Mission Compromised

by Oliver North

  As the aircraft began to taxi away from the hangar that had been their home, Maddox threw a switch on a console in his compartment to turn off the incandescent lights and turn on the bank of special night-vision lighting, giving the compartment an eerie, red glow.

  As the MD-80 reached the end of the taxiway and began the right-hand turn onto the runway, Newman could see four USAF F-15s, two F-16s, and a Navy EA-6B Electronics Warfare aircraft to the left of their aircraft, all poised to follow them down the runway and into the night sky. Newman heard Major Robinette's voice in his headset: “Ready to go, Colonel?”

  “We're ready to roll, Major.”

  With that, he heard the copilot's voice, “Switching to channel 21.” Then, “Tower, this is Picnic One. Permission for takeoff.”

  Newman heard the voice of the air traffic controller in the tower give the aircraft its clearance as they turned onto the runway. As the plane began its takeoff roll, Newman flicked a switch in at his console and a video monitor came on, displaying the ground racing past the rear of the aircraft. A miniature video camera, equipped with a low-light lens, was mounted at the base of the tail so Newman would see the jumpers go and ensure that they didn't get fouled with one another.

  As the aircraft cleared the ground, there was a loud “clunk” as the landing gear retracted into their housings and then the whine of hydraulic pumps over the roar of the engines while the flaps retracted. In the cockpit, Major Robinette reached up and flipped down the night vision goggles mounted on the front of her helmet. Lt. Haskell kept his goggles up so he could monitor the instruments.

  Newman switched his intercom to the channel designated for communications among the passengers. Unlike a standard military aircraft rigged for parachute jumping, this one had an intercom station for everyone aboard. He keyed his mike and said to no one in particular, “I was thinking … with all that extra cargo space back here, maybe we should have brought some Harleys.”

  “That would have been a great idea if we could have gotten a hog out that rear hatch,” Weiskopf said. “I'd much rather roll out of Iraq on a Harley than ride the upchuck snatch on Monday afternoon.” Despite Weiskopf's carefree tone, Newman knew he was concerned about using the STARS system. They had all seen it demonstrated while they were training in Oman, and they had all practiced deploying the helium-filled balloon with its nylon tether and donning the two-man rescue suits with their sewn-in harnesses. Having demonstrated the device once to his own Recon Marines, Newman could understand why the Harleys sounded better.

  As the MD-80 headed east toward the mountains shadowing Lake Van, the banter over the intercom slowly sputtered out as each man dealt with his own thoughts about what might lie ahead. Some fiddled with their equipment as though some last-minute change in rigging might have monumental consequences. Others attempted to doze, leaning back in the webbing of their seats with their eyes closed. The plane turned right to a heading of 120° south to follow the Tigris River.

  As they crossed into Iraq at the junction of the border with Syria and Turkey, there was a flurry of radio traffic from the F-15s and -16s, now ahead of them near Mosul. A USAF KC-10 tanker had met the war birds over Siirt, and they had gone screaming off to the south to take out any Iraqi missiles that might try to acquire and target the MD-80.

  As the MD-80 passed west of Mosul at thirty thousand feet, headed for the drop zone ninety miles to the south, fires could be seen burning off to their left, near an Iraqi air base. From the radio chatter, Newman and the others could tell that the strike aircraft had engaged an Iraqi radar site and scored a hit, probably on a surface-to-air missile site. They aren't supposed to have SAMs this far north, Newman thought.

  He checked the navigation plot and his watch, confirmed the heading, and said into the intercom: “Gentlemen, forty miles to the DZ, in ten minutes. Check your portable oxygen bottles. It's almost time.”

  Each man disconnected from the intercom, took a few last deep draughts from the aircraft oxygen system, and switched over to his own portable oxygen bottles. The jumpers moved to the back of the plane where the rear hatch opened to the cold night air. The noise of the wind rushing past the aircraft and the roar of the two engines mounted above the tail were deafening. The temperature gauge on the GPS strapped to Weiskopf's wrist said that it was minus eighteen degrees Fahrenheit near the open hatch.

  Timing for the jump was critical. This was no standard combat jump. Even though the MD-80 was going to nose up and throttle back to slow down briefly, the jumpers would still be spread out over miles if they didn't exit within seconds of each other. Behind and slightly above the MD-80, two F-16s were lined up as if preparing to refuel and would so appear on Iraqi radar.

  “Thirty seconds to the 35th parallel,” Newman shouted to the last man in line. He in turn tapped the man in front of him on the shoulder and the word was passed instantly to the front of the column with a hand signal. Weiskopf stood poised in the mouth of the hatch. He had elected to be the first man out. Each man behind him would count to two and throw himself out the hatch.

  The backup team, shifted forward to compensate for the weight of the eight men, gathered in the tail of the aircraft. Newman helped clear the area by the cargo bay door and wished each man good luck.

  “Ten seconds!” yelled Newman. Once again the hasty series of shoulder slaps and Weiskopf turned and leaned into the hatch, his gloved fingers gripping the aluminum skin as he waited for the light above his head to go from red to green. Newman could hear the whine of the engines diminish and felt the deck tilting as the nose of the aircraft came up, bleeding off airspeed.

