blades with a precise whirr, spilling in ribbons into the burn bag below. He fed in the second; then, his hands shaking uncontrollably, he took the Polaroid of Fitzgerald from his desk. “I’m sorry, Tom,” he said, eyes glistening with emotion.
ON THE CAVALLA, the SEALs had suited up, clambered through the hatch into the dry deck shelter atop the Cavalla’s hull, and settled in the SDV’s cockpits.
Duryea sealed the hatch and filled the DDS with seawater. Reyes opened the aft bulkhead but, instead of piloting the swimmer delivery vehicle into the depths, he waited until the Romeo was abeam of the basaltic ridge that concealed the Cavalla from its sonar.
Now with the sound of the Romeo’s propellers and diesels to mask the noise of the launch, Reyes turned on the hydroelectric propulsion system and the SDV, its searchlight piercing the cobalt depths, rocketed into the Aegean in pursuit of the submarine.
The plastic-hulled vessel and its six passengers offered imperceptible profiles to radar and active sonar; furthermore, by approaching directly aft in the submarine’s blindspot, Reyes ensured any ambient sound would blend with that made by the Romeo itself. He guided the SDV into position below and behind the hull as it began slowly surfacing to periscope-antenna depth in preparation for contacting Abu Nidal.
The time was 8:41 P.M.
FIVE MINUTES LATER in Casino du Liban, Nidal clambered down the grand staircase from his quarters and strode purposefully through the gaming room and amphitheater to the backstage communications center.
“Have you tried communicating with the submarine?”
“No, sir. Exchequer never calls this early.”
Nidal bristled with frustration at the limitations of submarine communications and the Romeo’s archaic system, which ruled out any contact with the vessel when submerged. “Isn’t it possible that he has already surfaced and is waiting until twenty-one hundred to initiate communication?”
“Yes, sir,” the radioman replied apprehensively.
“And if he is, doesn’t that mean we could contact him right now?”
The radioman nodded. “It is also possible his transmitter is turned off.”
“Try anyway.”
“Come in, Exchequer,” the radioman said into his microphone. “Come in, Exchequer. Do you read?” To Nidal’s consternation, there was no reply. The radioman tried several more times with the same result.
THE F-111 was streaking down the center of the Mediterranean 175 miles north of the Egyptian coast.
Shepherd was keeping a wary eye on the systems caution panel, where the sensor that monitored the bomber’s skin temperature was
flashing intermittently, indicating heat buildup would soon begin to affect various parts of the airframe and electronics.
“Time to go, six plus thirty,” Shepherd said, pressing the front of his helmet against the HUD cushion to steady his vision. They were approximately 250 miles from the target as he put the plane into a dive. At 1,500 feet, he began pulling out, easing onto level flight barely 200 feet over the sea; then he reached to the center console, activated the terrain following radar, and looped a fore-finger around the paddle switch on the backside of the control stick. This was a safety device that, if released, would automatically and instantly put the plane into a 4-G climb should the TFR malfunction.
The bomber was in all-out supersonic dash now, its speed and altitude making it virtually impossible for Lebanese defense radar to skin-paint it.
“What do we have left?” Shepherd asked.
“Four GBU-fifteens, on three through six.”
“Three through six, it is; let’s ripple them off.”
“Select three, four, five, and six,” Brancato echoed, punching in the data. “Ripple salvo.”
“We’re approaching the mark,” Shepherd intoned, eyes riveted to the rapidly changing data on the video display system—longitude, latitude, altitude, angle of attack, air speed, and time to release. “TTR two plus thirty,” he announced, watching the latter count down.
Brancato thumbed a button on the attack radar console. The Pave Tack pod rotated out of its bay in the F-111’s belly and began scanning the terrain below.
“One minute,” Shepherd said, scrutinizing the VDS as he punched the ECM button, releasing chaff and flares into the bomber’s slipstream.
Brancato’s eyes were riveted to the two images on the multi-systems display, where the alphanumerics and the infrared image of the sea were visible. Soon the craggy Beirut coastline moved into view.
“Thirty seconds,” Shepherd said. “Twenty . . . ten . . .”
“Target acquired,” Brancato replied seconds later as the columns of alphanumerics coincided and the image of the casino moved onto the crosshairs. He used the control handle to align it, then locked on and hit the laser button. A pencil-thin beam of red light pulsed from the Pave Tack pod, sliced through the blackness, and locked onto Casino du Liban.
Shepherd turned over control of the bomb release mechanism to the computer, keeping the pickle button depressed, as the time to release counted down.
At all zeroes, four GBU-15s automatically rippled off 3-6-4-5 from the BRUs and began tracking on the laser.
Shepherd put the bomber into a sharp toss to avoid the upcoming explosion, but the gimbaled Pave Tack pod rotated on its mount, keeping the pulsing laser locked on the casino. The bombs lined up nose to tail like lemmings and began following it to the target.
THE TIME in Beirut was 8:57 P.M.
Abu Nidal was hovering over the communications console, awaiting the Romeo’s call when he heard the telltale whistle and froze; seconds later, the first bomb scored a direct hit on the marina, blowing the floating gangways and 50-ton gunboat to pieces. He was dashing through the amphitheater when the second hit.
An avalanche of equipment—the catwalks, lighting grid, winch unit, and cables of the trapeze apparatus—fell from the rafters, knocking him to the floor. He became entangled in the velvet-sheathed cables and was struggling to free himself when the third and fourth bombs came through the roof of the adjacent gaming room, where the drums of Semtex plastique and crates of ammunition were stored. They erupted in a series of massive explosions that sent a roaring fireball into the blackness above Casino du Liban.
