Purpose of Evasion (6 page)

Katifa gasped, unwilling to accept it, the words of angry protest sticking in her throat.

“When Arafat demanded an explanation,” Moncrieff continued, “Nidal said he was concerned your father would break under torture and reveal the names of other Palestinian activists. Of course, he told you and your brother that the
Israelis
had killed him.”

Katifa was stunned. She turned away like a wounded animal, staring out a window into the darkness. “That is a vicious lie,” she finally protested in a dry rasp. “Abu Nidal took us in and raised us as his own children. He was everything to us.”

“That’s why you never suspected the truth. If Abu Nidal is
so dedicated to your father’s principles, why did he turn me down?”

Katifa winced, knowing the Saudi was right. “There would be no currency without Abu Nidal,” she replied defensively.

“Granted; but he has served his purpose. It’s your fight now; you’re the one who must spend it. Where are they, Katifa?” he said forcefully. “Where are the hostages?”

She looked at him for a long moment, the smoke from her cigarette filling the space between them as she decided. “They’re not in Beirut.”

Moncrieff was stunned. CIA had long believed the hostages were being held somewhere in the southern slums; and he expected Katifa knew the exact location.

“Then where?” he demanded angrily.

Katifa shrugged. “They were brought to Casino du Liban and taken away on Abu Nidal’s boat.” She paused, deciding. “It was given to him by the Syrians.”

“Is that where they are? Syria?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“I’ve heard Abu Nidal say the shetans could turn the entire Middle East over stone by stone and never find them. No,” she went on, anticipating Moncrieff s next question. “It wasn’t a figure of speech. Nidal wasn’t bragging; he stated it as a simple fact.”

“The hostages are under Syrian control,” he prompted.

“Yes. It was part of the agreement for Assad’s support,” Katifa answered, referring to Syria’s radical leader.

“Assad can authorize their release?”

“Not without clearing it with Abu Nidal first. There’s a Palestinian in charge of the hostages who reports to him daily. He’d know if Assad went around him.”

Moncrieff nodded pensively. The more he learned about the hostages’ whereabouts the more of a mystery it became. He was thinking he should call Larkin and inform him of the impasse when his eyes came to life with an idea.

“Then Nidal must authorize it.”

“Impossible.”

“Is that what your father would have said?” the Saudi challenged, knowingly.

7

THE STORM
that had been drenching all of Europe was blowing across the runways in sheets when the military 707 landed at Templehoff, the United States Air Force base in West Berlin.

The time was 5:26
A.M.
when Colonel Larkin came down the boarding ramp and cleared passport control.

The CIA station chief in the American consulate on Clayallee had made several arrangements at Larkin’s request, ground transportation among them. The Audi sedan was waiting in slot T-44 in the terminal parking lot. The major found the keys under the floor mat, opened the trunk, and removed a rumpled Adidas gym bag. It contained $10,000.

He drove north into the city through the rain that slowed traffic on the Mariendorfer Damm to a crawl.

About an hour and a half later he parked along the S-bahn tracks near the Tiergarten and walked through the flea market to No. 42 Potsdamer, an unkempt row house just west of the city’s infamous wall. He rang the buzzer for the street-level flat. Shortly, the security peephole flickered, then the dead bolt clanked.

The woman who opened the door had a tired face that Larkin had once thought attractive; she balanced a baby on her hip. The pocket of her apron sagged with the weight of a pistol.

“Richard?” she said with a warm smile. “I was surprised when I got the message you were coming. Wie geht’s?”

“Hanging in there,” Larkin replied as she bolted the door and led the way inside. His head filled with the aroma of gun oil and blued-steel that came from crates stacked against the walls of the apartment. He set the gym bag on a table and pushed it toward her.

“If you would,” she said, handing Larkin the baby. “He cries if I put him down.”

She unzipped the bag, removed the money, and put it in a
drawer. Then she made a phone call, whispering just a few words in German before hanging up.

