by Oliver North
No one in the room wanted to be the object of Saddam's next lesson in severity.
“I did not tell you last month, because I hoped you would be able to find the weapons,” Qusay said. “Now, with my father's permission, I will tell you more, but to do so, I have asked my brother to join us.”
Qusay went to the door of the conference room. When he came back in, beside him, leaning on his arm, was his older brother Uday Qusay helped his elder sibling to the chair at the end of the table.
The four generals rose out of respect for Saddam's oldest son, but it was evident to all of them that Uday was unlikely to recover completely from last December's assassination attempt.
On 12 December 1996, Uday's champagne-colored Porsche had been ambushed in Baghdad. He had been alone, driving without his bodyguards, when two men opened fire, spraying the vehicle with automatic weapons. Eight rounds struck Uday, wounding him critically. Now, even after a year in and out of hospitals, he still needed intensive therapy and rehabilitation. Though no longer confined to a wheelchair, he still needed a cane and walked only with difficulty.
Persistent rumors named Qusay, or perhaps even Saddam, as the perpetrator of the assassination attempt. Uday's behavior, reprehensible even for the shameless Hussein regime, had embarrassed the entire clan, and some supposed someone in the family had engineered the shooting. Maybe they hadn't intended to kill him, but merely to teach him a lesson. Maybe it was significant that the ambush took place only a block from Mahabarat Prison, headquarters of the Amn Al-Khass, headed by Qusay. SSS personnel would have known when his brother left the home of his mistress, that he was alone, and where he was going.
But if those rumors had reached the ears of the wounded Uday, there was no evidence of it this morning in the conference room of the Special Weapons Facility at Jabul Makhul.
Hunched over the table, his chin cupped in his hand, his elbow on the table, Uday spoke in a thin, weak voice to his brother, though his words were aimed at the entire group. “Thank you, my brother, for inviting me here with your friends.”
The four leaned forward as one, straining to hear Uday's almost whispered words.
“So, they want to know how it is that our father, you, and I are the only ones in Iraq who know about Kamil's nuclear weapons?”
Qusay nodded.
“Well, did any of them wonder why it was that after his unforgivable treachery, Kamil still felt safe to come home from Amman?”
“No one thought to ask,” said Qusay.
Uday shrugged. He looked at the other men, one at a time.
“It is because he confessed it to me while I was killing him.”
Uday said it like someone giving a weather report.
“But I did not believe him—so I shot him in the groin, then in each leg, then in each arm—and then in the stomach. He kept screaming about being the only person who knew where three nuclear warheads were hidden—'special weapons' he called them. While I was reloading, the coward kept pleading that he would show me where they were. I waited to hear, but unfortunately, before he could tell me, he bled to death.”
The recollection seemed to strengthen Uday. His voice was sounding stronger.
“I did not think more about what Kamil had said until a few weeks later when my brother told me about a discovery in the financial accounting of the Amn Al-Khass.”
Qusay picked up the story: “In 1996, shortly after I took over the SSS, I asked the Finance Ministry to conduct an audit of all Kamil's personal and office accounts. Kamil had access to tens of millions—funds mostly hidden to keep the activities they financed secret from the Americans, the British, and the Jews.
“It took almost two years for the accountants to complete their audit. When they finished, they reported to me that the books were all in order except for a single, huge debit posted in March 1995. It was for gold bullion equivalent to 150 million Swiss francs. And it was totally unaccounted for!”
“How could this be? Did he steal it?” These were the first words from the taciturn General Taha Abbas al-Ahbabi. As the head of the General Security Service—the Al-Amn al-Amm, Iraq's secret police—al-Ahbabi was responsible for stamping out corruption. The fact of the theft didn't surprise him—it was the amount: 150 million in gold bullion was an impressive sum. Al-Ahbabi was a little jealous.
