He looked around for a thin piece of metal he could insert into the lock but saw nothing of use, just several computer screens on the floor and an old desk against the back wall. It was dark in the back of their mini bowling alley prison and Steve got down on his knees. He pulled the top drawer open. It was the main residence for a colony of insects. He looked inside a larger and lower drawer. He couldn’t quite see anything distinctly and he put his hand inside. He pulled on pliers, a hammer, and several sizes of wrenches, but nothing thin enough to pick the lock.
Now armed with a handful of tools, he sat on the floor, and took the back off one of the computer screens. He pulled wires out where he could see them. With a pair of cutting pliers, he detached a long wire, at the end of which was a stiff and thin piece of metal. He cut it off. He took a pair of long nosed pliers and inserted one end into the bottom of the lock with one hand. With the other, he introduced the metallic pick in the lock and tried to feel the pins inside. He counted four.
Kella came up behind him.
“Do you actually know what you’re doing?”
“You pick up very peculiar pieces of trivia growing up in the house of an intelligence officer. So, yes, I’m trying to lift the pins out of the cylinder. The pressure I’m putting on the cylinder with the plier keeps the pins up after I lift them up. When all the pins are up, the cylinder should turn.”
The long-nosed plier moved a bit and then all the way. The lock had given up.
“Voilà!”
He put his right hand up in a flourish. Then he pushed the lever handle down slowly and, with Kella peering around him, he opened the door.
***
Immediately after leaving Habib, al Khalil went up to the ground floor to check on their situation and see how close the Israeli commandos were getting. He had also gone upstairs to call Salim on his satellite phone. He reached him in Cairo on his way to a meeting of the Brotherhood. He gave him a short version of what was happening.
“I want you to hold a press conference as soon as possible. You’re on your way to Ikhwan headquarters? Great, schedule it there. But do it within the hour, within the half hour if you can. Say that you have news of the takeover in Israel.”
An angry Salim replied, “I’m surprised that you chose a target in the middle of Israel. I didn’t know you to have a death wish, to want to die a shaheed, a martyr.”
“This is the most important blow struck against the Zionists, ever. This is historical!”
Al Khalil quickly brought him up to date on his takedown of the Israeli military installation masquerading as an agricultural research center.
“Salim, this is your hour. Everything depends on our credibility. Alert the brothers to set up security around the press conference. The police may try to shut you down, or worse.”
***
General Joulet was in his Paris office when an aide walked in with a message, saying, “This is urgent, mon Générale.”
The message was an intercepted conversation from al Khalil’s phone. He immediately called the Mossad representative in Paris and told him, “We have information concerning an ongoing hostage situation in Israel. Since one of the hostages is my adopted granddaughter, I have a personal interest. The leader of the group responsible is al Khalil. I’m sure you have as much information on him as we do. I don’t understand this part about Israeli space lasers that your al Khalil now controls. I’d like you to ask your headquarters and get back to me. I need to brief the Elysée Palace quickly.”
Joulet then called his daughter Alexandra, wife of the American ambassador to Israel, angry that he had to learn of Kella’s kidnapping from intelligence sources. He then ordered that the entire CIMETERRE case be reviewed by the Inspector General’s office, and that the responsible case officer, Captain Lucien Roger, be investigated and punished for incompetence or lack of integrity or even treason.
13:15
Salim stood on a raised platform at one end of a large room lined with forty rows of chairs. The room was half-full but filling quickly. He stood behind a podium with his notes in front of him. When the room was quiet enough to speak, he began.
“I bear witness that there is no God but Allah, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His slave and messenger. Muslim brothers of the world, peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah and His blessings. I bring you an important message from Tariq al Khalil.”
After receiving his orders, Salim had tried to reach David Ben Tov but had not succeeded. He was holding his news conference in the Muslim Brotherhood center in Cairo. Not all of the city’s media representatives were present; he had given them only forty-five-minutes’ warning. However, many Egyptian correspondents were present, especially those of a radical Muslim slant who were more likely to respond to a call from the Brotherhood. Al Jazeera was there, he noted with satisfaction, and would spread Tariq’s message worldwide.
“Today is a great day for Islam,” Salim continued. “Thanks to the inspiration and guidance of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful, Islam has started to re-conquer the lands of the Caliphate. Our son and the right hand of Allah on earth, Tariq al Khalil, may Allah continue to favor him, has taken by force of arms an important military center in the heart of Palestine. On his behalf, I address this message to the chiefs of state who have brought their countries back to the pagan era preceding Allah’s revelation to the Prophet, may Allah favor him.”
Salim picked up a sheet of paper from the podium. He moved to the forward edge of the platform and raised his voice to mitigate the absence of the microphone.
“To you, false leaders, Tariq al Khalil says,” ‘Every day you are insulting Allah, the Merciful, the Almighty. You are blasphemers. You are worshippers of idols. You should be cleansed from the face of this earth. However, I, Tariq al Khalil, am offering you redemption. Instead of sacrificing you immediately on the altar to Allah, as I now have the power to do, thanks to Allah—Exalted is He—I am giving you 24 hours, 24 hours to hand over power to the Ikhwan, or to the Salafists in your countries.
