by Oliver North
Rachel was awestruck. “That was beautiful,” she said in a whisper.
Her husband explained, “That green flash is caused by the bending of light waves as they pass through the atmosphere. The air, at different density and temperature, acts for an instant like a giant prism. At the end of a clear day, when the cool and warm air conditions are just right, the blue and green wavelengths refract more than the red and yellow—and for an instant—the blue bands are made invisible by the nitrogen in the atmosphere.”
Rachel laughed. “You scientific types take all the romance out of everything.”
And her husband, almost as though he was a thousand miles away, quietly responded, “Yeah, you're right. It is beautiful. My dad showed that to Jim and me a long time ago when we were little boys, on a fishing trip on the Oregon coast. Later that night, over a campfire, he told us of an old Irish—or was it Scottish?—legend, that God promised true love and happiness to all who are privileged to see the green flash.”
The two of them sat there, close together in the cockpit of the big boat, until it began to get dark. Rachel said, “Look, we've got to go to dinner with these two men. And you didn't even bother to introduce me to Mr. Goode. Is there a shower down below?”
“Yeah,” said Peter, “what do you have in mind?”
She punched him playfully on the shoulder and said, “Later, big boy. You go below and get cleaned up. I'll run over to one of those shops.” She pointed beyond the chain-link fence fifty meters from the bow of the boat. “I'll get you a shirt, a decent pair of trousers, some shoes, and socks.”
She pecked him on the cheek and ran down the gangway, headed for the gate about seventy-five yards up the quay from the slip. Peter watched the armed sentries salute as she presented her military ID card and saw her disappear into the traffic in the street. He then went below, found a razor and some shaving soap, and entered the head on the starboard side, just forward of the master cabin.
Rachel had quickly found a men's shop and in no time had a shopping bag full of new clothing for her husband. But on her way back to the gate, she noticed a cute little boutique with a lovely print dress on a mannequin in the window. She paused, made her decision, and went inside.
The very helpful English-speaking sales clerk found what she thought would be Rachel's size and suggested that she go in the back and try it on.
Rachel set her packages on a table in the back of the little store and entered the nicely-appointed changing room. She had just slipped the dress on and was admiring it in the full-length mirror when there was a knock on the door. Rachel turned the knob and started to say, “It fits just fine,” but the door flew open and a large man charged in, pinning her against the back wall. Her eyes widened in terror as she got her first glimpse of the attacker. He grabbed Rachel with an arm around her neck in a chokehold, and then in the mirror she could see he had a knife in his hand. He pressed the point against her throat.
“Don't scream or I'll kill you,” he growled, his breath foul and his voice heavily accented, as he put all his weight on Rachel to hold her down on the little seat inside the changing room. He reached outside the door with his right foot to pull the door closed behind him. But suddenly the man grunted as his leg was grabbed from outside. Rachel saw his foot twisted violently, then she heard the snapping of bone and sinew. Her attacker screamed.
As Rachel struggled to free herself from his dead weight, she looked over his shoulder and recognized, standing in the doorway, one of the Marines who had been aboard the C-17 with General Grisham. But he wasn't in uniform. The man who had attacked her was big—but her rescuer was even bigger; his build and appearance reminded her of George Foreman.
In what seemed to Rachel to be a single fluid motion, the civilian-clad Marine released the attacker's broken leg, reached into the little room, and grabbed the wrist of the hand holding the knife. There was a quick, twisting motion, and the knife tumbled from the attacker's now-useless hand.
The American then grabbed the man's hair, pulled his head back and slammed his left fist at the attacker's protruding Adam's apple. At the same time he jerked the man to his feet, spun him around, and kneed him hard in the groin. As the attacker fell in a heap at Rachel's feet, the Marine sergeant reached down and removed the man's wallet from his back pocket, then slipped it into his own. He reached down to help Rachel to her feet. It all happened so quickly that she was disoriented, almost dizzy.
