The big Israeli looked at Avi’s inert form. “Just like always.” he said. “But he’s alive, right?”
I nodded.
“Did he throw up?”
“Not yet.”
My answer brought a wry smile to Koby’s creased face. “Then he’s definitely improving as a jumper. So, congratulations, mister officer.”
We’d begun on a good note: no equipment was busted, nothing had been lost during the long and bumpy ride down. Avi even turned on the cell phone.
“You can’t receive anything here, can you?”
He listened carefully. “No, not here—not quite,” he said. “But IDF keeps cells open right to the northern edge of the security area in Lebanon—that’s less than thirty-five miles away. If we were five, ten, maybe fifteen miles closer …”
That, friends, should give you some idea about the distances in this part of the world. We were sitting on the fucking outskirts of Damascus and there were Israeli cell towers that we could almost use.
We buried the chutes, then pulled off our jumpsuits so that we looked a little more like civilians—although not many civilians go around with combat “Y” suspenders, pistol belts, rucksacks, and automatic weapons. But WTF—you do what you gotta do.
0438. Wonder took point. We’d actually landed twelve hundred or so yards south of the high power masts—more than four kilometers closer to our objective than planned. We were perhaps three hundred yards west of a two-lane highway, in a rocky, duned area punctuated by clumps of scrub brush and thorn bushes. If we paralleled the road, we’d come to our Magellan point in four kliks—or about twenty-five minutes of walking. But it was getting late—or early, depending on how you look at things, and I wanted to make some time. Daybreak was just after six in these parts—and despite a high cloud cover moving from the west, I wanted to get inside our target before it became easy to spot us.
So we jogged. Let me tell you something about jogging in sand. It is no fun. It is also hard on the calves, the thighs—and every muscle, joint, and tendon in between. After about six minutes, I realized that Steve and I might make it, but that Avi and Koby would be DBA—Dead Before Arrival. I changed the pace. Jog two hundred paces, walk three hundred. We covered the four kliks in twenty-one minutes. That’s not bad for people carrying sixty or so pounds of gear on their backs.
Have I told you lately how grateful I am to the people who make the Magellan? Well, I am. We came up a small wadi, carefully bypassed a knot of ramshackle mud-cake houses that probably housed the squatters who’d taken over after the Palestinians had left, climbed across a low rise—and there, more or less directly ahead of us, was the compound the FORTE satellite had discovered. The accuracy of the fucking thing is within yards.
What I saw was an irregular—that is to say trapezoidal—four-sided compound, which seemed to be part of a larger, industrial-zone kind of arrangement. It reminded me of the way Herzliya looked before it became San Tropez. A well-marked side road led from the two-lane highway to the complex. And unlike the other roads which tracked to facilities in the zone, the road to our target had been well-paved to handle heavy trucks.
The site itself was deceptive. There was a single rolling chain-link gate, outside which sat a darkened wood gatehouse. Two large signs were posted on either side of the entrance. One was in English, the other in Arabic. They had the same artwork, so I gathered that they said the same thing. And what they said was SAHID MEDACIN EQUIPPMENT COPMANY, LTD. As you can see, spelling is not a strong subject in Syrian schools. I hoped they’d done better in Arabic. Inside the fence stood a large, unremarkable two-story, flat-roofed building. The Arabic version of Sahid Medacin Equippment Copmany, Ltd., was painted on a huge billboard on the roof, along with a big bottle of liquid. The whole thing was slightly tilted, as if one of its supports had given way.
Of course, we were still some two hundred yards from the outer fence line. And three hundred yards from the inner perimeter. We dropped and began to reckon the possibilities. There weren’t very many of ’em.
It was Koby who pointed it out.
“Look, mister officer,” the big noncom said. “See how the wire is strung?”
I looked. “So?”
“When’s the first time you ever saw wire strung like that?”
I gave the two perimeter fences a closer examination. Oh, I’d seen similar arrangements before—in Israel. But that wasn’t the first time. The first time had been in Guatemala.
