The Last Judgment (53 page)

“You have to understand,” Tucker said, “that this cannot be viewed as an operation of the U.S. government.”

“Sure. Lone Ranger. That's me all over.”

Up at the Syrian border, Caleb Marlowe, sporting a black beard, darkened skin, and traditional Arab dress, clicked off his phone.

Then he immediately began wondering where he was going to get his white horse.

74

G
ENERAL
T
UCKER PUT A CALL IN
to Rear Admiral Reggie Chittenden at MI6, Britain's foreign-intelligence service. He explained his delicate dilemma—the United States could not be seen as taking the initiative in using its own spy satellite to track the terrorists, even though they had kidnapped two American citizens. President Harriet Landow was committed not to do anything that could be perceived as disrupting the peace process, particularly because she was now hoping, in light of Warren Mullburn's rapid geopolitical disintegration, that the United States could again take over the position as chief peace mediator.

It was clear, the two agreed, that the request could come from England, who shared satellite time on Orion. The U.S. could then rapidly permit the satellite to be tasked.

“I will have to put a call in to the prime minister,” Chittenden noted. “Because a British barrister may be, hypothetically, in jeopardy in this kidnapping incident, that will give us a certain degree of political cover.”

Tucker's next call was to the National Security Agency, the mammoth American surveillance and intelligence organization outside Annapolis Junction, Maryland.

“You're going to be getting a request from the British government to task Orion for a cell-phone number and to track the originating phone. Somewhere in Israel proper, but possibly including Syria to the north, Jordan to the west, and Egypt to the south. I want you to prioritize that request—I already know about it, and I've cleared it for the Pentagon.”

Twenty-five minutes later approval had been granted. A coded message was received at Menwith Hill, the U.S. military satellite installation in North Yorkshire, England.

In Maryland, the NSA processed the order to task the satellite for all transmissions received via cell phone by the number of Dakkar's cousin in Hebron.

Responding to the NSA directive, two technicians in the satellite-tracking facility in Pine Gap, Australia, quickly calibrated the Orion.

And then, the listening began.

Minutes went by. Then ten minutes. Twenty minutes passed, with no cell-phone call connecting to the only telephone number they knew had any connection to the kidnapping.

At forty-seven minutes, the phone rang in Hebron. Akbar, Dakkar's cousin, answered. It was his cell-phone contact with the Hamas group that had snatched Will and Gilead.

Back in the U.S., in the tactical-operations office of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, two men and one woman sat in front of a computer screen. Then suddenly, a line of numbers rolled on to it.

“We've got it!” the senior official called out.

“Operation Paul Revere,” so dubbed by General Tucker himself, was now underway.

In the computer-map room, a large grid of southern Israel was displayed in quarter-mile quadrants.

Then they calibrated the satellite for a closer look.

Rows of houses, streets, and blurred images of persons in a densely populated area.

Then a closer look.

A large rectangular object in a street. Surrounded by buildings. Suddenly four human thermal images rushed out of the van and pulled out two more human images from the back. Then all of them disappeared into the adjoining building.

“Get me map coordinates
stat!”
one of the map officials ordered.

Fifteen minutes later, General Tucker was on the phone with Caleb Marlowe.

“Speak louder,” Caleb said. “I'm inside a Blackhawk helicopter. I caught a ride with the IDF. We're practically at Tel Aviv.”

“You better keep flying…farther south…”

“How far?”

“We've got the coordinates,” the general said. “And a fairly precise location. But it's not good news.”

“Where do the kidnappers have our guys?”

“In the Gaza Strip. The place where, since we kicked the Taliban out of Afghanistan, there's probably more terrorists per square mile than any other part of the planet. We've located them on a street in a little rathole of a city called Rafiah. It's known for having a lot of tunnels that connect over the border to Egypt. And the terrorists scamper back and forth from Egypt to Gaza through those tunnels like a bunch of rats…”

“Are they in an apartment building?”

“Yes, our guys said they saw several armed figures in proximity to the location of the number we tracked, getting out of what looks like a van with two captives—and then they rushed them inside a building.”

“Well, the Israelis said they can give me one Blackhawk helicopter and a handful of commandos, but that just isn't going to cut the mustard.”

“No, I don't think so. A Blackhawk is way too big for a snatch and run. One of them comes in to that crowded street in Gaza and our guys are going to be dead in a minute.”

“Do we have anything smaller? Some way to drop us in to that site with less noise—a minimal amount of fuss and bluster?”

Tucker thought for a few seconds.

“Let me call down to the R&D boys and see what we've got. I'll be back to you in less than five.”

But the news that General Tucker received from the head of R&D for small military aircraft was not good.

“We've got one project, but I'm not sure if we're ready to go on it. We've got a contract with a former military aviator who has been working with an aeronautics engineer outside of Houston. But we haven't committed to production yet because we haven't test-proven this thing.”

“Try to get the contractor on the line—I'll wait.”

General Tucker was put on hold, and a few minutes later, he got his answer.

“I'm sorry, General,” the voice at the other end said, “but Mr. Rhoady says he's not quite sure that the PUMA is ready to go into an actual tactical operation yet. He's test-flown it a lot but said there still need to be a lot of adjustments.”

“PUMA?” Tucker asked.

“Yes, Personnel Ultralight Military Aircraft—but we've sort of nicknamed it ‘the Mosquito.' It's designed for one pilot and can carry only a handful of men—it's on the plan of a helicopter with two small fixed wings for stability. It can zip in and zip out of areas like—well, sort of like a mosquito. Highly manageable, incredible response—very quick and very quiet.”

