KBL

by John Weisman

  Charlie maneuvered through the open gateway, working his dolly down the rough path. Three rows south, two rows west. Second grave on the right. The dead drop was ingenious. One of the stones at the bottom of the memorial had been chiseled out and replaced by a hollow container made of some sort of composite. A perfect match for the stones used in the memorial. Rap it with a stick and it felt like stone. How the technical people back at Langley had accomplished this, and how they’d installed it, Charlie neither knew nor cared. All that mattered was that it worked.

  He reached down, moved the false stone, and pulled out a small wrapped package about the size of a paperback book. He knew what the packet contained: fifteen Phoenix Beacons, thirty 2032 batteries, and fifteen positioners, mini-stakes just a little bit bigger than golf tees that affixed with waterproof adhesive to the bottoms of the infrared flasher casings. Charlie secreted the package in his tunic, replaced the stone, scattered dust to hide his tracks, and made his way back toward the empty street.

  They were coming. Soon. Charlie smiled to himself as he headed south on the empty roadway. He glanced at the dark sky. It would be light soon. The muezzin at the Umar Mosque two hundred yards away would be calling the faithful to morning prayer.

  Charlie would be there, too.

  Facing east.

  Reciting the proper words.

  But praying for an entirely different outcome.

  Allahu Akbar. God is great.

  Subhana rabbiyal ad-heem. Glory be to God almighty.

  Sam’i Allahu liman hamidah, Rabbana wa-lakal hamd. God listens to he who praises Him.

  And Charlie would be thinking inshallah—God willing that my particular prayer will be listened to and answered.

  Answered in the near term.

  And most important, answered with extreme prejudice.

  Allahu Akbar!

  God, Charlie knew, is indeed great.

  But so, Charlie knew, is a Barnes 70-grain TSX bullet. Or a Match King 77-grain. If Bin Laden wanted to recite kalimah shahada on his way to martyrdom, either one would help him along the path equally as well.

  33

  Fort Knox, Kentucky

  April 15, 2011, 0900 Hours Local Time

  Commander Dave Loeser and Captain Tom Maurer surveyed the mock-up. It had been built by CIA contractors and Army carpenters and excavators over the previous five days. They’d used just over ten acres of cleared land behind the eight-hundred-meter rifle range and built a road from west-southwest to east-northeast, 430 meters long and 9 meters wide. At its northeast terminus, the road dead-ended into a narrower road that ran almost due north-south. Sixty-five feet from the T, an eight-foot chain-link fence ran for two hundred feet. Halfway down the fence was a twelve-foot-wide gate. Then the fencing continued another hundred feet.

  Behind the fence sat four structures. Three of them were one story; one was three story, with terraces on its second and third floors. The third-floor terrace, which faced roughly south, was enclosed by a seven-foot privacy shield. All the windows on the north side of the three-story structure were opaque. Behind the structures and enclosing the compound, making it into a five-sided compound, just over an acre, ran another 485 feet of fencing.

  Across the road from the compound sat three houses. One faced the three-story structure; the other two sat farther southwest. Behind the houses lay a six-acre, rectangular plowed field. The field behind the compound was also plowed into neat rows.

  Behind the twelve-foot-wide gate were a pair of 125-foot-long, 12-foot high walls built of plywood, creating a twelve-foot-wide alley, at the rear of which, on the eastern wall, was a twelve-foot-wide steel gate. On the western wall, a four-foot-wide doorway had been cut and fitted with a steel doorframe, on which hung a steel door secured by a hasp and lock arrangement. The western yard, which held only two small boxlike structures twelve feet tall attached to the plywood wall and enclosed by the fencing, was roughly one hundred by one hundred feet.

  Tom Maurer paced off the courtyard. “We can get one helo in here easily.” He pointed at the flat roof of the three-story structure. “The assaulters on Chalk One can fast-rope onto the roof, drop onto the terrace, and blow through the windows. Then Chalk One drops the Rangers on the road to act as a blocking force. Chalk Two lands here. Assaulters blow the wall or the door, blow the wall opposite, and hit the guest house and the main house simultaneously. Rangers in Chalk Two are perimeter security inside the compound, and the K-9 and handler follow the assaulters.”

