Against All Enemies

by Richard Herman

  The army colonel from Delta Force stood in front of the chart. He was six feet tall and moved with agile grace. Corded muscles ran down his thick neck and Durant wondered if the colonel was all hard lines and no brains. His short and concise briefing dispelled any doubts about his competence. Delta Force had constructed a mockup of the El Obeid barracks at Fort Irwin in the Mojave Desert and had been practicing for two weeks. They were ready to go.

  Gillespie stood up. “It’s nine hundred miles to the target and another eight hundred miles to egress. We will land on an aircraft carrier in the Red Sea. Because of the distances, the helicopters need to refuel four times.”

  “Given the porous nature of the Sudan’s air defenses,” the Army colonel said, “we’d prefer to set up FARPs, forward air and refueling points, on the ground.”

  “Our experience with FARPing is not good,” Gillespie told them. “We prefer to use our own C-One-thirties. We can do it with two additional HC-One-thirty-Ps from the Ninth Special Ops Squadron. They refuel us inbound to the target. The two Combat Talons that insert Delta Force can refuel us on the way out. It’s simple and gives us flexibility.”

  Durant and Rios quietly exchanged a few words. “It sounds like the air-to-air refueling option works best. Go with that.”

  Gillespie shook his head. “In special ops, you never know what works best.”

  A Navy captain stood up. “The Navy is ready to go and the Nimitz will be on station here.” He pointed to a position in the Red Sea. “Navy Seals are ready to go in for a rescue should a helicopter go down. However, my admiral is worried about Air Force helicopter pilots landing on an aircraft carrier, especially at night.”

  “That’s a piece of cake,” Gillespie said. “If your admiral’s worried, I’ll fly a demonstration mission and put his mind at rest.”

  “I’d like to see that myself,” Durant said. “Do you mind if I go along?”

  “Why not?” Gillespie replied.

  8:05 A.M., Tuesday, June 22,

  Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo.

  Toni was at the front desk talking to Linda when FBI Special Agent Brent Mather entered the legal office. Toni looked up and smiled, instantly recalling when they had collided on the Jefferson stakeout in Kansas City. “Hi,” she said. “Linda, this is agent Brent Mather.”

  Mather reached across the desk and shook her hand, capturing the older woman with his hazel eyes and good looks. “I’m with the FBI, ma’am.” Linda returned his smile. He turned to Toni. “I’ve got something you might like to see.” He held up a videocassette. “Someplace where we might watch it?”

  “Is it about Sandi Jefferson?” Toni asked. He nodded and she led him to the witness waiting room. “We can watch it in here. Let me get Major Blasedale. She’s already here.” She hurried down the hall to find the lawyer. “Major,” she said, “the FBI agent I told you about is here. He’s got a videotape.” Blasedale followed her to the waiting room. Like Linda, she was immediately impressed with Mather.

  “I prefer Brent,” he told her when Toni made the introductions. The TV set was already turned on and the tape loaded. He hit the Play button. “This is from the service station in Lone Jack three weeks ago when Mrs. Jefferson was jacked up by the local sheriff.”

  “Pun intended?” Toni quipped. They watched as the tape started to roll. “The sergeant who drove up in the pickup took this, didn’t he?”

  “Correct,” Mather answered.

  “Talk about coincidence,” she said. “It was lucky he was there.”

  “It was no coincidence,” Mather replied. “He’s one of ours.” They watched as the tape played. Mather froze a frame. “We have a problem with this guy,” he said.

  “That’s Jim Bob,” Toni said.

  “Harrison,” Mather said. “Jim Bob Harrison. But that’s all we’ve got on him. We ran his fingerprints and came up totally dry.”

  Toni remembered the time she and Harry first encountered the man. “Jim Bob stopped Harry and me at a roadblock when we first arrived here. A guy from the First Brigade said he wasn’t from around Kansas City.”

  Mather nodded. “We talked to the same people. Then we checked with the county office where he applied for the parade permit for the demonstration at the main gate. Nothing. It turns out he’s been using fake IDs.”