“Patch me in directly to this Mr. Rhoady…is he still on the line?”

“He sure is, General—hang on.”

In a private aircraft hangar on a flat stretch of land twenty miles outside of Houston, a tall, lanky ex-military aviator, stunt flyer, and now would-be military aircraft entrepreneur was holding the phone in his left hand and waving to a gray-haired man at the other end of the building.

“Bud—hey, Bud!” Rhoady yelled. “Come on over here. I've got somebody from the Pentagon asking about the Mosquito. They want to put it into some kind of actual military operation. I told them we're not there yet. What do you think?”

The gray-haired man, in blue jeans and a work shirt, calculator sticking out of his pocket, sauntered over to Rhoady.

“Way too early,” the man said. “Remember—we still got that problem. Increased air speed with the requirement for erratic
maneuvering, you get just too much instability. We're still working on that—”

“Yeah, but Bud—I'm the guy who's flown this thing,” Rhoady said. “I've felt what you talked about. I think it might be manageable—I'm not saying I want to sell this thing to the government quite yet. We got to work out the kinks. But the question is, can we put it into actual operation—you know, as a test flight—”

Then a voice on the phone caught his attention.

“Mr. Rhoady, the next voice you hear will be that of General Tucker from the Pentagon.”

“Mr. Rhoady…”

“General Tucker, it's an honor,” Rhoady replied. “But everybody calls me Tex. So can you.”

“All right, Tex. We need to put the Mosquito into an actual combat operation. We've got to do this stat. I just need to know whether this thing can be flown or not.”

“Well, honestly, it can be flown…because I'm the guy who's flown it…but we've still got some adjustments—”

“We have to take this into a serious nest of terrorists—into a location I'll disclose to you later—but it's in the Middle East. It'd have to be brought into a very narrow street outside an apartment, drop a few special ops guys into a building, pick up some cargo, and take off—all in a very short period of time, while probably dodging some missiles and mortar fire.”

After a few seconds of thought, Tex answered.

“I suppose you'd need a pilot?”

“Tex, I got a brief look at your military record. As far as I know, you're the only guy who has flown this—‘Mosquito'…”

“I was afraid you'd suggest that,” Tex said gloomily. “No offense, General, but I'm not a spring chicken anymore. I'm married…married for a number of years. Happily, I might add. I'm settled down. I just don't know…”

“I can understand,” Tucker responded. “This is a high-risk situation. Everybody involved already knows that. We've got two American citizens, a lawyer and his client, who were kidnapped
in Jerusalem by Hamas. If we wait too long there's going to be a double execution. It's been all over the news…”

“I haven't been hearing anything in the last three days,” Tex said. “We've been pushing on this contract…ah…did you say it was a lawyer?”

“Yes,” Tucker quickly replied. “A Virginia lawyer named Will Chambers. I had the opportunity to see him in action when he successfully defended one of our special operations guys a number of years ago.”

“I can't believe it…Will Chambers…”

“You know him?”

“Yep. I did private-charter flying for him on some of his cases. We got to be pretty good friends. Flew him through a bad tropical storm once in an old double-winged Boeing PT-17 Stearman. So, General, looks like he's back in the thick of it…”

“Tex, we can have a small transport landing at your airstrip there in Texas within the hour. If you're willing to do this thing, you'll have to have the Mosquito fueled, primed, and ready to go. Load it on board, hop on, and they'll take you to the staging site in southern Israel.”

There was a pause of a few seconds before Tex gave his answer.

“Okay, General—let's saddle up.”

“One other thing. When this is all over, I'd be glad to set up a demonstration of your aircraft before the Joint Chiefs. And assuming everything goes well there, I'd probably be inclined to give a strong recommendation for some kind of production contract.”

“With all due respect, General,” Tex replied, “there's one thing you need to know.”

“What's that?”

“I won't be doing this for the contract.”

75

C
ALEB
M
ARLOWE HAD BEEN BRIEFED
on the city layout of Rafiah in the Tel Aviv office of the Mossad. Tiny Heftland had been picked up and quickly transported to the meeting to give background on the day of the kidnapping.

Then Caleb Marlowe, Tiny Heftland, and the special-operations volunteer from the Mossad loaded into the lead Blackhawk helicopter, which was followed by two other choppers. They sped off to the south, toward the Gaza Strip.

Tiny continued to explain the events of the day that had led up to the seizure of Will and Gilead. He had already spoken to the Israeli police, who had a description of the van and an estimate of the number of gunmen involved.

Seated in the helicopter next to Caleb Marlowe was the only man the Israelis said they could afford to let join Marlowe's miniature special-ops team.

Because of geopolitical tensions, Israel could not formally enter the Gaza Strip in an offensive operation—though they could respond to a request for assistance from American citizens at risk in that region.

As a result, the immediate strike at the terrorists had to be something other than an Israeli military operation.

Nathan Goldwaithe, ex-Mossad member and no longer officially on the Israeli government payroll, fit the bill—except, of course, for the fact that he was now forty-five years old. The operation would require speed, strength, agility…and youth.

“So, Nathan,” Caleb Marlowe said with a wry smile, “you think you can still rappel down a rope?”

“Colonel Marlowe, my friend,” Nathan zinged back as Tiny Heftland grinned, “you're no spring chicken yourself.”