Yeah—I see your hand flapping out there. Guatemala you say, but we’re in the Middle East. Yes, we are. But in the early eighties, the United States cut off all aid to the Guats because of their large numbers of flagrant human rights violations in a very dirty war against a bunch of Communist-supported guerrillas. So, deprived of American assistance, guess who the Guats hired to build most of their security infrastructure for them. You got it—they hired Israelis.
I was currently looking at the same layout of the generic security perimeter that surrounds most Israeli military installations, as well as those that have been designed by Israel and built by Mossad contractors in such places as Singapore Argentina, China, Senegal, Taiwan, South Korea, Jordan and the Czech Republic. Was I surprised to see this system in place not thirty-five miles from downtown Damascus? Yes I was—but I wasn’t shocked. After all, Ehud Golan was a part of this equation, and Ehud—traitor or not—was Mossad.
I scanned the site. All the lights faced outward: anybody approaching would be illuminated, while the defenders would remain in the dark. It also meant there’d be two lines of razor wire atop each fence. And there would be three lines of electronic sensors (they’d be on the fences, and scattered on the ground for sixty to eighty yards beyond the outer perimeter). And there would be watchtowers at every corner of the fence line, giving the guards overlapping fields of fire.
I recited what I saw and what I knew to Avi and Koby. “Did I miss anything?”
“Not that I can think of,” Avi said.
Now, let me tell you right now that the Israelis design good security perimeters. But as you probably know by now, there is no security I cannot breach.
Let me qualify that statement. There is no security I cannot breach—given enough time. But at the moment, it was just past 0500, which meant that time was about to run out on me.
So subtlety, friends, was about to be out of the question. We’d go balls to the wall. Now before you start getting skeptical, lemme tell you about one of the most effective infiltration techniques I perfected when I commanded Red Cell. It was like this: I’d commandeer a fucking car, then simply fucking drive through the fucking gate of the fucking installation, and never do a fucking thing but wave at the fucking guards as I passed through. Are you catching on to this ironic use of the F-word here? Good. Also, you know and I know that Avi speaks just about every … (no need to use the F-word again, is there?) dialect of Arabic used in these parts. If something more elaborate than waving at the gatekeepers became necessary, we’d keep our mouths shut and let him do all the talking. And if that didn’t work we had automatic weapons.
There is one other thing you should know about the site. It was way undermanned. They’d done it on purpose, too—I mean, if you have armed guards patrolling everywhere and machine gun nests every six yards, then the signs that tell the world you’re making “medacin equippment” aren’t gonna fool anybody, especially the Israelis and the Americans, both of whom have satellite capability. Oh, those two perimeter fences were more security than your normal everyday industrial plant might have, but not so much more that they stood waay out. And, as we scanned the watchtowers, we saw not a man in ’em.
Now, all we needed was a car.
Slight problem. There hadn’t been a single bit of traffic in the six or so minutes we’d been watching the target.
I explained the problem. Koby frowned. “You wait,” he said. He pointed at a sharp bend in the highway just out of sight of the turnoff for the industrial zone. The sky beyond it was starting
to tinge that unique burnt rose color that you see only in this part of the world in the moments shortly before dawn breaks. “You wait close to there, mister officer.” He dropped all of his gear except for the AK, and held his hand out. “I’ll need a knife.”
Wonder pulled a large Spyderco folder from the inside of his waistband. “Try this.”
“Believe me, gingi, I will,” Koby said. He turned to leave, then turned long enough to perform a respectable Schwarzenegger. “Dun’t vorry—I’ll be beck,” he growled.
0522. We waited, back far enough from the road so that we wouldn’t be noticed if traffic passed us by. No Koby.
0526. We waited. Avi cracked his knuckles. Each one. Slowly. Twice. Wonder’s expression told me that he knew we’d gone all the way to FUBAR. Still no Koby.
0528. Approaching vehicle. No lights. Weapons ready, just in case. It stopped right at the point Koby’d indicated. He jumped out and waved us on.