“He’s coming soon,” she said. “I’ll make some coffee.” She went into the kitchen, leaving Larkin holding the child, its tiny fist clenched tightly around a bullet.

LATER THAT MORNING,
after meeting with Larkin, a middle-aged man with sad eyes and a wispy mustache crossed the border into East Berlin and spent some time working with a colleague in the cable room of the Libyan People’s Bureau on Unter Den Linden.

That evening, the woman went to Kufurstendamm, the hub of West Berlin’s notorious nightlife. As always, it was crowded with tourists, prostitutes, and off-duty military personnel. She stood near the entrance to La Belle Club, her foot tapping to the beat of the rock music that boomed from within. It was 12:21
A.M.
when she spotted a young, sensitive-looking American soldier hesitating to enter the disco.

“Go ahead. It’s a great club. You’ll love it,” she said. “My husband’s in the band.”

“It’s that obvious I’m new, huh?” the soldier replied with an embarrassed smile.

“No, you just looked a little uncertain.”

“Thanks,” he said, turning toward the entrance.

“Oh, could you do me a favor?” she asked, holding out a rumpled gym bag. “My husband sweats so much when he plays. He forgot his towels and change of clothes.”

“You want me to give that to him?”

“If you would,” she replied, gesturing to the baby sleeping peacefully in a canvas carrier slung across her chest. “The music will wake him if I—”

“Sure, no problem,” the congenial fellow agreed, taking the bag. “Heavy,” he said, somewhat surprised.

“The water. A big Thermos of it,” she explained shrewdly. “They take a break about one. Oh, how silly of me,” she said as if she had forgotten. “My husband is the drummer.”

“The drummer,” the soldier repeated with a smile, backing his way into the entrance.

The woman waved and hurried off.

The shy soldier went to a table, ordered a beer, and set the gym bag on the floor behind his chair.

Inside it, amid a few soiled towels, a cheap wind-up alarm clock lay ticking. The plastic lens that covered the face had been removed and a thin, pliable wire affixed with airplane glue to each of the hands. The insulation had been stripped from the tips, exposing about a quarter-inch of copper; one of these prongs had been bent slightly downward to ensure contact would be made when they coincided. As beer flowed and dancers gyrated, the minute hand slowly brought the tips of the two wires closer and closer together.

It was exactly 1:04
A.M.
when the young soldier waved the waitress over again.

“Think this set’s ever going to end?”

“I sure hope so,” she said, leaning over so he could hear her above the music.

His eyes darted shyly to the swell of her breasts, the smooth skin almost brushing his cheek. He was hoping fervently it would and was fantasizing how it might feel when the clock hands moved to within a few ticks of coinciding, and an impatient purple-green spark jumped across the gap between the contacts.

The 9-volt charge surged through the wire and tripped the detonator, which was plugged into a 15-pound chunk of C-4 plastique called Semtex. It was part of a 20-ton shipment of the deadly explosive that one of the renegade CIA agents had procured for Qaddafi. RDX, the main ingredient of the off-white putty, was unmatched in destructive potential save for nuclear weapons.

It erupted in a thunderous explosion.

The music and blinding strobes masked the sound and flash of the blast, but the torn bodies hurtling through the air like dolls left no doubt as to what had happened. Within seconds, La Belle Club was a roaring inferno filled with screaming people.

Scores were injured.

Two American soldiers were killed.

8

THE NEXT MORNING,
an entourage of civilian and military advisers assembled at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland’s Blue Ridge Mountains.

The president had spent the weekend relaxing. He was dressed casually when he joined them in the library, where, despite the crackle of hand-split logs, a damp chill prevailed.

“Intercepted a few hours ago,” Lancaster said, handing him a red folder marked
KEYHOLE TOP-SECRET TALENT,
the code name given intelligence collected by KH-11 spy satellites. It contained a cable that read:

WE HAVE SOMETHING PLANNED THAT WILL MAKE YOU HAPPY.

