by Oliver North
The children tracked their parents’ footsteps into adulthood. John went to the Naval Academy and, upon graduation in 2002, became a SEAL. Beth followed her mom to the University of Montana as a business major and then on to law school. That’s where she was in 2006 when her family was devastated by news that John had been killed in Ramadi, Iraq.
Beth immediately drove the 160 miles from Missoula to the ranch to wait in anguish for her brother’s flag-draped, gunmetal transfer case, borne by eight of his fellow SEALs, to arrive on a USAF C-17 “Angel Flight” at Malmstrom AFB. Two weeks later, at Arlington National Cemetery, every member of the forty-man SEAL honor guard embedded his golden SEAL Trident in the lid of John’s casket after Angela was presented with the flag once covering her only son’s remains.
It took ten more years for their friends and neighbors in Montana to finally convince Mack Caperton to run for the U.S. Senate. Though neither woman told him so at the time, Beth—by then married and the mother of three boys—agreed with her mother: “Being a senator will help Dad stop blaming himself for John’s decision to become a SEAL.”
* * * *
Caperton won in a landslide. For the entirety of his first term, Mack and Angela rented a tiny apartment on C Street, on Capitol Hill, a brief walk through Stanton Park to Mack’s office in the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Then one afternoon in February 2023, shortly after Mack was sworn in for his second term, Angela noticed a brick town house on Maryland Avenue. It had been the property of the U.S. Episcopal Church before the denomination disintegrated in acrimonious schism over the ordination of lesbians and homosexuals and the decision of church leaders to perform same-sex marriages.
A sign in front of the building announced FORECLOSURE—nothing unusual in the long-depressed real estate market. Angela called the phone number on the sign and the agent listing the property was only too glad to show her the three-story residence that had been partitioned into office space. After a single walk-through—and an inspector’s certification the building was sound—Mack agreed with his wife’s plan to turn the town house into their “home away from home.”
It took Angela almost ninety days to push the paperwork through the city’s foundering bureaucracy and another six months to make the place, in her word, livable. She converted the basement into a comfortable apartment for one of Mack’s single staffers and transformed the third floor into a guest suite for their frequent visitors from “out west.” Mack and Angela lived on the first and second floors—space she decorated as tastefully as their “real home” in Montana. It was her idea to turn the small bedroom next to theirs into the home office from which Mack sent two text messages—one to United Airlines and the second to Capitol Police Officer Mark Carter, the head of his PSD. Then he placed a Vid-Call.
* * * *
“It’s after eleven out here. Why are you up so late?” she asked.
“I was in bed when my PID went off. After reading the message, I missed you and remembered we hadn’t spoken since you flew out this morning. Did you have any trouble making the connection from Denver to Great Falls?”
“No, but both flights were almost empty. I don’t know how either airline manages to survive in this economy. I suppose they are next for a government takeover.”
“Let’s hope they stay in business. I don’t want us to have to drive back and forth between here and Montana. How many of our constituents have you talked to since you arrived?”
There was a long pause and he could see her purse her lips. “Mack, I’m concerned. Just a couple of miles from the airport, at the I-15 intersection with U.S. 89, there is a large billboard that says, ‘Join the Tax Revolt—Just Say “No” to Federal Taxes.’ Is that kind of thing showing up elsewhere?”
“I’m told there are similar signs in Wyoming, the Dakotas, Idaho, Utah, Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona, Nevada, and all over the South. I’ll look in South Carolina when I go down there tomorrow to see Peter and Rachel. I hope to be on the oh-nine-twenty flight from Reagan.”
Angela didn’t miss a beat. She and Mack had talked at length about what he was doing to help protect James Newman. She also knew that as of her noon departure from Reagan Airport, Mack had not planned a return to Pawleys Island. She assumed something urgent had come up, and simply replied, “I’ll confirm your reservations and send the boarding pass to your PID from here so you can get some sleep. You’re not going alone, are you?”
“No,” Mack replied. “I’m taking Officer Carter with me.”
