Purpose of Evasion (30 page)

46

THE THYSSEN-HENSCHEL TRANSPORT-
panzer rode very low in the water—which came up to the bottom of the divided windshield—putting the eight huge tires and two-thirds of the hull beneath the surface. This made for a low visual and radar profile.

Shepherd had turned the running lights off and proceeded on a northerly heading in almost total darkness save for the pale glow of a crescent moon. It was approximately 150 miles to D’Jerba. At a maximum water speed of 10 MPH he figured the amphibious vehicle could be safely inside Tunisian waters by dawn.

The Palestinian was alive but unconscious and breathing laboriously. He had been struck in his left arm and chest; Shepherd deduced that one lung had been punctured. He lifted him to the bunk built into the customized interior, propping his body at an angle to prevent blood that might be leaking into his chest cavity from collecting around the undamaged lung and encumbering its function; then he began searching the storage lockers for first aid gear. In the process he found food, clothing, weapons, walkie-talkies, and maps. He disinfected and bandaged the wounds as best he could and returned to the cab.

The TTP was outfitted with extensive navigation equipment, similar in nature to aviation electronics, and Shepherd had had little trouble activating the TTP’s autopilot and surface search radar systems. The latter, a RASIT surveillance unit, was mounted on a hydraulic arm above the roof and had a programmable inner defense zone.

Shepherd followed the coastline, staying close to shore to elude the Libyan Navy’s coastal patrol, which was confined to deeper waters. He had no way of knowing it was a small, thinly spread fleet of seven vessels, two of which had been hauled out for routine maintenance, leaving five to cover more than 1,400 miles of coastline and a dozen major harbors. He used the light that came from
vehicles traveling the Al Kurnish Road atop the palisades, and the light from the numerous towns it connected as guideposts to measure progress and plot his position.

Several times during the night, the surface search radar picked up small vessels putting to sea from fishing villages along the coast. Shepherd studied the blips tracing across the screen until he was certain the vessels were going about their business.

Now, nine hours after Shepherd had first driven the Trans-portpanzer into the Mediterranean, it was nearing the Libya-Tunisia border and the imaginary line that extended seaward for three miles. The maps he had found indicated that just east of it, on his side of the border, a peninsula of rocky shoals and sandbars jutted into the sea.

A short time later, as dawn broke over the Mediterranean, he spotted the whitecaps and rolling breakers that heralded its presence. He changed course and was angling further out to sea to circle the shoals when he heard loud, guttural wheezes coming from the compartment behind him.

Shepherd put the TTP back on autopilot and went aft to check on the Palestinian. The young terrorist had rolled over onto his stomach and his condition was clearly the worse for it. Shepherd was adjusting his position when the RASIT unit started beeping, indicating a vessel had penetrated the envelope he had set.

A thousand yards to starboard, a Libyan Navy patrol boat was cruising the imaginary Libya-Tunisia border. Like her sister ships, the aging British-made vessel carried primitive surveillance electronics that were supplemented by lookouts.

The seaman in the bow spotted something moving on the surface; something boxlike and low to the water, clearly not a fishing vessel. He used a walkie-talkie to report the sighting to the bridge.

A moment later a spotlight on the patrol boat’s mast came to life and sliced through the early morning darkness, reflecting off the Transportpanzer’s two rectangular windshields, which sat atop the water like the eyes of a huge frog.

The beam of light swept past, streaming through the windshield into the cab, then again as the Libyan on the spotlight glimpsed the TTP and swept back.

“All ahead full,” the Libyan captain ordered.

The patrol boat’s diesels roared to life and the vessel began closing on the target.

Shepherd had the Tranportpanzer’s throttle to the floor; and
though it could do 65 MPH on land, its sluggish pace in amphibious mode was no match for the 20 knots the patrol boat could make at sea. Shepherd was trapped: gunboat to starboard, steep palisades to port, rocky shoals forward, Libya aft. Then it struck him—the long journey on water had him thinking boat; but
this
boat had wheels.

It also had stealth.

Shepherd reached to a bank of six switches on the console and threw them in rapid succession. A rack of dischargers mounted on the left side of the hull began belching thick smoke. It streamed behind the Transportpanzer, spreading rapidly over the water like heavy black fog.

