Secret of the Oil: Prequel to the Donavan Chronicles (15 page)

ASSAULT ON AL-HANBALI’S COMPOUND

MIDNIGHT – 27 OCTOBER

Matt would be the last person to exit the airplane. When the green light came on, it became a command indicating the pilot's order for them to exit his aircraft. Matt started moving towards the door behind the other four members of his team. The jumpers exited the aircraft by walking off the rear ramp, falling and entering into the slipstream that rushed passed the aircraft at one hundred twenty knots.

As he exited the aircraft, Matt tucked his head down and tightly closed his hands around his reserve chute. The feeling was one similar to the old circus ride, where the rotating rockets would throw you out against the side of the chair by centrifugal force. Then the parachute popped open, and his body rocked back underneath the canopy. These latest model parachutes gave a jumper the ability to steer to any point within a certain radius, even though that point might be twenty or thirty miles away. The parachutist could descend with no noise, reaching the ground far from where he exited the aircraft. At night, this was a silent and excellent way of entering undetected into an area.

Due to the quick exit by all members of the team, they were in a tight group no more than one hundred meters apart with their parachutes deployed and gliding towards the target area. It took almost three minutes for them to descend to the desert floor. In complete silence, they landed, rolled up their parachutes, dug a small hole and buried them. The team assembled around Matt. He got his bearings, confirmed by his GPS, and with hand signals, he pointed towards the target, and they moved off.

As they approached the objective, Greg and Lucien were in the lead going towards the main house, followed by Matt and Bridget. All observed silence. Peter went off to their left towards the external building located some twenty meters down the hill from the main house. All weapons were ready to fire at any target that appeared.

Each member separated himself from the nearest by about ten to fifteen feet, to ensure that one single burst from an enemy weapon would not hit two of them. As they approached the house, it became apparent that the outside area around the house had no security. They swept the area using their night vision goggles and were surprised at the lack of any external security. There was only one light showing from inside of the house.

Matt signaled Lucien and Bridget to go around to the right side of the main building, while he and Gary circled to the left. When he arrived within ten feet of the lighted window, Matt took off his night vision goggles. He moved up to the side of the house, slowly slid over to the window, and peeked inside.

Two men with AK-47 weapons braced against their legs sat at a table. One man with a pistol in his belt was just entering the room, followed by an elderly lady carrying a tray. Matt turned back, held up his hand to indicate that there were three inside and signaled Bridget and Lucien to take the main door. He whispered to Gary to go under the window and come up on the other side. When they were in position, he gave the signal for Bridget and Lucien to go into the main door, while simultaneously he and Gary slammed their weapons through the window to get clear shots at the terrorists inside.

"Freeze! Don't move!" shouted Matt in Arabic through the window. For a second, no one moved. The sound of Bridget and Gary breaking through the front door brought the terrorists out of their momentary freeze. They saw themselves trapped; instead of surrendering, they went for their weapons.

"Don't move," were the last words that Matt got out of his mouth before the AK-47 came up pointing at the window where he stood. Lucien opened fire and hit the man in the chest. The other terrorist, who had remained seated, turned around towards the door as Bridget came into the room. The weapon by his leg came up. He sprayed a burst from his AK-47 even before getting it into a firing position. Bridget fired two rounds directly into the man's head with her silenced 9 mm. Then she pointed the weapon at the third terrorist.

"Freeze, asshole," Bridget said in English.

The old lady with the tea was screaming. She had dropped the tea tray and was wailing, loud enough to almost cover the sounds of the weapons. The tray hitting the floor caused Bridget to look at her. It was just enough for the third terrorist, who had remained standing, to try and run towards the woman and escape behind her through the door. From where Matt stood, the lady did not block his ability to fire at the target. He shot two rounds into the man's back. The old woman continued screaming, throwing her hands about wildly, and then slowly retreated through the door where the terrorist had tried to escape.

****

Sgt. Peter O’Leary had gone to the single building and found the door open and no one there. He turned on the light. He guessed the occupants had only recently departed, as the room was clean. Somebody had recently been using the room; otherwise, the dust from the desert would have come in and covered everything in the outbuilding.

Just then, he heard the gunfire from the main house. He ran towards the sound, knowing his team members’ weapons were silenced. Since there were no terrorists obvious in the building he had left, they had to be at the main building. Approaching the house, he saw that there was no one on the outside. He slowed his steps until he saw the captain walking around in the lighted room. The other team members were just regrouping after searching the entire house.

"Did you find anything in the outbuilding?" Matt asked.

"No one there. I need to go back now to check and see if there's any radiation in the building. I’ll use that small Geiger counter that we brought along with us."

“I’ll go with you,” Matt said.

They returned to the building and Peter used the radiation machine. After walking around the outside of the building and getting no readings, he went inside. Peter did find a hot spot behind the lead wall.

“Hey, Captain. There was definitely radioactive material here. It’s gone. The bastards left before we got here”

Matt was disappointed. They had not gotten here in time. It always seemed to be the same main problem. “We aren’t getting to the targets in time to get these bastards,” said Matt in a low methodical tone.

