by Tom Haase
Arriving at a different hotel, a very expensive one, from the one Yuri booked for mostly security reasons, he checked in under an assumed name and passport; the concierge looked inquisitively at him until the one hundred-dollar bill passed hands. Then he received his key and went to his room. Al-Hanbali viewed his visit to Moscow as a one-night stand.
A few minutes later, after dropping his overnight bag and arranging some things, he went to the bar in search of entertainment. Drinks and loose women were not the norm in Saudi, but here things were different. This was a relatively easy task, since he knew this hotel from his school days when he observed many such encounters in this bar.
He spotted a young blonde girl in tight black leather pants and a revealing top exposing full cleavage. He locked on to her eyes and gave her a steady look as he walked to the bar. Then he ordered vodka and waited.
While he waited, al-Hanbali felt a sense of relief and of satisfaction on having set in motion this vital part of the plan to punish the Americans for the humiliation they had brought to the people of Islam. Now he only hoped the material he needed to accomplish this great task was on its way to his house. He worried that if the enriched uranium did not arrive within in the next two weeks, their plan would encounter delays —or even worse, the Americans, or some other intelligence agency, might somehow discover his intentions.
He felt a hand descend on his shoulder; the blonde leaned over, “Want to have a good time tonight?” It took only a few minutes for an arrangement and al-Hanbali went to the room to wait.
The girl arrived at the room five minutes later. She slowly started to undress, teasing al-Hanbali. “I want my four hundred U.S. dollars before we begin.” He took the money from his wallet and passed it to her.
“Take off your clothes,” he said.
Al-Hanbali watched as she took off her tight pants. He could see her lovely white skin, and he became very aroused.
“Now it is your turn. I have some surprises for you tonight,” she said and started to undress him intending to take care of his protruding needs.
“Get on the bed. I want you on your back,” al-Hanbali said.
After taking a long time to reach a satisfactory climax, al-Hanbali decided it was time to play his game.
“That was nice and now I want to do doggy style.”
She looked at him for a second and said, “Okay, two hundred U.S. dollars and we do that.”
He had taken almost an hour and a half to complete his preliminary sexual adventure, and it was only an hour before he had to head to the airport. He would be out of the country in less than two hours.
“Here’s your money,” he said, taking the cash out of his wallet and putting the bills into her outstretched hand. She tucked it into her purse and climbed back on the bed, face down toward the headboard. On entering her from behind, he put his hands on her shoulders and drove in as deep as he could.
While he was completing this sex act, he pushed her head forward on the bed and reached under his pillow, retrieved the pure carbon knife, pulled her head back, and slit her throat.
“One less infidel disgracing God’s world.”
CHAPTER 10
MATT HIGGINS
SATURDAY - 0955 HOURS
THE DAY AFTER MAJOR LAWSON’S MURDER
Captain Matt Higgins left the briefing room in the Pentagon. His heart was beating a lot faster than it should, but with a few deep breaths he brought it under control. This was going to be his first independent command assignment for the center. After acquitting himself well on field operations with other commanders, Matt now, at last, had command of a team going into combat.
In two minutes, his heart had slowed and he began mentally cataloguing the things that they would need to get this job done. First, he had to get his team assembled at the Center in Roslyn, Virginia, located just across the Potomac River from downtown Washington. In the old days, before 9/11, the center was the home of the attaché management directorate. That directorate trained and controlled the military attachés assigned to foreign countries. Their job was to collect intelligence on a wide range of political-military topics and thereby keep Washington attuned to developments in their respective countries.
Today that office space served another purpose: planning for and carrying out the elimination of terrorists and terrorist threats to the United States. Each member of his team had a secure satellite cell phone; Matt needed to call the members and tell each of them to be at the Center in one hour. The second item on his list, he had to complete the initial planning and estimations of what assets he would have to call upon to accomplish this mission successfully.
He arrived at the twelfth floor, where the offices of the Center were located, overlooking the Potomac and downtown D.C. The glass on this floor of the building had been specially treated to prevent sound waves from penetrating in or out of the building. This was a real security consideration since under a previous administration the Soviets had been allowed to build their new embassy upon one of the highest points in Washington. The Russian’s capability, as well as any of their allies, for intercepting, collecting, and gathering both overt and covert signals intelligence, as well as human intelligence, was a factor that drove operational security decisions in the center. In today’s world, one had to be overly careful since other unfriendly entities could and did possess advanced electronic surveillance equipment.
Matt sat down at the government issue gray metal desk and started to write his time line for events. Sergeant Bridget Donavan walked in as Matt was completing the phone calls to the other team members.
“You looked pumped up. What’s going on?” Bridget asked.
“We have a mission. We’re going after some really big bad asses.”
“Great,” Bridget responded with both thumbs up.
* * * *
It was his day off. Sergeant Peter O'Leary drove deep into the petite young female student from GW University. He had picked her up last night at Palings Bar in Alexandria. They hit it off and she had returned to his apartment for what they both knew would be plain and uninhibited sex. She was indeed a handful with those large breasts that Peter seemed to be sucking on the entire time after they joined as he started to pound into her. She had a great way of making him hard again after climaxing such a short time before. She had positioned herself on top and was grinding away when the phone interrupted them.
