Assassin's Silence

by Ward Larsen

  “Yes. The quicker we are done, the better.” Ghazi donned a bulky jacket, zipped it high against the cool night air, and headed into the hills.

  SIXTY-ONE

  When the map on the phone showed him to be at the nearest point to Wujah Al Hajar Air Base, Slaton left the highway for a tributary road. Three miles from where the cesium-laden aircraft was supposedly parked, the dirt road narrowed severely and came to an end at an outcropping of boulders. Out of habit, he drove the Audi into a stand of brush along the siding.

  He retrieved the rifle and performed a final inspection, regretting that there was no time for a few calibration rounds. The gun’s action was uneven, and a thick film of dirt covered the polymer stock. He also found substantial carbon residue in the firing chamber. Right then, Slaton would have paid a million dollars of his ill-inherited fortune for an ounce of good gun oil and a rag. He exercised the mechanism a few times and things smoothed out, and from his side pocket he removed ten rounds of ammunition and slotted them into the curved, double-stacked magazine. Slaton shouldered the gun and moved east into the foothills.

  He felt oddly at ease with the terrain, the topography similar to the kibbutz where he had lived as a teenager. The place where he’d hunted small game amid stunted trees and brush. The dry breeze seemed fresh and clean after the urban staleness of Beirut. He came across an old farmhouse but kept a respectable distance away. A quarter moon walked its path above high clouds, offering little ambient light, and an evening dew dampened every sound—altogether, the best possible conditions for offense and movement.

  When he estimated a mile remaining, he pulled Donnelly’s phone from his pocket and powered it up. He knew his position would register instantly in Virginia—and God knows where else—but there was little choice. He needed to run the application he’d spotted earlier.

  The powder-blue icon was drawn like a flashlight beam pointed downward, the top of the beam splitting two upper case letters: H and G. Slaton was familiar with Project HighGround. In recent years Israel and America had become increasingly intertwined in cyber-war and technology projects, the most spectacular success being the Stuxnet virus that temporarily crippled Iran’s nuclear program. HighGround had been born in that same era, and one of Slaton’s last workdays with Mossad, in collaboration with Unit 8200—Israel’s NSA—had been to field test an early version of the software.

  If any common need had arisen from the war in Afghanistan, the tumult in Gaza, and the chaos of Syria, it was that field commanders desperately needed better access to intelligence—in particular, real-time satellite and drone surveillance video. The HighGround concept had all the hallmarks of a successful technology project. It was devilishly simple, and relied, for the most part, on proven off-the-shelf technology. Any secure satellite phone, like the one he was holding, could be programmed to receive direct downlinks from surveillance assets in the sky. A celestial mapping tool, patterned after widely available satellite tracking software, was incorporated to inform the user which assets were overhead at any given moment.

  Three years ago, on a frigid night in the Negev Desert, Slaton had held a similar phone to the sky and watched markers representing satellites and drones float across the display, all superimposed on the timeless backdrop of the heavens. He’d been genuinely impressed. The usefulness of such a system seemed immeasurable, although Slaton had been warned that, once operational, the system would be initially available only to the commanders of elite military units. The user network had clearly widened since then, with the CIA a card-carrying member. The intelligence community had a good argument. After the tragic overrun of the Libyan diplomatic mission in Benghazi in 2012, and attacks on the Egyptian and Yemeni embassies that same year, what station chief wouldn’t covet the ability to see what was happening in the streets and neighborhoods outside their compound?

  Now, not far from the Negev where he had first seen the software, Slaton held a phone to the sky and watched a celestial array blossom to the screen. He began scanning at a high inclination, left and right, before dropping the phone toward the western horizon. The majority of satellites not in geostationary orbit travel from west to east as viewed by observers on earth, so anything inbound in the next few minutes would appear in the western sky. Drones, of course, were another matter and could be lurking anywhere. Four options came highlighted on the screen: two were currently available, as evidenced by green tags, and a pair of amber-boxed birds would arrive within the next fifteen minutes. All were U.S. assets, cooperation with Israel having apparently reached its bounds. He also noted two hollow red tags in the margins which required “secondary clearance approval.” A new level of bureaucracy for which Slaton had no time.

