The Assassins

by Oliver North

  “Were you scared?” asked the boy.

  The Marine sergeant major nodded, thinking back to the desperate engagement in April of 2003—the .50 cal. machine guns and MK 19 grenade launcher hammering away at the black-clad figures charging down the street behind volleys of RPG and AK-47 fire. He could still see Col. Peter Newman crouched down behind the fender of their damaged vehicle, firing his Benelli shotgun at the fanatics as they closed in. Skillings finally responded quietly, “Yes James, I was scared. And so was everyone with us. I know where I'm going...and why I'm going there...and I'm ready when the Lord calls me, but none of us wants to die or get hurt. It was your dad's courage that helped the rest of us to be brave.”

  The boy seemed awed by the account, and his spirits had brightened considerably. He was silent for awhile and then asked, “When do you have to go?”

  “Tomorrow,” Skillings responded. He had been informed via his D-DACT that a chopper would pick him up at Key West Naval Air Station on Wednesday, after dark. But he told James a shorter version of the truth: “I have a ride picking me up tomorrow night at the Key West Naval Base.”

  “Can we hang out together and do some more fishing until you have to go?” the boy asked Skillings.

  “Yeah...I'd like that,” the Marine said with a broad grin. “But right now, why don't we go back inside the house and surprise your mom and Elizabeth by cooking up a couple of those flounders you caught today. You do cook, don't you?”

  “Uh...not really,” the boy admitted.

  “Well, son, it's time to learn. And you'll have the pleasure of learning how to cook flounder fillet from the master. C'mon, let's go inside.”

  USS Jimmy Carter-SSN-23

  ________________________________________

  7 Nautical miles West of Bandar-E Burshehr, Iran

  Wednesday, 31 October 2007

  0055 Hours Local

  It had taken Capt. Sanford “Sandy” Heflin three hours longer than expected to locate exactly the right fiber-optic cable lying on the Persian Gulf seabed. His “Comm-Spooks”—the communications intelligence specialists in the back of his sub—had to sort through traffic on five different cable sets. They had to differentiate among offshore oil rig links, Iranian Navy comms, and even some old metal-core cable dating back to the era of the Shah. And while they were running their algorithms and parsing through their arcane data, he had other problems up in the sub's conning space.

  First, Heflin's sonar operators kept hearing “ghosts”—reflected noise off the sea floor or the nearby shore. Three times in the course of as many hours, the computers running the vessel's passive sonar mistook the underwater echoes for the slowly turning screws of one of the Iranian Navy's Russian-built Kilo class diesel-electric submarines. Then, there was the dreadful sound of something scraping by the starboard side of the Jimmy Carter's hull as the sub crept at two knots through what some feared was a minefield.

  Once the “Comm Spooks” were certain that they had located the Iran-Saudi Arabia undersea fiber-optic cable, Heflin took a fix on their position—accurate to within less than one meter—and deployed a “shot buoy” to mark the spot. As the forty-eight-inch-long metal cylinder dropped straight below the Carter and lodged in the mud beside the black-rubber-coated fiber-optic cable, a second class petty officer peering into a computer screen said, “Bingo.”

  Exactly sixty seconds later, the top of the “shot buoy” canister popped open and a small float the size of a golf ball began to ascend toward the surface, three hundred feet above. By the time the rubber sphere was bobbing on the choppy white caps of the Persian Gulf, the argon gas inside it had expanded until the float was the size of a soccer ball. Trailing below it was a tiny luminescent monofilament tether, leading back down to the canister on the sea bottom.

  Once the fiber-optic cable had been “tagged” and the tethered buoy had reached the surface, Sandy Heflin turned to Lt. Paul Van Hooser, the SEAL detachment leader, and said, “X marks the spot. It's up to you guys to cut it.”

  Heflin then ordered the Officer of the Deck to ascend and “deploy sensors.”

