Purpose of Evasion (34 page)

Minutes later, the specially attired and equipped crew came from within the compound. They carefully unrolled the richly colored Persian that once graced a suite in Casino du Liban, discovering Moncrieff’s skinned carcass inside.

Soon after, in the embassy’s communications center, the dedicated radio channel crackled to life.

“Tell Mr. Stengel that Abu Nidal knows about the rescue operation,” Katifa reported in a shaky voice. After Moncrieff’s execution, she had been carried to the basement and locked in a stone-walled cavern that had once been the casino’s wine cellar.
She regained consciousness several hours later and, fighting to shut out the memory of the horrifying events, took the cigarette-packaged transmitter from her jacket. “I repeat, Abu Nidal knows about the rescue operation.”

“What action does he plan to take?” came the reply.

“I don’t know.”

“Do you know if the submarine has been warned?”

“No, it hasn’t. Nidal can’t make radio contact until nine o’clock.”

THE TIME
in Washington, D.C., was 1:05
P.M.

Early that morning Bill Kiley had awakened to news reports of Moncrieff’s kidnapping. Some fishermen had found his abandoned limousine on the banks of the Red Sea; the chauffeur’s corpse was in the trunk. A short time later the U.S. Embassy in Beirut relayed the message that the first hostage had arrived at Casino du Liban, and the DCI knew to his horror just
how
Nidal proposed to carry out his threat.

Now the DCI was in his office, waiting for the rescue mission to commence when his intercom buzzed.

“CNN’s on the line sir,” his secretary said. “They want to know if you’re interested in commenting on a special bulletin they’re about to air.”

Kiley turned on the TV; an anchorman reported that a Saudi businessman had been executed and delivered to the U.S. Embassy in Beirut; the letters
CIA
had been carved in what was left of his naked corpse.

“No,” Kiley hissed, infuriated. “Get the embassy.”

“They’re calling on the other line, sir.”

“Why does the media always know before I do?” Kiley bellowed into the phone. The Beirut station chief ignored the tirade and briefed him on Katifa’s message. The DCI was convinced beyond doubt that if the Romeo was warned prior to the rescue attempt, all the hostages would be executed.

Kiley left his office, went to the communications center in the subbasement, and commandeered one of the technicians and his console. “I need Captain Duryea on the
Cavalla.
Flash priority; voice channel; code red.”

The com-tech doubted that the
Cavalla
had a radio mast or buoy deployed but tried a voice channel anyway, to no avail. Next he typed up the alert and cabled it. “No acknowledgment, sir,”
he said, failing to get the signal tone that meant it had been received.

“We’ve got fifty million bucks worth of radio equipment in here and you can’t reach a submarine?” Kiley snapped. “This is an emergency. Find a way!”

“Yes, sir,” the harried technician replied. He sent the same cable on several bands with the same result. “Still no response, sir.”

“Which bands have you tried?”

“UH and VHF, sir. ELF would take an hour just to—”

“What about HF?” the DCI demanded, referring to the high frequency band, commonly used for intrafleet communications. “You try that?”

“No, sir.”

“What are you waiting for?”

“That’s an unsecured net, sir.”

“I don’t give a damn what it is. Lives are at stake here! Lives. Do it!”

Moments before the DCI had arrived, a printer in an adjacent room had come to life. The technician had torn off the incoming cable and was in the process of routing it to the DCI’s office when she glimpsed Kiley through the glass partition. She retrieved the cable and went through the door into the communications room.

“From the
Cavalla
, sir,” she said, delivering it.

Kiley eased slightly, assuming it would acknowledge receipt of his message, but to his dismay it read:

TWILIGHT PROCEEDING AS PLANNED; UNODIR.

Kiley paled; the UNODIR meant the
Cavalla
’s radio had been shut off. His mind raced frantically in search of options and found one. “Get me the fleet admiral on the
America
,” he ordered the com-tech. “Come on, come on.” He was on the verge of losing control.

AT OKBA BEN NAFI AIR BASE,
Shepherd had the F-111 barreling down the runway: blow-in doors open, wing-sweep at 16 degrees, flaps at 25, slats down, spoilers up, and throttles homed, disregarding the angry voices of control tower personnel coming over the radio. Brancato muttered an expletive and shut it off as Shepherd rotated the nose up and the bomber
leapt into the darkness. Shepherd immediately banked right, aligning the bomber with the hangar where the second F-111 was still housed. His eyes were locked on the HUD, where light spilling across the tarmac far below moved onto the cross arrows of the optical gunsight, then he pressed the red button on his control stick, pickling off the preselected ordnance.

