by Niv Kaplan
“It means we need the troops aboard a ship or at a landing strip,” Collins mused. “Did they say who they hijacked?”
“No, they didn’t because I instructed them not to,” Kessler admitted.
“Why in God’s name not?” Fleming retorted.
“Because there’s no safe passage for information across the south!”
“Oh,” Fleming raised his eyebrows.
“We always assume it’ll fall into the wrong hands or as a minimum be read by others before it reaches us,” Kessler explained. “Without reference to names or organizations we avoid a complete bust to the operation in case anything does go wrong.”
His two counterparts were looking skeptical. They were sure he was withholding information but were too weary to make a fuss.
“Air or land?” Fleming finally asked.
“Air is the only real option if we’re to be ready in time,” Collins suggested.
“I agree,” Kessler said. “I can have my guys ready at the air base in three hours.”
“What about you, Harry?” Collins asked his colleague.
“We’ve got a team standing by in Cyprus. I can have them ready before afternoon tea,” Fleming joked.
“What about Harley’s people?” Kessler asked.
“They can back us up with that speedboat of theirs,” Fleming offered, clearly still not happy with their involvement.
“Doug?”
“We can join the Brits tomorrow night the earliest.”
“OK, then, we can fly our guys there as well and we can all make preparations there,” Kessler summarized.
“That all depends on the information you get us,” Fleming reminded him.
“I’ll do my best.” Kessler said and went to pour some more coffee, thinking they were running out of time.
*****
The suitcase contained mostly clothes and personal effects.
However, the briefcase contained details of foreign and domestic bank accounts with lists containing names and organizations, references to various places of business, and a log book of transactions and payments.
They had hit the jackpot! And it was all there neatly filed into several thin folders inside the prisoner’s briefcase.
They could not find any direct mentions or references to Sons of Jihad but it was obvious their prisoner was heavily involved in financial activity which they assumed funded parts of the operation.
Now all they needed to do was to get him to confess and they felt sure they had a seamless link to the organization.
Rafik Ammad was eighteen when he joined the Fattah movement of Yasser Arafat in 1977. In 1976 the Israelis launched an attack into Southern Lebanon and took over the entire area south of the Litani River. Young Rafik grew up in the city of Tyre by the Mediterranean and had to retreat and evacuate when the Israelis came charging in.
His older brother Kaasam, a Fatah squad leader, was taken prisoner and the family had to hastily leave their house and all their belongings and flee.
Rafik never forgot that.
They ended up in Beirut, essentially homeless, and were scooped up by the PLO and given a home in return for Rafik joining the ranks.
He did so with a vengeance and was sent to a training camp north of Beirut where he mastered a host of sabotage skills which he put into use for the next two years against the Zionist enemy at the southern border.
He quickly stood out among his fellow militia men and it was not long before he was put in command of a PLO outfit that numbered 20 guerrilla fighters.
He commanded a range of hit-and-run operations across the Litani River and into no man’s land of Southern Lebanon including at least two infiltrations across the Israeli fence where they planted several land mines and improvised explosive devices along the border road where Israeli military vehicles patrolled day and night. Their bombs and mines were discovered both times but Rafik gained valuable experience studying the Israelis operation tactics which he put to good use when he was next assigned to a Bakaa Valley intelligence unit, whose responsibility was to monitor Israeli military maneuvers at the border with Syria where most of the PLO’s supplies came from, right up to and including the ‘82 war when the Israelis invaded once again in force.
Having lost most of his intelligence unit during the war, Rafik quickly advanced in the ranks and became the head intelligence individual in the region. He hung around the Israeli-occupied territory for a long while after the cease-fire, supplying valuable information to PLO leadership on alternative supply routes.
This earned him a position of trust in the PLO intelligence hierarchy and soon he was placed as special liaison to the Head of Intelligence at PLO headquarters in Beirut. His specific task was counter espionage, recruiting operatives from abroad to expose western agents operating within the PLO organization.
When the Shiites began to take matters into their own hands and Arafat was flushed out of Beirut, Rafik was asked by to stay and join an organization called Sons of Jihad. Having gained valuable contacts in his world travels for Arafat, he was given the task of raising capital to finance the organization’s costly activities.
He met Nyla at the compound shortly after joining the organization and they quickly became a couple. A year later they married and had the children in quick succession. Rafik had by then solidified his position in the organization and was making a nice salary which, together with Nyla’s, allowed them to move to one of the better neighborhoods of Beirut and employ a maid. The organization assigned them bodyguards which were a necessity around the battle riddled city. The job demanded Rafik spend most of his time abroad and he felt much more comfortable having Nyla and the children escorted around the city and guarded at the house.
He was back from one of his assignments abroad when he was surprised and taken hostage.
He had no idea who had abducted him but he knew he was in trouble when they reached an isolated farm house two hours north of Beirut where he was thrown into a bomb shelter and locked in behind a fortified metal door with only a small hatch through which a few rays of light managed to filter.
He knew he was done for when they tied him to a chair and started grilling him about his activities.
He had neglected the mandatory security measures he was required to abide by, being so exhausted after a thirty-hour trip from Sau Paulo, Brazil, and did not report his arrival or wait for an escort. That had most likely cost him his job if not his life. Even if he survived the interrogation and managed to remain silent, he as well as his wife, would be suspect and a liability in the eyes of the organization. If they were not executed, they would be exiled where no one would ever find them.
“The kids!” he thought, a cold shiver wrapping itself around the back of his neck.
There was only one way to save them…
CHAPTER FORTY NINE
Rafik estimated they had until morning at most before he and his wife would be missed.
They would eventually realize they have not reported in and would send someone to check the house if the phone was not answered. Once they realized no one was home they would sound the alarm.
It would take another hour to establish that he had not only arrived at the airport the previous morning but also hastily left the country that same evening with his family in tow.
From then on it would be an all-out race to destroy any evidence.
The abducted kids would be the first to disappear.
Devlin stood near the kitchen wall looking almost dazed. He was pointing at a map of Beirut. Aziz was there along with Rolston, Natasha, Mai-Li and Amar. Jaras and Elena had remained with the prisoner.
“We have roughly six hours,” Devlin was saying. “It will be dark in two.”
He looked around the room. It had all come about so fast. Everyone was watching him attentively, on edge.
“Aziz and I contacted Kessler and we got the green light. The troops will be dropped in by choppers at this empty field here and this football field here,” he said
pointing to spots on the map.
“The snitch believes Sam’s son is at this address,” Devlin scrolled his finger a centimeter to a marked house just east of one of the drop zones.
“There are two other kidnapped kids who live in close proximity, here and here.” Two additional locations in the same neighborhood were marked on the map.
“We are going to hijack all three!”
They looked at one another. Devlin continued.
“Malcolm, you, Mai-Li and Amar will mark the drop zone for the chopper going for the kids and lead the squad to the area from where they can assault the houses.
“Natasha, Aziz and I will mark the second drop zone for the chopper going for the compound. This football field is roughly a kilometer from the garage. We’ll lead them to it, then Aziz and I will lead them through the tunnel.
“None of us are to engage in any confrontation. Malcolm, once you get the troops to where they need to be, you go back to the car and get out of Beirut.
“The six of us will need to make our getaway with the cars. There’ll only be room on the choppers for the troops and the kids.”
Devlin turned toward the wall again and pointed to a larger scale map to a spot along the coast roughly 20 kilometers south of Beirut.
“We need to get to this beach area before dawn and link up with Lizzy and Jimmy who’ll come for us with the boat.”
“What about Sam?” Mai-Li asked, a concerned look on her face.
“He and Copeland will stay in Cyprus to help coordinate between the troops."
“How’d you manage that?” Rolston inquired.
“Kessler informed me. I didn’t argue.”
“Will they make it before daybreak?” Natasha queried, looking at her watch. “It’s quite a long way from Cyprus even if they have a powerful speed boat.”
“They’ve already left so they should make it well before dawn. If not, they’ll try and pluck us out the following night,” Devlin informed them. “In that case we’ll have to hide somewhere during the day.”
“You coming along too?” Natasha queried, looking at Aziz, who was nodding.
“Afraid so,” he said. “Him too,” he pointed to Amar.
“What about Elena and Jaras?”
“The two of them should be escorting the Ammad family to the airport right about now. They’ll all be heading for Athens shortly.”
“What about the compound?” Rolston asked.
There were ramifications to the insurgence well beyond freeing Sam’s boy and other kids. The discovery of an entire network of sleeper agents and possibly active ones was on the line and the source, Rafik, who had already provided them with Sammy's whereabouts and his Muslim name, Amir, promised to provide at least partial information once he and his family were safely stowed away. He was responsible for raising money to finance the activity but there were safeguards and firewalls within his organization that limited his knowledge and he was not privy to the full range of operational aspects and agent assignments. Working at the compound they were all aware of where the kids spent their time, even interacting with them on specific occasions. But only a few had full knowledge of where they came from and where they were going. Rafik was not one of them but Kessler hoped he had enough knowledge to provide them with a trail leading to agents already in place.
However, once his and his wife's absence was discovered and they freed the kids, it would be a race against time and if the compound was not neutralized there was a high risk of missing the opportunity to destroy the network. Furthermore, what would be the fate of those children not released?
“The two strikes will take place almost simultaneously,” Devlin explained. “The kids are a relatively easier target, so if we’ve got the right information and everything goes according to plan, Sam should see his boy fairly soon.”
Everyone listened attentively.
“As for the compound, that’s a little trickier. If the element of surprise isn’t lost by the arrival of the chopper or any resistance along the tunnel, the assault should go a long way to achieving its goals. If however, anything goes wrong, this could turn into a bloody battle.”
“What exactly are our goals?” Natasha asked.
“I’m assuming we’ll want to destroy the place but not before they find information that will assist in exposing the organization and its network of agents.”
*****
David Kessler was waiting nervously at the Athens International terminal for Olympic flight 1754 from Beirut.
He had just arrived from Cyprus on Cyprus Air and was eagerly anticipating the arrival of two of the most valuable assets his agency would lay their hands on as of late.
In his pocket were eight El Al airline tickets to Israel but it would be a while before he could safely load them on the flight since the El Al flight was not due until 10:00 the next morning.
He had considered securing a private jet or a military C-130 but decided against it, not wanting to attract attention.
Instead he had a van with two Mossad operatives waiting outside baggage claim to take them to the Hilton where they would wait until morning.
Once in Israel, the asset would be interrogated properly but Kessler was fully aware it might be too late and planned to extract the most vital information as soon as they were settled in their room at the hotel.
Fleming and Collins agreed to go ahead with the attack but not without heavy doubts of sacrificing the whole for the individual. In their view, Sammy's release did not measure up to eliminating an entire network. What tipped the scales was the realization that there was one opportunity to get Sam his son back. It was now or never and it could not be done in reverse order. They could not hold off releasing the children while going after the spy network. The alarm would go off in any event when it was learned Rafik and his family had bailed and these precious hours in between were the only opportunity they would ever have of uniting a son with a father who has been searching for him for over ten years, spreading a host of good deeds in the process.
The party arrived past immigration and customs looking bewildered. They had only carry-on bags and were easily herded into the van.
Hilton Athens was a vast building, thirteen floors high, which spread across four blocks at the center of Athens at the cross streets Vassileos Konstadinou and Mihalakopoulou, walking distance from posh Kolonaki and the ancient Plaka. From the windows facing west there was a grand view of the Acropolis and above to the north stood Lykavittos church surrounded by forest.
The two Mossad agents were at their positions, one in the lobby by the elevators, and another outside the elevators on the tenth floor with line of sight to room 1012 where Kessler sat with Rafik, Nyla and kids in the adjacent room with Elena and Jaras.
Rafik admitted that he joined the Sons of Jihad a year after the ’82 war with Israel. The ultra-secret organization was formed by a league of terrorist groups after the Yom Kippur war in the early 70s with a goal of destroying the Zionists’ number one supporter, the United States.
Their mode of operation evolved over the years but essentially Black Jack’s account was accurate. They kidnapped American babies, raised and trained them in Lebanon, then sent them back, brainwashed, to inflict damage.
Rafik had no idea how many had been kidnapped or how many were already sent back, but he was relatively sure none of them was yet active. He knew this because the money needed to fund them once they became operational would need to increase twofold and that had not yet happened. He also knew the kids were sent back to join the last two years of high school before joining a university. From there they would join the workforce, most likely in sensitive defense industries, government agencies, or engage with political leaders.
That in itself was a lead Kessler thought he could exploit instantly but Rafik curbed his enthusiasm, explaining that the agents sent back would use their original birth certificate data to register and it would be unlikely they would be able to distinguish them from any other American student
joining a high school or a University.
Kessler argued that if that happened, then those names would surely come up on a missing persons list of some sort. Rafik was not certain but he pointed out that it was highly unlikely the kids would register in their birth place or state, and as they had been abducted in infancy it was also unlikely any one of them would have a Social Security number associated with his or her name.
“How can a sixteen-year-old kid survive on his own in a foreign country?” Kessler queried, suddenly frustrated.
“That’s where I came in,” Rafik explained. “Most of the money I raised was to finance the kids’ training, pay the host families, and keep them afloat once they were sent to their missions. I would guess, though, that they would be sent to the big cities where they could easily get lost in the shuffle and there’s a large enough Muslim community that can support them.”
“Are you responsible for the money transfers?” Kessler asked, hoping for a break.
“Unfortunately, no. That’s a well-kept secret. My responsibilities end as soon as the money is received. Beyond that there are others responsible for transferring the money onwards.”
“Still, a name is a name,” Kessler persisted. “I doubt there are any missing persons reports going back sixteen years that lay around any school administration offices and obviously high schools or universities would have no reason to send an inquiry to missing persons if everything was in order - but this is a lead we can start exploiting.”
“Where would you start?” Rafik questioned.
“I’ll let the Americans worry about that. Go on.”
“I have full details of all my contributors and their bank accounts though none are from the US, where I did not set foot. My employers forbade me to ever go there, and I never did, not even on connecting flights.”
“It would definitely help if we could find any connections to people in the US,” Kessler said thoughtfully, taking notes. “What else?”