Mission Compromised

by Oliver North

  Whoever had designed the Special Operations Office had done a good job. Because the room was expected to be used during crises, it had been designed with both regular Venetian blinds and then an inner set of black-out drapes so that anyone looking up at the room from E Street or the Ellipse wouldn't know that someone was in the office “burning the midnight oil.” Newman's rule about keeping the blinds and curtains in the Special Projects Office always closed as a general security precaution now paid off. The room was in almost total darkness. A little light from the computer backup power source gave Newman enough illumination to do his search for surveillance mikes or cameras. He was betting (and hoping) that any cameras were hardwired into the ceiling lights or wall circuits and also went dark with the copier and lights.

  If that were the case, someone watching the screens would notify the custodial crew that a circuit had blown in the offices and have someone check it and turn the power back on. If no one noticed the power failure, Newman would call it in himself. In any event, he now had maybe five, or at most ten, minutes to check out the place. First, he stood atop his desk and checked out the smoke alarm. He used the small screwdriver from his desk drawer to pry off the hinged cover. I was right, he thought, and in such an obvious place. He replaced the cover and went over to the portrait of George Washington. Nothing there. Then he checked the other places he'd picked. Nothing there, either. Finally, he took a chair from beside his desk and stood on it to reach the cold air register in the opposite end of the other office. Bingo! He found a second camera. Newman screwed the register back in place and got down from the chair. He went to other possible sites and found nothing. Then he checked his watch. Only seven minutes had gone by. He gambled that he still had time to go get the files out of the safe and take them to a safer place.

  He struggled for awhile trying to find the exact spots on the mantel that would activate the opening in the floor of the fireplace. After some forty seconds of pushing and pulling, the mantel finally moved. Once again, he had to grab the grate and logs and set them on the floor. Quickly he reached into the hole in the back wall of the fireplace and opened the drawer of the safe. Reaching inside, he felt for the edge of the file pouch and lifted it out. But as he was doing so, he felt something underneath the file pouch. He pulled out the files, then reached in again and pulled out something much thinner and smaller. He quickly stuck it into his pocket and closed the safe again. He hurried over to his credenza where he kept his briefcase. He tossed the file pouch inside and closed and locked the case.

  He went back to the fireplace—now nine minutes had gone by. He had mentally marked the spots on the mantel when it opened so it didn't take as long to close it. When it was fully closed, he replaced the grate and logs, thinking to himself, I'm glad this mechanism isn't powered by electricity, or I'd be out of business.

  Newman went back to his desk and dialed the number for the building's custodians. “Hello,” he said when someone answered. “This is Newman in the Special Projects Office on the third floor. The power is off in my offices. Can you send someone up to fix it?”

  Then the lights went on. “Wow, that was fast,” Newman said, chuckling. “The power's back now.”

  The custodial supervisor replied, “I was just going to say that someone else phoned it in about five or ten minutes ago. We sent someone up to check the circuit-breaker box first. That's usually the problem.”

  “Yeah, I should have thought of that,” Newman replied. “Sorry to bother you.”

  Well, now he knew. There were two cameras, and there was someone watching—someone who phoned in the power failure.

  As he sat back down at his desk, Newman recalled the old joke that even people who are paranoid have enemies. It didn't seem so funny anymore.

  Office of the Commander, Amn Al-Khass

  ________________________________________

  Special Security Service Headquarters

  Palestine Street, Baghdad, Iraq

  Monday, 16 January 1995

  2100 Hours, Local

  “I know what your father wants. Please do not forget, my dear brother-in-law, I am married to your sister, but I owe it to her father and yours to tell you of my reservations about bringing him here,” Kamil Hussein said, almost pleading.

  Qusay Hussein looked at his brother-in-law, disgust plainly written on his face. “Just do what you have to do, Kamil. Osama bin Laden is coming. You are going to be the big man at the party. And in the end, when Osama's martyrs make history by attacking the Jews and their American and British friends, you will be a hero.

  “He has demonstrated that he can kill Americans with nothing more than a few conventional explosives and a handful of loyal and dedicated followers. Your job is to make it possible for him to do even more. My father has decided that you will help him. The weapons in your laboratories are to be made available to him, and you are to give him whatever he needs. Is that clear?” Qusay spoke with a sneer that was now almost always on his lips when talking to Kamil. Qusay's operatives from the Mukhabarat had gone to Khartoum and made contact with Osama. They were now standing by in the outer office, prepared to brief Kamil.

  Through these emissaries, bin Laden had boasted to Saddam of his accomplishments: the attacks on American troops overseas in Maadi … at Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines … a USO club in Barcelona … the October '93 attack in Mogadishu, Somalia … the kidnapping of Americans in Indonesia … the routing of the Russians in Chechnya … the bomb in Moscow that killed 113 Russian civilians … and, of course, the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York in February 1993. Although just six people were killed, more than a thousand were injured, and the pictures on TV and headlines in world newspapers gave credence to bin Laden's claim that he had brought fear to the United States as he introduced “war” with the infidel Americans in their own land. “Not even the Japanese or Germans in World War II, not even the Russians, were able to do that,” he boasted. “Next time, we'll bring those towers to the ground,” bin Laden told Qusay's Iraqi operatives. “All I need is a bigger bomb.”

