Mission Compromised

by Oliver North

  The trip took about forty minutes. Kamil saw the Ukrainian's car parked near the spot they had last met. Dotensk opened the door and got out as Kamil's Mercedes pulled up. He held up both hands in greeting so that the Iraqi could see that he was unarmed.

  “I am afraid that I have bad news for you,” Kamil said when they were standing in front of the car. “Abu has been killed. Come, I will take you to his remains.”

  Abu's wife screamed and fell into her son's arms. Kamil took one of the woman's arms and her son took the other and they half-led, half-carried her to where her husband's body was. Animals had been at the body and the wind had coated what was left with sand. The widow and son both dropped to their knees beside the corpse and began to wail. Kamil pulled on a pair calfskin gloves, walked over to Dotensk, and said, “Give me your pistol.”

  “No … don't do this,” said the Ukrainian, backing up against his car.

  “Give it to me or I shall kill you here and now,” said Kamil, his hand on his holster.

  Dotensk handed over the gun and looked away. Kamil lifted the pistol and fired two shots. The son and his mother dropped on top of the corpse of the man who had served Kamil so faithfully.

  “Dear God!” Dotensk cried out. “What are you doing? Must you kill someone every time we meet?”

  “It had to be done.”

  Kamil ejected the clip from Dotensk's pistol, cleared the round out of the chamber, and handed the weapon back to the Ukrainian. “They were the wife and son of the chauffeur, and they would have begun to ask more questions.”

  The Ukrainian was trembling. He wasn't sure whether it was because of fear or rage. This man is a lunatic! he thought. He is evil—even by my standards.

  “Two birds with one stone. Or, more correctly, three birds with one gun,” Kamil said. “Now there is no one who will ask questions. And I have added to the means that will ensure your trust and loyalty.”

  “You didn't have to kill any of them for that. I told you, I do trust you and you can trust me.”

  “Nothing like honor among thieves, eh?”

  “Well, let's get down to business,” Dotensk said. “I do not have much time. If I am to complete the arrangements, I must leave this evening. Here is the plan. Make arrangements to have your scientists in Damascus by Wednesday noon. There will be a plane there to take them to the place where the three warheads are hidden. Your experts will accompany me there and be able to make their tests. I will provide the test equipment—they will have trouble getting their own equipment out of Iraq.”

  “Where will all of this take place?”

  “I cannot tell you. It's better that no one else knows.”

  “I understand, but my scientists cannot get back here in time to be in Damascus when you want them to. One will be coming from Montreal and the other from Bonn. Can you arrange to meet them somewhere closer? And they will have their own equipment.”

  Dotensk looked at the three bodies grotesquely sprawled in a pile and decided not to push his “customer” any further. “All right. Tell them to meet me in Kiev, at the Izakov Hotel. You can't miss it—all the other buildings are painted in soft pastels; this is the only white building. They call it Aqmola—The White Tomb. It's right on the main street, Khreshchatyk. Tell them to leave a message for me at the same hotel when they check in, and I will meet them. All in all, the trip will keep them in and around Kiev for a little more than forty-eight hours.”

  “And, assuming all is well and the scientists give me a favorable report of their inspection of the warheads, how will you get them to me?”

  “I can't tell you the details just yet, but I am working on a way that will enable us to fly them into Iraq under the very noses of the United Nations inspectors.”

  “That sounds risky. Why not bring them to Karachi or Istanbul and have them smuggled into Iraq along one of the regular land routes?”

  “And they take weeks, sometimes months. Trust me, my way is faster and safer. The less time that they are en route reduces the chance they will be captured or observed by unwanted eyes. This much I can tell you: the shipment will come into Iraq aboard a United Nations airplane that we will be controlling. If you will look at the schedule, you will see that UN inspectors are to be here on the first of March to inspect your Al Atheer site. And since you have advance notice of their schedule, I'm sure the inspectors will find no evidence of nuclear weapons. But unknown to them, they will be bringing in as cargo the very thing that they will be looking for!”

