And then, the listening began.
Minutes went by. Then ten minutes. Twenty minutes passed, with no cell-phone call connecting to the only telephone number they knew had any connection to the kidnapping.
At forty-seven minutes, the phone rang in Hebron. Akbar, Dakkar’s cousin, answered. It was his cell-phone contact with the Hamas group that had snatched Will and Gilead.
Back in the U.S., in the tactical-operations office of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, two men and one woman sat in front of a computer screen. Then suddenly, a line of numbers rolled on to it.
“We’ve got it!” the senior official called out.
“Operation Paul Revere,” so dubbed by General Tucker himself, was now underway.
In the computer-map room, a large grid of southern Israel was displayed in quarter-mile quadrants.
Then they calibrated the satellite for a closer look.
Rows of houses, streets, and blurred images of persons in a densely populated area.
Then a closer look.
A large rectangular object in a street. Surrounded by buildings. Suddenly four human thermal images rushed out of the van and pulled out two more human images from the back. Then all of them disappeared into the adjoining building.
“Get me map coordinates stat!” one of the map officials ordered.
Fifteen minutes later, General Tucker was on the phone with Caleb Marlowe.
“Speak louder,” Caleb said. “I’m inside a Blackhawk helicopter. I caught a ride with the IDF. We’re practically at Tel Aviv.”
“You better keep flying…farther south…”
“How far?”
“We’ve got the coordinates,” the general said. “And a fairly precise location. But it’s not good news.”
“Where do the kidnappers have our guys?”
“In the Gaza Strip. The place where, since we kicked the Taliban out of Afghanistan, there’s probably more terrorists per square mile than any other part of the planet. We’ve located them on a street in a little rathole of a city called Rafiah. It’s known for having a lot of tunnels that connect over the border to Egypt. And the terrorists scamper back and forth from Egypt to Gaza through those tunnels like a bunch of rats…”
“Are they in an apartment building?”
“Yes, our guys said they saw several armed figures in proximity to the location of the number we tracked, getting out of what looks like a van with two captives—and then they rushed them inside a building.”
“Well, the Israelis said they can give me one Blackhawk helicopter and a handful of commandos, but that just isn’t going to cut the mustard.”
“No, I don’t think so. A Blackhawk is way too big for a snatch and run. One of them comes in to that crowded street in Gaza and our guys are going to be dead in a minute.”
“Do we have anything smaller? Some way to drop us in to that site with less noise—a minimal amount of fuss and bluster?”
Tucker thought for a few seconds.
“Let me call down to the R&D boys and see what we’ve got. I’ll be back to you in less than five.”
But the news that General Tucker received from the head of R&D for small military aircraft was not good.
“We’ve got one project, but I’m not sure if we’re ready to go on it. We’ve got a contract with a former military aviator who has been working with an aeronautics engineer outside of Houston. But we haven’t committed to production yet because we haven’t test-proven this thing.”
“Try to get the contractor on the line—I’ll wait.”
General Tucker was put on hold, and a few minutes later, he got his answer.
“I’m sorry, General,” the voice at the other end said, “but Mr. Rhoady says he’s not quite sure that the PUMA is ready to go into an actual tactical operation yet. He’s test-flown it a lot but said there still need to be a lot of adjustments.”
“PUMA?” Tucker asked.
“Yes, Personnel Ultralight Military Aircraft—but we’ve sort of nicknamed it ‘the Mosquito.’ It’s designed for one pilot and can carry only a handful of men—it’s on the plan of a helicopter with two small fixed wings for stability. It can zip in and zip out of areas like—well, sort of like a mosquito. Highly manageable, incredible response—very quick and very quiet.”
“Patch me in directly to this Mr. Rhoady…is he still on the line?”
“He sure is, General—hang on.”
In a private aircraft hangar on a flat stretch of land twenty miles outside of Houston, a tall, lanky ex-military aviator, stunt flyer, and now would-be military aircraft entrepreneur was holding the phone in his left hand and waving to a gray-haired man at the other end of the building.
