Kaplan wanted to hit the compound between the hours of 0200 and 0400 local time. It was during that time period when the guards would be most vulnerable. Those early morning hours were a time when typically there was a lull in one's awareness. It would be quiet and boring. The guards' senses dulled from a lack of stimulation. Their recognition of danger would be slow and their reaction time even slower. Kaplan would have the clear advantage.
At midnight the captain woke Kaplan from another nap.
"Divers go in the water at 0100," he said. "You have until 0500 to get back on board. If you're not back, my instructions are to consider you dead. If there is a disturbance at the compound, I am to recall my divers, go dark, and leave immediately whether you have returned or not. These are my orders, Mr. Kaplan. Good luck."
"Understood, Captain. I will be back onboard by 0500 hours."
* * *
Kaplan placed his hand over his mask and regulator and took a giant stride from the dive platform into the water with the rest of the divers. The water was brisk but not cold. He took a compass heading to the designated spot on the shoreline and then descended to fifteen feet. It took him twenty-five minutes to reach shore. It was a darkened portion of the rocky shoreline free from any lights. An area of slight coastal indentation surrounded by twenty-five foot rocky cliffs.
Intel reports indicated two men typically guarded the stone perimeter wall and one sharpshooter positioned on top of the building. He located all three as soon as he surfaced. His Delta Force training kicked in as he slowly approached the shore. Using his hands, he felt for the bottom. When his hands found it, he removed his fins, looped them over his non-firing hand, and let the waves bring him to shore. If anyone were to spot him on this moonless night, he'd look like a piece of driftwood floating in the water.
The two perimeter guards were smoking and standing beneath floodlights. Who trained these idiots? Standing near lights killed night vision. There was virtually no chance either one of them could spot him before he was on top of them.
Then it would be too late.
For them.
When he reached shore, he pulled off his fins, mask, and tanks and securely stored them amongst the rocks along shore. He pulled off his wet suit and draped it over his equipment. He opened one of the two dry bags he had towed behind him. His weapons.
He made a quick weapon check. All dry, loaded, and silenced. He slipped on his boots and prepared himself for action. He looked at his watch to verify his internal clock, almost two. Check. He wanted to make his move at 0230 hours so he sat on the rocky shoreline and waited.
Kaplan focused on the sharpshooter in the tower on top of the main compound building. Take him out first, if he could. Without his night vision goggles, Kaplan could see the man's rifle perched on top of the whitewashed wall. Through his NVGs, he saw the man slumped in a chair—asleep. Kaplan was stunned at the incompetence of Çoban's men. It wasn't yet 0230, but Kaplan couldn't afford to miss this window of opportunity.
Kaplan opened his other dry bag and pulled out his sniper rifle with its night vision scope. The most critical shot was the man in the tower. If Kaplan missed or only wounded the man, the mission would be compromised. If successful, the other two targets, the men under the lights with no chance at night vision, would be simple to take out.
He lined up the crosshairs on the man in the tower, zoomed in with his night vision scope, and saw the man's head hung across the backrest leaving Kaplan with a perfect profile view. The man had a full beard and his mouth gaped open. Kaplan could see his chest expanding and contracting with each breath, the deep relaxation of slumber. Kaplan locked the crosshairs with the center of the man's cranium, took five deep breaths, and gently squeezed the trigger. A mist flew from the man's skull.
He moved quickly to the guards. He had a good angle for rapid-fire succession kill shots. He dropped the first guard. The second guard heard the man fall and turned. Before the man could react, Kaplan squeezed off another round.
Fifteen seconds, three shots, three kills.
49
Kaplan broke down his rifle and secured it in the dry bag. Later, when he returned to the boat, there could be no trace he was ever here…other than the dead bodies. If all went according to plan, even the bodies would not lead back to him.
Kaplan scaled the twenty-five foot rock wall and located the dead guards. Each fell under a light. He removed the slugs from the whitewashed exterior, dragged the dead bodies clear of the lights, and tossed them over the sea wall to the rocky beach below. With any luck, the outgoing tide would drag their bodies out to sea.