  Kamil did a little dance in the sand and laughed. “Audacious! I love it!”

  The Ukrainian smiled. “You can tell Saddam it was all your idea.”

  Kamil liked that part of the plan even better. At last he would have some kind of parity with his troublesome brothers-in-law. “But how will you manage to do such an incredible thing?” he asked.

  “You can do anything if you have enough money. I'm bribing an entire Ukrainian brigade,” Dotensk said.

  “Well, I don't care how you do it or how much it costs. I'll be ready with your money as we agreed. After the inspection I'll wire 50 million Swiss francs to your account in Kiev, and the other 100 million will be transferred to your account as soon as I take safe delivery.”

  “Agreed. And here is the number of the account to wire the funds into. On the first of March, when you take final delivery of the complete package, you need to wire the funds before the close of banking activity for the day. On the following day, there will be a number of transactions to move those funds where they cannot be traced. The same will be true of the first deposit, but it is important that your second deposit is received on time because after I move the money, the account will be closed.”

  “I will do as you say. Can you get me more of these warheads?”

  “Not right away. It is too risky. In a year or two, perhaps. But even if we can locate some, they will be more costly.”

  “I cannot wait a year—or did you forget? You are also making it possible for me to defect,” Kamil reminded him.

  “I have not forgotten about your defection. I am making arrangements with the CIA for you to go to Jordan. It would pose too many political problems for the American president to bring you to America right away. They will listen to what you can tell them and give it a value before they determine how far you will travel with them.”

  “Well, no matter—I may just decide to stay in Jordan … but I want to leave no later than August of this year. That gives you at least four months to find me some more nuclear weapons. I don't care what they cost. Just get me some more,” Kamil ordered, sounding again like the ruthless man that murdered so carelessly.

  “I'll … I'll get right to work on it.”

  Muscat, Oman

  ________________________________________

  Thursday, 23 February 1995

  1330 Hours, Local

  Customs control in Muscat was a mere formality. An official stamped Newman's passport and waved him through with a pleasant smile. “May Allah grant you a profitable stay, Mr. Newman.”

  Once outside the double doors that enclosed the customs area, Newman spotted Bruno Macklin, the SAS captain who served as Weiskopf's second in command on the ISEG. Standing with him was a wiry, well-tanned, Anglo-Saxon who could have doubled as Macklin's brother. “Welcome to our little bit of heaven, Peter,” said Macklin. “Meet me brother, Harry.”

  Newman shook hands with the two men. “Bruno, is this really your brother?”

  “Aye, that he is. Da' made sure all of his sons went into the oil business.”

  They went outside and climbed into a dusty, well-used Land Rover emblazoned with ANGLO-AMERICAN PETROLEUM EXPLORATION DIVISION in neat green lettering on its dented side. Within a half hour of leaving the airport, they were off the paved road, headed almost due west on a well-traveled dirt track, toward a range of mountains.

  Harry drove, Newman rode shotgun, and Bruno Macklin took on the role of backseat tour guide. “The base we're headed to, up in the Al
Jabal Al Akhdar mountain range, is one of seven bases that the regiment has run here in Oman ever since World War II. Qaboos bin Sa'id Al Sa'id knows how important his little sultanate is to keeping the Straits of Hormuz open for oil shipments. He's also smart enough to know that having us here is a hedge against Iranian mischief and the crazies of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Oman, which is based next door in Yemen.”

  Harry crashed through the gearbox and rode the brakes to avoid the ruts and potholes in the deserted road. “Yeah, and the sultan also knows it's a lot safer and cheaper to have us here than it is to hire more soldiers for his own little army,” he said.

  For the rest of the seventy-eight-kilometer trip to the inland SAS base, the two brothers talked while Newman reflected on how he had come to be sweltering under the equatorial sun with these two tough characters.

  The OEOB was mostly empty on Saturday mornings, Newman and his team had learned. Coombs, Robertson, and McDade were the first people he saw after leaving the National Security Advisor's office. The other three looked at him when he shut the door behind him.

  “We have a change of mission,” he told them.

