“Allah, be merciful,” Ghami said. It was his first time at the site as well.
Down on the ground, protected by a cordon of Libyan soldiers, men were examining the wreckage. This was the advance team from the NTSB as well as a couple of local aviation experts. They’d arrived only a short time before the American Ambassador, and their helicopter was parked a good mile from the wreckage.
“Mr. Minister,” the pilot called over the intercom in the specially soundproofed cabin. “We will need to land near their chopper so our rotor wash doesn’t disturb the site.”
“That’s fine,” Ghami replied. “I think the walk and fresh air will do both the Ambassador and me some good.”
“Understood, sir.
The Minister turned to Moon, resting a hand on the American’s shoulder. “On behalf of my government, and myself, I am so sorry, Charles.”
“Thank you, Ali. When you called with the news that the plane had been found, I held out hope.” He gestured out the helo’s Plexiglas window. “Now . . .” He let his voice trail off. There was nothing more to say.
The pilot settled the French-built EC155 executive chopper next to a utilitarian helicopter with military colors. Ghami’s bodyguard, a tight-lipped, no-necked mountain of a man named Mansour, opened the helicopter’s door while the blades still whirled overhead. Ignoring the blast of grit kicked up by the rotor wash, Ghami leapt down to the ground and paused while the more portly Moon followed.
They started walking toward the wreck. Moon was sweating after only a couple of paces, but neither the Libyan Minister nor his guard seemed affected by the heat and the blazing sun. The smell of charred plastic and aviation fuel carried over to them on the occasional slap of wind.
In Moon’s estimation, approaching the debris on foot made it look worse than from the air. Everything was burned dark and warped by the fire that had consumed the plane. They paused at the cordon of soldiers and waited for the lead investigator from the NTSB. The investigator was moving slowly through the debris, snapping pictures with a digital camera, while a man with him was recording everything on a camcorder. When the investigator finally noted the dignitaries, he said a couple of words to his companion and trudged over. His face was long and gaunt, his mouth turned down at the corners.
“Ambassador Moon?” he called when he was within earshot.
“I’m Moon. This is Ali Ghami, Libya’s Foreign Minister.”
They shook hands. “I’m David Jewison.”
Moon saw Ghami shift position ever so slightly at hearing the name.
“Can you, ah, tell us anything?” Moon invited.
Jewison glanced back over his shoulder and then returned his gaze to the Ambassador. “We weren’t the first people to come here. That much is certain.”
“What are you saying?” Ghami asked sharply.
Moon knew that Libya’s handling of this crisis would have an impact on their relations with the United States and the Western powers far beyond the Tripoli Accords. Jewison’s revelation doubtless put both Ghami and his government in a difficult position. If there was any evidence of tampering, then an accusation of a cover-up wouldn’t be too far behind.
“From what we can tell, a group of nomads has been over the site. They left behind hundreds of footprints, as well as cooking fires, camp detritus consistent with their lifestyle, and the body of a camel that had been shot in the head. Our local guide said the camel appeared to be near the end of its life, judging by the wear on its teeth, and was probably put down because it no longer had value.
“Parts of the wreckage have been disturbed, some possibly removed. The passengers’ remains have also been moved. I believe Muslim custom is to bury people within twenty-four hours of their deaths. My Libyan counterpart here says it’s likely the nomads did just that. I have no reason to doubt his assessment, but we won’t know for sure until we get some cadaver dogs up here.”
“Do you have any preliminary ideas what happened to the plane?”
“From what we can tell—and this is very, very early—the aircraft lost part of its tail section sometime during the flight. We don’t know why, because it has not been recovered here at the scene. We’re sending out our chopper in a few minutes to visually search what we know to be the flight path. This damage could have caused a loss of hydraulic fluid as well as the failure of its rudder and elevators. Without the hydraulic system, the flaps, ailerons, slats, and spoilers on the main wings would have also failed. Had this been the case, the plane would have been difficult, if not impossible, to control.”
Ghami asked, “Is there any indication why part of the tail was lost?”
“Nothing yet,” Jewison replied. “We’ll get an idea once we find it.”
“And if you don’t?” This was from Moon. The question wasn’t a deliberate provocation, but he was curious about Ghami’s reaction. Just because he personally liked the man didn’t mean he had forgotten his role here.
“Barring some other evidence, it would officially be classified as reasons unknown.”
Ghami looked to the Ambassador. “Charles, I promise you that it will be located and the reason for this tragedy explained.”
“No offense, Minister,” Jewison interrupted, “but that may not be a promise you can keep. I’ve been a crash investigator for eighteen years. I’ve seen everything there is to see, including an airliner that exploded in midair and was pulled out of the ocean off Long Island. That was a relatively straightforward investigation compared to this. We can’t tell what damage was done by the crash and what was done by your people.” Ghami made to protest, and Jewison staved him off with a gesture. “I mean the nomads. They’re Libyan so they’re your people, is all I mean.”
“The nomads are citizens of no country but the desert.”
“Either way, they messed with this scene so badly I don’t know if even finding the tail will give us a definitive answer.”
