Mission Compromised

by Oliver North

  “Where is it heading?” asked Komulakov.

  “They filed a revised flight plan once they were airborne. The aircraft is headed for the British base at Larnaca, Cyprus.”

  “And you are sure that Newman's wife is with this Marine general?”

  “Yes,” responded Harrod. “The Air Force has no reason to lie about such a trivial thing.”

  “Well, then I must go there. When I find Newman's wife, I'll find Newman. He'll be headed for her. I'll call you back when I get there, Simon.”

  Komulakov terminated the call and summoned Radchenko. “Get the best four PFLP men you have, and get aboard the UN jet. I want you and them to come with me to Cyprus. I'll leave Dotensk in charge here with a satellite phone.”

  A few moments later, while Komulakov was briefing Dotensk on the change in plans, Major Kaartje came running up.

  “General, there are Palestinians boarding the aircraft with weapons,” the Dutch military aide said breathlessly.

  “Yes, I know,” replied Komulakov, irate at the interruption. “We're taking the aircraft to another location in an effort to deal with this international terrorist, Duncan.”

  “Sir, I must report this back to the Secretariat. This is a neutral aircraft and cannot be used to transport combatants. We're supposed to be on a diplomatic mission,” the Dutch Army captain said.

  “Ah, you are so correct, Major Kaartje,” said Komulakov. He swallowed the rebuke that was on the tip of his tongue. He smiled at the Dutch aide. “Come, Major, let us confer with New York on my secure satellite phone. Excuse us, Mr. Dotensk.”

  He put his arm around the officer and led him outside the hangar and then around to the rear, facing the desert wasteland to the east

  “You are a very bright young officer,” Komulakov said. “Thank you for reminding me of my lapse in protocol.” But as soon as they were out of sight behind the hangar, the general suddenly grabbed his junior officer by the head and jerked him with such ferocity that he snapped the man's neck, breaking the fifth vertebrae, which in turn severed the officer's spinal cord. The man fell dead at Komulakov's feet. The general dragged the body a few meters away and placed it face down in front of a rock outcropping.

  When he returned to the hangar, he said to Dotensk, “I am leaving for Cyprus. I'm taking Radchenko, the four PFLP he has selected, and Captain Sjogren with me. Continue the search of the river valley in case I am wrong. And after we are gone, take the body behind the hangar out into the desert to feed the vultures. Any questions?”

  Dotensk shook his head.

  Taurus Express Train Station

  ________________________________________

  Dayr Az Zawr, Syria

  Thursday, 9 March 1995

  1145 Hours, Local

  Newman feigned napping on some wooden crates in an alley near the train station while Samir went to buy his ticket. Samir was gone almost twenty minutes before returning. When he returned, he was smiling broadly. “I believe that God is watching over us,” he said.

  Newman raised his eyebrows.

  He handed Newman a clean linen thobe and a brown wool mish-lah. In the relative privacy of their hiding place, Samir helped Newman remove the filthy garment that he had swum ashore in earlier in the day and assisted the Marine in putting on the fresh gown. Then he showed the American how Arabic men wore the mishlah like a cloak in the cool night air. Finally, he pressed into Newman's hand a wad of currency, some Syrian and the rest Turkish. When Newman started to protest, the younger man simply waved a hand and shook his head

  “Now, do you see those two women and the two little girls over there, sitting on the bench?” Samir asked. “They are traveling to Elbeyli, Turkey too. I asked them if I could do them a favor and they could also do a favor for me. I said, ‘Could my friend ride on the train with you as an escort, to fend off any troublemakers?’ I told them that you were strong, but unable to speak—and that you were on your way to meet your family. I asked them, if, in exchange for being their escort, they could help you get the tickets you will need in Aleppo and Elbeyli, since you could not read and write.”

  Newman smiled. “Well, my Arabic is pretty nonexistent, all right.”

  “They have agreed,” Samir went on, “so I purchased a ticket for you and gave them money to buy your tickets in Aleppo for Elbeyli and Iskenderun. There was a fare chart posted on the wall, so I know how much it costs, but I added some to it, so they will feel like they are making something for their trouble.