  They all groaned. Their Christmas and New Year holidays—and most of the preceding month—had been devoted to little else but planning the mission to go after Mohammed Farrah Aidid in Somalia. “How did I know this was going to happen?” said Coombs as all four men filled their coffee cups and sat down around the conference table in Newman's office.

  The operation had been coming together well. All thirty-eight members of the ISEG had been deployed to the British base area in Oman, and the MD-80 aircraft that Robertson had ordered had been repainted as an Aer Lingus cargo plane on charter to the UN. As specified by the “Concept of Operations” drafted at Andrews Air Force Base back in the first days of December, an advanced operating base had been designated—the old French foreign legion facility at the far west end of the airport in Djibouti. ISET B had been tagged as the primary team to carry out the mission of capturing or killing Aidid in Somalia. ISET E had been told to prepare for departure to Djibouti as the advance party to establish the AOB. ISET C had been ordered to serve as the Quick Reaction Force, and was working on how to respond if the primary team ran into trouble. The two remaining International Sanctions Enforcement Teams and the ISEG headquarters were gearing up for the move to Djibouti aboard the MD-80. Newman's announcement meant that all this would now change.

  Newman told them about the expected gathering in Iraq on March 6. When he had filled in the three officers on the new mission and listened to their complaints about how little time there was to do all that was necessary, he said, “Here's what we need. First, Bart, you get off a flash SatCom message to Weiskopf and tell him that the Somalia mission is off and that I'm headed his way with new orders. Tell him that the new target is Iraq and that it includes our present target and a whole bunch of other bad actors—including Saddam himself. That should make everyone in the ISEG happy since they all fought against him in the Gulf War.”

  “Where do we put the AOB?” asked Coombs.

  “Harrod said he didn't care if it was in Turkey or Kuwait,” said Newman. “All other things being equal, we ought to try for Turkey. If I remember correctly, Tikrit is in the north-central part of Iraq, on the Tigris River. It's closer to Turkey, and the Turks may not even notice if this can be made to look like it's part of the normal northern no-fly zone operation.

  “Second,” continued Newman, “Tom, I need everything you can get on the presidential palace compound in Tikrit. We'll need maps, the latest satellite coverage, nearest friendlies, Republican Guard dispositions—the works.” McDade scribbled on his legal pad.

  “Dan,” said Newman, turning to the Air Force officer, “I need you to find out what we have available in nonattributable guided ordnance—something that can be laser target designated by our guys on the ground and big enough to bring a building down on the bad guys while they have tea. Dr. Harrod mentioned using a UAV he called ‘Global Hawk.’”

  “Does it have to be U.S.?”

  “I don't think it matters as long as we can get it by next week and nobody cares if we don't bring it back.”

  By 1400 hours the three men had rung enough bells in the U.S. intelligence and Special Operations community to have answers to most of what Newman wanted to know. They gathered again around the conference table.

  McDade began: “I've put together a map package for you that shows everything we know about Tikrit and Northern Iraq to the Turkish border. It isn't bad. I've also scheduled seven passes with various assets between now and the fifth of March so we'll know the latest.” He laid out the disposition of two Republican Guard armored-mechanized regiments and the nearest locations for Kurdish rebel operations along the southern side of Iraq's border with Turkey. His computer-generated map showed the location of all known Iraqi and Syrian antiaircraft sites, air-search radars, and signals intelligence sites.

  Next, it was Coombs's turn. “The best site for an advanced operations base is the Turkish Air Force Base here at Siirt,” he said, pointing to the location on the map, west of Lake Van and along the north bank of the River Nehri. “Unfortunately, we're not likely to get clearance to go in there and set up much more than a communications relay on such short notice. Our best bet is to base at Siirt or out of Incirlik. All the U.S.—UK northern no-fly zone ops are being flown out of Incirlik. I like it because there are plenty of U.S. and British assets available on site in case our units on the ground in Iraq get into trouble.”

  “How do you recommend that we get 'em in and out?” asked Newman.

  Coombs looked at Robertson, who signaled for him to proceed.

