Strike Force Alpha (8 page)

“Sudan?” Ryder exclaimed. “Since when are we near
Sudan?
”

Both Harriers slowed their descent and let the big MiG go by. If its pilot saw them, he never made any indication of it. He stayed down close to the water and disappeared into the night.

So now they had two jet aircraft, from two different countries, flying around in the middle of the Med and acting very strange. Had they been fighting each other when Phelan came upon the scene? Or had they been doing some kind of joint operation?

But just then something
else
caught Ryder’s eye. Right below him he saw a group of cargo ships, moving northwest. They were sailing in a straight line, very close to one another. It was like a scene from a World War II movie—but it didn’t make any sense. When was the last time cargo ships had to travel in convoys? An odd thought came to him: Could these two fighters, from two different countries, be up here acting as aerial bodyguards? Were they riding shotgun for the half-dozen ships below?

Ryder always carried a small low-light camera in the cockpit with him, just in case he came upon something interesting to show the boys back in the White Rooms. He pulled the camera out and with one hand snapped six quick shots of the convoy. Then it, too, vanished into the night.

Meanwhile, the big Su-24 had looped and was bearing down on them again. And off to the right, the MiG-25 had turned toward them as well. Clearly, it was time to go.

Ryder got Phelan back on the phone.

“I think the only way we lose these guys is to scare them,” he said through the scrambler.

Phelan replied: “Roger that.”

They both waited until the big fighters were within 2,000 feet of them. Then, on Ryder’s count, they opened up with their cannons. The twin spray of 25mm shells lit up the night—and no doubt scared the piss out of the Su-24 pilots, as well as the guy flying the MiG. The plan worked. The two Arab planes quickly peeled off to the left. Ryder and Phelan quickly went right. They booted up to full power, a real kick in the pants, and were soon rocketing away from the area, flying as fast and low as possible.

Only when they were a couple miles away did Ryder strain his neck to look back to see if either of the bigger, more powerful fighters was in pursuit.

But for whatever reason, neither of the Arab warplanes chose to follow.

Evansville, Indiana

Tom Santos had packed three bags.

One contained essentials. Underwear, socks, pajamas, shaving kit, deodorant. The second held his suits, his ties, his shirts, his good shoes. Bag three held his Air Force dress uniform. He hadn’t worn it in almost a year. It still fit; in fact, it was a little loose on him, not a good sign. He’d been told to bring it with him.

He carried the three bags down to his front door and checked the time. It was nearly 10:00
A.M
. He would be leaving soon.

Ginny had run to the drugstore, to fetch him his pre-chemo medication, which he wasn’t using. She still knew nothing of this. Knew nothing of the girl he’d encountered in the medical building last week, knew nothing of the man who had waylaid him in the very same drugstore, the day before, and handed him a list of things he had to do to continue in the very strange, secret government project.

That’s what he was involved in, the stranger in the Walgreens explained to him. Top-secret. Level Five security. The details of the operation would be given to him only on a need-to-know basis. The man also handed him another bottle of the bright yellow pills. They tasted like candy, but they
were
helping, Santos was convinced of that.
Take as many as needed,
this label said, and he’d been following those instructions. Anytime he felt a twinge, he’d pop a pill and the twinge would go away. Simple as that. Was this some secret government cure for his kind of cancer? A reward for the service he was about to provide for them? Santos really didn’t know, and on a certain level, he didn’t care to know. He was willing to keep an open mind about the whole matter. The bottle of yellow pills was never very far from his reach.

The man in the Walgreens didn’t tell him much more than that. He provided him with the itinerary and it called for Santos to pack the required items and be ready for a car pickup at 10 o’clock this day.

Again, he was to say nothing to anyone.

It was two minutes to ten.

Santos took a long look around the house. The kitchen walls needed painting. The lawn needed a good weeding. Ginny’s car needed a wax. No problem. He would do all these things when he came back home.

The car pulled up at precisely 10 o’clock. Santos wasn’t sure why, but for some reason he’d been expecting a limousine. What he got instead was a cut-rate five-year-old Chevy Impala, obviously a vehicle from a federal government car pool.

But Ginny wasn’t back yet. She was about twenty minutes overdue. Edict or not, he just couldn’t leave without explaining a little of this to her. Without saying good-bye.

Two men in bad suits walked up to his porch and pushed his doorbell. It didn’t work; he’d fix that when he got home, too.