Below, in the wine cellar, Katifa huddled in a corner as the earth shook with the terrifying fury of a castastrophic quake. The last thundering explosion shattered the stone walls that entombed her, pummeling her with debris. She heard the roaring fire and felt the rising heat and then a draft. She crawled from beneath the rubble and along the floor through the smoke, following the cool air to a section of wall that had been blown away and went out the gaping hole onto the hillside, stumbling down the steep incline to the beach.
Another blast ripped through Casino du Liban.
Katifa felt the shock wave and whirled at the sound. She stood there at the edge of the surf, the choppy surface a patina of pulsating red-orange reflections, and watched as the roaring inferno consumed what little was left of the legendary gaming palace. Her thoughts came in a numbing rush. In a matter of months she had lost her brother, her lover, and the man who had raised her. She had lost them all; and for what? Indeed, the most painful part was that they were gone and she really didn’t quite know why. Her eyes welled and sent tears rolling down her cheeks. She remained there for what seemed an eternity, feeling hollow and terribly alone, before she slipped away in the darkness.
BENEATH the surface of the Aegean, the Romeo was dead in the water at periscope-antenna depth. Fifty feet astern, the SDV was approaching in line with the engine and props, and away from the bow-mounted sonar. In the submarine’s control room, the Syrian captain stepped back from the periscope and snapped up the handles. “Down scope; raise the antenna mast.”
Exchequer, the Palestinian in charge of the hostages, crossed to the radio room, accompanied by the captain.
“Ready to transmit,” the radioman reported.
The Palestinian watched the time count down and, as always, nodded at precisely 2100 hours. The operator turned on his radio and handed him the microphone. “This is the Exchequer,” the Palestinian said in Arabic. “This is the Exchequer. Do you read?” The speaker crackled and hissed with dead air. He swung a baffled look to the radioman. “You have your transmitter on?”
“Of course,” he replied, equally puzzled. “One of the amplifiers may have blown a fuse.” He crouched to an access panel and went about removing it.
Outside, underwater searchlights slashed the black depths as the SEALs left the SDV and swarmed like foraging sharks over the Romeo’s hull. One SEAL went with Reyes to the access hatch. Four swam to preassigned rescue valves.
Each affixed a suction-mounted handhold to the hull, then reached to the yellow tank on his back and unfurled the delivery hose. It terminated in a flexible plastic fitting that had been perfectly mated by OTS engineers at Langley to the valves on the Romeo’s hull, enabling the two to be coupled quickly and silently.
It was 9:08 P.M. by the time the hookups were made and each man had flashed his light, signaling he was ready. Reyes returned the signal and the SEALs simultaneously opened the valves, gradually releasing the halothane into the submarine, permeating compartments from bow to stern.
“The transmitter is functioning perfectly,” the radioman reported, feeling the effects of the halothane and shaking his head to clear it.
“Perhaps Beirut has had a power failure?” the captain offered. It happened often in the war-ravaged city and made perfect sense.
“What about their emergency generators?” the Palestinian countered.
The radioman slurred an unintelligible reply and slumped forward over the console.
“What is the matter with him?” the Palestinian asked, turning to the captain, who was bending over the radioman with concern when the phone buzzed. A machinist’s mate reported that several seamen in the engine room had passed out; others were becoming groggy.
“What is happening?” the Palestinian demanded, feeling light-headed and faltering as he spoke.
“Carbon monoxide,” the captain deduced, turning back to the phone. “Check the exhaust system; there must be an internal leak somewhere.” He paused, shaking off a growing drowsiness, then turned to the helmsman. “Surface and open all . . .” He bit off the sentence when he saw him hanging over the controls.
Outside in the frigid water, Reyes was poised over the salvage hatch, timing the halothane. He waited an extra 30 seconds before opening the hatch. Water poured into the air lock below. He and the other SEAL slithered inside and pulled it closed; then they pumped out the water, opened the interior h
atch, and dropped into the Romeo, continuing to breathe through their scuba gear to avoid being affected by the anesthesia that hung in the air.
Seamen were lying on the deck, slumped in chairs, hanging over their equipment. One of the Palestinians who had been guarding the hostages stumbled toward them and fired a wild shot from a pistol. Reyes pulled the trigger on his spear gun. The barbed dart stabbed into the terrorist’s chest, driving him backwards. The lieutenant made his way through the passageways, checking compartments as he went, finally coming upon the hostages in the ward room. All seven were on the floor; all were chained to bulkheads; all were sleeping like babies.
THE MASTER CAUTION LIGHT on the F-111’s instrument panel was on steady. The supersonic dash had burned fuel at an incredible rate and it was dangerously low as the bomber streaked over the Mediterranean.
“Israel? Cyprus?” Brancato asked. “What do you say?”
Shepherd considered it for a long moment. “I say either one would blow the whole thing, if you know what I mean,” he finally replied.
Brancato nodded emphatically. “Where else?”
“How about America? The USS America.”
“Oh, boy.” Brancato blanched at the prospect of a night landing on a postage stamp pitching in a rolling sea.
Shepherd contacted the carrier, identified himself and the aircraft, and requested a clear to land.
“You say a one-eleven, Viper-Two?” the America’s air ops officer replied incredulously.
“Affirmative. I’m lightweight; we carry a tail hook and have arrester experience.”
“Not on seven-hundred-foot runways. Suggest you divert to Haifa or Nicosia. Do you copy?”
“Negative,” Shepherd replied. “We’ll never make it. We’re too close to flame out.”
“Ditch, Viper-Two. We’ll fish you out.”
“Negative. I don’t have time to get into it. Tell the admiral mission accomplished and give him these coordinates if he needs convincing,” Shepherd replied, going on to recite the coordinates for Casino du Liban.
