Intercept

by Patrick Robinson

  “Mack, old buddy,” concluded Jimmy, “There is no way this is going to happen. Maybe they’d have helped if Ibrahim and his mates had been successful. But they’re not about to re-arrange their entire naval defense policy to catch a couple of blokes who might have shot the bloody bank manager.”

  “Then we’re just going to wait it out, right?” said Mack. “And I don’t mean wait for the Mounties to catch ’em. I mean for someone to make a mistake, and get rumbled on the systems. Like they did before.”

  “Guess so,” said Jimmy.

  “But, you can assume they’re on a ship,” said Mack. “Maybe even holding the captain at gun point. And there is one action we can take. We should alert our surveillance guys everywhere east of Nova Scotia. I mean all the SOSUS stations. Just give ’em the buzz-words, tell ’em who we’re after, coupla guys on a freighter.”

  “I’ll get it done, Mack. But something better shake loose soon, otherwise we’ll miss them. And they’ll make it to the back end of the Hindu Kush, protected by a bloody army of Taliban and al-Qaeda warriors. What happens then?”

  “I’ll go in after them,” said Mack. “And when I find them, I’ll take them out.”

  SHEIKH ABDULLAH BAZIR put an e-mail through to Shakir Khan immediately: Our children expected to arrive Reykjavik in about a week. Excellent fishing but they need cash. Will you arrange tickets Reykjavik-home. All love from me and the family. Abby Bazir.

  The wiley old Bradford mullah was better at this than Shakir Khan. It was a message of the utmost simplicity. Plainly family. Plainly not worth intercepting. Completely effective. Completely secret.

  Shakir Khan was full of both admiration and gratitude, and he asked Kaiser to go inside and switch on the government wall computer, so they could begin to follow the long journey home of Ibrahim and Yousaf. Kaiser would fix the money and the tickets tomorrow.

  They agreed on the Bank of Iceland and Icelandic Airways to Amsterdam. Both the bank wire and the air tickets would be issued in names coinciding with the passports Ibrahim and Yousaf first used to enter England many weeks previously.

  THE ODESSA STI LL ran strongly through the Gulf of Saint Lawrence with that hard nor’easter right on her starboard bow. A lighter vessel would have been riding up on the crests, heeling left, fighting the ocean every step of the way. But the Odessa was a heavyweight in these bleak near-Arctic waters, and she had a zillion tons of solid steel in her bow.

  If necessary she would act as her own ice-breaker, riding up on the ice shelf and allowing her front-end weight to smash down on the frozen section. Most people believe that an ice-breaker somehow cleaves her way forward, cutting the ice and shoving it aside, but that’s not the case. The ship actually rides up and crashes down.

  Big trawlers, out of one of Russia’s most northern ports on the southern shores of the winter-frozen Barents Sea, are built to withstand the most unimaginable conditions. Despite Yousaf still feeling more dead than alive, the ship and its crew were ultimately in safe hands.

  They pressed on along their three-six-zero bearing, all the way up the west coast of Newfoundland, heading to the Straits of Belle Isle, that narrow northern exit from the Gulf, where the fierce tidal waters fed by a thousand swift-flowing rivers wash out into the Labrador Sea.

  Captain Igor glanced at the flashing light on his port side and checked his chart. From Yarmouth, they’d just put seven hundred nautical miles under the keel and were approaching the halfway point of their voyage to Greenland. The hefty Russian seaman felt the ocean swell raise the ship as they pushed out to Belle Isle itself, which stands in the mouth of the twelve-mile wide Strait.

  He left that to starboard and headed out into the open waters and chilly silence of the Labrador Sea. The ocean he would cross was about two miles deep in the middle; a fact he understood the ailing Yousaf was not anxious to contemplate.

  Out there, Odessa would be in very lonely international waters, although the first couple of hundred miles comes under the jurisdiction of Canada. But Igor Destinov had no intention of fishing. Greenland was his objective, and he intended to keep his nets dry until he reached the Vestmannaey off the coast of Iceland.

  Besides, he had made a deal with Ibrahim and his sick friend, and while he would keep his end of the bargain, he wanted them out of his life as quickly as possible.

