Mission Compromised

by Oliver North

  “OK, I think I understand that and can accept that.”

  “Well, Paul says that if God exists then so does His righteousness. And he says that the trouble with human beings is that not one of them has ever measured up to God's standards of righteousness. Paul says in chapter 3—do you remember this part?—that we've all sinned and fallen short of God's expectations and demands. And that brings up the reason for the Christian gospel. He says—in that same chapter 3—that God ‘came by Christ’—that is, He became a man—the Son of God … and well, you know the rest of the story. Jesus lived a perfect life, preached against living contrary to God's standards—St. Paul calls it sin—and then He was crucified. Paul says, ‘God presented Jesus as a sacrifice of atonement,’ and he said that through our faith in Christ's sacrifice, we can have forgiveness.”

  “How?” Rachel asked bluntly.

  “Through repentance, and faith in the fact that Christ really did die for you and your sins.”

  Some of what Sandy was saying was still going over her head, but that last statement seemed clear enough. Rachel didn't understand it all, but one thing that she did relate to was the innate ideas of right and wrong. It didn't take Sandy to point out the wrong things going on in Rachel's life. She knew intuitively that although she probably wasn't as bad as a lot of other people, she could certainly, and accurately, be called a sinner. She began to weep quietly, overwhelmed by a sense of guilt. Tears of regret ran down her cheeks but she made no noise and her friend didn't know that she was crying. “It … it's a lot to take in,” Rachel said.

  Sandy began telling her again how everyone is guilty—that nobody is better or worse in sinning. “Sin is sin, whether it's a biggie or some little one,” Sandy told her, adding, “No one is exempt from the fact that he or she has broken God's laws.” Rachel felt the weight of her enormous guilt. She thought of her adulterous affair with Mitch … of her anger and resentment toward her husband … and she felt absolutely helpless.

  “I don't want to live this way,” she admitted to Sandy. “Can you help me?”

  “Of course. Do you want me to come over—to talk and pray with you?”

  “Not tonight … it's too late, but are you still off the flight schedule tomorrow? Can we meet for lunch?”

  “Yes, honey, I'd love to.”

  The guilt that Rachel had been feeling gave way to a sensation of being bathed in feelings of love—Sandy's love as her close friend, but it was something more than that—something vague and unfamiliar. It was a perceptible and real feeling. And Rachel recognized it, even though it was impossible for her to describe or quantify it.

  She hung up the phone and broke down even more. Her feelings had taken control. Feelings of guilt … pain … loss … then feelings of love … hope … and the sense that at last she might even be able to forgive herself.

  Rachel was looking forward to tomorrow with Sandy.

  Saddam International Airport

  ________________________________________

  Area 12

  Baghdad, Iraq

  Wednesday, 1 March 1995

  1000 Hours, Local

  Hussein Kamil had made arrangements for considerable pomp and ceremony when the UN nuclear inspectors arrived in Baghdad. There was a band and a news conference to greet the officials and let them—and the world—know that Iraq had nothing to hide.

  Kamil summoned one of Iraq's top generals to escort the inspectors to the Al Altheer site they had demanded to see. They would, of course, find nothing at all suspicious. The UN personnel insisted on bringing their test equipment and video cameras. There was no objection by the Iraqis, and the general led a procession that even included TV journalists. They were underway in less than an hour after the UN plane landed.

  Leonid Dotensk's flight from Kiev had arrived a day earlier in Damascus, and he had flown into the Baghdad airport, three hours ahead of the UN aircraft. He had also checked in with General Komulakov, who reported that the first wire transfer of 50 million Swiss francs had cleared at the Kiev bank.

  Dotensk looked for Kamil in the crowd, but decided to try and meet him when he left the entourage. Dotensk went toward the UN aircraft parked on the tarmac. Security was everywhere at the airport, but some of the elite officers knew Dotensk on sight, and knew that he was an important man who often met with their commander. When the Iraqi Army major saw Dotensk trying to get past the guards, he waved him in.