“Oh, thank God you were right there!” Though Rachel hugged him, her rescuer still eyed the inert attacker. The Marine kicked the knife across the floor and said, “Got your things?” Rachel, still somewhat in shock at the sudden violence, nodded and picked up the dress she had worn into the shop. On the way out, he asked, “Are these yours too?” Again she nodded, and the Marine picked up the shopping bags of clothing she had purchased for her husband. “We probably ought to see if there's a back way out of here,” he added. “I sent the store clerk to get the police. You can take care of the bill later. Let's go.”
They exited the rear of the shop into an alley and headed in the direction of the gate Rachel had left a half hour before. At the end of the alley, they came to a busy thoroughfare full of pedestrians and joined the throng as they walked across to the gate. As Rachel and the sergeant showed their ID cards to the armed Royal Marine sentry, the U.S. Marine kept an eye on the passing traffic.
He walked her back to the boat, helped her aboard, and said, “Ma'am, I'm going to go report this incident to General Grisham and then I'm going to come back here with a car to take you and Lieutenant Colonel Newman to meet with the general up at the Officer's Mess. I know he's expecting you, but I think you need to get back up to the officer's billeting area. It's further away from the street and safer.”
“Do you think that man was sent to kill me?” Rachel's voice shook a little.
“I don't know, Mrs. Newman, but our guys will find out. I've got his wallet and ID. The general will know if we have to alert the local authorities. You're safe now … just relax. Tell Colonel Newman that I'll be right back with the car.”
As he started to leave, Rachel said, “Wait. I didn't even get your name, Sergeant.”
“Skillings, ma'am. Staff Sergeant Amos Skillings,” he replied. “I served with your husband in Force Recon. Now I work for General Grisham. The general said I should make sure that nothing happened to Colonel Newman's lady,” he said, smiling broadly.
Rachel was close to tears but managed to say, “Thank you, Staff Sergeant Amos Skillings, for what you did back there. I'm still shaking, but more grateful than you'll ever know. Thank you.”
“No problem, ma'am. Glad to do it.” He came to attention, saluted, and said, “I'll be right back, ma'am.”
When Rachel went below deck, Peter was just coming out of the shower. He had a towel wrapped around his middle and for the first time Rachel noticed the extent of his injuries.
“Nice dress,” he said. “By the way, who were you talking to up there on the pier?”
“Staff Sergeant Amos Skillings.” She told him quickly what had happened on her shopping expedition while he dressed in the clothing she had just purchased.
“He's going to get us a car. He doesn't even want us to walk up to the Officer's Mess up on the hill without an escort. Peter, suppose there are more of them. Is Staff Sergeant Skillings going to be all right?”
“What do you think?” Peter replied with a hearty laugh. But then he said, “Seriously, I'm not worried about Skillings. It's us I'm worried about. This long ordeal may not be over. Come and sit beside me. Let me show you something.”
Peter took out of a manila envelope the documents William P. Goode had given him earlier in the day.
“May I take your order, sir?” said the tuxedo-clad waiter to the two men seated at the best table in the officers mess.
Grisham and Goode looked up from their menus and were about to tell the waiter their choices when the entire building shook as a tremendous explosion rocked the piers
outside. The general could see a reflection of the huge fireball across Goode's face.
Both men were startled—it sounded and felt as though a one-thousand-pound bomb had been dropped directly in front of the restaurant. Several of the diners leaped under tables, and others screamed.
Both Goode and the general ran to the window. Despite being reinforced with Mylar film, it had a web of cracks from the force of the explosion. Through the shattered panes they could see outside and below them that the dock was a raging inferno.
Goode and the general raced down the steps from the officers mess toward the piers. As they did so, a black sedan sped down the quay, made a screeching turn at the gate, and raced past the Royal Marine sentry, ignoring his order to halt. And though he fired twice at it, the vehicle careened off up the hill and disappeared.
