Shadow Warriors: Inside the Special Forces

by Tom Clancy

  “Tigertail 603. Egypt Air 2843. Go ahead.”

  “Egypt Air 2843. Tigertail 603. Be advised you’re being escorted by two F-14s. You are to land immediately ... immediately ... at Sigonella, Sicily Over.”

  This can’t he, the Egyptian had to be thinking. “Say again. Who is calling?”

  “Roger. this is Tigertail 603. I advise you are directed to land immediately, proceed immediately to Sigonella, Sicily. You are being escorted by two interceptor aircraft. Vector 280 for Sigonella, Sicily Over.”

  “Repeat again,” the Egyptian requested.

  The E-2C complied: “You are to turn immediately to 280. Head 280 immediately.”

  The Egyptian had no choice. “Turning right, heading 280.”

  The F-14s had by then switched on their running lights, and the Egyptian had realized that they were only a few feet from each of his wingtips. “I’m saying you are too close. I’m following your orders. Don’t be too close. Please.”

  “Okay, we’ll move away a little bit,” the Hawkeye answered (he was actually a hundred miles off). And the F-14s edged away a little. It was time for a change anyway, since the F-14s were too short-ranged to escort the 737 all the way to Sigonella. Soon, these E-14s were replaced by three others, who were to take the Egyptian airliner to Sicily.

  AT Sigonella, Bill Spearman was in his office in gym shorts. He’d been playing racquetball when he got word that I needed to talk to him.

  “Bill, it’s coming,” I told him. “You arc the only one that’s going to know about it, and you’re going to make it happen. We are coming to your location with an Egyptian 737 with the terrorists aboard, followed immediately by my two C-141 s. Get hold of my people that I left there and tell them that I want the 737 to clear the runway immediately, for I will be landing blacked out seconds behind it. Tell them to block and hold that 737 and don’t let anybody off or on. When I get there I’ll take charge. Also, Bill, I want you to make sure that we are granted permission to land and that the Italians don’t try to block us.”

  Spearman then went to brief the Italian base commander, Colonel Annicchiarici. As it happened, this was Annicchiarici’s last day on the job. The next day, a lot of Italian brass would be on hand for his change-of-command ceremony, including an army three-star. Annicchiarici was not especially pleased at the going-away present that we had dropped on his lap; but it thankfully didn’t take him long to realize that his friend Bill Spearman had been as much in the dark about it as he was.

  “Beel, if you were in uniform, I would have known that you knew about this all along,” Annicchiarici told him when he learned about the Egypt Air plane, “but since you are in your shorts, I believe that you didn’t know anything about it either.”

  AT about midnight, Italian Prime Minister Craxi received a telephone call from the White House, informing him, in his words “that U.S. military aircraft had intercepted an Egyptian civil aircraft which the U.S. government believed with a reasonable degree of certainty to be carrying the four Palestinians responsible for the hijacking of the Achille Lauro. The U.S. President asked the Italian government for its consent to proceed with the landing of the civil and U.S. military aircraft at Sigonella.” They were hoping that the Italians would not want the hijackers and would get themselves off the hook by agreeing to let the Americans take them.

  And in fact, Craxi was not pleased to learn that he was on the hook. He wanted the whole terrorist situation as far from Italy as possible.

  Craxi didn’t know what to do. So he decided to punt. The Egypt Air 737 would be allowed to land at Sigonella base.

  SHORTLY after midnight, my pilot informed me that if things continued to go as planned, we’d be on the ground at Sigonella in about an hour.

  I called the Pentagon to give an update and to verify that my mission was to take the terrorists off the plane, place them in chains, and fly them back to the United States to stand trial. (I never could figure out the “bring them back in chains” part. In the first place, I didn’t have any chains except for “cargo tie-down chains” on the C-141, and I had already decided that I would put the terrorists on the plane with Captain “Bob” and his two SEAL platoons. 1 couldn’t think of anything more secure than that.)