  Kamil wondered if bin Laden's revelation might have been made in order to get Iraq to help him acquire a nuclear bomb—but they were still years away from that achievement. Besides, Kamil thought, if the world ever found out that Iraq had provided bin Laden with nuclear weapons—or any other weapons of mass destruction, for that matter—the West would bomb Iraq into oblivion. For that reason, Kamil was opposed to offering too much help to bin Laden.

  The shabby-looking master of terrorism had even sent a videotape to be shown to his newfound friends in Iraq, prior to his visit. In it bin Laden, more than six feet tall with a stringy, unkempt beard, went on for the greater part of an hour reciting his many accomplishments, boasting that he had been appointed by Allah to destroy the Americans and British so that the Islamic world would finally be free of their satanic influences.

  Kamil had said nothing while Qusay played the tape, but now he was expected to explain to Saddam's favorite son just what he, Kamil, head of the Special Security Service and, more importantly, the minister in charge of developing weapons of mass destruction for the Iraqi regime, would be doing for their “special guest” when he arrived in March.

  Osama had made clear in the videotape what his expectations were. “I trust you, my Islamic brothers, to make sure that there are no traitors among you who would jeopardize our plans. I am telling you things that could compromise my plans and bring them and myself to destruction if word of them were leaked. However, we are brothers in the faith, and I trust you with my life.”

  I am not sure that I would trust my life to any of these men, Kamil thought, looking at his brother-in-law, who was sitting in the chair beside him in rapt attention as the tape played. Osama droned on in generalities about his future attacks. “Soon the whole world will watch as I make my boldest attack on the enemy to date. I will strike the great Satan where it will be felt the greatest and bring the nation to its knees with such fear and trembli
ng that they will plead with us to let them surrender. My plan calls for loyal martyrs to bring about the destruction of various American landmarks—one, a symbol of capitalism and wealth; one, a symbol of military power, and the other two, the very icons of their government and leadership. I will thoroughly cripple them and their entire nation—yes, even the entire Western world will fall to its knees in total fear and surrender. Praise be to Allah.”

  At this point, Kamil hit the Pause button on the remote. “Qusay” he said seriously, “does your father know that if Osama somehow manages to destroy America that he stands to lose a fortune, given all that he has invested in the American stock market?”

  Qusay looked annoyed. “Of course. Osama has said that he will tell us before he attacks so that we may divest ourselves before the American market collapses. My Mukhabarat informants tell me that Osama himself is also heavily invested in the U.S. But I'll make certain he tells us before so that we can protect our assets.”

  Kamil hit Play, and the diatribe continued. “I have several options for carrying out these attacks on the Great Satan. If one plan fails, I have several backup plans so that success will be guaranteed.” Kamil wondered if the man would ever stop to take a breath, but the tape continued. “For some of these, I will need your help. And in return, I will be your servant to help you, my brother Saddam, and your great country,” bin Laden said. “But we must meet soon to plan these with some of my most trusted followers, and plan our objectives—yours and mine—for the assured destruction of our common enemies. I know that I can help you, and you have resources that I will need.”

  Qusay had been convinced from the beginning that bin Laden could be the spark that would ignite a resurgence of the recognition, power, and glory that Iraq had enjoyed before the terrible war that the Americans and British had launched upon them. After hearing Osama tell plainly of his accomplishments, his father Saddam had also been convinced that Iraq should provide the terrorist with whatever he needed.

  “Yes,” Saddam had said loudly and forcefully after viewing the tape. “We will be partners. I believe that we each have something of significance to bring to the table. Yet the synergy of our combined efforts can have an exponential power. We will do it.”

  So now it was up to Kamil to see the partnership carried out.

  “But we must meet within the borders of our country. The West will be tracking every move, every breath, of my father. He takes regular holidays at his palace in Tikrit, so that will make a perfect place. It is also heavily guarded, with air defense installations all around the area for hundreds of kilometers,” Qusay told Kamil.

  “I have sent a message to Osama informing him that my father's palace in Tikrit is where we will meet. The date is set for March 6, less than two months from now. He has agreed to create some diversionary events that would make the Americans and the rest of the West look away at things happening elsewhere.”

  “What kind of events?” asked Kamil, feeling the acid eating into his stomach ulcer.

  “I don't know; he wouldn't share that with my couriers, although they have now been back and forth to Sudan three times. All he would say was that it would be a good time to kill Americans.”

  “Where?”

  “Who cares?” Qusay shrugged. “Anywhere you can kill Americans is a good place.”

  “What does your father want me to do?” Kamil was now completely submissive. “The SSS will of course ensure bin Laden's safety when he's here, but how do you expect me to get him in and out of the country without the Americans or, worse yet, the Jews finding out?”