“Bud—hey, Bud!” Rhoady yelled. “Come on over here. I’ve got somebody from the Pentagon asking about the Mosquito. They want to put it into some kind of actual military operation. I told them we’re not there yet. What do you think?”
The gray-haired man, in blue jeans and a work shirt, calculator sticking out of his pocket, sauntered over to Rhoady.
“Way too early,” the man said. “Remember—we still got that problem. Increased air speed with the requirement for erratic maneuvering, you get just too much instability. We’re still working on that—”
“Yeah, but Bud—I’m the guy who’s flown this thing,” Rhoady said. “I’ve felt what you talked about. I think it might be manageable—I’m not saying I want to sell this thing to the government quite yet. We got to work out the kinks. But the question is, can we put it into actual operation—you know, as a test flight—”
Then a voice on the phone caught his attention.
“Mr. Rhoady, the next voice you hear will be that of General Tucker from the Pentagon.”
“Mr. Rhoady…”
“General Tucker, it’s an honor,” Rhoady replied. “But everybody calls me Tex. So can you.”
“All right, Tex. We need to put the Mosquito into an actual combat operation. We’ve got to do this stat. I just need to know whether this thing can be flown or not.”
“Well, honestly, it can be flown…because I’m the guy who’s flown it…but we’ve still got some adjustments—”
“We have to take this into a serious nest of terrorists—into a location I’ll disclose to you later—but it’s in the Middle East. It’d have to be brought into a very narrow street outside an apartment, drop a few special ops guys into a building, pick up some cargo, and take off—all in a very short period of time, while probably dodging some missiles and mortar fire.”
After a few seconds of thought, Tex answered.
“I suppose you’d need a pilot?”
“Tex, I got a brief look at your military record. As far as I know, you’re the only guy who has flown this—‘Mosquito’…”
“I was afraid you’d suggest that,” Tex said gloomily. “No offense, General, but I’m not a spring chicken anymore. I’m married…married for a number of years. Happily, I might add. I’m settled down. I just don’t know…”
“I can understand,” Tucker responded. “This is a high-risk situation. Everybody involved already knows that. We’ve got two American citizens, a lawyer and his client, who were kidnapped in Jerusalem by Hamas. If we wait too long there’s going to be a double execution. It’s been all over the news…”
“I haven’t been hearing anything in the last three days,” Tex said. “We’ve been pushing on this contract…ah…did you say it was a lawyer?”
“Yes,” Tucker quickly replied. “A Virginia lawyer named Will Chambers. I had the opportunity to see him in action when he successfully defended one of our special operations guys a number of years ago.”
“I can’t believe it…Will Chambers…”
“You know him?”
“Yep. I did private-charter flying for him on some of his cases. We got to be pretty good friends. Flew him through a bad tropical storm once in an old double-winged Boeing PT-17 Stearman. So, General, looks like he’s back in the thick of it�
��”
“Tex, we can have a small transport landing at your airstrip there in Texas within the hour. If you’re willing to do this thing, you’ll have to have the Mosquito fueled, primed, and ready to go. Load it on board, hop on, and they’ll take you to the staging site in southern Israel.”
There was a pause of a few seconds before Tex gave his answer.
“Okay, General—let’s saddle up.”
“One other thing. When this is all over, I’d be glad to set up a demonstration of your aircraft before the Joint Chiefs. And assuming everything goes well there, I’d probably be inclined to give a strong recommendation for some kind of production contract.”
“With all due respect, General,” Tex replied, “there’s one thing you need to know.”
“What’s that?”
“I won’t be doing this for the contract.”
75
CALEB MARLOWE HAD BEEN BRIEFED on the city layout of Rafiah in the Tel Aviv office of the Mossad. Tiny Heftland had been picked up and quickly transported to the meeting to give background on the day of the kidnapping.