‘To my Ikhwan Brothers, I say, this is the day when we begin the recreation of the Caliphate of old, when we establish Allah’s law on earth, Sharia law, to replace the man-made substitutes. This is the day when we begin to retake our land, the land of the Two Holy Places.
‘Who shall rule? Those with the most votes? Those with the most effective and repressive control of the citizens? Or Sharia, Divine Law?
‘I will not talk of the swift punishment that is to befall the enemies of our faith. I will soon exhibit a small sample of the punishment I will mete out to the infidel, corrupt, apostate rulers of our Caliphate lands, from Andalusia to Indonesia, unless they bow to the will of Allah, Lord of the Universe. In His service, my scimitar is sharp and ready for battle.
‘To the brothers in Algeria who now call themselves Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the guards of Islam’s western garrison, and to the other grandsons of Salahdin, today we are restoring the glory of your forefathers.
‘I repeat: 24 hours. Woe to those who do not take heed. The second strike will be geometrically more powerful. This is as the Battle of Badr was in predicting the success of the Prophet.
‘May Peace be upon you and the Mercy of Allah and His blessings’.”
***
Steve and Kella stepped out of their cell into a dark space. They put their hands out and moved forward carefully. He realized they were in another office in the back of the large map of the Middle East. The door to their closet-cell guarded by Abdul was on the back wall and to the right of the map. He determined they were in an executive area from which the map could be activated and changed. There were two large desks and two doors.
Still in the dark, Steve and Kella explored the corridor onto which the doors opened. To the left, they found stairs heading up to the right. At the top of the stairs was a vaulted door much like the one they had seen at the top of the other stairwell. They went back downstairs.
“This must be another way to come down,
and al Khalil must not have found it,” Steve said. “Either that or he has a guard on the other side of the door.”
They had been out about fifteen minutes when Kella said, “Don’t you think we should go back, in case someone comes looking for us?”
“I hope the only one looking for us is Izem. We have a way out, but it’s useless without weapons.”
***
As Salim spoke to the media in Cairo, in Israel, al Khalil gave Habib his orders.
“Can you operate this weapon without the Jew scientists? With or without them, you will target Tehran. I want to strike the buildings that house the Supreme Council and the office of the president, but not the whole city. Then I want a similar strike on the Algerian Government. Our Algerian brothers have been fighting and dying for many years. They have earned this help.
“Algiers and Tehran are lucky. They will receive only a warning shot. The laser should not be on full power this time. But next time, tomorrow, for the leaders who do not heed the warning, their populations will suffer grievously. We’re not going to burn Tel Aviv yet. We want to lull them into inactivity. I want them to think that we’re only interested in striking Iran and some Arab capitals. If they believe it’s our plan, the Jews will leave us alone for a while.
“We’re doing what they never had the guts to do. Plus, I’m sure the Americans are telling the Jews not to attack because of the two Americans we’re holding. We want to delay an Israeli attack as long as possible so that we can finish our work here. We’ll incinerate Tel Aviv later. Go do this now.”
***
Izem tried to rally the small group of Tuaregs. There were seven left, not counting him. It was difficult to have private conversations with any of them. Some were upstairs guarding the entry points of the building. Others were downstairs guarding the prisoners, the Israeli scientists and the two Americans.
He rounded up two from a Timbuktu tribe he knew well and brought them to the room where Steve and Kella had been kept.
“This is Kella, the ranking descendant of the leadership of our Udalan clan, which as you know is one of the seven big Tuareg clans. We are all Udalans. We first fought the Arabs when they invaded and made us Muslims; we fought the French who tried to teach us that our ancestors were Gauls. Now we must fight these Salafists, the latest invaders. It is our duty to follow Kella. We owe her allegiance.”
The two young Tuaregs looked at Kella and then at Izem with puzzled expressions.
“This is just an American girl, an unbeliever. Al Khalil told us about western girls, all prostitutes. Why do we owe her allegiance?” they asked Izem in their native Tamasheq.
Then Kella spoke up, also in Tamasheq.
“Because I am Tuareg, and this proves my authority.”
She showed them the gold bracelet with the geometric-type Tamasheq script, which had been in her family for generations as a symbol of tribal leadership.
Izem told them, “Look closer; see the Tuareg inscriptions?”
The young fighters stepped closer, looking shocked that Kella had understood them and could speak their tribal language. One also attracted the other’s attention to the four dots on the back of Kella’s hand. By their hushed whispers and looks of awe, Izem could tell that the design had obvious significance to them.
The two men inspected the bracelet as Kella extended her arm. They looked at each other in confusion and indecision. Then one lowered his head and, in Tamasheq, asked, “What is your order, Amenokal?” The other likewise bowed in submission.
Izem spoke up. “She wants to speak to all of the Tuaregs in here now. We want all of our tribesmen to act together.”
Steve held Izem back. “Izem, you can’t keep going back and forth like this. Al Khalil is going to notice. We need weapons, fast!”