  He dragged a cursor over the four solid tags, one by one, and was given detailed information on each source: satellite or drone, type of image, and whether the focal point could be slewed directly to his target as a function of user priority. These were high-cost assets, and to actually direct their operation was not without restrictions—the intelligence establishments of D.C. would never relinquish complete control.

  Something called KL-7A12 seemed the best offer. Slaton could enter any coordinates within twenty kilometers of his present position, and in the time it took to brew a cup of coffee he would receive a series of multispectral images with enough resolution to distinguish between a handheld RPG and an AK-47. Slaton could only smile, thinking, If this isn’t the Holy Grail for a field commander, it’s damned close.

  As he input his request, Slaton noted changes from the original software. The map now defaulted to his present position. All he had to do was pull the cursor a short distance to the east, and the old Wujah Al Hajar Air Base came clear in the screen. Slaton tinkered with the field of coverage, resolution requirements, and sent his request. The sat-phone initiated its electronic handshake before politely asking him to: STANDBY IMAGES.

  Two minutes later he had what he needed. Timely, accurate pictures of what was happening over the next hill. The Holy Grail indeed. The images were stills, not a live feed, and Slaton supposed bandwidth remained a stumbling block. Or perhaps continuous-stream feeds were reserved for higher level users than CIA station chiefs.

  He pushed and pinched the screen until he had what he needed. In shades of black and white, a large aircraft was parked near a runway. He saw a lone vehicle nearby—the one seen leaving Nassoor’s garage?—whose thermal signature suggested a cold engine. Slaton discerned two people, twin white stalks with extremities who were standing on the nearby tarmac. Two of the four suspects, the same picture Langley had briefed. Two pilots? A mechanic perhaps? Might there be others inside the jet?

  The most important question for Slaton remained—where was Ben-Meir?

  He drew the cursor left and right, up and down across the phone’s little screen. He ignored a herd of goats and an abandoned car, and found what he was looking for within sixty seconds—two guards, one east and one west of the adjacent valley, both roughly a kilometer from the aircraft and established in strong defensive positions. Slaton studied the images carefully before continuing his search. He found no other threats, concurring with the CIA’s estimate: four. This was the remainder of Ben-Meir’s team.

  He again studied the guards at the highest resolution. Both carried long-barrel weapons, and in the captured image one appeared to be scanning, presumably with some variant of night-vision optic. This was a serious complication. If one guard was employing night gear, Slaton had to assume the other was as well. He also allowed a comm link between the two. He had his own night scope, of course, but in terms of magnification and field of view it was not a high-quality item.

  It was a vexing tactical problem. Long shooting was a perishable skill and he had not practiced in some time, never with this weapon. Still, at a reasonable range he thought the SVDS would be accurate enough in his hands. It was not, however, sound suppressed. His first shot would alert the surviving guard, complicating a follow-up between widely spaced targets. Slaton studi
ed the geometry of the terrain, and considered whether he could move to a position from which he could quickly take both men. With two, perhaps three hours to stalk, there might be a way. He didn’t have that long. He also had to consider the pair near the aircraft. How would they react when they realized they were under attack?

  Slaton made his decision. He pocketed the phone and began to move. He would mask behind the final hill and close to within a thousand yards of the nearest guard. From that point he’d use the phone to refresh his intel one last time.

  And then?

  Then he would have critical decisions to make.

  SIXTY-TWO

  The MD-10 was under constant surveillance at Langley, multiple sources being monitored. A high-resolution satellite feed provided the next warning.

  “Sir,” said the lead analyst, “we’ve got activity.”

  Everyone watched in silence as one of the two men near the aircraft—the pilots who’d been on board since Brazil, everyone agreed—tugged a pair of large objects from underneath the landing gear.

  “What’s he doing?” Coltrane asked.