Then Caleb Marlowe, Tiny Heftland, and the special-operations volunteer from the Mossad loaded into the lead Blackhawk helicopter, which was followed by two other choppers. They sped off to the south, toward the Gaza Strip.
Tiny continued to explain the events of the day that had led up to the seizure of Will and Gilead. He had already spoken to the Israeli police, who had a description of the van and an estimate of the number of gunmen involved.
Seated in the helicopter next to Caleb Marlowe was the only man the Israelis said they could afford to let join Marlowe’s miniature special-ops team.
Because of geopolitical tensions, Israel could not formally enter the Gaza Strip in an offensive operation—though they could respond to a request for assistance from American citizens at risk in that region.
As a result, the immediate strike at the terrorists had to be something other than an Israeli military operation.
Nathan Goldwaithe, ex-Mossad member and no longer officially on the Israeli government payroll, fit the bill—except, of course, for the fact that he was now forty-five years old. The operation would require speed, strength, agility…and youth.
“So, Nathan,” Caleb Marlowe said with a wry smile, “you think you can still rappel down a rope?”
“Colonel Marlowe, my friend,” Nathan zinged back as Tiny Heftland grinned, “you’re no spring chicken yourself.”
When the squadron arrived at the staging area in the desert outside of the Gaza Strip, the high-speed transport bearing Tex Rhoady and his experimental helicopter had not yet arrived from the States. The sun was setting, and the cover of darkness would give them some slight advantage as they entered a Palestinian city known to be a nest of terrorists.
Two hours later, the transport jet set down on the abandoned strip of highway they were using as a makeshift landing strip.
Within forty minutes the Mosquito had been unloaded, Tex was at the controls, and Caleb Marlowe and Nathan Goldwaithe, supplied with automatic weapons, a variety of grenades, and night-vision glasses, were climbing in.
“I’m going along!” Tiny yelled. “There’s no way you can leave me behind.”
Caleb Marlowe shook his head.
“Sorry, Tiny,” he yelled out of the open door of the strange-looking ultralight helicopter. “We’ve got two more people to pick up. One more man would make us too heavy.”
As the Mosquito took off, Tiny ran briefly alongside the little helicopter, yelling up to Tex, Caleb, and Nathan.
“You guys make sure you get my boy, Will Chambers,” he was yelling. “You bring him back safe!”
Marlowe threw a short salute to Tiny as the Mosquito sprang up into the air and then whisked off into the distance.
76
NIGHT WAS FALLING IN RAFIAH. Outside, from the minaret a few blocks away—the one with the little green light at its peak, prayers were being droned out from a loudspeaker.
Will Chambers could see out the window of the third-story of the building they were in that the day was slipping away. Neither he nor Gilead had been blindfolded. He took that as a very bad sign.
Apparently the Hamas captors didn’t care whether he and Gilead remembered where they had been taken or by whom. The three gunmen had pulled off their hoods and in addition to the driver, they had been joined by another man with an automatic weapon.
The two Americans sat cross-legged in the corner of the squalid, empty apartment that smelled of human waste and heat and dust, their hands tied behind their backs. The gunmen were checking their watches, pacing and looking like they were waiting for someone.
“A sheikh is coming…they’re talking about a mufti…they’re waiting for him,” Gilead whispered to Will. “The rest…I can’t make out.”
One of the gunmen saw Gilead whispering. He strode over to him and with a stick he was carrying, beat the younger man across the face until his nose started bleeding profusely. The other men trained their guns on Will, who was forced to watch helplessly.
At first the attorney thought Gilead had been knocked unconscious. But after a few minutes he groaned—and finally, clumsily, jerked himself up to a sitting position.
“I think they broke my nose.”
“Don’t talk,” Will said, barely audible, “unless I tell you.”
Then the terrorist who had been using his cell phone during the trip pulled it out and made another call.
