“Yes, sir,” Nick says.
Matt says, “I don’t care if you bribe a pilot, threaten a pilot, or hijack an aircraft. Or rent one. And if there isn’t a helicopter or fixed-wing aircraft out there, get a truck. Or a four-by-four. Because one way or another, Nick, we’re crossing into Libya tonight and going to the Nafusa Mountains. I’m not waiting on intelligence, and I’m not waiting on transport. We’re going out tonight to get my daughter back.”
“On it, sir,” Nick says, and he quickly leaves the building.
Outside, Nick walks to the small collection of aircraft at the end of the runway and starts running through options and possibilities. Transportation is a given, he knows, but what’s the point without actionable intelligence? He knows that President Keating’s friends in Mossad and the Saudi intelligence service are working hard to locate Asim Al-Asheed, but Nick also knows from bitter experience that good intelligence comes organically. It can’t be forced, or hurried, because then you end up with crap intelligence that leads to a crap mission and casualties.
The low roar of jet engines comes to him, and the New Hampshire Air National Guard KC-135 that brought them here takes off, heading to its original destination of Rota, Spain, and Nick feels a bit jealous of that crew. They’re military, they have a job to do, and while it may be challenging, they never have to stretch rules and regs to get it done.
Nick recalls a vital sentence of the SEAL creed: “We expect innovation.”
So innovate, already, he thinks.
As he gets closer to the assembly of aircraft, another, fainter engine noise reaches him, and he scans the clear Tunisian sky. Two Black Hawk helicopters are approaching from the south, looking to come in for a landing. They move nearly as one, and Nick admires their pilots’ skills as one aircraft and then the other lands swiftly and carefully. Their fuselages are painted black, with a white roundel with a red crescent moon and a star.
A handful of flight crew members run from the nearest hangar and approach the helicopters as their rotors slow down, and as the crews emerge, removing their flight helmets, Nick stops, amazed.
He recognizes one of the pilots from his training visit last year.
Talk about innovation!
He resumes walking as the tall pilot with the thick black mustache sets off, joking and smiling with his copilot and two aircrew members. Nick yells out, “Joe! Is that you, Joe?”
The man he calls Joe stops, looks over, and grins as Nick gets closer.
“Chief Zeppos?” he asks. “What the hell are you doing out here?” His English has traces of both Arabic and French accents.
Nick extends a hand, which is promptly shaken by Youssef Zbidi, also known to the SEAL trainers as Joe, a captain in the Tunisian Army’s Groupe des Forces Spéciales. Joe’s free hand holds a leather dispatch case and his flight helmet. He’s wearing a dark green flight suit, his name on his name patch in Arabic script. Epaulets on each shoulder display his rank: three stars.
Nick says, “I’m on a job.”
“Really?” the captain asks. “That’s a surprise. I surely would have been briefed that you were coming here. You’re not here to join up the SEAL platoon that’s been here for three weeks, are you? I’m afraid they’re far away from here, assisting a unit of French paras to the south.”
“No,” Nick says. “It’s something else. Highly classified. Off-the-books. Joe, I really need your help.”
“Is it important?” he asks.
“Very,” Nick says, thinking, We got this, it’s going to work out, we got this.
But in just a second, Captain Zbidi’s mood changes, his eyebrows narrow, face darkens. “When we last met, Chief Nick, you told me that my flying skills, as you say, suck. You said I belonged at one of your kiddie rides at an American amusement park. You said not only did I fly like a swine walking on ice, you said I fly like a drunken swine walking on ice.”
Nick thinks, Oh, shit, and Captain Zbidi spits on the pavement between them.
“Why in hell should I help you with anything?” he says.
Chapter
105
Sfax-Thyna air base, Tunisia
With Nick out seeking transportation, I put that problem away and get back to work. In the teams you quickly learn that you have to depend on your teammates to get their job done, while you concentrate on your own part of the mission. Nick is in charge of transporting us to Libya.