  “The older lady is the grandmother. The young mother is a widow, and those girls are her daughters. They are from the Christian community in Homs that Assad tried to obliterate years ago. Those who survived his purge and who did not flee Syria were sent to ‘internal exile’ out in the desert. They told me that they live not far from here and have just been given travel documents allowing them to visit their family in Turkey. They are going there for Passover and Easter, since they are Assyrian Christians and many of them celebrate both. When I showed them this, they gave their word that they will take good care of you,” Samir said.

  Newman looked down at Samir's open hand. He held a small metal fish, similar to the one Samir's father wore on a chain around his neck. But before the Marine could ask the significance of the little metal fish, the train sounded its whistle just outside the city. Newman looked to the east and saw it heading toward them on the bridge they had crossed earlier that morning. It was slowing to come into the station.

  “It will stop only long enough to take on passengers. If you were thinking of waiting until all others boarded, you might miss the train,” Samir said. “Please come and meet your new companions so you can all board together. That will make it less likely that the soldier will question you.”

  “But anyone who looks at me will see that I am not an Arab,” Newman protested.

  Samir shook his head, “God will show them what He wants them to see,” he said simply. “Besides, the sun and burns have browned your face, and you have a good start on a heavy beard. Just keep your gutra loose around your face so that your blue eyes do not show. I will pray that God will keep those who are looking for you from seeing you.

  “I will also hold you in my prayers every day from now until we meet again. My father and mother and the rest of my family will do the same. Have faith, Peter Newman. God answers prayers. Not always the way we think they should be answered—but He always answers. Now you must go.”

  Samir embraced Newman—with whom he'd had so many close calls in just two days. Simply because his father had asked him to, he had risked his life and possibly the lives of his wife and children, to—as Habib had said—obey God.

  “I can't possibly thank you enough,” Newman said. “I'd take your name and address so I can get in touch with you when I get home, but I'm afraid that if I'm caught, I wouldn't want to have that information on me. It would be too dangerous for you.”

  “Don't worry, Peter. We will see each other again. I know it.” Samir walked with Newman to where the women and girls were waiting. By now the train had pulled up beside the station, and passengers were boarding. Samir gave last-minute instructions to the women, and the five of them got on the train. No one seemed to notice that Newman's features were more Anglo-Saxon than Semite. Newman smiled and nodded at the women and helped them up the stairway into the coach. Then he lifted the two girls—about seven and ten, he estimated.

  Newman watched as Samir turned and walked away, toward the center of town, where he could make a telephone call to his father to come and get him. As Samir disappeared behind a building, out of Newman's sight, the tough Marine felt a catch in his throat and knew that this loving, trusting man really was going to pray for him. He was overwhelmed.

  Newman followed the women through the corridor of the railway coach. They had third-class tickets, and the coaches to which they were assigned were old and smelled of sweat, mildew, and animals. He followed them into a compartment where they could all sit together. The women sat on one side
and he sat with the girls on the other side. He lifted the smaller girl onto his lap so she could see outside, just as the conductor was coming through to take their tickets. Newman took the tickets from the hands of the girls, put them with his own, then handed them to the grandmother. She held them with the others, outstretched for the conductor. Newman managed to keep looking outside, pointing to some camels for the girl to see. She began talking in her own language, excitedly, and he pretended interest and excitement, but without words.

  With practiced boredom, the blue-uniformed conductor took the tickets from the grandmother, tore them in half, used an ancient hand punch to punch a square hole through all five stubs, and handed the punched paper sheets back to the oldest child. The blue uniform then moved off down the corridor beside the compartments, through the coach, and into the next one. One hurdle passed, Newman thought.

  The train was moving fast on its way to Aleppo. Samir had told him that the trip to Aleppo, including stops, would take four hours and that they would have a one-hour layover in Aleppo for the train change to Elbeyli, Turkey. Newman hoped that the train was able to stay on schedule. Samir had told him that there was a midnight train from Elbeyli to Iskenderun. If all goes well, I'll be in Iskenderun by two o'clock in the morning, thought Newman as the stark, barren desert flashed by outside their open window.