  “So you were also on top of that one,” Toni said, impressed with the FBI’s efficiency.

  “Oh, yeah. When we reviewed the tapes from the demonstration we even identified you and Sutherland. But on Jim Bob, we have nada, not a damn thing. This guy is slipperier than a salamander.”

  Sutherland walked past the door carrying two briefcases. “Hank,” Blasedale called, “you need to see this.” She smiled when she introduced him to Brent Mather and explained why he was there. “He’s the FBI agent Toni told us about.”

  “Right,” Sutherland answered, wondering why Mather had to deliver the tape personally. Mather hit the Play button and they watched in silence as the tape replayed.

  “Mrs. Jefferson photographs well,” Blasedale said. It was true, Sandi Jefferson looked much softer and more vulnerable than in real life. “Now if she dressed—” Blasedale’s voice trailed off. She didn’t want to seem catty. At least not so early in the morning.

  “More conservatively?” Mather replied.

  “Less like a hooker?” This from Toni.

  “Humm,” Sutherland muttered in annoyance, more at Mather’s presence than anything else.

  “There’s one more thing,” Mather said, closing the door to the room. They all looked at him expectantly. “Did you hear about the demonstration in Phoenix, last night?”

  “Who hasn’t?” Sutherland replied. “It was on the news this morning. I heard a woman was killed.”

  “Actually,” Mather replied, “she was lynched.” They stared at him, shocked to silence.

  “Was she black?” Toni asked, her eyes wide.

  “Yeah. She was just driving by, trying to get home, and some thugs from a white supremacist group pulled her out of her car. It got pretty ugly.”

  “How come it wasn’t on the news?” Blasedale asked.

  “It will be,” Mather said. “Probably about now. The authorities were able to sit on it until the crowds went home. Our information indicates it was a setup. The bastards are trying to bait the black community into rioting. But so far, cooler heads have prevailed. We won’t be so lucky next time.”

  “Why are you telling us this?” Sutherland asked.

  “Because we think Whiteman is next. My bosses are meeting with your wing commander right now and want to get all your minorities moved onto base.”

  “Is it because of the court-martial?” Blasedale asked.

  “Probably,” Mather answered. “We’re seeing an outbreak of demonstrations and riots everywhere.”

  “Is it racial?” Toni asked, worried about her family.

  “I’d say about a third of the time,” Mather replied. “People are simply going crazy and Meredith isn’t helping with his calls for arming his Neighborhood Brigades.”

  “Anything new on Sandi Jefferson?” Sutherland asked.

  Mather pulled out his notebook. “Nothing significant. Other than shopping and a weekly visit to a beauty salon, she’s staying at home. We did flesh out her background. High school dropout from the hard side of town in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Went to work as a manicurist, owned the shop by the time she was twenty, traveled a little, met Jefferson, married just before he was assigned to Whiteman, sold the salon, honeymooned in Europe. A definite move up the economic ladder.”

  Sutherland thought for a moment. “Do you have anything on that woman Toni saw having lunch with Sandi at Nordstrom’s, the day of the incident at Lone Jack?”

  Mather shook his head and looked embarrassed. “We were distracted by the incident and then focused on Jim Bob. We think it was probably a chance meeting with some old friend or a wife. If she shows up again, we’ll get her.”

  An inner voice told Sutherland they
had missed something important. “That would be nice,” he muttered.

  Mather checked his watch. “I’ve got to go.” Toni walked him to the front desk. “Dinner?” he asked.

  “I’d love to,” she said, giving him a lovely smile.

  Sutherland stood in the hall talking to Blasedale until Mather had left. “What the hell does he want?” he muttered.

  “Toni,” Blasedale replied.

  1:45 P.M., Wednesday, June 23,

  El Obeid, The Sudan

  Kamigami replayed the tape for Jamil bin Assam while al Gimlas sat quietly behind his desk. Assam twitched with anger as the tape played out. “You have your confessions,” Kamigami said. “And we have more of the same.”

  “This is not a confession,” Assam ranted. “This is worthless! And what is this ‘Beak’ they talk about? It means nothing.”