  By this time the Chairman and the service chiefs had assembled in a small conference room in the National Military Command Center (NMCC) at the Pentagon and were listening to my radio traffic.

  Vice Admiral Moreau answered my call.

  “We should be on the ground at Sigonella in about an hour,” I told him. “The SEAL detachment that I left behind at Sigonella will set the trap and hold the plane until 1 get to it.”

  “Your mission is as stated,” Moreau replied. “And the Italian government has agreed that you can take the terrorists.”

  “Roger,” I said. “Then we shouldn’t be on the ground long. My goal is to have everything out of here before daylight.”

  Craxi’s okay did not in fact make much of a difference—except later for official purposes. Admiral Crowe had already directed Jeremiah to bring Egypt Air 2842 into Sigonella whether the Italians liked it or not.

  In any event, Craxi’s approval did not reach Italian airport approach control at Sigonella, who wanted no part of what was going down. They refused the F-14s permission to land, and told them to go to a civilian airfield nearby.

  The Navy squadron commander tried one more time, but directed the Egyptian to follow him in—permission or no. Together, they began their descent toward Sigonella. Approach control’s answer was again no.

  At this point, the commander used the old pilots’ trick. He switched his transponder to emergency mode, declared a fuel emergency (though he had plenty of fuel left), and brought the Egyptian airliner into its final approach. The trouble was, the Egyptian was coming in too low.

  The commander told the Egyptian to break off his approach, which he did. He then circled around to try again.

  Meanwhile, in the Sigonella tower, a Navy lieutenant pushed the Italian controller out of the way, took the mike, and radioed the Egyptian permission to land.

  Once the Egypt Air plane was safely on the runway, the F-14s took aerial photos of the plane and headed back to the carrier—their part of the operation now complete.

  My team took over from there.

  SIGONELLA

  As the Egypt Air plane rolled down the main runway to a taxiway at the end, where it was directed to stop, the SEALs who had remained at Sigonella raced to meet it in pickup trucks and set up a perimeter around it.

  Soon after that, my two C-141 s landed, with lights out, and stopped on the active runway where the Egypt Air had pulled off. Moments later, we added the men on the C-141 s to the SEALs already surrounding Egypt Air 2843.

  On the way to Sigonella, Captain Bob and I had been in constant contact, planning and coordinating what his SEALs had to do in order to secure the Egyptian plane and take control of the terrorists.

  One of the two team leaders, Lieutenant “Bo,” was to assemble his assault team off the tarmac behind the 737, and be prepared to assault the plane on order, should a takedown become necessary.

  Lieutenant “Randy” was to establish a security perimeter around the plane, but outside the security already being provided by the team we had previously dropped off in Sigonella.

  Bob also placed his snipers in firing positions where they could see what was happening inside the plane,

  By about 2:00 A.M., Friday, October 11, Bob and I had established our command post under the tail of the plane. When I looked, I could see lights on inside and a couple people walking around.

  Bob and I went to the nose of the 737 and plugged into the intercom jack. I identified myself and asked the pilot who he had on board. IIe did not answer.

  “If you don’t cooperate, we’ll find out one way or another,” I told him.

  That brought an answer. “I have my crew and an ‘ambassador’ on board,” the pilot said, leaving open the possibility that there may be additi
onal people on the plane.

  “Then come down off the plane,” I told him. “And bring the ambassador with you.”

  Before they opened the door, Bob told me that his snipers were reporting armed men in uniform. “No sweat, boss,” he told me. “They’ve got them in their sights.”

  The door opened and the pilot, followed by the “ambassador,” came down the ladder. They were both very nervous, particularly the “ambassador.” They got even more nervous when they saw the SEAL shooters, all in black combat gear and equipped for business.

  I was very suspicious of the “ambassador.” Although he was dressed in a business suit, I figured him for a general officer, perhaps from the Egyptian Intelligence Service, who had been sent along to ensure that everything went right in Tunisia.