  And so they kept going, passing over great shoals of cod and halibut, for three days and three nights, until they reached the great port of Nuuk, which is set at the head of three enormous Greenland fiords, 150 miles south of the Arctic Circle.

  There was no one there to greet them, which to Ibrahim meant the Americans did not know where they were. Captain Igor moored at a loading dock and transferred his fifty tons of frozen Atlantic cod to the hold of the Gorky. They immediately took on fuel, and cleared the harbor by nightfall, heading south to Kap Farvel on the southernmost tip of Greenland, a distance of two hundred fifty miles.

  It was a twelve-hundred-mile run from Farvel to Iceland, and for Ibrahim it was lightened by the slow but definite improvement in the condition of Yousaf. “Sometimes very good to be that sick,” said Captain Igor. “Sometimes you never get sick again.”

  “Not good to get that sick,” replied Yousaf. “Not sometimes. Not ever.”

  “Ungrateful bastard,” bellowed Igor, shaking with laughter. “I’m trying to encourage you.”

  “No need,” said Yousaf. “This is my last ever voyage. I’d rather live in a cave.”

  “Hey!” roared the Captain. “That’s my personal cabin you’re insulting. I throw you overboard, ungrateful bastard!” This final flourish of wit was entirely too much for Igor, who had to let go of the wheel so he could wipe his eyes with his big seaman’s gloves.

  “This is our last night,” he added. “You drink some vodka with me. Make you feel better. I tell the cook to grill steaks for us. Fed up with fish.”

  Ibrahim had been trying to read a Russian magazine during this highly intellectual exchange, but he heard that last piece of information very clearly. This would be an excellent time for him to call Sheikh Bazir, because from here it was only a two-hour time difference—5:30 p.m. in Bradford and the mullah would be in his office before evening prayers.

  Outside on deck the sun was shining, although the weather was very cold. But the skies were clear, and Ibrahim guessed there would be first-class reception from his phone to the mullah’s in Yorkshire’s high country. The deck was deserted. The ship was running fast, due east, and Ibrahim dialed the number. Sheikh Abdullah was again delighted to hear from him and addressed him as “My son,” which was a good sign.

  He told the mullah, “This Russian trawler docks in Iceland tomorrow afternoon. Yousaf and I will leave right away by air from the airport near Reykjavik. When we get on that flight to Europe it will be the first time I have smiled since before the bus blew at Canaan.”

  Sheikh Abdullah was cautionary. “Be careful with your words, my son. There are many ears in the North Atlantic.”

  “Not here on this ship,” said Ibrahim. “The deck is deserted. I’m all alone.”

  “Good-bye,” said the Sheikh. “And may Allah bring you home.”

  Ibrahim was right about one thing. The satellite reception was very good. Too good. And the entire phone call was picked up and recorded at the United States Navy listening station at Husavik, on the cold north shore of Iceland.

  This is one of the most sophisticated surveillance operations on earth, situated as it is in the middle of the GIUK Gap—the Greenland-Iceland-UK throughway for Russian submarines in the narrowest part of the Atlantic.

  Every Russian underwater boat heading out into the real world from their northern bases passed through here every week of the Cold War. The American and Royal Navy technicians logged every one of them, from the relatively small diesel-electric Kilo Class hunter-killer inshore boats, to the thunderous ICBM-carrying Typhoon Class nuclear giants.

  Neither the Americans nor the Brits have ever dropped their guard.
They still say if a whale farts up here in the GIUK, half a dozen U.S. surveillance operators in Iceland have about four hemorrhages apiece.

  This is also the most sensitive area for SOSUS—the U.S. Navy’s ultra-secret SOund SUrveillance System—the long-range sonar network of electronic wires laid in “squares” across the sea bed, waiting to sound a very loud alarm when any ship, submarine, ocean liner, fishing boat, or warship crosses one of those lines.

  The system does not give an accurate GPS location, but it puts the ship in a “square,” probably ten miles by ten miles. Once the ship comes out of that square, an alarm goes off like a klaxon in about six different places.