“Did Kamil steal the money?” Qusay allowed the question to hang in the air. “It does not appear so from what we have learned, but we really do not know for certain. The auditors found that the debit was listed as ‘research and development,' but could find no other paper trail. They also discovered that the funds had been transferred to a Swiss bank just a few months before Kamil succumbed to the temptations of the West and went to meet the CIA in Amman. At first the accountants thought this money had gone into Kamil's accounts to finance his new life. But during his time in Amman, he never made an attempt to retrieve any of it. When the Swiss officials finally acknowledged that the account had been emptied a day after Kamil made the deposit, our auditors concluded that Kamil had indeed used the 150 million to purchase something of extraordinary value. Yet, after almost two full years of audits, we were unable to figure out what Kamil had bought with all that money.”
“But then, a little over a month ago, a man telephoned the presidential palace in Baghdad on a number that used to be Kamil's,” Uday said. “Colonel Shiraz, who works for me at the Ministry of Information, answered the call. The person calling asked for a meeting with our father. He said that he wanted to discuss a matter of ‘great significance regarding a purchase that had been made by the now departed Hussein Kamil.’
“Colonel Shiraz put the call through to me. The man said he was calling from Damascus, a fact confirmed by our Al Hadi Project 858 technicians. The man said his name was Leonid Dotensk, and said that he was a Ukrainian businessman who had sold three 'special devices' to Kamil and asked if we wanted to buy any more.”
By now the generals were hanging on Uday's every word.
“Without knowing what these 'special devices' might be, I asked Dotensk how much Kamil had paid, and he told me ‘Fifty million Swiss francs...apiece.' I told him that I was not prepared to discuss any such arrangements over the telephone and that he would have to come to Baghdad.”
Uday nodded at Qusay.
“I confirmed with our border police records that Leonid Dotensk had indeed spent considerable time here in Iraq,” Qusay said. “His name is all over Kamil's appointment books and phone logs. In fact, it turns out he was with Kamil that day in March 1995 when the American and British mercenaries tried to kill our father. It also turns out that he still has an office here—at the Al Rashid Hotel—although he apparently had not been back since Kamil fled to Amman.”
“Had not been back?” said General Al-Ahbabi. “Does that mean that this Dotensk person has since returned here?”
“Yes,” said Qusay.
“When?” Al-Ahbabi was visibly put out that his own organization hadn't reported this to him.
“Dotensk was here last month. That is what started all this.” Qusay shook his head as he looked around the room. “You all should have known these things if your intelligence services were anywhere near as good as you claim in the briefings you provide to my father.”
“It turns out,” Qusay said after allowing an awkward silence, “Dotensk was the recipient of Kamil's 150 million. All of it.”
“Are you quite sure, Qusay?” blurted General al-Juburi, the head of Military Intelligence. “If Dotensk is telling the truth, somewhere in Iraq there are three nuclear weapons just waiting to be used. What makes you think this man Dotensk got all the money?”
“Because he told us so. He said he had been paid in full in 1995 and that the reason he wanted to see the president last month was to sell him more of the 'special equipment' like the three he sold to Kamil.”
“Are you sure they were nuclear weapons?”
“Quite. The Ukrainian has no reason to claim he received 150 million Swiss fra
ncs if he did not. Think of it—for that kind of money he would have been selling military aircraft. Anything else—computers, rifles, ordnance—would fill scores of warehouses and that kind of inventory would have shown up. We would have found it by now.”
“But it was not airplanes, was it?” Uday said, clearly enjoying the discomfort of the four generals sitting at the table. “The 150 million was payment for three weapons. Only three.”
“Dotensk bragged to us how he and Kamil arranged to have the weapons smuggled into Iraq under the very noses of the UN inspectors at the airport,” Uday said. “He told us that after taking possession of them, Kamil took precautions to have the weapons secretly hidden. Though he was not sure, he surmised that Kamil and a few of his bodyguards had taken them to one or more of the remote locations where they stored things, away from the prying eyes of the UN and anyone else who might discover them.”