Ghami held the aviation expert’s stare. “Ambassador Moon and other representatives of your government have explained to me that you are the best in the world at what you do, Mr. Jewison. I have their assurance and thus their confidence that you will find an answer. I am certain that you treat each and every airline disaster with your utmost efforts, but you must surely know the gravity of this situation and the importance of what you find.”
Jewison looked from one man to the other. His expression was even more dour as he came to understand that politics was going to play as large a part in his search as forensic science.
“How long until the conference?” he asked.
“Forty-eight hours,” Moon answered.
He shook his head with weary resignation. “If we can find the tail and if it hasn’t been further damaged by nomads, I might have a preliminary report for you by then.”
Ghami held out his hand, which Jewison took. “That’s all any of us ask for.”
THE OREGON HAD BEEN rigged for ultraquiet. There was little that could be done about the sound of waves lapping against the hull except to keep her bow into the wind. Other than that, nothing about the ship’s position was left to chance. Max Hanley had surrounded the vessel at a distance of thirty miles with passive buoys that collected incoming radar energy and relayed that information via secure burst transmitters to the onboard computer. This gave them ample warning if another ship was in the area without the use of their own active radar suite. If a target appeared to be headed in their direction, the ship’s dynamic positioning system would move the Oregon using power supplied by her massed banks of silver-zinc deep-cycle batteries, so she crept along with the barest whisper of water forced through her pump jets. With her hull and superstructure doped with radar-absorbent material, a passing ship would almost need to be in visual range to detect her.
A passive-sonar array dangled from the moon pool down at her keel. Capable of listening three hundred and sixty degrees, the acoustical microphones covered any threats lurking below the surface. Other sensors were vacuuming up electronic data and
radio chatter from shipping, aircraft, and shore-based facilities along Libya’s coast. This ability of drift and lift, or as Murph called it “lurk and work,” was the exact type of mission Juan had designed the Oregon to perform. Her stealth capabilities allowed the crew to station the ship off a hostile coast for days—or weeks, if necessary—gathering intelligence on fleet movements, electronics signaling, or anything else her clients demanded.
They had lain off the coast of Cuba for twenty-eight days during the time that Fidel Castro’s illness made it necessary for him to transfer power to his brother, Raul, listening in on everything taking place behind the closed doors of the communist dictator’s private retreat. They had provided the American intelligence services unprecedented knowledge of the inner workings of the secretive regime and eliminated any uncertainty as to what was taking place.
Rigging the Oregon for ultraquiet also meant suspending all routine maintenance, which no one on the crew minded. However, the ship’s fitness facility was closed to prevent weights from accidentally clanging together, and meals were reduced to prepackaged pouches boiled in a pot clamped to the stove in the galley. The culinary staff had outdone themselves in preparing the meals, but they remained a poor substitute for the gourmet dishes to which the men and women of the Corporation had grown accustomed. The normal silverware and fine china were replaced with paper plates and plastic knives and forks, and any television or radio had to be enjoyed with headphones.
Max Hanley was in his cabin working on a scratch-built model of a Swift boat, one of the fast riverine crafts he had commanded during Vietnam. Hanley wasn’t a man who dwelled much on his past or gave in to the siren song of nostalgia. He stored the medals he’d won in a Los Angeles safe-deposit he hadn’t visited in years and met up with former shipmates only at funerals. He was building the model simply because he could do it from memory and it kept his mind occupied with something other than his responsibilities.
Doc Huxley had suggested the hobby as a way of reducing stress and keeping his blood pressure in check. So far, he’d managed to stick to it longer than the yoga she’d prescribed before. He’d already built and presented a beautiful replica of the Oregon to Juan, which now sat under a plastic case in the executive conference room, and had plans for a Mississippi paddle wheeler when he was finished with the Swift boat.
The knock on his door was so soft that he knew it was Eric Stone taking the whole silent-rigging thing to the limit.
“Enter,” Hanley called.
Eric stepped though the doorway, carrying a laptop computer and a large, flat portfolio. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a week, which probably wasn’t too far off the mark. Stone usually maintained a semblance of the military comportment drilled into him at Annapolis, but today his shirt was untucked, and his chinos were as wrinkled as a balled-up piece of aluminum foil.
While Max worried whenever they had people stuck out there in a hostile environment, Eric took it even further. Max had been Stoney’s mentor when he’d first joined the Corporation, but since then he’d grown to idolize Juan Cabrillo, and Mark Murphy was like the brother he’d never had growing up. Fatigue lines etched his normally smooth face, and while he’d never had much of a beard it was obvious he hadn’t shaved in a while.
“You have something?” Max asked without preamble.
He showed off the portfolio. “Detailed maps of Juan’s location and a rundown of the place’s history.”
“I knew you could do it.” Hanley cleared a wide space on his desk for Eric to lay out the map. He stood to give himself a better perspective. “Tell me what I’m looking at.”
He could see a small training facility, built high in the mountains, roughly twenty miles from the coast. The camp was well hidden by the peaks, and, had it not been for its proximity to a large open pit of some kind, it would have been easy to overlook, even knowing its location because of Juan’s implanted GPS transponder. There was a dark line snaking up from the shore to the pit that closely followed the contour of the land. Where the line met the coast were a couple of old buildings and a long jetty. There were other buildings along the rim of a valley where the earth had been excavated.