He could see Angela nod. “Good,” she said. “When you get to Pawleys, give Peter and Rachel my love and remind them they are always in my prayers. Now go to bed. I love you.”
“I’ll do that. You, Beth, Samuel, and their boys are in my prayers. I love you, too. Good night.” As he shut off his desk lamp and made his way back to bed, Mack reflected, After fifty-four years of marriage, not everything works like it used to, but some things just get better with age.
* * * *
At 0730 Saturday morning, Mack Caperton walked downstairs to the basement apartment of their town house and knocked on the door. Niles Martin, a twenty-eight-year-old former Navy SEAL and a member of the SSCI staff, looking somewhat the worse for wear from Friday night frivolity, opened the door, then followed the senator back to the Capertons’ kitchen.
There Mack gave the young man the name of a records clerk at the federal court on Judiciary Square, an unregistered PID, the number for another unregistered PID, and precise instructions on what to do when he completed his mission. Caperton then walked back to the second floor, swung back a framed painting of a bison on the east wall of his office, and spun the dial on an old U.S.-government-issue safe built into the brick and mortar. He removed the two reports labeled TOP SECRET he had brought home from his U.S. Senate office, placed the documents in a manila folder, and stuffed the package into his briefcase.
After closing and locking the safe, Mack used the minicam on his SSCI PID to take digital images of the combination and the placement of the papers and articles on his desk. Satisfied the room was recorded and sanitized, he went downstairs to meet Officer Carter, who arrived at the front door precisely at 0800. They got in a dark blue government sedan behind the driver and departed for Reagan Airport and the 0920 flight to Myrtle Beach for which Angela had confirmed the reservations.
Just prior to boarding, the unregistered PID in Mack’s shirt pocket pinged once, signaling an incoming text message. He glanced around to see if he could spot anyone tailing him; decided one or two of the other dozen or so passengers could be FBI or contract surveillance; and told Carter he had to use the men’s room. The officer nodded to the restroom sign and said, “We’re inside security. I’ll wait out here.”
Caperton stepped into a stall, took out the PID, and looked at the screen. There was a one-word message from the unregistered PID he gave Niles Martin: “YES.”
Standing in the men’s room stall, Mack bent the little ceramic-plastic card back and forth until it broke, then did so again until it was in four pieces. After wrapping each piece in several sheets of toilet paper, he flushed them down the toilet. Senator Mackintosh Caperton now knew he was en route to deliver some very bad news to some very good friends. A sealed indictment had been issued for James Newman.
4 MILES EAST OF DZILAM DE BRAVO
YUCATAN STATE, MEXICO
SATURDAY, 18 SEPTEMBER 2032
1030 HOURS, LOCAL
Until the burst of automatic weapons fire from behind the farmhouse, Marty Cohen was increasingly confident he was going to survive this brutal experience. That feeling ebbed like an outgoing tide with the gunfire.
* * * *
After cutting the admiral free on Friday afternoon, Ahmad ordered Massoud and Rostam to help the old man to the outhouse so he could relieve himself. Then, through hand gestures and much pointing, they had Felipe use the hand pump atop the well behind the house to fill the fifty-five-gallon drum serving as the family shower and allowed Cohen to bathe. While Marty ai
r dried in the post-hurricane sunlight, Felipe found him a shirt, a pair of trousers that almost fit, and two worn, mismatched sandals.
Later, as Ebi prepared a meal of beans and rice on the propane stove, Ahmad took the chain and lock from the door of the room Cohen was sharing with Felipe and shackled the admiral’s right leg to a heavy wooden chair in the kitchen. Having completed the task, the terrorist sat across the table from the old man and said, “Now, Jew, if you try to escape again, you will have to drag the chair with you and when I catch you, I will break both your legs and leave you in the chair until insects eat you and you rot. Do you understand?”
The old admiral simply shrugged and said nothing. Ahmad continued, “Do you know where we are, Jew?”
Cohen, feeling better than he had in days, stared across the table’s wooden planks at the Iranian for a moment, then said, “I believe we’re just inland, on the north coast of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. Exactly where, I cannot tell without a map and compass or a GPS. Where are Roberto, Hassan, and Rikki?”