It was time to go and join the rest of the team. As Peter walked towards the door, he saw a CD lying on the countertop. He picked it up, turned off the light, and headed back toward the house.

At the house, the team was dealing with the three dead terrorists, checking them for any form of identification or anything else that might provide some intelligence. For a few minutes, in the heat of the combat, they had forgotten about the harmless old woman. Matt ordered Gary to go find her.

Gary went looking for the woman and found her in the kitchen on the telephone. She turned and stared at him in sheer terror. After all, these men had killed all of al-Hanbali’s men a few minutes ago. Gary rushed for the phone and grabbed it out of her hand before she could say another word and listened.

"Get out of the house. Go and hide. I don't want them to find anything. Are you still there?" an Arabic voice asked as Gary put his ear to the receiver.

"Yeah we’re still hear, motherfucker, and were coming to get your ass," he said. The phone went dead.

“Hey Captain, the old bag was talking on the phone. All I heard was somebody telling her to get out of house. Then, whoever it was realized she was not on the phone and hung up.”

"Good. The NSA boys might be able to trace that phone. If they can, it will put us a step ahead of them. They must realize that someone was after them to have evacuated this place. We know they were all here when we took off, so it looks like they only just left,” Bridget said.

"We haven’t got them yet," said Matt, "but now we put pressure on them and the bastards will have to make moves to keep ahead of us. The faster we make them move, the more likely it is they’ll make a mistake."

The old lady came in, shouting at them in Arabic, “You, you Americans killed my son in Baghdad. Mohammed was a good boy. He sent me money while he was gone and then you killed him. I hate you.” She spat at them.

Bridget took her into an adjoining room and sat her in a chair. The woman was obviously still grieving for her lost son. They would have to hold her until the DIA debriefing team arrived.

AL-HANBALI’S NEW HIDEOUT

1:24 A.M. – 28 OCTOBER

At twenty minutes after midnight, Tewfik heard the landline telephone ring. It was unusual for the phone to ring at this location since the only person who knew the number was his brother, who was with him, and the housekeeper, who should be sleeping at this hour.

When al-Hanbali picked up the phone, he heard the scream of his housekeeper from the house in Ayun. He held the receiver away from his ear as the piercing wail of the old woman emanated from the phone. Then he heard her shout.

“They kill everybody.”

“Stop! Calm down. What happened?” Tewfik said.

“Men in black. They shot your three men. They will kill me.”

“Do they wear uniforms? Do they speak Arabic?” Tewfik asked.

“Yes. Yes, they speak Arabic and also English.”

"Get out of the house. Go and hide. I don't want them to find anything. Are you still there?" Tewfik realized something was wrong; the crying was no longer audible.

Then he heard the American voice. It had to be the same ones who attacked them in Beirut. Tewfik didn’t listen to what was said. He slammed down the phone.

****

While Tewfik talked on the phone, thousands of miles away at a listening site in Germany, a sleepy specialist four at an Army Security Agency (ASA) site heard his computer beeping an alarm. During the time the team was traveling to Saudi Arabia on the C-130, the NSA located the phone number for the site the team was going to hit. Most people think the phone in their home that has a wire attached to it that the sound of their voices travels over that medium. Sometimes it does, but quite often, it does not. In cases where there is a distance between the users of the phone company service, the sound of your voice travels over microwave channels, which travel through the air and are subject to being intercepted by anyone with the right equipment. The ASA, working with the NSA, has that equipment.

These sophisticated monitoring devices picked up the transmission from al-Hanbali’s main house to his new location.

****

“How did they find us? How? How?” he whispered, not able to believe this could happen to him. The others looked at him in astonishment. They waited in silence for al-Hanbali to give them his guidance.

“The Americans found my house and attacked it, killing our brothers. I don’t think they have followed us here, or they would have attacked this house. So they are unaware of our location. They will try to find it and kill us so we must work faster to complete the bomb. Yuri, can you get the work finished by the day after tomorrow? I feel it will take them time to find us. It’s just a guess but I think we have some time,” al-Hanbali concluded.

“Yes, I can if we work all day and most of the night. Two days. Yes, I can do it,” Yuri responded.

“We will set a patrol schedule to guard the outside of this area at all times, starting in one hour. Basam, get the outside sensors on line. We were lax in the other place; we can’t afford any mistakes here. Now I must call Faisal and tell him of our movement plan. He will have to send his Hezbollah people to take the bomb into the city.” Al-Hanbali left the room and called Faisal on his tri-band cell phone.

“Faisal, we are at a location away from my main house. I think the same group that was in Beirut murdered three of my men there tonight.”

“What are you going to do?” Faisal asked.

“We will be ready to move in two days to the target. Your part is to get the men here. I will give them instructions.”

“I’ll have them to you. When do you want them and where?”

“We will move the weapon to Ras Tanura, near the coast, in the morning two days from now. Have your men meet us there at the marketplace after evening prayer.”