Several Libyan seamen ran to the machine gun mounted in the patrol boat’s bow; but by the time they were ready to fire, they had nothing more than a wall of billowing smoke for a target.

Shepherd spun the wheel and aimed the TTP at the rocky shoals, heading directly for a rippling patch of calm water between the breakers, which he reckoned was a barely submerged sandbar. A rolling swell crested and broke against the side of the Transportpanzer, knocking the 50,000-pound vehicle about like a piece of driftwood. Shepherd fought the wheel, trying to keep from being smashed against the rocks that thrust upward from the boiling surf.

The patrol boat proceeded through the smokescreen, closing the distance; but the instant it emerged into the clear, the captain was forced to reverse his engines to avoid running aground.

The Transportpanzer was still partially submerged when it finally made it through the breakers to the sandbar. The eight huge tires began biting into the hard-packed sand and rock beneath, driving the vehicle up the underwater gradient. Shepherd kept the pedal to the floor. The needle on the speedometer jumped to 20 MPH, then 30 as the TTP crawled out of the sea and accelerated across the peninsula.

The Libyan gun crew fired several bursts as the patrol boat backed away from the barrier, and began to circle the shoals; but soon the TTP was a distant speck safely inside Tunisian territorial waters.

Shepherd proceeded north, keeping the Tunisian coastline in sight. Several hours later, a squared superstructure rose on the horizon. The hulking profile turned out to be the ramparts of Borj Castille, at the southeasternmost point of D’Jerba Island.

The rectangular Spanish fortress was perched on the tip of a desolate finger of sand that split the sea. A dense forest of trees and tall marsh grass had grown up along its north wall.

Shepherd beached the lumbering craft, driving it deep into the thickly grown cover to conceal it, and shut the engines down.

The Palestinian’s wheezing filled the silence; he was gasping for breath now, barely clinging to life.

Shepherd took the money pouch that the young terrorist had confiscated from the Libyan prison guard. Before leaving the TTP, he raised the steel hatches over the window openings, letting fresh air circulate through the compartment, then made his way through the marsh grass and trees and along the wall of the castle to the beach, continuing on about a half mile to the coastal road.

LARKIN’S
flight from Jeddah landed at D’Jerba’s Melita International airport at 9:58
A.M.
having gained an hour due to the change in time zones. Since leaving Washington, he had flown to Naples, then on to the USS
America
, D’Jerba, Jeddah, and now back to D’Jerba. The bone-wearying schedule and change of time zones had finally taken their toll and the colonel was running on pure adrenaline now. After deplaning, he picked up a rental car he had reserved and headed for the road that paralleled the shoreline. It ringed the tiny island without a break as did the broad, flat beaches, which were free of rock caves and dunes, free of hiding places. Larkin began driving south, scanning the shallows and open stretches of sand for the Transportpanzer.

SHEPHERD
had walked about a mile down the road when he noticed a telephone service line coming from one of the poles that lined the shoulder. It led to a small structure perched on a hill overlooking Borj Castille. The castle was one of the island’s tourist attractions, and the masonry structure turned out to be a souk, a cluster of vendor stands where food, souvenirs, and local crafts were sold.

The souk was closed now, rarely opening before noon, if at all, this early in the season; but the phone in the booth next to it hummed when Shepherd lifted the handset. He kept thumbing coins into the slot until he got a dial tone and called the Dar Jerba Hotel.

In the beachfront cottage, the phone jarred Stephanie from a fitful sleep. She squinted at the sunlight streaming in from the deck, then to the clock on the nightstand.

It read 10:27.

Late the previous evening, she had heard an English-language broadcast on one of the hotel’s four radio stations about her husband’s capture and escape. The upsetting news had kept her up most of the night; it was after 5:00
A.M.
when she finally fell asleep in her clothes.

Stephanie lunged across the bed and grabbed the phone.

“Hello,” she answered in a dry, anxious voice.

“Babe, it’s me,” Shepherd said.

“Walt,” she exclaimed, bolting upright. “God, oh, my God; are you okay?”

“Yes. I made it back to D’Jerba. Someone escaped with me; he’s badly wounded.” Shepherd replied in a rush of words, glancing apprehensively at several cars that passed on the nearby road.

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I’m fine; but he has to get medical attention soon.”