  “The Beak is slang for the B-Two,” Kamigami explained. “You heard them admit they were on a bombing mission.”

  “It is not what I want,” Assam growled. His English was heavily accented but easily understood.

  “General Assam,” Kamigami said, “you employ me as your chief of security. As long as I am in charge, I will give you the best advice I can. On this matter, I am telling you that your best defense against the Americans is the absolute truth. The Americans want us to lie, to fabricate evidence, to force confessions, even torture the pilots. That will give them the excuse they need to react, and I assure you, they have the capability to do whatever they want. They only lack the will.” He let his words sink in before getting to the hard sell. “Use the truth, take the will to act from them, and you will remain master of the situation.”

  Dealing with the truth was a new concept for Assam. His instincts demanded that he dissemble and lie. Even walking a straight line was abhorrent to his nature. He hesitated. “Give the Western world hard evidence they can believe,” Kamigami urged.

  “Look what General Kamigami has accomplished in three weeks,” al Gimlas added. “You were very wise in finding a man who understands the way Americans think.”

  It was enough. “I will put them on trial,” Assam announced, “when the Americans court-martial the martyr in Missouri,” He rubbed his chin. “But I am worried the Americans may use the trial as an excuse for another attack on my laboratories.”

  “There are always ways to improve your defenses,” Kamigami said. “Let me examine the laboratories.”

  “Impossible,” Assam snapped.

  “I only need to see the exterior to evaluate your defenses,” Kamigami coaxed, “not the inside.”

  Assam jerked his head in agreement and two hours later, they were on his C-130 headed for the underground laboratory deep in the western desert. Assam traveled with a large retinue of sycophants who clustered around him, trying to capture one of the airline-type seats that were on-loaded whenever Assam used the aircraft. Kamigami sat near the portable lavatory module at the rear of the aircraft. The two stewards concentrated on Assam and left him alone, which was just fine. But he was worried about al Gimlas. Among the Sudanese, he alone worried Kamigami.

  When al Gimlas had gone forward and climbed onto the flight deck, Kamigami stepped into the vacant lavatory. He urinated as he examined the interior. Someone had smudged the vanity mirror over the washbasin with a small backward check mark. The tail of the check mark moved upward in a slightly longer-than-expected stroke and curved off to his left. Kamigami allowed a mental sigh of relief. It was what he had been looking for since arriving in the Sudan. He turned around and faced the wall opposite the mirror and looked where the tail of the check mark pointed. He quickly ran his hand along the top right side of the storage cabinets built into the wall. At the back of a pile of paper towels he found what he was looking for: a half-used pack of cigarettes.

  The check mark was the signal that a dead letter drop was activated and the message would be in one of the cigarettes. Since the Sudan was a Moslem country, the sender was most likely a male. But other than that, Kamigami could only surmise it was someone who had access to the plane. Should the wrong person inadvertently find the cigarettes, they would most likely think they were hidden there by someone who was afraid of the Moslem prohibition against using tobacco. The finder would probably smoke the cigarettes himself, destroying the message. Very good, Kamigami thought. Someone who knows his tradecraft.

  He stood over the toilet and unwrapped a cigarette, carefully examining the inside of the paper. Nothing. He dropped the tobacco into the toilet, confident that no Moslem would be too concerned about examining the holding tank. The CIA had no such compunctions and were shit divers of the first water. He ate the paper wrapper. He repeated the process with three more cigarettes before he found the faint mark he was looking for. He moistened the inside of the paper with his tongue, careful to barely wet it. Dull, but very fine lettering emerged and started to fade almost at once.

  Friday Mosque El Obeid. Last beggar at end of wall.

  I’m not one of you but alms are for the faithful.

  Allah rewards all who honor him in this way.

  These were the location, contact, and recognition signals he needed. Kamigami flushed the tobacco down the toilet and ate the paper wrapper, chewing it into oblivion. He wiped his fingerprints off the pack and placed the unused cigarettes back in their hiding place, confident they would be smoked. He squeezed around and rubbed off the check mark on the mirror indicating the message had been received.