  Newman heard Major Robinette's voice on the intercom: “Go!” The light over the rear hatch flashed to green and in less than fifteen seconds, all eight men had disappeared into the night sky thirty thousand feet above Iraq. Newman ran forward and resumed his seat at the command and control console.

  Within a few minutes, the four F-16s peeled out of formation and headed east. The MD-80 banked and turned back to the north, heading for the “Three Corners” junction of the Iraqi, Syrian, and Turkish borders.

  It took Weiskopf and his seven teammates more than twenty-five minutes to glide the twenty miles to their target, the drop zone eighteen miles west of Tikrit. There was little wind, so they flew their chutes in on a fairly straight path and managed to land a mile or so from their objective. Within an hour, all eight men had buried their parachutes and high-altitude jump suits, regrouped, and headed off at a dog-trot for the small rise north of Lake Tharthar where they planned to hole up until the next night's movement. Their escort, an F-117A “Nighthawk” stealth fighter launched from Incirlik, picked up their radio acknowledgment that all had landed safely, and it stayed high overhead, invisible to Iraqi radar, refueling from a real tanker when necessary, until the ground team arrived at their safe-haven just before dawn. After dark on Saturday and Sunday, another F-117, also invisible to Iraqi radar, would show up to orbit overhead like a guardian angel to provide fire support if the eight-man unit was detected by an Iraqi patrol while on the move.

  Now, as Weiskopf and his team moved across the desert floor, the F-117 was overhead. Though neither the small patrol nor the aircraft pilot broke radio silence, they were acutely aware of each other's presence and confident that no Iraqi knew they were there. At least, that was the plan.

  Parkside Community Church

  ________________________________________

  Dulles, Virginia

  Friday, 3 March 1995

  1930 Hours, Local

  Rachel sat in a back pew of the church that she had seen from the highway many times on her commutes to Dulles. She had simply intended to drive by the sign at the entrance to the parking lot to check on what time services were on Sunday but had found lights on, the parking lot almost full, and people walking up to the front door. She had come inside as much out of curiosity as anything else. Why, she wondered, would all these people be going to church on a Friday night?

  This questi
on was answered as the meeting started. The pastor welcomed the people in the congregation and said how pleased he was that so many would come out for “the final night of a week of special meetings designed to help people discover God.” He had called it an evangelistic meeting. Rachel was uncomfortable with the word evangelistic but soon settled into her seat anyway.

  It had been almost ten minutes since the church service had ended—yet she still sat there contemplating what had just taken place.

  Sandy had been encouraging Rachel to “find a church where you can hear the Word of God.” Rachel didn't quite know what that meant. Sandy had tried to explain what it meant to be a Christian, but that had also sounded confusing to Rachel; in fact, there was a lot of terminology Sandy used that Rachel didn't understand.

  She had planned to simply show up at a Sunday service, but here she was on a Friday night in a suburban Virginia church surrounded by people she didn't know. When she had entered, she had found a place to sit, not far from the rear of the sanctuary, and moved in to take a seat. An usher had handed her a printed program, which she read before the service began. On the back cover was printed:

  GOD'S PLAN OF SALVATION

  THE NEED: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23)

  THE CHOICE: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23)

  GOD'S PROVISION: “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

  CHRIST'S SACRIFICE: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” (John 3:16–17)

  YOUR PART IS FAITH: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” (Ephesians 2:8—9)

  “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” (John 3:36)

  IT'S UP TO YOU: “Behold, I [Jesus] stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him.” (Revelation 3:20)

  “For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” (Romans 10:10)

  It struck Rachel as peculiar that so many of the verses listed were ones that had been discussed in the Bible study she had attended with Sandy, and she felt this was more than coincidence. And then the pastor got up to begin the service with prayer, which he introduced with another Bible verse: “Draw near to Him, and He will draw near to you.” Rachel felt he was speaking directly to her. She was here because she wanted to get nearer to God and know more about Him. The congregation rose, sang the Doxology and sat down again.

  Then the pastor quoted from the Scriptures: “Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.”

  When the music started, Rachel was still thinking about those words from the Bible—everything she was hearing seemed directed at her. Then she focused on the choir and the words they were singing. It was an anthem of praise, and she strained to understand the words: “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.…” It was the familiar tune the bagpiper had played beside Jim Newman's grave at Arlington Cemetery, and its old melody stirred her.

  There were other musical selections; some were sung by a small group of singers and others by the congregation. Then the pastor prayed again, an offering was taken, and he began his sermon. As Rachel listened, she prayed silently. God… if You're there … I want to understand. I want to know about Jesus … and all the other things I've been hearing about since Sandy and I went to that Bible study. I know I don't have any right… I feel really guilty now … but if that song means anything, God … can You … would You save a wretch like me?

  The sermon also felt directed to her. At its conclusion, the pastor said that he'd like to pray for anyone who wasn't sure about his or her spiritual condition. “If you're seeking God and want Him to change your life, I want to pray for you,” he said to his listeners. When he prayed, Rachel felt the love that he had been telling her about flow over her; tears began to course down her cheeks as she stood with her head bowed in the back of the church.