I didn’t bother asking how or where or WTF. No time for that. Besides, it wasn’t much of a car. That is an understatement. Once upon a time I think it might have been a green Datsun—impossible to say without carbon dating—but it probably could be traced to the mid-seventies. At least I think it had been green once. Now it had one orange fender. Its doors didn’t quite match—or fit. It lacked mirrors, and it was missing its rear window. It was the most beautiful car I’ve ever seen.
Chapter 22
WE FILLED THE TRUNK WITH OUR SUPPLIES, AND PILED IN. AVI drove. Koby and Wonder were crammed with the rest of our gear in what used to be the backseat. I rode shotgun. Avi put the car in gear and we drove away. At times like this, in case I haven’t mentioned it before, your heart is going at a rate that cannot be calculated, adrenaline is flowing by the gallon, and sentences tend to become simple and declarative.
Lights on. Turned the corner. Up the road. Moved toward the gate and gatehouse. Eased up and almost stopped. There was stirring within. A man’s head, his kaffiyeh askew, appeared behind the dirty, cracked panes of the gatehouse door. Avi waved at the fellah inside. He opened the door and shuffled out. Avi said something in Arabic. The man laughed, showing broken teeth, and responded. Then a second man appeared. Glassa coffee—no, tea—in his hand. The first man nodded to him. He set his glass down on the gatehouse window ledge. His sandals scuffing pea gravel, he ambled to the gate and began to open it.
My antenna sensed something going bad. First man having second thoughts? Maybe—he was checking a list. He brought it out to the car. Avi made a joke—fellah looked up. Avi shot him—one shot clean through the eye into the brain—with a suppressed Beretta .22-caliber pistol. Where the fuck had he stowed that? I’d never seen him pack it.
The other man kept working on the gate. Dead man collapsed. Slid down to the ground without a sound. Lay at the side of the car against the door. Out of mind; out of sight.
The gate was now open. The man who’d opened it turned and came back toward us to wave us through.
Avi opened the car door—the fucking Datsun door currently wedged shut by the weight of the body up against it—Avi pushing harder now, straining, and all of a sudden things began to move very, very quickly and things started to happen and I opened my door and got out and the look on the man’s face showed that he realized that he’d been screwed with and was about to get dead and he started to turn and shout but before he could do anything Avi put a bullet through his eye at seven yards with another marvelous shot and I wondered how the fuck had he improved so much and not told me.
Sometimes, friends, things are not simple and declarative.
We moved the bodies back inside the gatehouse, stuffed them under the small desk, removed the tea, and closed the door. Then we drove into the compound, leaving the chainlink gate open.
Okay—we were inside. The question was, now WTF? Avi solved that one—he read a sign that directed us to the executive offices. We took a left, drove behind the building, then made a quick right into a small U-shaped courtyard, and we were there.
Two black Mercedes sedans sat side by side in front of the entrance. Koby checked them out. Both had Lebanese plates—one from Beirut, the other from Sidon. I lay my hand on the hood of each. The paint was still slightly warm to the touch, which told me they hadn’t been here for a long time.
I scanned the windows for movement and perceived nothing. If we were being watched, it was being done surreptitiously. This was a strange situation. I’d detected no movement. Except for the two men working the gatehouse, we’d seen no other personnel—no guards, no workers, none of the commotion one might expect to see in and around a plant that was manufacturing nuclear weapons components. In fact, there was no action of any sort—no whirring of mechanical machinery, or the hum of air-conditioning, or the whining of electrical motors and whomping of pumps—all the kinds of sounds one associates with a manufacturing facility. But here, there was nothing.
It was very disquieting, my friends. I mean, usually at installations like this one, there is some kind of activity at all hours. But here, it was like zip, zero, nada. The lights—that is to say radiation emanations—certainly were “on” at this place. The FORTE satellite had determined that fact for sure. But—Mercedes sedans aside—no one seemed to be at home.