  He had made contact.

  18

  7:30 P.M., Thursday, June 24,

  Hurlburt Field, Fla.

  The tech sergeant who described himself as Gillespie’s “flight inga-neer” met Durant and Rios when they arrived at the MH-53J Pave Low helicopter. Durant talked to Gillespie while the sergeant and Rios did a walk-around in the rapidly fading light. “Don’t you pay no-never-mind to all those hydraulic leaks dripping on the ramp,” the flight engineer told him. “If it’s leaking, then it’s working right.”

  “And if it’s not leaking?” Rios asked.

  “Then it’s dry and we got to refill it.”

  “Have you flown much with Colonel Gillespie?” Rios asked.

  “For a college boy, he ain’t bad.”

  “Does that mean he’s a good pilot?”

  The flight engineer nodded. “I’d go play cowboys and Iranians with him or Captain Harold any time, any place.” They climbed up the rear ramp and Rios strapped in next to Durant while the crew brought the big helicopter to life. Slowly, the six big blades on the seventy-two-foot rotor picked up speed and beat at the air with the characteristic whomp-whomp-whomp of a helicopter. Both Durant and Rios were wearing earplugs under their headsets and still found the sound deafening. Then a gunner raised the ramp and closed the hatches, lowering the noise to a more tolerable level.

  Harold radioed ground control for taxi clearance and the Pave Low moved like a giant insect into the takeoff position. Harold read the before-takeoff checklist and then called the tower for release. The tower cleared them for takeoff, the flight engineer pushed the throttles on the overhead panel to one hundred percent, and Gillespie lifted them easily into the clear night sky.

  Gillespie turned west and flew just over the coastline at two hundred feet as they headed for Pensacola. A gunner handed them NVGs, night vision goggles, and helped them fit the cumbersome devices over their eyes. “Look toward the ocean,” he warned them. “Otherwise, bright lights will blind you.” He gave them a friendly grin. “You’d be surprised at what we see.” He guided them to the left gunner’s position just aft of the cockpit, and they scanned the shoreline as the gunner had suggested. Although depth perception was not very good through the NVGs, the bright apple green images were very sharp.

  “Hey, Gunny,” Harold said over the intercom, “we got some live ones up ahead.” The forward-looking infrared in the cockpit was much more powerful than the NVGs. Gillespie altered course a few degrees to the right to move them inland. “Clear left,” Harold said
, clearing the airspace on their left side. Gillespie wracked the helicopter into a tight left turn and did a pylon turn over a naked couple fornicating on the sand.

  “I hope that ain’t your daughter down there,” the flight engineer said to no one in particular. “Maybe we outta go around again and check to be sure.”

  “No way,” Gillespie said.

  “Ah, why not?” the flight engineer replied.

  “We can get arrested for disturbing the piece,” Gillespie quipped.

  Durant’s smile turned into a laugh. It was a rich, warm laughter that came from the heart. Rios felt his eyes tear up and blinked twice. Durant hadn’t laughed like that in years. The flight engineer stowed his seat and let Durant stand on the step between and just behind the pilots. From the intercom chatter, the radio calls, and the precise actions of the crew, there was no doubt that they were flying with highly trained and proficient professionals.

  But there was more. Special operations demanded every one of them be an independent thinker yet capable of being a team player. They had a measure of self-confidence the average civilian could never understand for the simple reason the average civilian was never challenged the way they were. These men would fly the most difficult of missions, betting their skills were equal to the task. And if they were found lacking, the survivors consoled themselves with “We had a bad day.” Then they trained harder.

  “Special ops,” the flight engineer said to Durant over the intercom, “never gets any credit because we make it look so easy.”

  Durant smiled. He was having the time of his life.

  Harold switched radio frequencies and they headed out over the Gulf toward the old aircraft carrier the Navy used for flight training. The VHF crackled with transmissions as they neared the carrier, and judging by the strain in their voices, a few of the student pilots were on the edge of panic as they practiced night carrier landings. Gillespie caught it first. “One of them is disoriented and doesn’t know where he is.”