The Assassins

by Oliver North

  “Si, señor Oldham,” said Eduardo. “Tomorrow is going to be a very busy day. First, the containers of equipment that you ordered will clear customs tonight and be delivered here very early tomorrow morning on flatbed trucks from the container-port, escorted by one of my very reliable associates. Does one of you wish to be here to supervise?”

  “I should stay here for that,” said Nievos. “Who's escorting the shipment?”

  “Edgar, one of my sons,” answered Eduardo as though it was the most natural thing in the world to have a son putting his life at risk to help the Americans. He then continued, “If I understood everything correctly, several more of your colleagues will also be arriving here on flights into the airport tomorrow. I can arrange to have them discreetly picked up at the airport and brought here if you wish.”

  “They are coming on many different flights,” said Newman. “How would you do that?”

  “Just tell your men to go to the sign that says ‘Valet Car Service’ outside the ‘Arrivals’ level and look for the white Chevrolet vans with the number seven on the side. The drivers will only pick up people who say that they are with Petro-Research. When the driver asks who they work for, they must say ‘Peter Oldham,’ or they will not get picked up. It is only a ten-minute trip from here.”

  “OK, who are these drivers?” asked Newman.

  “My sons Emilio and Estaban,” responded Eduardo. “It also occurs to me,” said the Venezuelan, “that by tomorrow night you will have many men here. I'm sure you have thought of this, but would you like to have folding cots delivered and plywood partitions erected in part of the warehouse space for their billeting?”

  “That would make things a whole lot more comfortable for the troops,” injected Suazo.

  “Very well, I will have my son Enrique take care of that. Now, what are they going to eat?”

  “MREs—Meals Ready to Eat. We have military rations in the containers that arrive early tomorrow morning,” explained Newman, amazed at Eduardo's logistical acumen.

  “Ahh, señor Oldham, I am sure that these MREs—as you call them—are very good, but wouldn't your men rather have real food, prepared by magnificent cooks?”

  “And who would prepare all these meals, Eduardo?” asked Newman with a faint smile.

  “Why, my two very talented and devoted daughters, Esther and Emelda,” said Eduardo, proudly.

  “Very well,” said Newman, agreeing to the arrangements. As Newman and Suazo prepared to leave, Eduardo walked them to the door, saying, “If you will ride with Manuel, Mr. Oldham, I shall stay here to show Roberto around.”

  As Suazo went to get the car, Newman stood beside the man in the rumpled seersucker suit and said, “Level with me, Eduardo. What's your motive for doing all this? I've already seen your expense reports. You're only charging for your actual costs, so you're not doing it for the money.”

  The diminutive man in the shabby suit peered directly at Newman through the thick lenses of his glasses and said, “No, it is not for the money, señor Oldham. My family was originally from Cuba. My father fought with The Brigade against Castro. He was captured at the Bay of Pigs. After he got out of Castro's prison, he took our family to Nicaragua. Somoza threw him into jail in 1978, and when the Sandinistas came to power, they also imprisoned him. He later fought with the Nicaraguan resistance. I served in his column. When he was badly wounded in Nuevo Segovia, I carried him on my back to Honduras where an American Army doctor saved his life. We then moved here to Venezuela. Now once again, tyranny threatens my family—this time from the despot, Valdez.”

  Newman nodded, “Your family has suffered a lot, Eduardo.”

  “My father taught his children—as I have taught mine—that America is the greatest, freest country on earth. America is now threatened—and so is Venezuela. My hope is that we can help each other during this time of great peril.”

  As the two men stood by the door, Eduardo held up a tiny metal fish between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand and said, “I understand you have one of these too, Mr. Oldham.”

  Newman reached into his pocket and held out an identical silver icthus, symbol of the ancient church. Eduardo nodded and said, “Muy bien. Buenos noches, señor Oldham. Vaya con Dios.”