I have to focus on the job at hand: getting my gear ready.
From my two duffel bags I pull out my disassembled Colt M4 automatic rifle and begin putting it back together, starting with inserting the bolt into the receiver. Other parts and components follow, and it’s almost comforting as my muscle memory takes over, letting me put this weapon back together. I can do it in the rain, in a jungle, in pure darkness, and the satisfying clicks and snaps seem to calm me down.
Alejandro Lopez and David Stahl are engaged in similar activities, and Claire Boone—quicker than the rest of us—has her own M4 assembled, and she’s working her primary weapon, her NSA-issued laptop, wireless earbuds in both ears.
After pairing up and connecting the upper receiver of the M4 to the lower receiver, I test it by pulling back the bolt and squeezing the trigger.
Click.
Time to prepare the ammunition.
I break open boxes of 5.56mm ammo and start loading up thirty-round magazines, forcing each round into the spring-loaded metal magazine. I decide to have one magazine in the Colt M4 and six in pouches.
Next up is my SIG Sauer 9mm P226 pistol, and I’m going in with one twenty-round magazine in the pistol and four more in other pouches.
“Matt,” Claire says from the other side of the hot and smelly room.
“Yeah,” I say, trying to find the pouches for the pistol ammunition inside my duffel bag. “Give me a sec.”
Claire raises her voice. “You don’t have a sec. Get your butt over here.”
I lift up my head. “What?”
Claire pulls the earbuds out and says, “CNN International says Asim Al-Asheed is about to release another video, this time live.”
I drop what I have in my hands and quickly go over to Claire as she says, “And it’s going to have Mel on it.”
I’m behind the sitting Claire, and Alejandro is on my left, David on my right. Claire taps on the keyboard and the female news anchor from CNN International in London says, “…breaking news now, CNN has learned that in just a few moments, a live presentation is being made by terrorist mastermind Asim Al-Asheed to the Al Jazeera network…and…hold on…”
The anchor looks away and then the following words nearly make me gasp with relief, as she returns to looking directly at the camera and says, “It now appears that the president’s daughter, Mel Keating, is in fact alive and well…and that the execution video from a few weeks back was a fake. And…here is the broadcast…”
My hands are on the back of the chair that Claire is sitting in, and my fingers clench the metal as a picture comes into focus:
My daughter, Mel Keating, face tired, smeared with dirt, wearing her eyeglasses, a black robe around her head and shoulders, some of her frizzy hair sticking out. The live video is grainy, not as crisp as the first one I saw back at the Saunders Hotel in Virginia.
She’s holding a newspaper in her dirt-covered hands, and the paper is slightly shaking in her trembling grasp.
“Oh,” is all I can say.
But inside I’m yelling to myself, She’s alive, she’s alive, no more hoping, there she is, she’s alive.
The calm and happy voice of Asim Al-Asheed becomes audible as he narrates the live video. “Ah, good day, Matt Keating,” he says, “and as you can see, I have very good news for you. Mel Keating is alive and well.”
Claire says, “Matt, she’s holding a copy of today’s Daily News Egypt, an English-language paper out of Cairo.”
Asim laughs for a sick second. “So I fooled you, did I not? Like the West has constantly fooled my people over the years
, from the Sykes-Picot Agreement during your First World War that carved up lands not belonging to you among the British and French, to the Balfour Declaration that allowed the Zionists to invade and expel the Arabs, up to and including your so-called war on terror and invasions based on fantasies of weapons of mass destruction.”
I’m hearing Asim’s words but I’m still staring at Mel, seeing her look out at the camera, looking like she’s fighting to keep calm. The newspaper continues to tremble in her hands.
Asim says, “So I lied to you. I made you and your wife live in mourning for a few weeks…to give you just the slightest taste of what I have been feeling since you, Matt Keating, killed my wife and daughters. Now my lies are over. Now is the time for truth, to tell you what will happen next.”