“What do you care, Jew?”
“They are not here. Did they make it ashore?”
“Since you answered my question, I will answer yours,” Ahmad replied without any inflection. “Roberto and Hassan were in the life raft with Massoud and Rostam. Their raft flipped over several times before coming ashore just as ours did. Hassan could not swim. Apparently Roberto could not swim, either. Rostam told me their life jackets did not work and neither one of them made it back into their raft after it tipped over the last time.”
“What about Rikki?”
“I killed him.”
“Killed him? Why? How?”
“He had a knife. I needed it. He would not give it to me, so I killed him with a rock while Rostam and Massoud held him.”
Ahmad said all of this without the slightest hint of emotion or sign of remorse. Cohen said, “Rikki was just a boy. Hassan was not much older. Don’t you feel anything about them?”
Ahmad looked at the American with undisguised disdain. “You do not understand, do you, Jew. It is Allah’s will that they should die when, where, and how they did. I was simply the instrument for Allah’s will.”
Cohen said nothing, so Ahmad went on. “Tomorrow we must find communications so I can report to my superiors and summon assistance.”
At this the old admiral leaned forward and asked, “Who are your superiors, Ahmad? Why have you kidnapped me?”
For a moment Ahmad just stared at Cohen, but then he leaned forward and responded in English, “You might as well know, Jew. I am sarhang dovom—a lieutenant colonel—in the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Ebi, my deputy, is a nakhoda sevom—a lieutenant commander in our naval component. There are other Quds Force units here in Mexico, Venezuela, and Cuba. I was ordered to deliver you alive to our unit in Nicaragua.”
Cohen, amazed at what he just heard, shook his head and said, “But why me?”
“I do not know why, Jew. It doesn’t matter,” Ahmad replied. “If it was up to me, I would have killed you with the others in Houston. What does matter now is that you get information from the Mexican boy on where we are and how I can communicate. You will translate for me or I will kill the boy. After you watch him die slowly, I will kill you. Do you understand me?”
Cohen nodded. By now Ahmad had threatened to kill him so many times it barely registered anymore. It wasn’t that the old man didn’t believe the terrorist’s threats; rather, he believed the Good Lord kept him alive through all this for a reason. While Cohen didn’t know why he had endured all the near misses since September 11, he was increasingly convinced he was going to get through this ordeal intact. But after the cold description of Rikki’s murder, the admiral also knew Ahmad’s threat to kill Felipe was real. It added a new dimension to what was, until now, his singular focus: personal survival.
When Ebi finished cooking, he poured the contents of the pan into six bowls he located on a shelf in the corner. He found an equal number of spoons in a drawer and placed four bowls on the table. While Ahmad, Ebi, Cohen, and Felipe ate at the kitchen table, Massoud and Rostam, each armed with an ancient AK-47, ate outside, standing watch on the front and back doors of the house.
During the meal, Ahmad probed Felipe for information, using Cohen to translate from English to Spanish, then back to English again.
“Ask him where we are.”
“He says we are in Mexico.”
“Yes, but where in Mexico?”
“He says we are in Yucatan.”
Ahmad’s patience began to wear thin. “Where in Yucatan?”
“We are on his father’s farm.”
“Where is his father?”
Cohen knew from his predawn, whispered conversation with Felipe that the boy’s response was a facile lie, but he translated the answer: “He says his father is a policeman and went to visit his older sister.”
“Where does his sister live?”
“In her house.”
Exasperated, Ahmad slammed his palm on the table and said, “The boy is an infidel idiot. Ask him how his father got to his sister’s place. Does he have a vehicle?”
“He says his father took their truck.”
“Ask him when his father is coming back here and how far it is to the nearest telephone, radio, or someone with a PID.”
As Cohen repeated the question in Spanish, the boy’s big brown eyes filled with tears and he began to sob.
Ahmad became agitated. “What’s he saying? Why is he crying?”