  When I met him, the “ambassador” produced an authentic-looking diplomatic passport and a letter claiming he was an authorized representative of the Egyptian government.

  “My orders are to take the terrorists off the plane and fly them back to the U.S. to stand trial for killing Leon Klinghoffcr,” T told him.

  This seemed to make him even more nervous, and he asked if anybody had an aspirin.

  “We can handle that,” I said.

  In the air on the way to Sigonella, I’d felt a headache coming on. By then it was October 11, and none of us had had more than a couple of hours sleep since October 7. When I’d asked our team doctor for a couple of aspirin, Darrel had stuffed what felt like a handfull of aspirin into my pocket.

  I accommodated the ambassador with about half of what I had, and he gulped down several of them. He then asked for a cigarette, and one of my radio operators satisfied that request. At that point he wanted to make an urgent telephone call. I told him we would escort him over to base operations (Bill Spearman’s operations center) and assist him with his call.

  As he was escorted to the operations center, I sent one of my intelligence officers along with a couple of our people to tap the phone. They were to stay with him as long as necessary, and keep me posted on what they were hearing.

  The person he needed to talk to so urgently, as it turned out, was Abdel Meguid, the Egyptian Foreign Minister, to whom he described the terrible situation he was in and asked for guidance.

  “You’ll just have to sort things out as best you can,” he was told, “until a decision about what to do can be reached.”

  He stayed on the phone most of the day with various people back in Egypt—remaining very concerned about the uncertainty of the predicament they were in. But he was even more worried about the consequences that could result from the high-level passengers they had on board (who weren’t identified at this point, but it was clear he wasn’t talking about the terrorists).

  The intelligence information from his conversations was relayed to me, and proved very useful later.

  ONCE we had the pilot and the ambassador off the plane, I decided to go aboard myself, accompanied by SEAL Lieutenant Commander “Pat,” and see who was on it.

  Inside, the plane had been configured in a VIP executive mode, with three “working tables.” At one table on the far side of the plane sat the four terrorists, unarmed and easy to identify. Three of them appeared to be in their twenties, and one looked to be a little younger. Next to them at another table sat eight to ten members of Egypt’s counterterrorist force (Force 777), all of them in uniform and all armed with automatic pistols. At another table on the right sat two men in civilian clothes—evidently big shots. One was very Arab in appearance and very tough-looking. The other was younger, redheaded and freckle-faced, and resembled no ethnic group in the region that was familiar to me. There also were the copilot, the navigator, and about four other crew members.

  Although they were armed, I did not consider the 777 guards to be a threat. As it happened, we had trained the 777 Force a few years back, but we knew they had not kept up their proficiency, and now they found themselves at the mercy of those who had trained them—the best in the world. And they knew it.

  After we had looked around, Pat and I left the plane.

  Back at my command post beneath the tail of the plane, I was joined by Colonel “Frank” and several members of the battle staff who would add their brains and experience to mine. Bob also positioned his executive officer, Commander “Tom,” with “Frank.” Those two were capable of handling anything.

  Meanwhile, Bob was firmly in command of security. I told Frank to manage the door and keep an eye on those still inside the plane.

  About fifteen minutes after we landed and took control of the plane, Italian troops of all kinds began showing up and taking up positions outside of our positions—Army troops, Carabinieri (police), and even young green conscripts with World War II weapons (the same bunch had recently been in Bill Spearman’s motor pool, shooting at birds). The whole affair was kind of comical. They were showing up in anything available to carry them—pickup trucks, motor bikes, cars, and even three-wheeled construction carts with five or six guys in their dump buckets.

  The sudden appearance of armed American forces taking over part of his base had so astonished Colonel Annicchiarici, that he’d decided he had to do something. He immediately ordered his own troops into action.