  The big submarine slowly rose directly over the shot canister to periscope depth and checked first for radar or other electronic emissions on the surface. When the “scanner” failed to detect anything other than an air-search radar, routine CB-frequency broadcasts, cell phones, and a government-run radio station—all of it ashore—Heflin did a careful 360-degree visual “thermal” search with the periscope. It also came up negative. Only then did he order the sub to surface—just out of the water enough for the six SEALs to scramble out of the sail onto the barely awash deck of the submarine and into their ASDS. As soon as they were sealed inside the Minnow, two of the “mother-sub” crewmen released the four clamps holding the mini-sub in place.

  As SSN-23 very slowly submerged once again to periscope depth, the mini-sub floated free. In a matter of seconds, the SEALs had engaged the Minnow's battery-powered electric motor and the tiny vessel quickly disappeared beneath the dark, choppy waters of the Persian Gulf.

  Heflin watched through the periscope as the ASDS submerged, then turned to his XO and said quietly, “Unless there is some kind of emergency, the next sound we hear should be Van Hooser's wire cutters. It's Halloween, but I've got to tell you, this is more fun than cutting Mrs. Murphy's clothesline.”

  Filaya Petroleum Building

  ________________________________________

  14 Al-Aqsa Street

  Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

  Wednesday, 31 October 2007

  0115 Hours Local

  By the time Nikolai Dubzhuko made his way back to the Filaya Petroleum facility, it was well past midnight and he was in very poor humor. His disposition was not improved when the watch officer told him that General Komulakov wanted him to call immediately on the secure-voice circuit. Dubzhuko simply threw up his hands and said, “What now?”

  “Where have you been, Nikolai?” demanded Komulakov when the connection was established. “You were supposed to have checked in over an hour ago!”

  “Where have I been?” Dubzhuko protested. “Seven hours ago you told me to go ‘check out’ our alternate Riyadh command center in the Persian Gulf Exports building over on Al Kadif Road. I just got back! We were ambushed three times by our ‘allies,’ Comrade Komulakov. Bands of young men wearing gutras over their faces and brandishing AK-47s are all over the place. You may remember Riyadh as an ornate symbol of Saudi conspicuous consumption, but that's not what it is anymore. Today it's a stinking, litter-strewn cesspool. Looted buildings are everywhere.”

  For a change, Komulakov did not react angrily to his subordinate's complaints. Instead he said, “I am glad you made it back safely, Nikolai. Tell me, what shape is the other site in now?”

  “I took eleven men in three vehicles,” said Dubzhuko. “We had to fight our way over—and coming back after dark was even worse. In addition to the American and British aircraft that are flying overhead constantly, there is much looting. The gate was still secure and only a few of the Persian Gulf Export building windows have been shot out. There is no serious damage. I checked out the generators, lights, air conditioners, the satellite communications equipment hidden in the vault on the roof, and the fiber-optic connections hidden in the basement. It won't be as comfortable as this facility, but everything works.”

  “Good,” said the general, anxious to move on to things more important to him than Dubzhuko's safety or comfort. “Now, I want you to contact the aircraft with the nuclear weapons aboard and delay its arrival in Caracas by twenty-four hours.”

  “It is impossible!” replied Dubzhuko. “The plane is already en route over the Atlantic—and it is due to land in Caracas in less than three hours. Even if we could contact the aircraft and order it to turn back, to do so would create all kinds of questions from the international authorities. Why? What is the problem?”

  “The American press organs are now full of stories about Caracas. Apparently there is some terr
orist who is wanted by the Americans who has taken refuge there. That means that they will have stepped up surveillance in Caracas—and I do not want to take a chance that they would accidentally discover the weapons while they are looking for this terrorist.”

  “Who is the terrorist?” asked Dubzhuko.

  “A man named Samuel Mubassa.”

  “Who's he?”

  “He's a petty, corrupt UN bureaucrat from Nigeria,” Komulakov replied. “I knew him years ago—and never suspected he would amount to anything. But he is now apparently in Caracas—because he's friendly with Valdez. I'm very concerned that his presence there will likely jeopardize our shipment and installation of the weapons.”