  The service over, Rachel still sat by herself in her seat. Most of the people had left the church or were chatting in the vestibule of the sanctuary. Though her thoughts were still a jumble, some things were starting to make sense. Then, as if on cue, a woman sat down beside her. “Hi, I'm Lucy, Pastor Brooks's wife. I saw you sitting here, and you looked like your heart was breaking. Would you like me to pray with you?”

  Rachel looked at the woman—attractive, about forty, with eyes that were full of sympathy and concern. And suddenly, Rachel couldn't hold it in any longer. She poured out her thoughts in a torrent of frustration and regret for the life that she had been living. Rachel also expressed hope that she hadn't gone so far away from God that He might abandon her. Mrs. Brooks assured her that God's love was still available. For about twenty minutes they talked, and then, with the church nearly empty, Lucy Brooks said, “I want to pray with you, Rachel. You're in real anguish and you don't need to be. You don't have to say a thing. Here, give me your hand.”

  Rachel put her hand in Lucy's, and the pastor's wife quietly prayed. Once again the tears flowed down Rachel's cheeks as her new friend ended her prayer with a plea: “Lord, help Rachel to see that Your grace is sufficient, that all things work together for good for those who put their trust in You, and most importantly, Lord, help Rachel to know that the salvation You offered all of us on Calvary is available for her as well.”

  Lucy reached in her purse and pulled out a little package of tissues and handed them to Rachel. “Do you have plans for Sunday after church? Could you join my husband and me for brunch at Terranova's?”

  “Oh, that's kind of you but—”

  “Please, if you have no plans, we'd be delighted if you'd join us. My husband is a wonderful teacher and counselor, and I know that he'd be pleased to help you deal with what's weighing you down.”

  Rachel smiled and nodded. The two women stood and walked toward the front doors.

  Baghdad-Mosul Highway

  ________________________________________

  5 km S of Tikrit

  Friday, 3 March 1995

  2000 Hours, Local

  As Leonid Dotensk bent to tighten the lug nuts on the left rear wheel of his Mercedes, he added this tire change to the long list of reasons why he hated Americans. The tire he had just changed—as he'd done with so many other tires in Iraq—had gone flat from running over a piece of shrapnel, a shard of razor-sharp steel from an American bomb dropped more than four years ago. This filthy country is covered with American scrap metal, and now they have made me late! he thought. As Dotensk stood up, a jet aircraft roared over his head at both a very high speed and very low altitude. The Ukrainian double agent threw himself on the ground in terror and started to crawl toward the ditch beside the road, trying to get away from the car. As he did so, a second aircraft passed right behind the first.

  Immediately after he reached the ditch, an anti-aircraft gun opened up from Tikrit South, the air base directly to his north. The fools; what do they think they are going to hit?

  Dotensk spent ten more minutes huddled in the ditch and then, when the firing stopped, he climbed out, brushed himself off as best he could, got back in his car, started it up, and began driving very slowly toward the small city of Tikrit, claimed by Saddam as his hometown.

  The Ukrainian was driving on the only four-lane highway in the country. Saddam had constructed it as a showpiece, widening the roadbed that the British had built along the west bank of the Tigris River after they inherited Iraq from the Ot
toman Empire at the end of World War I. In the fashion of dictators the world over, Saddam had made the highway a monument to himself, connecting Karbala and Al Hillah in the south through Baghdad with Mosul in the north. For most of its route, the road paralleled the Tigris.

  What made the going so slow were the craters and blown bridges left unrepaired from American and British bombs during the Gulf War—and the millions of pieces of tire-shredding sharp steel strewn on and in the pavement from hundreds of bombs, rockets, and missiles. Dotensk proceeded at a snail's pace. He didn't have to worry about holding up any other traffic—in fact, the Ukrainian didn't even see another vehicle until he was stopped at the checkpoint just south of Tikrit. As he pulled out his documents, he could see flames and sooty black smoke rising from the Tikrit South Air Base to his left.

  The Republican Guards officer who examined his paperwork gazed carefully at the Amn Al-Khass seal on Dotensk's travel permit, pointed his flashlight at the Ukrainian's face, looked again at his passport, and said, “You are to report to His Excellency, Minister Hussein Kamil at the presidential palace. You are late.”

  Dotensk checked the impatient words that leapt to his mind. “I know. I was held up by the air raid.”

  The officer shrugged and said, “You will need an escort from here,” He called out to a sergeant who got into a BJC Beijing Jeep and led Dotensk up the highway, into the city, and to the gates of the palace grounds.

  Saddam's palace at Tikrit was one of his most lavish. Set well back from the road and surrounded by trees, a small lake, and lush gardens, the seventeen structures on the grounds were constructed of marble over reinforced concrete and designed to send an unmistakable signal: “Local boy makes good.” Everywhere Dotensk looked there were armed men patrolling.

  The escort vehicle stopped at one of the buildings near the towering palace structure, and the sergeant got out and talked to the uniformed guard at the door, who then called to someone inside. Two strikingly handsome young men in shirtsleeves came rushing out to help Dotensk and take his bag out of the trunk.