His brain retrieved the details of the architectural design of the compound from his short-term memory. Intel indicated the possibility, although unlikely, of another guard inside the compound residence so Kaplan, as usual, erred on the side of caution always assuming there was a threat around every corner and hoping there wasn't. He moved through the compound with his weapon ready, poised, and steady.
Mossad reports indicated the Sheik traveled to Cyprus with his entourage, never with his family. His wife and children remained in Lebanon. However, the Hezbollah leader was rarely alone when in Cyprus and intel speculated he had been involved in some sort of clandestine sexual affair. A practice conflicting with Islamic law.
Kaplan entered the only exterior door that was unlocked. It emptied into a mudroom of sorts, and from there, the hallway led to a great room that branched out into several adjoining bunkrooms and offices. Kaplan knew the bunkrooms held imminent danger, the remainder of Çoban's traveling entourage, including the rest of his bodyguards, all peacefully sleeping until morning.
Sheik Hakim Omar Khalil had a separate, private wing in the compound and, according to Kaplan's intel, no one was allowed to enter without permission. The leader's official business was conducted elsewhere on the compound.
The countdown timer in his head told him he still had two and a half hours.
With feline-like stealth, Kaplan negotiated his way through the compound's maze of halls and corridors. At each room, he opened the door and shot the occupants in the head with the throw-down weapon he brought with him. If his mission was to be successful, there could be no one left alive in the compound. When he reached Çoban's wing, as expected, the door to his bedroom suite was locked, but the rudimentary mechanism was easy enough for Kaplan to pick. He quickly aligned the tumblers and unlocked the door.
Çoban was not alone.
He had his lover in the bed with him and his lover was awake, covers pulled over her head. He could tell she was very petite. Slowly the covers lowered. The Sheik's lover was nothing like Kaplan had expected. She had olive skin, cropped black hair, and two brown eyes that gazed at him in fear.
Not Lebanese as expected.
Cypriot.
She glanced at him and then at the sleeping Çoban and then back to him before her eyes locked on his. He stepped forward and realized she was a child, perhaps no more than twelve or thirteen. His anger for the Hezbollah leader increased tenfold. A pedophile terrorist.
The child was trembling.
Kaplan put his finger to his lips and slowly reached for the covers to remove the girl from harm.
And then it happened.
The covers dropped.
A knife was clenched tight in the naked child's hand.
And it wasn't a girl.
It was a young boy. His body bruised from repeated beatings.
Çoban had been keeping the boy as a sex slave and forcing him to have sex.
The Sheik was guilty of an ultimate Islamic sin.
Punishable by death.
A sentence Kaplan was about to carry out.
Kaplan stepped back and motioned to the boy to move away while he kept his gun aimed at Çoban. Without warning, the boy lunged with the knife. Not at Kaplan, at the Sheik. The boy plunged the knife into Çoban's chest.
This complicated matters.
Çoban woke up in a startle. Kaplan knew the wound was not fatal
. The Sheik cried out, at first in pain, then in anger at the boy. Then he saw Kaplan with his gun pointed at his head and went silent. Kaplan lodged his gun firmly against the Sheik's forehead and pushed him back down on the bed. Kaplan took a strip of duct tape and strapped it over the Sheik's mouth. The Hezbollah leader never moved, his eyes full of terror. Kaplan restrained the Sheik's arms behind his back with flex-cuffs and then placed a rag over Çoban's face and waited for the fumes to take effect. Çoban kicked and bucked in the bed, but with his mouth taped shut, he had no way to avoid breathing the fumes and quickly succumbed.
Kaplan communicated to the boy to get dressed by pointing to the pile of the boy's clothes on a chair and nodding.
He secured a bed sheet to a post and beam rafter. Kaplan hoisted the unconscious Çoban over his shoulder and wrapped the bed sheet around the leader's neck. He lowered the Sheik until the sheet pulled taut.