  The little girl had relaxed and sat back in Newman's lap; she soon fell asleep. Her mother looked over and gestured as if to say, “Shall I take her from you?”

  Newman smiled and shook his head. He sat back, cradled the girl against his chest, and rested his head against the window jamb, pretending to be asleep himself. Soon pretense gave way to reality, and he was sound asleep.

  He didn't even wake up when the train stopped at As Salhabiyah, just east of the great Assad hydroelectric dam, and more passengers got aboard. Two heavily-armed militiamen boarded and moved from car to car, searching for a fugitive terrorist. With their weapons in front of them, and their fingers beside their triggers, they started at the front of each coach and began inspecting the papers of each traveler. In some cases, they even stopped to ask a series of questions: “Where are you going? Where do you live? What is your father's name?” And they asked, “Have you seen this man?” One of the armed men held out a copy of a poster describing the crime committed by Gilbert Duncan. In the center of the sheet was a picture of Peter Newman. No one questioned had seen the beardless man in the picture.

  The train engineer blew two short blasts of the horn just as the soldiers reached the seats of Newman and his companions. One soldier reached for the identity papers from the grandmother. The soldier asked her where she was going and if they were all traveling together. She answered that they were going to Aleppo, and the soldiers seemed content with her answer. They joked about her daughter's husband, sound asleep with their little girl on his lap. There were several more passengers to check, and the two soldiers moved on as the train whistle sounded again—this time a longer, single blast: the signal that the train was about to depart.

  The sound startled Newman, who woke up. He heard two men talking in the corridor outside the compartment, their tone officious. Newman resumed his sleeping pose. In another moment, the soldiers exited the rear of the coach and joined other soldiers standing on the wooden platform of the train station. Then Newman heard someone on the platform blow a whistle, and the train began to slowly move forward.

  He decided that he would not fall asleep again, no matter how tired he was. He also hoped that the station in Aleppo would not have troops checking the train's departing passengers.

  None of them noticed the large, heavyset man in European clothing who had boarded the train at As Salhabiyah.

  THE

  GOODE MESSENGER

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Aboard the Pescador

  ________________________________________

  Eastern Mediterranean Sea

  30 Nm NE of Cape Andreas

  Thursday, 9 March 1995

  1230 Hours, Local

  The big blue hull cut like a knife through the gentle swells. With both the mainsail and the jib perfectly trimmed on the slightly raked seventy-two-foot mast, the twenty-knot wind out of the north-northwest had the sixty-two-foot-long sloop just slightly heeled to starboard. The white-haired, deeply-tanned man at the helm checked his gauges and instruments and estimated. If this wind holds all the way, I may make it to Iskenderun before 1800 hours.

  He scanned the horizon, checked his GPS, and put a tic mark on the chart with a notation, “1230,” in pencil, verified that the Northstar Auto-helm was engaged, and after scanning the horizon one more time, got up and went below.

  Standing at the chart table in the navigation cabin of the vessel, he again picked up the hard copies of the e-mails he had started receiving shortly after midnight, just a little over twelve hours ago.

  The first contact had been through an e-mail message from Oliver North while the vessel had been at its berth, tied at pier 3 of the Royal Navy facility in Larnaca Bay, Cyprus. When North's e-mail had arrived with its “Urgent” heading, it had made the laptop computer on the chart table emit a series of electronic chirps until the light came on in the cabin and the “Read Mail” icon had been clicked. North's electronic communiqué had asked the sixty-four-year-old captain of the sloop to call another old and mutual friend, Lieutenant General George Grisham—and provided a number.

  The satellite phone call to General Grisham had produced more e-mails and a request that he contact Brigadier General James Harris at the NATO Air Base at Incirlik, Turkey. Harris had then sent three e-mails of his own to the laptop in the sloop.

