Purpose of Evasion (35 page)

The bomber was in all-out supersonic dash now, its speed and altitude making it virtually impossible for Lebanese defense radar to skin-paint it.

“What do we have left?” Shepherd asked.

“Four GBU-fifteens, on three through six.”

“Three through six, it is; let’s ripple them off.”

“Select three, four, five, and six,” Brancato echoed, punching in the data. “Ripple salvo.”

“We’re approaching the mark,” Shepherd intoned, eyes riveted to the rapidly changing data on the video display system—longitude, latitude, altitude, angle of attack, air speed, and time to release. “TTR two plus thirty,” he announced, watching the latter count down.

Brancato thumbed a button on the attack radar console. The Pave Tack pod rotated out of its bay in the F-111’s belly and began scanning the terrain below.

“One minute,” Shepherd said, scrutinizing the VDS as he punched the ECM button, releasing chaff and flares into the bomber’s slipstream.

Brancato’s eyes were riveted to the two images on the multi-systems
display, where the alphanumerics and the infrared image of the sea were visible. Soon the craggy Beirut coastline moved into view.

“Thirty seconds,” Shepherd said. “Twenty . . . ten . . .”

“Target acquired,” Brancato replied seconds later as the columns of alphanumerics coincided and the image of the casino moved onto the crosshairs. He used the control handle to align it, then locked on and hit the laser button. A pencil-thin beam of red light pulsed from the Pave Tack pod, sliced through the blackness, and locked onto Casino du Liban.

Shepherd turned over control of the bomb release mechanism to the computer, keeping the pickle button depressed, as the time to release counted down.

At all zeroes, four GBU-15s automatically rippled off 3-6-4-5 from the BRUs and began tracking on the laser.

Shepherd put the bomber into a sharp toss to avoid the upcoming explosion, but the gimbaled Pave Tack pod rotated on its mount, keeping the pulsing laser locked on the casino. The bombs lined up nose to tail like lemmings and began following it to the target.

THE TIME
in Beirut was 8:57
P.M.

Abu Nidal was hovering over the communications console, awaiting the Romeo’s call when he heard the telltale whistle and froze; seconds later, the first bomb scored a direct hit on the marina, blowing the floating gangways and 50-ton gunboat to pieces. He was dashing through the amphitheater when the second hit.

An avalanche of equipment—the catwalks, lighting grid, winch unit, and cables of the trapeze apparatus—fell from the rafters, knocking him to the floor. He became entangled in the velvet-sheathed cables and was struggling to free himself when the third and fourth bombs came through the roof of the adjacent gaming room, where the drums of Semtex plastique and crates of ammunition were stored. They erupted in a series of massive explosions that sent a roaring fireball into the blackness above Casino du Liban.

Below, in the wine cellar, Katifa huddled in a corner as the earth shook with the terrifying fury of a castastrophic quake. The last thundering explosion shattered the stone walls that entombed
her, pummeling her with debris. She heard the roaring fire and felt the rising heat and then a draft. She crawled from beneath the rubble and along the floor through the smoke, following the cool air to a section of wall that had been blown away and went out the gaping hole onto the hillside, stumbling down the steep incline to the beach.

Another blast ripped through Casino du Liban.

Katifa felt the shock wave and whirled at the sound. She stood there at the edge of the surf, the choppy surface a patina of pulsating red-orange reflections, and watched as the roaring inferno consumed what little was left of the legendary gaming palace. Her thoughts came in a numbing rush. In a matter of months she had lost her brother, her lover, and the man who had raised her. She had lost them all; and for what? Indeed, the most painful part was that they were gone and she really didn’t quite know why. Her eyes welled and sent tears rolling down her cheeks. She remained there for what seemed an eternity, feeling hollow and terribly alone, before she slipped away in the darkness.

BENEATH
the surface of the Aegean, the Romeo was dead in the water at periscope-antenna depth. Fifty feet astern, the SDV was approaching in line with the engine and props, and away from the bow-mounted sonar. In the submarine’s control room, the Syrian captain stepped back from the periscope and snapped up the handles. “Down scope; raise the antenna mast.”

Exchequer, the Palestinian in charge of the hostages, crossed to the radio room, accompanied by the captain.

“Ready to transmit,” the radioman reported.

