Purpose of Evasion (12 page)

She had finished the Gutherie interview that afternoon by phone and was at her desk working on it—one eye on her word processor, the other on the television news. She stiffened as Dan Rather said: “Informed sources have told CBS News that United States Air Force F-111 bombers based in England are carrying out the surprise attack.”

“Come up here with Mommy,” Stephanie said to Jeffrey, who was playing with his trucks. “Come on,” she coaxed, as she pulled him up onto her lap.

Five days had passed since she and Laura had phoned Walt and learned of his transfer to Upper Heyford. He never called back, and the feeling of not really being part of his life had begun haunting her, though now Stephanie thought she understood why he hadn’t called.

HIGH ABOVE THE MEDITERRANEAN
near Sicily, 300 miles from Tripoli’s laser-slashed skies, the Hawk-eye strike-control aircraft was in a holding pattern, monitoring the action on radar. It was out of skin-painting range, which meant pulse-doppler scanning couldn’t pick up raw radar returns from the F-111s; only radio transponder signals, using special frequencies not detectable by enemy radar, were being tracked on the screens in the electronics-packed fuselage—alphanumeric data next to each blip denoted tail code, altitude, and air speed.

Radio silence had reduced C3—command, control, communications—to waiting. No signal to commence attack had been given by the mission commander; none would be given to cease. Each crew was on its own; each flew the sequence points to its target, bombed it, and proceeded to a holding area to regroup. All but two.

Colonel Larkin was approaching his target, a military installation in the desert, when he reached to the fuel control panel, lifted the red safety catch, and threw the toggle used to dump fuel.

At the rear of the aircraft, directly beneath the vertical stabilizer and centered between the engine exhausts, the conical fuel mast opened, releasing a burst of JP-4 into the bomber’s slipstream.

Larkin flicked the toggle to off; then, capitalizing on a technique called torching, sometimes used by pilots to distract heat-seeking missiles, he hit the afterburners, igniting the fuel, which erupted in a massive fireball a distance behind the F-111. To any of the other crews that might be observing—crews concentrating on high-speed bombing and evasive maneuvering in total darkness—it would appear that one of the bombers had been hit by a surface-to-air missile.

The instant the fuel exploded, Larkin put the F-111 into a steep dive, pulled out at extremely low altitude, and shut off his transponder.

In the Hawkeye, one of the eight radar operators monitoring transponder signals stiffened apprehensively as an F-111 in his
sector began losing altitude rapidly. Suddenly, the blip vanished from his screen. “One-eleven down, sir,” he reported in a choked voice.

“Tail code?” the mission commander asked, knowing the crew wouldn’t have broken radio silence even if able.

“One seven nine, sir.”

The MC scanned his computerized roster. “Shepherd.”

An operator at an adjacent console winced as a blip vanished from his screen. “Bastards got another one, sir.”

Immediately upon acting out their crash scenarios, Larkin and Applegate made sweeping low-level turns onto headings for Okba ben Nan and walled the throttles.

AT OKBA BEN NAFI AIR BASE,
an air traffic controller, keeping a vigil for the F-111s, picked up the raw return on his radar as they came within skin-painting range.

“Two aircraft approaching,” he reported to his anxious superiors in the hangar command post.

General Younis lit another cigarette and went outside to see the fast-moving, aerodynamic shapes emerging from the darkness; then, in an eyeblink, two fully armed United States Air Force F-111 attack bombers touched down and roared past in a startling blur.

Younis smiled, nodding to personnel who began rolling back the huge sliding doors. Soon the black needlenose of an F-111 stabbed into the hangar, followed by a second.

Libyan Air Force maintenance and ground crew personnel were waiting for them. They rolled ladders up to the cockpits the instant both bombers were safely inside. Larkin and Applegate popped the canopies and climbed down the ladders, followed by the Special Forces aviators who had acted as their wizzos. Each carried a small gym bag that contained civilian clothes.

“They’re all yours, General,” Larkin said to Younis, who came forward to greet them.

“You have brought ANITA with you?” the general asked, referring to the Pave Tack programming key.

“On the sub,” Larkin replied, not too exhausted to share a little smile with Applegate. “I’ll turn them over to Moncrieff soon as the hostages are aboard.”