  All these electronic exchanges in the middle of the night had prompted the captain to don his foul weather gear, climb up on deck, and commence preparations for getting underway. First he started the engine and when the big diesel began to idle smoothly in its compartment, he had jumped onto the pier, disconnected the shore power that charged the boat's batteries, untied the spring lines, then the fore deck line and finally the stern line, tossing each aboard the boat as he did so. Then, belying his sixty-four years, he had given the transom of the fifty-thousand-pound boat a healthy shove to push the stern of the vessel away from the pier. Then he jumped aboard like someone more athletic and fifteen or more years younger.

  Back in the cockpit he had turned the helm hard to port, put the transmission into “Reverse” and slowly eased the throttle up until the boat's single large brass screw bit into the water and backed the big sloop away from the pier. Once he was clear of the pilings, the man at the helm throttled down, pushed the transmission lever forward to “Neutral” and then to “Forward.” He again eased the throttle forward, straightened the rudder and the engine quietly pushed the vessel out into the darkened harbor. From his station at the helm he turned on the radar, his running lights, depth gauge, GPS, knot meter, auto-pilot and the wind measuring instruments mounted high on the mast above his head. Then, as he headed for the breakwater at the entrance of the harbor, he picked up the handset of the ship-to-shore radio, pressed the “Transmit” button and once the harbormaster responded, said simply, “Sailing vessel Pescador departing Larnaca enroute to Iskenderun, Turkey; Echo Tango Alpha, nineteen hundred hours, today, over.”

  The harbormaster acknowledged the message and Goode replaced the radio handset.

  He had motored for less than an hour and a half until he cleared Cape Greco and then, after testing the wind speed and direction, he had decided to set the sails. He came up momentarily into the wind and pushed the buttons for the roller-reefed main and jib, then, as they deployed, he turned back to the right and let them fill. With the bow of the Pescador pointed for the mouth of Iskenderun bay on a heading of 040 degrees, he had expertly trimmed the sails, set the auto-helm, gone forward and stowed his dock lines, and gone below to make a pot of coffee.

  Now, standing in front of the chart table, the sun was directly overhead and he was halfway to Iskenderun, making eleven
knots under full sail with the engine adding a bit of a boost to what the breeze offered. Goode once more read the e-mailed requests he had received from North and the two generals before leaving Larnaca. His dark brown eyes scanned the documents in front of him. Several of them he shuffled, comparing one message with another.

  Grisham's first e-mail was very straightforward: a Marine officer named Newman was in serious trouble and trying to escape from Iraq through Syria. An Air Force general named Harris at the NATO Air Command at Incirlik had details and was expecting to hear from the captain of the Pescador.

  General Harris had filled in the details of how Newman's UN mission had gone awry, about the Interpol poster with Newman's face and the name “Gilbert Duncan.” A later e-mail from Harris had instructed Newman to proceed to the 25 Piers area in Iskenderun rather than take the risk of being apprehended as Duncan by Turkish authorities while trying to make it back to Incirlik.

  Subsequent messages from General Grisham spelled out the Marine general's flight plan—and intention to be at the British base in Larnaca when the Pescador returned from Iskenderun—hopefully with Newman aboard. General Harris had provided the details of what he had told Newman in his last EncryptionLok-3 phone call about meeting his rescuers at the pier number that corresponded to the day of the month. And a final e-mail from Grisham before he took off from Andrews AFB had provided a satellite phone number for contact, and the advisory that he was bringing Newman's wife with him. What none of the messages could tell him was the answer to the uncertainty that nagged him now: who sabotaged this mission?

  The white-haired captain of the Pescador had spent most of his adult life answering for others the question: “Who is the enemy?” And once again, as had happened to him back in 1986, he did not know the answer—and neither did the people with whom he was working now.

  He gathered up the printed copies of the e-mails, and after assuring himself he had memorized all the important details, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses, he began running them one at a time through the small shredder beneath the chart table. When he reached the one on the bottom, the first message he had received, he looked at it, shook his head, and smiled. It was addressed very simply: