by Greg Dinallo
Shepherd set the main gear of the 50,000-pound bomber on the ground with featherlike delicacy, then dropped the nose. The plane began rocketing brakeless down the 10,000-foot runway at 160 knots. It had traveled about 1,000 feet when in an eyeblink—bump-bump-wham!—the tires rolled over the inch-thick, braided steel cable and the arrester hook snagged it. A screaming whine rose from pits on either side of the runway as the cable unspooled from immense reels connected to a centrifugal clutch that absorbed the kinetic energy and brought the plane to a stop.
Ambulances and emergency fire fighting equipment were already racing toward it, their roof flashers sending splashes of colored light across the runway, their headlights serving to illuminate the area as they encircled the bomber.
A flight surgeon and several nurses clambered aboard a hydraulic platform with their equipment. It reached cockpit level just as Shepherd popped the canopies and released Brancato’s flight harness; he was pale and unconscious.
The surgeon dove beneath the blood-spattered Plexiglas, and cut away the shoulder of his flight suit, exposing the wound. “Prepare a bag of LRs and give me two grams of Monocid,” he said; then, taking the syringe, he shot the antibiotic into Brancato’s thigh.
Shepherd assisted in lifting him from the flight couch onto a gurney on the platform. It began descending immediately. One of the nurses wrapped a blood pressure cuff around Brancato’s bicep. The other hung a 1,000 cc bag of Lactated Ringers on the gurney, uncapped the IV needle, and slipped it into a vein in his forearm.
The platform bottomed out with a gentle thump.
In one continuous motion, they rolled the gurney off the edge, across the tarmac, and into an ambulance.
Shepherd watched it speed off into the darkness; then he glanced apprehensively at the technicians swarming over his plane.
“Major Shepherd?” a voice called out.
He turned to see two men approaching; one was a master sergeant he correctly assumed was a crew chief; the other, a broad-shouldered fellow with a friendly face and lumbering stride, was an officer.
“We’ll have her patched and on the flight line ASAP, sir,” the crew chief offered. “Long as you’re okay . . .”
“I’m fine. Thanks. I’d like to call my wife.”
“There’s no need for concern, Major,” the officer replied, taking charge. “Andrews has been notified of your status. I’m sure she’s been informed,” he went on in a high-pitched voice that was poorly matched to his big frame and gregarious demeanor; then he shook Shepherd’s hand and introduced himself. “Major Applegate, military intelligence. I’ll be debriefing you.”
THAT SAME AFTERNOON in Washington, D.C., Stephanie Shepherd hurried across Independence Avenue toward the Rayburn Office Building, a banal, gargantuan edifice opposite the Capitol. She had trouble finding a parking place and was late.
Representative James Gutherie’s office was on the third floor. A nine-term congressman and ranking member of the House Intelligence and Oversight committees, he made two stops on his way to the Hill every morning: the first at Georgetown Rehabilitation Center to see his wife; the second at Holy Trinity R.C. Church on 35th Street to pray for her recovery.
Both avid skiers, the Gutheries first met on a chairlift at Killington. Twenty-five years later, the sport that had brought them together tore them apart. It was a low-speed fall, and there wasn’t a scratch on her, but his wife had been in a coma ever since.
The congressman had been a failed Catholic for years. The day the doctors said her recovery was in God’s hands, Gutherie went back to church; the day the polls revealed he had fallen behind his opponent, he began praying for two miracles.
Stephanie hurried from the elevator and down the endless corridors, long auburn hair flying behind her, turning several male heads in the process, which pleased her.
The congressman’s suite was a beehive. Phones rang incessantly. Harried staffers crisscrossed the reception area. The door to Gutherie’s office opened and a towering, ruggedly handsome man came toward her.
“Stephanie,” Jim Gutherie said, smiling. He hugged her as if they’d been close friends for years, letting his head fill with her perfume.
“Mr. Congressman, good to see you,” she replied stiffly as she disengaged. “Sorry I’m late.”
“That’s what you said the last time,” he teased.