He opened the door; they flashed IDs that might have said Air Force Intelligence—or might have been library cards.

“Ready to go, Colonel?” one asked.

Santos straightened up. It was good to hear it again.

Before he could reply, though, the second man grabbed his bags and started for the car.

“There’s a screwup with our airline tickets,” the first guy said. “The whole Midwest system went down. We have to hurry to rebook.”

Santos didn’t know what he was talking about, and at the moment, he didn’t care.

“I have to at least leave a note for my wife,” Santos told the man directly. “Something just to tell her I’m OK.”

But just then, Ginny pulled into the driveway. She saw the men, the car, and the packed bags. The men looked like police officers. Santos met her halfway across the lawn.

“Tom? What’s going on?”

He suddenly found it hard to speak.

“I have to go away, just for a while,” he told her.

“Go away? Go away where?”

“I’m not sure,” he said. “It’s a government thing. Something they want me to do.”

Ginny looked at him like never before. Her eyes said it all. She thought he was losing his mind.

“Tom—you can’t go anywhere,” she said. “You’re sick—”

He held up his hand, cutting her off. “Correction,” he said. “I
used
to be sick….”

She was frightened now. “Tom, let’s go in the house, please.”

But he leaned forward, kissed her quickly, and started to walk away. She dropped her grocery bundle. The contents spilled out on the grass. Santos climbed into the backseat of the car with the second man and began to drive away.

Ginny was just one breath away from hysterics. She looked down at her feet and saw Tom’s prescription, just refilled. She picked it up and screamed after him: “Your medication!”

He rolled down the window, waved, and yelled back: “I don’t need it. Not anymore!”

Persian Gulf Region
The next day

The six Gulfstream jets arrived, one at a time, at the private airfield outside Manama, the capital of Bahrain.

The island nation off the coast of Saudi Arabia was the most liberal of the Gulf states. It wasn’t Sodom or Gomorrah, but there were nightclubs here and some sold liquor and beer. There were women here, too, women who didn’t keep the faces covered and would share a drink or two, with the right person.

There were many private clubs on the island as well, and these were even more risqué. One was the destination of the passengers in the six private jets. The club was located close to the airport, convenient, as most guests flew in from other places. It was built of plastic and mortar; its design was that of a huge futuristic Bedouin tent. The gaming tables were on the first floor; the women were on the second. Few of them had ever seen a
burka
. In fact, none were Arab. They were Eastern European. And they were all beautiful. They accepted money or chips, for favors.

The six jets parked at the far end of the field; they’d taken the same flight path from Riyadh. Two F-15 fighters from the Saudi Royal Air Force had escorted them right down to the runway. The skies above the Gulf could be dangerous, especially at night, so the six travelers welcomed the airborne bodyguard. And the protection did not end there. The two fighters would remain on alert, ready to scramble, whenever the six men decided to return.

This was Prince Ali Muhammad al-Saud’s gang, he of the 116-room palace back in Riyadh. His close friend Farouk was there, as was Khalis Abu, his twenty-second brother-in-law. The three other men were board members of the Pan Arabic Oil Exchange, Ali’s $4 million a day business. Like the Prince, they were all involved in the financing of
jihad
operations. Farouk and Khalis Abu had hand-carried funds to various cell members in the past; the Prince’s colleagues at Pan Arabic had helped in laundering charity money as well. (Indeed, some
jihad
groups called Pan Arabic “the diamond mine.”) The six men flew to this place once a week, usually on Saturday night. But they never all flew in the same plane together, or even in one another’s airplanes. They didn’t trust one another enough for that….

Once landed, a separate limo picked up each man and transported him the half-mile to the club. The six were all wearing their best flowing-robe ensembles. Ali, as always, was dressed entirely in white. Finally gathered in one place, they were ushered through a side entrance and brought up to a suite on the second floor.

This place was gigantic, with huge curved windows, very low Aladdin-style lights, and gold fixtures everywhere. Many satin pillows were strewn about the floor. A dozen servants were stationed at various places around the room, Filipinos all of them. A case of champagne was waiting on ice. The six men rolled out their prayer mats and, led by Prince Ali, quickly recited their evening prayers, even though they were several hours too late and none of them had the faintest idea whether they were facing Mecca or not. This done, the club manager was signaled. He clapped his hands softly and a side door to the room opened. A line of girls appeared. Clad in negligees and bathing suits, they were paraded before the six men as they lounged on their pillows and drank
Dom Perignon
. Every girl was blond and busty. They were mostly German and Czech, with a few Russians thrown in. There were 30 in all. The oldest one was 20.