  Simon Bolivar International Airport

  ________________________________________

  Caracas, Venezuela

  Thursday, 01 November 2007

  0015 Hours Local

  The Airbus 320 with “Air France Air Cargo” emblazoned on its sides made a perfect landing on runway Two-Four-Left. When it reached the last high-speed taxiway, it turned left and rolled to the military area on the south side of the airport. A blue Toyota van with flashing lights raced out to the taxiway, circled in front of the Airbus, and signaled the pilot to follow him between rows of brand new twin-engine, MiG-29 and SU-34 MKI, dual-role, all-weather jet aircraft—the best export models made in the Russian Federation.

  The van led the “cargo” aircraft to a gentle stop—not at the airfreight terminal, but in front of one of the largest hangars at the airport. A nine-foot chain-link fence with coils of razor wire at the top surrounded the rear and sides of the facility, and signs every fifty yards warned, Ninguna violatión— “No Trespassing.” Painted over the doorway of the hangar was the new symbol of the Venezuelan Air Force—a Blue Falcon atop a gold-bordered, red star. But below this was inscribed, Fuerza-De la Defensa De Bolivaria—Bolivarian Defense Force—the “Regional Military Alliance” that Horatio Valdez had created with Fidel Castro's encouragement as a means of “confronting the imperialist aggressors.”

  As soon as the Russian pilot “chopped” the engines on the Airbus, men wearing Venezuelan Air Force uniforms hooked a “tug” to the front landing gear assembly while others opened the large hangar doors at the nose of the aircraft. When the doors rolled wide enough for the wings to clear, the plane was towed into the cavernous building.

  Less than ten minutes after touching down, the Airbus was inside the hangar and the doors were again closed. Outside on the tarmac, six armed men were posted in front of the huge rolling doors. A dozen more patrolled the chain-link enclosure.

  Inside, a rolling stairway was pushed up beside the forward hatch on the left side of the Airbus, and a tall, well-built man with close-cropped, light brown hair and fair skin mounted the steps, pushed the handle release, and opened the hatch. Standing just inside the aircraft portal were two armed men, both with folding stock AKM submachine guns at the ready.

  Instead of reacting with anxiety or anger at the sight of the weapons, Maj. Gregor Argozvek, formerly of the Russian Military Intelligence Service—the GRU, stepped into the aircraft and waved dismissively at the armed men. Speaking in Russian he said, “You would shoot your commander? Lower your weapons.”

  They complied instantly and the major then spoke to the balding, heavyset individual standing behind the armed men. “So, Doctor Zhdanov, you are finally here.”

  “Yes,” the older man replied.

  “I hope you brought your ten toys and your hired help,” said Argozvek. “We have work to do.”

  The older man nodded and said, “Everything is in order. Do you want to remove them now? I was hoping we would not have to start until tomorrow. We have been traveling for too long. I do not want my technicians working with these devices until they have had some rest.”

  “All of that has been arranged, Doctor,” Argozvek replied. “One of my men is at the bottom of the stairs. He will take you and your ‘specialists’ to a van, which will drive you to your billet—the officer's quarters, over there...” he said, pointing toward the east. “You will rest there until morning. At noon you and I will sit down and work out a schedule for installing the devices in their carriers.” Then the agile Russian officer leaned forward toward the physicist's face, sniffed once, and said in a quiet snarl, “Have you been drinking, Oleg Zhdanov?”

  The scientist shrugged and looked at the major through bloodshot eyes and said, “
Just a little vodka. It helps my airsickness.”

  Argozvek leaned forward and whispered in his ear, “No more vodka, Zhdanov. That is why you lost your job at the Zlatoust 36 research facility in Trekhgorny. This job is your only future. If you aren't sober by noon tomorrow, you not only will not be paid; I will kill you myself.”

  The Russian scientist swallowed hard and stepped back, staring in silence at the grim-faced officer. It was not the prospect of being shot that penetrated his alcoholic haze—it was the possibility of not getting paid. He and the young woman he had taken as his mistress had already made plans for how to spend the two million U.S. dollars he was getting for this job. Zhdanov finally said, “I will be ready for work in the morning. What will you do with the devices tonight? They are in the baggage compartment, directly below our feet.”