“There must be a doctor in the hotel. I’ll—”

“No, no, I don’t want anyone but you coming here. You’ll have to rent a car,” he instructed, giving her directions to the castle. “Got it?”

“Uh huh,” she said, jotting them down.

Shepherd glanced anxiously at another vehicle that roared past. “As fast as you can. Okay?”

“Okay. Oh, listen . . .” Stephanie paused, hearing a click on the line. “Walt? Walt, you still there?” He had already hung up; she pressed the disconnect button, then dialed another room in the hotel. “It’s Stephanie,” she said, her voice filled with urgency. “Walt just called . . . Yes, yes, he is. Meet me in the lobby at the car rental desk.” She hung up, went into the bathroom, and washed her face, then hurried from the cottage.

Shepherd was following the road back to Borj Castille when a reflection coming from the overgrowth caught his attention. It was the Transportpanzer’s flat rectangular windshield. He realized that despite being concealed in the marsh, the TTP was clearly visible from the high vantage point provided by the road, as was the broad swath it had cut through the tall grass, which pointed to it like an arrow.

Shepherd left the road, taking a shortcut down a steep bluff, then made his way through the marsh grass to the Transport-panzer. The round trip had taken almost two hours. He entered through the rear hatch and was heading to the cab to move the TTP to more secure cover when he paused, struck by the silence.

The laborious breathing had stopped.

Shepherd hurried to the Palestinian’s side and checked for vital signs. His eyes were fixed in a blank stare, pupils dialated and unresponsive. He had no pulse and no heartbeat. His skin was pasty and cold.

Shepherd sagged defeatedly and stared at him for a long moment; then he shouldered the young terrorist’s corpse and carried it from the vehicle, pausing to pull a foxhole shovel free of the snap latches that held it to the TTP’s hull. He made his way through the towering marsh grass to a small clearing, where he lowered the Palestinian to the ground and started digging. The moist topsoil quickly turned to rocky, hard-packed stratum that resisted each thrust of the shovel. Shepherd stopped and changed the orientation of the adjustable blade, locking it at a 90-degree angle to the handle, which enabled it to be used like a pickaxe. He worked slowly, methodically, his mind adrift—excited that Stephanie would soon join him, depressed over his failure to retrieve his F-111, and at a loss to cope with the implications.

“Make it big enough for two, Major,” a man’s voice said, snapping him out of his reverie.

Shepherd looked up to see Larkin emerging from the wall of grass that encircled him, pointing a pistol at his head. The colonel had continued driving along the coast until he came upon Borj Castille, easily spotting the Transportpanzer from the road.

Shepherd held Larkin’s icy stare in silence. “Are you following orders too, colonel?” he finally taunted. “Or do you just get a kick out of killing your own people in cold blood?”

“I have my reasons, Major.”

“The hostages?” Shepherd asked sardonically.

Larkin nodded. “Two for seven; it’s an acceptable kill ratio in any war.”

“You didn’t even get one.”

“We got their location,” Larkin countered sharply. “They’re being rescued tomorrow. Keep digging.”

Shepherd hadn’t expected that; he weighed Larkin’s reply for
a long moment before he began hacking at the earth with the shovel, his mind racing, searching for a way to use it as a weapon. But the colonel was standing too far away; Shepherd couldn’t come close to hitting him with it. He had been digging for about 15 minutes when Stephanie’s voice shattered the silence.

“Walt? Walt, where are you?” she called out from somewhere within the thicket of trees and tall grass that surrounded the clearing.

Shepherd froze at the sound; he had hoped her arrival would distract Larkin long enough for him to somehow gain the advantage.

“Answer her,” Larkin ordered in a tense whisper. “Answer, dammit,” he insisted, threatening him with the pistol.

“Walt?” Stephanie called out again. “Walt, you hear me? Where are you?”

“Over here,” Shepherd finally shouted in reply.

Larkin’s attention was riveted on the thicket; then he heard a rustling behind him. His reflexes dulled by jet lag, the colonel was a split second slower in reacting than he otherwise might have been. He turned just as a figure lunged out of the marsh grass and swung a tire iron at Larkin’s head. He saw the movement out of the corner of his eye and ducked, causing the bludgeon to graze its target and strike his arm instead, knocking the gun from his hand.