The Palestinian watched the time count down and, as always, nodded at precisely 2100 hours. The operator turned on his radio and handed him the microphone. “This is the Exchequer,” the Palestinian said in Arabic. “This is the Exchequer. Do you read?” The speaker crackled and hissed with dead air. He swung a baffled look to the radioman. “You have your transmitter on?”

“Of course,” he replied, equally puzzled. “One of the amplifiers may have blown a fuse.” He crouched to an access panel and went about removing it.

Outside, underwater searchlights slashed the black depths as the SEALs left the SDV and swarmed like foraging sharks over
the Romeo’s hull. One SEAL went with Reyes to the access hatch. Four swam to preassigned rescue valves.

Each affixed a suction-mounted handhold to the hull, then reached to the yellow tank on his back and unfurled the delivery hose. It terminated in a flexible plastic fitting that had been perfectly mated by OTS engineers at Langley to the valves on the Romeo’s hull, enabling the two to be coupled quickly and silently.

It was 9:08
P.M.
by the time the hookups were made and each man had flashed his light, signaling he was ready. Reyes returned the signal and the SEALs simultaneously opened the valves, gradually releasing the halothane into the submarine, permeating compartments from bow to stern.

“The transmitter is functioning perfectly,” the radioman reported, feeling the effects of the halothane and shaking his head to clear it.

“Perhaps Beirut has had a power failure?” the captain offered. It happened often in the war-ravaged city and made perfect sense.

“What about their emergency generators?” the Palestinian countered.

The radioman slurred an unintelligible reply and slumped forward over the console.

“What is the matter with him?” the Palestinian asked, turning to the captain, who was bending over the radioman with concern when the phone buzzed. A machinist’s mate reported that several seamen in the engine room had passed out; others were becoming groggy.

“What is happening?” the Palestinian demanded, feeling light-headed and faltering as he spoke.

“Carbon monoxide,” the captain deduced, turning back to the phone. “Check the exhaust system; there must be an internal leak somewhere.” He paused, shaking off a growing drowsiness, then turned to the helmsman. “Surface and open all . . .” He bit off the sentence when he saw him hanging over the controls.

Outside in the frigid water, Reyes was poised over the salvage hatch, timing the halothane. He waited an extra 30 seconds before opening the hatch. Water poured into the air lock below. He and the other SEAL slithered inside and pulled it closed; then they pumped out the water, opened the interior hatch, and dropped into the Romeo, continuing to breathe through their scuba gear to avoid being affected by the anesthesia that hung in the air.

Seamen were lying on the deck, slumped in chairs, hanging over their equipment. One of the Palestinians who had been guarding the hostages stumbled toward them and fired a wild shot from a pistol. Reyes pulled the trigger on his spear gun. The barbed dart stabbed into the terrorist’s chest, driving him backwards. The lieutenant made his way through the passageways, checking compartments as he went, finally coming upon the hostages in the ward room. All seven were on the floor; all were chained to bulkheads; all were sleeping like babies.

THE MASTER CAUTION LIGHT
on the F-111’s instrument panel was on steady. The supersonic dash had burned fuel at an incredible rate and it was dangerously low as the bomber streaked over the Mediterranean.

“Israel? Cyprus?” Brancato asked. “What do you say?”

Shepherd considered it for a long moment. “I say either one would blow the whole thing, if you know what I mean,” he finally replied.

Brancato nodded emphatically. “Where else?”

“How about
America
? The USS
America.
”

“Oh, boy.” Brancato blanched at the prospect of a night landing on a postage stamp pitching in a rolling sea.

Shepherd contacted the carrier, identified himself and the aircraft, and requested a clear to land.

“You say a one-eleven, Viper-Two?” the
America
’s air ops officer replied incredulously.

“Affirmative. I’m lightweight; we carry a tail hook and have arrester experience.”

“Not on seven-hundred-foot runways. Suggest you divert to Haifa or Nicosia. Do you copy?”

“Negative,” Shepherd replied. “We’ll never make it. We’re too close to flame out.”

“Ditch, Viper-Two. We’ll fish you out.”

“Negative. I don’t have time to get into it. Tell the admiral mission accomplished and give him these coordinates if he needs convincing,” Shepherd replied, going on to recite the coordinates for Casino du Liban.

Moments later, the admiral came on the radio. “Major Shepherd?”

“Yes, sir. May I ask if you know who I am?”

“Affirmative, Major. What the hell are you doing up there in a one-eleven anyway?”

“Bringing it home to clear my name, sir.”

“And you took out that target along the way?” the admiral said, his tone a mixture of hope and disbelief.