“That’s not what I hoped you’d remember about me.” She had interviewed him during his reelection campaign two years ago, and was feeling more surprised that he had remembered than embarrassed.
“What’s somebody who can’t make deadlines doing as a reporter, anyway?”
“Beats me. The pay’s an insult, the pressure ages you, and congressmen only remember your faults.”
Gutherie broke into a hearty chuckle and showed her into his office. His opponent had been using his work on the Oversight Committee to imply he was antidefense and the congressman wanted to remind his 20,000-plus constituents who lived and worked at Andrews of his votes for military pay hikes and defense appropriations. They were halfway through the interview when his secretary reminded him of an appointment. “VFW luncheon,” he said to Stephanie with a facetious scowl. “Wouldn’t want to miss one of those.”
“It’s going to take a lot more than that this time, isn’t it?” Stephanie declared, suddenly serious, detecting he had lost his taste for battle.
“Tough one,” Gutherie admitted, lowering his guard. “I’ll have my secretary get in touch to reschedule.” He placed a hand on Stephanie’s shoulder and guided her to the door. “Maybe we can do it over lunch?” he suggested, his palm sliding to the small of her back, remaining longer than she thought appropriate.
“I’d love to, Mr. Congressman,” she said diplomatically. “But this girl hasn’t had lunch since she turned thirty and started splitting her jeans.”
Twenty minutes later Stephanie was in her brown Dodge station wagon, heading back to Andrews on I-95, when the WPTZ disc jockey interrupted Bruce Springsteen in midlyric for a news bulletin.
“Harassment of a United States Air Force F-111 bomber by Soviet interceptors resulted in a midair collision over the North Atlantic this morning,” the newsreader said. “Fortunately, both planes remained airworthy, and the F-111, on a flight from Andrews Air Force Base to Lakenheath, England, safely reached its destination. However, one member of the two-man crew was seriously injured. Their names are being withheld pending notification of next of kin.”
Stephanie’s heart raced. The media was always more efficient than the military in these matters and thoughtfully withheld the names of those involved; but the next of kin always knew. Now there were two families ridden with anxiety, instead of one. She rolled down the window, inhaled the cold air, and stepped on the gas.
SHEPHERD and Major Applegate drove the five miles from Lakenheath to 3rd Air Force Headquarters on Mildenhall RAFB, where the latter’s office was located.
“You did a hell of a job, Major,” Applegate said, after Shepherd finished briefing him on the encounter with the Soviet Forgers. “One question. How’re you feeling?”
“I’m fine,” Shepherd grunted, reflecting sadly on Brancato. “I wish I could’ve splashed the bastard.”
“Long time since combat—”
“Too long,” Shepherd replied, thinking he was one of the lucky ones; he’d seen combat, used his skills. How many highly trained and eager warriors never had? How many feared their careers would pass without a war to fight? Sure, he was proud to serve his country, to preserve peace and deter aggression; but down deep, it was far more satisfying to tackle it head on.
“The point is, the Forty-eighth’s been on alert for the last week,” Applegate said.
Shepherd looked at him, curiosity building.
“Rumor control says it’s Libya.”
“Qaddafi’s got it coming.”
“You’re on the mission roster, Major,” Applegate said. Then, testing him, because he had to know, he prompted, “Of course, after t
his, no one would fault you for wanting out.”
“All I want is a chance to do my job, sir,” Shepherd declared, his tone sharpening.
“Thought you might say that,” Applegate mused, concealing that he had his own reasons for wanting Shepherd to remain on the mission roster.
“Hard to do without a wizzo.”
“Maybe I can help,” Applegate offered, feigning compassion. “Turns out you and Captain Foster are in the same boat. His right-seater bit the dust a couple of days ago—literally. Broke an ankle sliding into home against the Eighty-first TAC. Hell of a game.”
“Well, if you need a good first baseman . . .” Shepherd offered, matching his grin.
“We need pilots,” Applegate replied, getting back to business. “We’re cutting orders to get Foster a new wizzo. We can cut yours at the same time. Be a hell of a lot easier to do now. Once you report to a new CO and his crew chief gets his paws on your one-eleven . . . Think about it. Okay?”