Çoban snapped awake. Oxygen deprivation overpowered the mild sedative. He jerked and squirmed. The rafter squeaked under the Sheik's weight. In a little over a minute, the squirming slowed and Çoban's body went limp. Kaplan waited until the Sheik had no pulse then removed the flex-cuffs and tape and left the man hanging from the rafter. He wrapped Çoban's fingers around the handgrip of the gun, and then tossed it on top of the bed. He wiped the boy's prints from the knife and placed it in the grip of one of the dead members of Çoban's entourage.
When the investigation of the Sheik's death was completed, there would be more questions than answers.
Kaplan looked at his watch to confirm the urgency he was feeling inside. 0345 hours. One hour fifteen minutes until the boat left. He could not leave the boy. He was a witness. And he would not kill the innocent boy, which left him only one option, take the boy with him.
The boy was dressed and still trembling. Kaplan scooped the boy in his arms and carried him from the compound.
By the time they reached the cliff, descended the rocks to shore and gathered his equipment for the return swim it was already 0400 hours. It took twenty-five minutes to swim alone, now he had only one hour to swim the same distance with a child and his equipment in tow.
He kicked hard and swam as fast as he could. After thirty minutes he was breathing heavy. His legs felt like they were on fire, but he could not slow down. He was still over a quarter of a mile away when the boat flashed its underwater lights to recall the divers.
Kaplan doubled his efforts carrying the boy on his back and towing his equipment behind him. Equipment he couldn't leave behind. His orders were clear, no trace left behind. Which also meant the boy.
His internal clock said he had five minutes when he noticed there were no more divers climbing out of the water and onto the dive platform. While several men were showering on the platform, Kaplan heard the engines fire up.
Five minutes later he heard the rattling of the anchor chain as the captain retracted it from the sea bottom.
A hundred yards to go and he and the boy were surrounded by total darkness. Even though they could clearly see the boat, nobody on the boat could see them. He began to wonder how they might survive if the boat left them
As if the young boy recognized their plight, he started screaming. Seconds later the engines shut down and the spotlight from The Toymaker found them in the water.
50
Kaplan gave the captain instructions on caring for the young boy. His decision to rescue the young boy and bring him onboard was not questioned. The captain wasted no time returning to Tel Aviv.
Mossad director Eli Levine picked Kaplan up at the same dock he'd dropped him off the day before. "To a most successful trip," Levine said as he held up a glass of wine in the back of the limo. "Israel is once again in your debt. As am I." Levine bowed his head. "The captain says you rescued a young Cypriot boy from the Sheik's compound and brought him back with you. Do you think that decision wise?"
"It was never open for discussion, Director. The boy could not remain in Cyprus. Not after what he'd been through."
"Perhaps you are right. I will ensure he is taken care of."
Marla Farache was waiting inside the jet when Kaplan and Levine arrived. Once again he surrendered his weapons for the duration of the flight. This time Levine boarded the aircraft with him claiming business in DC that required his presence. Marla remained understandably indifferent toward Kaplan with her uncle onboard, a tremendous contrast from the flight yesterday from DC to Tel Aviv. Like Francesco told Tony in Lexington, no kiss and tell. It was none of Levine's business.
Immediately upon arrival at Dulles, an agency representative met Kaplan and escorted him to Langley for a debriefing. As it turned out, Çoban had extorted a CIA analyst to reveal everything he could gather on Kaplan, assignments, locations, personnel file—the works. The analyst had run up gambling debts at a casino in Atlantic City. Debts he failed to disclose to the agency as required. Çoban capitalized on the man's weakness and threatened to expose his debts unless he cooperated by providing detailed information about Kaplan and all his movements. In return, Çoban would pay off the analyst's gambling debts.
Also included in that data was the FBI's first attempt to learn Kaplan's identity when the two contract agents in Little Rock, the ones who died in the Crown Vic, called in the license plate from his Harley. Now he knew how Valkyrie was able to locate him so fast.