“You will have them.”
As soon as Izem left, Steve went for the back door.
“Stay here,” he told Kella. “I need to find out what’s down the other side of that back corridor. Shouldn’t take long.”
“Be careful,” she said.
***
Steve could go faster this time knowing that Hussein’s men had not yet discovered the back corridor. Nevertheless, he assumed that they would find it in time. He made a right turn into the passage, past the back wall of their cell, to another door about thirty feet away.
In the dark, he felt another doorway and carefully groped for the handle. He turned the knob slowly and pushed the door open. He stepped into another dark space, closed the door behind him, and stood for a couple of seconds trying to sense his surroundings before stepping forward.
He found a light switch and flicked it up to find himself faced with an emergency generator and on the left side of the door, cases of water, and canned food. The Israelis, he thought, were ready for a siege. But they had been overly reliant on cover and concealment. Why didn’t they have a stronger armed security group to defend their installation?
He turned the light off and went back to the corridor. He again turned to the right. Another twenty feet or so and he found yet another narrow corridor, to the right. He followed it and reached the corridor that originally had led from the front stairwell to the large computer and map room. He turned left and reached a vault door with a pad for digital identification.
A vault within a vault. What could behind this barrier?
Steve turned around and made his way back to the supply room. He was loading a cardboard box when a tremendous explosion suddenly increased the air pressure against his eardrums several fold.
He was immobilized for a second and then grabbed his box, turned out the light, and turned left into the corridor to get back to his cell. He heard footsteps and voices coming toward him in the dark and saw the beam of a flashlight at the far end of the hall.
His one chance was to go forward and slip into the room behind the map. He kept moving quickly in the dark toward the sounds. He entered the office in back of the large electronic wall map just as the light reached the bottom of the stairs. He closed the door behind him and found the back door to his cell.
Kella came up to him and put her arms around him.
“What was that noise?”
Steve put the box down under the back desk. “I think they found the door to the back stairs and blew it open. There goes our escape route.”
“Are you all right? What do you have in the box?”
She leaned down to look before Steve could reply.
“Wow! Water! And Spam! Spam?
“Yes. I found the crisis supply room. There were kosher and non-kosher varieties. You’re not Jewish are you? And a couple of flashlights.”
Kella pulled out a bottle of water and gave Steve another one.
“Look, Abdul brought these,” she said, pointing to two AK-47s lying under the desk.
Steve reached for one of the weapons.
“Abdul?”
“Yes, Izem told him. Abdul has switched sides.”
“Or, he’s playing both sides.”
***
The Shaldag team kept firing at the building’s openings at random to keep the tension high and prevent the terrorists from getting any rest. While Avidan and his men had access to food and could rest on a rotating basis, Hussein’s fighters had to be ready for an attack at any time. They had found fast food and soda machines in the building and were not without sustenance. But they had had not slept the night before. They soon would be fighting their bodies to stay functional, alert, and effective.
The TIBAM team delivered the classified plans of the building to Avidan, who became furious. Speaking to General Shomron on his cell network, he said, “General, you sent me on a mission with bad information. The plans the TIBAM gave me were false, showing a one-level interior. Now I have the classified blueprints showing me that the terrorists are in a subterranean complex with offices, labs, and our country’s secret weapon.”
“That’s because your mission has changed,” Shomron answered, “from liberating the hostages and k
illing the terrorists to disabling the laser.”
“What’s the difference? I have to go through the terrorists to get at the weapon, right?”
“No. Look at the TIBEAM information. You’ll see there’s a sliding roof. For the weapon to become operational, the roof has to slide open. When it does, that’s your chance to get into the installation. But, keep in mind that, when they open the roof, it means they are ready to fire. We have to hope that, since it’s their first time, there will be pauses as they try to figure out the next step.”
***
Hussein was busy organizing his few fighters on the ground level and keeping an eye on the Israeli commandos surrounding the building. Not unexpected, they hadn’t assaulted his positions yet. Obviously, the Israeli government put a high price on the value of the American hostages, especially the ambassador’s daughter. But that didn’t totally explain the Israeli forces’ relative lack of activity. He left his post to go speak with al Khalil.
They met near the top of the stairs. Al Khalil arrived with an AK-47 in his hand.
“Give me an update. How are the Israelis positioned?”
Hussein leaned on the railing, one hand holding his gun slung around his neck.
“They are firing to keep us busy, but they have not attacked. I don’t know what they are waiting for; it must be our hostages. Are you negotiating with them?”
“I am keeping them at bay for the moment. Within hours, we will have the entire Middle East in our hands.”
He told Hussein about the laser gun and his plan to fire it as a show of force against Algiers and Tehran. Hussein let go of the railing and looked down at al Khalil a step below.
“This is our chance to finally get rid of the Assad family. This is what I have been waiting for all this time, to revenge my family, my father.”
Al Khalil took a step up.
“Don’t worry. Damascus will be in the second phase.”
In angry outburst, Hussein said, “Damascus! Damascus! That should be our first target. Kill the Assads! Kill those who killed my family.”
The Caliphate Page 33