“When did all this happen?” asked Salman Khamis, the Minister of Defense Industries.
“I told you: March of 1995, just five months before Kamil defected.”
“No...I mean your meeting with Dotensk. When did he tell you all of this?”
“Last month. He was here in Baghdad for just a day. Needless to say, we saw to it that he got his meeting with President Saddam. Though neither of us were there when they discussed another possible purchase, our father called us in when Dotensk left; he is the one who told us to learn where Kamil had hidden those three nuclear weapons.”
“Last month? Why are we just learning all the details about these nuclear weapons now? This is something that the Al-Amn al-Amm should have been handling from the start!” General al-Ahbabi sounded like a man preparing an alibi for the courtroom.
“You were given all the information you needed to know,” Qusay said, his voice rising. “I told you to search for three small nuclear weapons. Besides, the president told Uday and me to be discreet. He did not want any leaks about what we have...no one must find out about these nuclear weapons. But more than that, he does not want anyone to know that we have been hopelessly uninformed on the matter. Our nation has purchased three nuclear weapons, and nobody knows where they are! He fears that Dotensk could make him look like a fool.”
“I suppose all of Kamil's bodyguards were executed in the purge when he returned?” said General Khamis.
“Actually, they were not,” Uday said. “Apparently, Kamil had them killed himself, before he defected—right after they hid the weapons. He had another squad execute them. His record of the matter simply reports that they were 'serious security risks to the nation,' and they were executed. That would not be an unusual situation.”
“No,” General al-Juburi agreed. “So all of those who hid the nuclear weapons are dead? No wonder our month-long search has been fruitless.”
“Yes...but I assure you that we do not consider that fact an acceptable excuse for failure.” Qusay was once again in charge of the meeting. “The president has instructed us to find the three nuclear weapons. Perhaps we may be able to buy more from this Dotensk person, perhaps not, but it is most important that the enemies of the state do not become aware there are three missing nuclear weapons. Can you imagine what might happen if the Americans, or the Jews, or even the Kurdish resistance learn about these weapons before we can find them?”
There was an uncomfortable silence.
“What does your father wish us to do?” asked General Khamis.
“Simple. Just find the three nuclear weapons before someone else does.”
“Is anyone else aware of these weapons besides Dotensk, your father, or those of us in this room?” asked General al Rashid.
Qusay looked straight at the head of the Mukhabarat but spoke to all of them. “We do not know who else might be aware. But my father told me to remind you that they must be found soon. And when they are found, he intends to celebrate by using one of them on the Jews—to punish them for what they have done to our brothers in the Occupied Territories.”
THE LETTER
CHAPTER FOUR
Hospice of Saint Patrick
35 Via Dolorosa, Jerusalem
Saturday, 7 March 1998
1145 Hours, Local
Once again, Gunnery Sergeant Skillings flipped back through the pages of notes he had made in the small spiral notebook. “A few moments ago I asked if it was possible that you left something in Milan or Rome that could identify you as the Newmans—and you both looked at each other but didn't say anything. If you don't mind my asking, what was that all about?”
“You haven't lost any of your powers of observation, Gunny,” Newman said.
“No sir, I hope not.”
“Well, it wasn't in Rome or Milan that something happened to make me a little nervous about my ‘Newman' identity—it was here, just a week or so ago. I was in Tel Aviv with the hospice pickup truck. Normally I avoid the area where the U.S. Embassy is located, but the police had vectored traffic away from the scene of another bus bombing. I had no choice; I had to drive right past it. While I was stopped at the intersection across from the embassy, a man I recognized walked across in front of the truck. He looked at me, stopped, came up to the window and asked, ‘Are you an American?’
“I told him, ‘No, I'm Irish,' but then he said, “Well, you sure look like a fellow I once knew in Washington, an American Marine named Newman.' So I replied in my best Dublin brogue, 'Sorry, not him,' and drove off when the light changed. But I noticed in the rearview mirror that he stood on the sidewalk looking at the truck until I was out of sight. Then he went inside the front door of the embassy.”
