Tracks (51 page)

CHAPTER
FORTY NINE

Rafik estimated they had until
morning at most before he and his wife would be missed.

They would eventually realize
they have not reported in and would send someone to check the house if the
phone was not answered.  Once they realized no one was home they would
sound the alarm.

It would take another hour to
establish that he had not only arrived at the airport the previous morning but
also hastily left the country that same evening with his family in tow. 

From then on it would be an
all-out race to destroy any evidence.

The abducted kids would be the
first to disappear.

Devlin stood near the kitchen
wall looking almost dazed.  He was pointing at a map of Beirut.  Aziz
was there along with Rolston, Natasha, Mai-Li and Amar.  Jaras and Elena
had remained with the prisoner.

“We have roughly six hours,”
Devlin was saying. “It will be dark in two.”

He looked around the
room.  It had all come about so fast. Everyone was watching him
attentively, on edge.

“Aziz and I contacted Kessler
and we got the green light.  The troops will be dropped in by choppers at
this empty field here and this football field here,” he said pointing to spots
on the map.

“The snitch believes Sam’s son
is at this address,” Devlin scrolled his finger a centimeter to a marked house
just east of one of the drop zones.

“There are two other kidnapped
kids who live in close proximity, here and here.”  Two additional
locations in the same neighborhood were marked on the map.

“We are going to hijack all
three!”

They looked at one
another.  Devlin continued.

“Malcolm, you, Mai-Li and Amar
will mark the drop zone for the chopper going for the kids and lead the squad
to the area from where they can assault the houses.

“Natasha, Aziz and I will mark
the second drop zone for the chopper going for the compound.  This
football field is roughly a kilometer from the garage.  We’ll lead them to
it,
then
Aziz and I will lead them through the tunnel.

“None of us are to engage in
any confrontation.  Malcolm, once you get the troops to where they need to
be, you go back to the car and get out of Beirut.

“The six of us will need to
make our getaway with the cars. There’ll only be room on the choppers for the
troops and the kids.”

Devlin turned toward the wall
again and pointed to a larger scale map to a spot along the coast roughly 20
kilometers south of Beirut.

“We need to get to this beach
area before dawn and link up with Lizzy and Jimmy who’ll come for us with the
boat.”

“What about Sam?” Mai-Li
asked,
a concerned look on her face.

“He and Copeland will stay in
Cyprus to help coordinate between the troops."

“How’d you manage that?”
Rolston inquired.

“Kessler informed me.  I
didn’t argue.”

“Will they make it before
daybreak?” Natasha queried, looking at her watch.  “It’s quite a long way
from Cyprus even if they have a powerful speed boat.”

“They’ve already left so they
should make it well before dawn.  If not, they’ll try and pluck us out the
following night,” Devlin informed them. “In that case we’ll have to hide
somewhere during the day.”

“
You coming
along too?”  Natasha queried, looking at Aziz, who was nodding.

“Afraid so,” he said. “Him
too,” he pointed to Amar.

“What about Elena and Jaras?”

“The two of them should be
escorting the Ammad family to the airport right about now. They’ll all be
heading for Athens shortly.”

“What about the compound?”
Rolston asked.

There were ramifications to
the insurgence well beyond freeing Sam’s boy and other kids.  The
discovery of an entire network of sleeper agents and possibly active ones was
on the line and the source, Rafik, who had already provided them with Sammy's
whereabouts and his Muslim name, Amir, promised to provide at least partial
information once he and his family were safely stowed away.  He was
responsible for raising money to finance the activity but there were safeguards
and firewalls within his organization that limited his knowledge and he was not
privy to the full range of operational aspects and agent assignments. 
Working at the compound they were all aware of where the kids spent their time,
even interacting with them on specific occasions. But only a few had full
knowledge of where they came from and where they were going.  Rafik was
not one of them but Kessler hoped he had enough knowledge to provide them with
a trail leading to agents already in place.

However, once his and his
wife's absence was discovered and they freed the kids, it would be a race
against time and if the compound was not neutralized there was a high risk of
missing the opportunity to destroy the network.  Furthermore, what would
be the fate of those children not released?

“The two strikes will take
place almost simultaneously,” Devlin explained. “The kids are a relatively
easier target, so if we’ve got the right information and everything goes
according to plan, Sam should see his boy fairly soon.”

Everyone listened attentively.

“As for the compound, that’s a
little trickier.  If the element of surprise isn’t lost by the arrival of
the chopper or any resistance along the tunnel, the assault should go a long
way to achieving its goals.  If however, anything goes wrong, this could
turn into a bloody battle.”

“What exactly are our goals?”
Natasha asked.

“I’m assuming we’ll want to
destroy the place but not before they find information that will assist in
exposing the organization and its network of agents.”

*****

David Kessler was waiting
nervously at the Athens International terminal for Olympic flight 1754 from
Beirut.

He had just arrived from
Cyprus on Cyprus Air and was eagerly anticipating the arrival of two of the
most valuable assets his agency would lay their hands on as of late.

In his pocket were eight El Al
airline tickets to Israel but it would be a while before he could safely load
them on the flight since the El Al flight was not due until 10:00 the next
morning.

He had considered securing a
private jet or a military C-130 but decided against it, not wanting to attract
attention.