Goode ran toward where his sixty-two-foot sloop had been. Flames had already completely engulfed the vessel and were now consuming the teak deck and other wooden fixtures. There was a gaping hole in the starboard side into which seawater poured and pulled the beautiful blue hull into the harbor depths. The explosion had been purposefully set… obviously by someone who knew what he was doing. From the look of it Goode guessed that the bomb had been placed just below the waterline—and had probably detonated the propane cooking fuel.
General Grisham caught up with him and was equally shaken by the sight.
By the time the first firefighters responded, the deck of Goode's ship was almost completely under water and the flames were almost out. Only the mast protruded above the slip, canted at a crazy angle as though pointing toward the ocean it would never sail again.
Both men stood together for a long time without speaking, and before long there was a large crowd watching and waiting for the Royal Navy divers to show up and begin trying to salvage what they could. But aside from the mast sticking up out of the water, there was very little for the crowd gathered outside the chain-link fence or on the crowded quay to see. There was nothing left but a thin layer of floating ashes.
EPILOGUE
Corporate Offices
________________________________________
North American Enterprises, Inc.
Dulles, VA
Monday, 15 April 1997
1045 Hours, Local
The package arrived in the morning mail, and Dave Smolinski, director of Corporate Security for North American Enterprises, was concerned. He was standing in the front office doorway. “Colonel North, I told Mr. Smolinski that he couldn't interrupt you. I'm sorry.” Marsha, my long-suffering secretary and guardian of the gate, apologized for the intrusion. She was standing behind Smolinski, glaring at the back of the security chief's head for having had the temerity to barge past her into the boss's office. But Smolinski was one of the few who could get away with it. Before leaving government service, he had been one of the federal agents detailed to protect my family after the Libyan assassination attempt in 1987.
“I've got to show you this package, Boss,” Smolinski said. Marsha rolled her eyes in despair for the day's schedule and went back to her desk. “It's addressed to Lieutenant Colonel Oliver L. North, USMC (Ret.) at this address, but doesn't mention the company name, it doesn't have a return address, and it's fairly heavy. I had the dog sniff it and ran it through the X-ray. Both negative. In the X-ray it looks to me like it contains some kind of audio- or videotape, a pile of paper, and a 3.5-inch computer disc. There are no visible wires or detonators and no sign of any shielding to mask something from the X-ray. Oh yeah, it's postmarked APO, N.Y., on 11 March. I checked, and the zip code is for EUCOM, meaning that it was mailed in the military postal system from somewhere in the European Command.”
“Well, go ahead and open it,” I said.
“Uh … Colonel North, why don't I take it out back and open it in the cage?”
“Look, Dave,” I reminded him, “Marsha is mad enough at both of us right now because she's having to re-jigger my whole day. Open it here. If it blows up, it'll be a minor explosion compared to the one Marsha's going to detonate if I don't get back on schedule.”
Smolinski shrugged, smiled, and said, “Always nice to know who's in charge around here.” He started to carefully cut around the packing tape with his penknife and peel back the several layers of brown paper.
As the security chief lifted back the brown paper wrapping, we could both see the corner of a thick file folder—with a distinctive red and white border and the words TOP SECRET emblazoned upon it. “It looks like someone's mailed you some classified documents, Colonel.”
“Yeah, open it up.”
Using his penknife, Smolinski carefully cut away the rest of the wrapper and slid the contents out onto the conference table. There was a fat file folder full of paper, a digital audiotape, and a computer disc. On the computer disc was hand-printed, “Read this first.” And below that, an icthus was drawn with the same indelible marker.
“Let's load this disk in the old stand-alone computer down in the file room, just in case there's a virus on it,” said Smolinski.
As we walked past her desk, Marsha inquired, “Colonel North, will you be keeping any of your morning appointments—or shall I just reschedule?”