  “I asked that question,” replied Qusay. “Bin Laden told my most trusted courier, Jamal, the one who takes care of my father's investments, that he would take care of it. In fact, he wrote me a note,” he said and handed Kamil a note written in flowing Arabic characters, which Kamil read:

  Thank you for your kind invitation. Please allow me to make my own travel arrangements to your country. I cannot permit another to act for me in these matters. I must maintain autonomy. This is no reflection on you or your great abilities, my friend. But I always make my own plans for internal and external movement. I will be at the meeting in March, but you must let me make my own plans as a precaution.

  Kamil nodded. That was fine with him. If something untoward happened to bin Laden, he knew that he would be shot by a firing squad—his execution order signed by his own brother-in-law or Saddam himself.

  The meeting ended without Kamil ever meeting the couriers who had traveled back and forth between Baghdad and Khartoum. As he rose to depart, Qusay said, “Kamil, when Osama arrives at my father's palace in Tikrit, he expects to see you there with at least two of each of your best chemical and biological weapons. And if you can build a nuclear weapon smaller than a truck by then, bring two of them.” With that, the young man who was the heir apparent to the presidential palace walked out the door without bothering to say good-bye.

  The commander of the Amn Al-Khass sat back down at his desk and put his head in his hands. But he wasn't thinking about the meeting with Osama bin Laden in Tikrit on March 6. Instead, he was hoping that he could find some workable way to get out of Iraq and seek asylum in the West.

  Parking Garage, FBI Building

  ________________________________________

  Washington, D.C.

  Monday, 16 January 1995

  1300 Hours, Local

  Newman had just finished a briefing at the FBI offices and returned to his car. Inside he took out his wallet and fished out a business card that was stuck in an inside pocket. It said Keller's Auto Repairs and Service. As he exited the J. Edgar Hoover Building's underground parking garage, he took out his mobile phone and dialed the phone number listed on the card. A voice answered, and Newman asked, “Do I have time to get in today for an oil and filter change?” He paused for a response then said, “Great. Is two o'clock all right? Good. Oh, by the way, I want a wash and the inside swept out. Can you do that too? Excellent. I'll be there at two.” He looked at his watch and saw that he had enough time to run through McDonald's for a quick lunch before heading for Keller's Auto Repairs and Service.

  He pulled the Tahoe into the two-bay service station on Clarendon Boulevard just a few minutes before 2:00 P.M. As he got out of his car, Newman was met by a middle-aged man with the name “Ed Keller” embroidered over one pocket and a patch that said “Manager.” Keller led Newman over to a nearby empty bay, asking him what kind of work he wanted done.

  “I need your help, Ed. You gave me your card when we worked together four years ago. You used our Second Force Recon guys to support your CIA team when you tried to spring some defectors from—”

  “Yeah, I remember. Newman, right?”

  The two men spent a few minutes with small talk then Newman told him about his problem. “Ed, I need your help. And I'll have to ask for your discretion on this. I'm not sure, but I'm concerned that my car may have been bugged. And I need to know, without anyone else finding out that I'm suspicious. I know this sounds a little paranoid, but in the line of work we were once in, a little paranoia can keep you alive. Can you check the vehicle and just let me know if you find anything? And if you do find anything, don't disarm it or touch it, just let me know. I don't want to let anyone else know just yet that I'm on to them.”

  “Gotcha, man. Any idea who planted 'em?”

  “Yeah, maybe,” Newman said. “It might be another set of good guys who are worried about a joint venture we're about to take together. Probably just want to cover their six, y'know?”

  The CIA agent nodded and went over to one of the employees and showed him a box that he had checked on the clipboard list. The other man nodded, went into the supply room, and came back with a large, battered toolbox. He opened it and took out a small set of wires attached to a wand, which was hooked up to a small oscilloscope. While another worker lifted the hood and began to drain the oil out of the engine, the man with the electronic equipment searched underneath the vehicle. Th
en he came up from the pit and went inside the car—with a hand vacuum that he didn't turn on—and searched the inside for electronic bugs.

  “You're clean, Mr. Newman,” he said at last.

  Then the other worker was done changing the oil and filter, and he closed the hood.

  “That'll be $24.80. I'm giving you the senior discount,” Keller said with a smile.

  “Very funny.”

  “Will it be cash or plastic?”

  “Credit card,” Newman replied and handed over his American Express card.

  “He's our best guy for doing a sweep,” Ed Keller told Newman as he signed the credit card slip. “If he says it's clean, it's clean.”

  “Yeah, that's reassuring. But a guy has to be careful out there, right?”

  “He sure does. Well, you take it easy, Mr. Newman. Stay outta trouble.”

  Newman nodded and climbed into his car while one of the workers wiped an oil smudge from the edge of the hood. As he drove out of the service station, Newman felt better. Tucking the credit card slip into his pocket, he felt the small object that he'd stuffed there when he took the files out of what he now mentally referred to as the fireplace safe.