Instead he had a van with two
Mossad operatives waiting outside baggage claim to take them to the Hilton
where they would wait until morning.

Once in Israel, the asset
would be interrogated properly but Kessler was fully aware it might be too late
and planned to extract the most vital information as soon as they were settled
in their room at the hotel.

Fleming and Collins agreed to
go ahead with the attack but not without heavy doubts of sacrificing the whole
for the individual.  In their view, Sammy's release did not measure up to
eliminating an entire network.  What tipped the scales was the realization
that there was one opportunity to get Sam his son back.  It was now or never
and it could not be done in reverse order.  They could not hold off
releasing the children while going after the spy network. The alarm would go
off in any event when it was learned Rafik and his family had bailed and these
precious hours in between were the only opportunity they would ever have of
uniting a son with a father who has been searching for him for over ten years,
spreading a host of good deeds in the process.

The party arrived past immigration
and customs looking bewildered.  They had only carry-on bags and were
easily herded into the van.

Hilton Athens was a vast
building, thirteen floors high, which spread across four blocks at the center
of Athens at the cross streets Vassileos Konstadinou and Mihalakopoulou,
walking distance from posh Kolonaki and the ancient Plaka.  From the
windows facing west there was a grand view of the Acropolis and above to the
north stood Lykavittos church surrounded by forest.

The two Mossad agents were at
their positions, one in the lobby by the elevators, and another outside the
elevators on the tenth floor with line of sight to room 1012 where Kessler sat
with Rafik, Nyla and kids in the adjacent room with Elena and Jaras.

Rafik admitted that he joined
the Sons of Jihad a year after the ’82 war with Israel. The ultra-secret
organization was formed by a league of terrorist groups after the Yom Kippur
war in the early 70s with a goal of destroying the Zionists’ number one
supporter, the United States. 

Their mode of operation
evolved over the years but essentially Black Jack’s account was accurate. They
kidnapped American babies, raised and trained them in Lebanon, then sent them
back, brainwashed, to inflict damage.

Rafik had no idea how many had
been kidnapped or how many were already sent back, but he was relatively sure
none of them was yet active.  He knew this because the money needed to
fund them once they became operational would need to increase twofold and that
had not yet happened.  He also knew the kids were sent back to join the
last two years of high school before joining a university.  From there
they would join the workforce, most likely in sensitive defense industries,
government agencies, or engage with political leaders.

That in itself was a lead
Kessler thought he could exploit instantly but Rafik curbed his enthusiasm,
explaining that the agents sent back would use their original birth certificate
data to register and it would be unlikely they would be able to distinguish
them from any other American student joining a high school or a University.

Kessler argued that if that
happened, then those names would surely come up on a missing persons list of
some sort.  Rafik was not certain but he pointed out that it was highly
unlikely the kids would register in their birth place or state, and as they had
been abducted in infancy it was also unlikely any one of them would have a
Social Security number associated with his or her name.

“How can a sixteen-year-old
kid survive
on his own
in a foreign country?” Kessler
queried, suddenly frustrated.

“That’s where I came in,”
Rafik explained.  “Most of the money I raised was to finance the kids’
training, pay the host families, and keep them afloat once they were sent to
their missions. I would guess, though, that they would be sent to the big
cities where they could easily get lost in the shuffle and there’s a large
enough Muslim community that can support them.”

“Are you responsible for the
money transfers?”  Kessler asked, hoping for a break.

“Unfortunately,
no.
  That’s a well-kept secret.  My responsibilities
end as soon as the money is received.  Beyond that there are others
responsible for transferring the money onwards.”

“Still, a name is a name,”
Kessler persisted. “I doubt there are any missing persons reports going back
sixteen years that lay around any school administration offices and obviously
high schools or universities would have no reason to send an inquiry to missing
persons if everything was in order - but this is a lead we can start exploiting.”

“Where would you start?” Rafik
questioned.

“I’ll let the Americans worry
about that. Go on.”

“I have full details of all my
contributors and their bank accounts though none are from the US, where I did
not set foot.  My employers forbade me to ever go there, and I never did,
not even on connecting flights.”

“It would definitely help if
we could find any connections to people in the US,” Kessler said thoughtfully,
taking notes. “What else?”

Rafik went on to describe his daily
routines, his travel routines, the organization’s routines, the activity at the
compound, and details of his superiors.  He was a fountain of information
but Kessler was still searching for an end of a rope that would lead them
quickly to any sleeper agents before they were warned.

“How much time you figure we
still
have
?” Kessler inquired.

Rafik described the events
that followed his interrogation at the farm house.

He had called ahead to inform
Nyla he was on his way with potential contributors. They all drove back to the
house, Rafik driving his BMW with Aziz and Jaras, Amar with Elena following in
the Subaru.

Two guards were alerted when
the two cars arrived at the house.  It was a tense moment but Rafik put
them at ease explaining his companions were there to talk business.  It
was not uncommon for him to bring guests along and the guards relaxed a bit and
followed the party into the house.  Nyla appeared with the kids to bid
them hello, then took them upstairs.  At that point, both Aziz and Jaras
put pistols to the guards’ heads, relieved them of their weapons, tied and
gagged them with heavy masking tape fetched by Rafik, who was closely followed
by an armed Amar.  The maid who was preparing a meal in the kitchen was
dragged in by Jaras and tied up with the guards.