  “Comrade General,” Dubzhuko said, trying to persuade his superior. “We cannot postpone this delivery. The best we can hope to do is to see if our technicians can hold the weapons for forty-eight hours longer than we planned at the airport warehouse facility. But I remind you, Comrade General, those arrangements were made directly with Valdez by our Iranian employers.”

  “Yes, yes, Nikolai, I know all that,” Komulakov responded irritably.

  Nonetheless, Dubzhuko persisted. “Any delay is likely to cause problems for our technicians. They need time to move the weapons from the airport warehouse to the Saudi ships. Even with the aircraft, installing the weapons correctly, checking the wiring, setting the PAL codes—all of that takes time. If this man Mubassa is a problem, I can have our advance team in Caracas eliminate the problem—and the Americans will go away and we can get on with our business.”

  “Eliminate the problem?” queried Komulakov.

  “Kill him,” replied Dubzhuko. “If you like, I can have Major Argozvek—our head of security for the Caracas operation—simply kill Mubassa.”

  The “former” KGB general actually smiled though Dubzhuko couldn't see it. Komulakov then said, “You know, Nikolai, there are some days when I just really like the way you think. Your idea is brilliant. Killing Mubassa would—”

  The rest of the sentence disappeared, overwhelmed by the piercing shriek of electronic feedback as the remote control arm on the ASDS Minnow severed the Iran-Saudi Arabia undersea fiber-optic cable.

  In Riyadh, when the shrieking feedback was gone, Dubzhuko heard nothing over the now dead line, but he kept repeating, “Hello...Hello...?”

  At the Lourdes, Cuba, Signals Intelligence site, Komulakov said, “Dubzhuko…Nikolai, are you there? Can you hear me?”

  Aboard the tiny ASDS that its crew affectionately dubbed the Minnow, Lt. Paul Van Hooser turned slightly in the cramped confines of the mini-sub “cockpit” and said to his crew, “Mission accomplished.” He received a thumbs-up from the wetsuit-clad crewman standing next to him.

  Yet, Lieutenant Van Hooser could not know that by succeeding in his mission, he had helped sow the seeds of failure for another.

  STAY OF

  EXECUTION

  ___________________________________________________

  ___________________________________________________

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CJR Warehouse

  ________________________________________

  867 Avenida Maiquetia, Caracas, Venezuela

  Wednesday, 31 October 2007

  2100 Hours Local

  Come in, Roberto, the air conditioning here is better than at our hotel, ”said Newman as SFC Robert Nievos arrived at the small suite of offices attached to the 35,000-square-foot concrete-block warehouse.

  “Nice digs,” said Nievos, looking around as he entered the room. He joined Newman, Eduardo Roca, and Navy SEAL Manuel Suazo in the comfortable climate-controlled space. “I had no trouble finding it with the address you sent to my D-DACT,” added the Delta Force NCO. “My question is—how did you find it so quickly? This place looks brand new.”

  “It is,” interjected Eduardo. “You are the first tenants. Mr. Oldham said you wanted a warehouse near the water, between the airport and the city. Here we are.”

  “So how did you find this place so fast, Eduardo, and what do the initials ‘CJR’ on the sign outside stand for?” Newman asked.

  The Venezuelan, still wearing the same rumpled seersucker suit—or at least one identical to the suit he had been wearing every day since the Americans arrived—smiled and said, “This building is owned by my uncle Carlos Juan Roca—thus the initials.”

  “Well, it's perfect,” said Newman/Oldham. “Plenty of high-bay space for the equipment that will be trucked in tomorrow morning on flatbeds from the port, drive-in roll-up doors, good area for billeting our troops when they arrive, indoor plumbing...”

  “And a nice flat roof where we can set up some of our miniature satellite antennas without attracting a lot of attention,” added Suazo.

  “Robert, pull up a seat,” said Newman, gesturing to one of the folding chairs arrayed around the portable tables that Eduardo had acquired somewhere. “We were just about to review where we stand on Manny's part of the operation when you arrived. I also want to get your report on how things look at the big port at Lago de Maracaibo.”

  “Yes, sir,” replied Nievos, “but before we start, has this place been swept?”

  “Just this room,” said Newman. “Manny did it himself with his miniature scanner.”