  Coombs continued. “Dan and I think we ought to pre-position the MD-80 at Incirlik, and once everything is set up, pull the tail cone off the aircraft so that we can use it for a High Altitude—High Opening insert of ISET Echo on the night of March 1 or 2. Depending on the weather and winds, we could drop them from thirty thousand feet up to twenty-five or thirty miles west of Tikrit. That would give the team a minimum of three and one-half nights to get into position to set up an LTD to illuminate the target.”

  “What are we going to use for the strike?” asked Newman.

  Robertson spoke up. “Since this can't look like an intentional U.S. attack, all our laser-guided bombs are ruled out, as are cruise missiles. It'd be too hard to explain how a Tomahawk just happened to kill the president of Iraq and a room full of terrorists. In order to deliver a big enough payload, that leaves us just two options: one U.S., the other is Russian.”

  “Russian?”

  “Yes, sir. The Russians have a handful of TU-123 UAVs sitting around.” The Air Force officer put a picture in front of Newman. “As you can see, these things are big. They're truck-mounted and launched, and they travel at Mach 2. Max altitude is sixty thousand feet, and they have a range of better than one thousand miles. There are four of them at Factory N-135 in Kharkov that could be modified to accept our telemetry, GPS guidance equipment, a laser targeting terminal control system, and up to three thousand pounds of explosives. The advantage of using a TU-123 is that there would be no U.S. fingerprints. The downside is trying to get the Russians to buy off on it and get it rewired and ready for launch between now and the sixth of March.”

  “What's the U.S. option?” asked Newman.

  Robertson put another photo in front of Newman. “This is what Dr. Harrod described to you. It's called Global Hawk. It's very big; its wingspan is 116 feet, it's 44 feet long, and more than 15 feet high. It's difficult to tell by this photo because it was taken at an altitude of 65,000 feet over Groom Lake Airfield at Area 51 in Nevada, and there's no perspective.”

  “Good grief,” said Newman as the others craned their heads to see. “It looks like a cross between a U-2 and a whale.”

  Robertson shrugged. “Right now there are three of these things. Two are at Nellis Air Force Base, outside of Las Vegas; the third is undergoing payload tests at th
e Area 51 site at Tonopah. I talked to one of the engineers at Teledyne-Ryan about an hour ago, and he said that if they had to, they could outfit the telemetry suite the way we want. It already has X-band, UHF, and KU-band satellite radio command uplink equipment aboard. A GPS navigational cross-check system is built in. All they would have to add is the laser designator terminal guidance-control interface so that once it picks up the reflection from the designator our ISET puts on the target, it just follows the laser reflection in through the window. But here's the really good news: the thing weighs only 8,900 pounds empty. It's built to take a 2,000-pound instrument payload and—get this—14,700 pounds of fuel!”

  McDade, the SEAL, couldn't understand Robertson's excitement. “So what's the big deal about that?”

  “Typical squid! If it doesn't swim, you guys don't get it. Look, all that fuel is so that Global Hawk can stay airborne for forty-eight hours! Think about it, man. If we put this thing at Incirlik—or better yet—up at Mus in Turkey, we can replace the fuel we don't need with a corresponding weight in C-4 plastic explosives. I've already run the numbers. The flight time from Incirlik at 350 knots is only an hour and forty-five minutes. From the Turk Air Force Base at Mus West it's less than an hour. Build in a margin of error of ten hours to account for wind, weather, or the team being late getting in position if you want. That gives us a ten-thousand-pound bomb, with some fuel left over to burn down the wreckage after it hits.” The Air Force officer sat back in his seat with a smug smile on his face.

  “What about the U.S. fingerprints problem?” McDade said. “That thing has ‘Made in the U.S.A’ written all over it. Nobody else has anything like it. How could they not tie it to the U.S. after the international press corps gets in there to count the bodies?”

  “That's right,” interjected Newman, trying to smooth over the budding interservice rivalry. “That's why we're going to have a little disinformation campaign after the mission to deal with the back blast.