  There was a brief silence before the lone pilot in the room spoke up. “Pulling the wheel chocks,” Davis said. “They’re getting ready to leave.”

  Everyone watched the white form climb the ladder, pull it up inside the jet, and shut the entry door.

  Director Coltrane asked, “How long do we have here, Davis?”

  “The engines aren’t running. I’d say ten minutes if they’re in a hurry. More likely twenty, even twenty-five if we’re lucky. That ramp is torn to hell, so they’ll taxi cautiously. Best of all, they seem casual, which implies they don’t know we’re watching.”

  “We can’t allow them to take off,” Sorensen said. “As long as that jet is on the ground our problem is contained.”

  “Where is Donnelly’s team?” Coltrane barked.

  The rightmost monitor switched views and a blue dot blinked on a map of the coast highway. “Twenty minutes out,” a technician said, “maybe a little more.”

  “Even if they get there in time, how can they stop a jet that size?” Sorensen asked.

  “By parking on the runway,” Davis said. “There’s only one stretch of concrete and that jet needs every inch of it. You’d be putting a few cars in jeopardy, but it would do the job. Problem is, if the pilots don’t see them soon enough to successfully abort their takeoff … you end up with a two-hundred-mile-an-hour fireball.”

  “A radioactive mess,” Sorensen reasoned, “but at least it would be confined.”

  “At this point,” Davis said, “it might be the best possible outcome.” His eyes alternated between the images in front of him. “Unfortunately, I see a bigger problem with the idea.”

  “What?” Coltrane demanded.

  Davis gestured toward the blue dot representing the embassy convoy. “On the map it looks to me like there are two ways to get to this airfield. One loops around south—the old airfield access road, I’m guessing. The other is more direct—that’s how our Israeli friend made his approach, and your team is headed the same way. On a GPS map it looks good, and probably would have worked twenty years ago. But if you cross-check what the satellite is showing us—that road no longer connects to the runway.”

  All eyes in the room alternated between the competing images.

  The director deflated in his chair. “You’re right—the road weaves through the hills, but comes up two miles short at the closest point.”

  “Exactly,” Davis said. “Your team is going the wrong way.”

  * * *

  Donnelly’s convoy was speeding up the coast highway when the secure data-link chirped to announce an incoming message.

  “They’re saying we took a wrong turn,” said the Marine corporal in the passenger seat.

  “What?” Donnelly exclaimed. He leaned forward and checked their position on the GPS map. “This is the shortest route, the one the Israeli took! Langley tracked the ping on his goddamned phone … on my goddamned phone!”

  The corporal typed Donnelly’s reply minus the expletives.

  Seconds later the answer came.

  ROAD YOU ARE APPROACHING DOES NOT REACH AIRFIELD. REQUIRES THREE MILES ON FOOT. MUST HAVE LIMOS ON AIRFIELD TO BLOCK RUNWAY. DOUBLE BACK AND APPROACH FROM EAST.

  The corporal gave an estimate. “That puts us twenty-two minutes out.”

  Donnelly pounded his fist on the back of the front seat. “Do it! Go!”

  The three limos broke formation and battered their way across the median in a weaving, uncoordinated dance. A massive cloud of dust enveloped them all, and in a flurry of headlights and reflections the trailing car clipped the fender of Donnelly’s. A symphony of obscenities followed, first inside the cars and then on the tactical frequency, before the convoy began racing in the opposite direction.

  * * *

  “We’re too late,” Davis said.

  Everyone looked at the screen. The MD-10’s port engine was beginning to glow bright.

  “Your embassy team isn’t going to make it in time.”

  “What about the Israeli?” Sorensen said.

  Coltrane answered, “He’s not there yet, and whatever weapon he’s carrying isn’t enough to stop this jet. The only thing he could use to block the runway is the vehicle parked next to the airplane—he’d never reach it in time.”

  “So what the hell do we do?” Sorensen wondered aloud.

  Davis stood and scanned the leftmost display at the head of the room, a map that covered a five-hundred-mile radius. “We need an airplane,” he said.

  “What? You mean a fighter to shoot this thing down?”

  “No. At least not yet. Do you have a link to Air Force and Navy flight ops? I want to see everything we’ve got flying in the area right now.”

  A technician in the corner answered, “We don’t have a standing DOD feed, but I can access air traffic control data from the region and then filter which returns are ours.”

  “Do it!” Davis barked.

  Coltrane sent Davis a severe gaze, but apparently decided this wasn’t the time for a power trip. “What are you after?” he asked.

  “Anything that flies,” Davis said. “Right now we probably have a hundred military aircraft flying over the Middle East—fighters, tankers, helicopters. If we can find one within ten, maybe fifteen minutes of that airfield, we can divert it to land on the runway and act as a roadblock.”

  The monitors at the front of the room blinked as they began building an air traffic controller’s image of the airspace over and around Lebanon. “Give me ten, maybe twenty more seconds for the feed,” the technician said.

  “Let’s not waste it,” Davis said, glancing at Coltrane. “We need comm links set up to the Air Force and Navy, CENTCOM, whoever has operational control.”

  This time Coltrane added the emphasis. “Do it now!”

  As those lines were being run, the data arrived, a God’s-eye view of every United States military aircraft within five hundred miles of Lebanon. Within seconds every set of eyes in the Ops Center was fixed on one white square floating serenely over the Eastern Mediterranean.

  The call sign was Reach 41.

  SIXTY-THREE

  Slaton peered over the crest of the hill. The second set of HighGround images showed the guards still in place, neither having moved. The man on the western perimeter, the closer of the two, wore a heavy jacket and was backed into a rock outcropping, meaning he had a limited field of view. The man to the east was caught in the second image still looking through some kind of scope. In a minor venture of probability, Slaton decided the easternmost of the two white blobs was Zan Ben-Meir. He was about to power down the phone when a message blinked to the screen. The subject line read: CRITICAL.

  He read the rest.

  AIRCRAFT PREPARING TO TAKE OFF. DELAY IF POSSIBLE. INTERVENTION TEAM ON WAY TO AIR BASE. ETA 19 MINUTES.

  He considered a reply, but they were asking the impossible. Delay a wide-body airliner f
rom taking off? The only methods that came to mind did not fall in the category of delay. Explosives, rocket-propelled grenades—any of which would precipitate a radioactive catastrophe. Shoot out the tires? Not practical given the gun he was carrying at a range of a mile and a half—downright suicidal with two armed men ready to respond.

  No. Slaton had to deal with Ben-Meir and the other guard first, two of the remaining four conspirators. If the aircraft managed to get airborne, the Americans would simply have to deal with it.

  He sidestepped down behind the ridge, turned north, and moved quickly in the light of the low moon. The brambles were thick, but on a goat trail that ran below the ridgeline he made good time. Roughly three hundred meters from the western guard’s position Slaton crawled once more to the crest. Through the green hue of his starlight scope he scanned the surrounding area.

  It took thirty seconds, and no small amount of patience, to locate his target. He was sitting on a rock, his gun leaning against a tree five paces away. Slaton had guessed right. This was the amateur. For a full minute he searched the opposite hillside, but didn’t see Ben-Meir.

  He cursed under his breath, then settled the gun’s reticle on the amateur. He was sitting still, his knees pulled up to his chest to retain warmth. From three hundred yards with a calibrated weapon, a simple shot. Even with the gun in hand, which he’d never fired, the probability of a kill was very high. His finger hovered over the trigger, but then came off. Once he took the shot, Ben-Meir would be alerted. Slaton lowered the barrel.

  There was a better way.

  * * *

  Reach 41, a Mississippi Air National Guard C-17, was cruising smoothly at twenty-five thousand feet when a chime sounded on the secure sat-com. Lieutenant Colonel Gus Bryan stirred briefly in his bunk aft of the cockpit, but then quickly drifted off again.

  “Skipper,” came a vague voice.