Cohen listened for a moment, amazed at how Felipe deftly avoided answering the original question, and translated the child’s reply: “He says his brother Jorge is dead and must be buried or his father will be very angry with him.”
Ahmad’s reaction surprised Cohen. In the days since being kidnapped the admiral hadn’t witnessed the slightest hint of human compassion in the Iranian. But now the Quds Force officer sat upright in his chair and said, “Yes. That is correct. We are not animals. Tell the boy we will bury his brother in the morning. After we have done that, I will ask him more questions.”
Rostam was summoned to unshackle Cohen and accompany him to the privy. As the old sailor shuffled back to the house, acting more feeble than he really felt, he noticed stars already winking in the dark purple of the eastern sky. Tomorrow will be a clear day. Good for flying. Perhaps someone will find our EPIRB.
Darkness was filling the farmhouse as Cohen and Felipe were escorted to the same room where they first encountered one another. On the way, the boy grabbed three rough blankets and a pillow from another room Cohen surmised to be his parents’. While Ahmad ran the chain through the rough hasp on the outside of the door, he shouted, “Remember, Jew, if I hear you and the boy talking, I will cut out his tongue while you watch!”
Cohen tapped the boy on the shoulder to gain his attention in the gloom and placed his index finger over his lips, motioning for silence. Felipe nodded and without a word, helped the old man flip over the mattress so Cohen would not have to sleep in the dampness of his own urine. For the next twenty minutes or so they sat next to each other on the edge of the cot, whispering quietly in English.
* * * *
On Saturday morning, Marty Cohen awakened at the break of dawn to the sound of a cock crowing. He stretched, did a quick assessment of his bodily aches and pains, observed the knot on the back of his skull was smaller, and swung his feet to the floor. He noticed Felipe rolled in a ball beneath the window and quietly pulled the threadbare blanket over the boy’s shoulder. A moment later he heard the chain being pulled through the hasp on the outside of the door.
Ahmad, speaking louder than necessary in the early morning silence, said, “Get up, Jew. Tell the boy to go out with Rostam and get us some eggs. After we have some food, we will bury his brother.”
Cohen marveled that Felipe did not move a muscle until the old admiral translated Ahmad’s command into Spanish. Then, as Ahmad watched, the boy arose, picked up the blankets an
d pillow, placed them on Cohen’s bed, and headed outside to comply. Rostam traipsed along behind like a bored shepherd, toting an AK-47 over his shoulder and gripping the barrel.
It was nearly nine in the morning by the time the four terrorists and their two captives finished the breakfast of eggs, fried beans, and fresh corn Ebi prepared in a large frying pan. Though the “chef” used far too much cooking oil, the admiral judged the fare to be more than passable for fugitives on the run.
As Rostam and Massoud delivered their bowls back to the kitchen, Cohen said to Ahmad, “Please tell Ebi I thank him for two good meals. But, before we eat again, we should wash the dishes and cooking pans. Otherwise we may all get sick.”
The terror chieftain, a handgun jammed into his belt, snickered and replied, “You are amazing, Jew. You are afraid we will get sick? If you want clean plates, wash them yourself.”
Cohen gestured at the chain holding his ankle to the chair and Ahmad spat, “Tell the boy to get some water. Then we will go bury his brother. After that, he will lead us to a telephone or a radio so we can get out of here.”
Felipe carried in a bucket of water hand-pumped from the well behind the house and placed it on the kitchen floor in front of the admiral’s chair. Cohen set to work scrubbing the large iron frying pan, bowls, and utensils with a bar of soap and a rag Ebi produced from a shelf beneath the sink.
As Ahmad, Rostam, and Massoud headed out the door with Felipe to find shovels for their interment detail, Cohen said, “Ahmad, you should bring something to wrap around the body. In your faith and mine, a burial shroud is appropriate.”
The Iranian looked hard at the American, started to speak, but decided otherwise. Instead, he went into the room off the kitchen and reentered a moment later carrying a blanket. The three men followed the boy out the door, headed toward the partially collapsed barn fifty yards south of the farmhouse.