  Like several ships in the area, Captain Igor’s Odessa had already been located making a beeline for Iceland. But there had not been any heavy electronic communications around Iceland for most of the day. There were no warships, only fishing boats, and the Husavik operators were used to their chit-chat about the weather, and more or less ignored it.

  But Ibrahim’s phone call to Bradford was not fisherman’s chit-chat. And those GIUK operators were fantastically alert for anything out of the ordinary. And when a young technician suddenly picked up a half-crazed Arab terrorist checking in with his masters, the Husavik system went into overdrive, recording, interpreting, de-coding, checking for encryption.

  And Ibrahim sounded like Buzzword International, thanks to the alert issued by Captain Ramshawe. “Yousaf,” one of the names, fitted. “Russia trawler” was perfect. Destination: obviously Reykjavik, Iceland. Onward flight to Europe. And then, of course, the jackpot phrase: “the bus blew at Canaan.”

  The only facts they did not know were the name of the ship, where it had come from, and to which particular Icelandic fishing port it was headed. Iceland is a big place with a lot of ports, and it is not American, so there would need to be diplomatic assistance to breach the quite close cooperation between the fishermen of Russia and the Iceland fleet.

  Husavik’s short report was instantly relayed to Naval Intelligence in Washington. Captain Ramshawe called Mack Bedford in Maine.

  “I’m going to the Middle East, right away,” Mack said. “We’ve got a good chance of missing these guys in Iceland since we don’t know where they’re landing. They could even have a private jet waiting for them. And it’s always impossible for our guys to move fast in a reluctant foreign country.

  “They’re going home. And they’re moving fast. You can try Iceland, but I wouldn’t count on it. Just keep your eye on the ball. You don’t want them publicly dragged into an American court and then tried for murder. Because then you’re back where you started. Two dangerous terrorists in the slammer with a hundred lawyers trying to get ’em out. You don’t want them in the slammer. You want them dead.”

  “Whatever you say, Commander. Whatever you say.”

  MACK PACKED HIS big leather grip and waited for the Navy helicopter to pick him up for the short flight to the Brunswick base. There, as before, he would board a Royal Navy aircraft flying between Washington and RAF Lyneham in England. He was actually across the Atlantic before the Odessa arrived in Vestmannaey.

  When the Odessa did arrive, shortly after noon, both Ibrahim and Yousaf were surprised at the remoteness of the location. Vestmannaey is a large island off the south coast of Iceland, and its seaport is often the busiest fishing harbor in the country. A quarter of a million tons of fish are caught there every year.

  But the rest of the island is nearly deserted, with a truly spectacular coastline, high cliffs, vast green fields, and empty seas. There is a small airport behind the harbor, and Igor arranged a ride for them, a flight up to Keflavik International Airport.

  “You take my friends to airplane,” he told the taxi driver. “And don’t worry, they got heavy U.S. dollars. Rich mysterious men.”

  Ibrahim could have done without that, and sensed he paid through the nose for his ride. But it was quick, and a small local airline agreed to fly them immediately the twenty-five miles to Keflavik for two hundred dollars each.

  By this time there was a single American CIA agent from the U.S. Embassy on duty in the airport, but his task was unenviable. The airport was busy, and he had no idea which airline he was looking for, nor indeed where his targets were heading.

  As it happened, Sheikh Abdullah Bazir had been very smart in master-minding the tickets. When he found out the ETA of the Odessa, he dovetailed it with the Iceland Express nonstop flight FI503 to Amsterdam out of Keflavik International, departing at 3:30 p.m. He booked them first-class, and counted on Ibrahim to get them there a few minutes before 3 p.m. That way, he knew, there would be no waiting around.

  Ibrahim and Yousaf disembarked their private local flight and walked into the airport. They made one stop at the Bank of Iceland desk and picked up a package of cash they knew would be there, subject to identification with their forged passports.

  They both then walked to the Icelandic Express desk, where they were treated with immense courtesy and handed their boarding passes.

  “You can go straight to the departure gate,” said the pale blonde check-in girl. “The flight will leave on time.”

  The CIA agent never had a chance. FI503 roared into the cold empty skies at 3:35 p.m. and set a southeastern course, straight across the Norwegian Sea, twelve hundred miles to the Netherlands.