  “They are in their shipping containers, yes?” asked Argozvek.

  “Of course,” answered Zhdanov, “and our tools and test equipment are all packed with them.”

  “Good,” said the Russian major. “My men will take care of removing the weapons and the equipment. One of my men is a former artillery officer—and two of your assistants are already here. They will supervise the offload. We will store the weapons here until they are installed in the planes and ships that will carry them to their destinations.”

  “Yes, yes,” said the scientist.

  Argozvek continued, “Make sure you take all your personal effects with you. This airplane will be leaving as soon as everything is out of it. Tomorrow, the ‘carrier’ planes will start to arrive. We will bring them one at a time into this hangar so that you and your technicians can install the devices in them. After you have finished with the planes, we shall take the remaining weapons to the port and install them in the ships that will carry them to their targets.”

  “Very well,” said the scientist. He turned back into the cabin, passed the major's instructions to the two technicians who had accompanied him in the plane, picked up a beat-up old leather suitcase, and started to make his way down the stairs behind the major. When he got to the bottom of the steps, he asked Argozvek, “Are you sure that the weapons will be safe here?”

  The military intelligence officer looked at the doughy, overweight scientist and replied, “The weapons are as safe here as they were in mother-Russia.”

  “Yes, yes,” replied the scientist, shuffling toward the van. “That's what I was afraid of. If they were so safe in mother Russia, how could they be here in Venezuela?”

  Ten minutes later, Dr. Zhdanov was inside his room at the Bachelor Officers Quarters. The billet reminded him of the American motel that he had stayed in years before when he had lectured at a disarmament conference in Washington, sponsored by the Union of Concerned Scientists. Back then he had been an up-and-coming—and trusted—young physicist at the Ministry of Defense Weapons Design Bureau. He was an expert on Permissive Action Links, the “fail-safe” PAL codes that allow only an authorized person to arm a nuclear weapon.

  As soon as he locked his door, Zhdanov placed his battered leather suitcase on the bed, opened it, and removed a bottle of vodka, along with the cell phone that he had purchased from a black market vendor before leaving Moscow weeks ago. After taking a long swig from the half-empty bottle, he fumbled around in his bag, groping for the correct wall-socket adapter for the telephone's charging unit. Failing to find it, he sat down on the bed and then, after another drink, dialed a number at the Gorky Research Center east of Moscow.

  Zhdanov swallowed three more long draughts from the bottle of clear liquid before the call went through. When the line answered at the other end, a young female voice said simply, “Hello,” in Russian.

  “Alexandra, it is Oleg,” slurred the scientist.

  “I am glad you called,” she said. “It is nearly eight in the morning here, I was just leaving to go to the laboratory. Where are you now? I haven't heard from you for days, and I was worried.”

  “I am where it is very warm,” responded Zhdanov. “You remember, the place I told you about before I left you, my little fox.”

  “You are in Caracas? I am glad that you are warm; it is very cold here.”

  Even in his stupor, Zhdanov was aghast at the naïve security breach—yet he then compounded it by saying, “My pet, you must not mention where I am or what I am doing to anyone, especially over the phone. It is impossible to know who is listening.”

  The two lovers chatted for another ten minutes before Zhdanov, groggy from the effects of the alcohol and fatigue, finally passed out, fully clothed, on the bed. His cell phone, still connected to the ITT International Service Connection tower northwest of the airport, remained beside him on the bed, broadcasting the sound of his heavy snoring until the battery died a quarter hour later.

  Oval Office

  ________________________________________

  The White House

  Washington, DC

  Thursday, 01 November 2007

  0955 Hours Local

  “I'm just not prepared to launch a preemptive strike on Iran,” said the President, walking to his desk and pulling out the chair to sit down. In his hand he was holding three large 11 x 14-inch photographs of an Iranian Shabaz ballistic missile on a launch pad. He had just walked into the Oval Office from the morning meeting in the Situation Room and had reconvened his closest advisors in the privacy of his own office. Standing in front of the desk were the Vice President; Helen Luce, his Secretary of State; SecDef Dan Powers; Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. George Grisham; Bill Goode, the CIA's Operations Director; and “Jeb” Stuart, his National Security Advisor.