Peter, annoyed at the unwanted call, looked at the beeping display, saw that it was Captain Higgins on the cellular ID, and guessed immediately that his day off was over. In a way, he was glad, because after the girl left, he’d planned to study the Rosetta Stone computer program for advanced Arabic. This call could trump that. He reached over, grabbed the phone while jumping out of bed, and walked out of the room before hitting the talk button. On hearing Peter’s voice, the captain wasted no time on preliminaries.
“Sergeant O'Leary, I need you to be at the center in one hour. We have a mission.”
“Yes, sir. I can be there twenty minutes,” said Peter.
“No,” Matt said, “I know it is your day off, so finish whatever you're doing and then come on in to be here in an hour for the briefing.”
Peter hung up the phone; he did finish what he was doing. He returned to the bed and finished the last round with the girl and then told her his boss had ordered him to work. Sergeant Peter O’Leary prepared to head to Roslyn, thinking that Captain Higgins was proving to be a strong leader who knew the mission came first, but he also knew the other mission was to take care of his men. Peter escorted the girl to her car on his way out. As she drove off, he tried to remember her name.
Now he had a mission and that meant he might be gone anywhere from a day to weeks. He had served under many different officers in special operations, but this Captain Higgins seemed to have, as they said in the vernacular, his shit together.
* * * *
Sergeant Gary Macnamara and Corporal Lucien Champlain were at the firing range on Fort Belvoir. They w
ere zeroing in a 50-caliber sniper weapon.
“Lucien, let’s move the target to five hundred meters and see if the sight setting is still good. You put five straight rounds in the center at three hundred.”
“Come on, Gary, let’s go to the one thousand-meter range and see if the settings hold. You know, I think this is the best sniper weapon in the world. I can hit anything with it.”
“Try your ass.” Gary grabbed the weapon and handled it like it was a toy pistol instead of a major piece of heavy ordnance. His super-developed muscles were the result of many hours in the gym and the one hundred pushups he did every morning.
“Very funny! I outshoot you all day and you are a crabby comedian,” replied Lucien. In fact, both smiled as they gathered the gear to move to the next shooting range. He jumped up and ran after Gary. His thin tall frame allowed him to catch the man in a few strides. He was a professional soldier who had started in the army at the old age of nearly thirty.
As Lucien neared, Gary’s cell phone rang. Captain Higgins told him a mission had come in. Final calibration on the weapon would have to wait. Going to the center took precedence over everything else. Both men had attained the distinction of “geek” on the team, since they dealt with communications, computers, and security systems. They were the soldiers who got the team where it was going, broke the security codes, performed electronic surveillance on suspected targets, and made sure the team had direct command-and-control communications with the center. They also were exceptional sharpshooters—specially trained as snipers.
They took the time needed to clean the weapon and return it to the arms room. Then they jumped into their vehicles and headed towards Roslyn.
* * * *
Matt completed the detailed planning to move his five-member team from Andrews Air Force base, just outside of Washington, into Beirut. He stopped and looked around the room. The world time clock showed sunrise and sunset around the world in Greenwich Mean Time, but that time was currently called UTC or Universal Time Coordinate. In either case, the time at the spot in England was known throughout the military as “Zulu” time. He noticed that Beirut was eight hours ahead of Washington time. The other wall in the center, opposite the windows, had a small-scale map of the Middle East.
Getting up from his desk, he went to look out of the panoramic window at the colorful autumn scene in the heart of downtown Washington. The sun was shining brightly on this fall, and there were only a few small clouds in an otherwise lapis blue sky. He looked straight down at the waning rush hour traffic. It was nearly ten o'clock, and almost all the workers and most of the salespeople were at their destinations. The morning gridlock in the federal city was nearly over.
Matt’s mind switched from viewing the city back to seeing what he had to do next. In order to get into Beirut in a clandestine mode, he figured that they would have to employ the air bridge from Cyprus. They would take a U.S. Air Force aircraft into RAF Akrotiri, located on the sovereign British territory in the Republic of Cyprus; then a U.S. Army AH-60 Sikorsky helicopter would convey the team into the embassy in Beirut. These helicopters in Cyprus were positioned to facilitate the safety of U.S. personnel into the embassy in Beirut, and an air bridge to safety when and if needed. Every week two helicopters went over to Beirut, arriving just after sunset. One helicopter carried personnel, packages, including classified material, and regular mail. The other bird provided cover in case any PLO/Hezbollah operatives in the area brought the landing helicopter under fire.
Once in the embassy, the team would spend the night, get the gear installed into a requisitioned van, and change into street clothing appropriate for the area. The next day they would set up their surveillance operation. Matt decided that arriving three days in advance of the planned terrorists’ meeting would be sufficient to glean the intel needed to accomplish the mission. This observation period would not give too much opportunity for counter surveillance measures, which might ascertain the intent of his team while they waited for the terrorists. Matt made up a list of the equipment he would need for the embassy to provide on arrival. He calculated the weapons that would have to be taken in by helicopter.