  He turned to face south and pointed to the plowed field beyond the compound. “Enabler helo comes down there. SSE group, JMAU, and us, plus another Ranger platoon, maybe a small CIA element, a translator.” He looked at the Red Squadron commander. “Piece of cake, right?”

  “Yeah, until we do it for real.” Tom Loeser pointed at the third-floor terrace. “No visuals, are there?”

  “Nope. We have no idea what’s inside. The doc CIA sent in never made it past the main gate. No one’s been in there. Thermal readings give us zilch.”

  “So we have no idea at all what the interior of the house looks like?”

  “None at all. But we seldom do, and houses are houses, right?”

  “Yeah, but Murphy is Murphy, too. So when we red-team this, let’s make sure we put some iron doors inside—something they’ll have to blow.”

  The DEVGRU CO nodded in agreement. “Good idea.” He looked at the squadron commander. “When do the boys get in?”

  “Tomorrow. I switched things around a little. Six-Charlie and One-Alpha are my assault element, with Five-Charlie and Three-Bravo as my backup. Do you want to stage a walk-through?”

  “No,” Maurer said. “No walk-throughs. And no daylight. They’ll bunk here, but we stage at Fort Campbell, fly ninety minutes—contour stuff to shake them up a little, then come in from the north, just like we will when it’s for real.”

  Loeser said, “When do we tell them?”

  “When we’re airborne,” Maurer replied. “When we’re across the Pak border. On the approach. Not before. I don’t want them worked up. I want them to think that this is just another HVT capture/kill.”

  “It ain’t, though.”

  “It is but it isn’t. I just don’t want them thinking about it for very long. I want them sharp. I want them thinking hop and pop, shoot and loot, not who the target is. Because he may not even be there. Besides, fact is, there’s still no decision. The admiral’s slipping this stuff to us under the table so we can make ready and cut Mr. Murphy’s participation to a minimum.”

  “You think POTUS will give the go?”

  “Admiral says he’s sixty-forty—maybe even seventy-thirty—against an op right now.”

  “What does Director Mercaldi say?”

  “Vince.” Maurer smiled when he said the name. “I like that man. Asked me to call him Vince when I met him with the admiral ten days ago. Said, ‘Tom, you leave the politicking to me. You just show up wearing all that stuff you have on your chest, tell the truth, and show POTUS what SEALs are all about. Show him how you do what you guys do best—all that hoo-yah stuff. Then I’ll get you the green light. And then you nail the op and make me look good.’ He actually sang ‘hoo-yah.’ Made it sound like a fricking foghorn.”

  Loeser laughed. “Foghorn?”

  “Affirmative. Where he got that I’ll never know.”

  “But, so, you believed him? I mean, he’s a pol.”

  “Yeah, he is a pol. But he’s . . . different. Pols will look you in the eye and lie to your face. This guy? Gotta tell you, Dave, I actually did believe he meant what he said.”

  “Ain’t that a first.”

  “Is in my experience.” Maurer turned north. “Let’s walk the other side—pace off the field south of the compound. The admiral wants to know where we want the box and one on that side for the enabler helo. He says they’ve got someone already in place over there who’ll lay ’em out for us. ”

  “Service with a smile from CIA.” Loeser followed his CO
across the dusty road. “So what’s the cut-off?”

  “There’s a meeting with POTUS and the national security staff on the nineteenth. I’m scheduled to participate.”

  “Hangin’ out with the big dogs, eh?”

  “If you consider the dog-and-pony aspect, yeah.”

  “Will we get a green light on the nineteenth?”

  “We’ll see. If Vince delivers what he says he can deliver, then maybe yes.”

  “Incredible.” Loeser wagged his head in disbelief. “A pol who keeps his word.”

  34

  The Oval Office, Washington, D.C.

  April 19, 2011, 1630 Hours Local Time

  The president’s deputy executive secretary knocked twice, then cracked the door of the hideaway office and stuck her head inside. “Mr. President, the secretary of defense is here.”

  “Thank you, Linda.” The president pushed himself out of his armchair, wrestled into his suit coat, and checked the mirror to see that his tie was straight. From the desktop he plucked the leather folder embossed with the gold Presidential Seal. And he patted his shirt pocket to make sure he had a pen with him. “Let’s go.”