  When they arrived in Amsterdam, Ibrahim and Yousaf went straight to the transfer desk, where their tickets were waiting—first class on KLM’s 12:30 a.m. flight to Dubai, arriving at 5:35 in the morning. There was a two-hour wait in the desert kingdom before the connecting 9 a.m. flight to Lahore.

  They used this time to find some breakfast, especially Yousaf who had eaten nothing for about week and had lost about fourteen pounds.

  Fed, watered, but thoroughly exhausted, they arrived in Lahore at 11:10 a.m.(local), having lost four hours across the time-zones. Awaiting them was Kaiser Rashid, with a small private passenger jet, provided by Shakir Khan, mainly because Lahore is situated way southeast on the Indian border, 240 miles from Peshawar.

  Mack’s journey had been relatively simpler. He’d been provided with yet another military flight, this time from RAF Lyneham to the U.S. Air Force Base at Landstuhl, up near Germany’s western border with France, about fifty-five miles southwest of Frankfurt.

  From there he’d been flown nonstop in a huge military Boeing, the C-141, directly to the massive sprawl of the five-thousand-acre U.S. base in Bagram, Afghanistan, a place where thousands of troops were stationed in lines and lines of bee-huts, with the one long runway running right down the side of the whole complex.

  This had been home to Mack Bedford twice before, and, as the Boeing made its long approach, he could see there were already white peaks on the towering Hindu Kush mountains. Below them he could see almost sheer escarpments, which looked impossible to climb, but he and his SEALs had fought their way up them and across them, in search of the sullen, silent warriors, who were trying to reinstate the Taliban.

  To Mack it seemed his personality changed as soon as he saw this place. It had been a war zone for so long, it had an effect on even the most hardened SEAL commanders. It was a place where no one dared to drop their guard, and there was only one reason to come here: combat.

  This wasn’t training. This was real. Sometime in the not-too-distant future he, Mackenzie Bedford, was going to face armed tribesmen, mountain men who would not be fussy whether they slit his throat or shot him dead.

  He could see squadrons of parked aircraft, and Chinook helicopters, and he could see the main executive block, where INTEL, Planning, and Surveillance had private areas. He would, he knew, be given private quarters in there, like some visiting general, instead of a veteran combat commander with a thousand friends on base.

  But Mack knew the rules. He was to remain out of sight. The fewer people who knew he was there, the better his masters would like it. But unlike everyone else, he was moving in on a pure hunch: that Ibrahim Sharif and Yousaf Mohammed would return home
, the way Pashtuns always did, answering the ancient summons of their tribal ancestors, obeying the call of their own souls, to walk once more in those verdant green mountain passes, and to rejoin two-thousand-year-old Pashtun communities in far-lost villages, where their friends and loved ones still lived.

  There was so much of the American Indian in these people. They were all expert trackers and livestock men, supremely skilled with any kind of weapon, and capable of moving through those mountains in almost complete silence.

  Mack had prided himself in his capacity to remain absolutely motionless, in any position, during his time earning Honor Man in SEAL Sniper School. But to these people his soft, wary tread probably sounded like an express train coming through. He and his men were quiet, but not as quiet as the native mountain men. And if he wanted to carry on breathing, that was an important fact to bear in mind.

  The Boeing touched down at Bagram eight hours after leaving Landstuhl. A Navy staff car met him at the bottom of the aircraft steps, and he was driven immediately to the block where he would be housed. There he was greeted by the base commanding officer, whom he knew on equal terms from his previous life as a SEAL, and taken to his new quarters.

  “Mack,” said the CO, “you can dine with me and my staff any time you wish. But if you want to be alone, that’s fine too. I have not been briefed on your mission, but I do know it’s highly classified. I have, however, been told that you are to be given every possible assistance in weaponry, combat clothing, INTEL, comms, and transportation. You can count on all of that.”

  Mack shook his hand. “Thanks, Eric,” he said. “I appreciate it.”

  “By the way,” said the CO, grinning, “I have of course guessed why you are here. And I understand you have done a fantastic job so far on whatever mission it is. But I’m still not sure why you think you’re on the right track up here in these godforsaken mountains.”