“You said you recognized him, sir—who was he?”
“His name is Jonathan Yardley. Back in '95 when I checked in at the White House, he was a U.S. Army communications specialist and one of the senior watch officers in the White House Situation Room. I can only guess that he's now assigned to the embassy.”
Rachel slid her hand into her husband's.
“I'll check to verify Yardley's in Jerusalem, but it figures,” said Skillings. “After Dr. Harrod resigned as National Security Advisor, they reassigned everyone over there to what amounted to duty in Siberia. They probably stuck him over here in the embassy as a communications attaché, thinking he was out of the way.”
Skillings made another notation in the small notebook.
“When General Grisham sent me here, I had two missions. First—to determine just how threatened you might be. I was supposed to report back to him whatever you told me about possible threats.”
“What was the second part?” Rachel said.
“Well, if he thought you were still safe here, he was going to leave you alone and I'd simply go back home. But if our evaluation indicated you were at risk of discovery, I was to give you a letter he sent with me. Now I'm thinking I should just give you the letter and let you make your own judgment.”
Skillings' eyes moved back and forth from Peter to Rachel. Peter recognized the gunnery sergeant's dilemma. Like all good Marine noncommissioned officers, Skillings had been trained to think on his feet and make life-or-death decisions—especially in combat—and often without the benefit of guidance from superiors. Now, though, he was faced with more variables than he could comfortably manage.
“Gunny, why not just go ahead and contact the general and let him know what you've learned? Let him decide whether you're to give us the letter or not.”
“I would, sir, but the only way I have of communicating with him is to send an encrypted message through the embassy. If this Yardley fellow is there as a communicator, he's liable to put two and two together and then you're in real trouble. He's probably not real happy to have gone from the White House Situation Room to the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, and he might just figure that turning you in to Interpol could be his ticket out of here.”
“That's probably true. Good thinking.”
Skillings stood up and said, “Excuse me, ma'am.” He turned away from her and pulled up the black T-shirt he was wearing, reveal
ing a previously invisible nylon pouch wrapped around his waist with a Velcro-faced nylon strap. From the pocket in the pouch, he lifted out a thermal-sealed plastic bag containing an envelope.
“This is the letter. I don't know exactly what it says, but the general told me that if I gave you this letter, I should give the two of you time to talk it over alone.”
Skillings handed the sealed envelope to Newman. “He also told me to ask you to destroy these papers as soon as you've finished reading them, sir.”
“Then what?”
“Then I come back later and you give me your verbal answer. I'll take your reply back to General Grisham on the next available flight to Florida.”
“Florida?”
“Yes, sir, General Grisham is now the commanding general, U.S. Central Command—at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa.”
“General Grisham's CinC at CENTCOM? That's great!”
“General Grisham was very clear that I should leave you both alone to talk over what I just gave you. I'm staying at the David Citadel Hotel, in room 623, registered as Calvin Mellis. Call me and I'll come back—or come to the hotel if you want.”
There was an awkward silence. Just a moment ago, the three of them were laughing and reminiscing, but now the choice that hung over Peter and Rachel—even though they didn't yet know its exact shape—had shifted the mood. Rachel moved closer to her husband and leaned into him.
As Peter looked at the envelope, old anxieties began to surface as he remembered why he had been on the run in the first place.
Skillings walked to the door.
“I'm sorry to have intruded on you like this, sir...ma'am. But General Grisham said this is really important. And I know it must be because as far as anybody else is concerned, my little trip to Jerusalem never happened. He sent me over here from the States on an Air Force tanker to Incirlik, Turkey, but I flew commercial from there to here. I'll also fly back to Incirlik the same way, so there's no U.S. military record of my coming here. I'm supposed to be catching a C-141 on Monday morning from Incirlik back to Charleston. The general was very specific about making sure there was no paperwork showing up in Washington about my side trip here.”