He pauses and then says slowly and with firm clarity, “You took away my family. And as the law permits, I am due compensation, and that compensation, Matt Keating, is that your daughter is now mine.”
David whispers, “What the hell?”
Asim says, “Your daughter is now my daughter, to repay me for what you did to my family. Soon she will receive a new name and will join me, for the rest of her life, as I raise her as my own. And you must consider this. Are you now in such a hurry to find me? To kill me? To drop one of your bombs or rockets on me? Think that through, Matt Keating, because if you do that, the collateral damage, which you so often like to use as an excuse, will be your teenage daughter. Leave me alone. Let me live. For in doing so, you will let your daughter live. Masalama, Matt Keating.”
The sound cuts off, and I see my daughter for just a few more seconds before the screen goes blank.
Alejandro whispers, “Fuck,” and that one word explains everything.
The bastard has put me into a tight corner, a very tight corner.
With Mel no longer his captive but his so-called daughter, Asim will have her close by his side, for now, for tomorrow, and for years to come.
Daring me to rescue her, and attack him, and put Mel in immediate danger.
Damn the bastard.
A phone starts ringing, and I yell, “Will somebody answer that damn thing? I’m trying to think over here.”
David says, “Matt, it’s your phone.”
I go back to where my duffel bags and gear are located, pick up my burner phone—BLOCKED CALLER, says the ID screen—and I answer by saying, “Yes?”
“Matt?” says an excited voice.
“Yes,” I say, recognizing Danny Cohen from Mossad. “Danny, what’s going on?”
With joy in his voice, Danny says, “We found her. We know where Mel is located. No doubt about it.”
Chapter
106
Nafusa Mountains, Libya
Jiang Lijun of the Chinese Ministry of State Security is in a small room with stone walls and ceiling, sitting in a wooden chair, ankles and wrists chained to it. There’s a locked wooden door about two meters away, and on either side of the door, small square windows in stone open outside, blocked by metal bars. The floor is dirt.
He sits quietly, calmly, not knowing if there’s a surveillance camera somewhere keeping tabs on him. He won’t give anyone out there the pleasure of seeing him rattling or testing his chains.
To keep his mind off what will no doubt be his last hours alive, he recalls the history of Admiral Zheng He, who more than six hundred years ago set out with huge fleets of explorers and traders aboard ships that would overwhelm the European ships of the time. In his journeys, he became among the first Chinese to land on and explore Africa.
Not this part of Africa, of course, but if the rulers back then had followed up on Admiral Zheng’s journeys—the fifteenth-century equivalent of the current Belt and Road Initiative—oh, how history would have changed.
The door is unlocked, opened, and Asim Al-Asheed strides in, smiling. Standing outside are two of Asim’s armed men, who are staring at him as if they have never before seen a man from China.
“Lijun,” Asim says. “I admire your dedication and persistence, to come all this way, through so many hardships, to talk to me.”
Jiang says, “It’s my job.”
“Oh? And was it your job to bring along a squad of assassins, to attack me and my followers?”
Jiang says carefully, “You know how dangerous these lands are. I was only being cautious, with what resources were available to me. No plan to attack you was even considered.”
Asim smiles. “I am sure.” He turns, barks out an order, and a metal folding chair is brought in. He sits down. “Well, here you are. The last time we spoke, back in America, you said you admired what I had done, and that you were prepared to offer me assistance. Does that offer still stand? Do you still wish to assist?”
“Circumstances have changed,” Jiang says. “And so has my offer to you.”
“I see,” Asim says. “Anything else?”
Jiang says, “The fact that I am here is clear truth that you can be discovered. If the Americans believe Mel Keating is alive—”
“They do now,” Asim interrupts. “I just broadcasted a live video demonstrating she is alive. And thank you for your warning. I do not plan to stay here in these mountains much longer. Do go on.”
Jiang says, “Knowing she is alive, the Americans won’t stop looking for her and trying to kill you. Turn her over to me, and I will return her to American custody. My government will offer you a generous reward, fulfill any desire or need you have. Just return the girl to me.”