At that point in his planning phase Matt needed a break. He got up and went over to the coffee pot. He poured a cup and shuddered as the coffee hit his throat: high-test, definitely. On returning to his desk, he mentally rethought all of his requirements, trying to ensure no items he would need were missing from the list. He checked and rechecked everything. He wanted no mistakes on his first independent command.
When he had finished typing the draft of his operations order and the transportation requests, he carried them to the office of Brigadier General Mary Jean Bergermeyer. He needed to get initial approval for his plan and the logistical support he requested. She would have to authorize the equipment, transportation and NSA support he needed. The general was not there so he left his plan with her secretary and returned to his office. Ten minutes later his phone rang. General Bergermeyer’s voice instantly got his attention.
“Matt, your operations order is approved. There is one modification I had to make and you will have to plan around it. There is a problem I know about in the embassy in Beirut. I only want you to be there twenty-four hours before the operation begins. I know this cuts it close, but you will see the problem when you get there. I'll try to make your passage smooth with the Defense Attaché. The necessary implementing instructions from my office will be prepared by tomorrow morning for transport. I want you to give a few key officers and me a detailed briefing tomorrow afternoon. You are hereby designated as Strike Team One. Any questions?”
“No, ma’am.”
“I do not want the embassy alerted to your plans. All communications for support there will only go through the Defense Attaché in the country. Till tomorrow,” she said and hung up.
One final time he reviewed all the equipment and weapons he had selected. His detailed list contained civilian clothing for hot climates, communications, surveillance, weapons and ammunition requirements. Matt was concluding the final details of the operation plan when the other team members began to arrive.
* * * *
That night Matt drove to Leesburg to visit his four-year-old daughter, Laura. He knew on every mission he might not come back and he had to spend as much time as he could with her. She broke his heart because she looked exactly like Susan. He was fortunate to have Susan’s childless sister offer to have Laura in residence with her and her husband. Matt’s lifestyle prohibited him from keeping her. As he reached the little farmhouse, he saw Laura running out to meet him. Everything ceased to matter except spending this time with his daughter. God, he loved her.
CHAPTER 11
STRIKE TEAM ONE
U.S. EMBASSY - BEIRUT, LEBANON
9:38 PM – TWELVE DAYS AFTER MAJOR LAWSON’S MURDER
The helicopters carrying Strike Team One (ST-1) into the U.S. embassy in Lebanon arrived shortly after dark. From the time the passenger helicopter crossed the shoreline to touchdown in the embassy compound took thirty-five seconds. The first helicopter stayed in the air and circled over the embassy as the second delivered the team along with other items that normally came in on these flights. When the second chopper touched down on the pad, the team disembarked and scrambled into the building to minimize exposure to prying eyes from nearby buildings. At the doorway into the building, Colonel Edward Johnston, the Defense Attaché, met and guided them to his office. It was only a matter of seconds before Ambassador Roger Thompson and the Deputy Chief of Mission Mary Sanchez arrived at Colonel Johnston's office. They had observed the helicopter landing with the unexpected people getting off.
“Colonel, explain the meaning of the presence of these people. What is the purpose of them arriving here without advance notification? I knew nothing about their arrival through State Department channels.” Pique was evident in the ambassador’s voice. He stood there with his hands in his khaki pants pockets, as it was his custom to dress casually after
duty hours.
“This is highly irregular. All personnel coming to this embassy must be cleared by the ambassador’s office,” Mary Sanchez said. “We cannot afford to be seen permitting military people into this country without obtaining the host country approval,” added the DCM, moving from slightly behind the ambassador to a point only a foot or so from Colonel Johnston’s face. With a smirk on her face, she stared at the colonel and the team.
“Ambassador, may I speak with you alone for a moment?” asked Colonel Johnston, without even looking at the short, plump, pug-nosed DCM, who wore a loose tracksuit to hide her bulges. The ambassador hesitated and then gave an affirmative response; the colonel preceded the ambassador back into his private office and closed the door behind them.
The office was not large, containing a desk and a computer side table. There were two chairs in front of the main desk, and behind it the American flag, and the Army flag with all the battle streamers hanging from its crown. A framed picture of the Continental Army storming the British Redoubts 9 and 10 at Yorktown adorned one wall. All the walls were in a light cream and the window had double-thick bulletproof glass. The room had a sound suppression system intended to prevent pickup of any conversation.
The ambassador moved his slightly bulky frame to one of the chairs in front of the desk and took a seat. “Well, let’s have it.”
“Ambassador, I received a secure back channel message less than ten minutes ago, notifying me of the arrival. They’re here to conduct a counterterrorist operation against a positive target. This came from my highest command authority. I received instructions not to provide you with any information until after their arrival. It appears that they were afraid that someone in your office, at Defense, or at State, would somehow leak or delay this operation.” Johnston paused.
The ambassador sat very still and concentrated on every word. He ran his fingers through his silvery hair and Johnston could see he was trying to grasp all the things this mission could mean and all the things that could potentially go wrong.