“I have, sir,” Shepherd said. “Count me in.”
“Good,” Applegate enthused, shaking Shepherd’s hand. He waited until he had left the office and was well down the corridor before lifting the phone.
THE MILITARY TRANSPORT that had left Andrews that afternoon for Berlin was in a commercial air corridor high over the North Atlantic when Larkin was summoned to the cockpit.
“Call for you, sir,” the flight engineer said, handing him the receiver.
“Colonel Larkin speaking.”
“Colonel?” his secretary said. “I have Major Applegate on satellite relay.”
“Dick? It’s A.G.,” Applegate said when the connection was made. “I got us a couple of one-elevens.”
“Way to go,” Larkin enthused.
“All we need is an order to deliver them.”
“I’m placing it tonight,” Larkin said, ending the call. “You still there?” he prompted his secretary.
“Yes. I have him on the other line,” she replied, having anticipated the colonel’s request.
Bill Kiley was in his limousine on his way to a meeting in the Pentagon, when Larkin’s secretary put the call through to his mobile phone; a fully secured cellular terminal, the STU-III/Dynasec was impervious to eavesdropping or intercept.
“Good work,” the DCI said when briefed on the bombers. “You talk to Moncrieff about payment?”
“Yes, sir,” Larkin replied, pleased by the praise. “He’s making the arrangements as we speak.”
6
AN OLD MERCEDES SEDAN raced along Avenue du General de Gaulle atop the palisades of West Beirut past the bombed-out hulks of hotels and high-rises that had once made the city the Riviera of the Middle East; the place where wealthy Arab women worked on topless tans and shopped for French perfume and couture while their men traded oil for tankers and tactical fighters between visits to the gaming tables at Casino du Liban.
Katifa sat behind the wheel, her hair snapping in the wind, her face aglow with the anticipation that had been building since the cable from Saddam Moncrieff arrived the previous evening. She guided the car through the sharp bend at Ras Beyrouth onto Avenue de Paris, past the British and American embassies, and parked on a promontory high above the Mediterranean.
A twisting wooden staircase led to the Bain de l’Aub, the beach at the base of the palisades.
Katifa hurried down the steps and set off across the sand with long, graceful strides. She had gone about a quarter-mile when she saw the stylishly dressed man near a rock jetty up ahead, saw his eyes tracking her, his smile growing in anticipation.
Moncrieff had spent the night at Arafat’s villa. After a three-hour flight from Tunis, he had arrived in Beirut late morning, then took a taxi from the airport.
As the Saudi watched the beautiful woman with the silken complexion and model-fine features coming across the sand toward him, he began reflecting on that day in Cambridge five years before, when he had last seen her.
They were graduate students and lovers, living together at MIT at the time. Katifa was dedicated to the Palestinian cause. Moncrieff had sworn to uphold Saudi law, which forbade members of the royal family to marry foreigners; he had also sworn another allegiance, an allegiance he couldn’t discuss. They walked the banks of the Charles on that humid Sunday afternoon, knowing it wouldn’t work, and said good-bye.
Now the Saudi took a few steps toward her and opened his arms, and Katifa ran into their embrace.
“Moncrieff,” she said, leaning back to look at him. “I still can’t believe you’re here.”
“I was concerned you wouldn’t come.”
“And if I hadn’t?” she asked with a smile.
“I would have pursued you relentlessly,” he replied with a grin; then, in a more serious tone, he added, “I would have had little choice.”
She studied him for a moment, recalling his habit of gently working a conversation to convey that something was on his mind. “This is business, isn’t it?”
Moncrieff nodded, offered her a cigarette, and took one himself, glancing about cautiously as he lit them. As he had anticipated when selecting Bain de l’Aub for the meeting, they were alone on the long stretch of sand. “I’m looking for your brother,” he finally said.
“Why?” Katifa asked, darkening.
“I have to see Abu Nidal.”
“My brother is dead,” she said, forthrightly.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“He died for our cause. He’s not to be grieved.”