Asim seems to be pondering this, but Jiang isn’t fooled. There’s a mocking look in those dark brown eyes.
“Ah, yes, you and your mercantile country, always willing to trade, to deal, to make profits,” Asim says. “I’m sure that’s what you mean by reward, correct? Lavish sums of money. Safe relocation to another country. A life of leisure, comfort, and wealth. Only if I release that teen girl to you.”
Asim quickly stands up, grabs the chair. “But there are people in this world, my friend, who have no need for wealth or luxury. Who answer only to God. Later this day I will show you what I mean, in greater detail. And then you will be safely released, to return home, to tell your masters that you have finally met a man who couldn’t be wooed or bribed against his beliefs.”
Asim leaves, the door closes behind him, and the lock is reengaged.
Jiang sighs. Alive for now, but he doubts Asim is telling the truth.
Why should Asim release him?
He’s alone.
But he doesn’t remain alone for long.
Just a few minutes later, the door is unlocked and opened again, and this time it’s Asim’s cousin Faraj who comes in. In his right hand is a khaki-colored square satchel that he sets on the dirt floor.
He closes the door behind him and says, “You made an offer to my cousin. Repeat it to me.”
“Mel Keating is released safely in my custody, and you will be amply rewarded.”
“Specifics,” Faraj says. “Give me specifics.”
Jiang says, “Twenty million euros, in any confidential numbered bank account you may have or that we can set up. Safe transportation to any place in the world, and free lodging. New identification so the American, British, and Israeli services never find you.”
Faraj nods. “Is that deal for Asim, or anyone else?”
Jiang is pleasantly stunned. “Anyone who will release Mel Keating to me and give us safe transport out of Tripoli.”
“Then I will do it,” Faraj says. “Not my cousin. I’m tired of jihad, of rotten food, of sleeping in caves, always fearing a drone will fire a missile at me. You and I, we will make this deal.”
Fascinating, but Jiang is not sure if he’s being set up for something. Could these two cousins, who have spilt so much blood between them, actually be having a falling-out, or is something else being planned?
Is Faraj setting a trap for him?
Time for caution.
Jiang says, “I’m not sure I can trust you. And I’m not sure if I feel right in betra
ying Asim.”
Faraj crosses the dirt floor, squats so that he is eye level with Jiang.
“You will cooperate with me, you will pay me, or I will tell Asim that you were the one who murdered his family three years ago,” Faraj says. “And not the Americans.”
Jiang is frozen in place, not able to say a word.
“How do you feel now?” Faraj asks.
Chapter
107
Sfax-Thyna air base, Tunisia
To the former head of Mossad, I say, “Danny, please tell me more. What do you have?”
“That video of Mel: it was a live feed,” he says, his voice triumphant. “It wasn’t a recording. Our Unit 8200 was able to decrypt the feed when it started and found where it was being transmitted, to an Asim sympathizer in Qatar who was able to pass it along to another sympathizer with connections to Al Jazeera. But Matt, better yet, we were able to pinpoint where the transmission was coming from.”
The Israeli Unit 8200. Their equivalent of our National Security Agency, professionals in every manner when it comes to signal intelligence, codes, and decryption. After I was sworn in as president and brought up to speed on the globe’s various problems and hot spot areas, I was told that Unit 8200 was just as good as the NSA, and in some areas better.
“Danny, where did the transmission come from?”
“In Libya, the Nafusa Mountains,” he says. “Coordinates follow, Matt: thirty-one degrees, fifty-four minutes, thirty-six point seventy-eight seconds north, and eleven degrees, nineteen minutes, three point sixty-six seconds east.”
I find a pen, scribble the vital numbers on the palm of my hand. “Reading back, Danny: coordinates thirty-one degrees, fifty-four minutes, thirty-six point seventy-eight seconds north, and eleven degrees, nineteen minutes, three point sixty-six seconds east.”
The President's Daughter Page 37