Younis grunted, led the way to the command post office, and
placed a call to Qaddafi at his quarters in Hun. While the general reported the good news, an aide went to another phone, dialed, and handed it to Larkin.

IN TRIPOLI HARBOR,
on a desolate wharf where the hostages would be released, Saddam Moncrieff and Katifa Issa Kharuz stood in the darkness, scanning the expanse of choppy water.

That morning they had boarded a regularly scheduled Middle East Airlines flight in Beirut, arriving in Tripoli just before noon. They had spent the remainder of the day at the Bab al Azziziya Barracks, going over details of the exchange with Younis and other members of Qaddafi’s military staff.

Now, as a steady breeze blew across the harbor, Moncrieff and Katifa waited. Soon, two vessels—the
Cavalla
and Abu Nidal’s gunboat, which was delivering the hostages—would emerge from the foggy blackness and tie up on opposite sides of the narrow wharf; the hostages would walk the short distance between them. They had just spotted the gunboat’s running lights streaking toward the wharf when the radiophone that Moncrieff was carrying twittered.

“Yes?” he answered in Arabic.

“Moncrieff, it’s Larkin,” the colonel said, the exhaustion evident in his voice. “We’re here.”

“So are the hostages,” the Saudi replied, watching the gunboat making its way between two Libyan Navy patrol boats stationed in the harbor.

“Thank God,” Larkin replied. “What about the
Cavalla
?”

Moncrieff glanced to the other side of the wharf.

The immense submarine was lurking just beneath the brackish water. Duryea had taken advantage of the fact that Tripoli harbor has some of the highest tides in the world, and moments earlier had quietly slipped into position at periscope/antenna depth. Only the upper head of the boat’s main scope was visible. The command center had switched from redlight to blacklight—a condition of total darkness broken only by the dim glow of essential instrumentation—which dilated Duryea’s pupils, maximizing his night vision.

The lanky skipper had his face pressed to the eyepiece of the periscope, panning it slowly as he tracked the gunboat across the harbor.

“Take her up,” he ordered as the vessel reached the end of the wharf and began pulling into position.

The black water erupted into a tumultuous bubbling as the football-field-long hull began rising.

“Colonel?
Cavalla
just broke the surface,” Moncrieff reported as water cascaded off the sub’s sail. “It’ll be good to see you.”

“Tell me about it,” Larkin said. “On our way.”

Larkin, Applegate, and the two Special Forces aviators quickly exchanged their helmets and flight suits for the civilian clothing in their gym bags in order to maintain the cover scenario Larkin had given Duryea. Then the group piled into an unmarked Libyan Air Force helicopter that wasted no time in lifting off and heading for Tripoli harbor.

IN BEIRUT
, on the sixth floor of the Turk Hospital, Abu Nidal’s physician sat in his office studying a lab report. It baffled him, as had the previous one—which had prompted his order that the test be repeated. His notorious patient’s health was an all-consuming concern and he had waited anxiously for the results. He pondered their implication, then headed down the corridor to one of the VIP suites in the private clinic.

Despite the late hour, Abu Nidal sat propped up against the pillows in his bed, reading reports from terrorist groups around the world that were faxed to Casino du Liban and delivered to the suite daily.

“How are you feeling?” the doctor asked.

“Better. Much better,” Nidal replied, delighted at his progress. “It’s like a miracle.”

“No, it’s called insulin,” the doctor said with a smile, shaking a finger at his patient admonishingly. “All you have to do is take it regularly.”

Abu Nidal’s brow furrowed. “I
was
taking it.”

“Certainly not as prescribed.”

“Yes, of course,” Nidal said adamantly.

“You’re positive?”

“Yes, yes, absolutely positive. Why?”

“Well,” the doctor replied, clearly baffled, “your blood workup found no evidence of it.”

“None?”

“That’s correct. I ran the tests twice just to be certain. I
know it sounds odd but it was as if you hadn’t been taking any at all.”

“That doesn’t make sense. I just started a fresh supply.”

“I’d very much like to see one of those vials.”

“I’ll arrange for it right now,” Nidal said, his eyes narrowing in suspicion at an upsetting notion that struck him. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, lifted the phone, and dialed. “Mobile operator, please.”