“Yes, sir; in an aircraft with Libyan markings out of Okba ben Nafi. I suggest we have little to gain by revealing that U.S. military personnel were in the cockpit.”

“I agree. We have you on radar; we’ll put up an A-six to talk you down.”

“That’s a copy, sir. Thank you.”

A short time later the Intruder came up in the lane off the F-111’s left wing. “Okay, Air Force, I’ll take you all the way in,” the pilot said in a calm, reassuring tone. “The name of the game here is overshoot. You can always bolt, get back in the pattern, and make another approach. Copy?”

“Copy.”

“If fuel permits,” Brancato chimed in, grimly.

“You’ll pick up the glide slope at two miles, six hundred feet. We usually beam up a computer graphic as a guide. Since you’re not equipped to pick it up, you’ll have to eyeball it. What’s your air speed?”

“Two three zero,” Shepherd replied as the carrier’s lights rose at the edge of blackness far below.

“You want to be at one four five when you get there; flaps should be in take off, slats extended, gear down, hook down . . .”

Shepherd called out the moves as he made them. A hard pull on the yellow and black handle dropped the arrester hook from the fairing beneath the tail.

“Okay, there’s an optical landing system on the port side of the runway area. That’s the left for you Aardvark drivers. It has three lights: a yellow one called the ball and two green ones.”

“Yeah, I see it.”

“Good. The idea is to keep the ball centered between the greens. That keeps you in proper orientation to the glide path. The landing signal officer on deck is going to ask you to call the ball—if you can see it.”

“Copy that.”

“Okay. Keep the angle of attack indexer on-speed and stay on center-line. Soon as you see the drop lights dive for the deck.”

“That’s a copy,” Shepherd replied.

“I got him,” the LSO said over the radio. “Three-quarters of mile, you’re on the glide, Viper-Two, just right of the line. Call the ball.”

Shepherd dipped the left wing slightly and aligned the plane with the center of the carrier’s runway, trying to time his approach to the rise and fall of the deck. “Ball,” he said sharply, as the yellow light popped into view between the greens; but just as suddenly it was gone; all the lights were gone! He and Brancato were staring at an onrushing wall of black steel.

“Too low, too low, Viper-Two,” the LSO cautioned evenly. “More throttle.”

Shepherd hit the gas and clicked the nose up.

Still the wall of blackness.

“That’s it,” the pilot of the Intruder said. “Now time it; time the heave—better, much better.”

“Concur,” the LSO said. “Looking good.”

Shepherd and Brancato were convinced they were about to fly headlong into the carrier’s foot-thick hull when the ship fell into a valley between two swells, revealing the drop lights and deck beyond.

Shepherd pulled the stick back, slammed the throttles to the wall, and hit the speed brake.

The sleek bomber slammed onto the 700-foot runway in a controlled crash, missing the first two cables. Shepherd got the nose down on the deck just as it bounced over the third and went careening toward the sea; finally the arrester hook snagged the fourth cable and the plane jerked to a neck-snapping stop at the end of the runway, within spitting distance of the edge.

Shepherd and Brancato were thrown forward, harnesses digging into their shoulders against the sudden deceleration, then back as the plane settled down. They sat there in stunned silence watching the deck crew running toward them; then they started to laugh.

51

THAT EVENING
in the United States, network news programs reported the story of the hostages’ rescue, crediting CIA with discovering their whereabouts and revealing that the rescue operation was carried out by submarine-based Navy SEALs; no mention was made of the Casino du Liban bombing. Indeed only the fleet admiral on the
America
, Brancato, and Shepherd had knowledge of the vital role it had played in the rescue. The following morning, newspapers the world over carried similar stories. The headline of the
Washington Post
read:

AMERICAN HOSTAGES RESCUED.

Two other stories on the front page were relevant and worthy of attention. One was headlined:

CIA DIRECTOR KILEY COMMITS SUICIDE

The body of Director of Central Intelligence William Kiley was found in his Langley office early last night by a security guard making rounds. Reliable sources have told the
Post
that death was caused by a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. A suicide note found on Kiley’s desk revealed that he wrongfully believed a mission to rescue Americans held hostage in the Middle East had failed, causing him to become despondent over their execution, which he deemed inevitable under the circumstances.

The second story, a smaller one at the bottom of the page, was headlined:

LIBYAN BOMBER DESTROYS PLO STRONGHOLD.