In the end though, it had cost them all. They had gotten their due…and that was all that mattered. Valkyrie would never see freedom again and, once tried and convicted, could very well end up with a needle in her arm. Assuming she ever saw a trial. The CIA employee who leaked information to Çoban would spend the rest of his years locked away in Fort Leavenworth for treason.
It was midnight East Coast time when Kaplan's debriefing ended, but his long day had started on eastern Mediterranean time and grew longer as he traveled west to the U.S. He was tired and ready for some rest. Right now, all he wanted was to get a good night's sleep in his own bed.
An agency car dropped him off at his Tysons Corner residence. When he got out of the car and headed up the walk he saw the man sitting on his front porch. The man made no attempt to hide his gun or his badge.
"Well, Inspector Moss, I'm surprised you haven't been arrested," Kaplan said. "Neighbors around here are kind of nosy. Big black man with a gun hanging around my house in the middle of the night might make them a little nervous."
"So I noticed. Real friendly place you got here. Already had to show my creds twice. Once to a local LEO and another time to one of your CIA boys. By the way, did you know the agency kept your house under surveillance?"
Kaplan smiled. "Yeah, I knew. I don't think I'm supposed to know, but these knuckleheads aren't very subtle. All clandestine operatives' homes are monitored…especially when we're out of town."
Kaplan pulled out his keys and unlocked the front door. He entered the code and disarmed his alarm system. "Come on in," Kaplan said as he motioned to Moss. "Since you're here, I assume you have something you want to discuss."
Moss walked through the doorway and closed the door behind him. "How did your mission go?"
"Just another day at the office." Kaplan smiled. "All right Moss, spit it out. You didn't show up on my doorstep in the middle of the night to shoot the breeze about my mission."
"Never one for chit-chat, are you? I guess your lack of tact is growing on me." Moss hesitated and then said, "Have you seen the news?"
"No, I’ve been a little busy and out of the country?"
"Something big went down today and Tony's involved."
"Doesn't surprise me, but perhaps you could elaborate unless you want me to play twenty questions."
"Still the perennial smart ass." Moss walked over to the sofa. "This might take a while." He sat down.
"Please, have a seat."
Moss just stared at him.
Kaplan pulled a chair from the dining room table and sat in it backwards, resting his arms on the backrest. "I'm all ears, Inspector."
"I
n light of Tony's breach in Little Rock, a federal judge allowed Tony to present videotaped testimony from the SSOC to a Grand Jury. Tony provided supporting documentation and everything."
"I know. I heard that was the way it was going down right before I left."
"Then Tony was immediately sent to his new relo area. Based on his testimony, the Grand Jury acted fast and issued indictments against the five major crime families in the country along with two other members of the Scalini family. Six arraignment hearings were held today. The Abruzzi family in Chicago, the Giordano family in Miami, Romano in New Jersey, Esposito and Scalini in New York, and Lombardi in Los Angeles."
"A real family affair. What's your point?"
"Point is," Moss continued and then took a deep breath. "In a well orchestrated and coordinated attempt by the D.O.J., all of the crime family bosses were hauled into federal courts across the country at the exact same time."
"All of them? At the same time?"
"The Department of Justice, in its glorious wisdom didn't want the families conferring when the first indictments were handed down so they ordered all hearings at the same time. 1:00 Eastern, 12:00 Central, and so on. That way, Justice believed the element of surprise would work in their favor."
"Did it?"
"Oh yeah. Every federal judge slapped the cuffs on the men and hauled them off to jail. All of them are being held without bond."
"And that's a bad thing? Is there a problem?"
"Tony."
"You said he was in his relo area. Which is where exactly?"
"Fort Collins, Colorado."
"And the problem is…?"
"He disappeared fifteen minutes before the hearings were scheduled to begin. Went to the bathroom and was never seen again. We have deputies looking all over for him."
"Maybe one of the bosses, or all of them, had him taken out. What makes you think he's not a victim?"
Blown Page 24