“Then I’ll tend to business,” Moncrieff said, taking the opening. “This meeting with Nidal is of the utmost importance,” he began, his tone sharpening as he explained the arms-sanctuary-hostage exchange.
“What makes you think Abu Nidal has the hostages?” Katifa challenged when he had finished, concealing that, like Arafat, she thought the idea had merit.
“Does Article Seventeen ring a bell?”
“I think it might,” she replied.
They were in their last year at MIT when Katifa wrote Intifada as a tribute to her father. With eloquence and moving emotional fervor, her treatise not only called for the liberation of Palestine, but outlined a strategy to achieve it, a strategy of terror and intimidation designed to force the United States into pressuring Israel to provide a Palestinian homeland.
That summer, she left MIT and returned to Bir Zeit University, where she had done her undergraduate work. Located on Jordan’s west bank fifteen miles from Jerusalem, it was a center of PLO radicalism. When Katifa’s mentor in the political science department read Intifada, he knew his protégé had fulfilled her promise. A high-ranking PLO adviser, he brought the document to Yasser Arafat’s attention; and it was soon adopted as the PLO’s official manifesto. Intifada was more than brilliant; it was written by the daughter of a martyred leader.
Article 17, titled “Human Currency,” advocated hostage-taking and urged the creation of fictitious radical Muslim groups who would claim responsibility for the kidnappings: a tactic to cause confusion and deter rescue attempts, a tactic which the ruthless and cunning Abu Nidal had refined to an art. He had kidnapped them all; not to force the release of political prisoners, not to trade for money or arms, but to ransom Palestine.
“And if you’re wrong about Abu Nidal holding the hostages?”
“I have it on good authority that I’m not,” Moncrieff replied, quietly confident.
“State your source, Mr. Moncrieff,” she said, as if challenging one of her students.
“Chairman Arafat,” he said, playing the card.
Her eyes widened at his sagacity. “I had a professor like you once. No matter how I argued, he always had an answer.”
“You didn’t learn very much.”
“But he did.”
Moncrieff laughed. “My White House contact has to know,” he said, purposely invoking his sanction.
“He’ll have to wait until tonight.”
“I’ll be here,” he said, taking her hand.
They
walked along the surf to the staircase and climbed to the palisades where Katifa’s Mercedes was parked, then drove to her apartment on Tamar Mallat in the Al Fatwa quarter. They spent the afternoon reliving old times and drinking araki, a sweet local liqueur distilled from wine. They talked for hours before their words gave way to desire, before Moncrieff gently pressed his lips to hers. Katifa had had no interest in having a lover since her brother’s death. The self-denial served as a form of punishment and emotional insulation; but the Saudi had always been a special and reassuring presence, and she surrendered willingly.
Soon they lay naked on her bed—Katifa lanquid and adrift in the sensations that began surging through her like gentle bursts of current; Moncrieff exploring the planes of her smooth torso, tending to every square inch of copper velvet, until her flesh quivered and the first explosion broke over her; and as the second rose, he brought their glistening bodies together, timing his entrance to the instant it crested. Katifa gasped at the sudden surge in intensity, lost in the way it used to be and hadn’t been since they were last lovers.
THAT EVENING, they drove to the Turk Hospital on De Mazraa, where Katifa picked up a package at the pharmacy. Sporadic flashes of gunfire winked in the darkness as the Mercedes crossed the Green Line at the Patriarche Hoyek checkpoint, heading north on Avenue Charles Helou and up the coastal motorway to Casino du Liban.
A group of Palestinian sentries met the Mercedes at the entrance and escorted Moncrieff and Katifa down the gangway to the dock.
Hasan, the terrorist who had been her brother’s lieutenant, signaled with a flashlight that they had arrived. The throb of diesels rose as the gunboat emerged from the blackness and nosed into the slip, slowing with a noisy reversal of its engines. Armed sentries were deployed on deck. Then Abu Nidal came from below, joining Moncrieff, Katifa, and Hasan on the dock. He had been grooming Hasan to assume leadership of the casino-based group, and gestured for him to accompany them as they walked along the rows of empty slips.