Recon time. The front door was unlocked and we slipped inside. The foyer was about thirty by thirty, with two facing corridors that obviously led to opposite sides of the factory. The place was furnished in archetypal Middle East industrial. This, dear reader, is a polite way of saying that the accoutrements were dilapidated and everything was coated with a film of fine dust. There were dusty marble floors, sallow, dust-filmed mustard-colored walls, a dusty ceiling with a dusty ceiling fan, two dusty framed portraits of Haffez el Assad facing the front entrance, and a collection of dusty metal-framed furniture and dust-coated office equipment. Dead ahead, one narrow dusty stairway with ornate, decorative wrought iron railings led up to the first floor. Immediately to its left, another—this one had been cut into the building recently and had been designed in a more utilitarian manner—led down below ground level. Guess what it was coated with.
There were enough scuff marks on the floors to tell us that people had been using the place—and recently. Weapons at the low ready, Koby and I split right and left. We made sure the foyer was clear—it was—then the four of us separated into two pairs. Wonder and I took the port-side corridor, Avi and Koby went starboard. If we dry-holed, we’d reassemble at 0610. If one team engaged, the other would close on it as backup.
Wonder and I moved cautiously down the long, marble-floored hallway. The fluorescent lights gave everything a greenish tinge—surreal and unearthly. There was no air-conditioning—again, strange for a place where they were making nuclear weapons materials—but you could hear ceiling fans as they whirred behind the office doors. The doors in our corridor had milky glass upper panels and metal lower panels. We moved carefully, ducking under, checking back, opening the doors, and making sure no one was inside.
There are two kinds of tactical entries, friends. The one I prefer to use is dynamic. The name says it all—wham-wham, blam-blam, the bad guys all get slam-slammed. The other method is called slow and deliberate. It is used when stealth is necessary, or when you want to sneak up on your adversary and take him down sans violence. I do not prefer slow and deliberate because it is time-consuming, it takes a lot of concentration, and I have usually spent a lot of energy getting to the site in the first place. As in this morning.
0609. We worked the entire ground-floor left-hand side. We came up dry—I mean dry. Nobody in the executive offices. Nobody in the labs. Nobody anyfuckingplace. Not that they weren’t expecting a crowd: three of the largest rooms had been converted to six-man dorms, complete with three bunk beds per room, and military-style lockers. A makeshift kitchen had been created in what had once been a lab. But there were few signs of inhabitation. The mattresses on the bunks were bare. There was food and booze—vodka and beer, to be precise—in the kitchen.<
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And guess what, friends? All the writing—from the labels on the booze and mattresses, to the heat ’n’ eat instructions on the boxed victuals—was in Cyrillic. It was obvious that the technicians who were coming to assemble this installation were—ta-da—Ivans. I silent-signaled to Wonder. He nodded, and we started back the way we’d come.
We reconnected with Koby and Avi in the foyer. Had they seen anything? Their answer was the same as ours—no, although they’d seen indications that the place was going to be occupied soon, just as we had.
I pointed toward the “down” staircase. Koby nodded, Yes. I pointed at Avi and indicated that he was to remain behind and keep an eye on the ground floor.
Face it—you don’t want to clear a floor, then go below, and come back to find that your adversary has set up an ambush for you.
I took point. I started down, one tread at a time, my feet moving carefully so as not to make noise. I kept my back to the wall, and my AK at low ready. Behind me, the muzzle of Koby’s M-16 sat just above my left shoulder, providing potential cover if I needed it. Behind him, covering our butts, was Wonder and his AK.
Moving down stairs like this, friends, is a potentially dangerous tactic. You are at a disadvantage if someone is waiting in ambush for you—because he will most often see you before you see him. When I work slow, deliberate entries and there is a stairwell involved, I prefer to use a mirror on the end of a long pole to make my way around the turns.
But I didn’t have a mirror. So I moved very cautiously, and very deliberately. Came to the first landing. Cut the pie—that is to say, I edged around the outside so as to give myself an ever-expanding field of vision (and fire!) as I moved down, around, and down again.
Still all clear.
The second landing was uneventful, too. From it, a short flight led to the basement floor proper. I signaled a halt. You don’t want to bunch up at the bottom of a stairwell. A team that’s all knotted up tightly can’t react as well as one that’s spread out.
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