Eric pointed to the port area first. “This is what remains of a British-built coaling station dating back to the 1840s. It was updated with a bigger pier in 1914, possibly in anticipation of World War I. That pier was partially destroyed during Rommel’s North Africa campaign, and the Germans rebuilt it to use as a staging area for their push toward Egypt. The dark line here is a railroad that linked the station to the coal mine here.” His finger followed the railroad tracks to the buildings overlooking the open-pit mine. “There used to be a barge canal to transport the coal, but the aquifer dried up and the railroad was laid in.”
“Looks to me like someone’s reopening the place,” Max remarked.
“Yes, sir. About five months ago. The rail line was refurbished to accommodate larger ore cars, with an eye toward extracting coal from the old mine.”
“Did anyone ask if this makes sense in a country sitting on forty billion barrels of oil?”
“I did as soon as I figured out what this place was,” Eric replied. “And, in a word, it doesn’t. Especially in light of their government’s attempts to go green with the tidal generating station farther down the coast.”
“So what’s going on here really?”
“The CIA thinks it’s a cover for a new subterranean nuclear-research program.”
“I thought Uncle Muammar gave up his nuke ambitions,” Max remarked. “Besides, the CIA was probably convinced my mother-in-law was pursuing a nuclear program when she had a new root cellar dug.”
Eric chuckled. “Foreign intelligence services dismiss the CIA estimate. They think this is a legit enterprise. Problem is, I can’t dig up any corporate entities charged with working there. Which isn’t all that surprising. The Libyans aren’t known for their transparency. There was one article in a trade publication that said Libya is interested in pursuing coal gasification as an alternative to oil, and claims they have a system that will be cleaner than natural gas.”
“You don’t sound convinced,” Max said.
“It took some digging, but I found records from ships that had once used the station back in the day. Building up a picture over time, it appears vessels that regularly refueled there showed a fifty percent increase in maintenance and a twenty percent reduction in efficiency.”
As an engineer, Max immediately grasped the implications of Eric’s findings. “The coal is filthy, isn’t it?”
“An archived log from the captain of a coastal freighter called Hydra says he’d rather fill his bunkers with sawdust than use the coal from the station.”
“There’s no way any current gasification technology can make it clean. So what is this place, really?”
“The facility to the north of the mine was once used by the Libyan military as a training base.”
“This whole thing is government sanctioned after all,” Max said, jumping ahead.
“Not necessarily,” Eric countered. “They stopped using it a couple of years ago.”
“Back to square zero,” Max said bitterly.
“ ’ Fraid so. In the past two days, there have been suspicious military maneuvers in Syria, so our satellite coverage has gone east to keep an eye on them. This picture here is two months old, and is the most current I could find.”
“What about getting some shots from a commercial satellite company?”
“Already tried and struck out. Even offering double their normal fees, we can’t get new shots until a week from now.”
“Too late for Juan or Fiona Katamora.”
“Yup,” Eric agreed.
“And you’ve tried everything to pierce the corporate veil of the company working on the rail line?”
“Do onions have layers? They’re better shielded than anything I’ve ever seen before. I’ve hit dead end after dead end trying to trace ownership. But the thing I learned about comp
anies working in Libya is, they are generally partnered with the government in a sort of quasi-nationalized arrangement.”
“So we come full circle, and it’s Libya’s government behind all this?”
“You’re familiar with Cosco, aren’t you?”
“It’s a Chinese shipping company.”
“Which many suspect is actually owned by the People’s Liberation Army. I’m wondering if we don’t have something similar going on here.”
“You’re saying it’s not Libya’s central government that’s involved but a segment of it?” Max asked, and Eric nodded. “The military?”
“Or the JSO, the Jamahiriya Security Organization, their principal spy agency. Ever since Qaddafi started playing nice, the JSO has been marginalized. This could be a play for them to regain some of their lost prestige.”
“One hell of a gamble, since we know these people are somehow connected to the downing of Katamora’s plane,” Max said. Stone didn’t argue, so Hanley went on. “What about terrorists paying this rogue faction to look the other way? That worked for Bin Laden in the Sudan, and then Afghanistan, until we toppled the Taliban.”
“That was my next thought.” Eric said. “We know Libya’s sheltered terrorists in the past. The mine and railroad could be a terrorist front for a training camp, with an eye toward using the proceeds to fund their activities. Al-Qaeda had done that in Africa, trafficking conflict diamonds.”
Max took a moment to light his pipe, using the familiar distraction to organize his thoughts. When it was drawing evenly and a wreath of smoke began to form a haze along the ceiling, he said, “We’re spinning our wheels. There’s no sense in you and me trying to guess who’s doing what. Juan will probably have the answer. So as I see it, our priority is to get him out of there and find out what he’s learned.”
“Agreed.”
“Any suggestions?” Hanley invited.
“Not at this time. We need to wait until he makes contact.”
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