That cell phone was the only solace Will had found in their nightmare drive from Jerusalem to their final destination, the heart of Palestinian terrorism within the Gaza Strip. He could only hope that someone had witnessed their being seized outside the Orient House. If so, he knew the U.S. had the satellite capacity to track cell-phone calls. But only if they had a cell-phone number to track in the first place.
As Will sat in the sweltering, airless heat of the abandoned rooms, the odds of a rescue seemed infinitesimally small.
Then he whispered over to his companion.
“Pray…pray for a plan. I’ve got to figure this out…”
But for Will, there in the night, in that dismal room in Rafiah, there seemed to be little that could be figured out.
He prayed. For Fiona. That she would be comforted and protected in the aftermath of the news. Lord, please let her know that my last thoughts were of her. How I want to hold her just once more… And for young Andrew. He would be without a father…Oh God, be the Father to him when I am gone…he’s so young…
Then they heard a commotion. Voices, coming up the stairs.
In less than a minute, two imams, worship advisors to Hamas, appeared in the room. Then the men stepped to the side and a third man entered the room. As he did, the two imams and the gunmen all bowed low.
Will looked up.
In the middle of the room was Sheikh Mudahmid.
He nodded, smiling grimly, to Will and Gilead, then waved his hand vaguely to the corner of the room. The men hastened over to the chairs that were there, ran them over to the sheikh, and set them down for him and the two imams.
“The Council of Eid al-Adha is commenced,” the sheikh began when he was seated.
“What’s that?” Will whispered to Gilead.
“The judgment of sacrifice…as in the sacrifice of the goat…slitting its throat…”
“Stand up!” one of the imams commanded. Two of the gunmen laid down their arms and produced a long, razor-sharp knife.
As Will and Gilead awkwardly struggled to their feet, Will whispered, “Is the sheikh their highest spiritual leader?”
When they were finally standing, Gilead whispered back.
“No. Sheikh Yassiheim, very old, he’s the top—”
“Silence, pigs!” one of the imams yelled.
“Allah commands justice,” Sheikh Mudahmid said calmly. “You, Mr. Chambers—you profess to know what that word means. But today, you will feel what it means—you will sense the cold steel of the blade and fe
el the blood running from you as your life ebbs away.”
Then he turned to Gilead.
“And as for you—you were raised in the truth of Islam…you were taught the truths of the heavenly religion…I do understand that you were poisoned by your mother, who became a ranting Christian, an infidel…and even your father turned to the lies of the Christians when he went to America…but you are without excuse. Allah is not merciful to those who will not acknowledge him. And it shall be even worse for those who slaughter Allah’s children as they kneel in worship—”
“You say this is a council,” Will cried out. “You, Sheikh, are a man of great authority. Yet you were given the chance to testify against Gilead before the Palestinian International Tribunal—and they dismissed Gilead from any responsibility for the murder of your people in the Noble Sanctuary—”
“That tribunal?” Mudahmid roared back. “A mockery! Judges from Korea and Belgium deciding justice for the slaughtered souls of Muslims? Even Mustafa acted like a coward.”
“Are you allowing us to present evidence, at least?” Will said, frantically struggling for some way to put off the inevitable.
“No,” Mudahmid scoffed. “We have all the evidence we need.” Then he nodded to the two men with the knives, and they walked toward Will and Gilead.
Will looked over at the approaching men. Then something caught his eye. Outside the window…in the dark…he saw a red laser light, and a flashing glint of metal, perhaps a reflection…and the shape of a large, oblong object suspended silently in the air outside, containing within it the red beams and human shapes. And then it was gone, like some great, flitting insect.
And that is when Angus MacCameron’s words were there, burning far brighter in Will’s memory than the red of the laser lights and the white glinting reflections.
“Like the apostle Paul before King Agrippa…”
He could almost hear the old Scot asking him, as he would often, “Do you remember your Bible, son?”
“Yes, I do.”
“And what does it say?”
“That Paul preached to Agrippa…”
“And when he was done preaching, then?”
The Last Judgment Page 38