“Don't know yet. I'll let you know in a few minutes,” I told her and ducked out of her line of fire into the file room where Smolinski was loading the disc in the computer. He clicked the mouse to open the files. The index contained three entries:
“Read This First,” a 19 KB file;
“National Security Directive 941109,” a 36 KB file; and,
“ISEG Concept of Operations,” a 22 KB file
All were dated 10 March 1996, one year to the day since Peter and Rachel Newman had disappeared in the fiery blast aboard the sailing vessel Pescador.
Smolinski clicked “open” on the “Read This First” file and we then bent over to read:
“Lt. Col. North,
“I pray this finds you well. I regret that it has taken me so long to get this material to you, but now that I have it assembled, I believe you to be the best judge of what should be done with it.
“Please note that this computer disc contains two other documents: a copy of NSD 941109, describing the U.S. role in a Top Secret United Nations assassination plan—called ‘Sanctions Enforcement Operations’ and a copy of The International Sanctions Enforcement Group (ISEG) Concept of Operations. The ISEG was a highly classified group of U.S. and British shooters commanded by Marine Lieutenant Colonel Peter J. Newman. Both of these documents were retrieved from a government-issued laptop computer issued to Sgt. Maj. Daniel J. Gabbard, USMC. I am told by friends still working for my former employer that the ‘Gabbard computer’ has since disappeared, that NSD 941109 does not exist, and that there never was any such thing as an ISEG.
“The audiotape included in this package was recorded on 10 March 1995 aboard the sailing vessel Pescador, enroute from Iskenderun, Turkey, to Larnaca, Cyprus. You will hear me asking the questions and Lt. Col. Newman answering. I believe that the answers he gave are truthful and accurately describe what happened to him and those who accompanied him on a highly sensitive, UN-directed assassination mission into Iraq twelve months ago. Newman did not know that all of the other members of his unit, except for Sgt. Major Gabbard, had been killed at the time of the debriefing. As you may already know, Sergeant Major Gabbard retired from the Marines last October and has dropped out of sight.
“When you listen to the tape, you will find that your name comes up several times—to include references to the third item enclosed in this package—a photocopy of a classified file taken from your office in the Old Executive Office Building. In the debrief tape, you will hear Newman tell me where this copy of your file could be found and that you alone know where the original is hidden. He also speculates correctly that you and I were both identified as William P. Goode during the 1985—86 hostage rescue and Nicaraguan Resistance Support Operations.
“Based on what I learned from Newman, your enclos
ed file, the information from the ISEG computer, and some short debriefs with Marine Lt. Gen. George Grisham, USAF General James Harris, and Sgt. Major Gabbard, here is what I surmise—though I caution you that I cannot prove any of it:
“Communications for Newman's mission—and our operations back in the 1980s—were thoroughly compromised, probably by the EncryptionLok communications devices. I suspect a long-term, high-level Soviet/Russian penetration of NSA, CIA, and/or the FBI.
“The Senate Armed Services Committee has purview over who gets the EncryptionLok-3s. Someone on that committee had to authorize transferring/selling these devices to the UN. I suspect that the company that makes the EncryptionLok-3 may be complicit in this technology transfer. Look for where the owners make campaign contributions.
“Newman and his team were set up by someone very high up in the U.S. government and the UN. My estimate is that the culprits are at the White House and at the top of the UN. Newman's two primary points of contact are obvious suspects: National Security Advisor Harrod and this fellow Komulakov at the UN. They may have had different motives, but they seem to be the people responsible for this tragedy and for sweeping it under the rug.
“I don't know much about Harrod except what I read about him resigning from his post as National Security Advisor to go back to teach at Harvard last year. He undoubtedly knows enough to be considered dangerous. Whether he could be convinced to talk to the appropriate authorities, I don't know.
“The UN official is General Dimitri Komulakov, who was the head of KGB Department V back in 1985—86. It was Department V that destroyed the European supply line for the Nicaraguan Resistance in Nov. '86. My sources tell me that Komulakov is involved with former Department V officers and the Russian mafia, trying to sell Soviet-era weapons and technology. As long as he is free, neither you nor I are safe.