Two Mark 82 low level attack bombs dropped from the BRUs. The arming wires set the fuses and deployed tiny parachutes that slowed their descent to the target, giving the F-111 time to exit the area prior to impact.

Shepherd pulled the stick back slightly and pushed hard left, putting the aircraft into a high-G turn as the two 500 pounders turned the hangar and the remaining F-111 into a fireball. Shepherd leveled off, keeping the plane at low altitude, well below the range of Libyan air defense radar.

“Piece of cake,” Brancato hooted.

“Yeah, the hard part comes next,” Shepherd said, heading directly over Tripoli toward the Mediterranean, which was the quickest route out of Libyan air space.

“What’re you driving at?”

“We’re coming out of Tripoli with Libyan markings and an outdated transponder code smack into the Sixth Fleet’s front yard,” Shepherd replied, concerned that fleet commanders might mistake the F-111 for an attacking Libyan jet and launch interceptors or surface-to-air missiles to destroy it. “Better pull up your HF buttons and see if anything’s going on.”

“Fleet common, eagle-one,” Brancato responded, switching on the high-frequency radio to monitor fleet operations. “Usual ops chitchat,” he reported. “Sounds quiet otherwise.”

Shepherd was just starting to relax when the radar, scanning on open priority, skin-painted a raw return. The lack of an IFF symbol next to the blip left no doubt it was hostile. “Bogie at six miles,” he announced, realizing it was one of the Libyan SU-22s that had taken off earlier to escort the bomber.

Brancato fine-tuned the attack radar scope, targeting the interceptor. “Okay, I got him. He’s jinking onto our nose . . . five miles . . . four.”

“Select fox one, fox one,” Shepherd barked, referring to one of four Aim-9 Sidewinder missiles carried on sidemounts affixed to the outboard pylons.

“Fox one,” Brancato echoed, his eyes now glued to the moving
target indicator, the graphic aviators call the death dot, which was chasing the SU-22’s signal. “Okay,” he said as the MTI became fixed on the blip. “He’s locked up. He’s locked up.”

“I’ve got a tone,” Shepherd said, pickling it off.

The Sidewinder rocketed from the mount with a loud whoosh and left a fiery 1,900 MPH trail in the darkness. Seconds later a distant explosion lit up the sky.

ON THE USS
AMERICA
, the fleet admiral was being briefed on the situation via radio by Kiley. He was puzzled by the DCI’s desperate tone and use of the HF band, unaware that the com-tech had been bullied into using it to contact the
Cavalla
and had unthinkingly remained on it when calling the carrier. “Excuse me, sir,” the admiral interjected softly, “but it behooves me to point out that we’re on an unsecured channel.”

“I don’t care what we’re on, Admiral,” Kiley snapped. “My point is, the only way to stop Nidal from warning that Romeo is to take out his headquarters.”

“You’re suggesting an air strike?”

“Damn right.”

“That’s an act of war, sir,” the admiral replied warily. “It will require a declaration by Congress or a direct order from the president. I have neither.”

“You have a direct order from the director of Central Intelligence, dammit!”

“I understand that sir, but . . .”

THE F-111
was streaking low over the Mediterranean on a heading for D’Jerba when Brancato, still monitoring the HF band, switched it to Shepherd’s headset. “Hey, listen to this.”

“Then do it, Admiral,” Kiley’s voice demanded. “Target coordinates are three four/zero one/five two, north; three five/three eight/two zero, east. Got it?”

“Yes, sir, I do,” the admiral replied. “There’s nothing I’d like better than taking out that son of a bitch, believe me; but I’m forced to—”

“Nidal’s already killed one hostage! If Casino du Liban isn’t turned into a parking lot by nine o’clock, they’re all going to die! All of them!”

“I’m sorry, sir,” the admiral replied, agonizing over the decision. “I can’t order an air strike on another nation without proper authorization.”

“You’re not attacking a nation, you’re taking out a terrorist stronghold! Paint a hammer and sickle on one of your A-sixes and get on with it.”

“Sir, I’d fly the mission myself if I could, but under the circumstances I respectfully suggest there is no point in carrying this conversation any further.”