  Dotensk and Kamil got to the area beside the plane at about the same time.

  “Good day, my friend,” Dotensk said. “I want to introduce you to your nephews.”

  Kamil smiled and looked among the faces in the hangar until he saw his two nuclear scientists. He motioned for them and the four of them walked out to the portable cargo ramp leading into the plane. Kamil strode up the ramp into the plane's cargo hold. Dotensk and the two scientists followed.

  A platoon of soldiers armed with AK-47s formed a perimeter, and Kamil instructed them to shoot anyone who tried to board the plane.

  Inside the cargo hold, the two scientists lost no time opening the shielded tops on the wooden crates. First they lifted off the canvas bags marked RADIOACTIVE SOIL SAMPLES that had been taken from Chernobyl. The bags covered a shelf that hid the real cargo. The workers took the plywood shelf out of the crate. Each of the 177mm nuclear artillery projectiles was wrapped in plastic film and lead sheets. As soon as the scientists uncovered the first warhead, they set up their testing equipment and examined the weapon.

  After an hour of extensive inspection, the scientists assured Kamil that the goods were as advertised.

  Kamil smiled broadly and pumped Dotensk's hand. “All right … check the other two crates,” he said to the scientists. He turned back to Dotensk. “If they are the same, you will get the rest of your money.”

  Café al Balad

  ________________________________________

  Palestine Street

  Baghdad, Iraq

  Wednesday, 1 March 1995

  2015 Hours, Local

  After the final payment of 100 million Swiss francs had been wired to the Kiev bank, Leonid Dotensk told Hussein Kamil that he had another urgent matter to discuss. “Meet me at the Café al Balad,” Kamil told Dotensk. “I need to make sure my ‘nephews’ are sent to a safe place. I'll see you there in half an hour.” Dotensk left. Two of Kamil's most trusted Amn Al-Khass officers then removed the shelves from the UN crates and filled the void with bags full of common dirt so that when the crates were opened at the IAEA laboratory in France, no one would wonder why there was so much Chernobyl soil missing.

  The Café al Balad was just down the street from Kamil's office. His bodyguards stood at the front of the café and steered customers away from the small room where the two men were having a quiet but animated conversation.

  “What are you saying—that I should not go to the summit with Osama bin Laden on Monday in Tikrit? That's madness!” Kamil said sharply. “Why!?”

  Dotensk motioned for him to lower his voice. “I have learned that there may be a problem.”

  “What kind of a problem?”

  Dotensk sighed. He knew of no other way to deal with the problem than to be up-front with his client. He told Kamil of the plans for British and American commandos to attack Saddam's palace in Tikrit.

  Kamil jumped up as if he'd been jabbed with a cattle prod. He paced for a few seconds, then sat down and swore through clenched teeth. “Why are you telling me this? Did you give information to the CIA so they could come and kill us!?”

  “No, I assure you, I did not. The intelligence came from the Jews. The Mossad found out about it and told the British intelligence and CIA. I swear I had nothing to do with this plan.”

  “Don't you know that if I permit this meeting to go on as planned, and do not show up myself, I might as well carry a sign that says, ‘I killed Saddam’? I will be a dead man—whether or not he survives. “

  “No … I also have a plan,” Dotensk said. “Remember, your w
ell being is in my own interest. You have asked me to bring more … uh … ‘nephews’ from abroad. I have found some more, but it will take a few months to get them to you. This deal, obviously, means a great deal to me and to my associates. If the March 6 summit goes on and there is a major attack, our plan to sell you the additional merchandise will be lost.

  “So you can see why we are not the ones behind this planned raid … but we do have the ability to make it fail. And you must help me because it is in your best interest to do so. Your father-in-law will shower you with praise—just as he will when you show him those ‘little nephews’ that were delivered today. His respect for you will soar after what you will do to abort the attack that has been planned for Monday.”