  About the same time, a couple Italian officers showed up and tried to board the plane, to see who was on it, but were turned away by Frank and Tom.

  So this was the situation not too long after midnight on Friday, October 11:

  We had the plane surrounded with two rings of about eighty to ninety heavily armed shooters and snipers positioned at strategic locations. However, the outer ring of our security was now directly facing the Italians—eyeball to eyeball. Though I figured they had us outnumbered by about three to one, I wasn’t worried about them taking us on. They knew better than that. However, I was concerned that something unanticipated, like a vehicle backfiring, could cause one of their young, jumpy troops to open fire. If that happened, several people would die, mainly Italians.

  About this time, Bill Spearman showed up at the plane with Colonel Annicchiarici, followed soon after that by an Italian Army three-star (whose name I do not recall), who had come to officiate at the change of command. As it soon turned out, we were lucky to have the three-star there. He was friendly and intelligent, and did what he could to help the two sides—his and ours—navigate a difficult situation. Over the next twenty-four hours, the two of us came to work closely together to sort out this complex situation.

  After we’d been introduced, I explained our mission and my understanding of the Italian government’s position—that is, that they had agreed to turn the terrorists over to us.

  “If it were up to me,” he replied, “I would give them to you in a minute. But I have received no word to this effect, and you must understand where that leaves me.”

  “Maybe the word just hadn’t gotten down to you yet,” I told him. “How about you going back up the tape to check, while I check with my ambassador in Rome?”

  He agreed.

  I contacted my liasion officer and told him to get Ambassador Rabb on the horn. When Ambassador Rabb came on the radio five minutes later, I explained that we had forced the Egyptian airliner down at Sigonella with the four terrorists on board and that my orders were to take the terrorists and fly them back to the States to stand trial, and it was my understanding that the Italian government had agreed to turn them over to me.

  “You’ve done what?” he blurted, taken aback. I could tell from his reaction that he didn’t know anything about any part of this. But he said he

  About fifteen minutes later, the Italian lieutenant general returned. “I have gone all the way back to the Minister of Defense,” he said, “and no one knows about any such agreement.

  “You must understand,” he added, “that it was an Italian ship that was hijacked, and this is Italian soil, with Italian jurisdiction. And we just can’t afford to turn them over.”

  “Let me check with Washington to see if there is a
misunderstanding.”

  Still standing by the plane, with the Italian three-star close by, I made another call to the Pentagon. I don’t recall who answered, but it sounded like Admiral Moreau, and I knew that all the chiefs were listening.

  “I want to bring you up to speed and to reverify my mission,” I said. “Here is the situation: We have the plane. I have verified that the four terrorists are on board, along with eight to ten armed guards from the 777 Force, which I do not consider a threat. Also there are two other men, one a tough-looking Arab in his mid-forties, who has to be important, and a younger redheaded, freckled-face guy sitting at a table with him. We have not been able to identify these two. I have already taken the pilot off the plane, along with another individual who claims to be an ambassador. He is now calling back to Egypt and we are monitoring his phone conversations. Mostly he is requesting guidance to deal with the terrible situation they have ended up in.

  “The Italian base commander here at Sigonella felt that he had to react,” I continued. “I think more to save face than anything else. In my estimation, they have positioned about three hundred or so troops in a perimeter around us. We are eyeball to eyeball. I have an Italian three-star with me. He has called all the way back to his Ministry of Defense and can find no one with any knowledge of an agreement to turn over the terrorists to us. I have also talked to Ambassador Rabb, and he has no knowledge of such an agreement.

  “I am not worried about our situation. We have the firepower to prevail. But I am concerned about the immaturity of the Italian troops, some of whom arc green conscripts, as well as the absence of anybody with the ability to control them in this tense situation. A backfire from a motorbike or construction cart could precipitate a shooting incident that could lead to a lot of Italian casualties. And I don’t believe that our beef is with our ally, the Italians, but rather with the terrorists.