  She held the door open. He turned left and walked the fifteen feet to the Oval Office door and waited as she opened it.

  The president walked inside and strode directly to where Richard Hansen stood. “Rich, good to see you.”

  “Good to see you, too, Mr. President.”

  “Ready?”

  “And waiting, sir.”

  “Then I think we should get this under way.” The president headed back the way he’d come, trailed by SECDEF and two Secret Service agents. They wound their way through the West Wing, stopping momentarily as a presidential aide snagged the president for ten seconds of whispered conversation, then proceeded to the stairway leading past the Secret Service Operations Center, down the stairs. They turned left, then right, then left again. At the Situation Room a Secret Service agent opened the door and the president walked inside.

  He looked at the full house, smiled, said, “Good afternoon,” and grinned broadly at the chorus of greetings he got in return. Then the smile faded. “Let’s get on with it,” he said, and assumed his seat at the head of the table.

  “Mr. President.” Vincent Mercaldi rose, walked to the center of the conference table, and stood behind a tall naval officer. “I’d like to introduce Captain Tom Maurer. Captain Maurer is the commanding officer of DEVGRU, the unit Admiral Bolin has chosen to perform this mission, which will be called Operation Neptune Spear. The operation will be conducted by Navy SEALs, Army Rangers, and Task Force 160, the Army’s Special Operations Air Regiment, with additional input from the Army’s Delta Force and other military support units. All of these JSOC personnel, however, will for legal reasons be signed over to CIA and become for the duration a part of our Special Activities Division.”

  Vince paused momentarily, picked up a bottle of spring water, opened it, and drank. “This,” he continued, “has been discussed and worked out between CIA and the Pentagon.” He looked at the secretary of defense. “There are no legal issues, right, Rich?”

  “That is correct.”

  “I’ve asked Captain Maurer to come so he can take you through the mission step by step, sir. We believe that once you see how it will be accomplished, you’ll realize that it is not only doable, but can be smoothly and safely executed. Then CIA’s senior Bin Laden analyst, whom you all know as George S. Nupkins and whom we call Spike, will present the case for going.”

  The CIA director looked at the president and got a neutral response. Undeterred, he pressed on. “And so, Captain Maurer, if you would.” Vince returned to his seat.

  Tom Maurer stood six-four in bare feet. He towered over the room. He looked down at the president. “Sir,” he said, “let me take you through it.” Maurer signaled. A young enlisted SEAL whose uniform bore three rows of ribbons topped by a Bronze Star with combat “V” and two Purple Hearts wheeled a table with a green felt cover adjacent to where the president sat.

  Maurer removed the cover. Underneath was a scale model of the Khan compound and the adjoining area, as well as three model aircraft: two MH60-J Black Hawks and one MH 47 Special Operations Chinook.

  “First, Mr. President, I’d like to tell you this operation is nothing special. In fact, I’d call it low-risk. My men have done almost two thousand similar operations in the past year alone. In fact, on any night we have a dozen or more capture/kill high-value target, or HVT, ops going on simultaneously. So for us, this is just another night’s work.”

  Maurer paused and scanned the room as the information sank in. He was pleased to see the analyst Spike give him a slight smile and a brief nod.

  Maurer picked up one of the Black Hawks. “We’ll come in from the north, having fish-hooked from our flight path, and come down here.” Maurer manipulated the model so it sat just above the roof of the main house. “These are stealth helicopters, Mr. President. We can mask their signatures, so they look more like a flight of birds than an aircraft to enemy radar. In fact, their signatures are so low that anything less than state-of-the-art will miss them altogether. And the Paks don’t have state-of-the-art radar.

  “The helo will hover above the main house. Six SEALs will fast-rope onto the roof, then drop onto the terrace nine feet below, go through the windows and doors, and make entry into the master suite—here.” Maurer removed the roof of the structure, revealing a master bedroom with three miniature figures inside.