  Kamil waited for Dotensk to continue.

  “We will keep you, your father-in-law, and his guests safe from any harm. After all, I want to add to your family of ‘nephews’ and collect my money. As I have already told you, it is absolutely in my best interests for the raid on Tikrit to fail and I am going to make sure that you have it within your power to see that it does. And you, Kamil, will emerge the great hero for having discovered the plot and exposing it—and in the process, saving your father-in-law's life.

  “On Sunday night they plan to parachute in a team of commandos. Their mission is to set up a laser-targeting device aimed at the palace. Then on Monday afternoon, while your father-in-law and his guests are in the Tikrit palace, an attack will be mounted by some kind of missile or aircraft loaded with explosives and guided to its target by these laser devices.”

  Kamil nearly shuddered at the thought of it all. He had been terrified by the bombs and missiles they had unloaded on Baghdad when the West launched the war on Iraq—the one they called the Gulf War.

  “How do you propose that I stop it?”

  “You will let the assassins get in place and set up their targeting equipment, keeping watch from a distance so they cannot see you. Then when you have them all together, it will be like shooting fish in a pond. I will know the exact position where they will rendezvous after their parachute jump. Your men can be hidden not five hundred yards from where the Americans and British are set up. There will be only a handful of them, so as soon as they assemble, your men can kill them all. Then you can move the laser-targeting device and use it to aim at one of those old abandoned buildings along the Tigris River. When the laser-guided weapon arrives, it will hit the building by the river instead of your father-in-law's palace. You can even make propaganda capital by bringing in a few truckloads of prisoners from Al Ranighwania Prison. Put some cots in the building, make it look like a hospital or something. All of them will be killed in the bombing. Think of it—you can bring in CNN, BBC, and Al Jazeera Television cameras to film it. Saddam can hold a press conference and tell the whole world that the Americans, with no provocation, bombed an Iraqi hospital.

  “Finally, you can alert your anti-aircraft installations to bring as many of the Americans' planes down as possible when they come to search for their missing commando team. Now, it is important that this be coordinated, so I will be with you. I will be in touch with my associate, who can eavesdrop on their command center and intercept and decode the communications of the Americans.”

  A smile spread across Kamil's face. “You are in contact with someone who can plug in to the command center of these Western commandos? You never fail to amaze me, Dotensk.” Then the smile turned into a grimace as he leaned across the table and aimed a finger at the Ukrainian's face. “This better be as you say, or you will have signed both of our death warrants.”

  “Listen to me. I could have left immediately after you took delivery of the merchandise that I brought you today; my money is already in the bank at Kiev. But I am a practical man, a businessman. I want to sell you more merchandise before I help you defect. That is why I have told you about these plans and have agreed to be with you in Tikrit on Monday when the attack is to be mounted.

  “Now remember,” Dotensk went on, “in order for this to work, everything must go according to plan. On Monday, after your special guests have arrived, tell your father-in-law about the imminent attack you have just discovered and of your plan to use the knowledge against the Americans and British. Tell Saddam that this action will make him appear as the innocent underdog who is constantly bullied by the Americans. He will get enormous public relations advantage from this—and the sympathy of the entire world. And, of course, my dear Kamil, you will be the one who will uncover, expose, and foil the entire plot.”

  By the time Dotensk finished his pitch, Kamil was smiling again, and nodding his head. He shook Dotensk's hand and watched the Ukrainian walk out of the café. It would be a busy few days, he realized. But it would be worth it.

  Office of Dimitri Komulakov

  ________________________________________

  UN Headquarters

  New York, N. Y.

  Thursday, 2 March 1995

  1035 Hours, Local

  General Komulakov hung up the phone and switched off the EncryptionLok-3. He smiled; the news from Dotensk was even better than he had hoped. Everything was under control.