  The President put on his reading glasses and, peering at the photos now spread out in front of him, said, “Bill, tell me again what we're looking at here.”

  Goode walked around the desk and stood beside the President and said, “These are all images taken from a Global Hawk early this morning from an altitude of 85,000 feet over the Iranian Rocket Research Facility east of Eshfahan. The first one shows seventeen technicians working on the rocket—which has no nose cone installed. In the second, taken thirty-nine minutes later, the top of the missile is covered by a canopy. And then, in the third, taken almost two hours after the first—that's this photo with the strange-looking truck pulled up to the bunker about a hundred yards from the missile—there are six white-garbed technicians maneuvering a canvas-covered object out of the van and onto a wheeled cart.”

  “And why is this so significant?” asked the Commander in Chief.

  “Well, sir,” Goode answered, “the number of technicians, the ‘masking’ of the nose-cone area of the missile and the concealed object being removed from the truck tell our imagery interpreters that they are preparing to install a nuclear, chemical, or biological warhead on the missile. We've never seen any activity like this before at this facility.”

  “Why are they doing this in broad daylight? They must be aware of our satellites,” said the President.

  “Yes, sir, they are,” Goode answered. “The Iranians seem to have timed this activity for the two times a day—about two hours each—when we don't have a satellite overhead. That's why we're trying to keep a Global Hawk up over Iran. The UAV that took these shots was launched out of Diego Garcia last night. The ‘Hawks’ are ‘stealthy’ enough that the Iranians can't pick them up on radar or hear them on the ground. Unless they happen to catch its silhouette cutting across the sun, they will never even know it's up there.”

  “But even if a nuclear warhead is being loaded on this missile, it doesn't have the range to make it here, right?” asked the President.

  “That's correct, sir,” interjected Grisham. “But it has enough range to put all of our forces in Iraq, Kuwait, the Persian Gulf, even most of those in Afghanistan, at risk of a nuclear attack.”

  The President sighed and said, “How much advance notice will we have of this thing getting ready to launch?”

  “Once they clear the launch pad,” responded Goode, “it could be airborne in a
s little as thirty minutes to an hour.”

  “Does that give us the time we need to launch a strike and prevent the missile from getting off the ground?”

  “It would be a very close thing, Mr. President,” Grisham replied. “We would have to see the awnings coming down and launch immediately from Balad—near Baghdad, Ali Al Salim Air Base, in Kuwait, or from the Carrier Battle Group in the north Persian Gulf. There are no other bases close enough to make it to Eshfahan in time.”

  “And once it's off the ground, we can't stop it?”

  “That depends on where it's heading,” said Powers. “If it is aimed at our naval forces in the Gulf, our Aegis systems can engage it as it comes in. In Kuwait, we have the Patriot PAC IIIs that can bring it down. But we don't have anything in Iraq capable of hitting it.”

  “If these pictures were taken this morning, how long before they could have a nuclear weapon on this missile, ready to fire?” asked the President.

  “Our S&T experts estimate that if it's a nuclear warhead, because they have never done this before, they will need another five to perhaps ten days to position the payload, check the wiring, run diagnostic tests, and make any last-minute fixes. We'll likely see a crane brought out to the missile and even more technicians,” Goode replied.

  “So the bottom line is that we probably have some time,” said the President, sounding somewhat relieved. When no one demurred, he continued, “So if a nuclear warhead is placed on that Iranian missile, does anyone care to speculate as to what the target might be?”

  The CIA Operations Chief, who was still standing beside the President, looked up at Powers, then Grisham. The Defense Secretary nodded and said, “Bill...”

  Goode took a deep breath and said quietly, “It's most likely Tel Aviv. All of the rhetoric coming from the mosques includes Tel Aviv in the list of American and European cities where the ‘infidels’ are to be ‘struck with fire from the heavens’ by the Islamic Brotherhood.”