Each man picked two, except the Prince, who took three. The rest were dismissed. Those girls selected were led to another room and told to wait.

The men got around to ordering their late-night dinner. All six chose the beef
l’orange
with french fries, and chocolate cake for dessert. Then they gathered their pillows together and had a serious conversation.

They were worried. The mysterious, and undoubtably U.S. unit had struck again, breaking up the
Sea Princess
operation, killing every member of the Genoa cell, and then bombing the Party of God headquarters—all in just 48 hours. And this just days after the attacks in Lebanon and Somalia and the assassination of their rotund Yemeni brother, Hamini Musheed.

“The Crazy Americans are
not
going away,” Farouk began. “And this could be very bad for us. They have got under my skin. I think about them constantly.”

“They knew exactly when our friends in Genoa were going to hit the liner,” Khalis Abu, the-brother-in-law, said. “You might say they just got lucky. But I ask you, have you ever known the Americans to be
that
lucky?”

The others shook their heads no.

“I tell you, brothers, they are listening in on
us,
” Khalis went on. “From our lips to their ears….”

Ali raised his hand, as if to slap him across his face.

“No!” the prince screamed. “They would not dare. We are too important for that.
I am
too important for that….”

But Farouk persisted. “What if they do have us bugged, my brother? Our homes. Our jets. This place.
This room?
”

Again Prince Ali tried to wave their concerns away, but not quite as dramatically. The Algerian Party of God had nothing to do with his activities; he couldn’t have cared less about them. But he
had
sent money to the Genoa cell just days before it was wiped out. The plan to sink the cruise ship had been in the works for months, in absolute secrecy, but somehow the Americans had sniffed it out. The attack on the Sicilian villa was even more disturbing. Its location had been so secret, even the Prince was never told where it was. The dark humor of dropping the raft loaded with explosives on the house was also unsettling.

Stranger still, the attempt on the cruise ship had received scant coverage in the media, as had all of the recent American actions. Fox called it “a failed attempt at terrorism by amateurs.” CNN didn’t cover it at all. This was so perverse. It was as if the news networks were intentionally downplaying the kind of events they usually trumpeted. This was as baffling to the Prince as the shadowy U.S. strike team itself.

He knew many people in the U.S. military; he met with them frequently at receptions and diplomatic gatherings. He’d talked to several at a luncheon earlier this day. As subtly as possible, he’d brought up the subject of the recent incidents. Each U.S. officer he spoke to seemed to draw a blank on the subject; a couple said they’d get back to him. Were they as much in the dark as he was? Or were they setting him up?

All this only made him worry more—and when Ali worried, he tended to drink heavily. If he drank too much, he would get angry and sloppy—and drink more. Sometimes this behavior would lead to the dark areas of his ancestors, to violence and blackouts, the curse of many with blood on their hands.

After that, just about anything could happen.

The night passed with lots of food and more champagne—and no further talk about the recent troubles. Prince Ali ate a lion’s share of beef
l’orange
and french fries. But anytime he began enjoying himself, his thoughts went back to the Crazy Americans. Who were they? What were they going to do next? Would they ever really come knocking at
his
door? It was too much worry—as a result, he’d consumed two bottles of champagne and a dozen shots of
sake
along with his meal. The alcohol did not dull his uneasiness, though, and neither did the food. Ali was not by nature a strong individual.

Around midnight, five of the men retreated to their individual suites along with the female companions they’d selected for the evening. The Prince had been the last to retire. Those who’d seen him remembered he was in a foul mood when he finally staggered to his private chambers just before 1:00
A.M
. Noises were heard coming from the room about a half hour later, not all of them pleasant. The sky grew particularly dark at this moment, and the winds began blowing fiercely.

By 2:00
A.M.
, though, everything was quiet again.

The Prince was the first of the six to leave the next morning. He encountered a floor manager as he was going out the back door. Ali told the man to take care of the mess in his private bedroom. The manager went to the suite and found two of the three girls who had spent the night with the Prince cowering in the corner of the bathroom, crying and in shock. On the king-size bed lay the third girl. She’d been beaten to death.

The manager just shook his head.

“Not again…” he whispered.