“When am I going to get one of these that will make
me
happy?” the president asked, settling in his chair. “I thought we had castiron coverage on these people?”

“We do, sir,” Kiley replied. “Repositioning that KH-11 really paid off.”

“Not for those two soldiers, it didn’t!” the president snapped in a rare display of acrimony.

“My apologies, sir,” Kiley said, stung by the reply. “I meant we can prove that cable was sent from the People’s Bureau in East Berlin to Qaddafi in Tripoli.”

The president’s posture softened, his head tilting slightly, re-considering his remarks.

“As was this one,” Lancaster said, exhaling a haughty cloud of smoke as he handed him a second cable. Like the others present, the NSA wasn’t aware of CIA’s involvement in the bombing and believed the cables to be genuine.

AT 1:05 AM AN EVENT OCCURRED.

YOU WILL BE PLEASED WITH THE RESULT.

“That’s the exact time the disco was bombed, sir,” Kiley said incriminatingly.

“Do we have any proof that
Qaddafi
gave the order?” the president asked.

“I’d say it’s implicit, sir,” Kiley replied.

“In other words, Bill, we don’t have irrefutable evidence that Qaddafi was behind this.”

Kiley’s lips tightened in a thin red line. “No, sir.”

“Be advised,” the chairman of the Joint Chiefs said, “the La Belle Club is a hangout for black servicemen. Libya has never targeted minorities. Pick off a cable going in the other direction—an order from Qaddafi saying, ‘Bomb a disco tonight’—then come talk to me.”

“Dammit,” Kiley snapped. “Why do you people always need a Pearl Harbor as an excuse to go to work?”

“Mr. President,” the secretary of state began in his ponderous cadence, “we’ve tried diplomacy, public condemnation, a show of military strength. None have worked. It’s time for military
action.
”

“We have an interservice strike force on alert,” the defense secretary chimed in. “It can be launched on short notice to drop a few hot ones right in Qaddafi’s lap.”

“Not from any of my aircraft,” the CJC retorted. “Not without a smoking gun.”

“You already have one,” Kiley said emotionally. “Hundreds of them. Two hundred and fifty-three marines! A navy diver murdered in cold blood! A man in a wheelchair thrown into the sea! Innocent travelers gunned down in airports! Blown out of planes! College professors, journalists,
one of my own people
kidnapped and tortured by these animals! Two soldiers blown to bits in a nightclub! How many more? The wrong guns are doing all the smoking! And I’m damned sick of it!”

Kiley’s passion drew a taut silence over the room. Twenty seconds passed before the president broke it. “So am I,” he said in a voice hoarse from tension. “It’s time to make the world smaller for terrorists.”

THAT AFTERNOON
a heavy rain was still falling at Mildenhall as a military transport, which had taken off from Berlin’s Templehoff an hour and forty minutes earlier, landed.

Colonel Larkin deplaned, cleared customs, and strode in a precise
cadence to a gray government sedan parked adjacent to the MAC terminal. He tossed his two-suiter into the backseat and got in next to Major Applegate, who was behind the wheel.

“I hear business in Germany is booming,” Applegate said in his high-pitched rasp as he pulled away from the arrivals gate.

“So did the president,” Larkin replied with an intensity that set him apart from his affable colleague. “Talk to me about these crews, A.G.”

“
Pilots
,” Applegate corrected smartly, handing him a file card with two names, one of which was Shepherd. “No wizzos. I figure the fewer personnel involved the better,” he went on, explaining he had purposely selected two pilots, assigned to fly the raid on Libya, who had unexpectedly lost their weapons systems officers.

“Assigned to the raid . . .”

“That’s the beauty of it.”

“What do you have in mind?” Larkin prompted warily. “I mean, have you talked to them about this?”

“Not yet. But it might be worth a shot.”

Larkin’s expression darkened. “I don’t know. There isn’t a pilot alive who’d turn his plane over to the enemy without asking a lot of questions.”