  “Sir, if you don't mind...” began Nievos, who then turned to Eduardo and said, “Mr. Roca, if you would please excuse us, we gringos need a few minutes alone.”

  Eduardo, giving no indication of offense, shrugged and said, “Of course,” and arose immediately. As he walked toward the door he added, “I shall be outside, savoring the night air. Please just switch the ‘authorized personnel’ door light off and on a couple times and I shall return.”

  As soon as the door closed behind the Venezuelan, Nievos turned to Newman and said, “Forgive me for being rude to our host, General, but are we absolutely sure we can trust this guy? He knows everything about our plans—and is about to find out more.”

  “No apology necessary. I had the same question—and so did Manny. While you were on your trip to Lago de Maracaibo, I sent a D-DACT message to the CIA's Deputy of Operations, Bill Goode. His response was that he had entrusted Eduardo with his life in the past, and we could too.” Newman did not repeat the final words in Goode's message: Eduardo and his family are also members of the Fellowship of Believers. They live under the same sign of the icthus as Samir and Eli Yusef Habib—and are just as faithful.

  “Well that's reassuring,” said Nievos. “Shall I call him back?”

  Newman nodded and the Delta Force NCO went to the doorway and flipped the light switch off and on. A minute later, Eduardo was seated at the table with the three Americans and as engaged as though he had never left.

  By the time the meeting adjourned an hour later, the four men had a plan of action for accomplishing the dual missions they'd been assigned: carrying out the “sentence” on Samuel Mubassa and emplacing the detectors and surveillance equipment necessary to find any nuclear weapons being delivered or moved through Caracas en route to the United States.

  Suazo, the Navy SEAL sniper and one of Eduardo's cousins, had spent the day reconnoitering places that offered a “clear shot” at Samuel Mubassa. They had finally determined that the best opportunity would be on Saturday, November 3rd when Mubassa and Valdez, the Venezuelan president, arrived at the Museo de Arte España to dedicate a new display of Early Spanish and Amerindian artifacts uncovered at a dig in the Kanuku Mountains. Later that evening at a lavish dinner in his honor, Samuel Mubassa was expected to announce that his fleet of super-tankers had been contracted to carry Venezuelan crude oil to China, rather than the United States. Suazo had reserved rooms in three different hotels—all three of them offering clear shots at the various venues where Mubassa was scheduled to appear.

  “Won't the police and security people be all over those hotels while Valdez is in the area?” asked Newman.

  “Not these hotels,” answered Suazo. “The firing positions I've chosen are all more
than eight hundred meters from where Valdez and Mubassa will be in the open. The Valdez security goons—like most others—consider a ‘long shot’ being five hundred yards—six hundred at the most.” The sniper added with a smile, “That's almost too close for my Barrett.”

  Newman nodded and said. “That's good, Manny.” Then turning to Nievos, he asked, “How was the port at Lago de Maracaibo?”

  “All I can tell you, sir, if the nukes come in there by ship, we're going to have a devil of a time finding 'em,” said the Delta Force Operator. “I counted ninety-seven ships in the port and anchored out—everything from super-tankers to oil-rig service vessels to big pleasure yachts. It's one of the busiest seaports I've seen in a long time.”

  “Any good news in what you saw?” asked the Marine brigadier.

  “Yes, sir, only three major highways in and out of the port area. If the people in Washington deliver enough gamma ray/neutron particle detectors and ‘Backscatter’ equipment, we can cover these major routes. But our best hope is if the nukes are delivered through the airport up the road from right here.”

  “How about if we had a sub parked at the entrance of the Lago de Maracaibo harbor to monitor what's coming and going?” asked Newman.

  Nievos smiled and said, “That's why you're a general and I'm a sergeant first class. As long as the nukes haven't already been delivered, a sub would be perfect. Will they do that for us?”

  “Don't know until we ask,” said Newman, “but I think it's time ‘us settlers’ called in the cavalry. Everything you both have asked for is in my D-DACT. I'll transmit it on the way back to our hotel and see what they say. Anything else before we wrap up?”