  The Russian got up from his desk and went into the command center. Walking over to the operations board, he admired his handiwork. When he had assumed this post four years ago, this room was nothing—a few phones and some sleepy Third World watch officers who spent most of their time reading newspapers and practicing their English. But now, with the encouragement of the SG and the support of an internationalist American president, the UN had a real command center—one befitting a global government with its own military forces in the field. Komulakov had his own intelligence gathering capabilities, even his own state-of-the-art encryption equipment—instead of having to rely on hand-me-downs from the British and Americans. General Komulakov looked up at the new, flat-screen plasma display boards, Quite a step up from the chalkboards they had when I got here.

  The Russian general reviewed the location of the UN's far-flung military forces and the readiness status of each. On the screens were displayed the details of UN contingents in Haiti, East Timor, the Philippines, Sinai, the Golan Heights, Jordan, Lebanon, Gaza, Bosnia, the Congo, Kosovo, and a host of others. Some had only been at these locations for a matter of months. Others had been on UN maps for decades. The screen also showed, in different colors, the most recent disposition of U.S., NATO, Russian, Chinese, North Korean, and other military forces. Each country, as a “confidence-building measure,” provided most of this data voluntarily. And now there was a new designator, a small blinking label reading “UNISEG,” next to Incirlik, Turkey. Komulakov smiled again at the thought of how few of the countries represented in this building knew that the ISEG even existed.

  Major Ellwood was looking over the general's shoulder as he reviewed the latest reports from the ISEG. The unit was required to send in a situation report every twenty-four hours, more frequently if there were an incident or crisis. In response to instructions from Komulakov, Ellwood had instituted a procedure so that every night, Sergeant Major Gabbard would send him the report in a formatted, encrypted e-mail. And though he and the Marine sergeant major had never met, the two of them had established a bit of computer rapport—an informal, back-channel exchange.

  The general turned and saw Ellwood watching him. “Major Ellwood, who generates these reports?”

  “Sergeant Major Gabbard, the senior enlisted man with the ISEG, sir.”

  “Are there any other copies of this floating around?'

  “Not that I know of, sir.”

  “And how do you receive them?”

  “By encrypted e-mail, every night.”

  “I see. And does the sergeant major keep a copy of them on his hard drive?”

  “I would assume so, sir. But I would also assume that he's very conscientious about classified material.”

  “Quite so, Major, quite so. But just in case, send out an order to the ISEG that they are not to keep any classified materials
of any kind, on paper or on any laptop computer, other than that which is essential to the immediate operation. We can archive anything they might need right here. Can't risk this information falling into the wrong hands.”

  “No, I suppose not, sir.” Ellwood walked back to his carrel overlooking the command center. His computer station was the center's main IT station. As comm chief, Ellwood had computer access to any of the other terminals within the center.

  Ellwood keyed in a password and a command before complying with the general's edict. His terminal screen gave him a list of options for checking access and protocol for the various other computers. He typed in the assignment code for the first deputy's computer and did a summary review of his incoming messages. Although he knew that the general had just received another call from Baghdad, there was no such call on the file listing. It had been erased. In fact, Ellwood speculated that almost half of the incoming and outgoing messages had been deleted from the general's computer.

  Major Ellwood thought that strange. It was one thing to delete files in a sensitive environment, where they might be compromised. But here? Why would General Komulakov delete the records of his overseas messages and calls in his own command center?

  The general finished his review of the plan Newman had submitted for the March 6 mission and then returned to his office. For the past day and a half, he had been thinking over how to keep the mission on track without betraying the fact that it was already compromised. He was glad that the deadline was so close. As long as the Iraqis don't do anything stupid, he thought, the mission won't be called off.

  Komulakov had considered a preemptive leak, so that the mission to Tikrit would be canceled. It would be a way of saving the lives of the ISETs. Yet, how could it be leaked? Turkey was one of the few places where Komulakov lacked the ability to plant information to be read by various agencies and military organizations and then interpreted and analyzed—in time for it to be useful. In the end he decided it was not practical to leak word to the West—it would be just another messy complication to worry about.