IN TRIPOLI HARBOR,
the breeze had died and a taut stillness prevailed. The two vessels flanked the wharf.

Duryea stood on the
Cavalla’s
deck. The team of navy SEALs armed with AR-16 assault rifles was deployed around him.

Directly opposite, heavily armed PLO terrorists, faces concealed by checkered kaffiyehs, lined the rail of the gunboat. The canvas shroud had been peeled from the 14-mm deck gun, which was loaded and manned.

Moncrieff stood alone on the wharf between the two vessels. His nerves crackled with tension as he watched Katifa walk up a gangway onto the gunboat’s deck and disappear into the cabin.

Moments later she emerged, leading the hostages. They paraded behind her like a line of obedient schoolboys, uncertain as to their fate.

They were all men—faces gaunt from malnutrition and anxiety; pale from months—and, for some,
years
—of confinement in darkness. Seven men with atrophied muscles and minds who had been deprived of life’s sweetness, their hope destroyed by the fear of being forever lost to the forces of political extremism and religious fanaticism. They stood there timidly, heads bowed, staring blankly into the night.

They were close, so close, Duryea thought, as he watched the deckhands roll a gangway into position. So close he could almost touch them. His eyes caught Fitzgerald’s and he smiled, nodding reassuringly.

The haggard station chief was just committing his heart to the scenario, just starting to believe that he and the others were actually being released, when the ship-to-shore phone in the cabin behind him buzzed, shattering the tense silence.

It was Abu Nidal calling.

The gunboat captain’s eyes filled with panic as they spoke. The instant he hung up, he began shouting in frenzied Arabic at the terrorists on deck. They sprang into action, descending en masse upon the group of hostages, and began roughly pushing and shoving them back into the cabin.

“What are you doing?” Katifa demanded, trying to stop them. “What’s going on?”

The captain slammed the transmission into reverse and gunned the engines. The gunboat lurched and roared away from the wharf. “Shoot her!” he shouted, seeing Katifa’s interference. “Shoot her!”

Katifa heard him and ran across the deck, intending to dive into the water to escape. One of the terrorists stepped out from behind the cabin, blocking her way, and fired a burst from his Skorpion. The rounds tore into Katifa’s body, but her momentum carried her into him.

They both went over the rail into the sea.

Katifa was wracked with searing pain that radiated from each wound like internal flashes of lightning. The plunge into the chilly water had a pleasurable, numbing effect; she went into shock and lay there, floating face down, motionless.

The Palestinian went under and stayed under, fighting to shed the heavy cartridge belts girdling his chest, which were dragging him down.

“No! No, hold your fire!” Duryea shouted, concerned the terrorists would kill the hostages if the SEALs returned the fire.

Moncrieff was already sprinting across the wharfs rough-sawn timbers. He tossed the radiophone aside and dove into the oily water, remaining submerged as he began swimming toward Katifa.

Terrorists on the departing gunboat began spraying the surface with bursts from their Skorpions.

The helicopter carrying Larkin and the others had come in over the Old City, which borders the west end of the harbor. It had circled the wharf and was just touching down when the gunfire broke out. The four Americans piled out of the chopper and dashed up the gangway onto the
Cavalla’s
deck.

“What the fuck happened?” Larkin exploded.

“I don’t know!” Duryea shouted over parting bursts from the Skorpions. “Shit just hit the fan!”

“Bastards!” Larkin exclaimed bitterly. “Let’s get out of here.”

“They your people?” Duryea asked, pointing far across the wharf to the water on the opposite side.

Larkin turned to see Moncrieff and Katifa in the center of a widening pool of blood. The Saudi was struggling to keep her afloat and swim toward the wharf.

“No,” the colonel replied coldly, unwilling to risk the time it would take to maneuver the sub into position to rescue them, or to risk that once aboard they would inadvertently blow the cover story he had given Duryea. A hollowness grew in the pit of Larkin’s stomach. He couldn’t believe it had gone so wrong.

“Cast off!” Duryea shouted to McBride, who was standing on the bridge atop the sail.

The
Cavalla
was already slipping away from the wharf as Duryea, Larkin, and the others scrambled down deck hatches. The black-hulled submarine cut swiftly through the water and vanished in the night.