“We’ve got some damn good answers.”

“What if they don’t agree? What if one of them takes his military oath too seriously; refuses to carry out an order that’s wrong? That’s
illegal
?”

Applegate’s prominent brows arched. “Good point. We’d be in deep shit if one of them turned out to be a whistle-blower.”

“Bet your ass. This cat gets out of the bag, it makes a beeline right for the oval office.”

“There are ways to make sure it doesn’t.”

“Just one,” Larkin said ominously. “Separate these guys from their planes and fly the mission ourselves.”

“Sounds like we’re talking hardball,” Applegate said, the stone-cold expression in Larkin’s eyes leaving no doubt as to his intent.

“You have a problem with that?”

“You know better,” Applegate replied; then, hunching his bear-like shoulders with uncertainty, he added, “It’s just that these guys are air force.”

“I don’t need to be reminded, A.G.,” Larkin said firmly. “The problem is, if we’re going to sell the idea that two one-elevens were lost in the raid, we have to release the names of the pilots
that went down with them, the
assigned
pilots. And we can’t have these guys walking around saying otherwise.”

“What about incapacitating them somehow—a fender bender, food poisoning? Then
we
fly the mission, and release phony names and bios.”

Larkin shook his head emphatically. “It’ll never hold water. The media is going to be all over this thing. They’ll want to interview the dead pilots’ families. The air force will hold a memorial service. The president will console their wives and kids—”

“Hadn’t thought of that,” Applegate said, steering around some double-parked vehicles.

“Besides, it’s not sure enough. What if one of them gets his gut pumped and shows up on the flight line? We can use phony IDs to cover a couple of nonexistent wizzos but not these guys. We’re not dealing with just planes, we’re dealing with assigned planes and assigned pilots and we have to account for both.”

There was no more to be said on the matter. The scenario demanded stringent security. Extreme measures would be necessary to guarantee it wasn’t breached. The slightest chance that the top-secret mission would be revealed, the hostages imperiled, or the government compromised had to be eliminated in advance.

“A couple of details still have to be covered,” Applegate said, as he turned off Lincoln Road, parking in front of Building 239. The pedestrian, postwar structure served as headquarters for U.S. 3rd Air Force.

The place was buzzing with activity as the two officers cleared security and climbed a staircase to Applegate’s office at the far end of a second-floor corridor. The computer terminal was tied in to Mildenhall’s main frame. Larkin turned it on and typed in his security clearance code. The computer responded:

VERIFIED: CLEARED TO TOP SECRET: PROCEED

Next, Larkin accessed the mission file and scrolled through the personnel roster, finding:

PILOT: SHEPHERD, MAJOR WALTER M.

WIZZO: TO BE ASSIGNED

He changed it to read
WIZZO
:
ASSIGNED
—ensuring a new weapons systems officer wouldn’t appear. He repeated the procedure
for the second pilot, then, accessing their personnel files, deleted the name of their commanding officers and inserted his own. This was preventative damage control; any queries from those not privy to the covert subtext, which might threaten the mission, would come to him rather than to 3rd Air Force personnel.

Larkin was about to shut down the computer when something caught his eye. Along with personal information each file also contained a photograph. The images hadn’t registered during the data search, but now the colonel’s attention was drawn to the engaging smile and thoughtful eyes of Major Walter Shepherd.

Their forthright stare filled Larkin with anxiety. It wasn’t the unconventional nature of the mission that troubled him; nor was it what those in the trade called the Nuremberg Syndrome, the specter of Nazi officers executed for carrying out orders they knew to be wrong rather than question them. No, what bothered Larkin was that the men he’d be acting against were on his side.

He had steeled himself against it until now. A few minutes passed before he found the rationale. Yes, he could live with that, he thought, having convinced himself that the two pilots would be called upon to do no more than they had promised the day they were sworn into the military—indeed, no more than what might happen if they flew the mission; no more than Larkin, himself, would do should the need arise—die in the service of their country.