“They will be there. If they found you at your home, this phone may be the way the Americans are tracking you?”

“Damn, you might be right.” Tewfik closed the phone. It had not dawned on him before, but the phone had to be the way they were tracking and finding him. The phone was the one thing he had with him at all the locations. He would have the phone taken a hundred miles to the south by one of his men and order him to call a number in Riyadh two or three times a day. That should keep them off his trail.

* * * *

The NSA intercept of the conversation between the old woman and al-Hanbali arrived on Brigadier Bergermeyer’s desk fifteen minutes after the call ended; a new plan would be required to meet the information they now had. Just as before, it would take a day maybe two to locate, with a high degree of accuracy, the position of the new hideout. It might be too late to get there and intercept him before he transported the weapon to another location. The signals people promised to give them a general area from which the call originated in a few hours.

The one thing al-Hanbali had given away on the second call was where he would be in two days. That location, or somewhere near it, would have to be the intercept point. She picked up her phone to call Glenwood McDonald.

“Glenwood, come to my office and bring our command center liaison officer with you.”

“Yes, ma’am. Be there in five. Do I need the Inferno file?”

“Bring it,” said the Brigadier.

Five minutes later, she sat around an oblong wood conference table with Glenwood and Colonel Rick Dunn. One wall, opposite the windows looking out over the nation’s capital, had a large-scale map of the Middle East. Pictures of the President and the chain of command adorned the wall next to the entrance and the DIA emblem hung on the opposite wall.

“Colonel Dunn, I want you to read the file Lieutenant Commander McDonald has on our current intelligence operation. It is now at a critical stage and we will need support that we can only get from the national military command center. You are their liaison officer here. Understand that we can reveal the “what” of our operation but not how we know the intelligence the operation is based upon,” said Brigadier Bergermeyer.

“Thanks, General. Glenwood briefed me on the way up here, and with the intercept you now have, I think I can get you any support your team might need. This is some of the most critical information we have received since 9/11.” Colonel Rick Dunn, an Air Force fighter jock, sat in his blue uniform, radiating confidence in his own abilities, a universal characteristic of fighter pilots the world over. In Rick’s case, he merited it. He had twice received the Distinguished Flying Cross for his actions in the two Gulf wars, and he was a graduate of the National War College.

“Yes, it is. Now, we must make our operation plan. Glenwood, what are our best options? You’re the operations officer on this mission and have followed it every minute. Suggestions?”

“The Colonel and I came up with what we think is the best option at this time.” Glenwood went to the map. “We can’t just conduct a major operation on Saudi soil. They would want to know everything and take too long to act. So we must continue with our team in Saudi now. Its presence there is still known only to us. Let’s move our team to a position to intercept the movement of the weapon. The road network is primitive, and, based on al-Hanbali’s previous movement, he will likely take the least traveled way to reach his target. There are two bridges over rather deep gorges”—he pointed to the two locations—“they must traverse to get from the general region where he is currently located into the city.”

“We do have assets we could use to move the team to an ambush site at one of the gorges,” added Colonel Dunn. “With an AWACS—an Airborne Warning and Control System—over the country, we could monitor road traffic in the area to ensure the team has the latest information on all road vehicle movements.”

Glenwood returned to his seat and said, “I recommend we hit them as they start to cross the second gorge. It appears to provide the best concealment, fields of fire, and a good place to embed tire shredders to stop the vehicles. It is on the old road and hardly anyone uses it anymore. I have been there and traveled on it about three years ago for a reconnaissance training exercise. It is desolate, so the AWACS aircraft would have no problem monitoring any traffic using it.”

Colonel Dunn concluded, “We are confident that we can monitor the road, but we ruled out using air power to take out the targets. Using drones is out of the question on Saudi territory. The danger of spreading enriched uranium all over the place is great. If the team captures the weapon, we can get it out of the country with the air assets we have. We then can destroy it on our own terms. None of our flights must spike Saudi interest. Therefore, they will all be a single plane or helicopter on a training flight.”

“I suggest we notify Captain Higgins of the plan and have air assets on standby in the area to transport his team to the ambush location,” Glenwood said. “We can have a debriefing team go to the house al-Hanbali used to build the bomb and do a through intelligence analysis of the scene. They will go by road to limit our air signature in the area.”

“Okay, make it happen,” the Brigadier said. She stood up and placed her hand on her forehead, brushing back a strand of her red hair. She scrunched her eyebrows up and carried a worried look on her face. After a short pause she said, “Here is where it gets sticky. We are engaging an enemy force armed with a nuclear weapon in a foreign country. The weapon is a direct threat against the U.S. I have to go to the Director on this one and he will want me to brief the Chiefs and probably the White House. Let’s see if I can get him to hold off until right before the operation begins to reduce the possibility of a leak. Go with the plan; get Matt read in and up to speed on it,” Mary Jean said. She concluded the meeting.

“Thank you, gentlemen, I am going to see the Director to let this cat out of the bag.”