Shepherd and Brancato exchanged looks. No discussion was necessary. On Brancato’s nod, Shepherd made an abrupt change in course. While Brancato went about transposing the coordinates to ANITA for entry into the Pave Tack computer, Shepherd climbed into cloud cover 13,000 feet above the sea, pushed the throttles to the stops, and swept the wings back to 72 degrees.

The F-111 bolted forward on a heading for Beirut.

The mach gauge swiftly climbed to 2.5.

Soon the sleek bomber was streaking through the pitch blackness at 1,650 MPH. At 28 miles a minute it could cover the 1,225 miles in under 44 minutes; and though Tripoli was geographically aligned with Western Europe–almost 30 degrees latitude west of Beirut–both cities, along with the Greek Islands, were in the same time zone. It was 8:11
P.M.

AT CIA HEADQUARTERS,
Kiley left communications and went to the lobby, clutching the UNODIR; he stood gazing at the memorial wall, seized by an overwhelming sense of failure and depression. Push would soon come to shove. Technically, the UNODIR would cover him, but the responsibility was his, and he took no solace in it. He returned to his office, went to the wall safe behind the Chinese screen, and encoded the combination on the keypad. The safe held cash, top-secret code books, a standard CIA issue pistol, and numerous red file folders. Duryea’s first UNODIR lay atop a pile of cables. Kiley removed it, leaving the safe open, and went to the shredder next to his desk. The first UNODIR went into the laser-honed blades with a precise whirr, spilling in ribbons into the burn bag below. He fed in the second; then, his hands shaking uncontrollably, he took the Polaroid of Fitzgerald from his desk. “I’m sorry, Tom,” he said, eyes glistening with emotion.

ON THE
CAVALLA
, the SEALs had suited up, clambered through the hatch into the dry deck shelter atop the
Cavalla
’s hull, and settled in the SDV’s cockpits.

Duryea sealed the hatch and filled the DDS with seawater. Reyes opened the aft bulkhead but, instead of piloting the swimmer delivery vehicle into the depths, he waited until the Romeo was abeam of the basaltic ridge that concealed the
Cavalla
from its sonar.

Now with the sound of the Romeo’s propellers and diesels to mask the noise of the launch, Reyes turned on the hydroelectric propulsion system and the SDV, its searchlight piercing the cobalt depths, rocketed into the Aegean in pursuit of the submarine.

The plastic-hulled vessel and its six passengers offered imperceptible profiles to radar and active sonar; furthermore, by approaching directly aft in the submarine’s blindspot, Reyes ensured any ambient sound would blend with that made by the Romeo itself. He guided the SDV into position below and behind the hull as it began slowly surfacing to periscope-antenna depth in preparation for contacting Abu Nidal.

The time was 8:41
P.M.

FIVE MINUTES LATER
in Casino du Liban, Nidal clambered down the grand staircase from his quarters and strode purposefully through the gaming room and amphitheater to the backstage communications center.

“Have you tried communicating with the submarine?”

“No, sir. Exchequer never calls this early.”

Nidal bristled with frustration at the limitations of submarine communications and the Romeo’s archaic system, which ruled out any contact with the vessel when submerged. “Isn’t it possible that he has already surfaced and is waiting until twenty-one hundred to initiate communication?”

“Yes, sir,” the radioman replied apprehensively.

“And if he is, doesn’t that mean
we
could contact
him
right now?”

The radioman nodded. “It is also possible his transmitter is turned off.”

“Try anyway.”

“Come in, Exchequer,” the radioman said into his microphone.
“Come in, Exchequer. Do you read?” To Nidal’s consternation, there was no reply. The radioman tried several more times with the same result.

THE F-111
was streaking down the center of the Mediterranean 175 miles north of the Egyptian coast.

Shepherd was keeping a wary eye on the systems caution panel, where the sensor that monitored the bomber’s skin temperature was flashing intermittently, indicating heat buildup would soon begin to affect various parts of the airframe and electronics.

“Time to go, six plus thirty,” Shepherd said, pressing the front of his helmet against the HUD cushion to steady his vision. They were approximately 250 miles from the target as he put the plane into a dive. At 1,500 feet, he began pulling out, easing onto level flight barely 200 feet over the sea; then he reached to the center console, activated the terrain following radar, and looped a fore-finger around the paddle switch on the backside of the control stick. This was a safety device that, if released, would automatically and instantly put the plane into a 4-G climb should the TFR malfunction.