  “As they are doing that”—Maurer took the the second Black Hawk out of the young SEAL’s hand—“simultaneously, the second Black Hawk will drop eight SEALs and five Rangers in the courtyard.” He set the model down in the far courtyard. “They will blow through two walls, then split into two assault groups. One will enter the front door of the main house, the other will clear the guest house.” He looked up. The president’s face was all rapt attention. “As they are doing that, the Rangers will—”

  “Captain?”

  Maurer stopped short and shifted his gaze from the president.

  Dwayne Daley ran his tongue across his lips. “Captain, how can you be so sure that the Pakistanis won’t see or hear you? I know from exper—”

  “Dwayne,” Wes Bolin interrupted, “we have been overflying Abbottabad since last July and the Pakistanis haven’t seen or heard us.”

  “But you’re overflying with Sentinels,” the counterterrorism advisor insisted. “We’re talking about helicopters here. Three of them.”

  “Dwayne.”

  The counterterrorism advisor turned toward the president’s voice. “Mr. President?”

  “Let the captain finish. We can discuss specifics afterward.”

  The room fell silent. The president looked at Maurer. “Please,” he said, “continue.”

  “Yes, sir.” Maurer shifted the Black Hawk’s position. “One element of Rangers will set up a blocking force on the road. The others will provide security on the compound. Twenty-five seconds after the second SEAL element is on the ground, the enabler aircraft will touch down in the field to the south of the compound.” Maurer watched as the young SEAL dropped the miniature MG-46 into position. “That aircraft will hold the command element, the JMAU and SSE elements, a Ranger platoon, and one reserve SEAL assault team.”

  “Captain?” It was the White House chief of staff.

  “Sir?”

  “That’s a lot of gobbledygook. Can you tell me in English what you were saying?”

  “With pleasure, sir. JMAU is the medical team. They’ll do the on-scene forensics and ID Bin Laden and take DNA from everyone in the compound. SSE stands for our sensitive site exploitation team. We call them slurpers. They’ll remove all the intelligence we can get our hands on—hard drives, flash drives, diaries, notes, papers, pocket litter—the sort of detritus that can become a treasure trove for analysts and also provide actionable intelligence. The Rangers will provide security. And the SEALs we hold in reserve.”

&n
bsp; The chief of staff smiled. “Thank you for the translation, Captain.”

  The president pointed at the six houses adjacent to the compound. “What happens if people from those houses come out because of the noise?”

  Vince Mercaldi spoke. “Mr. President, we will have a Pashto-speaking CIA officer dressed like a Pakistani plainclothesman on the ground with the assault team. He will deal with nosy neighbors.”

  The president pursed his lips. “You’ve thought of everything, Vince.”

  “I sure hope so, sir,” the CIA director said. “Admiral Bolin and Captain Maurer have put a lot of time and thought into this particular operation. Even though it doesn’t differ in tactics or methods from the thousands of operations they do annually, it does have, shall we say, a much deeper significance. The results could trigger a tectonic shift in our overall fight against terror. And because of that, we have had to ensure that all of our bases are covered.”

  “Agreed,” the president said. He turned back toward the model of the compound. “Captain, please continue.”

  “Of course, Mr. President.” Maurer’s hands went to the two model Black Hawks. “Our template for HVT operations like this is thirty minutes on the ground. This one shouldn’t be much different. We should complete our sweep through the house within six minutes after we’ve touched down,” he said. “The SSE and forensics will take another twenty minutes or so. And then we take our prisoners—or bodies—load them in the Chinook, and head for home.” He and the young SEAL lifted the Black Hawks and the Chinook off the table, then the young SEAL withdrew to the corner of the room.

  The DEVGRU commander looked at POTUS. “Any questions, sir?”

  The president made a tent of his hands. “Isn’t there any way that you can get to your target without flying in over the city?” He paused. “What about landing outside Abbottabad and convoying in, hitting the compound, and then convoying back out to the aircraft?”

  “I’m glad you asked that, sir. In special operations we try to keep things simple. That means the fewer stages we have to make it through, the easier our job will be and the higher our chances of successful completion. We have designed this operation in three steps: insertion, assault and site exploitation, and extraction. We red-teamed the truck possibility—had a working group looking for vulnerabilities. And we learned that with trucks, we have added two more steps to the mission, steps that include a lot of dangerous unknowns.”